[Pax]

Originally posted by Asmala:
It's enough for me if the armor has nearly the same hp/kT, I'd choose it still (with one shield of course in case of engine destroying weapons or boarding parties). Of course those new changes can change this a lot, especially armor skipping for Graviton Hellbore and weakening the PPB.

My point, though, is: PPBs might not need to be toned down nearly as much, if armor was strengthened. Okay, maybe the Last two levels need to be 7 and 8 hp/kT instead of 8 and 10 (10 was just a nice end-target number to aim for).

At 8hp/kT, shields are clearly still better overall, but at least a couple slabs of armor wouldn't be pointless.

Also note, I'm advocating improvements to the Shield Regenerators (10kT size, regenerate 10xlevel per round -- it's what I did in Small Ships). That inherently makes shields more attractive.

Got 100kT of space for shields and armor? One shield, one emissive armor, two standard armors, and two regenerators. With my proposed changes to shields and regenerators, that's 500 nonphased (or 250 phased) shields, +100/turn regeneration, and decent armor behind those shields.

Or, if you're facing a crystalline race, two shields and two regenerators. 1000 shields (or 500 phased), with +100/turn regeneration.

Or, against a shield-skipping-weapon user, go with two emissives and eight standard armors. Lots of non-shield HP to sustain the Emissive-Armor goodness.