Armor vs Shields

[MineCatFTW]

With the (hopefully) upcoming HP system, I’ve been thinking about the synergy between shields and armor. As everyone knows, armor is basically useless right now. Pound for pound, it is far less useful than shields, because of four main reasons:

1. It has relatively low health (easily fixed, hard to balance between fighters and titans)

2. It is much more expensive than shield blocks (easy to fix)

3. It has no scaling method, or bonus for having more than one armor block in an area (harder to implement)

4. Pound for pound, there is almost no reason to use armor instead shields right now, because shields offer more effective and long term (due to shield regen, versus armor repairing) protection.


With the new HP system, armor should be changed to make it, pound for pound, MORE effective than shielding. Now before you explode at me, this is before taking in to account things like regenerating shields, and other, less quantifiable, effects. Lets say you have 1,000 shield capacitors, and 1,000 rechargers, on your ship, and they give you 10,000 capacity, and 1,000 regen (I know these aren’t right, it’s just for example). Now you also have 1,000 armor blocks, and these give you something like 15,000 to 20,000 health. Then you factor in damage reduction, and shield regen, and the armor totals to between 30,000 health and 40,000 (assuming this is Advanced Armor). The shields total to 10,000 + 10,00. Now look at this over 10 seconds: Armor=30,000, Shields=10,000 + 10,000. Now 100 seconds: Armor=30,000, Shields=10,000 + 100,000. It’s pretty clear which is more effective in the short term. In the long term though, armor damage is harder and more work-intensive to repair, whereas shields do it automatically.


This would create an interesting synergy between shields and armor as defensive mechanisms, and would overall increase the usefulness of armor and add interesting decisions when building a ship, more so than there are now. Another thing that would need to be added would be effective armor repairing systems, but that’s for another suggestion.


Thoughts? Critique? Additions?

 

[jayman38]

I've read through this three times. I think you left out the actual "synergy" suggestion, right before the last paragraph that starts with "This would create an interesting synergy...", when the paragraph before is outlining the current game mechanics. I apologize if I missed something obvious. Are you talking about adding shield capacity to hull blocks, to add on top of the structure's shield capacitor shield-energy capacity? (not just adding to the ship's overall health, but to the shield health) If so, I like it.

 

[MineCatFTW]

I meant the synergy between the uses of each type of defence. For example, how armor would be better for short-term engagements, but shields better for long-term. It would add more strategic choice in building and deciding a ship's role. This is not suggesting adding shield capacity to hull blocks, though that does sound interesting.

 

[FunnyBunny14]

Blocks are going to get a value that will make them more useful against missiles by reducing the amount of damage that gets passed on to the next block. This will make it really useful to have advanced hull, which obviously will have the highest of said value.

 

[aceface]

With the (hopefully) upcoming HP system, I’ve been thinking about the synergy between shields and armor. As everyone knows, armor is basically useless right now. Pound for pound, it is far less useful than shields, because of four main reasons:

1. It has relatively low health (easily fixed, hard to balance between fighters and titans)

2. It is much more expensive than shield blocks (easy to fix)

3. It has no scaling method, or bonus for having more than one armor block in an area (harder to implement)

4. Pound for pound, there is almost no reason to use armor instead shields right now, because shields offer more effective and long term (due to shield regen, versus armor repairing) protection.


With the new HP system, armor should be changed to make it, pound for pound, MORE effective than shielding. Now before you explode at me, this is before taking in to account things like regenerating shields, and other, less quantifiable, effects. Lets say you have 1,000 shield capacitors, and 1,000 rechargers, on your ship, and they give you 10,000 capacity, and 1,000 regen (I know these aren’t right, it’s just for example). Now you also have 1,000 armor blocks, and these give you something like 15,000 to 20,000 health. Then you factor in damage reduction, and shield regen, and the armor totals to between 30,000 health and 40,000 (assuming this is Advanced Armor). The shields total to 10,000 + 10,00. Now look at this over 10 seconds: Armor=30,000, Shields=10,000 + 10,000. Now 100 seconds: Armor=30,000, Shields=10,000 + 100,000. It’s pretty clear which is more effective in the short term. In the long term though, armor damage is harder and more work-intensive to repair, whereas shields do it automatically.


