Damage & Resists

• Channels: Kinetic, Thermal, Cryo, Arc, Toxin, Isotopic, Fission, Plasma, Void.
• Full pipeline in vol. 03: AR/Def, ED buckets, Crit/DS, CB, OW, per-channel resist math, Level Power Delta (FS-DMG-009).
• Anomalous/Magic removed. Resist cap 75% on all non-kinetic channels; Veteran −40; Apex Threat −100.
• Activity Recommended Level (ARL) + asymmetric out/in damage muls — orthogonal to CtH and Difficulty resists. Design: docs/superpowers/specs/2026-10-26-level-power-delta-design.md.

Damage Channels

• Kinetic — bullets and melee impacts; AR vs Defense; CB/DS/OW live here.
• Thermal — DoT, ignite, heat-shield melt niches.
• Cryo — chill/freeze; Cannot Be Frozen (CBF) is premier.
• Arc — spiky burst; Static Field-analogue % current shields/life tools.
• Toxin — total damage over duration; length reduction matters.
• Isotopic — radiation-tagged damage; lingering contamination / mark niches.
• Fission — unstable burst / split-detonation; anti-elite spike fantasy.
• Plasma — sustained high-energy beam/bolt; shield shred and mid-range pressure.
• Void — reality-shear / null-space; Hammer/Bone-analogue niche with sparse natural resists.

Anomalous / Magic is removed. Void covers the old ‘few resists’ design space.

Gem Pairing (Channel Map)

• Ruby→Thermal · Sapphire→Cryo · Topaz→Arc · Emerald→Toxin
• Gammitite→Isotopic · Nucleite→Fission · Helion→Plasma · Nullite→Void
• Weapon socket = channel damage; Armor socket = channel resist; Helm = utility.

Chance to Hit (Melee & Ballistic Hitscan)

Chance to Hit (%) ≈ 200 × (AR / (AR + DR)) × (alvl / (alvl + dlvl)), clamped (~5–95%).

• AR = Attack Rating; DR = Defense Rating; levels of attacker/defender.
• Ignore Target Defense / piercing skills / some kicks bypass or modify.
• Guns in FPS may use alternate bloom/recoil feel BUT elite melee and certain ballistic modes still respect AR/Def for hybrid consistency in Progressive MP.

Design choice: Competitive Ladder may simplify gun hit to pure aim; Story/Progressive keep ARPG depth.

Physical / Kinetic Pipeline

• 1. Weapon min–max (gun pellet or melee swing).
• 2. +min/+max from items/skills.
• 3. Enhanced Damage % (items, masteries, auras/Might-analogues).
• 4. Strength/Dex contribution by weapon class.
• 5. Skill multipliers.
• 6. Critical Strike / Deadly Strike (double damage procs).
• 7. Crushing Blow (% current life; reduced vs bosses/players).
• 8. Open Wounds (bleed-over-time).
• 9. Target mitigation: Physical Resist, DR, immunities, Bone Armor-analogues.

Energy Pipeline (All Non-Kinetic Channels)

• Applies to Thermal, Cryo, Arc, Toxin, Isotopic, Fission, Plasma, Void.
• +% Skill Damage and −% Enemy Resist (facets/pierce) matter per channel.
• Masteries reduce enemy resist for that channel.
• Conviction / Lower Resist-analogue auras/curses break immunities if <100%.
• Ananta Phonon Chord (Conviction aura on the player weapon) remains a meta enabler.

Resistance Stack

Player Caps

• Default resist cap: 75% for Thermal, Cryo, Arc, Toxin, Isotopic, Fission, Plasma, Void.
• Items can raise maximum resist per channel.
• Kinetic / Physical resist and DR% are separate; tune carefully to avoid immortality.

Difficulty Penalties (Classic ARPG)

• Normal (Operative): −0% resists.
• Nightmare (Veteran): −40% to all non-kinetic channel resists.
• Hell (Apex Threat): −100% to all non-kinetic channel resists.
• Implication: Hell gear must explicitly stack resists or die.

