Armour Block Comparison

[Yetimania]

Hey! This is a thread to talk about the pros and cons of the various hull types.

I haven't played yet in the new hp-system, so I'm really interested in the experiences of those who have. But here's my initial findings based on looking at their stats:

Hull:
Mass: .05
Sys Hp: 5
Arm. Hp: 50
Block HP: 75
Block Armour: 0
Effective Block HP: 75 [150 if 50% of damage goes to armour hp]

Armour:
Mass: .15
Sys Hp: 5
Arm. Hp: 75
Block HP: 100
Block Armour: .6
Effective Block HP: 250 (math?) [500 if 50% of damage goes to armour HP]

Advanced Armour:
Mass: .25
Sys Hp: 5
Arm. Hp: 100
Block HP: 250
Block Armour: .8
Effective Block HP: 1250 [2500 if 50% of damage goes to armour HP]

Conclusions:
I have to say, regular hull seems to have the advantage in most cases here. You can have 5 layers of regular hull for the same mass as advanced armour (and more than 5 blocks for the same cost, which I'm not really looking at here), which nets you 375 armour HP, compared to advanced armour's 100 armour HP. Or, of course, you can have the same amount of blocks for 1/5th the mass, allowing you to free up more mass for systems, etc.
Obviously, the advanced armour block itself is vastly tougher, but its contribution to armour HP based on its mass and cost are woefully inefficient.
So what it comes down to, then, is what's more important: shipwide armour HP, or individual block HP? In theory, the perfect solution would be a thin layer of advanced armour blocks on the outside (to take the hits) backed up by a thick layer of ordinary hull blocks (to provide system HP).

Alternate Hypothesis: Don't Bother
My understanding is that armour HP provides, effectively, a 50% damage reduction against armour blocks until it runs out, with no protection given against system blocks. This effectively doubles armour HP for the first chunk of combat. Now, take a look at the hull blocks. If they each had twice as much life, would they be an effective defence?
My answer is: not remotely. The maximum possible defence gained is an effective 2500hp per advanced armour block until the armour HP runs out, at which point it's 1250. That may sound like a lot, but it isn't. Each advanced armour block weighs as much as 2.5 shield capacitator blocks. Each shield block adds 87 hp globally. Which would you rather have: 2500 hp in one specific spot, or 218 hp (2.5 shield cap blocks) across the entire spaceship? One good hit will kill your armour blocks without difficulty, but a sufficient combined mass of shields can keep a lot of firepower out.


These are my two cents, but they're completely theoretical. I haven't actually tested the system at all. What are your thoughts? Am I missing something? Am I right on the money?

 

[MrFURB]

I've been messing with getting worthwhile defensive systems in place for a few weeks now, and have done plenty of combat testing both PvP and PvE. Most of the weaponry I have tested against are kill-everything-fast massive cannon/cannon arrays with various passives, swarm missiles on a logic clock, and volleys of missile/beam weaponry... If you are working with a different config my findings might not apply.

I've been increasingly fond of sacrificing shielding in certain areas of the ship in favor of thick armor, and sacrificing heavy armor in others for basic hull and shielding. By giving smaller capital ships and larger subcapitals about ten meters of solid heavy armor right at the front I've increased the duration of the armor phase of combat far past the shield phase. It's usually practical to face your enemy while fighting, meaning that any damage coming directly from the opponent you're facing is going to be focused on one area; armor that area up. The more sure that a specific armor block you place is going to get hit, the more valuable that armor block becomes. If you're shelling or armoring a spot that you don't expect an enemy to be able to hit very often, go for lighter coverage.

My answer is: not remotely. The maximum possible defence gained is an effective 2500hp per advanced armour block until the armour HP runs out, at which point it's 1250. That may sound like a lot, but it isn't. Each advanced armour block weighs as much as 2.5 shield capacitator blocks. Each shield block adds 87 hp globally. Which would you rather have: 2500 hp in one specific spot, or 218 hp (2.5 shield cap blocks) across the entire spaceship? One good hit will kill your armour blocks without difficulty, but a sufficient combined mass of shields can keep a lot of firepower out.

