Armor/module combos help

[SquirrelEyez]

I just unlocked engineer Selene Jean and I'm in quite a quandary. Too many options!

What opinions do you guys have on Military Grade v. Lightweight Alloy for general hull? And now combining this with HRP's and mods/experimentals for both?

I am building my personal fleet, so looking for general OR specific feedback, whatever opinions you guys have. Finishing modding my Anaconda first then probably a Vulture, and on and on. Thanks!

EDIT: Looking for ANY ship combos you guys find exciting and effective. Can be any ship.

 

[BromeTeks]

More armor is better unless you want memespeed. More resistance is also better, so most people will run reactive armor and use engineering to boost the thermal resistance. You can still cut down the weight with engineering though, for my chase-down shield tank mamba I'm going to be running Reactive armor with lightweight deep plating engineering and thermal resistance on a 1D HRP.

 

[DNA-Decay]

Selene Jean gets me hard.

 

[Kzak]

For large ships, lightweight hull plating with Heavy-duty armor engineering modification + Deep Plating. Use a few HRP or MRPs in suitable slots to add more hull resistances and/or module damage sponges.

 

[SquirrelEyez]

For large ships, lightweight hull plating with Heavy-duty armor engineering modification + Deep Plating. Use a few HRP or MRPs in suitable slots to add more hull resistances and/or module damage sponges.

Is the impact that noticeable on thruster performance using lightweight v military? I'm guessing that's why I see lightweight recommended a lot.

 

[Dillon Fallon]

It's the void opal era! Get some reactive composite, engineer heavy duty for the big ships and hull tanks, lightweight for ships you want to keep manouverable as possible. Then add a class one thermal resist HRP. Deep plate everything.

 

[Ashnak]

Your choice. The impact on speed and jump range will depend on the individual ship - model the ship, armour and internals e.g. on https://coriolis.io/ and check for yourself. With some ship/thruster combinations, like a Viper or an Imperial Courier with enhanced thrusters, every gram counts. For other ships, like a T-10, a few hundred tons more or less won't make a noticeable difference.

For me, if I want to keep the ship light, it's heavy duty mod on lightweight armour (no mass increase). For a combat ship, reactive surface with thermal resistance. For something inbetween, military bulkheads with lightweight mod. In general, hull reinforcements can give you more HP per weight than heavy armour - but on the other hand, internal slots are somewhat limited on most ships.

 

[13A]

For an exploration build, go with the stock lightweight bulkheads, and add G5 Heavy Duty with Deep Plating. It doesn't make any difference to your jump range but comes in useful when you plough into a planet's surface.

Here speaks the voice of experience

 

[SquirrelEyez]

Selene Jean gets me hard.

I'll admit it.... I laughed

 

[SquirrelEyez]

Your choice. The impact on speed and jump range will depend on the individual ship - model the ship, armour and internals e.g. on https://coriolis.io/ and check for yourself. With some ship/thruster combinations, like a Viper or an Imperial Courier with enhanced thrusters, every gram counts. For other ships, like a T-10, a few hundred tons more or less won't make a noticeable difference.

For me, if I want to keep the ship light, it's heavy duty mod on lightweight armour (no mass increase). For a combat ship, reactive surface with thermal resistance. For something inbetween, military bulkheads with lightweight mod. In general, hull reinforcements can give you more HP per weight than heavy armour - but on the other hand, internal slots are somewhat limited on most ships.

Could I have your thoughts on why Thermal Resist with reactive surface? Great post by the way

 

[SquirrelEyez]

For an exploration build, go with the stock lightweight bulkheads, and add G5 Heavy Duty with Deep Plating. It doesn't make any difference to your jump range but comes in useful when you plough into a planet's surface.

Here speaks the voice of experience

I call that "pancaking" into the surface of planets. I've done it more that I'd like to admit

 

[Crimson Kaim]

For large ships, lightweight hull plating with Heavy-duty armor engineering modification + Deep Plating. Use a few HRP or MRPs in suitable slots to add more hull resistances and/or module damage sponges.

For an exploration build, sure, any build that's going to get nuked, yes.

The best way to do it as of now is equiping reactive bulks and slapping the heavy duty mod on it, then add one thermal resistance HRP for the smallest internal. Add as many HD HRPs as you can spare and atleast one C4/5 MRP. Add more the weaker your shield and stronger your hull is.

The result: thousands of inflated hitpoints with 35%-40% or more resistances across the board.

 

[Kzak]

For an exploration build, sure, any build that's going to get nuked, yes.

The best way to do it as of now is equiping reactive bulks and slapping the heavy duty mod on it, then add one thermal resistance HRP for the smallest internal. Add as many HD HRPs as you can spare and atleast one C4/5 MRP. Add more the weaker your shield and stronger your hull is.

The result: thousands of inflated hitpoints with 35%-40% or more resistances across the board.

He did specify 'general hull'. Lightweight armor + Heavy Duty 5 + Deep Plating on an Anaconda gives a decent amount of hull, adding HRPs with resistances can swiftly make this better. I also include the presumption that the Anaconda in question will have engineered shields and isn't running shieldless.

Of course, if the setting is to engage in PvP, then lightweight hull isn't going to cut it, no.

 

[Crimson Kaim]

He did specify 'general hull'. Lightweight armor + Heavy Duty 5 + Deep Plating on an Anaconda gives a decent amount of hull, adding HRPs with resistances can swiftly make this better. I also include the presumption that the Anaconda in question will have engineered shields and isn't running shieldless.

Of course, if the setting is to engage in PvP, then lightweight hull isn't going to cut it, no.

The general hull is having a reactive bulk with the HD BP as well as a single thermal resist HRP. Then you can just add as many HD HRPs as you like as the resistances are even across the board and your hitpoints just go up gradually. There is absolutely no point in using lightweight bulks unless you are going for a max range jump-o-conda. It already has very low mass and magical hull hitpoints for it so you might as well abuse it and get more armor than the Vette.

 

[Bigmaec]

I'm a big fan of reactive with lightweight for most vessels, supported by one thermal resistant small hrp and as many heavy duty hrps as you like.
Especially for general purpose vessels that's better on speed and jumprange.
For pure combat vessels reactive plus hd gives the best armor I guess. Experimental always deep plating.

 

[Ashnak]

Could I have your thoughts on why Thermal Resist with reactive surface?

Reactive has good resistance against kinetic and explosive damage, but is very bad with thermal damage. Reactive + thermal resist gets a reasonably even damage resistance across the whole range - better than any other simple combo. Of course, if you bring specific resistant HRPs into the game, that changes again.
But also listen to bigmaec and Crimson Kaim right above - they have a bit more experienced in (PvP) combat than I do.

And as you can see, there's no simple solution that fits all. Start with a ship you like and a budget, tell us what you want to use it for and which Engineers you have unlocked to which level, and people can give you very detailed suggestions for your configuration and loadout. As usual for ED, the better suited a ship will be for one specific job, the less suited it will be for a different job - the classic paper-scissors-stone problem.