Damage Types and Weaknesses in Combat

[alexanderson1993]

Damage types were outlined here: #696

Issues for implementation: #704 #705

Originally they were intended to provide depth and consistency to damage report generation. However, it makes sense to expand their utility, specifically in combat.

In Thorium Classic, it's possible to target specific systems. I hope to return that capability to Thorium Nova (#666), the intention being that Sensors can scan for weaknesses on a ship, specifically a ship system, which would return a damage type. Tactical can then apply that damage to the enemy ship somehow.

For torpedos, it's simple: Just fire a torpedo with the warhead that corresponds to the desired damage type.

For phasers, it's a little bit trickier. We'll have to extend the behavior of Phasers to configure the frequency of the beam. Here are the frequency modes I can see being valuable:

• High: Radiation Damage (like a gamma ray)
• Medium: Heat Damage (like a high-powered infrared ray)
• Low: Structural Damage (causes resonant vibrations)
• Pulsed: Electrical Damage (EMP)

Note: This does nothing to change the amount of damage that is applied to non-weak systems. But if the system is weak to that damage type, it will take extra damage.

Not sure how much of this should be configurable. At very least you can pick which damage types a ship system is weak to, and maybe the damage multiplier. This can go the other way too, where a system might be strong against a type of damage as well. I changed my mind on this too. Standard weaknesses and strengths (probably 1.3 and 0.75 respectively), are automatically assigned to ship systems when the ship system is generated.

Likewise, the ship itself will be configurable with weaknesses/strengths, specifically for damage to the hull. I changed my mind - no special bonuses against the hull.