Importance of Armour?

[ncaoa]

I'm playing on normal and have been getting away with reducing ship cost by stripping armour and giving high durability and evasion. Is high armour in 4x like in rpg more important on higher levels?

[fallen]

ncaoa - it can be a great way to keep down cost! High durability can keep hull high enough that your ships can survive a beating still. Truly long-life ships will combine armor and high durability. On the flip side, high evasion ships can avoid the hits and live their own long life. Lots of design decisions!

[ncaoa]

Thanks fallen !Great points.So many choices are why it's so awesome. I try to keep one "capital" cruiser for invasion fleets that turtles up with my current best armor torp, and torpedo spread training. Like wise, agile cruisers and fighters cover that torp platform.

[Guest]

Think of it this way : survivability-wise, each hull point becomes worth more when you have better defense. That means if you sacrifice HP for armor, a ship can have a similar durability but(!) in contrast repairs become quicker and cheaper. A low armor, high HP ship can soak damage, but afterwards it is useless until you fix it enough. A high armor ship will take some damage and even if it has less max HP, you can fix it right up.

If armor soaks up a certain amount of damage each hit, I can put it another way. The value of armor depends on how much the ship gets hit (without dying of course). The more often it is getting hit, the more valuable the armor becomes. Since it takes more weak hits to get killed than strong hits, armor is also more useful against weaker attacks. Oh hey, high HP means you can take more hits too, so high armor is actually most powerful with high hull!

Also, torpedoes in ST RPG bypassed armor...

[Cory Trese]

Radiation damage (primary for high end torps) bypasses Armor as well.

Currently the majority of the tech tree is still hidden, so "basic torps" are all we're balancing right now.

[Guest]

Egads, the MAJORITY?

Thanks for the explanation of the radiation too! There's so much more depth to look forward to... But then the early, overpriced radiation shielding upgrades seem useless.

[Cory Trese]

Jun 23, 2014 16:51:29 GMT -5 Guest said:

Egads, the MAJORITY?

Thanks for the explanation of the radiation too! There's so much more depth to look forward to... But then the early, overpriced radiation shielding upgrades seem useless.

There are Xenos coming in the next update that make it much less worthless.

The current tech tree is "part 1" of 4 major parts. =)

The intent of the final tech tree is to make it nearly impossible to research all of it in a single game.

You'll have to pick a branch to focus on and forget about the other parts.

Then, play a new game and go down a different branch!

[manne]

That sounds awesome!

[Cory Trese]

Jun 23, 2014 13:52:16 GMT -5 Guest said:

Think of it this way : survivability-wise, each hull point becomes worth more when you have better defense. That means if you sacrifice HP for armor, a ship can have a similar durability but(!) in contrast repairs become quicker and cheaper. A low armor, high HP ship can soak damage, but afterwards it is useless until you fix it enough. A high armor ship will take some damage and even if it has less max HP, you can fix it right up.
Also, torpedoes in ST RPG bypassed armor...

This is a really good analysis.

The interplay between Armor and cost of ship ownership is intentionally skewed towards Armor (even with the additional maint) being far cheaper than the % penalty for heavily damaged ships.

A fully armored ship with 200 HP, damaged to 190 vs. a 400 HP ship damaged to 220 ... the maintenance cost for the 400HP ship can be as high as 3 times the Credits / turn, which makes a 35/Turn main rate on high end armor hull seem irrelevant.

[ncaoa]

Jun 23, 2014 17:10:42 GMT -5 Cory Trese said:

Jun 23, 2014 13:52:16 GMT -5 Guest said:

Think of it this way : survivability-wise, each hull point becomes worth more when you have better defense. That means if you sacrifice HP for armor, a ship can have a similar durability but(!) in contrast repairs become quicker and cheaper. A low armor, high HP ship can soak damage, but afterwards it is useless until you fix it enough. A high armor ship will take some damage and even if it has less max HP, you can fix it right up.
Also, torpedoes in ST RPG bypassed armor...

This is a really good analysis.

The interplay between Armor and cost of ship ownership is intentionally skewed towards Armor (even with the additional maint) being far cheaper than the % penalty for heavily damaged ships.

A fully armored ship with 200 HP, damaged to 190 vs. a 400 HP ship damaged to 220 ... the maintenance cost for the 400HP ship can be as high as 3 times the Credits / turn, which makes a 35/Turn main rate on high end armor hull seem irrelevant.

Thank you Cory and Guest. This is very helpful. I can testify to the extremely long repair phases spent after combat.And I tend to lose money during this time also. because I have several ships parked in faction space repairing.I'm going to put more attention into armor in my next game.

[Brutus Aurelius]

Jun 23, 2014 16:52:24 GMT -5 Cory Trese said:

Jun 23, 2014 16:51:29 GMT -5 Guest said:

Egads, the MAJORITY?

Thanks for the explanation of the radiation too! There's so much more depth to look forward to... But then the early, overpriced radiation shielding upgrades seem useless.

There are Xenos coming in the next update that make it much less worthless.

The current tech tree is "part 1" of 4 major parts. =)

The intent of the final tech tree is to make it nearly impossible to research all of it in a single game.

You'll have to pick a branch to focus on and forget about the other parts.

Then, play a new game and go down a different branch!

I mean, I knew that there were going to more branches, but 3 MORE! It takes almost 10 years in game to get what we have so far almost completely researched!

[ncaoa]

Jun 23, 2014 16:52:24 GMT -5 Cory Trese said:

Jun 23, 2014 16:51:29 GMT -5 Guest said:

Egads, the MAJORITY?

Thanks for the explanation of the radiation too! There's so much more depth to look forward to... But then the early, overpriced radiation shielding upgrades seem useless.

There are Xenos coming in the next update that make it much less worthless.

The current tech tree is "part 1" of 4 major parts. =)

The intent of the final tech tree is to make it nearly impossible to research all of it in a single game.

You'll have to pick a branch to focus on and forget about the other parts.

Then, play a new game and go down a different branch!

You mean we only have a fourth right now! And it's already huge.

[Cory Trese]

The end game plan for the game will require approximately 52 years in game to achieve the end of one of the major branches, or 200 years in game to get the entire thing.

[beverage]

Awesome, I didn't pick up that Damaged ships require more maintenance. How does this cost stack with being in Red sectors (does it simply add or is it exponential increase?).

The armour insight is an aspect I never thought of, I better start armouring up some! (I am guilty of totally neglecting it)

Also clarifies why my income fluctuates from comfortably stable to almost crippling recession when I venture out to give the Xeno a throatpunch but cop a few blows in the process.

Guest needs to join the forum so I can exalt him/her

[Cory Trese]

All maintenance penalties stack. If you're low on fuel, in red zones and damaged ... it is all multipliers, in that order. Fuel -> Red Zone -> Damage

I've seen, just one ships in extended Red Zone battles push Ship Maintenance up over 160% ... people sometimes blame politics for the economic slumps that could very well be corrected with better Fleet Command.

You can check this number in "Player Summary"