Mine Damage: How Does It Work?

[Baron Munchausen]

Arkon, you missed the 'James T. Kirk' option... reprogram the simulation! We've had many discussions of game balance on these Boards, and the change in the relative power of weapons from SE III to SE IV has been mentioned many times as a problem. You could increase the strength of armor (though you still are right that you ought to have more than one piece of armor on a ship), or you could decrease the power of weapons.

Now, if you're playing a PBW game with the stock files then you're stuck with those options already listed...

[ January 21, 2003, 02:28: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[Suicide Junkie]

Well, doesn't that pretty much render armor useless? After all, lots of weapons do much more than 40 hit points (= 40 Kt of damage resistance). That means one hit from a Polaron V (H mount) could wipe 3 of them in one shot.

Q: Do you only put 1 shield generator on your ships?

Of course not!
Plus, you can fit 4 armor components in the space of 1 shield generator, and 10-20 armor if you use it exclusively. 400-800 hitpoints isn't anything to scoff at.

Now see how effective it is

[Slynky]

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:

quote:

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Well, doesn't that pretty much render armor useless? After all, lots of weapons do much more than 40 hit points (= 40 Kt of damage resistance). That means one hit from a Polaron V (H mount) could wipe 3 of them in one shot.

Q: Do you only put 1 shield generator on your ships?

Of course not!
Plus, you can fit 4 armor components in the space of 1 shield generator, and 10-20 armor if you use it exclusively. 400-800 hitpoints isn't anything to scoff at.

Now see how effective it is

---

That's true...but, assuming some sort of success in the battle (with, say, 3 or 4 high-end phased shield generators), if your shields held off the shots, it needs no repair. On the other hand, it's not much fun repairing 12 or 16 armor components. Nor fast.

[Phoenix-D]

"That's true...but, assuming some sort of success in the battle (with, say, 3 or 4 high-end phased shield generators), if your shields held off the shots, it needs no repair. On the other hand, it's not much fun repairing 12 or 16 armor components. Nor fast"

But armor is cheaper, can be researched MUCH faster, and the weapons that skip it are racial and fairly weak. And unlike shields armor helps against mines.

EDIT: also, there is no "armor killing" component, and no weapon gets bonuses against armor (like the quad to shields Time Distortion Burst, or the Shield Depleter)

Phoenix-D

[ January 22, 2003, 01:21: Message edited by: Phoenix-D ]

[Suicide Junkie]

That's true...but, assuming some sort of success in the battle (with, say, 3 or 4 high-end phased shield generators), if your shields held off the shots, it needs no repair. On the other hand, it's not much fun repairing 12 or 16 armor components. Nor fast.

No matter what your defenses, 90% of the time you can expect maybe 1 or 2 cripples in your entire fleet. The rest will be undamaged, or vaporized.

Even if you just fired on and destroyed the cripples, or left them to limp home, your fleet would not be significantly diminished.
Adding a single repair ship will usually fix all battle damage by the next turn, too.

[Slynky]

Yeah, Suicide and Phoenix, I guess it's this sort of debate and multiple options that make the game as good as it is.

Two kinds of shields, various armor (although I rarely use that "speckled" armor), and a multitude of weapon types to consider, mines notwithstanding.

Thanks for all the responses!

[couslee]

Not to mention the other benefit of the armor. it gets hit first (unless they armor skipping weapons). I would rather have to repair 200kt worth of armor, than not be able to get out of their weapon range and have to build a new ship. And maybe it's just me, but it certainly seems like the shield depleters are a lot more accurate than the weapons that damage armor. Personally, I think it's the shields that are over powered and not the armor being under powered.

It's just my opinion so far. being my first game, I have not seen all the components in action yet. The funniest one, was after a battle with the Phong, and that &%$@# weapon they have, had a ship that the ONLY component to survive the battle was my stealth armor. Had that been a shield component, it probably would have been destroyed. The great one HP escape.

[couslee]

something relevant I noticed....
If you click on an enemy ship, it shows the KT for it. But that may not be the total damage resistance. IE:
Enemy has 4 1000kt ships.
you launch five 900 damage mines to protect a planet from the attack.
because of armor and other components, the AI actually has 1400 damage resistance per ship.
result, they punch through and kick your hiney.
afterwards, you spend a lot of time looking around for info and find the easiest way to get the true rating is with the combat simulator.

Just a guess
(baloney, I got my bum wupped)