Best Bulkheads on a PvE Combat Ship?

dreampage

dreampage
I'm planning to upgrade the bulkheads on my Federal Corvette which is now outfitted purely for combat. However, no matter how much I look at the different options I can't decide. I see their attributes and different resistances but I can't quite understand which one would be the best. Obviously, I'm undecided between Military Grade, Mirrored Surface and Reactive Surface bulkheads. In theory the Reactive Surface looks to be the best since it improves 2 resistances out of the 3 but the decrease in thermal resistance is alarming (-40% but under that there's some -869% or something).

I have combat experience and I feel the NPCs attack mostly with kinetic / explosive weapons after the shields are down. But then again, some have particle accelerators firing like crazy and fighters tend to use lasers which are all thermal. That's why I'm undecided about which one would be best.

Any advice is appreciated. Only PvE, I don't intend to fight other players. Money and weight is not a factor. I just want the best hull on my ship in case my shields are gone (which won't really happen anyway with 2500+ MJ but that's another story).
 

UseLessUK

UseLessUK
I went with Reactive and a thermal mod and added the deep plating to one Vette and the reflective plating to the other Vette.

The vette with reflective plating has the following armour specs;

Armour health: 2,672
Kinetic Resistance: 33.8%
Thermal resistance: 36.3%
Explosive resistance: 31.7

I only have 2 hull reinforcements in the ship and they are not fully engineered yet, keep using the mats for other things.
 

Mordhar

Mordhar
I prefer reactive composite thermal+layered which gives balanced resistances to all normal types of damage (except absolute and corrosive). Normally it means 16-17% to all damage types.
And if I need even more resistances and hull HP (which is rarely needed for PvE) I add HRPs with heavy duty+deep plating.
 
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Dutchman141

Dutchman141
BongoBaggins said:
Lightweight hull modified for heavy duty. You won't be losing your shields against an NPC
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This.

I never loose my shields in pve and have around 2600mj with a variety of resistances on my boosters.
When going into a high intensity CZ I take a 7A shieldbooster and some heatsinks along, never ever loose my shields.
I've got an engineered military bulkheads in storage but I never use it.
 

dreampage

dreampage
BongoBaggins said:
Lightweight hull modified for heavy duty. You won't be losing your shields against an NPC
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At the moment I have exactly this. 2800+ MJ shields and shield cell bank. I'm still thinking about whether I should buy better hull at all. I'll leave it at this for now but it's always good to read recommendations.
 

Bob Lighthouse

Banned
Bob Lighthouse
The best values are generally reactive/HD/deep plating + your smallest available slot with a D rated HRP/thermal/deep plating.
The you'll want 1-2 MRPs and the rest of available slots HRPs/HD/deep plating.
 

tafkabb

T
dreampage said:
At the moment I have exactly this. 2800+ MJ shields and shield cell bank. I'm still thinking about whether I should buy better hull at all. I'll leave it at this for now but it's always good to read recommendations.
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When your shields are down you should leave the area anyway or your modules are at risk. Lightweight hull with heavy duty is always enough to get you out of trouble.
Also, mirrored and reactive don't add any more hull capacity over military bulkheads, they just have differing resistances so the cost of reactive is nowhere near justified for PVE
 

Bob Lighthouse

Banned
Bob Lighthouse
BongoBaggins said:
When your shields are down you should leave the area anyway or your modules are at risk. Lightweight hull with heavy duty is always enough to get you out of trouble.
Also, mirrored and reactive don't add any more hull capacity over military bulkheads, they just have differing resistances so the cost of reactive is nowhere near justified for PVE
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That's a self fulfilling prophecy, if you build with that in mind.
OP said cost/mass is no object and acknowledges that shields are unlikely to go down in the first place.
 

dreampage

dreampage
BongoBaggins said:
When your shields are down you should leave the area anyway or your modules are at risk. Lightweight hull with heavy duty is always enough to get you out of trouble.
Also, mirrored and reactive don't add any more hull capacity over military bulkheads, they just have differing resistances so the cost of reactive is nowhere near justified for PVE
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Actually, a very bad experience lead me to think about this subject. I once lost my ship in a CZ. There were somehow almost no allied ships and I found myself being attacked by 6-7 enemy vessels. Even though my shields were strong they were eventually broken and I simply didn't have time to leave the area. Lots of rockets and everything destroyed the ship like it was made of paper. I had the same Heavy Duty lightweight bulkheads like now. Of course, I made a mistake by trying to fight even though I saw the CZ didn't spawn properly. But still, it would be nice to have a ship that can stand against an assault without shields, or at least have enough strength to comfortably leave an area even in situations like this. RES are no problem since there's never more than 2-3 hostile ships at the same time but I don't want to be in the same CZ situation again. Better prepare for anything.
 

CMDR Cknarf

CMDR Cknarf
For PvE, it's not really a big deal, as you're going to be relying on your shields for the most part. You can get away with armor on the cheap using HRPs.

However, if you have the funds, Reactive Surface Composites and either a lightweight or thermal resist mod will give you the best resistances overall.
 

Bob Lighthouse

Banned
Bob Lighthouse
Cknarf said:
For PvE, it's not really a big deal, as you're going to be relying on your shields for the most part. You can get away with armor on the cheap using HRPs.

However, if you have the funds, Reactive Surface Composites and either a lightweight or thermal resist mod will give you the best resistances overall.
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In many cases(med and large ships) you'll run into diminishing returns anyhow, so HD/deep on the armor and thermal/deep on one HRP, + HD/deep on the rest of the HRPs often yields the best numbers.
 

ChuckTheIceMan

C
dreampage said:
At the moment I have exactly this. 2800+ MJ shields and shield cell bank. I'm still thinking about whether I should buy better hull at all. I'll leave it at this for now but it's always good to read recommendations.
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I'm engineering the vette right now with reactive and wondering if I'll use it at all. PVE is def shield tank territory. But if you have to run from a combat zone the hull and module reinforcement could be the difference between getting away and a rebuy I guess.
 

dreampage

dreampage
ChuckTheIceMan said:
I'm engineering the vette right now with reactive and wondering if I'll use it at all. PVE is def shield tank territory. But if you have to run from a combat zone the hull and module reinforcement could be the difference between getting away and a rebuy I guess.
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Since the last update I noticed that pirate lord assassination missions have been buffed. The targets are now more stronger and possibly use engineered ships. At least the wing mission targets do, they put up a good fight for me and a friend. It's still mostly about shields but better safe than sorry. One of these wing missions I lost my shields (ran out of cell banks) and the rate with which they decreased my hull was alarming. I probably would have never upgraded my armor but after experiencing this I decided to. Money thankfully is not really a factor. Hopefully I won't need to put it to the test. :)
 
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