Elements

The Element system is a mechanic in Steambirds Alliance.



The Five Elements
Many enemies and attacks are affiliated with exactly one of five elements: Fire, Water, Lightning, Poison or Ice. Each element is strong against a second element and weak against a third element.
 * Fire is strong against Poison and weak against Water.
 * Water is strong against Fire and weak against Lightning.
 * Lightning is strong against Water and weak against Ice.
 * Poison is strong against Ice and weak against Fire.
 * Ice is strong against Lightning and weak against Poison.

Elemental Defense
Avian aircraft do not possess an innate affinity for any of the five elements. However, they can utilize elemental Armor and resistance upgrades to reduce the damage and status effect potency of elemental attacks. Elemental bullets have particle trails and status effects not present on non-elemental bullets:
 * Fire bullets have a trailing orange flame.
 * Enemy-sourced Fire bullets deal no instant Fire damage --- instead, their Fire damage component is dealt over time through the burn status effect inflicted by the bullet (usually lasting for 3 seconds), acting as a reduction to Armor Self-Repair. (Player-sourced Fire bullets instead deal instant Fire damage without a significant burn effect.)
 * Water bullets throw out small blue bubbles.
 * Lightning bullets emit purple sparks as they move.
 * Poison bullets leave red skulls in their wake.
 * Ice bullets are denoted by a white mist.
 * All Ice bullets slow their targets for a set duration, reducing Max Speed (and Super Speed) and Agility based on the magnitude of the slow. By default, player-sourced Ice bullets inflict a 10% slow on enemies for 0.1 seconds.

Regardless of their class, aircraft can benefit from 12 elemental resistance upgrades of each type. Each used upgrade applies a 0.97x multiplier to incoming damage of the associated element, resulting in a net ~30.6% damage reduction at 12 applied upgrades.

Elemental Offense
The vast majority of T9, T10, Elemental (ELEM) and Special (SPEC) Weapons (as well as some Pilot Skills) deal at least some elemental damage. Elemental damage, just like Physical and Confuse damage, is increased by Damage multiplier; additionally, elemental damage components are increased further by the bonuses of applied elemental damage upgrades. Each applied upgrade multiplies damage of the associated element by an additional +4%, up to +48% damage (multiplicative with Damage multiplier) at the 12-upgrade maximum for each upgrade type.

Generally, element-affiliated enemies take 200% damage from their elemental weakness and 50% damage from their elemental affinity; however, enemies exist which have nonstandard elemental damage interactions. For enemies with standard interactions, the following guidelines are useful for estimating practical damage output:
 * Against neutral targets, Physical/hybrid/Elemental weapons deal 100%/100%/100% base damage without upgrades and 100%/112%/148% base damage with capped elemental damage upgrades.
 * Against resistant targets, Physical/hybrid/Elemental weapons deal 100%/87.5%/50% base damage without upgrades and 100%/93.5%/74% base damage with capped elemental damage upgrades.
 * Against weak targets, Physical/hybrid/Elemental weapons deal 100%/125%/200% base damage without upgrades and 100%/149%/296% base damage with capped elemental damage upgrades.