Best armour mod for combat zones?

[zipline]

hi cmdrs,
i am just learning combat and want to improve my hull survival in CZs on my phantom. I have reactive armour and 2 size 5 hull reinforcements. For a CZ where the NPCs are much tougher, has anyone tried different mods e.g. heavy duty vs kinetic, or can offer advice on other mods? Tactics wise I get it that you need to watch your tail and get out before its too late, but I am losing bounties doing that so want to hull tank a bit more just enough to finish the job.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

Heavy duty, deep plating.

 

[Vardaugas]

Reactive armor with deep plating and one of the hull reinforcements thermal with layered plating and any other hull reinforcements heavy duty and deep plating. Module reinforcements recommended, depending on how often you lose shields.

 

[Aashenfox]

HRPs are one of the wonderfully easy things to engineer in this game. You always want Heavy Duty deep plating bulkheads unless you have a major weight issue (and even if you do, it's usually still optimal), and heavy duty deep plating HRPs. There is only one exemption to that, and that is if you use Reactive Bulkheads, you might consider making the smallest HRP a thermal resist, however, I tend not to bother due to the low prevalence of lasers in pvp, while in pve, they tend to use lasers on shields and kinetic on hulls, so still the thermal is of little value. I used to do this (a single thermal resist), but I don't any more, the raw armor and extra kinetic resist is usually worth more overall (due to no diminishing returns on pure armor).

P.S. This is for all situations, across the board, not just CZs.

 

[Sylow]

[...]

P.S. This is for all situations, across the board, not just CZs.

I still keep to the "smallest HRP is thermal" method. It makes nicer numbers on the ship panel.

Else i like to say that it's for all situations but one: fighting Thargoids. There it's all about the total number of health and corrosive resist. So if you have access to guardian HRPs, use those as much as your energy budget allows. (Start with the smallest. No matter the size, they all give he same corrosion resist but the smaller ones need less power. ) Once your power budget is used up, continue with the corrosion resist HRPs from human tech brokers if you have access to them. If you don't, fill in with heavy duty HRPs with deep plating.

But yes, this is just a sidenote specifically when fighting Thargoids.

 

[Tanith Low]

I tend to go with Reactive Surface Composites for the Hull, with a Thermal Resist mod & Deep Plating. Then everything else Heavy Duty HRP with Deep Plating. Will give you broadly even resistances across the board, and a crap ton of armour.

Remember that there's not a huge benefit to stacking one particular resistance too high, the effects are heavily diminishing above about 35-40% resistance.

 

[zipline]

Thanks for all the responses cmdrs, consensus seems to be around heavy duty + deep plating for both hull & HRPs however I am intrigued by this concept of having 1 thermal HRP due to diminishing returns on any single resistance, is that based on any maths or cmdrs experience?

 

[Vardaugas]

The thermal HRP will plug the resistance hole the reactive armor has. With everything else heavy duty you will end up with armor resists somewhere around 30-35%. Together with the raw hitpoints this should give you ample time to evaluate your options when your shields drop.

 

[Aashenfox]

I tend to go with Reactive Surface Composites for the Hull, with a Thermal Resist mod & Deep Plating. Then everything else Heavy Duty HRP with Deep Plating. Will give you broadly even resistances across the board, and a crap ton of armour.

Remember that there's not a huge benefit to stacking one particular resistance too high, the effects are heavily diminishing above about 35-40% resistance.

This is a huge armor loss. You can cover the thermal resist (if you really want to, as I say above, it's not optimal) with a single size 1 or 2 thermal hrp. Always HD deep plate the bulks, and use hrps to make up resistances.

 

[Aashenfox]

Thanks for all the responses cmdrs, consensus seems to be around heavy duty + deep plating for both hull & HRPs however I am intrigued by this concept of having 1 thermal HRP due to diminishing returns on any single resistance, is that based on any maths or cmdrs experience?

Here's the difference...

Build 1 with thermal deep bulks and all HD DP HRPs...

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

s.orbis.zone

4350 armor, 47,48,48 resists

Build 2 with HD deep plating bulks and thermal hrp...

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

s.orbis.zone

4592, 46,47,46

Build 3 with all HD deep...

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

s.orbis.zone

4731, 50,51,39.

In that last one you gain 1000 kinetic, 140 absolute, and lose about 600 thermal, which NPCs don't use against your hull, and is unusual in pvp. It's definitely the more optimal build for pve czs.

All builds are decent, this is definitely a personal minmaxing preference 'thing'. I deal in pure math.

