armor placement

[endoric]

question on armor.

does it need to be on the external of my ship or will simple hull blocks do with armor somewhere inside as if it was a module or system?

is there a benifit to actually putting it outside or no? clearly its a lot to replace hull with armor.

 

[Madman198237]

Armor HAS to be on the outside to be effective. It directly stops shots like limited-use shields. Your Armor HP measures how long you have until your armor is no longer going to absorb extra damage. Internal armor has uses, but as this stage of your learning process, they aren't as important. For now, all you need to know is: Armor works like real-life armor. It doesn't do anything if left lying around in big chunks.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

To further Madman198237's explanation...

Your ship's survivability when taking damage will be determined in the following sequence.

1) Shields: Shields block out all damage and they regenerate. This makes you borderline invincible as long as they are online. Keep your shields up.

2) Armor: Ok, so you're in a fight and the enemy knocked your shields down. Armor is your next line of defense. It acts a s solid barrier between weapons fire and the important parts of your ship that you can't do without (power, thrusters, computers, etc.) It doesn't regenerate but it reduces damage taken (60-75%) and adds an additional damage buffer (armor hit points) to reduce damage even further.

3) Systems: If you're taking heavy system damage, the end is near and you've screwed up a long time ago. Efficient power generators will help keep you in the fight but your best bet is to not get hit without armor and/or shields to protect you.


They say a picture is worth a thousand words so here's an eye full of 'ouch'.

This was a test fight I had yesterday against an older version of my Pathfinder frigate. My ship (the one on the left) is covered with advanced armor while the one on the right has only basic hull. Notice the holes on my hull. Those are MISSILE impacts. You may also notice random dark spots on my hull. Those are areas where my armor blocked incoming cannon fire.

During the fight, I couldn't land a single missile on the enemy (he had 8 point defense guns. Do the math...) so I had to get close and use my cannons. By the end of the fight, the entire front and starboard ("right side" for ye yellow bellied land lovers) of the enemy ship looked like it was put through a cheese grater. Meanwhile, my shields are offline through about 90% of the fight (400,000 damage ion cannon) and I'm tanking missiles like I'm the final boss of StarMade.
Keep your armor where it belongs; on the outside of your ship.

 

[siserith]

also if you building a REALLY large ship (more than 1000 meters at least) where maneuverability doesn't count in the least, try a honeycombed internal structure of advanced Armour as well as "spaced" Armour made of different types Ie 1-3 layers adv Armour 3-6 of basic/grilles/mesh and another of adv. this dramatically increases effectiveness against missiles and cannon and should be nearly impossible to penetrate by smaller ships no matter the quantity unless they use missile/pulse/overdrive en masse. the mesh/grilles/basic hull will easily absorb the impacts from missiles while being light and expending minimal resources/hp on hit. and the honeycombed structure dramatically improves Armour and protects systems as well as develops isolated chunks in your ship to further protect against missiles. you should also have a further at least 2m thick armour around your power systems which should be isolated in the middle of your ship farthest away from combat. turrets should also be sunken into this armour as much as possible. and try to cover the barrels with slabs at least.

 

[Madman198237]

While what siserith describes is one way to build a dreadnought, you can also go with a sheer shield tanker that relies on shields and higher DPS. Dr. Whammy's example is a fine one, however, I urge you to remember that that guy builds his warships with more weapons options than a Mandalorian supercommando and built to do nothing but destroy. So, normally your shields ought to last a bit longer, and your armor should take a hit or two before failing.

At any rate, those are two good schemes for ship-building and defense. I personally go shield-heavy (Repairs are generally much less frequent and inexpensive if you do so, but you lose if the enemy packs a decent ion-effect weapon) and try for staying power (Extreme durability and shielding).

 

[Brokengauge]

You could also try an "all or nothing" armor scheme. Simply put, don't armor areas that don't have something important in it, and don't armor things that won't be facing the enemy.

That being said, where you DO put armor needs to be stacked as thick as you can stand it.

Of course, I only pvp against one guy, so maybe ignore my bad advice. I'm just on a WW2 kick right now, which is when that type of armoring technique was used extensively...

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Also, don't forget about the passive effect systems.

- Passive Ion reduces damage done to your shields by up to 60% in exchange for a very low power requirement.

- Passive Piercing redirects up to 25% of damage away from physical blocks and toward your armor hit points; negating physical damage done to armor blocks at the cost of armor HP.

