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TAP / TDP / Usability


Harakiri Tiger

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I need to re-write this topic sometime. Until then take it as rambling.

 

I felt that it might be a good idea to try and take some very blurry concepts that we naturally use to rate AC's and clarify them a bit. We've all been using these concepts ever since we started playing AC, but many of us do it in a more sub-conscious fashion. Some of these concepts, like TAP are easily clarified. Others, like TDP and Usability, are hard to get very clear pictures on. I think that taking the time to really recognize them and talk about them will help our understanding of AC's, though. These concepts apply throughout all the AC games.

 

Hopefully, I can clarify some terms and maybe add to the vocabulary of the AC universe. Anyone that knows me knows that I like to make up new words and names. Haha.

 

-----

 

TAP (Total Armor Points)

This is the total damage your AC can take before being destroyed.

 

While your AC comes with a set amount of AP that you get to see when you get into a fight, that's not really your total AP. Your defenses actually make your AP higher than that. How? By translating into bonus AP that you can't see on screen. To figure out your TAP, you need to average your sTAP (Shell TAP) and eTAP (Energy TAP). After you've figured out your TAP, you can ignore your Shell Defense and Energy Defense ratings.

 

Shell defense and energy defense both subtract from the AP damage a weapon does. They do this on a percent based basis. If you have no defense, your opponents weapons will do full damage; thus a weapon that does 2,000 AP damage would have to hit an AC with 20,000 AP ten times to destroy it. If you have 25% defense, your opponents weapons will do 75% damage; thus a weapon that does 2,000 AP damage would have to hit an AC with 20,000 AP 13.3 times to destroy it. If you have 50% defense, your opponents weapons will only do 50% damage; a weapon that does 2,000 AP damage would have to hit an AC with 20,000 AP twenty times to destroy it.

 

Here are the equations for those examples so it's a bit easier to understand:

 

[20,000 / (2,000 x 1.00) = 10.00] - Total Damage Dealt: 20,000

[20,000 / (2,000 x 0.75) = 13.33] - Total Damage Dealt: 26,700

[20,000 / (2,000 x 0.50) = 20.00] - Total Damage Dealt: 40,000

 

Let's say that the weapon that was used in the previous example gets its attack power buffed from 2,000 to 10,000. Now let's re-work the equations and see what happens.

 

[20,000 / (10,000 x 1.00) = 2.00] - Total Damage Dealt: 20,000

[20,000 / (10,000 x 0.75) = 2.66] - Total Damage Dealt: 26,700

[20,000 / (10,000 x 0.50) = 4.00] - Total Damage Dealt: 40,000

 

With this information we can see that there's actually a set amount of damage your AC can take before dying, regardless of a weapon's attack power. The type of damage the weapon does (Shell or Energy)
will
matter, though. This is because AC's have a different level of damage reduction for each type, Shell Defense and Energy Defense. Let's assume that the damage reduction we referred to in the previous examples was based off of shell defense. We can now solve for our sTAP (Shell TAP) value by dividing our total on-screen AP by the percent damage we
take
from shell weaponry.

 

[20,000 / 1.00 = 20,000] - sTAP Value = 20,000

[20,000 / 0.75 = 26,667] - sTAP Value = 26,667

[20,000 / 0.50 = 40,000] - sTAP Value = 40,000

 

Notice any uncanny similarities with the equations from earlier?

 

Once you know the percent damage you take from shell weaponry and energy weaponry you can easily figure out your sTAP and eTAP values. Afterwards, just add the two values up and divide them by two. This will average them and you will have your final result; your TAP value.

 

One very big problem with TAP values in the AC4/fA generation of Armored Core games comes in the form of Primal Armor. PA modifies percent damage reduction from weapons, like shell defense and energy defense. The problem? It fluctuates how much it's adding to your percent damage reduction based on your current on-screen PA Rectification. One thing you can do is solve for your TAP value when your PA is full and solve for your normal TAP value, too. This will give you a better grasp of how much damage you can actually take before being destroyed. We'll call the TAP values with PA full spaTAP (Shell + PA TAP), epaTAP (Energy + PA TAP), and we'll call the average of those two paTAP.

