Shields & Armour --- what's the point?

[Bman]

Shields: If you continue to research you will eventually reach phased shields that are as strong as (and eventually stronger than) normal shields. You are correct that phased shields do not provide added protection against a normal weapon. But normal shields will not stop Phased Polaron beams, which most humans research early (as well as alot of TDM-Modpack AI's). But at shield-level 10, you get phased shields that generate 375 points each which is better than the normal shield generators

Armor: Get an ECM-III (+60% defense), Add Scattering Armor-III (+15% defense), Add Stealth Armor (+15% defense). Train your ship (+20% defense). Train your fleet (+20% defense). Add it all up: 130% defense. That means even at point-blank range your opponent will not be able to hit you without help. Now if your opponent has:
combat sensors-III (+65% offense), training (+20% offense), fleet training (+20% offense), that comes to +105% offense. Now as you can see because you have both armors, he still hase a -25% chance to hit you. That means at point-blank range he will miss 1 in 4 times. 5 squares away he will only hit 25% of the time (vs 55% of the time if you did not have the armors). That cuts his number of successful hits in half at 5-range.

Stealth and scattering armor are *very* nice.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jon Brave:
Zarix, you may have summed it up. Emissive pointless; other armours maybe worth the bonus, but I'm not convinced; phased shields great against non-phased weapons but too risky for "general" use, and, yes, my designs are a pain if I ever research them... So basically I don't want to use these areas 99% of the time. Shame...

---

[Zarix]

One really shouldn't compare normal shields V and phased I. It is usually better to go with armor than I or II of the normal or phased shields.

[tesco samoa]

Have you looked at the advanced research trait's armour ???

That will throw a monkey into your thinking.

Organic and Crystaline Armour.

But back to the topic of Phased Shields vs non-phased shields. Use them both but only one kind per ship class.

Make PShield ships and copy that design and make a non PShield Version of the ship. Build both. Use them together. Forces the opposing player to react to your ship configurations. Forcing you to react to there new ship configurations.

I could understand the debate over this if ship combat was one on one but it is not.

When you have fleets of 100 greater... Staying power is very important. AS is quickness to ship construction and deployment of ships.

You have to look at the cost of each ship component vs its benifits and decide if this ship build is an economically viable solution. If you can afford it build the best.

Weapons that skip shields and armour have a longer reload time. If your ships are non phased i will attack you with PPB's
If your ships are Phased then I will attack you with PPB's but I will also start attacking you with weapons that cause more damage on the initial strike. But the PPB's will be there because they fire every single turn.

I am losing track here. Rambling sorry.

But my point is that for shields both are viable.

It all depends on what you need to build to survive the first salvo from the enemy.

Which in the long run is a balance of shield type and armour type ships.

Space and the purpose of that ship.

So when your running your simulators build both types of ships and have some fleet engagements with those different types of ships.

You will find that you need both.

[capnq]

quote:

---

Also, I can never use shield regenerators.

---

I'm baffled by this statement. Why can't you use shield regenerators? They're meant to be used in conjunction with either type of shield generator, not to replace them.

Several mods make changes to normal and phased shields, trying to address the problem.

[Jon Brave]

quote:

---

Originally posted by capnq:
I'm baffled by this statement. Why can't you use shield regenerators? They're meant to be used in conjunction with either type of shield generator, not to replace them.

---

a. I thought shield regens only regenerate phased shields? I thought the graphic/manual indicated this...

b. and they regen such a paltry amount (5 to start with?) it's an OK percentage against 75 phased shields but too little against 300 normal shields, don't you think?

[Suicide Junkie]

Ugh, why are you comparing the very first level of regenerators against the top tech in shields???

I agree that the low end regenerators seem weak, but after a few levels they are quite decent.
Also note that the regenerators are half the size of a shield generator, so double their value.

You can get 375 phased shields, or 50 recharge per turn in 40 KT of space. If you expect to survive 7 turns after being hit, the regenerator will be worth more to you.

PS: Also note that shield regenerators of any level are a great defense against boarding parties.

[ 08 May 2002: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]