AI War:Armor

This page is up to date for game version 5.033 and should still be correct.

Armor

Damage and Armor in AI War is given directly in numbers, so the armor value is simply subtracted from the attack damage.

So a shot with 1000 damage that hits a target with 500 armor would deal 500 damage.

There is a minimum cap of 20% that damage will not be reduced below, so a 1000 damage shot will always do at least 200 damage, regardless of the armor of the target struck.
There are also a few ships in the game, notably the Spire Armor Rotter that can temporarily reduce the armor of targets it strikes.
Armor Damage is cumulative so any ship in the game can be reduced to having no armor under the right circumstances.

Damage Calculation

Damage in AI War is not random and so the damage calculation is very straight forward and goes as follows:

(Attack of Attacking Ship) x (Attack Power Boosts) x (Attack Multiplier) - ((Targets Armor) x (Armor Boosts) - (Attackers Armor Piercing)) but to never be less then (Attack of Attacking Ship) x 0.2
Note that the Ability:Armor Piercing allows a ship to ignore a targets armor on its own shots.
If a ship reduces a targets armor, the targets armor is reduced for all attacks hitting it.

Attack of Attacking Ship:	The Attack Power of the attacking ship. This is found in the ship description box as "Attack: 1000"
Attack Power Boosts:	The Attack Power Boost from other units with the "Attack Boost For Allied Ships" Ability. If a ship is currently having it's attack boosted, it will show in the ship description box on the first line next to the ships name in yellow text as "Attack Power Boost: 20%"
Attack Multiplier:	The Attack Multiplier is the attacking ships bonus against the hull type of the ship it is firing at.
Targets Armor:	The Armor of the target ship. Found in the ship description box as "Armor: 500"
Armor Boosts:	Any boosts to the targets armor, such as from the Armor Booster.
Attackers Armor Piercing:	The amount of armor an attacker can ignore as granted by the Ability:Armor Piercing. Can not reduce a targets effective armor below 0.

Example 1: Missile Frigate Mk I firing on a Bomber Mk I with no attack boosts.
The AI War:Missile Frigate does 9,600 damage and the Bomber has 1,200 armor so the shot does 9,600 - 1,200 = 8,400 damage.

Example 2: Bomber Mk I firing on a Missile Frigate Mk I in a system with a Military Command Station Mk I it the bomber has a 20% attack boost.
The Bomber does 9,600 damage and the Missile Frigate has 300 armor, however the AI War:Bomber has a 20% attack boost from the Military Command Station and 6x Attack Multiplier against the Artillery hull type of the AI War:Missile Frigate.
Therefore the AI War:Bomber does 9,600 (Attack Power) x 1.2 (Attack Boost) x 6 (Attack Multiplier) - 300 (Frigate Armor) = 68,820 damage.

Example 3: Missile Frigate Mk I firing on an AI War:Armored Golem with no attack boosts.
The AI War:Missile Frigate does 9,600 damage and the AI War:Armored Golem has 100,000 armor. This is high enough armor that the shot runs into the 20% minimum damage threshold so the AI War:Missile Frigate does 9,600 x 0.2 = 1,920 damage.

Example 4: Raptor Mk I firing on an Bomber Mark I with no attack boosts.
The Raptor does 4,000 damage and has 500 Armor Piercing, the AI War:Bomber has 1,200 armor.
Therefore the AI War:Bomber effectively has 700 armor (1,200 - 500) against the Raptors attack.
So the attack does 4,000 - 700 = 3,300 actual damage.

Mark Levels

Due to the fact that armor increases linearly with Mark level increase, how damage is affected by Mark levels is non-intuitive.

For an example we will use the AI War:Deflector Drone and the AI War:Space Tank.
At Mark I the AI War:Deflector Drone attacks at 5,600 against the AI War:Space Tanks armor of 1,500 for 4,100 damage, or 73.2%.
At Mark III the Deflector Drone attacks at 16,800 against the AI War:Space Tanks armor of 4,500 for 12,300 damage, or 73.2%.
As the relative Mark levels are the same, the percentage of damage done stays the same, however this is not true for different Mark levels.
A Mark I AI War:Deflector Drone attacking at 5,600 against a Mark III AI War:Space Tank with 4,500 armor has just hit the 20% damage threshold and so only does 1,120 damage, 53.2% percent less then at equal Marks.
A Mark III AI War:Deflector Drone attacking at 16,800 against a Mark I Space Tank with 1,500 armor does 15,300 damage, or 91.1% damage for 18.1% more damage then when at equal marks.

This decreasing percentage of damage done is one of the major reasons that higher Mark level ships are so much more effective then their statistics increase would indicate at first glance.
Many of the ships in the game have enough armor that a single Mark level difference blocks an additional 20-30% damage and a difference of two Mark levels is enough armor to force the attack to hit the 20% damage threshold.

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