armor - subsystems - why isn't this getting fixed in 1.3?

[Mr_Blastman]

No, it's the problem with forums. We all get on our high horse and hope if we beat our drum loud enough that makes us right...lol...

but I would suggest instead of removing an item from a game, why not put something else into it that would make me want to put something other than a shield cell bank there? 1 suggestion, how about a module that allows me to recharge my shields even while silent running? I would surely take out a SCB to one of those. Which leads me back to the original topic of the post, hull armor helping modules. If they don't want to make mirrored armor protect internal components, give me something that will make me (or anyone else for that matter) immediately turn tail and run when my shields drop. If I new I had a reasonable chance of surviving until my shields went back up, I would stay around and keep fighting. I also wouldn't need to rely on the hated SCB's if this was true as well. And why would I spend 161 million to equip mirrored armor if it doesn't protect the 1 thing I need protected? If it did I would buy it because I certainly have the money to do so.

But I suggested already that armor protect modules... Problem solved. Or did you miss that?

Protect them with a tradeoff... that is. No need to stretch time to kill out even further. Just balance it so armored combat is worthwhile and shields don't last forever like they can do right now. Frankly I'd prefer to see ships die faster than they do now.

 

[Yokoshima]

Can SCBs even be sub-targeted for destruction if you're able to get the shields offline?

Perhaps, but once the shields go down it, as it stands, it pretty much game over. No reason to target them over the PP. And, aside from fast ships, once the shield goes down they almost never go back up.

 

[Kastor]

As much as I like bringing a 'conda down with my cobra, blasting out the powerplant with three double type-2 rail salvos just seems wrong. The armor should make a difference.

BUT

If we start armoring subsystems (with the exception being the cockpit because that's fun to blow out), then we have to remove shield cell batteries and shield boosters.

That's the plan.

 

[Iron Orchid]

I was under the impression that the "B" modules were the armoured modules - hence their increased weight.

 

[Bortas]

I was under the impression that the "B" modules were the armoured modules - hence their increased weight.

They are, but since they are otherwise worse than A modules, you are usually better off to use an A Powerplant to power an extra shield booster or two to not lose your shields in the first place instead of relying on a slightly better armored module.

 

[[HJ]-RedRaven]

Removing SCB's - I understand the concept, but disagree.

The loss of module slot space, energy requirement and tonnage of SCB's offsets the advantage. Its no different to carrying a spare tyre in a 4WD vehicle ("oh no I popped a tyre but I can't repair because its a 'tyre in a can!'").

Removing SCB's just tips the balance back to armour tanking as shields will just be an 'icing' layer on top of armour. We need a solution that allows valid armour and shield tanking dependent on play style, and ship capability stats wise (power, slots, agility etc)
One other issue is that all shields suffer from the 1MJ/sec recharge rate (ridiculous, is the Federal Corvette goingf to charge its shields at 1MJ/sec too? Pfft. Come on.)

It makes more sense for larger ships to shield-tank because they are more likely to have module slot space, spare tonnage, spare power and heavier shield systems in the first place. They are also more likely to have heavier armour, since their agility is low anyway.

Mid-range ships will likely have some armour, and some shields (with varying degrees of specialty ie shield tanked Vulture)

Small ships should rely on agility first (difficult unless gimbals are removed), chaff or light armour for up-front protection.

At the moment, a Sidey is way too easy for gimaballed weapons to hit, removing any advantage it has even if a CMDR pilot is jinking all over the place. (We could slow down the rate of track/slew on gimbals to allow nimble ships to 'get under the guns'.

 

[Iron Orchid]

They are, but since they are otherwise worse than A modules, you are usually better off to use an A Powerplant to power an extra shield booster or two to not lose your shields in the first place instead of relying on a slightly better armored module.

Swings and Roundabouts then. Be better if the B grade had the same output but had the disadvantage of the extra weight.

 

[Bortas]

At the moment, a Sidey is way too easy for gimaballed weapons to hit, removing any advantage it has even if a CMDR pilot is jinking all over the place. (We could slow down the rate of track/slew on gimbals to allow nimble ships to 'get under the guns'.

