[Taera]

generally a ship without an armor or shields, i mean both, is too easily shot down. For shields, just get SD, its cheap. For armor everything works. BUT! once shields are down, every hit takes something out of your ship. And your lucky if it is a weapon. Because otherwise it might hit a bridge. Then your toast.

Armor is, supposedly, the backup of shields.

Now there is something else about shields. Not taking into account the defense bonuses from the high-tech armor, the racial armors are the best in the game and are best when put into massive quantities. For example i've found that a cruiser with like 5 OA and only a handful of weapons is extremly powerful, and very cheap. Then again a crystalline armored battleship is almost impenitrable to damage, resisting alot from every second shot.

In general some shields and some armor is a must, because every ship can do more - or at least soak up more damage.