(L) Armors: Decay

This subject has come up before with at least one person reporting that (L) armor decays less than UL armor. This makes a great deal of sense considering that (L) armor will usually need to have a slight markup and the possible lower decay would offset that disadvantage. Also, (L) guns usually have slightly less decay than their UL equivalents for similar reasons. I have intended to test this sensible supposition for some time; now, thanks to the help of Volcan0, i have obtained a set of Rascal (M,L) at full tt.

I tested the decay for three different amounts of damage using the BVS (bottles of vibrant sweat), aka fruit, method. The results are compared here with the data in the Entropedia armor decay chart. Please check my results and, if you are in a position to do so, check other sets of (L) armor, especially the ones without an UL version, for decay. Note that the auction method may be easier although it does require six independent calculations (one for each part).

The different tests were impact (15 protection) from Ambulimax, impact+cut (20 protection) from Hogglo (which also does stab, yes, but no stab protection on Rascal), and burn (12 protection) from a drone gen2.

Rascal (M,L)

These results suggest that some (L) armors, specifically Rascal (L), decay at the same rate as UL armor does (if not very slightly higher). I find that odd but not improbable. If this is verified, the upshot is that there is no economy advantage to be had in using (L) armor. There is still the advantage that the armor protects full until completely decayed, unlike UL armor, but unless you buy (L) armor at tt value, you are paying (in the case of rascal (L)) the same decay*markup % each hit, so it will cost you more to use than UL.

One interesting thing to check will be what the decay looks like after the armor is at low tt. If the decay/protection decreases in proportion to tt level (like for UL armor), while the protection stays 100% (which it does), then there would indeed be some nice savings on decay over the lifetime of a piece of armor.

I will test the rascal again when it is partly decayed. Also, i'm still looking for a 2D (L) set at a reasonable price to test (and use at CP ).


Update: (L) plates and lower tt (L) plate decay

Chesta sent me a PM yesterday offering to provide me with 2D (L) plates to continue this thread. Even more importantly, she provided a full tt set and one that had less than 1/4 tt value. Here are the results of my tests:

2D (L) plates vs. ambulimax (9 impact) x 3 hits

Some conclusions:

• Plates don't decay when putting on/taking off armor that they are attached to
• Full tt (L) plates, just like full tt (L) armor, decay at the same rate as unlimited plates/armor
• Sadly, it appears that low tt (L) plates/armor decay just as much as it does at full tt, therefore --
• It is always less economical (protection/pec) to use (L) armor than the equivalent unlimited armor, unless the armor comes at 0% markup (tt value).

Thanks, Chesta, for your assistance. I'm sorry i don't have better news for you.

Doer said:

These results suggest that some (L) armors, specifically Rascal (L), decay at the same rate us UL armor does (if not very slightly higher). I find that odd but not improbable. If this is verified, the upshot is that there is no economy advantage to be had a in using (L).

Click to expand...

Not totally agree with you ...
The economy is not made on armor decay but on fap decay!
When i hunt ambu with rascal (non L) at the begining of the hunt i don't need to fap during the fight with an ambu... only fapping when ambu is dead!
At the middle of the hunt, i have to fap sometimes during the fight -> more time to kill the ambu = more hit receive = more decay on armor ... more decay on fap and more ammo used due to regeneration.
At the end of the hunt it's nearly impossible to don't fap and then time to kill is longer, more and more hit received...

As the L rascal protect you all the time, it cost you the same (in term of ammo, fap decay and armor decay) to kill an ambu at the begining and at the end of the hunt...
Here is the eco

I agree that if you consider only armor decay, there's no difference to use non L or L rascal.

If it cost you XX ped to kill an ambu, the XX ped will stay constant with the L rascal but will become higher with non L rascal during the hunt

getget said:

Not totally agree with you ...
The economy is not made on armor decay but on fap decay!
When i hunt ambu with rascal (non L) at the begining of the hunt i don't need to fap during the fight with an ambu... only fapping when ambu is dead!
At the middle of the hunt, i have to fap sometimes during the fight -> more time to kill the ambu = more hit receive = more decay on armor ... more decay on fap and more ammo used due to regeneration.
At the end of the hunt it's nearly impossible to don't fap and then time to kill is longer, more and more hit received...

As the L rascal protect you all the time, it cost you the same (in term of ammo, fap decay and armor decay) to kill an ambu at the begining and at the end of the hunt...
Here is the eco

I agree that if you consider only armor decay, there's no difference to use non L or L rascal.

