Hull Material and Thickness?

[Panpiper]

Are you certain? Because it shouldn't really.

It would not in reality perhaps, but this is a game that uses blocks for discrete units of space. In the game, this most certainly does work. In Starmade, the maximum volume for surface area is not a sphere (as it would be in reality) but an octahedron. The amount of blocks it would take to build a sphere is the same number of blocks it would take to build an octahedron sufficient to contain that sphere.

Sadly I don't have any expertise with current graphics software or I would simply demonstrate it. I suppose I could go and build stuff with blocks in Starmade and take pictures, but it's really not necessary.

Just take any flat surface you have made with blocks and instead of making it flat, extend out the blocks to create a staggered pyramid. You now have the same number of blocks but they are covering an increased volume, the volume inside the pyramid. By sloping outwards, all such flat sections (obviously these do not have to be pyramids, conjoin any and all slopes), you get a greater covered volume for the same quantity of armor blocks you are using.

Another way to visualize it is to imagine two lines of armor blocks, side by side. Laid out that way, they give you zero protected volume. However if you slope the blocks, you will manufacture extra volume you did not have while they were flat.

The only place I do not try to maximize this sloping effect is on the longest dimensions of a ship, so as to attempt to minimize the length penalty to turning speed.

 

[Master_Artificer]

Yeah flat armor is really ineffecent, but the thing about sloped is they need to shoot down the lenght of the slope.

This is another reason why your front should be armored and you always point your front at the enemy.
(And a reason why 2+ smaller ships can beat 1 larger ship pretty easily in this game.)

A slightly fatter star destroyer would be a good example of a 'top tier' shape, before factoring in other situations.

 

[Malacodor]

By sloping outwards, all such flat sections (obviously these do not have to be pyramids, conjoin any and all slopes), you get a greater covered volume for the same quantity of armor blocks you are using.

But you also get less effective block HP per surface area. An octahedron made of advanced armor only has 577 EHP/m², while a cube has 1000 EHP/m².

 

[Panpiper]

But you also get less effective block HP per surface area. An octahedron made of advanced armor only has 577 EHP/m², while a cube has 1000 EHP/m².

I'm not sure I am following you, or perhaps you are not following me. The HP is 100% dependent upon the number of blocks. The shape those blocks are arranged in is entirely irrelevant. My point is that by arranging those blocks in staggered slopes rather than straight lines, you maximize the quantity of blocks those armor blocks can contain. An octahedron will have the same HP as a cube as long as they are built with the same number of blocks, but the octahedron will have more volume.

If you are comparing an octahedron with a cube with the same XYZ dimensions, then you would be correct, but that cube would use a great deal more blocks.

 

[Malacodor]

I'm not sure I am following you, or perhaps you are not following me. The HP is 100% dependent upon the number of blocks. The shape those blocks are arranged in is entirely irrelevant. My point is that by arranging those blocks in staggered slopes rather than straight lines, you maximize the quantity of blocks those armor blocks can contain. An octahedron will have the same HP as a cube as long as they are built with the same number of blocks, but the octahedron will have more volume.

If you are comparing an octahedron with a cube with the same XYZ dimensions, then you would be correct, but that cube would use a great deal more blocks.

What I mean is the HP per surface area. If you increase the surface area that is covered by a single block, then you also decrease the HP per square meter. The same damage makes bigger holes. Losing 10 blocks in a wedge slope leaves a hole as big as 14 blocks in a straight surface, for example. As long as your octahedron is hit directly from the front, that's not a problem, but its armor is weaker than that of a cube when hit perpendicularly.

 

[DrTarDIS]

Depends really. These days I'm working on a full-spectrum tank "Defiant" (~=400L*300H*500W)

With this ship I'm doing a "light-but thick" outer hull to tank the main damage(since every type of penetration/piercing has a diminishing return per layer) followed by non-essential systems clad in a mix of standard and basic, and essential systems clustered into "cells" coated with a mix of advanced and standard. You can see the various "cells" of hardened shield regen/cap in the little orange bubbles in this cut-away.

For the actual outer hull, to greatly diminish the effects of penetration after initial impact, I'll use a pattern like this:

Outer hull 1 layer advanced for the DR on initial hit, second layer standard for similar reasoning. next 2 layers basic to "fatten up" the AHP pool of the advanced as well as be "ablative" damage sponge for any high-power weapon that gets in that far. next 3 scaffold for same "ablative" reasoning and to pad-out the SHP(helps prevent overheating), next 3 mix of standard and scaffold for additional ablation and padding.