Other Layers

• Block — shield + Dex; Faster Block Rate analogue.
• Dodge / Avoid / Evade — ranged / mobility passives.
• Absorb flat/% — before or around resist depending on type (per channel where relevant).
• Damage Reduced by X / X%.
• Energy Shield — shift % damage to Energy.
• Bone Armor / Cyclone Armor analogues — flat pools.
• Hit Recovery — exit stun frames; density survival.

Immunities

• Hell enemies often immune to one+ channels (≥100 resist).
• Break via Conviction/LR/pierce or swap channel / skip pack.
• Kinetic Immune needs Amp/Decrep-analogue or convert-to-Void / other channel (Berserk-analogue).

Life/Energy Steal & Sustain

• Leech from kinetic damage; effectiveness falls in Hell / vs players.
• Life/Energy after kill for density builds.
• Prevent Monster Heal — Uber/boss relevant.

Complete Damage Formula Bible

Terra Firma: Awakening uses classic ARPG-depth order-of-operations for melee and hybrid kinetic hits, with energy channels for guns/skills. Exact binary constants are tunable; the pipeline shape is the design contract.

1. Chance to Hit (Kinetic Melee / Hybrid Ballistic)

ChanceToHit% = clamp( 200 × (AR / (AR + DR)) × (alvl / (alvl + dlvl)) , 5, 95 )

• AR = Attack Rating (Dex, skills, auras, jewels, Amethyst sockets, Blessed Aim-analogue).
• DR = Defense Rating (armor, Dex, Defiance-analogue, skills).
• alvl / dlvl = attacker / defender character or monster level.
• Ignore Target Defense / piercing / some kick skills modify or skip this roll.
• Missed attacks deal 0 kinetic damage (procs that require ‘on striking’ do not fire).

1b. Level Power Delta (FS-DMG-009)

• Activity publishes Recommended Level (ARL). Character Level is the only power number — no separate power-score.
• MobOffset = clamp(dlvl − ARL, −3, +5). EffectiveDelta = (alvl − ARL) + MobOffset.
• OutgoingMul / IncomingMul from nearest-integer knot table (soft overlevel cap ×1.15 / floor ×0.85; harsh underlevel).
• Orthogonal to CtH (alvl/dlvl) and Difficulty resist penalty. PvP / Ladder force muls to 1.0.
• Outgoing applies after skill multipliers; incoming after difficulty resist, before resist clamp.

2. Kinetic / Physical Damage Pipeline

• Step A — BaseMin, BaseMax from weapon (melee swing or kinetic gun pellet ruleset).
• Step B — Add flat +Min / +Max from items, charms, skills.
• Step C — Apply Enhanced Damage % sources (often additive with each other in a bucket): weapon ED%, armor ED%, off-weapon ED%, aura/Might/Fanaticism-analogues, weapon mastery.
• Step D — Attribute scaling: Str and/or Dex contribute %ED by weapon class (most melee: Str; bows/heavy spears/claws: Dex or mixed).
• Step E — Skill multipliers (Zeal, WW, Strafe, Charge, etc. analogues).
• Step F — Convert % of physical to elemental if skill/item converts.
• Step G — Critical Strike and/or Deadly Strike: chance to double physical portion (stacking rules documented internally; treat as separate proc layers).
• Step H — On-hit: Crushing Blow (% of target current life as bonus physical; reduced vs bosses/players), Open Wounds (bleed DoT), Prevent Monster Heal.
• Step I — Target mitigation: Physical Resist, Damage Reduced by X / by X%, Bone Armor-analogue pools, immunities.
• Step J — Life/Energy Steal applied from kinetic damage actually dealt (Hell/PvP effectiveness penalties).