If it cost you XX ped to kill an ambu, the XX ped will stay constant with the L rascal but will become higher with non L rascal during the hunt

Click to expand...

This thread it just about armor decay not realy about actual hunting situations. In your situation, you can for example take an extra rascal set with you, or repair halveway. Then your efficiency will be better again.


Its good this finaly got some tests. I was planning to do some tests too, so we will be able to confirm this. Good job doer.

Nice job Doer

So yes, assuming this is the way L armors work in general, the only advantage they have is the constant protection as they decay. I shan't be selling my non-L armors just yet

Nice Job Doer! if you need any other armor sets just look me up again.

Vulc

so do i understand correctly?

if i have a set of regular armor, it decays the same with EVERY hit that is of an associated damage type, but only prevents damage based on quality - ie freshly repaired armor protects better at the same cost than close to done armor

EXCEPT with limited armor
limited armor will protect the same to the end

so every time i hunt, i should repair my set?

yep

yep +10 characters

I think it's definitely a tricky question. I also think that to isolate this issue of decay is midleading, as it's not the only variable influencing armour efficiency. Not by a long shot. I think the analysis needs to be broken up into a few pieces.

First, let me preface what I have to say by letting you know that I'm the CEO of Southern Fortress Engineering, and we exclusively craft and sell armour in our XL shop on the bottom floor of PA Mall. If you think what I have to say may be influenced by a desire to drum up business, well you're probably right. However, I'm more than happy to enter debate and be proven wrong. I'm convinced of my conclusions based on what I see as the facts, which is why I'm so passionate about the future of our armour business anyway.

But enough! On with my analysis! </ rude ad >


FIRSTLY, THE DECAY FORMULA

If you look at

http://entropiawiki.com/Chart.aspx?chart=ArmorDecay

and study the formula for decay, you can see that the single variable that influences armour decay for any one particular hit is the amount of damage absorbed by the armour during that hit.

The formula is reported to be:

Decay = {2.90 x [Absorbed damage]^2 + 29.55 x [Absorbed damage]} / 1000, measured in pec.

So, on a hit where your armour absorbs 15 damage, for example, your armour will decay by 1.09575 pec.

Notice, however, that this is NOT a linear relationship. In any one hit:

1. If your armour absorbs 15 damage then it will decay by 1.09575 pec
2. If your armour absorbs 30 damage (twice as much) then it will decay by 3.4965 pec (over THREE times as much as for 15 damage!)
3. If your armour absorbs 45 damage (three times as much as 15) then it will decay by 7.20225 pec (almost SEVEN times as much as for 15 damage!)

It's clear then, that the best way to hurt your armour in an out-of-proportion way is to take big hits, and this factor should not be discounted when making further observations.


SECONDLY, ANALYSING THE TERM "ABSORBED DAMAGE"

To my knowledge, the jury is still out on this next bit, but it seems highly likely to me (from reading the same Entropedia post I referred to earlier) that the decay FORMULA is identical for L and non L armours. So in theory, you would expect your limited armour to decay at the same rate as your non limited armour.

Such a conclusion, however, is in my opinion flawed.

The spanner in the works is the fact that the amount of damage absorbed in any one hit depends on the type of armour, as follows.

For LIMITED ARMOUR

We already know that limited armour provides 100% protection right up until it breaks (so using the Rascal (L) example, let's say 15 impact damage). Even when it's at 5% of its max tt, it's still capable of absorbing 15 impact damage protection on every single hit. Therefore, if you're up against say an Atrox Provider and you're being hit for more than 15 each time, then your armour will absorb its full 15 each time, and decay by 1.09575 pec every time you get hit.

So it's true in the case of limited armour, then, to assume that your armour decay is simply determined by the size of the hit you take. That is, the term "absorbed damage" is exactly the same as the maximum protection you see when you look at the armour's stats (ie 15 impact in the case of Rascal (L)).

For NON LIMITED ARMOUR

We already know that NON limited armour's protection has a direct relationship with how decayed it is. Let's use Rascal (NON L) as a comparable example. If your Rascal armour is down to 50% of its original tt value, it will only be providing 50% of the original 15 impact damage protection. That is to say, if your Rascal armour is down to 50% of its original tt value, the maximum impact damage it can now absorb is 7.5.

This is a massive difference and should not be underestimated.

So in the case of NON limited armour, we need to allow for the fact that the term "absorbed damage" is actually a variable, and it's directly proportional to the condition of the armour.

Therefore, and importantly, as your armour condition decreases, your absorbed damage decreases, and therefore your decay rate decreases!