I've found that a well designed weapon can drop the shielding of a similarly large vessel very quickly. Dedicated anti-shield weapons with high alpha can easily zap away many times their size and value in shield capacitors instantly, skipping the shield phase of your defenses instantly. Against weaponry like that the low HP that shield caps give you per block is not going to be as cheap or as lasting a defense as a good five to twenty layers of advanced armor between you and your opponent. As long as the armor block is fully used in the fight, it's worth one second of protection from 250 weapon blocks. 500 if you have a pierce passive on your ship. That's almost thirty times as effective as a shield block.

Shields don't really protect you from any weaponry designed to fight you. They work wonders against avoiding light damage though.
Heavy armor is too expensive and heavy as a shell material for my tastes, but making thick frontal bulkheads works wonders.

 

[0Samuel0]

I've been messing with getting worthwhile defensive systems in place for a few weeks now, and have done plenty of combat testing both PvP and PvE. Most of the weaponry I have tested against are kill-everything-fast massive cannon/cannon arrays with various passives, swarm missiles on a logic clock, and volleys of missile/beam weaponry... If you are working with a different config my findings might not apply.

I've been increasingly fond of sacrificing shielding in certain areas of the ship in favor of thick armor, and sacrificing heavy armor in others for basic hull and shielding. By giving smaller capital ships and larger subcapitals about ten meters of solid heavy armor right at the front I've increased the duration of the armor phase of combat far past the shield phase. It's usually practical to face your enemy while fighting, meaning that any damage coming directly from the opponent you're facing is going to be focused on one area; armor that area up. The more sure that a specific armor block you place is going to get hit, the more valuable that armor block becomes. If you're shelling or armoring a spot that you don't expect an enemy to be able to hit very often, go for lighter coverage.



I've found that a well designed weapon can drop the shielding of a similarly large vessel very quickly. Dedicated anti-shield weapons with high alpha can easily zap away many times their size and value in shield capacitors instantly, skipping the shield phase of your defenses instantly. Against weaponry like that the low HP that shield caps give you per block is not going to be as cheap or as lasting a defense as a good five to twenty layers of advanced armor between you and your opponent. As long as the armor block is fully used in the fight, it's worth one second of protection from 250 weapon blocks. 500 if you have a pierce passive on your ship. That's almost thirty times as effective as a shield block.

Shields don't really protect you from any weaponry designed to fight you. They work wonders against avoiding light damage though.
Heavy armor is too expensive and heavy as a shell material for my tastes, but making thick frontal bulkheads works wonders.

*Frantic note scribbling sounds*

 

[Sgtwisky]

MrFURB, you sir have just confirmed something I have been thinking about last night after using a new fighter design to attack another fighter I had. The best place for armor seems to be the front. This makes combat more interesting I think. Even if I DO have to redo a massive amount of hull on a WIP dreadnought of mine.

*picks up drawing board and throws it out window.
*Shakes fist at sky "Why ! why didn't I consider this sooner !"

 

[Yetimania]

I've been messing with getting worthwhile defensive systems in place for a few weeks now, and have done plenty of combat testing both PvP and PvE. Most of the weaponry I have tested against are kill-everything-fast massive cannon/cannon arrays with various passives, swarm missiles on a logic clock, and volleys of missile/beam weaponry... If you are working with a different config my findings might not apply.

I've been increasingly fond of sacrificing shielding in certain areas of the ship in favor of thick armor, and sacrificing heavy armor in others for basic hull and shielding. By giving smaller capital ships and larger subcapitals about ten meters of solid heavy armor right at the front I've increased the duration of the armor phase of combat far past the shield phase. It's usually practical to face your enemy while fighting, meaning that any damage coming directly from the opponent you're facing is going to be focused on one area; armor that area up. The more sure that a specific armor block you place is going to get hit, the more valuable that armor block becomes. If you're shelling or armoring a spot that you don't expect an enemy to be able to hit very often, go for lighter coverage.



