Shields & Armour --- what's the point?

[Phoenix-D]

"For an upgrade to be "useful" it needs to offer original features + some extras; all other upgrades do."

Stealth and scattering are *by far* worth the extra size. Don't underestimate that 15% defense bonus!

Armor is kind of puny compared to shields in general; especially when you consider that in the unmodded game there are NO shield-skipping weapons, but there *are* weapons that skip armor.

Phoenix-D

[tesco samoa]

Jon you need to take into conderation what the role of the ship will be.

Also what role it will have within a fleet.

I tend to make missle ships light on the armor and with no shields.

But a close assult ship that needs to take be able to take a pounding needs armour and/or shields.

When you start to factor in fleet tatics with different class ships the Armour and Shields issue must be addressed.

A classic armour design ship is the base ship with 1 computer 1 aux bridge 2 marine units 2 defence marine units, 2 engines, 1 weapon that has greatest damage for a fire rate of one and the rest of the ship is armour. As a variation to this class replace 5 armour with point defence
Tatic of the ship is point blank Secondary tatic is ram.

Now think of 10 of these supported by battleship - missle class ships...

There a wall.

Planetary assult ships need shields to surive.

etc...

[Texfire]

Please correct me if I am wrong, but Null Space Weapons are in the unmodded game and skip both armor and shields.

Texfire

[geoschmo]

quote:

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Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
[QB} especially when you consider that in the unmodded game there are NO shield-skipping weapons, but there *are* weapons that skip armor.
[/QB]

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There may be no weapons that skip shields and hit the armor (I can't remember honestly) but there are plenty that skip armor AND shields. And there are the shield depleters and the temporal "Quad damage to shileds" weapons.


Geoschmo

[Zarix]

Emissive armor is totally useless. Stealth and scattering armor gives defensive modifier that stacks so with both you can have +30. That is a lot.

Choice between normal and phased shields depends on your enemies. It is good to remember that if your enemy uses phased weapons normal shield become totally useless. I agree with you on that normal shields shoudn't be replaced by phased in the design window.

Also armor stops mine damage but shields don't.

Yes, Null Space skips both armor and any shields.

[Jon Brave]

All interesting, but before we lose the point:

* Aren't phased shields a bad "upgrade" for normals? Don't you find you cannot afford to use "Hide Obsoletes" or "Upgrade" if you accidentally research them, which is ?

* Armour: I can see this area is complicated; other Posts seem to think emissive, at least, is broken, non-modded. Persuade me the horrendous drop in size/damage + vastly increased cost is worth it...

I could just do with clarification on how these work. For instance, is 75 phased shields *really* pointless compared to 300 normals against most weapons?

[Gandalph]

quote:

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Originally posted by Jon Brave:
<snip>* Aren't phased shields a bad "upgrade" for normals? Don't you find you cannot afford to use "Hide Obsoletes" or "Upgrade" if you accidentally research them, which is ?
<snip>

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I have to agree with this to the point that I modded the families so that both will show up in the design window even with only latest selected.