THIRDLY, EXCEPTION TO THE RULE

By the above reasoning, you would expect that non limited armour would never break. The decay rate continues to decrease as the armour wears down until the decay rate becomes negligible and virtually stops decaying.

Well, unfortunately, there are two things that make it break anyway

1. It doesn't have to actually get down to ZERO to break - it only has to get down to 3% of full tt.

2. The other part of the decay formula which I avoided till now is the "minimum decay per hit rule". This says that the minimum decay your armour can suffer is the TOTAL MAXIMUM PROTECTION IT COULD EVER POSSIBLY PROVIDE divided by 100. So, Rascal can provide a total of 32 damage protection (5 cut + 15 impact + 12 burn = 32 total), and therefore every time it gets hit it must decay by at least 32/100 pec, which is 0.32 pec.

NB: Even when the armour's condition is low, this "minimum decay per hit" is still calculated using maximum capacity (of in this case 32), even if it's so worn out that it's only capable of providing 5 or something!

So if you use the original decay formula on Rascal and the answer comes out to less than 0.32 pec, then it will decay by 0.32 pec instead

Thinking about this, the better your armour is, the higher that "minimum decay per hit" becomes. Shadow, for example, will always decay by at LEAST 1.84 pec per hit.


THIRDLY, THE RESULTS IN SUMMARY

Limited armour decays at A CONSTANT RATE relative to its condition. The only thing, then, that influences the decay rate, is the size of the actual hits you're taking.

Non limited armour decays at A VARIABLE RATE relative to its condition. The decay rate will go down as the condition goes down.


FOURTHLY, WHICH ARMOUR IS BETTER?

Well, you might be thinking that NON limited is better since the decay rate will decrease with condition and so it'll take longer to break. While this is true in isolation, it's of little practical importance.

The simple problem is, you're also losing protection, which defeats the purpose of saving on decay (because you have to fap and shoot more anyway, and therefore pay decay on your fap and gun and more ammo too!!!!), and frankly is just plain crappy. I don't know about you, but if my Rascal says it's giving me 15 impact protection then I WANT 15 IMPACT PROTECTION!

So we're back to square one.

If you're serious about reliable consistent hunting, then you need to rely on consistent, high level protection.

If you want to do this with NON limited armour, you need to be repairing it every time get the chance, and hopefully keep it above about 95% on average.

If you want to do this with LIMITED armour, then you can just buy it and forget the whole issue until it breaks.


FIFTH, MY PERSONAL OPINION

When you repair NON limited armour, you only have to pay tt value to get it back up.

When you purchase LIMITED armour, you have to pay > 100% of tt value.

Is it worth paying that extra for the LIMITED armour?

In my opinion, it's inevitable that while using NON limited armour you will suffer more fap decay, more gun decay and have to pay for more ammo decay, AND you will every now and then get so annoyed that you deliberately die just so you can go and repair your armour. Really, letting it get below about 90% of full tt is just plain illogical. The lower it gets, the worse your situation gets. Getting a TRUE idea of the cost of NON LIMITED ARMOUR'S decreasing performance with condition, to my mind, depends on the following factors:

1. Your Evader professional standing
2. What fap you're using
3. What gun you're using
4. Your relevant combat professional standing (BLP Pistoleer, for example)
5. The precise mob you're taking on (including its maturity)
6. How far you let your non limited armour go before you repair it
7. Your health level
8. Which actual armour we're talking about (because all the numbers are going to be different in each case).

I've concluded that it's basically ludicrous to try and come up with an answer, because it's going to be different for every single person and for every hunt.



The only thing that makes LIMITED armour an issue is the fact that when it DOES break, you have to source a new set (a bit more running around that just going to repair terminal). If you could rely on a good price and being sure that you'll be able to find it in the first place you look, then the problem would be solved. Using LIMITED armour would be the obvious choice.

I'll just finish with a final plug for our business, since in this case I strongly feel it's warranted.

BECAUSE of all the arguments above, and because I firmly believe people will gradually come to understand this, the aim of our business (Southern Fortress Engineering) is to regularly and reliably provide high end limited armour, in full sets, so that serious hunters can simply come grab one or two sets at a time and then KNOW that they're getting optimum protection. Then they only have to think about it once in a blue moon when their armour finally breaks, and then a quick trip back to our shop will solve the problem quick as a flash. To back that up, we're working on a bulk ordering system at the moment.

That's what we're hoping to achieve.