 

You will need to know how much damage reduction your PA and Shell Defense give individually to solve how much damage reduction from shell weapons they are giving you together. So, let's say that you figure out your individual damage reduction scores for PA and Shell Defense. You discover your PA gives you 25% damage reduction from shell weaponry and your Shell Defense gives you 50% damage reduction. That means weapons keep 75% of their damage potential through your PA and then you take 50% of that damage because of your Shell Defense. How much damage got through to you, then? 37.50%. How did I figure that out? Simple. Multiply that 75% and 50% together and you get 37.50%.

 

[0.75 x 0.50 = 0.375]

 

Now, just take your total on-screen AP and divide it by the percent total damage you take from shell weapons with your PA full to figure out your spaTAP. Let's assume that your AC's total AP at the beginning of a fight is 20,000 again. We divide that by 0.375 to get a spaTAP of 53,334.

 

[20,000 / 0.375 = 53,334]

 

After that, solve for your epaTAP and then average it with your spaTAP. This is your paTAP value.

 

You'll know the sum defensive ability of your AC once you have your TAP and paTAP values. This makes the entire chunk of defensive stats on your AC become one easy to read field. Two, if you decide not to average your TAP and paTAP values together as well.

 

How does this all relate to weapons in game, though? Let's say you have a paTAP value of 200,000 and a TAP value of 85,000. In AC:fA regulation 1.40, the
051ANNR
Rifle has 1,788 Attack Power. You can just divide your paTAP value by 1,788 to see how many shots it would take to kill your AC if your PA was full for each shot (112) or you can divide your TAP value by 1,788 to see how many shots it would take to kill your AC without it's PA up at all (48).

TDP (Total Damage Potential)

This is the total damage your AC can inflict on another AC.

 

Your TDP helps you understand your AC's actual offensive power against specific opponents. A single AC's TDP value changes according to each opponent because your expected accuracy is directly involved. Some opponents are very slow and the expected accuracy of your weapons will go up because of that, making your TDP much higher against them. Others are very fast and the expected accuracy of your weapons will drop instead, which will make your TDP much lower.

 

To figure out the TDP of a single weapon, you need to take its Attack Power and multiply it by its Ammo and then multiply
that
number by the expected accuracy for that weapon against your target AC class. Let's say that you have a rifle with 2,000 Attack Power and 150 Ammo. This specific rifle has an expected accuracy against a lightweight opponent of 25%. This means its TDP is 75,000.

 

[2,000 x 150 x 0.25 = 75,000]

 

Do this for each weapon on your AC, except for your Assault Armor and melee weapons. Now add the TDP values of all your weapons together to get your overall TDP value. If you have Assault Armor equipped, add 25,000 to your TDP value. If you have a melee weapon equipped, multiply it's Attack Power by two and then add that to your TDP. This total TDP value absolutely must be higher than your opponents TAP value or you can not kill him, with the exception of Assault Armor and unlimited ammo melee weaponry. Just a note, it's rare for an AC in AC4/fA to have a TDP value lower than an opponents TAP value.

 

How does this relate to your gameplay? Having a TDP value that is significantly higher than your opponents TAP value normally indicates an ability to destroy their AC quickly. Most importantly, having a TDP value that is twice as high or higher than your opponents TDP value almost always means you can put out much more damage than they can per minute of combat, sometimes twice as much or more.

Usability (Difficulty of Use)

This refers to how difficult it is to utilize your AC's full TDP potential.

 

The first thing to keep in mind is that Usability isn't something that's easily quantified by numbers. Remember, TDP values are your AC's
expected potential
. Simply having a high TDP value won't win you fights. It may be too difficult to utilize that TDP, even if it is theoretically possible for a person. It's this ambiguity related to usability that we struggle with daily when it comes to rating the worth of AC's.

 

An example of a high TAP/TDP potential AC would be a super heavyweight that has a large array of weapons. Why is it that these AC's aren't the end-all be-all of combat? Their values are immense, aren't they? They are, but their usability is very poor. Many of those weapons that give high TDP values are difficult to utilize. They may take a long time to lock-on, their tracking may be poor, or they may not work well together. They can, if heavy enough, cut into your mobility. The same goes for all those heavy frame parts. As they cut into your mobility they lower your TDP value and increase your opponents TDP value.

