Military Bulkheads vs Reactive or Mirror

[Javert]

Hello all,

I have a question - if I purchase Reactive bulkheads instead of military, am I actually taking a penalty versus military when attacked by energy weapons, or is it just that it's no better than military armour?

In other words, if money is no object, would I be better having either mirror or reactive, or just stick with military?

 

[Ceekay]

I believe reactive + thermal mod give an even spread of resistances have a look at the armour defence tab on this Vulture build, essentially when the shields are down NPC's tend to fire missiles and kinetic rounds as well as energy weapons so all round protective resistance seems like a good idea.

https://coriolis.edcd.io/outfit/vul...AOEEYBsICmBDA5gG2SeF9A===&bn=Vulture F (EDMC)

Have a read at Frenotx post in this thread

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?p=4988501&viewfull=1#post4988501

 

[CAPT. Ho Chi Minge]

Hello all,

I have a question - if I purchase Reactive bulkheads instead of military, am I actually taking a penalty versus military when attacked by energy weapons, or is it just that it's no better than military armour?

In other words, if money is no object, would I be better having either mirror or reactive, or just stick with military?

the general consencus for armour is buy reactive and engineer it for thermal resistance , this gives a nice even spread for resistance %. which can then be further enhanced by adding some HRE modded for heavy duty (or light depending on build).

 

[Morbad]

Optimal bulkheads and mods for them depend on a number of factors.

Military is usually the best bet against NPCs, because they tend to be heavy on thermic weapons.

In most PvP scenarios, reactive usually ends up being the best, with thermal resist mod usually being the most optimal modfication (this is what I run on my Vulture, Clipper, FAS, and Dolphin). However, there are several exceptions to this. Some examples:

- For my FDL I run lightweight reactive, because the resistances are still acceptable, but the FDL is mass constrained. The FDL is also tied for the highest armor rating in the game and pure thermic damage weapons almost all have lower penetration values.
- For my hybrid corvette, I run heavy duty reactive. It has enough room for HRPs to nearly equalize resistances anyway, also has a high armor rating, and has enough base hull integrity to make the benefit of heavy duty worthwhile.
- For my light, heavily mass limited vessels (Courier mainly), I just keep the stock lightweight alloys and apply heavy duty to that for the increased integrity and resists, with no mass increase.

Mirrored is almost never worth applying as only lasers are pure thermal and even NPCs have enough kinetic damage to make mirrored sub-optimal. Mirrored is fairly suicidal in PvP unless you know your opponent is a laser boat (which is extremely rare).

 

[JonathanBurnage]

All of the above is good advice for fighting PvP or PvE vs human NPCs. If you are fighting Thargoids, hull points are all that matter. In which case, save the money and buy military composite, and engineer with heavy duty mod. Your statistics panel will confirm that caustic resistance is zero for all types; resistances don't matter for Thargoid weapons (yet). This is especially true if you eat a caustic missile. My Ax Corvette has enough armour that I can usually keep fighting and kill the thing in the unlikely event that it manages to hit me (they are easily avoided once you know how).

 

[Javert]

Very good advice thanks all.

I'm not sure it answered my specific question though, which was whether reactive is worse than military (without any engineering) against laser weapons, or is it just the same?

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Yes - reactive has -40% resist versus thermal.

 

[Javert]

Yes - reactive has -40% resist versus thermal.

Thanks which is kind of odd given that on an Anaconda for example, reactive costs 346m credits versus 132m credits for military, but from what you are saying, in spite of my additional over 200m credits, my hull is actually less effective against laser weapons. This seems a bit odd to me, especially given that I have no clue what weapons any ship I go up against will be carrying.

 

[DNA-Decay]

In the days before engineers, I was advised to stick with Mil Spec hulls. Everything in my Fleet is this way.
Very happy to hear the current consensus.

 

[JonathanBurnage]

	Hull boost	Kinetic res	Thermal res	Explosive res
Military grade composite	250%	-20%	0%	-40%
Mirrored surface composite	250%	-75%	+50%	-50%
Reactive surface composite	250%	+25%	-40%	+20%

Here are the parameters for all three bulkheads. Note that, as far as resistances are concerned:

• Military grade composite isn't much good at anything, although not too bad at any either
• Mirrored surface composite is awesome vs thermal but bad vs explosive and downright atrocious against kinetic
• Reactive surface composite is the only type to have two positive resistances - kinetic and explosive - but has a weakness vs thermal

The objective is to have broadly balanced resistances to all three damage types - because as you rightly point out, you don't know what weapons you will be facing. Now consider the available engineer modifications:

• Lightweight and heavy duty give a modest buff to all resistances, but not enough to iron out the big differences on their own (I'll get to HRPs in a bit)
• The three type-specific modifications - thermal-, blast- and explosive-resistant - all give a big buff to their specialty, but the other two resistances both get hit with the nerf bat (this is in contrast to the shield mods, where only one resistance is affected negatively)

Therefore, the solution is to apply thermal resistance to reactive surface composite - because it is the only armour type to have only one weak resistance; applying any type-specific mod to military or mirrored will always result in one resistance being terrible. A good roll will put all three resistances in the positive single-digit range. From there you can apply heavy duty HRPs to increase all resistances further.