I would LOVE to enter into debate on this issue as I see it as critical to the foundation of our business, and a decision many Entropians seem to be having trouble making. If people don't see it the way I do, I need to know because I'm making decisions based on it

I hope this is seen more as my two cents worth on the topic of the thread, rather than just a raving ad. We're using another thread for that

Hope all that helps!

Great job, Doer. Too bad I just gave you rep

An interesting question is whether L armor has minimum decay like repairable armor. It seems obvious that repairable armor has the minimum so that you dont go on forever decaying by smaller and smaller amounts as the protection decreases. L armor doesnt suffer this defect, so is the minimum decay still in place?

This would be quite easy to test with L ghost on a snable. Actually, a big globster would be better, since you'd (well, I would anyway) take one hit and die back to measure decay.

In some circumstances, this would be beneficial for hunting. For example, using ghost on electric mobs, you slightly bump into the minimum decay factor. If L ghost has no minumum, it would be more eco against bristles, for example.

Anyway, +rep for the armor provider

Puntmonkey said:

so do i understand correctly?

if i have a set of regular armor, it decays the same with EVERY hit that is of an associated damage type, but only prevents damage based on quality - ie freshly repaired armor protects better at the same cost than close to done armor

EXCEPT with limited armor
limited armor will protect the same to the end

so every time i hunt, i should repair my set?

Click to expand...

Not quite right. It prevents damage based on quality, i.e. 50% repair = 50% protection. But you pay decay based on the amount of protection you actually receive. The decay curve is higher order, so at 50% protection you pay less than 50% decay compared to a full hit.

So if you want the fullest protection, repair after every hunt. If you want lower and cheaper protection, don't. I keep a half-repaired set of pixie around for skilling on low mobs. It's just enough protection without overpaying on decay.

Important thread IMO. +rep to Doer and Tim

Yes a very interesting read but im still not sure if i should go with solir(L) or Plated Ghost....

I guess since ill probably almost never repair ghost up past 95% id be better using a (L) armour.

Pig said:

I guess since ill probably almost never repair ghost up past 95% id be better using a (L) armour.

Click to expand...

Pig, if that's the case, then I strongly feel your money is wasted on Ghost. You might as well get Shogun and keep it at full TT - it would honestly be better protection than Ghost that is say an average of 50% repaired.

Better still, go for Solir and you're set Solir looks wicked too.

I've updated the original post with some new results.

Great Research, i think ma will change this later on... bump for ya

and +rep btw... forgot to mention

Thanks Doer for the updated info.

I agree in principle with your logic that the decay rate is influenced by the state of repair of the armour.

I think, though, that the conclusion that (L) armour is less economical, while it seems logical at first glance, is based on some simple yet crucial assumptions which make or break the case.

Certainly, you're correct, if you base the argument on the following assumptions:

1. Non-limited armour is not repaired during its life - instead allowing it to decay to 3% before being repaired.
2. The state of the non-limited armour does not affect its performance.
3. The decision about the economics of an armour is not related to its performance.


I guess the reason this is such a sticking point for us all is that the calculation/experiment required to determine the ECONOMICS is so mind-bogglingly complicated, with so many variables, that we have two problems:
A. The only remotely accurate solution must necessarily be a formula with at least seven variables (as outlined in my previous post), that people would then have to input, to decide on the economics.

B. A fair experiment in order to determine the coefficients for this formula (and believe me I've tried to come up with one) would take so much time that we might never have someone willing to spend the months required to do it)

As in my previous post on this thread, the economics depend on so many things, down to which gun and fap you use, your current skills and which mob you're fighting - AND every permutation of those variables.

To address the three assumptions I listed above:

1. Nobody in their right mind, attempting to use their non-limited armour, a) economically and b) to protect against getting hit, would let it decay to 3% before repairing it again. This is because as the tt drops, the performance drops. So, while you get smaller decay at lower tt, you also get lower performance. If you want to compare, say, rascal non limited, with 15 impact protection, to rascal limited, with 15 impact protection, then you have to assume the non limited is fully repaired at all times. If you do this, then critically, the decay rate is exactly the same as for limited.

2. If you DO let your non-limited armour decay during a hunt, its performance decreases, directly proportionally to the state of repair of the armour. At 50% of tt, non-limited rascal is only providing 7.5 impact protection. At 50% of tt, LMITED rascal is still providing 15 impact protection. So to compare the two is like comparing apples with oranges.

3. The performance of the armour (eg 7.5 compared to 15 impact protection) influences how long you can last before having to start fapping, so your fap decay needs to be taken into account (and is far from negligible). If you spend longer fapping, then it's going to take longer to heal the mob - depending on which mob it is, you may have to fire your gun once or twice more on average. This isn't negligible either.


