have anyone been using ships without shields? if so how?
personally i have alliance ships with no shields and tribe ships with no shield or armor…
i tried it a few times and it actually works really well in small-scale engagements if you put enough armor on
but when more ordinance starts flying,the lucky hits alone are enough to make your defence melt off and then the ship just becomes a another bright star in the sky…
my assessment would be,unless ure Order or the map bans shields alltogether,use them whenever you can
well… armor repair is good for those pesky little lucky hits…
not if you have 20 fighters,4 frigates with ions and 2 other cruisers shooting it
sure,a nano can repair alot, but when it gets below a certain value (which will make your armor lose resistance),it just melts off in 2 seconds
armor tanking is very unreliable
true that… especially when the enemy has a few more beams…
It’s also expensive as heck - Cruiser armour is a lot more expensive that shields - and while you can get away with a design with 3 shields - you need to make sure you have at least enough armour to take on missiles.
Now frigates - I often just rely on armour - but more to take on random hits from fighters. My frigates also tend to be more of a supporting role - and now I guess once those imperial shield doohickies work properly the shield disruptor will get some use.
Berny
i use frigates for a fast attack role, my corvette-frigate has a speed of .83 or something… great for taking down enemy shields and letting more bomber shots through
I use tribes if I want to go without shields. Shield tends to offer more benefit than armor in most cases, even for alliance. I like the stick with small hulls (say Rebel Fenrir Cruisers) so I can skip out on armor entirely. Laser Fighters can still get hits in but having lasers set to prioritize cruisers over frigate/fighters are rare anyway. Having 1 frigate with 3x armour III/1x shield gen/1x micro crew/1x engineIII seem to do the trick in luring all the laser fighter’s hit, and way cheaper than putting armor on every cruisers.
The benefit of a single shield, even some of the budgeted ones, is almost always worth it against fighters. Every hit on armor is a potential crit… so why let that happen?
Nah, I always have over 1000 shield with my Empire cruisers, that’s how I’m able to engage enemy fleet at half the size and without a single loss.
For tribe cruisers, having another repair module offers more survivability than a 50% shield in most situations. So the opportunity cost of losing a repair module is not worth the shield. Then again, tribe ships don’t use armor either so crit was never a concern. Any other race I will use at least a shield gen II.
Also frigates use for luring rocket fighter hits would not need a shield, as frigate shield are useless against rocket fighters.
It works surprisingly well with the tribe ships. Just be sure to put on about 4 repair bays.
No shields, no armor, just hitpoints and repair bays. The downside to this is that laser fighters will ruin your day, but put a tractor beam on each of your cruisers and they will hold the fighters stationary to rip them to pieces.
You will lose some ships. Other ships will be a flaming wreck. But most of them will survive long enough to get the job done. A tribe cruiser with 4 repair bays on it takes a very, very long time to die.
really? this never seemed to be the case when i tried it. so much destruction… mind you though, i used cruiser defense, not tractor
A tractor beam lets all weapons hit fighters. Anything can hit a stationary target. A tractor beam lets ordinary beam weapons or even cruiser lasers demolish the fighter instantly.