Hopefully this isn't also old news like my last thread.
It's easiest to show what I found by just posting the data, which was taken by shooting myself while boosting with the raider;
no parts, net 0% reduction bonus: 0% of damage removed
b. deflectors, net 10% reduction: 10% of damage removed
deflectors, net 20% reduction: 20% of damage removed
b. fail + b. def, net 30% reduction; 28% damage removed
failsafe, net 40% reduction; 40% damage removed
failsafe + b. def, net 50% reduction; 46% damage removed
failsafe + deflectors, net 60% reduction; 52% damage removed
the first thing to notice is that, the more reduction you add, the further your actual value deviates from your expected value
the second thing to notice is that, for some reason, this doesn't affect my trial with just a failsafe even though it has more reduction than the prior, which was reduced
across the board, only trials with multiple parts equipped at once were effected
a gold star for someone who can produce a mathematical model to explain this. Note that a failsafe will still block the full 40% if you have deflectors equipped and aren't boosting, the downscaling only kicks in when multiple parts are actually active, not just equipped.
---
EDIT; figured it out because of that last sentence I wrote, I get a gold star even though someone probably already knew this.
What the game is doing is applying one bonus, reducing the damage, then applying the next bonus to the already-reduced damage for some reason instead of applying them all in one fell swoop.
Inventively you'd think a 40% bonus + a 20% bonus means DamageTaken=DamageGiven*(1-0.4-0.2)=DamageGiven*0.4, aka you only take 40% of the damage given because you blocked 60%.
When you don't do it all at once you get DamageTaken=[DamageGiven*(1-0.4)]*(1-0.2)=DamageGiven*0.48, aka you take 48% of the damage, which lines up with the prior measurement where 52% was removed with both a failsafe and a pair of deflectors.
Basically you reduce the incoming damage by 40, then take that new reduced damage, and in turn reduce THAT by 20, instead of reducing the initial damage by 60. If you do the 20 first and the 40 second nothing changes (you can just remove the parenthesis in the equation I wrote), but either way it's a lot less than a 60% reduction.
What this means in a nutshell is that if I had 2 parts which decreased the incoming damage by 10% equipped at the same time, or if I had one 15% and one 5% part stacked together, they would be less effective than one part which decreases the incoming damage by 20%.
---
Nevermind, that's wrong. I bolded the part that shows it's wrong. Removing 48% =/= taking 48%. However it lines up when you use 0.4 and 0.1, I might have just written my last trial down improperly. Gonna go check that.
Nevermind, that's right! My third trial was written as 48% instead of 52% at first because I flipped it around by accident. I've since fixed it and the math works properly. (1-0.4-0.2)=0.4, 40% taken/60% blocked, whereas (1-0.4)*(1-0.2)=0.48, 48% taken/52% blocked. All you need to read is the stuff written above the last "---" I left.
Edited by Acguy, 22 December 2016 - 11:37 PM.