sup all
I would like to tell I find armor insanely useless. What armor gives you as "defensive bonus" is ridiculous against decent sized weapons.
It makes you spend much more block count on defensive effects too (since defensive cost - power and group size - accounts for mass instead of block count: every armor block above hull you place is VERY COSTY compared to any system) and you end with a ship that's overall FUCKING inefficient (or minimalist), so I don't even want any on my system entity anymore. This way my defensive effects block counts are 1/3 of thoses of ships of same size that have armor on systems entity so I am always superior in every aspect (attracting missiles argument is a joke, weapons try to target systems and that's all LOL did you notice anything different? also there's a thousand way to attract missiles without armor at all).
Also it let you give defensives to armor (very cheap in block count), and use it as an ablative armor that soak SHIELD damage and NEGLECTS ion damage once it's <50% (and armor pool don't fucking matter LOL) it's so OP you guys don't even know. Also you get a free docked reactor slot (docked reactor and armor can be the same entity). Also power reactors ARENT innefficient when you're not using power transfer system. Just use the power ON the said entity (with turrets docked on it, mis/beam via bobby or such) and you're good.
So yeah Raisinbat's point is totally valid: wanna remove multiple entity ships because buildin them is a pain in the ass and you guys can't? Sure. But then what are you doing with such dumb mechanics to build DECENT interesting ships?
For me the starmade ability to combine block entities and also (but not only) moving them for doing doors, moving parts, etc. is the ABSOLUTE BEST THING. Their best "feature" ATM (Made me totally "in" the game since old stupid docking mechanics updated) and that goes with EVERYTHING WE CAN DO WITH IT. SO GODDAM WHY does it have to be restricted to hull decorations and small elevators? I'm all for reworking the mechanics but ATM docked ships are the last and best tier of tech so if you guys don't have anything interesting to offer you're just cutting the absolute most interesting part of the game. The "Chronos" ships I do (full docked features) are the biggest pain in the ass I had in videogames building (and they're goddam small compared to some titans everybody seems to do) but they're also the most effective ever seen for their size and their strength pay for all the effort.
The lag IS definitely a thing when using docked entities. Just like it is a thing when using VERY BIG ships, BIG turrets, carriers, planets or collisions. That's a thing we ALL know and we build/play with that in mind. Right? What could be improved would be cancel collision when stuff are overlapping badly. That happends when docker gets destroyed or if you fuck something while building it. Solution is: system should avoid collision nonsense by stopping colliding the two things together and separate the things smoothly from each other (no calculation anymore between thoses two (groups?) of entities until they're at safe distance). Then the docked reactor/armor stuff is totally fitting combat purposes (but also things like turrets, docked elevators, arms, hangars parts and stuff)
Lag argument is nonsense since it also concern other things than docked reactors, and can be fixet.
Learning curve argument is nonsense since they're no learning curve except reading what block does what and not doing the same aesthetic garbage everybody does.
HerrColonel out! =)
(tards rate my post funny I'm HerrColonel the clown I have no clues what Im sayin, loosers dont need to pay attention)
I used to think the same thing as you about armor, because on paper armor really does seem quite useless. However, I changed my mind after several hours of testing various weapons against ships with armor. To my surprise, armor had some very clear uses and seemed to be a hard counter to certain weapon types. I'll share with you the results of my testing here.
I tested straight weapons of various configurations vs armored and unarmored systems blocks (50x50x50) to see what sort of real damage they did. This included cannons, damage beams, and missiles, using all of the different effects (pierce, punch-through, straight damage). I also tested with piercing and punch-through effect on or off the target. I found that armor is most useful versus missiles and damage beam and least useful vs high damage cannons. For a missile that would was powerful enough to completely destroy a 22 radius of hull and system blocks, it did maybe 4 or 5 blocks of damage to advanced armor. The damage radius was also greatly reduced. It seems like the first block hit reduces the total damage done to the next block by the armor value. Spacing armor was also very effective in helping to reduce the damage. The behavior of the armor block seems that it doesn't just protect itself, it protects the 2nd block as well. Then the 2nd armor block further reduces the explosion damage to the 3rd, and so forth. Furthermore, the armor blocks seemed to change the shape of the explosion, so some blocks would receive no damage at all (especially at diagonals) Even though the armor block would sacrifice itself, it would create an exponential protective measure to the ship.
So, to test all of this out in reality, I used turrets with 500 alpha explosive missiles (3o to 45 second cool time - doing 1.5 to 2.0 million damage apiece - all 100% power efficient, so 1 computer per weapon module array) vs a ship with 50 million shields and had no advanced armor, which had around 2.5 million blocks. Then I also tried it against one with advanced armor, but which had less shields and this ship was below 2.5 million blocks as well. This was not an apples to apples comparison, but the armored ship was much smaller in block count, while weighing slightly more. I noticed that explosive missiles had a much, much harder time penetrating the advanced armor ship. I could easily 1 shot the ship that had no armor, but the advanced armor ship survived several volleys before overheating.
Now, I will argue that armor should be lighter than it is now. I think there is currently too much of a weight penalty for armor, and that should be balanced better. It's a bit too lopsided toward favoring more weapons and then relying more on shields. Having a big, slow brick is also not really that much fun to pilot.
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I did, just because you don't LIKE the answer doesn't mean I did not. Don't let the yellow name tag make you think you have authority over my opinions or use of time. You have neither
*sigh* are you seriously saying "cognitive dissonance" has anything to do with fallacies? I really can't talk to the ignorant. (/'iɡnərənt/
adjective lacking knowledge or awareness in general; uneducated or unsophisticated.)
Go call 15 other buddies to post, I'll sit here and have my (lack of)faith in humanity justified even more. Anyone who actually understands what i've said can laugh along with me.
I've won.
You stopped arguing my points and switched to name calling.
Anyone else care to take Tardis' place?
I'll pilot a ship. Sounds fun. But I'm not sure this will be a very good test. If you are testing armor vs more shields, then it really should be using the same ship, except one has more armor and the other has more shields. I'd also recommend using different gradients of values. For example, one "armor ship" would have several layers of armor. A lightly armored would have 1 layer. Then play with different combinations of hull/standard/advanced. You'd then test these ships versus a ship that has single layer hull, but more shields/shield regen. For the shielded ships, there could be three versions. One that focuses more on shield regen, another that focuses more on shield cap, and then a third that is balanced.
And THEN, you'd want to test various weapons configurations to see what works best against what, to establish archetypes of ship types. For example an "armor tank" or a "DPS glass cannon ship". You will find that some builds work better against others in 1v1. AND THEN you should test multiple ships vs multiple ships, human piloted and AI piloted, to test different tactical strategies. For example, in a 3v3 battle, you may have one team pilot one tank ship, one glass cannon, and one balanced vs all glass cannons ships. Then try the same vs all tank ships. Ect.
I've spent countless hours JUST testing weapons systems and testing a few extremes vs the other (glass cannon vs tank), but I've never fully been able to test every combination (I somehow doubt any of you have either, but are instead relying on random bits of tests and experience, since you all have some knowledge of the game but are in such a big disagreement over this armor issue). But I think this is part of what gives StarMade depth and it encourages people to share what they know (or debate it). If you guys want to do some tests, I'd be willing to participate.