Some explanation of how complicated this really is, if you're not yet convinced. Skip this bit if you're already convinced:
<skippable bit>
If you're really skilful, then you're going to get hit less often, and thus your armour is less of a decider on how much you're going to need to fap (and thus effect the cost of the fap decay).
If you're a complete n00b, you're going to get hit repeatedly and hardly have time to shoot since you're fapping all the time, and so your fap decay rate becomes a MUCH MORE important factor.
To quantify the fap rate means looking at the Evader professional ranking, and somehow quantifying what this represents in terms of how often you're going to get hit.
To quantify the cost of shooting your gun more often in the case of non-limited, semi-decayed armour, for a start the cost is going to depend on how decayed the armour is, but it's also going to depend on the decay rate of the gun, and your average damage with it. This in turn depends on, for example, your pistoleer ranking. We then need a way of relating your pistoleer ranking to the average damage you do, and this of course depends on what gun you're using, as well as the amp you have on it. Our formula now needs to take into account all the different available weapons.
If you're taking on a fugabarba, well, usually it's not going to hit you at all because it'll die without getting anywhere near you (not to mention running away!). The economics of the hunt have NOTHING to do with the armour you're wearing. However, if you're taking on an Atrox Alpha, where the average person might lose at least half their health in an average hit, then each time you get hit you're going to need to fap. So, by induction the fap decay calculation is influenced by not only the type of mob you're taking on (and necessarily the type of damage it therefore does and how much your armour protects you from it), but also the maturity of the mob.
We must assume an average loot from an average hunt (given that we have no true idea how looting works). I have no idea how to assume an average loot except to go hunting about 50 times for either a) the same length of time, or b) the same ammo expenditure, or c) the same number of atrox youngs killed, d) the same amount of armour decay, e) anything else you care to think of, and then compare the loots.
</skippable bit>

The question of which armour is more economical is truly a mind-bogglingly complicated one, and alarm bells should be ringing whenever you hear someone trying to categorically simplify it in once sentence as a black and white answer.


IMHO, the bottom line is that we can now be certain that the decay rate of an armour is relative to its state of repair, and we should be grateful to Doer for proving that.

It is a quantum leap, however, to conclude that therefore limited armour is less economical, because we are forgetting all the other factors that influence the "economics" calculation.

There is so much we don't know, that in the foreseeable future, you can only whittle it down to a non-mathematical and highly subjective question of:

On one hand, I can pay tt + x once for a suit of armour, and then only pay tt cost to repair it, knowing that it in order to maintain any sort of healthy performance level I should be repairing it during the hunt, thus maintaining a pretty similar level of average decay to limited armour.

On the other hand, I can pay x% of tt (eg 140%) for a suit of armour, forget about repairing it until it breaks and then simply buying a new piece for x% of tt again, and have full protection the entire time I'm wearing it.

Personally, I strongly feel that if you can source limited armour for a decent price and rely on it, then it's the way to go by a country mile. It's so much easier to deal with! That's why we firmly believe SFE's shop in PA Mall has a lot to offer to the hunters of Entropia Universe.


+rep to Doer for his outstanding contribution to this important topic.

TimUnleashed said:

Thanks Doer for the updated info.

I agree in principle with your logic that the decay rate is influenced by the state of repair of the armour.

Click to expand...

Well, i was hoping it worked that way, as that would give (L) armor a possible economy advantage over UL armor. However, as the test with the two different (L) plate sets show, it's not the case (for (L) armor).

I think, though, that the conclusion that (L) armour is less economical, while it seems logical at first glance, is based on some simple yet crucial assumptions which make or break the case.

Click to expand...

That's why i qualified it by saying (protection/pec). As in all things in EU, a person's style, gear, and skills all affect their economy. My statement remains true, though: unless it is purchased at tt cost, (L) armor is less economical than UL armor in protection/pec.

MA has clearly made a bad decision here. (L) weapons decay less than their UL equivalents. (L) armor has only the advantage that it protects in full until completely broken, something not (IMO) as beneficial as the SIB on (L) weapons (in particular, the quickly-maxed stats that SIB enables). That leaves (L) armor as a bit of a white elephant: who is going to use it while UL options exist? That suggests that changes are yet in store, or that UL armor will be phased out. With ghost a very powerful and cheap UL armor that can be manufactured at will, i'm not sure how the second would be accomplished. I can only conclude that MA will be tweaking something with armor in the near future.

