[Pax]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:

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Originally posted by oleg:
I disagree wholeheartly. You praise LM depletor that can drain 300 shield points but dismiss out of hand a weapon that for twice size can kill once and for all 3 generators - up to 1100 shield points !

And fires every 3 rounds. Depleters fire every round, and have longer range. A LM Disrupter V only does that at point-blank range. It is also much more expensive than Delpeters. 2 LM Depleter Vs can knock out 1800 shields (300 each, for 3 rounds) at up to range 6 in the same time that a LM Disrupter V can knock out 1125 shield points (3 Phased Shield Generator Vs, 40 hit points each) at only point blank range. At range 4, it does nothing at all. It can only do 30 damage to shield generators at that point, and, unless it has been changed, partial "special" damage is ignored. This is over the course of a battle, not just the first round.

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But, once the shots fire ... the disruptor wins, because it does ALL 1125 shield-loss, AND some internal-hull damage, in one fell swoop. It would take two turns for the Depleters to match that.

The range is an issue, however, if you're closing to point-blank anyway (for whatever reason) ...

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And when you fight CA ships, how do you design ships for strategic combat ? Every APB is preceded by shield depletor ? That's very ineffective use of weaponry in all the most important earlier rounds of battle when shields are still high and you will waste several APB.

To be honest, I have never fought a competent opponent that used Crystalline Tech. If I did, I would probably just put 2 or 3 Depleters on my ship in the front, knocking out all shields. Then, the APBs would be more than enough to destroy the CA, unless you used 14 CAs. Since this is purely theoretical, it might be better to go ahead and use those Disrupters against Crystalline opponents. At this point, I really don't know.

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Not all shields on a crystalline-armored target. All shields the target ship starts the round with. IF the generators are still live, however, then every shot has some of it's energy siphoned back into shields, to resist the next shot. Disruptors, however, remove the shields entirely -- and thus, also remove the Crystalline Armor's special ability entirely.

If they need to fire more than once in a combat, you're either outnumbered, or otherwise doomed already. The Disruptors could have a 30-round recycle rate; the idea is, only their first shot matters. After that, there shouldn't be shield generators LEFT on the enemy ship.

Note, in games like P&N, wiht the HEavy Shield components (200kT, generates 3000 shields, regenerates 100 per round), one depleter would need 15 turns to drop that shield, and there'd still be 100 shields regenerated each round after that.

One disruptor doing 40 damage would need 5 shots, and there'd be -no- regenerating shields. Same time in total, yes (15 rounds), but: 5 disruptors would then do in one round, what would take TEN depletors a single round to do. So which costs more, 10 depletors, or 5 disruptors?

Range issues aside, ofc.