Damage

Damage is ubiquitous in the game. Without damage, nobody will have to ever repair their ships; the point of combat is lost. Everyone has experienced damage in VEGA Conflict. But do you know how damage is calculated in the game?

This section is for those who have basic knowledge of the game and are interested in understanding the underlying game mechanics regarding damage. Repair times will also be discussed here.

Dealing Damage
What deals damage?

In VEGA Conflict, the vast majority of damage is dealt by weapons. These can be mounted on a hull or a base module. If you want to understand how weapons work, there is an entire article dedicated to it here.

The secondary damage source includes squadrons and wings, for hulls and base modules respectively. These are arguably also classified as weapons. However, squadrons/wings are more than just weapon projectiles: they are basically mini-ships. Each squadron/wing has its own health and fuel bar, and can deal damage over time as long as it is active. The DPS (Damage Per Second) dealt during combat is equal to Combat DPS = Listed DPS * Current Health / Max. Health

Once the squadron/wing uses up all its fuel or is destroyed, it returns to the hangar and is discharged again after a brief period.

The tertiary damage source is damage fields. As of current, only Terminus Mines and other minefields produce such a damage field. When an enemy enters this field, it starts taking damage over time equal to the DPS of the field.

The final damage source is one-off damage dealers. Upon the destruction of any base module, a fixed amount of collateral damage is dealt to nearby structures. Also meet the Unstable Reactor, which deals splash damage upon the death of a ship. The Surge Core used by Harvesters inflicts moderate damage with a large AoE when certain health percentages are reached.

Damage Types
Damage is usually prefixed with its Damage Type, which classifies the damage source. For example, "Alien Damage" refers to damage with a Damage Type of "Alien".

Calculations
Damage can be expressed in two ways, each with different calculations.

Damage
Damage, or Damage per Shot, is simply the amount of damage applied by each projectile upon impact.

Damage Per Second
DPS, or Damage Per Second (NOT Damage Per Shot, despite the identical acronym), is the average amount of damage dealt per second.

Certain weapons fire multiple shots per burst and/or split into secondary projectiles upon impact. In most cases, the damage is split between these projectiles such that the average amount of damage the weapon would do in regular combat roughly matches the DPS.

Some attacks have a listed DPS value yet only fire one shot. In this special case, DPS is considered to be identical to Damage per Shot.

Damage Modifiers
Damage and Damage Per Second are both subject to modifiers which may increase or decrease the overall damage. Damage modifiers can target:
 * Health, which modifies the portion of damage dealt to armor and ablative armor.
 * Shield, which modifies the portion of damage dealt to shields.
 * Class, which includes all ships of the specified class.
 * Faction, which includes all ships of the specified faction.
 * Type, such as ships, modules and squadrons.

If multiple modifiers are applicable to the same target, they are stacked as follows: Damage Taken = Original Damage * (1 + Modifier 1) * (1 + Modifier 2) * ...

For example, an ECHO Ray (-50% module damage) boosted with Ionized Optics III (+40% shield damage) will deal 100% * (1-50%) * (1+40%) = 70% of its normal damage against a module's shields.

Mitigating Damage
There are two ways to directly reduce the amount of damage taken to your ship or module's health: by equipping defenses or increasing your ship or module's resistance.

Defense
Defenses such as shields, ablative armor and screens protect their targets by intercepting a portion of the damage dealt. The remainder goes through and damages the health of the target instead. The percentage of the damage intercepted is governed by its "Defense" stat.

Some effects can increase Shield Defense, such as the carrier field provided by the Riposte Overdrive. These effects are applied additively, so a Metaphase Shield affected by the Riposte carrier field would have a total of 90% + 10% = 100% shield defense, without considering Shield Bypass. This means that most ships will not be able to even damage your health as long as you keep up your shields!

Similarly, the Stalk overdrive of the Aerico can boost the Defense of ablative armor by 5%.

Resistance
Damage taken can be reduced by the amount specified by Damage Resistance for that specific Damage Type.