Another way to go is to apply heavy duty to reactive surface composite and top it up with heavy duty HRPs. The resistances won't be quite as balanced, but you will get more hull points. Which solution gives you the most effective hull points will depend on how much space you have for HRPs in your build.

Tl;dr - reactive is the most expensive because it is the only armour with just one weak resistance, and so can be resistance-balanced with the right engineering.

 

[bigity]

Reactive with heavy duty + thermal resist on smallest HRP

 

[JonathanBurnage]

Reactive with heavy duty + thermal resist on smallest HRP

Neat - this is probably the best of both worlds for ships with multiple HRPs.

OP - what ship are you equipping?

 

[Javert]

Neat - this is probably the best of both worlds for ships with multiple HRPs.

OP - what ship are you equipping?

At the moment it's an Anaconda but I was also seeking to understand the situation for all ships.

 

[Morbad]

Neat - this is probably the best of both worlds for ships with multiple HRPs.

Do note that bulkhead resistances determine where diminishing returns really kicks in.

If your smallest HRP isn't actually that small, or you have a many HRPs, you'll probably get more out of making them all heavy duty, no matter what mod you have on your bulkheads...you'll already be deep into diminishing returns for resistances.

 

[Aashenfox]

Reactive with heavy duty + thermal resist on smallest HRP

This is extremely rarely optimal, Morbad beat me to it. The full answer to the whole topic is in morbad's first post.

To the OP, if you aren't engineering, don't bother with bulkheads.

 

[Madrax573]

I usually go Reactive with thermal mod to get good spread across resists in a single module. It's not very often I build for specific tasks that allow me to do the HVY duty + therm HRP.....

 

[Mimix]

I believe reactive + thermal mod give an even spread of resistances have a look at the armour defence tab on this Vulture build, essentially when the shields are down NPC's tend to fire missiles and kinetic rounds as well as energy weapons so all round protective resistance seems like a good idea.

https://coriolis.edcd.io/outfit/vulture?code=A4pathFalddksif31d1d04040303B22d03272f24.AwRj4yKA.CwRgDBlZK7Q=.H4sIAAAAAAAAA02QvUoDQRSFbxJX94fsOmOSHRUJZlcRsRC7BMGfImhjb6OFjZ0KlpZapvERfAQhsRBLCztrscgTCAZBSMxcz1U2ZIrD3Jlv7j1zyLpENHQgwfYPs7qCpN0yEefsllzlIJVugSjaGTK7RZSctxW5wiGVP9Ag6aA23gSgiz5z6Q5NdCxkwc4JiRvSAcjo5ZvZxFNEpduQaGYX7ZObPEjH1jMn/j6m1ESWRbynAfOiyJKIbuANu/Ywwxfas0TOMQZPr6Oc/OoxJycwy94Y1BeoKdCGQCuf8LGGH7Bv9zIoNR5yqFnk8I731VP4NPdoxIFtZpBq+CB7gAIRcw331TeccWgPRp0uEaE6gt2orojmnwHpgaR8BjGP8oXIro6yf4CG54hMyU6/YnAqO1b/0F+ArQDQpgYeo1ZFSCrCTGPrF4a83fvTAQAA.EweloBhAOEEYBsICmBDA5gG2SeF9A===&bn=Vulture F (EDMC)

Have a read at Frenotx post in this thread

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?p=4988501&viewfull=1#post4988501

Just a quick question - how do you engineer modules in the Coriolis shipyard? I can't find any function that would do that.

 

[Morbad]

Some points in this thread could use an update to reflect the extra optional internal modules that all ships received with 3.4.

Currently, heavy duty or lightweight reactive (depending on the mass budget of the ship) with either deep plating (for most ships) or a resist of choice (for ships whose bulkheads only provide a tiny fraction of their total armor pool), with as many HD + deep plated HRPs as you have room for, and a single D1 thermal resistant + reflective plate HRP, will generally provide the most effective integrity against as broad an array of attacks as possible.

 

[Aashenfox]

As an employer of the two MRP strategy, one big one for damage absorption, and a small one for the extra resistance as long as the big one lives, this has allowed me to swap any size 2 mrps to size 1 and add another size 2 HRP. Worth considering for hybrid users.

 

[Ceekay]

@ [B]Daniel Klimchuk[/B], Coriolis has a spanner/wrench/tool symbol at the bottom right of each module box click on that to access the engineering options for that specific module. Hover the cursor over the chosen mod and it'll list the mats and engineer you need to achieve it, also the spanner around a cog symbol (top right in the save/reload row) will generate a mats list for the ship build.