How does damage affect components?

[DerZivilist]

This is something I've looked for all over the place in FAQs, tutorials, ingame manuals and forums...

Components take damage. Okay. If the component is destroyed, it stops doing its job. Okay. But what about partially damaged components? How do minor or increasingly more serious states of being damaged affect engines? Guns? The balloon? The hull armor? The hull structure? If I am an engineer, is it important to hang around for one more cycle to top up a component before rushing off to the next, or does it make no difference?

[shadowsteel]

While I don't know exact numbers, damage to components works in the following way.

Balloon -  Rises and falls slower
Engines - less overall output
Guns - Slower reload, movement, and firing rate. I don't think it lowers damage per shot but I'm not sure.

EDIT: There are also different levels of damage. So the more damaged a component is, the more the overall effect is increased.

[N-Sunderland]

Engines: the engine's power decreases as it takes damage. So an engine at 50% health would operate at 50% effectiveness, for example.

Guns: as they take damage, their rate of fire, turning speed, and reload time all become slower.

Balloons: the more damage the balloon takes, the slower the ship can rise and fall.

Armour: technically there's no difference between a ship at 1% armour and 100% armour; the one with 1% is just closer to having its hull exposed.

Hull: the ship doesn't behave differently when it takes hull damage (except when it dies, obviously), but some visual aspects change (bits get torn and bent, no effect on how the ship runs).


Waiting around next to a component on cooldown won't make it go faster or anything like that. Once you put it on cooldown, you should definitely run to nearby components that need repairs. There are some notable exceptions. The biggest one is the armour. If you repair the hull armour with a mallet stroke and you think that it'll still break before the cooldown is over, you probably want to stay there so you can get on the rebuild as soon as possible. It's all about judging the situation you're in.

[DerZivilist]

Ah, I see! Good to know.

Regarding engine output, does that only affect acceleration/turning rate, or also top speed? Thinking about it, it sounds a little funny to use something like moonshine to increase engine output when the mere act of using it damages the engines, thereby lowering their output...

[N-Sunderland]

Yes, it affects top speed. Tools like moonshine require careful use. If you spam it, it'll do more harm than good. You need to use it in bursts.

[HamsterIV]

Moon shine is useful for quick bursts of speed to get out of the way of a ram, or ram a little harder. Kerosine is preferred for long distance runs. Also if you use a mallet to keep an engine on kerosine working it will drop below optimal performance before the cooldown finishes. If you have nothing better to do, use the spanner to combat kerosine engine damage, and only hit it with a mallet if it drops below 1/2. This will provide the best performance for the longest period of time.

[BADFOOT]

Just let your knuckle-headed Pilot burn his engines out a few times. Eventually they will realize that they need to keep an eye on stuff sometimes too. Or at the very least communicate their irrational need to crash into the canyon wall at an even faster rate.

[Alistair MacBain]

Didnt want to open a new thread for a that little question i have.
I think it is like i remember but i need to be sure cause im doin some research.
Does each weapon have the exact same hp? And mb to continue is that number given out somewhere?
Couldnt find anything to make sure so i have to ask.

[N-Sunderland]

Light weapons all have the same HP as each other, and heavy weapons all have the same HP as each other.

I calculated the approximate HP of both a while ago, it was something around 250 for light weapons and 400 for heavy weapons if I remember correctly.

[Alistair MacBain]

Thanks mate.

[dragonmere]

Just to be exact: Light weapons have 200 health, medium 425. This is the same for all weapons.

[N-Sunderland]

Ah, there you go. I knew I had remembered them a bit off.