I've found that a well designed weapon can drop the shielding of a similarly large vessel very quickly. Dedicated anti-shield weapons with high alpha can easily zap away many times their size and value in shield capacitors instantly, skipping the shield phase of your defenses instantly. Against weaponry like that the low HP that shield caps give you per block is not going to be as cheap or as lasting a defense as a good five to twenty layers of advanced armor between you and your opponent. As long as the armor block is fully used in the fight, it's worth one second of protection from 250 weapon blocks. 500 if you have a pierce passive on your ship. That's almost thirty times as effective as a shield block.

Shields don't really protect you from any weaponry designed to fight you. They work wonders against avoiding light damage though.
Heavy armor is too expensive and heavy as a shell material for my tastes, but making thick frontal bulkheads works wonders.

Interesting... In this case, the ordinary hull that's skinning the rest of the ship, and the interior, is providing armour HP for the front advanced armour, where you expect to actually need it.

This brings up the question, though: is it more advantageous to have 10 layers of advanced armoured hull at the front, or 50 layers of regular hull?

 

[Rokiyo]

50 layers of normal hull would give you 7,500 block EHP, while 10 layers of advanced would give you 20,000 (until armor HP runs out).

Regardless of whether you get your armor HP from normal or advanced hull, advanced hull is probably better at making use of it.

 

[Control]

Starting to look like going heavy handed on hull, with a shell of advanced with some extra layers at the front (or sides if that's how you like to orbit), low on shield cap, high on shield regen.. Seems like.. the way then?

 

[Lecic]

Standard gives the best balance of cost, mass, and protection per block, in my opinion. At only 6 capsules a piece, it is much cheaper than advanced, and gives a bit more protection than an equal mass of basic armor.

 

[AtraUnam]

Advance armor is best armor...
Blast door is best armor + 1
'2' Standard armor is best armor of all

 

[Pflame]

Along the same lines on conversation, what are the caps and ratios for the new Pierce and Punch passives? How do they add to this topic?

 

[Lecic]

Along the same lines on conversation, what are the caps and ratios for the new Pierce and Punch passives? How do they add to this topic?

I may have this backwards, but pierce increases the amount of incoming damage that goes into armor HP. Normally, armor HP absorbs 50% of incoming damage, but at max (not sure on the % of ship it needs to be) pierce, it increases to 75% of incoming damage absorbed. Passive punch decreases the power of pierce and punch weapons. Not sure if that includes the innate pierce and punch on beams and cannons, though.

 

[MrFURB]

Passive punch decreases the power of pierce and punch weapons. Not sure if that includes the innate pierce and punch on beams and cannons, though.

That was punch through pre-HP update. The new passive works sort of like ion but for armor, reduces incoming AHP damage by up to 25%.

With how little space and energy punch/pierce passives take, most ships that utilize heavy armor should be able to pretty easily fit them. Pierce on full effect will double the effective HP of your armor blocks (once again) and punch will offset the increases damage to AHP.

 

[Rokiyo]

That was punch through pre-HP update. The new passive works sort of like ion but for armor, reduces incoming AHP damage by up to 25%.

With how little space and energy punch/pierce passives take, most ships that utilize heavy armor should be able to pretty easily fit them. Pierce on full effect will double the effective HP of your armor blocks (once again) and punch will offset the increases damage to AHP.

Were there any changes to how pierce/punch work when slaved to a weapon system? Especially now that beams & cannons natively include some pierce/punch?

 

[MrFURB]

Yeah, they've been redone. Let me grab the block config file and see what morsels of knowledge it may share... Huh.

Punch:
For cannon and beam primaries punch seems to add 50% additional block damage and 25% additional armor HP damage with no downsides. That's rather powerful on paper, since the two stats would work together to decrease the amount of time needed to get through any type of block, armor or not.

For missile and pulse primaries it adds 5 meters to the radius and increases AHP damage by 50%.
Missiles with punch might seem a bit odd considering their sub-par DPS values, but I think that a good hit with a punch missile might be able to deal enough alpha to clear out a big chunk of pierce-hardened armor and the improved radius would mean you could damage some of the squishy bits behind the armor.


