Re: 4200 Damage out to range 8!
 

How many Crystalline Armours do they use? If it is only a couple of them, you will be fine; if it is ten of them or more, you will need specific designs. I do not believe the AI designs Crystalline vessels with a lot of Crystalline Armours though.

You definitively need Combat Sensors and ECM, as otherwise your weapons are as good as useless (if you are too far behind). Training is also good, but the AI doesn't do it on purpose, so it should not be a factor here.

Shields vs armour is another debate: armour is much cheaper to research and to deploy, but shields have the best protection per kt ratio, and protect against Ionic Dispersers. Shields can be negated by Shield Depleters however: if attacked by these weapons, shields aren't really better than armour. But in your specific case, Shard Canons skip armour, so any shot from these weapons go straight to damage your components (weapons are the most likely components to be damaged). If you use shields, Shard Canons will not skip them, so your ship will have a much better protection.

Re: 4200 Damage out to range 8!
 

No the AI isn't using more then 3 armours. I saw that armour was cheaper then sheilds and stopped doing shields. I an making a list of things to research.

I noticed that my guns missed a lot but the AI didn't. So thats what gave me the idea to use the sensors. EMC is good too? Ok another thing to add to the list

I have started using sheild depleters I. I will upgrade that too. I may be too far behind.

Here's my list to research and upgrade:
shields
Combat Sensors (Upgrade and add)
ECM (Upgrade and add)
APB (upgrade and add)
Shield depleters (Same)


Anything else?

Re: 4200 Damage out to range 8!
 

Not sure what you mean by this. Can you explain. Do you mean shield depleters?

Re: 4200 Damage out to range 8!
 

Shield Disrupters come with Shield Damaging Weapons (as Shield Depleters) after some research in this area. They shut down shield generators, but have a short range and are very costly. They can be useful if you are overwhelmed by shielded vessels, but Shield Depleters are better otherwise, especially if you want to fight at long range.

Combat Sensors give you a huge bonus to accuracy, and ECM gives a similar bonus to defence. These two cancel each other, so they will not do anything in particular if the target has these two components too. However, if they have ECM and Combat Sensors and you do not, all your weapons will miss and all of theirs will hit, so Combat Sensors and ECM are needed.

Your research list seems fine: there may be a few other things interesting for you, but you will find them as you play the game. You have the essentials covered here, and your vessels should perform much better in battles with these upgrades.

Re: 4200 Damage out to range 8!
 

Thank you guys for your help. I will try this when I get out my prison (work).

Re: 4200 Damage out to range 8!
 

Shield disruptors would be good against crystalline armor, it would remove the shield generators, which generate the shields. No shield generators, crystalline armor is useless.

Re: 4200 Damage out to range 8!
 

There are only three Crystalline Armours in this case, so that property of the Crystalline Armour is nearly irrelevant here. Even without a shield, the CA is hardly useless though: it is still much better than regular armour, being both cheaper and 25% stronger.

Re: 4200 Damage out to range 8!
 

Still would remove its primary ability...

Re: 4200 Damage out to range 8!
 

Ok now I get it. If the AI had more armour like 10 then the disruptors would be really useful. Ok thanks. I will remember that.

Re: 4200 Damage out to range 8!
 

The armour will be able to regenerate, what, perhaps 75 shield points in the current setup, less than what an extra APB would do (an APB takes the same space as a Shield Disruptor if memory serves, or the Shield Disruptor is bigger).

A vessel with 10 Crystalline Armour is immune to anything doing less than 150 damage points in a single hit (normal damage that is), unless using specific designs. In this case, a Shield Disruptor would have indeed been useful, as the regeneration can be very annoying. (There are other ways to deal with a Crystalline Armour however, but this is another topic)

Shield Disruptors can also be good if you are annoyed by vessels with a lot of shield generators. However, Shield Disruptors do not do enough damage to take down more than a few shield generators per hit, and you will need to close to range 2 or range 1 to do a lot of damage, so it does not go well with a "fight at maximum range" plan.