Stealth Armour/Cloaking - possible bug

Aub · #1 January 11th, 2002, 08:53 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Growltigga:
Kimball - many thanks for your comments - I agree that the defensive bonues of stealth and scattering armour, irrespective of the 'cloaking' benefit (hell - just sit in a storm if you want to be invisible) make then worthwhile...

I was saying it on a different thread but I guess I can repeat it here again. I do feel the stealth armor is unbalanced, not only because it gives you cloaking early on (the ability that at higher levels costs much much more, both in research and costs of components) but because it's simply overloaded with goodies. Taking the stealth armor is a no-brainer, you cannot lose by that. And that is, in my book, the definition of unbalanced

Fyron · #2 January 13th, 2002, 08:48 PM

Sure you can "lose" by that. What if your using organic armor? If the stealth armor happens to get hit before any of the organic armor does, then all that regeneration won't help it.

Puke · #3 January 14th, 2002, 07:54 AM

stealth and scattering armor are awfully big for any ship less than a LC. i usually only put them on certain ships (or only put one or the other of them on) untill i get BCs or bigger.

maybe you think they would be more ballanced if they had less armor value? this would make it a harder choice wither or not to put them on your ship?

Aub · #4 January 14th, 2002, 11:11 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Puke:
maybe you think they would be more ballanced if they had less armor value? this would make it a harder choice wither or not to put them on your ship?

Of course lowering the armor value will help balancing it. The stealth and defense abilities do mean a lot, but in the end I think they would not be worth it if the armor value was very low. So the answer lies somewhere in between, maybe at 1/3 of the current value or in that range.

That's only my opinion of course, one would have to run a coule of test games to verify it.

Suicide Junkie · #5 January 14th, 2002, 04:40 PM

IMO, the armor value already sucks.

Try comparing your stealth armor to 3/4 of a shield generator.

At max tech, you're trading off 15% ECM for +200 hitpoints.
Therefore, unless your ship can survive 1300 damage points being flung at it (either by dodging or shields/armor) the Phased Shield V is better than the stealth armor.

EG: at a 60% to-hit, your ship needs 3 or more shield generators in order for the Stealth armor to be worth it.

Aub · #6 January 14th, 2002, 08:27 PM

quote:
Originally posted by suicide_junkie:
... the Phased Shield V is better than the stealth armor.

But of course! Just think of how much more research you need to do to get phased shield v! If research didn't pay off, who would do research at all?

Suicide Junkie · #7 January 14th, 2002, 08:45 PM

That's an IF and only IF.

So, on a sufficiently hard-to-kill vessel, the stealth armor is MORE effective than another PSG V.

Where a sufficiently tough vessel is defined as "able to survive 1300 damage worth of (non-seeker) attacks, including misses due to defensive to-hit bonuses"

In any case, the point is that Stealth armor is NOT always appropriate to use just for the 15% bonus. Adding stealth armor by default, like a bridge & lifesupport, is not the best way to go about designing warships.

[ 14 January 2002: Message edited by: suicide_junkie ]