This would create an interesting synergy between shields and armor as defensive mechanisms, and would overall increase the usefulness of armor and add interesting decisions when building a ship, more so than there are now. Another thing that would need to be added would be effective armor repairing systems, but that’s for another suggestion.


Thoughts? Critique? Additions?

:D good good!

 

[AtraUnam]

Personally I think it should be possible to have a viable ship that relies solely on armor with no shields whatsoever. With the obvious downside of repair costs and short term survivability; but the upsides of being slightly better and not costing power.

 

[aceface]

Personally I think it should be possible to have a viable ship that relies solely on armor with no shields whatsoever. With the obvious downside of repair costs and short term survivability; but the upsides of being slightly better and not costing power.

yeah like there would be a certain ship type making it more viable to have armour....

hmm maybe if there is some sort of emp distorting nebula in the future that disrupts shields armour will be good for pirates roaming in those nebulas...

 

[MineCatFTW]

This is the idea behind it. A viable choice between the two, or at the very least making armor useful.

 

[AtraUnam]

Unless yu'r an Ork, den what you and da rest of da boyz believe, is whats true.

 

[Snk]

We should make it so shields don't project over amcs, shield blocks, reactors, and capacitors. That way people would be forced to armor their ships

 

[lupoCani]

Pound for pound, it is far less useful than shields, because of four main reasons:

1. It has relatively low health (easily fixed, hard to balance between fighters and titans)

2. It is much more expensive than shield blocks (easy to fix)

3. It has no scaling method, or bonus for having more than one armor block in an area (harder to implement)

4. Pound for pound, there is almost no reason to use armor instead shields rig ht now, because shields offer more effective and long term (due to shield regen, versus armor repairing) protection.

I have to disagree with you there. Partially, at least. Those are problems, but aside from #3, they're not core issues. The primary weakness of armor, I say, is that it is exclusively secondary.

Armor is only ever useful after shields have already been breached. This is, regardless of armor, the most devastating thing that can currently happen to a ship. So, when players choose between installing blocks that prevent it, and blocks that make it slightly less severe, they go with prevention. As long as hull is exclusively reactive, and shields fully preventive, hull will be inferior.

This is why I think that, after we've got autorepair drydocks or something, shields should let some small percentage of damage through.

However, I do agree with you on #3, if by that you mean the problem is the square-cube law. Coating your ship in one layer of armor gives it one hull block's protection everywhere, filling your ship with the same amount of shields gives you a thousand shield blocks' protection anywhere.

Personally, I think the best way to fix this would be for the armor value of a block to have an area-of-effect influence. So, two hull blocks with x hp and 50% armor each would have, say, 55% armor each if placed close to each other. Three would have 60% each, ect, creating a stronger incentive for multi-layer hull and rewarding ships for their total quantity of armor, as well as it's thickness at any one point.

 

[MineCatFTW]

Damage bleed-through would be a good way to make armor more relevant. I agree with basically everything you said there, but I still think that armor should be also be usable as a completely separate option to shields, so we could see ships with no shields, but very heavy armor.

 

[Spartan-228]

I like this, I have always thought armor needed more attention.

 

[Dark-life]

I like the damage bleed idea too. Armor at this point needs to be more powerful or it will only be used for aesthetics.

 

[madmann135]

There are hundreds of thoughts on the relationship between armor and shields. I agree that armor is underpowered when it comes in comparison to shields.

How to help alleviate it is severely up in the air.
My first thought was installed into the game, adding armor buffs.
My second thought was to enable hull HP regeneration (EVE online inspired). In short a select few blocks would regenerate health points over time (short list hull and armor blocks). How to enable this, maybe a repair block that enables hp regeneration over time (does not work on destroyed blocks). On the plus side it would make armor a viable defense in the short and long term. The minus side would be how to balance it.
For small fighters or drones using armor and filling it with repair blocks over shields could be a viable defense tactic.