Ship Design for Dummies, weapons, armor, shields, oh my!

[geoschmo]

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

I know what you all are saying, and it makes sense in principle. But it just doesn't fit with what I see when I test it. I haven't tried shields yet, but at least for armor I see no point in using ANY once you get past LC's. The mounts make the weapons do just too much damage, even for Armor 3. That is unless you have a lot of armor, and then your ship is too weak to really hurt the other guy.

The only thing the armor does as far as I can tell is take up space better suited to more weapons. Your armored ships may Last an extra turn in battle, but the fewer weapons means your enemy Lasts longer then you do, and that is bad.

Now shields may very well have some value seeing as how they have a higher damage to size ratio then armor. As I said I have not tested that. And armor does seem to help with destroyers and smaller, assuming equal weapons tech. But the mounts make the damage too high for the armor to be an effective protection.

Now nothing I have said applies to organic armor or mods. I am talking only about standard armor in the stock game.

Geoschmo

[ July 26, 2003, 00:36: Message edited by: geoschmo ]