End result is that on a "direct hit" after the shields have gone down: 40-80% DR from advanced armor -> 9 layers of ablation -> 1-2 layers of advanced&standard armor -> vital systems can take damage. If this doesn't quite jive with you, go look at the biggest most evil weapon you've ever created. Looking at it? now look at the damage values, and pick the 13th number. that's the MAXIMUM amount of damage you can do to a vital system when you shoot it. It's probably going to be less-than-that though, what with the % mitigation on every layer before that...not to mention angled strikes have to pass though a larger number of blocks.

 

[Malacodor]

End result is that on a "direct hit" after the shields have gone down: 40-80% DR from advanced armor -> 9 layers of ablation -> 1-2 layers of advanced&standard armor -> vital systems can take damage. If this doesn't quite jive with you, go look at the biggest most evil weapon you've ever created. Looking at it? now look at the damage values, and pick the 13th number. that's the MAXIMUM amount of damage you can do to a vital system when you shoot it. It's probably going to be less-than-that though, what with the % mitigation on every layer before that...not to mention angled strikes have to pass though a larger number of blocks.

100 cannon + 100 pulse can penetrate through 3 layers of advanced armor, 9 layers of standard armor and 21 system blocks (with 25 HP). It's only 16 system blocks with passive piercing effect, but that can be negated by using 66 cannon + 66 pulse + 66 piercing instead.

 

[TBterra]

100 cannon + 100 pulse can penetrate through 3 layers of advanced armor, 9 layers of standard armor and 21 system blocks (with 25 HP). It's only 16 system blocks with passive piercing effect, but that can be negated by using 66 cannon + 66 pulse + 66 piercing instead.

how often do people actually use cannon pluse? I would have thought that its long cooldown and single line of destruction would make it rather useless unless you knew you where going to hit something important. Genuine question, I haven got much experience with pvp.

 

[Panpiper]

how often do people actually use cannon pluse? I would have thought that its long cooldown and single line of destruction would make it rather useless unless you knew you where going to hit something important. Genuine question, I haven got much experience with pvp.

I've always thought of cannon/pulse as being the weapon to use for really small ships that none the less want turrets that can crack an armor block, even if that means they fire very slowly. A 6 cannon/6 pulse/6 punch weapon could fit in a very small turret and still crack an advanced armor block at full HP. That is certainly not how I would arm a ship, but I could see someone doing that on a small role play ship that had such turrets mostly for decoration.

 

[-Moose-]

how often do people actually use cannon pluse? I would have thought that its long cooldown and single line of destruction would make it rather useless unless you knew you where going to hit something important. Genuine question, I haven got much experience with pvp.

I actually use pulse quite a bit for my anti armor alpha weapons. I never go above 10 to 20% slave, but that small bonus does quite a bit. Then I like to add 10% explosive and you can rip giant chunks out with a 3000 to 5000 block cannon. Considering you only have an extra 20-30% blocks for your secondary and tertiary you have a fairly compact weapon. They are especially useful against capital ships that can't get out of the way. Treat them like a useful dumb missile and you will be fine.

 

[Panpiper]

I actually use pulse quite a bit for my anti armor alpha weapons. I never go above 10 to 20% slave, but that small bonus does quite a bit. Then I like to add 10% explosive and you can rip giant chunks out with a 3000 to 5000 block cannon. Considering you only have an extra 20-30% blocks for your secondary and tertiary you have a fairly compact weapon. They are especially useful against capital ships that can't get out of the way. Treat them like a useful dumb missile and you will be fine.

If you are going to do that, you would be substantially better off going for a full ratio cannon/beam. And there is absolutely no reason to not use a full ratio tertiary such as explosive, you lose nothing on the primary effect but gain in the tertiary. In fact if I was going to spend 5000 blocks on a cannon/beam/explosive weapon, I would probably break it into a waffle of five 1000 block outputs ~333/333/333 each. Something like that would punch nice wide and still deep holes along with massive range and the extra accuracy of speed.

 

[-Moose-]

If you are going to do that, you would be substantially better off going for a full ratio cannon/beam. And there is absolutely no reason to not use a full ratio tertiary such as explosive, you lose nothing on the primary effect but gain in the tertiary. In fact if I was going to spend 5000 blocks on a cannon/beam/explosive weapon, I would probably break it into a waffle of five 1000 block outputs ~333/333/333 each. Something like that would punch nice wide and still deep holes along with massive range and the extra accuracy of speed.

Explosive effect is capped at 10% for weapons. Using any more then that caused a bunch of lag so schema capped it at 10%.

