Talk:Lobster Man

Can someone include the armor values for Lobstermen. Thank you! Jasonred 00:18, 27 February 2009 (CST)

These things have armor?

Off the top of my head, directional armor for a soldier class is 10 on beginner, 20 on other difficulty levels. Under armor, I think was half that value. Yes, plastic aqua armor has better defenses! These guys thrive of off the damage multipliers.

Come to think of it, most of the alien pages don't have armor values listed. -NKF 00:09, 27 February 2009 (CST)

Weird. My very first mission against a lobsterman, I bombarded it with everything in my arsenal. And I had Gauss weapons too! I just managed to down it before my team ran out of ammo. BTW, this was in my noob days, where I had no qualms about using save and reload in-battle. Then the 2nd lobsterman showed up. So, everyone grab the loot, back in the submarine, and abort mission. Geez. Of course, come to think about it, 20 armor for lobsterman is equivalent to 100 armor vs your harpoons, and equivalent to 60 armor vs your Gauss? Or am I getting the damage formulas wrong? Jasonred 00:18, 27 February 2009 (CST)

You're applying them to the wrong area. Damage multipliers are used on the gun shooting at them, not on the armor values. You take the weapon's base damage(1), multiply it by the modifier(2), then by the random 0-200% for the hit(3), then subtract the armor(4) from the result, and that's your damage dealt to HP(5). (1*2*3)-4=5. So a Jet Harpoon shooting a Lobsterman does on average all of 6.4 damage, and a Gauss Rifle will do 18 damage on average...and that's before you even factor in the armor. For many aliens, the damage multipliers are fairly low, so they don't make much of a noticable difference, but the high reducers for the Lobsterman change all that. They don't need heavy armor because the weapons do very little damage against them to start with. Of course, these multipliers are the same reason that Drills kill them...Lobstermen take 200% damage from Drills. So for a Heavy Thermic Lance, that's 150, times 200%(300), times 0-200%(We'll say 100 here and leave it at 300)...minus twenty armor. Shish-kebabs! Arrow Quivershaft 00:29, 27 February 2009 (CST)

Working backwards, 20 armor against AP with a Damage Modifier of 60% translates to 20/.6 = 33.333 = 34 AP max damage (35 to penetrate and lower health). For Gauss it's 20/.8 = 25 Gauss max damage (26 to penetrate and lower health). By the way, I added armor stats to the article page as a test. Opinions on the layout, anyone? --Zombie 00:41, 27 February 2009 (CST)

I know I know. Basically, I am saying that in order to break through 20 armor, with 80% reduction, an armor piercing round must do 100 damage minimum.

Either formula is equivalent when it comes to non-penetrating shots though. Though for a penetrating shot, it makes a LOT of difference whether you use the correct formula or not. Lobstermen and their damage modifier of 20% vs AP... hahaha... OMG. Basically, invulnerable vs AP... Jasonred 01:00, 27 February 2009 (CST)

For the standard armour displays, how about a standard table with the armor facing down the side and the rank across the top? Will need two for the beginner and standard levels. It might even be a good chance to revise the stat display as well, to eliminate the usage of preformatted text in the main articles. -NKF 00:45, 27 February 2009 (CST)

Yeah, that's probably a better choice but it'll take some time to set it all up properly. I'll work on this tomorrow and get back to you. --Zombie 00:51, 27 February 2009 (CST)

Actually, recall the UBK template I made to simplify drawing custom base design layouts where the template took arguments and slotted them into image filenames? Would it be worth taking that, and then modifying it extensively into a standardized alien/unit stat display sheet that we can use site-wide for UFO and TFTD? Perhaps not one big giant template (that would be unmanageable), but rather a few templates around groupings like stats, armor/damage modifiers. -NKF 00:59, 27 February 2009 (CST)

I decided to pretend to be Zombie tonight. Here's a table of each weapon and its normal damage and damage range, then its damage and damage range after its affected by the appropriate Lobsterman damage modifier:

Weapon	Average Damage(normal)	Damage Range(normal)	Lobsterman Multiplier	Average Damage(Lobsterman)	Damage Range(Lobsterman)
Dart Gun	16	0-32	20%	3.2	0-6.4
Jet Harpoon	32	0-64	20%	6.4	0-12.8
GC-AP	60	0-120	20%	12	0-24
HJ-AP	40	0-80	20%	8	0-16
Gauss Pistol	45	0-90	30%	13.5	0-27
Gauss Rifle	60	0-120	30%	18	0-36
Heavy Gauss	75	0-150	30%	22.5	0-45
Sonic Pistol	80	0-160	50%	40	0-80
Sonic Rifle	95	0-190	50%	47.5	0-95
Sonic Cannon	130	0-260	50%	65	0-130
GC-HE	65	32.5-97.5	70%	19.5	9.75-29.25
HJ-HE	50	25-75	70%	15	7.5-22.5
Mag. Grenade	50	25-75	70%	15	7.5-22.5
Mag. Pack	100	50-150	70%	30	15-45
Sonic Pulser	120	60-180	70%	36	18-54
PD Grenade	70	35-105	70%	21	14-28
Small Torp	80	40-120	70%	24	16-32
Large Torp	90	45-135	70%	27	18-36
DP Launcher	200	100-300	70%	60	30-90
Thermal Tazer	80	0-160	110%	88	0-176
Thermal Shok	120	0-240	110%	132	0-264
Vibroblade	80	0-160	200%	160	0-320
Thermic Lance	110	0-220	200%	220	0-440
Heavy Lance	150	0-300	200%	300	0-600

Assuming 20 Armor for our target, the Dart Gun, Jet Harpoon, and HJ-AP have no chance to even punch through the armor, whereas the GC-AP, GC-HE, HJ-HE, PD grenade, Mag. Grenade, and Gauss Pistol can only lightly injure them. Lobstermen have 90-125 health, there aren't very many weapons that can whittle that away in a reasonable time frame. You can also see just how huge of an effect the 200% damage multiplier from the Drills has, which is why they simply murder the creatures. The only weapons on this table that even have a chance of dropping a Lobsterman in one shot outside of the Drills and Stun weapons are Sonic Rifle and the Sonic Cannon; even the mighty DPL has difficulty sending these underwater demons back to where they came from. Arrow Quivershaft 01:19, 27 February 2009 (CST)