Emissive Armor

[dmm]

The way I understand it, first you get the "emissivity" protection from emissive armor, then you lower shield strength. Once shields go to zero, you start destroying armor. Once armor goes to zero, you start randomly destroying whatever components are left (including but not limited to emissive armor or shield generators). Am I right, everyone?

But I never use anything but regular ArmorIII. Emissive Armor is too heavy, not worth it. Ditto for Shields, unless I also had the Shield Regenerator, which might make it worthwhile (haven't tried yet).

[Baron Munchausen]

Shields are reduced first unless you are using a weapon that ignores shields. Only when your shields are gone will the armor be hit, IF you are not using a weapon that ignores armor. Armor is hit randomly just like inner components, so if you have several components of different types some of the hits will go to the emissive armor and some will go to the other components. It's likely that ordinary armor will be destroyed even if you have one emissive armor.

[jowe01]

Thanks for the first answers. Two questions are still open:
- Does emissive armor reduce damages even of hits which exceed its "reflection" capacity ? Or is it a "all or nothing" attribute, i.e. hits which exceed the reflection capacity of the emissive armor are not reduced at all ?

- Are emissive armors cumulative ?

[Baron Munchausen]

I haven't been able to determine if they 'absorb' up to their limit and then break of if they just break.

No, emissive armors are not cumulative, but they are 'serial' -- if one is destroyed the next will just take over and must be hit with greater than it's emissive protection value. So it's still worthwhile to have more than one.

[Master Belisarius]

As the Baron said, the emissive armors are serial, not cumulative.

How work an emissive armor? First the armor absorb the points, and if the weapon is more powerful than the points that can abosrb, then the emissive armor work like an standard armor.

For example:
You have a ship with one emissive armor that can deflect 10 points of damage and can take 30 points of damage.

a) IF your ship is fighting against 20 ships that have one weapon that can inflict 8 points of damage, then, your ship will not take damage during the combat: everytime that your ship receive one shot for 8 points, the emissive armor will abosrb everything. Then, your ship could destroy all the others ships without receive any damage.

b) If your ship is fighting against other ship that have one weapon that can inflict 40 points. Well, at the first shot, your emissive armor will be destroyed (10 points that can absorb + 30 points damage resistance)

[dmm]

Thanks for clearing that up. I hadn't noticed that emissive armor also has a good amount of regular damage-taking ability. That makes it better than I thought, but still too heavy IMHO. 'Course I stopped in disgust at level II, so maybe it gets more competitive.
Consider: 1x emissiveII gives 20+40=60 protection, while 2x armorIII gives 140 protection. Yet the weight is the same, the cost is MORE for the emissive (1x500 vs. 2x50), and you had to research two more tech levels for it. Emissive is only worth it if your opponents are fitting out their ships with large numbers of wimpy weapons (and well into the game, too).

[Taqwus]

dmm --

Look into Crystalline for a GOOD armor. ;-)