4200 Damage out to range 8!

[NullAshton]

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.

[Alneyan]

NullAshton said:
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.

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.

[NullAshton]

Still would remove its primary ability...

[Riesig_Bar]

NullAshton said:
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.

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.

[Alneyan]

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.

[NullAshton]

Crystalline armor only affects hits on the hull. It doesn't divert the damage to the shields, damage is still done TO the shields. If you wanted it to divert the damage to the shields and not take it, I guess you could add an emmisive trait...

[Alneyan]

What are you replying to exactly NullAshton? If it is my claim that "10 Crystalline Armours make a ship immune to anything doing less than 150 damage (normal damage)", you can check it out: build one ship with a Master Computer, some supplies, 10 Crystalline Armour and 150 shield points, and send one hundred battleships with heavy-mounted Meson Blasters (90 damage per hit). The Crystalline vessel will simply not be damaged, so long as it still has supplies.

If it was my estimation that three Crystalline Armours will barely be able to generate 75 shield points, it goes somewhat like that: the shields go down sooner or later, there is one hit to the hull (likely enough to destroy one CA if Shield Depleters were fired before, though that can be argued), 30 points are created, and it will take two direct hits (for an average heavy-mounted weapon) to take down the two remaining CA components. The values are only given as an estimation: it can be more, it can be less, but it will not be significant (unless using a very weak weapon, like an unmounted Meson Blaster).

One clarification: the "immune" part implies that NO weapon doing special damage is used. If you put a single Shield Depleter before regular weapons, it may be enough to break the CA, depending on the other weapon used. Two successful hits by a Shield Depleter may be needed instead, I am not positive on that. (The reason is that Shield Depleters sometimes create partial damage, converted into normal damage when the vessel is hit by a standard weapon)

[Riesig_Bar]

I obvisously have a lot to learn about weapons and shields. Is there atopic on designs for certain things? A book maybe?

[NullAshton]

It could be that stock crystalline armor also have emmisive abilities.

[Alneyan]

Stock CA doesn't have any emissive ability. It can be broken down very effectively: try sending a vessel with Meson Blasters (unmounted) against a CA vessel, and remove all supplies from the CA vessel. The Crystalline ship will go down, sooner or later (several ships will be needed to finish it off before combat is over). Or you can just do a Shield Depleter+weapon+Shield Depleter+weapon combination; a weapon dealing 120 damage should be fine for the test (not powerful enough to break 10 CA on its own, strong enough to destroy the vessel along with the Shield Depleters).

There is, to the best of my knowledge, no guide about weapons. SJ made a list of weapons and their damage ratios though, and there should be a program to get those values. They can be interested, if you are lazy like me and do not want to do the maths yourself. Do not worry if you do not understand everything about the Crystalline Armour, partial damage and the like: it is *complicated*, because partial damage is handled very oddly by the game.