 

How can a low level of usability lessen your TDP value? You may have a hard time multi-tasking the weapon array, maintaining your lock-ons, or you may have a slow response time. This can direclty impact your expected accuracy or whether you can use those weapons at all. If you can't hit with a weapon at all, that weapons TDP value is effectively 0. How can a low level of usability increase your opponents TDP value? You may move too slowly to avoid their weapons fire, have a hard time with the controller in your hands, or you may be unable to adjust to your turning abilities. They may have come into the match with an expected accuracy of 50% for your AC class only to suddenly have an accuracy of 100%.

 

A major factor of usability in the online environment is lag. It can artificially deflate an AC's TDP with ease. Lag is perfectly capable of rendering successful hits as unsuccessful and it's almost completely uncontrollable. It can make tracking and locating AC's very difficult, thus increasing the difficulty of successfully using your weapons. The biggest problem with lag is that it's unpredictable. You never really know when your weapons are going to not count their hits or when your opponent may teleport to an area where your AC can not quickly reach.

 

Generally speaking, a difficult to use weapon or part can be overcome with training and practice. Some parts and weapons may need immense amounts of training and practice to overcome their difficulty levels. Others may be physically impossible to overcome for a person or require too much time to overcome. Overall, usability is an ambiguous trait and will probably remain one for a long time.

-----

 

Anyway, I suppose that's it for my little spiel. These concepts can't be brought into some perfectly clear picture that we can just whip out for every conversation or debate, but I feel that it's important that we really think about them. Hopefully, these concepts can help spur some extra information fields in the Wiki, too. Haha.

 

Feel free to discuss these concepts or even think up new names and acronyms for them.

 

Thanks for reading!

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  • 6 months later...

I want to extend this a little. This study is very helpful but there is one thing that might be a little misleading. The TAP can be determined by dividing your AP by the percentage of damage that you take from a weapon. However one factor that was not included with the introduction of PA was the PA penetration stat of the weapon used to take the measurement. The PA penetration stat affects the amount of damage that gets through PA and an increase in it would increase the percentage of damage you take from a weapon as well.

 

So I did some tests. The test was to take the 051ANNR, shoot the defending AC, calculate the percent of damage that went through, and then do the same with the 049ANSC, whose PA penetration is nearly 3000 higher. Here is what I found:

Lightweights experienced around +4% damage

Midweights experienced around +3% damage

Heavyweights experienced around +2% damage

 

How does this affect the TAP? A lightweight usually has low AP. This means that an increase in damage percentage will have a devastating impact on its TAP. Here is an example

I have a midweight with 40000 AP. The percentage it takes from the 051ANNR is 20%. Its spaTAP is 40000 / 0.2 = 200000. When I increase the damage by 3% by using the sniper cannon, its spaTAP vs SCs changes to 40000 / 0.23 = 173913

I have a lightweight with 30000 AP. The percentage of damage it takes from the 051ANNR is 30%. this means its spaTAP against the BFF rifle is 30000 / .3 = 100000. However, when I increase damage by 4 % for the SC here is what happens; 30000 /0.34 = 88235.

 

Of course if you do the subtraction you will see that the lightweight lost less TAP than the midweight, but that's beside the point. A lightweight takes a 12% reduction from an opponent using snipers instead of rifles, which is substantial considering they have low TAP to begin with.

 

Even though PA penetration is a new part of this equation, it does not mean you have to adjust all your TAPs for each weapon you could encounter. One luxury we have is that the PA penetration of most weapons fall into one of two areas: the 3000 range or the 6000 range. Because of this we can generalize that you will be taking standard damage from weapons in the 3000 range and about an extra 3% for those in the 6000 range. Another great conclusion of this addition is that, so long as scaling is proportional, PA penetration gives an extra 1% for every 1000 penetration. With that knowledge, you can now proceed to ignore those weapons you were thinking about choosing for their slightly higher penetration.