Ever heard of chaff launchers? They are a 100% hard-counter (which is vastly OP imho) to gimballs, and with 1.3 also to turrets. Even a Sidewinder has 2 utility mounts, enabling it to constantly spam chaff for nearly 2 minutes, making it impossible to hit with gimballed weapons.

Swings and Roundabouts then. Be better if the B grade had the same output but had the disadvantage of the extra weight.

Sounds fine. Maybe these should be made available as A+ modules

 

[Sendraks]

Ever heard of chaff launchers? They are a 100% hard-counter to gimballs (which is vastly OP imho),

How is OP?
When you get chaffed with gimbals, you can unselect the target and your gimballed weapons revert to fixed firing positions. You can still pew pew away quite happily, although the mounting points on some ships make this rather more difficult.

Chaff is fine.

 

[[HJ]-RedRaven]

Ever heard of chaff launchers? They are a 100% hard-counter to gimballs (which is vastly OP imho), and with 1.3 also to turrets. Even a Sidewinder has 2 utility mounts, enabling it to constantly spam chaff for nearly 2 minutes, making it impossible to hit with gimballed weapons.



Sounds fine. Maybe these should be made available as A+ modules

True but not 100% counter - I'll just press one HOTAS button and de-target; the Sidey will then be able to dodge essentially fixed weapons (good because his agility will help, but the guns are still 'live'. Chaff doesn't counter non-targeted gimballed weapons.

 

[Bortas]

How is OP?
When you get chaffed with gimbals, you can unselect the target and your gimballed weapons revert to fixed firing positions. You can still pew pew away quite happily, although the mounting points on some ships make this rather more difficult.

Chaff is fine.

You should try fighting a chaff-spammer with a Clipper. But it was just a side-note, so let's not turn this into a chaff-discussion.

True but not 100% counter - I'll just press one HOTAS button and de-target; the Sidey will then be able to dodge essentially fixed weapons (good because his agility will help, but the guns are still 'live'. Chaff doesn't counter non-targeted gimballed weapons.

Your complaint was that a Sidewinder was easy to hit with gimballed weapons. Of course de-target gimballed weapons can still hit it as well as fixed, but it's much more difficult Of course, as it's just a throw-away starter ship, it doesn't really matter anyway. A Sidewinder has no hope of surviving a PvP encounter, exept vs. another Sidewinder or Hauler

 

[Sendraks]

You should try fighting a chaff-spammer with a Clipper. But it was just a side-note, so let's not turn this into a chaff-discussion.

Very fair. Although I think it has already been mentioned in this thread that in respect of modules, some consider gimbals to be OP. So its circles and round-abouts.

 

[jou84]

I think we need to get back to the point.

Armour, costs more than the ship, but lets damage go directly to the power plant it is over. Is there anyone who thinks this is how it should be?

 

[Commander Silex]

I'm really not sure ED developers knows much about combat ships or aircraft.

Since 1910 when it was introduced for the first time, and surely since World War 2, all combat ships are based on "All-or-Nothing" protection :
Do not protect minor parts of the ships in order to better protect essential part of the ship.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_or_nothing_(armor)

When buying armor upgrade, it should better protect all essential part of the ships, powerplant to begin with, per extension all the fixed modules (which type cannot be changed) and not the non essential part such as fuel scoop or cargo.

Lots of interesting discussion here, but this post got me thinking. I'd certainly like to see bulkheads affecting armouring for sub systems, but incorporating this into the design as well would possibly lead to more interesting combat options. If overall it became easier to target and strip down external and non essential sub systems than critical ones, you might find some unusual tactics becoming much more viable such as taking out sensors to render an opponent's ship blind or taking out defensive systems. At the moment you're highly unlikely to manage this before an unarmoured ship explodes, not to mention that in every current scenario it makes little sense to do so when you'll destroy the Power plant with much less effort due to its size and placement. You couldn't overcome these latter issues, but simply by increasing the relative health of critical systems like FSD and PP you'd shift the balance significantly.

 

[Sendraks]

I think we need to get back to the point.

