Armor HP System

Every armor block on your ship contributes to a shared Armor HP pool. Incoming damage is absorbed by this pool before reaching reactor HP, with increasing bleed-through as armor integrity decreases.

How It Works

  • At full Armor HP, all post-armor damage is absorbed
  • As Armor HP drops, an increasing fraction of damage bleeds through to the reactor
  • Bleed-through scales linearly with HP lost, reaching full pass-through at low HP
  • Total Armor HP scales sub-linearly with ship size, so larger ships benefit more per block than smaller ones

The sub-linear scaling is controlled by the armor_hp_scaling_exponent config value (default 0.75). At 1.0, scaling is linear. Lower values give diminishing returns for smaller ships while rewarding larger builds.

Bleed-Through

The bleed-through mechanic ensures that armor is most effective when intact and progressively less effective as it takes damage. The base_armor_hp_bleed_through_start config value (default 0.7) controls how aggressively bleed-through ramps up — higher values mean bleed-through reaches 100% sooner as armor is lost.

Absorption Chambers

Armor HP Absorption Chambers can be installed to improve armor effectiveness by lowering the bleed-through rate:

Chamber Effect Config Key
Chamber 1 Base bleed-through reduction armor_hp_absorption_effect_1_sub (default -7.5)
Chamber 2 Stacking bleed-through reduction armor_hp_absorption_effect_2_sub (default -7.5)

Both chambers stack additively, providing a significant improvement to armor durability when combined.

Configuration

All armor HP values can be tuned in system_config.yml. See the Configuration page for the full list of options.