3. Enhanced Damage Buckets (Design Note)

Players will datamine whether off-weapon ED multiplies with on-weapon ED. Publish one clear model: e.g. (Base+flat) × (1 + weaponED) × (1 + offWeaponED+attrs+auras) × skillMult. Consistency beats secrecy.

4. Elemental / Energy Skill Damage

• Channels: Thermal, Cryo, Arc, Toxin, Isotopic, Fission, Plasma, Void (Anomalous/Magic removed). Kinetic is separate.
• SkillBase (after synergies + hard points) × (1 + %SkillDamage) then apply enemy resist.
• EnemyEffectiveResist = EnemyResist − Pierce% − Mastery − Conviction/LR analogues.
• If EffectiveResist ≥ 100 → Immune (unless broken below 100).
• DamageDealt = SkillDamage × (1 − clamp(EffectiveResist, −∞, 99) / 100) (negative resist = amplify).
• Cryo applies chill/freeze length; CBF negates freeze on player.
• Toxin is total damage over duration; Poison Length Reduction shortens.
• Isotopic: contamination / mark DoT-adjacent pressure.
• Fission: burst coefficients; anti-elite spike.
• Plasma: sustained tick or bolt pressure; strong vs shields.
• Void: sparse natural resists; replaces old Magic/Anomalous niche.
• Static Field-analogue: % of current life/shields as Arc (or Plasma variant), floored by difficulty.

5. Gun Frame Damage Feel (Parallel Layer)

• RPM / Impact / Range / Handling from frame define TTK band.
• Crit multiplier and weak-spot scale Precision/High-Impact fantasies.
• Energy guns map to Thermal/Arc/Cryo/Toxin/Isotopic/Fission/Plasma/Void for immunities.
• Kinetic guns can feed leech/CB/DS under Progressive MP rules.

6. Tentacle Damage

• Level-gated: tentacle sets unlock Set 1 → Set 2 → Set 3 by character level.
• HARD LOCK: 3 tentacle sets deployed maximum; 2 tentacles per set; each set is either Offensive or Defensive (never mixed inside a set).
• Before Set 1 unlock: Mechanical Arms only (Off or Def; lowest Tentacle skills; 1 attribute; no Prefix/Suffix). Mechanical Arms damage uses the same Offensive mirror rules at a reduced coefficient (TBD).
• Offensive tentacle sets mirror active weapon channel (gun or melee) at an energy cost.
• Mirror coefficient × weapon hit after Step E (before or after crit — pick one and lock it).
• Defensive tentacle sets do not deal damage; they add absorb/CC pools.

7. Incoming Damage to Player

• 1. Avoidance (Dodge/Avoid/Evade, miss vs monster AR).
• 2. Block (shield + Dex; FBR frames).
• 3. Apply difficulty resist penalty (−0 / −40 / −100) to non-kinetic channels.
• 4. Level Power Delta IncomingMul (FS-DMG-009) — stacks with Apex resist crater.
• 5. Clamp resist to max (default 75% + max-resist items) for Thermal, Cryo, Arc, Toxin, Isotopic, Fission, Plasma, Void.
• 6. Absorb flat/%.
• 7. DR flat/% on kinetic.
• 8. Energy Shield shifts % to Energy.
• 9. Armor/Bone pools.
• 10. Remainder to Shields then Health.
• 11. Hit Recovery if damage ≥ threshold.

8. Difficulty Multipliers

• Operative (Normal): resist penalty 0.
• Veteran (Nightmare): resist penalty −40%.
• Apex Threat (Hell): resist penalty −100%; immunities common.
• Monster life/damage scale per tier; Static floors change.

9. PvP Modifier

• Separate global PvP damage scalar; leech/CB reduced; design Ladder separately.

10. Worked Mini-Example (Melee)

Base 50–60, +10 max, 200% weapon ED, 100% off-weapon ED+Str, skill ×1.5, DS proc: approx ((50to60)+0to10) × 3 × 2 × 1.5 then double on DS — then enemy phys resist. Use this only as teaching; lock real spreadsheet in engineering.