And cannon beam is certainly viable but having a small pulse slave gives me a nice balance of reload time and power consumption while still providing me with a crap ton of damage. Plus, it gives me several hundred more blocks to use compared to cannon beam at 100% considering how difficult it is just to take down the shields of some ships I like my alpha anti armor guns to be on the smaller side and leave the hp to a machine gun.

 

[EricBlank]

Even though the effect is capped at 10%, adding more blocks will still increase the total damage the projectile does, so it's still beneficial.

If you're only going for a low value on the pulse secondary, the beam as a secondary would give you a higher projectile speed, longer maximum range and the same damage per projectile, assuming you matched the reload times.

Cannon/pulse/punch really shines in large waffle arrays, say set up to dig a borehole into a target 3mx3m in cross-section or so. Bigger diameter, more likely you can sneak a lucky missile hit down there into their systems. I like to back it up with a beam/pulse/ion for bringing down shields quickly.

 

[AtraUnam]

Even though the effect is capped at 10%, adding more blocks will still increase the total damage the projectile does, so it's still beneficial.

If you're only going for a low value on the pulse secondary, the beam as a secondary would give you a higher projectile speed, longer maximum range and the same damage per projectile, assuming you matched the reload times.

Cannon/pulse/punch really shines in large waffle arrays, say set up to dig a borehole into a target 3mx3m in cross-section or so. Bigger diameter, more likely you can sneak a lucky missile hit down there into their systems. I like to back it up with a beam/pulse/ion for bringing down shields quickly.

Its not beneficial to go over 10% with explosive, while each block does add more damage per projectile having a percentage over 10% causes much if not most of your damage to be lost to te void rather than applying to the target.

 

[Dire Venom]

Some great suggestions here.
Just like to add my bit, I always include docked shields/armour sections in my ship. (docked entities with their own shields and armour)
This means I can wrap my vitals in them so that high-powered shots can't take out computers and keep my internals safe from stray shots.
Smart use of these in addition to good armoring means that you can limit and control damage spread around your ship and keep your vitals (jump drive, aux, computers etc) safe for longer.

On very large builds I sometimes use a layer of spaced hull armour on the outside with triangular and other angular shapes. This pre-detonates missiles causing most of the explosion to go out into space and for none of it to breech holes in your ship nor damage your ships actual armour.
Combined with a layer of interior shielding this can completely negate the first few missile volleys (more if you turn your ship) and use the second shield to stop any cannon shots from going through. This tends to be quite strong vs ion weapons as well.

Just my 50c ^_^

 

[DrTarDIS]

Some great suggestions here.
Just like to add my bit, I always include docked shields/armour sections in my ship. (docked entities with their own shields and armour)
This means I can wrap my vitals in them so that high-powered shots can't take out computers and keep my internals safe from stray shots.
Smart use of these in addition to good armoring means that you can limit and control damage spread around your ship and keep your vitals (jump drive, aux, computers etc) safe for longer.

lucky shot=slideshow lag though. dangerous the same way internal-docked-reactor used to be dangerous.

On very large builds I sometimes use a layer of spaced hull armour on the outside with triangular and other angular shapes. This pre-detonates missiles causing most of the explosion to go out into space and for none of it to breech holes in your ship nor damage your ships actual armour.
Combined with a layer of interior shielding this can completely negate the first few missile volleys (more if you turn your ship) and use the second shield to stop any cannon shots from going through. This tends to be quite strong vs ion weapons as well.

Just my 50c ^_^

area triggers do this too last I checked. with nice tiny mass.

 

[Scypio]

area triggers do this too last I checked. with nice tiny mass.

area triggers ??

It's common to use this kind of things with forcefields but... How ?

 

[Ithirahad]

I've found that internal bulkheads just get punched through easily and you end up with a much heavier ship... Especially compared to a sleek design with 2 or 3 layers of armor, which, if hit from the front, results in projectiles having to penetrate through like 8 blocks of armor. :D

 

[Malacodor]

Its not beneficial to go over 10% with explosive, while each block does add more damage per projectile having a percentage over 10% causes much if not most of your damage to be lost to te void rather than applying to the target.

Are you sure? Last time I tested it, there wasn't a difference between 10% and 100%. 9 cannon + 1 explosive had the same behaviour as 5 cannon + 5 explosive.

 

[Top 4ce]

Are you sure? Last time I tested it, there wasn't a difference between 10% and 100%. 9 cannon + 1 explosive had the same behaviour as 5 cannon + 5 explosive.

It comes into play at much higher numbers, where the explosive effect can destroy a lot of blocks at once. The explosive radius does not change past 10% on cannons.