 

[Vardaugas]

I run my Chieftain more as a hybrid, so I don't have all slots fitted with HRPs. So I need something to plug the thermal hole. Sure, armor won't stack as high, but with the shields and the sheer damage, I rarely take more than a few percent hull damage at a time. And by the next encounter shields are back up.

 

[Aashenfox]

Yes, a very valid point, if you are 4 HRPs or less, the thermal is absolutely needed.

 

[Stealthie]

Just to add a bit of extra nuance to the discussion....

It's also worth considering what ship you're fitting the armor to, and what your tactics are in combat.

I mean, one of my 'vettes has getting on for 200t of armor, which barely has any effect it's speed but which means I can afford to let my shield drop (though I don't like to), finish the fight and then skulk off to reboot my shield on my own terms.

I haven't looked at Coriolis but I suspect that a similar proportion of armor would put a significant dent in a Phantom's speed and probably still wouldn't provide a massive amount of protection.

That being the case, if you're flying a ship that relies on agility then it might not be smart to weigh it down with armor and, instead, just give it enough to survive long enough for you to run away make a tactical withdrawal.

Course, I'd still fit either MGC or RC armor and then G5 HD+DP it but I might not go nuts with the HRPs on a Phantom.

 

[Sir Ganksalot]

Here's my PvP build if this helps you.

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

s.orbis.zone

 

[Westcoastred]

I still keep to the "smallest HRP is thermal" method. It makes nicer numbers on the ship panel.

Else i like to say that it's for all situations but one: fighting Thargoids. There it's all about the total number of health and corrosive resist. So if you have access to guardian HRPs, use those as much as your energy budget allows. (Start with the smallest. No matter the size, they all give he same corrosion resist but the smaller ones need less power. ) Once your power budget is used up, continue with the corrosion resist HRPs from human tech brokers if you have access to them. If you don't, fill in with heavy duty HRPs with deep plating.

But yes, this is just a sidenote specifically when fighting Thargoids.

I thought that the base effect from Heavy duty+deep plating on a HRP is greater than the 5% caustic resistance boost to the lesser base figure the GHRP's give?

 

[Sylow]

I thought that the base effect from Heavy duty+deep plating on a HRP is greater than the 5% caustic resistance boost to the lesser base figure the GHRP's give?

If you just look how much additional health you get per HRP, you are absolutely right. But caustic resistance applies to the complete ship. That's why i wrote to bring the caustic resist in the small slots, which bring less of hull advantage, while putting heavy duty + deep plating in the big ones. And yes, i also admit that what i wrote may be oversimplified, by writing to stack up to how much the power budget allows. Depending on the setup that might actually be wrong, you are completely right there. For me it always ended like this, but it's true that some ship setups could stack too many gHRPs and sacrifice survivability that way.

In the end it all depends on the ship, how many HRPs you are using, etc. But some gHRPs in the small slots do add to survivability in my eyes.

 

[B1rdy]

Just to add a bit of extra nuance to the discussion....

It's also worth considering what ship you're fitting the armor to, and what your tactics are in combat.

I mean, one of my 'vettes has getting on for 200t of armor, which barely has any effect it's speed but which means I can afford to let my shield drop (though I don't like to), finish the fight and then skulk off to reboot my shield on my own terms.

I haven't looked at Coriolis but I suspect that a similar proportion of armor would put a significant dent in a Phantom's speed and probably still wouldn't provide a massive amount of protection.

That being the case, if you're flying a ship that relies on agility then it might not be smart to weigh it down with armor and, instead, just give it enough to survive long enough for you to run away make a tactical withdrawal.

Depending on the situation you might not be able to avoid fire at all, for instance if multiple, maybe even more agile ships are targetting you. Therefore in CZs or Wing assassination missions, I would tend to go for more armor instead of speed.

 

[Stealthie]

Depending on the situation you might not be able to avoid fire at all, for instance if multiple, maybe even more agile ships are targetting you. Therefore in CZs or Wing assassination missions, I would tend to go for more armor instead of speed.

Must admit, given the way CZs currently are, it seems like the best choice is really a tank that can go toe to toe with any NPC and win.
Attempting to dogfight isn't terribly rewarding or successful.

If a Phantom is what the OP's got, though, I'd say his best bet might be to attempt to kill small ships while avoiding anything bigger like the plague - which is where agility might be an asset.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

I guess you are using the Phantom due to preference, but the Mk2 is quite a bit more tanky.

 

[Rubbernuke]

If you are tanking fire you might want to ensure your modules are up to it as well with an MRP. Although hull goes first, you don't want a stray rocket one shotting your powerplant.