Shield recharging components question...

[Escaflowne]

In either case, whether it is Crystal Armor or Shield Regenerators, I think they are too weak by default and need to be upgraded.

Unmodded shield regenerators are a joke. You can't get any useful amounts of help from them because you would need to fill the ship with them in order to give you a useful amount of shielding in the middle of a fire fight.

In my game I modded them by boosting thier regen rate by a factor of 5. I put 3 of them on my ships and then they give a decent amount of output in the middle of a battle.

As for Crystal armor, I respect it for its low cost, high durablity, and light weight. But its shield regen properties are worthless. 25 points of shields from an incoming bLast isn't going to dull anything but the smallest and weakest weapons. Anything able to do a decent amount of damage will plow through the skeleton shields, rip through the armor, and tear into the ship.

But that's just me venting about the lack of usable shield regenitive abilites in an unmodded game.

[Wardad]

Just my 2 cents....

Boarding parties are obstucted by shields. Shield regen will restore some shields and keep the boarding ships from using the boarding strategy in strategic combat. This is true even if the shields are knocked down by the first shot of a combat round.

Of course security stations would be more useful. I once built an armor only Magnet ship to trap boarding ships. It had 4 security stations on board.

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Good flute, good sax, and a warm place for fiddlin.

[Suicide Junkie]

According to my calcluations, it turned out that for unmodded SE4, if your ship could be expected to survive 7 or more turns in combat after first being hit, then adding a regenerator would provide more protection than adding a shield generator instead.

So, unmodded regenerators are really only useful for small fleets or one-on-one fights, and/or for races with a significant To-Hit defense advantage

[Taz-in-Space]

Thanks Guys, now let me see if I understand.

Crystalline Armor will add to shields immediately
after a hit. While Shield Regenerators will only add to shields at the end of a combat round.
These components WILL stack. And most players think that in unmodded SEIV they are not worth the cost.

Seems to me that a combination of Emissive Armor and Crystalline Armor might be somewhat effective. (in the latest Version of SEIV)
Emmisive reduces by 30 and say Crystalline adds 20 to shields for a reduction of 50 each hit.

[Suicide Junkie]

Emissive and Crystalline will stack somewhat.
Emissive will get first shot at reducing the damage, and crystalline will add the remainder to the shields.

Crystalline is basically delayed-action emissive armor, since it reduces damage from the next hit, rather than the current hit.
Crystalline also provides a maximum protection of 50% damage absorption to low-hitpoint components. (Low hitpoint components = more than one destroyed with a single shot: vs WMGs, pretty much any component is a LHC.)
...Plus the boarding party defense...

If you combined Emissive and Crystalline, small-damage weapons could sap your shields and leave your ship open to boarding.

[ September 04, 2002, 21:02: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

[oleg]

Originally posted by Taz-in-Space:
Thanks Guys, now let me see if I understand.

Crystalline Armor will add to shields immediately
after a hit. While Shield Regenerators will only add to shields at the end of a combat round.
These components WILL stack. And most players think that in unmodded SEIV they are not worth the cost.

Seems to me that a combination of Emissive Armor and Crystalline Armor might be somewhat effective. (in the latest Version of SEIV)
Emmisive reduces by 30 and say Crystalline adds 20 to shields for a reduction of 50 each hit.

Don't forget that crystalline armor stack. 8 CA III + EA III makes you impregnable to weapons with less than 150 damage. Even against bigger guns, it will prolong you survival immensely

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by oleg:
8 CA III + EA III makes you impregnable to weapons with less than 150 damage. Even against bigger guns, it will prolong you survival immensely

Not if I understand crystal armor it doesn't. The points get put to shields yes, but they also get applied to the crystal structure and the ramor gets destroyed. You might be impregnable to one shot from a 180 damage weapon, but the second shot will get through. You seem to be saying it's emmisive armor with the bonus of putting the points to your shields instead of just disapating it nowhere. I don't think that's the case.

Geoschmo