Health/Shield/Jetpack Mechanics from GDC Videos

[Malorn]

The armor/shield thread got me thinking and I went back to look at the GDC videos for how the armor/shield system actually worked. I focused on the HUD elements in the lower-right, where health, ammo, shield, and jetpack are shown. If you look at the original 4-part videos you can see the lower right HUD better than the consolidated 40-minute unified video.

Here are my observations, which I have documented in the following image album:
http://imgur.com/a/NChQG#0

All the images have comments describing what I am writing in this post. Browsing the album is probably the easiest way but I'll summarize the information here.

Observations



1) 20 health bars, and 20 Shield bars

• 20 is also a factor of 100, so I am going to go out on a limb and say that the values are 100 health & 100 shield, represented by bars that account for 5 health/shield each.
• The damage rate taken by Higby in the video appeared consistent through both health and shield, so it appears that a given player's overall effective hit points is 50% health, and 50% shield.

2) Damage goes entirely to shield before health

• At no point in taking damage did health go down before shields went down.
• This is clearly seen during times when Higby takes fall damage, both from using the jetpack and when bailing from his aircraft.
• After shields are depleted then it goes into health with a "Warning" over shield until it starts regenerating.

3) Shield Regen delay was 5 seconds after not taking damage

• After 5 seconds of not taking damage, shield regen kicks in.
• I observed this by watching the timer count in the video from the time Higby took damage and when his shield started regenerating again.

4) Shield Regen was 4 bars every 1 second

• This equates to 20% shield regenerated every second
• Total time from having stopped taking damage to full shield regen is 10 seconds (5 for it to kick in, 5 for it to fully regenerate)
• Note that there are shield sidegrades that could change this.

5) Health Damage was Permanent

• I did not see throughout the entire video a point where the health regenerated even a single bar on its own.
• It might have been extremely slow (if it was on a 100-point scale and each bar is 5 points then it could have regenerated a few points and not have been noticed)
• Medics are thus presumed required for repairing damage past 50%

6) The player shimmers blue when the shield kicks in.

• This is observed clearly here in this screenshot

7) The Jetpack has 13 energy bars and regenerated 1 per second

• The jetpack indicator is above the ammo.
• It is not all-or-nothing, you can use only part of the jetpack energy or use short hops as opposed to using it all at once. Seems to operate similarly to the VS jumpjets from PS1.

8) The Jetpack starts at 0 energy after a respawn.
Everytime Higby respawned at the galaxy his jetpack started at 0 energy and built up.


This does not explain the role of "armor" in the game, in terms of light assault vs heavy assault vs infiltrator at least. I assume that much like vehicle armor, class armor offers passive mitigation. For example, an infiltrator might take 12 damage per shot from a cycler, while a light assault only takes 10 and a heavy assault takes 8. There is no need to repair armor in this model it's just the heavier infantry simply take less damage overall.


TL;DR: Look at pictures and read the comments -> http://imgur.com/a/NChQG#0