Summary: The FF upgrade gives mechs the ability to rearranage armor between certain components components, slowly and gradually, and when the mech hasn't sustained any damage for a certain amount of time. The parameters are different for different weight classes for balancing reasons.
Details:
Taking damage resets a timer on your mech to some weight-class dependent value (say, 5 secons for lights, 10 for mediums, 20 for heavies, 40 for assaults). When this timer reachs 0, armor can start redistributing between components.
Each weight class has a maximum flow rate. Let's say we let light classes shift 1 armor point per 1 second, mediums 1 point per 2, heavies 1 point per 3, assaults 1 point per 4. As always, these numbers can be tweaked for balance.
Now for the flow rules: when building your mech, you choose an armor value for each component of your mech (head, 3 front torso, 3 rear torso, 2 arm, 2 leg = 11 components. Aside from the overall value, you are choosing 10 ratio's of armor settings. E.g. head / CT front = ratio 1, left arm / CT front = ratio 2, etc.
What the armor flow will do is redistribute armor until the values reach the the ratios as set by you in the mech lab.
Let's do an example of a fictional medium-class mech with only 3 armor components. Let's say you set it up with values 40/30/30. Now you take an AC/20 to the chest and have values 20/30/30.
What should the armor be after redistribution? We have total armor left of 80, and want find a solution x1,x2,x3 where (Warning: Algebra detected):
x1+x2+x3=80; x1/x2=40/30, and x1/x3=40/30.
If you set this equation up and solve for x1, you find x1+6/4 x1 = 80; 10/4 x1 = 80; x1 = 320/10 = 32. Thus x2=x3 = 24, so your optimal armor values are 32/24/24.
Here is what would happen:
1) First we wait for the damage refresh timer to expire (since it's a medium mech, you must wait 10 seconds).
2) We're a medium mech so we can flow 1 armor every 2 seconds. So every 2 seconds, 1 point of armor would flow from the side torso's to the middle, like so:
20 30 30 after 10 seconds (here is where the timer expires)
21 29 30 after 12 seconds
22 29 29 after 14 seconds
23 28 29 after 16 seconds
....etc...
32 24 24 after 34 seconds
For comparison, a light mech could accomplish this in 5+12 seconds, a medium in 10+24 seconds, a heavy in 20+36 seconds, an assault in 40+48 seconds.
With real mechs with 11 components the algebra is more tedious but always easily solvable (by a computer).
So there you have it, my easily implementable solution to make FF armor truly worth it. Good idea or bad idea?
Edited by HansBlix WMD, 21 October 2013 - 04:23 AM.