30+ PSA: Cold Suits

Today's PSA is adapted (read stolen) from a post by Fal Leithani. All the good stuff is hers - any mistakes were added in my editing.

This PSA makes multiple references to item characteristics - minimum damage, malfunction, surprise damage, etc. For additional information, please refer to the Item Characteristics PSAs.

Cold Suit
A cold suit looks like this:
-120% Weapons
+120% Shields
-120% Engines
Damage Modifier -8
Surprise Chance +40%
Hull Points +1400
It is very useful for splatting, getting lost in space with people, and it's also just fun because it does interesting things with the combat mechanics, making it a nice (and often more reliable) alternative to the malfunction suit.

What is a cold suit?
- A cold suit has at least -100% weapons (reducing them to zero or less), at least -120% engines (preferably dropping them at least 900 your opponent), and a high negative damage modifier (preferably at least equal to 1/5(your level -5), rounded down). A byproduct of cold suits is a massive HP boost, making it ideal for moving an offline/inactive player between stations by causing a lost in space event.

How does I use a cold suit?
- If you are trying to cause a mutual lost in space event, simply equip the cold suit, repair to full HP, then attack the target. If you are trying to splat, save the cold suit configuration, then uninstall everything and equip the cold suit again before attacking. This will remove the cold suit's HP boost, increasing the odds of a successful splat. Note that the big boost hit points will increase the minimum number of hull you require to attack (25% of your total hull). The cold suit won't work if you are short on hull.

Why use a cold suit instead of a malfunction suit?
- A malfunction suit dramatically increases weapons and has a 2% chance of firing successfully every round during an attack. This makes any splat attempt a gamble and makes longer fights against weaker targets very dangerous indeed. A cold suit removes all the random elements one by one, guaranteeing the outcome of the fight before it even starts. It allows very powerful ships to splat on very weak ones, and is the most reliable way to force a weaker target to change stations via a lost in space event.

What do zero or less weapons do?
- They guarantee that your opponent's shields will be higher. Because of that, your max damage will only be 1/5 of your level. Now, that means you'll still do enough to cause a lot of damage over two hundred and fifty rounds (if the combat lasts that long), if you're fighting someone who can't overcome your shields.

What do the negative engines do?
- They prevent you from accidentally ambushing your splat target for big damage and malf, and they also give your target bonus HP. Ideally, you want -900 engines or worse, so even the weakest target will get a full +90 bonus HP against you.

What does the negative damage modifier do?
- Remember how you do up to one-fifth you level in damage per hit, even with negative weapons? Well, a negative damage modifier will reduce that, to a minimum of 1. If you get a big enough negative damage modifier, you'll do only 1 damage per hit, guaranteed.

So how does it all work?
- With those three factors working together, you'll never overcome the target's shields, you'll do only 1 damage per hit, and your target will have 90 bonus HP. That means that your target will have ninety rounds of free shots where they take no damage at all, before they start taking damage at the rate of 1 a round, making a fully-functional cold suit far better than a malfunction suit for splatting, and making it downright unrivaled for causing a lost in space event, as it will deal only 160 damage to the target over the 250 rounds.

What are the downsides of using a cold suit?
- It is imperative that you not have a gunnery officer on board, and preferable that you have either a shield tech or no officer at all.
> A gunny will completely compromise a cold suit, as the weapons bonus will increase the already expensive cost of assembly and number of slots required, and the critical hits will devastate your target, dramatically increasing damage dealt.
> An engineer will hamper a cold suit, as they'll dramatically increase your damage modifier at higher levels, making it difficult to reduce to negative.
> An expert tech will make it much harder to keep engines low, and make you inflict more damage in an ambush if you fail to do so.
> A shield tech will boost your shields and reduce the critical damage you take. This won't win you a battle, but will make it harder to splat on weak opponents.

- Cold suits are difficult to come by, and expensive, and require at least 10 slots (Warship Mk IV or better), although it is possible to make a less effective cold suit with fewer slots than that.

- At very high levels (65+), even a 15 slot cold suit begins to lose effectiveness, as your base damage will be too high to completely negate with negative damage modifiers. Around level 125 or so, the loss of effectiveness becomes dramatic, although it still works better than a malfunction suit.

How do I make a cold suit?
- You fill all of your slots with unmodified Depleted Uranium Plating and Stealth Plating. The D.U.P. reduces engines, the Stealth P. reduces damage modifier. Both reduce weapons. Typically you want enough D.U.P. to have -900 engines, and enough Stealth P. to reduce your damage to 1. If you cannot accomplish both of those, then tweak your build depending on your target. Low HP targets will need as little damage as possible. Slow targets will need lower engines. I strongly recommend a build with four D.U.P. and Stealth P. in all remaining slots, if you are unsure of the math involved.

What if I don't have 10 slots?
- Your cold suit will only be effective against targets with shields strong enough to counter your weakened weapons. With nine slots, they'll need shields greater than 10% of your unmodified weapons. With eight slots it's 20%, with seven slots it's 30%, etc. You will also most likely need to tweak your cold suit's damage mod and engines on a target-by-target basis, as you'll have fewer slots to work with.

How do I tweak a cold suit?
- For this, you need an intimate understanding of the forces at work, but it basically comes down to this order of priorities, assuming you are trying to splat:
1. Drop your engines lower than your target's.
> Having superior engines is very dangerous to your target, as a lucky ambush can deal triple your level in damage and inflict 30% enemy malf, essentially crippling their vessel while giving your own extra HP.
2. Employ a negative damage mod equal to one-tenth your level, rounded down.
> contrary to what one would expect, reducing your max damage by half with a negative damage mod reduces your average damage by much more than half. This is because damage modifiers are applied after randomization. A level 40 player normally deals 1 - 8 damage against a superior shields target, doing an average of 4.5 damage per hit. A -4 damage modifier will reduce any roll of 1,2,3,4, or 5 to 1, making them deal only 1 damage with five out of every eight attacks, and reducing the average to only 1.75 damage per hit.
3. Reduce engines to 900 lower than your target's
> With your damage reduced to less than half your normal minimum, that 90 bonus HP suddenly makes a big difference for your target, especially if you intend to splat multiple times, as they "regenerate" every combat.
4. Reduce max damage to 1.
> This is the lowest priority. If you need to choose between this and dropping engines, drop engines. It does make a difference, however.

-If you are trying to cause a lost event, the priorities change a bit, as superior engines can actually help you survive the ordeal:
1. Make sure your shields are higher than their weapons.
> You need to survive 250 rounds of combat, and that can quickly become 1 round of combat if you aren't careful. Equip the highest class and mark of shields you have to occupy as few slots as possible, and remember that Stealth Plating and DUPs both increase shields by 10% each.
2. Employ a negative damage mod equal to one-tenth your level, rounded down.
> You need the target to survive a full 250 rounds of combat. As with splatting, you need to dramatically reduce your damage output.
3. It varies:
> If your target is using critical-heavy or damage mod-heavy equipment, boost your HP with D.U.P.
> If your target has high HP, consider keeping your engines higher than theirs for the extra malfunction and bonus HP to protect yourself.
> If your opponent has very little HP and isn't very dangerous, then follow the splat target priorities.