Only if these critical hits you speak of have giant flashy damage numbers popping up above the ship and some swoon like graphic for a critical critical hit. Something awesome that might make a Naglfar go horizontal.... Eh?eh?....

Alright here's the basics of this post idea:

-EM, Therm, Kinetic, Exp all would have small secondary effects whose effectiveness and frequency occur on a very small percentage of hits, say 1-3% for standard t1 with more on t2 and faction. This would function as a 'critical' hit, and there would certain in-game things like implants that would increase it, as well as pirate faction weapons doing more.

-These would stack proportionately to negate the issue with giant numbers of people doing continuous crit damage, so each additional player doing damage would have a 5-10% decreased effectiveness of critical hits to compensate.

-Each race would have a small resistance to its enemy's crit type in the same way t1 armor resist profiles are set up.

-The chance one damage type has to deal crit over the other is split proportionately to the damage type of the ammunition. Hybrid weapons that deal equal parts kinetic and therm would have equal chances for kinetic or thermal critical hits occuring, and half that of what a missile would do. Odd-numbered damage amounts with projectiles or lasers to an extent, would follow the same formula.

-EM has a chance to temporarily knock down your sensor strength a tiny bit, with the base sensor strength itself and targeting range and lock speed for a few seconds. This would apply well with what EMP does in real life, and would add an interesting little gameplay flavor for ships that use it without causing major disruptions in combat.

-Thermal would apply a small amount of heat damage to a random module on the enemy's ship, detailing a successful 'hit' on a weapon or upgrade module that heats up or partially melts a component.

-Kinetic would have the chance to deal extra overall damage for a well-placed strike on a relatively more vulnerable part of the ship. This would follow with hitting a part of the shield field strength that has fluctuated at that particular time and place to be less strong, a kink in the armor, etc.

-Explosive would have the chance to deal additional hull damage through armor and shielding for a well-placed explosion compromising hull integrity. The extra damage would be proportional to the initial alpha strike, and fall in line with major sci-fi lore in spaceship combat, where even when shields were up, the people on the bridge would still be rocked around violently with a console blowing up in flames or something. Can't tell me that doesn't cause some kind of structural damage...


These crit chances would have a very low probability to compensate for being attacked by larger numbers, but specific things like faction weapons, faction ammo, and new implants and skills would be able to increase that slightly. I think this would add more flavor to pvp and help faction weapons out a bit, and add some more fun variables in combat in this game, considering how stale the actual combat mechanics in this game are in relation to things like 'manual' piloting and other factors that go into pvp.

EDIT: The EFFECTIVENESS of each critical hit does NOT increase with the amount of typed damage being done. A battleship will still do the same amount of secondary effects as a frigate. You can't have someone hit with a thermal crit and burn out all the other guy's modules, or an explosive arty crit alpha'ing right through to the hull.

Except the only one worth using then is EM, as the ability to force the enemy to completely relock you is far more effective than the meager extra DPS you could get from the other effects, which only becomes exponentially more powerful against larger and larger ships.

I do agree that EM crits are out of line with the other 3 types, but I do like your overall idea about adding another dimension.

Refinement: EM critical hits cause damage to any module from power fluctuations. Critical EM hits can be correlated to a lightning strike on a vehicle damaging electronic systems, this type of damage forces the crew to make replacements.

Off-lining a module of any type would be more in keeping with the realistic nature of repairs (the is offline for repairs) but I think that this would be too powerful as well.


What about Amarr? Is there any negative effect for them for being limited by damage type so much?

What is the threshold of damage % for a crit? Meaning do they only have a chance of occurring at a 100% of maximum hit, because I see that being a problem in the future when BS weapons can only crit slow BS targets because anything smaller doesn't take full damage to allow a crit chance.

Also, what are you thoughts on missiles giving an increased chance (very small) because they're guided? So if a T1 turret has a 1-3% chance to hit for a crit, then a T1 launcher has 3-5% chance because of guidance systems? Or, missiles have a 1-4% chance but BCS's add .5%?
Either way of doing it missiles would still have damage over time, but would be compensated slightly for flight time by a slightly larger chance to deal a crit.

What if EM disrupted 1 cycle of a module? i.e. 1 cycle of a gun, 1 cycle on a booster, or 1 cycle of a passive module that does nothing. The latter would help to offset the potential imbalance when you allow EM damage to have a chance to disrupt a crucial rep cycle but not the other types. Sometimes it would, and sometimes it would only effect a passive module thus helping to balance while still allowing for that crucial cycle to be missed just like thermal could potentially overheat that particular repper as well.

I definitely see what you mean about missiles always applying their damage, but I think that if missiles had the same crit chance as turrets they would see even less favorable because of the delay in damage. If missiles had enough of a higher chance to offset their flight time, but not enough to do more than even the scales, I think that would actually provide the best damage. Just like missiles will "always" apply damage, they will always have a better chance for a crit, and you will always have to wait for the missile to hit as well. Proper balancing would be key to this working.

I would prefer that penetrating and smashing hits apply a small portion of damage directly to random modules and not just to armour. This would gradually degrade a vessels combat effectiveness over the duration of a fight unless someone remote hull reps you or you have hull rep yourself.

You make a very good point. How about Thermal doing damage to high slot modules, EM to mid slot modules, explosive to low slot modules, and Kinetic to random?

1-3% is way to much, especially given people's propensity to blob (even with the stacking penalty). Crits are cool in other games (like mechwarrior/battlech) because they are super rare. 1 out of 100 isn't rare enough imo.

Stealth pve nerf?

I mean the crit rate is 1-3%, so low that small fights likely wouldn't be bothered by crits at all and when they are I imagine the effects would have a very low impact. In large fights, a target is likely to die before feeling the mod damage from crits. The only situations I see this having a significant effect on are pve and maybe a smarm of small ships chipping away at a big one.

With ur crits effect price having the same chance to proc across the board, its much more beneficial on weapons with a high rate of fire.

I was thinking more that penetrating and smashing hits would apply a percent of there dmg direct to one or modules (fragmentation, concussive blast, EM interference, overheating whetever...). Naturally large guns would cause more damage this way, maybe better to have smal cause damage to 1 mod, medium to two mods, large to three etc, but spread the applied damage across the mods.

I was thinking more that penetrating and smashing hits would apply a percent of there dmg direct to one or modules (fragmentation, concussive blast, EM interference, overheating whetever...). Naturally large guns would cause more damage this way, maybe better to have smal cause damage to 1 mod, medium to two mods, large to three etc, but spread the applied damage across the mods.

All in all I love the idea but I'm not sure it's simple enough for CCP to roll out and balance before they move on to something else.

That's why I thought to simply apply a % of damage for pen and smash hits directly to modules (just use the existing module damage code for that, model it internally as heat buildup). Minimal changes required then I think as the shot is already registered as pen or smash, so apply the % damage as heat damage to the random lucky module(s).

What is this? Wow? You want to introduce dice rolls basicly, why not just give a flat bonus to do said capabilities than.