How useful actually is armour?

[AtraUnam]

There may be some variation from server to server because of sector sizes, ranges, default speeds, etc, but on many servers, a ship with an Overdrive and 1.5-2.0 thrust ratio can kite pretty much any missile class for long enough to get them to cluster, even missile-beams.

Once they cluster, missile count become irrelevant vs a waffle that can fire 2000 rps

Except missile with 100% beam slave, but apparently I'm literally the only person who uses that for some reason.

 

[Scypio]

You're a pretty rare thing Atra.

 

[Panpiper]

Except missile with 100% beam slave, but apparently I'm literally the only person who uses that for some reason.

You are not the only one.

 

[Nosajimiki]

Except missile with 100% beam slave, but apparently I'm literally the only person who uses that for some reason.

It depends on who you are fighting. I once tried fighting a ship 1:6th my size firing 60 of those plus 140 logic fired swarmers, but he used his speed to make sure he kept his optimal distance needed to give him time to shoot everything down. No more than 10% of my total missiles actually made contact. I do agree with both of you that your missile tactics normally work. They work often enough I still use missiles for about 1/2 my dps, but when you meet someone who knows how to counter them well, they go from being 2x as good as other weapons systems to 5x as bad very quickly.

 

[AtraUnam]

It depends on who you are fighting. I once tried fighting a ship 1:6th my size firing 60 of those plus 140 logic fired swarmers, but he used his speed to make sure he kept his optimal distance needed to give him time to shoot everything down. No more than 10% of my total missiles actually made contact. I do agree with both of you that your missile tactics normally work. They work often enough I still use missiles for about 1/2 my dps, but when you meet someone who knows how to counter them well, they go from being 2x as good as other weapons systems to 5x as bad very quickly.

Personally I actually use beams or cannons over missiles because missiles are the only weapon with a dedicated counter. Still, the AI setting must be pretty high on your server because missile/beam100% is usually near impossible for PD to shoot down, and far too fast to flee.

 

[Nosajimiki]

Personally I actually use beams or cannons over missiles because missiles are the only weapon with a dedicated counter. Still, the AI setting must be pretty high on your server because missile/beam100% is usually near impossible for PD to shoot down, and far too fast to flee.

:D that is the trick. The pilots I see do that use manually fired waffle guns; so, instead of relying on the AI, they just carpet your missile swarm with a ~200 tiny cannon-cannons.

 

[Winterhome]

Personally I actually use beams or cannons over missiles because missiles are the only weapon with a dedicated counter. Still, the AI setting must be pretty high on your server because missile/beam100% is usually near impossible for PD to shoot down, and far too fast to flee.

Especially when the missiles are vertical or horizontal launch - PD seems to have even more trouble aiming at anything flying on a curve, and missile/beam in particular.

Back to the thread subject itself: the point I was trying to make earlier is that armor is useful, but only if you use what most folks would consider a cartoonishly large amount of it and the enemy doesn't have either a missile that can hit the blast radius cap through adv. armor or a dedicated armor piercing weapon setup. Most of the benefits of using "thin" (8-15% of ship's thinnest dimension, I'd say?) armor to mitigate missiles come when missiles spread out and target multiple spots on a ship instead of all drilling into the same spots, but this can be beaten just by using a bigger missile.

 

[AtraUnam]

Especially when the missiles are vertical or horizontal launch - PD seems to have even more trouble aiming at anything flying on a curve, and missile/beam in particular.

Back to the thread subject itself: the point I was trying to make earlier is that armor is useful, but only if you use what most folks would consider a cartoonishly large amount of it and the enemy doesn't have either a missile that can hit the blast radius cap through adv. armor or a dedicated armor piercing weapon setup. Most of the benefits of using "thin" (8-15% of ship's thinnest dimension, I'd say?) armor to mitigate missiles come when missiles spread out and target multiple spots on a ship instead of all drilling into the same spots, but this can be beaten just by using a bigger missile.

To be fair the blast radius cap is many tens of millions when hitting adv armor, even using pierce. If your fighting a ship that big then its best to assume that blocks have effectively 0 defensive use.

 

[Winterhome]

To be fair the blast radius cap is many tens of millions when hitting adv armor, even using pierce. If your fighting a ship that big then its best to assume that blocks have effectively 0 defensive use.

Aye. I tried making a wedge shaped armor tank that could eat a hit from a leaked Vaygr titan once. It, er... It didn't work. 20 meters of armor on all sides and over 200 frontal did nothing to block a nuke, which did enough damage to hit blast radius cap through punch and pierce passives, even though it wasn't enough damage to kill the ship's armor HP. There's a certain point where armor just doesn't help anymore.

I'm just going to let point defense deal with the nukes, tbh.

 

[AtraUnam]

There's a certain point where armor just doesn't help anymore.

I'm just going to let point defense deal with the nukes, tbh.

Thats when you start spacing plates of regular hull 20m apart.

 

[Winterhome]

Thats when you start spacing plates of regular hull 20m apart.

Good call. Still, even at that point, cartoonishly thick armor plates can protect against machinegun fire and rapid beams, which are still a huge threat. More bullets spread over more space = more dead squishy systems, so anything I can do to keep that shit away from my internals is a good thing.

Perhaps use spaced layers of plates in combination with thick under-armor, even though realistically one nuke hit will probably take out enough of a couple layers that the next hit will go through if it targets the same general grouping of blocks when it's fired again...