 

So in conclusion, lightweight users need to know that their TAP vs snipers and lasers is incredibly low. All other weight classes take a small hit too, but it nowhere near as noticeable as with lightweights. That and +200 in PA penetration actually means a lot less than I (and probably most of us) thought.

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PA gives it's own damage reduction rating at different levels of PA Rectification. When something has PA Penetration, you just subtract the penetration value from their remaining Rectification value to get their current real PA Rectification vs your weapon. Then you just use that to solve for the damage reduction granted.

 

What I'm saying is, it's best to list the actual PA Rectification and Penetration values that you are testing with.

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Ahh, right. Here is they are

Weapon 1 051ANNR, PA penetration 3500

Weapon 2 049ANSC, PA penetration 6391

 

LW1 PA rectification 16403

LW2 PA rectification 14380

MW1 PA rectification 15809

MW2 PA rectification 14209

HW1 PA rectification 17387

 

I'm glad you asked because now I realize I neglected the HW category (as usual) and only used a high PA test subject, a full Argyros frame. So I made a lower PA HW and tested it

HW2 PA rectification 11696, vs 051ANNR 13.6% vs 049ANSC 14.6%

 

Also I rounded to the nearest percent, so I decided to recalculate with all values rounded to the nearest tenth of a percent. Here are the new averaged numbers

LW vs 049ANSC +3.55%

MW vs 049ANSC +2.65%

HW vs 049ANSC +1.35%

I gotta stop rounding so early...

Are you saying you have found out how much rectification = what percentage of damage absorbed? I was just about to try to figure that out, lol.

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  • 8 months later...

I agree with Niji's breakdown somewhat, but I do think that speed is (arguably) the ultimate deciding factor in any AC game. It's less pronounced in AC4 for two primary reasons: Speed is easier to attain, and due to the erratic nature of QB maneuvering, there is a point to where it becomes superfluous. Simply put, you only ever need to be SO fast, at least in terms of evasion. There is a point to which you just don't need to be any quicker than you are, and for that reason, building in AC4 is more about hitting that speed threshold and maxing out your defensive potential. The goal is basically to be as fast as you'll ever need to be, then get as much DFP and AP as you possibly can while still meeting your speed quota. The bitch of this, of course, is doing so without running too high on your total drain, or your total weight in the case of RJs and lights. My design philosophy is usually to build a generic frame around my weapon combo as a vantage point, then improve upon it from there, maximizing my AP/DFP/energy as much as I can while keeping my losses to a minimum.

 

That's just my two cents.

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What is that threshold speed? In terms of evasion, as in avoiding incoming rounds, I do agree that there is one. However, there is no maximum useful speed for positioning/maneuvering (with the possible exception of AC's going so fast they lose AP).
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I don't know what that threshold speed is in numbers, it's just a matter of feel to me. Simply put, you know when your design is going to be too slow or clunky to catch up with the designs that DO meet that threshold level. I don't mean to say that everything in the game can be as fast as a lightweight should ever want to be, only that there is a point to which more speed is unnecessary. Theoretically, you can never be too fast, but when it comes down to "Use a full SALAF with AALIYAH arms for that little extra speed" or "Throw on some thicker parts to lose a bit of speed and gain thousands more DFP", I think the wiser choice is pretty obvious.

 

To me, building smart is as simple as maximizing output (not EN output, but output in the sense of productivity). As far as I'm concerned, positive factors like speed, AP, DFP and energy are like point values, and whichever design has the highest point total is most likely to win; obviously there's more to it than that in an actual matchup, but speaking purely in terms of frame solidarity, it's sound logic. For instance, a design with a generous amount of speed for around 9000/6000 defense (solid/EN) is likely to fare better than a slightly faster design that achieves its speed at the cost of defense, and ranks it at around 6000/4000. The faster design COULD win through absolutely immaculate play, but in all reality, that design is going to lose more in a tradeoff and its marginal speed advantage is only going to make it so slightly better at recovering lost ground; assuming equal skill level, the design with higher overall output is more likely to win.

 

Granted, I feel like each category can be more or less important depending on a number of situational factors, but we'll get into that another day so I'm not here all night.

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