Armor for the Power plant. Is it a good idea?
- Thread starter W4rSkuLL
- Start date
It doesn't work like that, most power plants can be hit from multiple angles. The whole mechanic is messed up, it really is just a case of target the plant and boom, no tactics involved at all. Power plant should be the most heavily armoured part of the ship, not the easiest target.
The way things are now, if your intent is to destroy a target then there's no reason to target anything but the power plant. The whole targeting mechanic is nullified as a tactical choice because of this. And hull upgrades are also 100% nullified.
It's a flaw in the game and it doesn't make combat more interesting just because it makes time to kill faster. It over simplifies combat.
If powerplants are "exposed" they are ridiculously durable.
I'd say it's more likely that powerplant integrity includes the hull/armour integrity around it, which you have to break through to destroy the powerplant.
I've not noticed this, especially fighting larger ships like Python or Anaconda, you can only hit the power plant on the correct 'side', but not from the other side. Maybe it is more of an issue with smaller ships...
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Indeed, more shielding/armouring also leads further away from Frontiers goal of having exciting circling fights analogous to WW2 fighters. Already many pilots in ED primarily rely on their shields and use tactics resembling the Ironclads of the 19th century. They face each other head-on (jousting) and hammer the other's shields/armour until the ship having the weakest shields has to run or blows up.
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Personally I regret the introduction of shield cell banks, shield boosters and reinforcement packages. The original set of 5 thrusters, 5 shield generators and 5 armour types gave plenty of options to balance shields&armour versus thrusters (weight vs manoeuvrability). The rest should be down to tactics and manoeuvring IMHO.
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There´s definitely big differences in degree of vulnerability.
Anacondas, Vultures, Asps and Dropships are easy to destroy like this. Asp especially, you seem to be able to hit its power plant from every direction including head on.
On the other hand, Cobra can serve as an example of a ship that seems to have right degree of PP vulnerability. CZ Cobra does not always lose itss power plant before it runs out of hull hit points, but sometimes it happens when player manages to keep the flat side of the ship targeted at right time.
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You can hit a dropship power plant from pretty much any angle. Side, top, even front dead-center.
If the armour makes it so in terms of raw kill speed, it doesn't really matter all that much whether you target the ship itself or its power plant, then we will mostly stop going for the power plant. Which means even without armour, you are not up against opponents who always exclusively target the power plant only. Immunization by proxy, basically.
Yes, but not the larger ships such as Python or Anaconda.
Are you surprised? The whole game's workings is more secretive than JFKs love life!
Fancy the thought of players actually knowing how to play/test the game.
Agreed! It also means yet issue between fixed and gimbled weapons...
IMHO, there should have been one or the other... Not both. It's created an unnecessary headache for gameplay ever since.
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Maybe gimballed should just not auto-target subsystems - then it would actually be a further downside because you can't reliably target subsystems anymore - so fixed gets damage and precision at the expense of time on target and aiming difficulties, while gimballed gets time on target and ease of use at the expense of precision and damage.
I can reliably hit subsystems with many fixed weapons and the best weapons for subsystem damage (rails and PA) only come in fixed variants.
Turrets used to not be able to target subsystems, but they can again as of at least 1.2.
Morbad don't you always find you can damage powerplants from any angle? I did, the only exceptions were on ships where another module was in the way, for example I could never shoot a pythons powerplant from directly behind as thrusters always took the hits, I could damage it from above however, and the sides, its just is there anything between you and it other than hull? If yes no dice, if no pp damage achieved
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