well, as many other nubs im still a bit confused about the mechanics of shields and armor and would like to get a affirmation if i got it right. already read some threads and heres the way i see it:
first shields:
1.) if attackers ‘shield penetration’ is lower than defenders highest ‘shield resistance’ the shot gets reflected, otherwise it hits.
2.) if the shot hits, the damage is distributed on all shields (randomly?) and diminishs the ‘shield strengths’. if the damage is higher then the shield strength the shield is down and every further damage distributed to this part of the shield gets through to the armor and is recalculated if it hits there, too.
3.) if the shield is not under attack for ‘recharge rate’ seconds the shield strength regenerates (??)
second armor:
1.) if if attackers ‘armor penetration’ is lower than defenders - current- average ‘damage absorbable’ the shot gets reflected, otherwise it hits.
2.) if the shot hits, the damage is distributed to all armormodules (randomly?). if the damage is higher then the ‘damage absorbable’ the armor-module is down and every further damage distributed to this part of the armor gets through and hits the targeted module, lowering its hp until destruction.
third: hitpoints
1.) if all modules are destroyed (hp down to zero), the whole ship explodes and is gone.
this means shield have only low resistance against penetration, but it wont decrease while armor has a high resistance value against penetration, but is lowered over time, making it not only weaker but more vulnerable, too. and the other difference is that shield regenerates, while armor never does (except with repair systems?).
another thing is that even if a shot would get reflected, there is a slight chance for a critical hit, meaning that it hits anyway. the reasons for that is to prevent invulnerable ships.
ok, i think there are still alot of errors, so please correct me!
No, while the shield strength is above 0(for each shield) it regenerates. If the shield strength reaches 0 it doesn’t regenerate anymore.
in addition if the weapon lacks armor penetration to get trough the average armor rating, it may still get a critical hit, that damages the armor, reducing its average armor rating.
Shields have a fixed Shield Resistance, weapons with more or equal Shield Penetration will damage the shield, otherwise they will not damage it regardless.
Also the highest shield resistance in a ship will be applied to all shields.
And Weapons that fire within a shield (like fighters) will ignore the shield.
Armor has damage absorbable (that would translate to, armor hitpoints), you add all damage absorbable from all the equiped armor in a ship, plus the armor bonus and minus stacking penality. Divide those by the total modules equipped on the ship and you get the average armor (thankfully the game does this calculation for you ). Then weapons have an Armor penetration value, which is compared and determines if it damages the armor or not. Although critical hits ignore this phase.
). Then weapons have an