They could crank up mob damage until much better armor is required. Considering that all the higher-level crafted armors will be (L), that could push people into using more (L) armor. It seems like it would be awfully hard to balance, though.

In an amazingly punctual (probably coincidental) response to this quandary, MA announced that UL armor will decay when donned, while (L) armor will not. I wonder if i get a brownie point.

Doer said:

My statement remains true, though: unless it is purchased at tt cost, (L) armor is less economical than UL armor in protection/pec.

Click to expand...

Doer, firstly I'm sorry that it has taken me this long to reply to the thread - I meant to do it ages ago but have been busy running the business, and just remembered again tonight!

I still think that for your statement to remain true, it has to be based, at the very very very least, on the assumption that you don't keep your UL armour in a good state of repair.

We really are comparing apples and oranges here.

I honestly feel that we may just as well say "fapping is more economical than hunting" or something, simply because:

With unlimited armour your economy is variable depending on how you use it. If you keep it half repaired you only get half the protection? Is this economical since it'll force you to fap more?

With limited armour, you buy it, wear it till it breaks, get full protection the whole time, then buy a new piece when one piece breaks.

We are talking about two completely different styles of protection.

I still think you can not just put them in the same box based on any research we have seen to date.

I am still largely of the opinion, though I haven't tested it, that if you spent 1000 hours hunting atrox young with a fap 50 in ghost armour, repairing it to 100% every time it got down to 80%, and calculated the total amount of ped spent on the fap, the armour and the ammo, your figure would be higher than spending 1000 hours hunting atrox young with a fap 50 in ghost(L) armour purchased for say 140% and replaced when it breaks.

I really think until we see the results of such an experiment, we really cannot make the call about which is better.

Personally, I still think the convenience of not having to repair the (L) makes it a better option.

I might be right, I might be wrong, I just feel that we don't have enough evidence to really know.

great work doer, but all the time i think that UL weapons has better decay then L and it is compensated by DMG.
(sorry for little off topic)

PW3CKA said:

great work doer, but all the time i think that UL weapons has better decay then L and it is compensated by DMG.
(sorry for little off topic)

Click to expand...

I'm comparing the UL version of (L) weapons. The UL version of (L) weapons has more decay, giving it (usually) about the same economy as the (L) version weapon at 105% markup.

Doer said:

[*]It is always less economical (protection/pec) to use (L) armor than the equivalent unlimited armor, unless the armor comes at 0% markup (tt value).[/list]

Click to expand...

9.1 has changed this apparently

pesok said:

9.1 has changed this apparently

Click to expand...

We'll see. Armor durability meant nothing prior to this VU, so saying they increased it by 10k or 1000k means nothing unless they reconnected durability to the armor calculation.

We'll have to wait and see...

Note that due to the difference in decay when replacing armor on your avatar, (L) armors have had a slight advantage since the last VU assuming 100% paid for (L).

Doer said:

Armor durability meant nothing prior to this VU

Click to expand...

Yes. I had been meaning to ask about that for quite some time. Since armour has a set tt value, and decay is defined by tt and by how much it protects you, where does durability come in?

Is it true that it was a just a pretty number to make things look good?

If so, now, what's the difference? Might as well make durability 1000000000000 if it's irrelevant to everything!

TimUnleashed said:

Yes. I had been meaning to ask about that for quite some time. Since armour has a set tt value, and decay is defined by tt and by how much it protects you, where does durability come in?

Is it true that it was a just a pretty number to make things look good?

If so, now, what's the difference? Might as well make durability 1000000000000 if it's irrelevant to everything!

Click to expand...

Check out the thread about decay in VU 9.1. We're discovering that durability plays a small role in decay/protection. Before 9.1, there was no armor with durability over 5k, and most armors were clustered below 3k, so it is possible that it played the same role before the VU and it just wasn't enough of a deviation under most testing conditions to be noticeable. I'll be able to estimate/verify that after we have a more perfect understanding of the current situation.

But wait MA could have changed the decay on uL armours.

Doer said:

Check out the thread about decay in VU 9.1. We're discovering that durability plays a small role in decay/protection. Before 9.1, there was no armor with durability over 5k, and most armors were clustered below 3k, so it is possible that it played the same role before the VU and it just wasn't enough of a deviation under most testing conditions to be noticeable. I'll be able to estimate/verify that after we have a more perfect understanding of the current situation.

Click to expand...

Yeah good point mate. Can't wait to see the results.

*checks out the thread*