I personally slap a slab or two on my cruisers for anti fighter strafe
Anyone else have other good uses for armor?
Since they practically have no chance against cruiser grade weaponry
Pls post ur experience
Thx
Gunny
That depends ENTIRELY on the purpose of the ship.
I have a ship i use to pull enemy cruisers onto the axis of approach i want that can last upwards of 20 seconds (at x4 speed) of concentrated fire by an entire enemy fleet. It’s just an engine, a power plant, the smallest crew compartment i can find, a relfective shield, and armor. That’s it. Pretty much only Lucky Shots or enemy cruisers blowing up next to the ship to kill it.
All of my main combat ships have 2 armor on them. it’s not enough to stop even a full FT wave, but it IS enough to give me another 15-20 seconds of survival (again at x4 speed)
Two words sums up the armor in this game I think.
Swiss cheese.
Cliff did a super job on this but he made his weapons too effective against armor. The armor just does not stand up. I think that if the penity for stacking armor was removed, as with maybe better restance to weapons it might be worth something.
I have a tank cruiser that has two beam weapons, two missile scramblers, a ton of armor, and some engines to make it fast. And it still is toasted far far shorter time that I think it should be. So Ifi was to say put two inched of armor on my truck, whould it stop a laser? Yes it would until the armor got hot and started to melt. But it the lazer that is hitting it is only there for a few seconds the armor would never get hot enough to melt all the way though. Yes yes it will melt somewaht, but what is the chance of it hitting the SAME place twice if both the laser platform and my truck are moving? Very slim if you as me, and if you don’t too bad I’m telling you anyway.
I realy thing the armor needs a buff, and remove the staking pentily or reduce it to the point that armor become useful.
Thanks
Lonestar
Whether you conceptualize this weapon as projecting the radiated energy of a laser or the kinetic energy of a bullet, the end result of your weapon is the same: to deliver a massive amount of energy onto one specific point in hopes of penetrating (and thus, bypassing) the armor. If the two inches of armor on your hypothetical truck is so massively strong that its immune to fire from a decent laser weapon, it’s likely immune to the penetration of bullets and other forms of attack as well.
Ramcat and I have an interesting discussion on armor theory in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=25&t=5335&p=36241 if you are interested in similar examples. (Not so much for current GSB armor modules, just a general discussion on the function of armor and weaponry as it might relate to GSB issues.)
Argh, Cliffski, taunting me with your red username not posting the announcement i’m waiting to hear T_T
On topic, I think it will be interesting to see how/if increased frigate armor plays out. Increasing the EMP shield strength will make it actually worth carrying on a few ships i use, although i’m more heistent about the guidance scrambler weight increase.
I have an Augmented Defenses Mod you can try out. positech.co.uk/forums/phpBB3/vie … =23&t=5328
It increases the effectiveness of all armors by making it last 5 times longer in combat.
I’ve seen your agumented defenses mod, and once GSB is out on steam i will most likely give it a try. However, I am always hesitent to do things like that as they do present a challenge to balance. That’s the problem i’m encountering now while trying to make a missile-specialist weapons mod, balance
Ack? Why? Missle spam is a common user complaint. GSB’s are the best counter, why weaken the Rock-Paper-Scissors we have going now? I like the current stats.
I think an in game mod switch with seperate directories for files, would be a much welcome change. Then many users would be able to test out small changes like this and give feedback. I know I would test mods for balance if I had this safety.
Also, the frigate armor increase is interesting, may I propose a counter? Why not remove the stacking penalty instead? Ok, for frigates a 20% buff might also be needed because they often don’t carry more than one armor module (except for some Rebel frigates I’ve captured seem to have more armor than a cruiser :O).
Am I correct in remembering that only armor and shields have a stacking penalty?
well, i THOUGHT engines had a stacking plenality, but apparently not!
Cliffski, here is my feedback on your proposed balance changes (from the perspective of playing in the SAC and NEC tournaments, which I feel is relatively high level competitive play).
The cost benefit was the only saving grace for Awazem. From what I’ve seen, armor on fighters is generally worse than spending the credits elsewhere, and doesn’t even necessarily improve survivability. So this is more like a nerf, rather than a buff. Other than that, the changes to Duwasir, Majali and the Dogfighting laser are all nice changes.
Abbadi and Nomadic beam laser buffs are welcome too, but there are dozens of weak cruiser hulls and modules that can use some changes too.
Guidance beam scramblers do need a nerf, but I’m not sure simply increasing its weight will be enough. Decoy Missiles need their range increased to be useful and EMP shields will still not be used, especially with the buff to EMP missiles. I like that you’re trying to improve frigate utility, but there is a danger of making frigate spam too powerful.
While I do like most of your changes, and I do like that you are taking the effort to even make changes when you don’t have to, I think you are missing the forest for the trees. The biggest game imbalance is Tribe, and I believe there have been several threads in the suggestions forums on this point: for example, here and here. Of course, if you are trying to balance the game for the campaign rather than multiplayer, Tribe may not be much of an issue, and I suppose you would know best what needs changing.
They have penalty for fighters. Frigate and cruiser engines can be stacked en masse.
I think autorepair modules have also stacking penalty but I can’t remember now which stat affected the penalty now.
please leave GSB as it is, buff the anti-misslie lasers, Fix the “lets ram each other instead of flying under each other” exploit.
The following modules have stacking penalties:
Fighter engines
ALL shields including ECM
ALL Armor EXCEPT fighter class
Point defence scanners
Target booster
All repair modules
Carrier bays
Those are the only one that I have found in the BASIC game that have stacking penalties. One thing that I note is that while fighter engines are penalized, fighter armor is not.
My cruisers almost invariably have 3 shields, 1 repair bay, and 1-2 armor. The armor is to stop fighters. It will not do anything to prevent damage from cruiser weapons, but it does mean that my cruisers are nearly immune to enemy fighters, and so swarms of enemy fighters can essentially just be ignored.
from what i’ve seen, that’s pretty standard.
Multiphasic, resilient and fast recharge shields?
I usually do 2 multi and 1 reflective shield.