First of all, I hate stats. I hate looking at a ship and thinking numbers. I absolutely dislike that, despite knowing and understanding they have their obvious role to play. Moving on.
As many have pointed out, the downsides of using armor layers monstruously outweights its benefits. While shields are designed to stop and distribute impacts, armor is made to absorb it.
Even though that tends towards borderline circular dynamics (Rock beats Scissors, Paper beats Rock, Scissors beat Paper, etc), here\'s what I personally would like to see evolve. First, context:
- Energy weapons (AMC) are able to sustain high rates of fire and are able to strike accurately at a target point. Moreso than missiles, you\'ll admit. It\'s made to cut and hit with repetition. It has the potential for surgical precision strikes.
- Missiles are damage dealers. They don\'t rely on their impact to do damage, but on their explosive ordnance. They take chunks out, they\'re meant to punch holes. Big holes.
- Shields are energy fields dispatched to cover an area and divert impacts and shocks momentum. Makes sense that they\'d interact more vividly with other energy measures.
- Armor is heavy, thick, and made to take a beating. Rather than divert impacts and damages, it takes them full on and clenches its teeth through.
Now that\'s how the pieces fit togheter for me. Feel free to see them differently. But with that situation in mind, here\'s how weapon interactions make the most sense to me:
A blast, in space, doesn\'t produce nearly as much shockwave as it can in space. Spoiler alert, an explosion\'s shockwave is part of its deadliest assets. Therefore, explosions from missiles against the shields, and so no against anything, would lose most of its pressure and punch. It\'d be easier for the shields to disperse the blast force than disperse the impact of a high-velocity projectile. It would make sense for shields to be vulnerable to overload, were they to recieve repeated impacts from everywhere. Reminds you of something? That\'s right, AMCs. Energy hitting energy makes sense. Not sure what the Starmade lore makes of the type of energy applied to the Anti-Matter Canons (is it heat, kinetic, etc), but it makes sense to assume that they could keep hitting shields with a serious beating. And so, AMCs could be considered more effective against shields than missiles.
Now when it comes to armor, which is currently no more than a heavier chunk of metal right now in Starmade, it acts differently than a shield (DUUUuuuuuuuuh) It\'s made to sustain repeated impacts as long as they\'re not too hard a hit. So unless your AMC\'s are all into damage, or ridiculously powerful, armor\'s there to take it. Obviously, keep hitting the same spots and it should give away, it\'s not invincible either. However now\'S the time for our missiles to shine! The force and damage of an explosion is mostly due to the pressure it applies (as far as I know). If you thought it was that fire ball you see in the movies, well no, that\'s not why explosions are deadly. As such, in the void of space there\'s no air or really much matter to apply pressure to or push. That\'s why an explosion in the middle of space should in theory lose most of its power. But blast that thing against a solid, proud hull, and now the game\'s different. It\'s not the same as an explosion inside atmospheric levels, of course, but since the blast is pitched against a solid thing, it\'s safe to say that it\'ll apply some force to that thing, be it a rock or a titanium alloy plating. That transfered energy bursts will travel through the object it hits, obviously to a certain degree. The same way air gives sound waves an environment to travel, your hull sucessfuly becomes a favorable environment for shockwaves to travel. The damage is more likely to be structural, then, than by scratching layers off. That\'s why it makes sense to pitch missiles against armors.
Hull. Well your hull is skin. If you\'re only hull, you might as well consider yourself naked to enemy fire. So let\'s leave hull with no defensive merit more than what the game currently gives it.
Right, so if by any chance you didn\'t get what I was saying, here\'s the kiddie version:
Missiles are less effective against shields, and deal more damage to hulls and armors. AMCs are on the other hand more effective to take down shields, but will take slightly longer to cut through heavy armors.
Shields < AMC < Armor < Missiles < Shields. Space rock paper scissors.
Though why stop there? Why not have lightwehgit armor made to absorb blast damage by breaking down, effectively reducing the missiles blast radius and minimizing damage to subsequent layers? This softer armor would however become vulnerable to the faster fire of AMCs, naturally. Or why not have specialized shields eventually? Dispersers that do not give as much capacity, and have a
long reboot time when taken down, but relies on regen rates? Why not have the oposites, with a stronger resistance to damage but a near non-existant regen time. Why not have overall softer shields, but that can be back online and fully charged while under fire, in a second? Why not a shield Impervious to AMCs, but completely uselss against missiles who\'d then end up going right through? Why not have a missile who deal absolutely no damage what so ever, but disables shields for 2 seconds? (Yeah, EMC, nothing new) 2 seconds is a
long time. Why not have a missile that disables everything? Well, because that\'d just be aggravating.
In short, the game is developping, and I think it will eventually benefit from a broader range of weaponry. Blance of power in combat will be more dynamic, because right now, simply have more is better, which makes sense, but say you limit the number of type of shields a core can sustain to two, you decide on High Capacity And High Regen, obviously. Well oops, the enemy brought along that EMC missile. He doesn\'t have much other missiles, but since you mostly relied on shields, his AMCs will cut through your neglected armor. Etc.
Specialisation will happen naturally, the balance won\'t reside in sheer stats, as it does at the moment, but with what you\'ve decided to outfit your ship with. Sure, that huge capital ship\'s AMCs will still cut through your puny fighter shields, and his will resist your small AMC counter attack.
Welp, tl;dr:
I hope for an actual use to armor and see weapon diversification.