Pierce:
For cannons and beams punch adds 25% additional block damage, 50% additional AHP damage, -50% armor efficiency, and -100% shield damage.
I'm going to assume that -50% armor efficiency means armor is only half effective against a pierce weapon thus a higher % of the weapon's damage is applied to the block's HP. If that applies to both block armor and AHP then it is definitely worth the downside. That could easily turn a 5,000 EHP armor block into a 500 EHP butter block even without the bonuses to block and AHP damage. If it only applies to block armor then that's still much more (up to 3x) damage being applied to AHP and block HP.
Tests will need to be run to ascertain it's actual usefulness.

For missiles and pulses it adds 5 meters to the radius and -50% armor efficiency.

Be aware that while I use punch and pierce for a number of my weapons, I haven't done any dedicated numerical testing with them post-update. Someone who has could probably give a more accurate assessment.

 

[Master_Artificer]

I may have this backwards, but pierce increases the amount of incoming damage that goes into armor HP. Normally, armor HP absorbs 50% of incoming damage, but at max (not sure on the % of ship it needs to be) pierce, it increases to 75% of incoming damage absorbed. Passive punch decreases the power of pierce and punch weapons. Not sure if that includes the innate pierce and punch on beams and cannons, though.

Oh, maybe because it is morning, but I had to reread this 2-3 times to get what you were saying.
But now I understand that you can not only decrease the damage that blocks take per shot (increasing effective health), but make them last longer by transferring MORE of that damage into the Armor bar. Is the damage that is transferred effected by the armor bonus the block has?

Also, holy cow, I need to start thinking up ship designs to take advantage of this armor system!

EDIT:
And Mr Furb, I think the -50% armor efficiency is a debuff, just like the -100% shield damage. So, the blocks take more damage, but the armor bar takes less damage? Eh, maybe your right.

 

[jorgekorke]

I don't know... I can't seem to trust armor. Maybe I'm a little traumatized....

 

[AtraUnam]

So using 200x50x50 box dimensions as an example it would take 43808 advanced hull blocks (~11k mass) to cover it completely with each block providing 2500 EHP. Ignoring the fact that more layers take more blocks how many layers would it take for the ship to be viable without shields?

 

[Master_Artificer]

why would you want to cover it completely? probably can leave the sides with just standard and the rear just normal hull, and make a double or triple layer on the front, with some spaced armor to counter missiles. Yeah, spaced armor on the sides and front. Maybe forcefields and blast doors with logic to toggle the activation of the spaced armor.

Deactivate blast doors and force-fields cant take damage right? Well, by staggering them, you have a compact spaced armor where you can toggle on a fresh layer after the layer above that one is "depleted" from said missiles.

 

[MrFURB]

Deactivate blast doors and force-fields cant take damage right? Well, by staggering them, you have a compact spaced armor where you can toggle on a fresh layer after the layer above that one is "depleted" from said missiles.

Before the HP and explosion updates I tested an armoring solution using layers of deactivated/activated doors. They absorbed explosions even when deactivated, though they were ethereal to the projectiles themselves.

So using 200x50x50 box dimensions as an example it would take 43808 advanced hull blocks (~11k mass) to cover it completely with each block providing 2500 EHP. Ignoring the fact that more layers take more blocks how many layers would it take for the ship to be viable without shields?

Uneven coverage is the trick to utilizing armor. When thin, it is weak. When unused, it is wasted. For good coverage on your example, I would completely take off the layer of advanced and use it to create a 12x60x60 bulkhead at the end you think will take the most hits. Pretty much always the front. That bulkhead will render light weaponry almost useless and will provide you with a good barrier to absorb a few seconds of fire from heavy anti-capital weapons.

 

[AtraUnam]

Uneven coverage is the trick to utilizing armor. When thin, it is weak. When unused, it is wasted. For good coverage on your example, I would completely take off the layer of advanced and use it to create a 12x60x60 bulkhead at the end you think will take the most hits. Pretty much always the front. That bulkhead will render light weaponry almost useless and will provide you with a good barrier to absorb a few seconds of fire from heavy anti-capital weapons.

And if I want to replace shields with armor all together?