- Passive Punch-through "hardens" your armor HP value by reducing the amount of armor hit points lost (up to 25%) when you take damage.

If you can cram all three systems onto a ship, your shields will negate (if my numbers are accurate) 60% of incoming damage. Advanced armor has 250 block hit points in addition to a 75% reduction in incoming damage. That gives a stock advanced armor block 1000 'effective' hitpoints. Factor in the passive piercing effect (25% damage redirect) and your enemy will need to inflict 1334 damage to destroy just 1 block of your armor. Meanwhile, the loss of armor HP caused by the re-directive effect of your passive pierce effect will be offset by your passive punch-through effect.

In lay man's terms; you become a bullet sponge and your opponets will hate fighting you.

 

[Madman198237]

You just have to invest the space and weight necessary to pack the armor and systems, and suddenly you become some sort of ultra-durable spacecraft of doom. Mix in some capital-ship-killing turrets and a few dozen hundred thousand million sufficient number of torpedoes, and you have a good ship.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

You just have to invest the space and weight necessary to pack the armor and systems, and suddenly you become some sort of ultra-durable spacecraft of doom. Mix in some capital-ship-killing turrets and a few dozen hundred thousand million sufficient number of torpedoes, and you have a good ship.

I have absolutely no idea what you're referring to... :p

 

[Madman198237]

No, none at all. I was actually just thinking of my 250m cruiser, which, as an afterthought, received 3 10x torpedo launcher boxes. Probably should've done something else, since it turns out that I wired them wrong xD. Gotta remember to revamp those things sometime...

 

[StarWars1981]

They also misfired horrifically multiple times, annihilating the middle deployment bay, but leaving the cruiser untouched. Luckily. However, that thing needs two revamps: 1, PvP capable combat vessel capable of making Salamis's (LvD) cry in 3-1 matches, and 2, a prettier revamp that keeps the midships hangar bay (looked epic on profile shot, but really couldn't hold much; needs a resize), adds in some more greebly stuff and cosmetic effects, and loses significant amounts of offensive punch. Its defenses are, now I come to it, significantly poorer than they should be.
FYI, Madman and I built this ship together.

Build a ship to survive first, kill second. That is how most all military machines are built today: Survivability first, everything else second. And it works great. So long as you don't completely sacrifice offensive firepower for sheer tanking capacity, you should be good.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Wait... Are you guys talking about my old 10x launcher on community content? You do know that unit is from before the shootout rails release right?

I really outta update that thing and the 25x.
[doublepost=1477860721,1477860308][/doublepost]Without shootout rails, those old generation units need to be fired while stationary, otherwise you will bump your own torpedo off course and potentially blow yourself up.

 

[Madman198237]

No, my own design of torpedo launcher (1st generation, needs a large rework for combat-capability).
Also, torpedoes are already nasty. Even with shootout rails, torpedoes launched from this thing tend to immediately spin when there are targets in the area, often detonating themselves on the mothership.

 

[siserith]

tip longer launch shootout rails fix that issue of them detonating inside.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Also remember that shootout/pickup rails are intangible. They won't obstruct the movement of other entities.

 

[Madman198237]

No, even when outside, they spin immediately. Forces me to have absurdly long rail systems that leave these things at least 11m from the hull of the ship.

 

[siserith]

did you happen to put ai in them? shouldant do that. and there should be no reason for them to spin

also 11m is not that far from a ship should be at least 20..

 

[Madman198237]

That's the thing, this torpedo is guided, and I need 11m because the torpedo is 11m long, and should only spin with a maximum radius of 6 (5.5, technically), meaning that 11m is 2x clearance distance. Not that the torpedoes have any problem hitting my ship anyway.

 

[siserith]

1- remove that ai, wont do anything for the torpedo currently. ai cant handle warhead torpedoes

2-it needs more clearnce

3- when firing point the torpedos at your enemy

4- dont turn your ship or speed up into them untill they clear you ship

 

[Madman198237]

Siserith, I suspect I know a bit more about torpedo creation than you. The AI is only there to point the torpedo at a target. The push drive takes care of the rest. I doesn't need more clearance, I had that fixed the first revision after I noticed the spinning. Pointing at an enemy does nothing to change the random, complete-circle-making spinning motion. It's just a side-effect of target acquisition, I think. And, lastly, no duh. I don't ram my own torpedoes (I can't, they're too fast anyway xD)