Armor

[jimmyca]

Hi all,

New to the game this month. Having lots of fun (even though I played the first game on Normal and as a Star Trader. Was level 47 and thinking 'now what?' when I discovered more difficulty settings lol)

Anyway, after upping the diff on a few captains and getting a few killed I now have a few in progress Captains at difficulties ranging from Challenging to Crazy (and my original Normal guy of course). No Insanes yet lol. I've played all the classes now except 'Captain' and the unlockable roles (Zealot and Spy?).

My question for everyone is about Armor. From the Help info it seems that the effectiveness of Armor is related to the Armor-Hull ratio. I am struggling with what that means and if there is more I should know about it.

I've come to have high expectations of Armor and I find myself deliberately taking low hull ships (like 10 or so) so I can upgrade to a higher than 1 armor-hull ratio. I also always shoot for 3 to 1 Sails to hull when possible, and a high Engine-hull ratio doesn't hurt either..

So, if as an example I have 10 Hull and 12 Armor, do I have more overall protection than if I had 20 Hull and 0 armor? How does armor affect total hitpoints?

Thanks for any insights

[Deleted]

High hull and armor are good for resisting board, gun and ram damage. Its also good for preventing boarding by enemies. The higher the armor compared to hull, the better. However, a ship with 40 hull and 22 armor is going to resist A LOT more damage than a ship with 10 hull and 15 armor. There are 3 things to keep in mind when analyzing how well your ship can resist damage: 1) hull value 2) armor value 3) armor to hull ratio.

However, FAST ships and high engine to hull ratio are great for preventing damage (or attack from gun, torp, board). So a very big hull/armor ship with low agility may be able to take a lot of damage and prevent enemies from boarding you but will have a hard time avoiding enemy attack (except for boarding). A FAST, small ship with low hull/armor will be great at avoiding attacks, but if attacked won't be able to take that much damage, especially for boarding.

Its the same for QUICK ships and sails tohull ratio except QUICK/sails does torp/avoid torp and FAST does gun/ram/avoid ram/avoid gun/aboid board.


Also, big crew ships generally have big hull/armor. So for boarding, big ships are the way to go. For gunning, fast ships are the way to go. There are FAST/QUICK medium sized ships (20-30 hull) making it good for gunning/torping/avoiding as well as resisting/boarding. But if you want to focus primarily on board, go for big/big crew. If you want to focus primarily on avoiding attack, especially gun/torp, go for small/FAST/QUICK

[jimmyca]

Thanks for responding

I like Fast AND Tough if possible. Being fast requires the high Sail-to-Hull, and Engine-to-Hull. To get those high ratios a low Hull helps. Guess a straight question would be does a Hull 20 ship take more damage than a Hull 10 Armor 10 ship?

[Deleted]

Fast is sail-to-hull, Quick is engine-to-hull

QUICK
- 2:1 base engine to hull ratio
- Major pilot advantage for combat over medium agility ships (good for medium and short range combat)
- Major bonus for urban/wild landings over medium ships (good for less encounters for landing, less accidents for landing)
- Increased fuel-consumption over medium agility ships
- Increased cost over medium agility ships

FAST
- 2:1 base sail to hull ratio
- Major stealth advantage for combat over medium speed ships (good for long and medium range combat)
- Major bonus for deep-space flight over medium ships (good for less encounters for deep-space, less accidents for deep space)
- Increased fuel-consumtion over medium speed ships
- Increased cost over medium agility ships

There are ships that are fast/quick that are relatively big, but if you want to go to exteames (an extreamly fast/quick ship or an extreamly tough ship), you have to choose between small and fast/quick or big and slow.

There is a ship list on the forum that shows the stats of all the ships. You should take a look at that.

And about the hull/armor question, it depends. A hull 20 armor 6 would do better against a hull 10 armor 10, but both are pretty weak. A hull 30 armor 16 would be tougher than a hull 17 armor 17, but a hull 20 armor 22 would probably be tougher than a hull 24 armor 4. You have to use your imagination to decide which would be tougher.