About damage.

Sunless Sea
1

First of all, i really like Iron combat system.

However, I find that the damage inflicted by my weapons is not random enough for my taste.

  1. There is not enough variability in each shot (for example, my harpoons deal 59 to 63 damage.)

  2. There is no difference enough between hull and life damage. (For me, about 2 points in average)

If possible, i would prefer to have damage more randomized.

Problem 1)

As it stands, if my damage has only 4 points of variability, i will know quite precisely how many shots will i need to kill most enemies, and there will be quite no difference, for me, in having damage A) 59-63 or B) 70-74. (unless fighting fluke cores)

That is :

They have 50 health or less - 1 shot for both.
They have 75 or 100 health - 2 shots for both
They have 125 health - for B, 2 shots; for A 3 shots (unless i’m really lucky, that is about 2.81 shots).
They have 150 health - 3 shots for both.
They have 200 health - 3 shots for B, 4 shots for A.
They have 500 health - 7 shots for B (unless i’m really unlucky), 8-9 shots for A.
As you can see, there is difference only in 3 cases - even if there are 11 points of difference (which i thnk to be about 20-30 point of Irons)!

If the damage is more &quotrandomized&quot, instead, i’ll NOT know in advance the number of &quothits&quot needed for killing a particular creature, but the curve of &quothow many shots do i need to kill it?&quot will smoothen out impressively.

(If someone whishes, here we keep some space for the calculations and examples.)

Problem 2)

It is linked to the problem above - since there is not a lot of randomization, nor a lot of difference between life damage and hull damage inflicted by the various weapons, i do not feel to be armed as &quota monster hunter&quot instead than &quota pirate/marine officier&quot. Pretty much, i do not feel any difference in having harpoons or cannons.

It would be nicer to have a little bit more of average difference, like + or - 5 instead of + or - 1.

2

+1

3

Kind of the opposite problem of the pre-Emerald combat. Before, damage was so random it was very difficult to win fights without taking damage because you’d never really know what each shot was going to inflict.

4

If we have too keep the new system I would rather have it so that damage stuck within a close range. I don’t want to have to guess, I like being able to know how roughly many hits it will take to kill an enemy as I do not like combat.

5

Personally, I think ship armour or even just a more involved “hearts” stat might help with the high damage issues. Combat isn’t quite so predictable as to have damage stick within too narrow a range.