Armour, costs more than the ship, but lets damage go directly to the power plant it is over. Is there anyone who thinks this is how it should be?

I doubt it. It is a screamingly obvious flaw in the game.

 

[Rich Bramwell]

I doubt it. It is a screamingly obvious flaw in the game.

Yea we need to keep on thread and this is the main problem with an idea like armor that was used last year when sub-system sniping was not there in Beta but now this is the only way to kill it seems in a PVP encounter.
We can discuss it and try to find a easy compromise for FD to implement, but with peeps arguing over the point that if you introduce more armor then you need to remove the ease of gimballed weapon sub-system shots then the problem seems to encompass more than just one game mechanic that people feel is either too powerful or not useful enough in it's own right.
Right old can of worms this will turn out to be if we cannot find a good compromise between the High Earning Anaconda players and the Mischievous Pirate players, yes we need armor to be better and ''Yoki's'' idea was a nicely implemented idea with different bonuses for different weapon hits and a sensible thought out approach.

 

[Morbad]

Yea we need to keep on thread and this is the main problem with an idea like armor that was used last year when sub-system sniping was not there in Beta but now this is the only way to kill it seems in a PVP encounter.

Honestly, unless my target is in an Anaconda, I rarely bother with subsystem targeting in PvP. Most CMDRs that pose a threat do not make it easy to core out their power plant, or disable their drives.

 

[Yokoshima]

How is OP?
When you get chaffed with gimbals, you can unselect the target and your gimballed weapons revert to fixed firing positions. You can still pew pew away quite happily, although the mounting points on some ships make this rather more difficult.

Chaff is fine.

The issue is with ships that are of poor maneuverability and poor hardpoint placement. Before those god awful turrets could help somewhat. Not they cant. The OP nature of them is they are a sustained hard counter. And, somehow that far in the future, not even partial counter to them exists. It also renders almost all other defensive external modules obsolete and it is an issue from a game mechanic/balancing stand point. Generally if almost every one uses the same thing it means there is a good chance something is wrong. From what I hear rail guns were an example of this in the early betas. Though I think caff should not be a hard counter to gimbals, I do think it should greatly reduce their effectiveness (say it would cut down gimballed damage to something like 20%-50% DPS depending on various factors, such as some sort of anti-chaff utility module, sensors, etc.).

As it stands the DPE and DPS of fixed is better than gimballed. But, imo, not enough to justify the added difficulty of using them/the fact the some ships effectively can't use them. But rather than see them get a flat buff to DPE or DPS I would rather see them get a buff to penetration rating. And I would like to see penetration rating actually matter.

 

[-Joe]

Sub Sytems damage

Seems like all these Death Star pilots want rule changes to have their ships exhaust ports capped. I bet most of the posters here have big slow expensive ships and they just want their ships to be invulnerable.

I propose a counterpoint.. Why not make modules even easier to damage? Especially the externals, lasers and sensors should be more fragile. One should be able to disarm a sheildless Anaconda or Python without damaging the hull much.

I think that power plants should be better protected, harder to get % down, but loss of ships electrical power should start occurring with the slightest damage. This would force pilots to turn off modules mid combat and prioritise systems.

Better armour should protect internal systems but not by much. Like say 110% bonus on internal modules.

When your shields are down Elite should be Dangerous!

 

[Aldaris]

Seems like all these Death Star pilots want rule changes to have their ships exhaust ports capped. I bet most of the posters here have big slow expensive ships and they just want their ships to be invulnerable.

I propose a counterpoint.. Why not make modules even easier to damage? Especially the externals, lasers and sensors should be more fragile. One should be able to disarm a sheildless Anaconda or Python without damaging the hull much.

I think that power plants should be better protected, harder to get % down, but loss of ships electrical power should start occurring with the slightest damage. This would force pilots to turn off modules mid combat and prioritise systems.

Better armour should protect internal systems but not by much. Like say 110% bonus on internal modules.

When your shields are down Elite should be Dangerous!

The easiest way to get completely ignored is starting your post off with a strawman argument. May I suggest you don't do that?