Ships Question regarding shields VS armour

[Indy Original]

Here's something I've always wondered about (but never seen anyone comment on):

Is the measurement of shield strength (in MJ) exactly equivalent to the measurement of armour strength? By that I mean, if a ship had a 1,000 MJ shield, and it also had 1,000 armour, would its 'health pool' be split 50/50 between shield and armour? Or is 1,000 armour only the equivalent of, say, 400 MJ of shield?

I know that the strength of a shield varies depending on how many pips you put into systems, and the strength of a ship's armour varies depending on that ship's 'hardness' rating, so it might be that this is very tricky to work out - and of course, shields are usually preferred because they recharge, whereas hull armour does not. (Also resistances, etc...!)

But in theory, if a FDL armed only with a Huge Plasma Accelerator (doing absolute damage, and not being affected by the ship's hardness rating) was firing at a stationary ship equipped with a 1,000 MJ shield (and no pips in systems) and a 1,000 armour Lightweight Alloy hull, and if it took the FDL 30 seconds to reduce the ship's shields to zero, would it also take another 30 seconds to reduce the ship's armour to zero? And if not... how long would it take, then?!

...Does anyone know?

 

[Shurimal]

But in theory, if a FDL armed only with a Huge Plasma Accelerator (doing absolute damage, and not being affected by the ship's hardness rating) was firing at a stationary ship equipped with a 1,000 MJ shield (and no pips in systems) and a 1,000 armour Lightweight Alloy hull, and if it took the FDL 30 seconds to reduce the ship's shields to zero, would it also take another 30 seconds to reduce the ship's armour to zero?

AFAIK, yes, assuming that both the shield and armor have exactly the same resistances. PA-s do 60% absolute, 20% kinetic and 20% thermal damage so the math gets a bit more complicated for real in-game shields and armors.

 

[Indy Original]

AFAIK, yes, assuming that both the shield and armor have exactly the same resistances. PA-s do 60% absolute, 20% kinetic and 20% thermal damage so the math gets a bit more complicated for real in-game shields and armors.

Thank you! I always assumed that they were the same (because after all, why complicate matters by using a different scale for each, when it's all arbitrary anyway?), but I never knew for sure. And the times when I found myself wondering about this were usually the times when my shield had just gone down and my hull was being absolutely melted, which always made me doubt myself, and think "Maybe armour isn't worth as much after all?"

(Full disclosure - I'm always flying in small ships, so I suppose my armour's 'hardness' counts for nothing... and in a CZ, you never know exactly what kind of engineering the other ships have on their weapons, either. And knowing that you are seconds away from death probably makes the damage to your hull seem more serious, I suppose...!)

Thanks for putting my mind at rest!

 

[Shurimal]

Thank you! I always assumed that they were the same (because after all, why complicate matters by using a different scale for each, when it's all arbitrary anyway?), but I never knew for sure.

Armor strength can actually be quite well abstracted using MJ-s as hitpoints. Every weapon, from clubs to discarding sabot fin-stabilized anti-tank rounds to lasers, boils down to putting energy into the target. And the resistances are good abstraction, too. Medieval plate harness is almost invulnerable to cuts, but suspectible to piercing and downright vulnerable to concussion, even if the energy the different weapons apply is the same.

And the times when I found myself wondering about this were usually the times when my shield had just gone down and my hull was being absolutely melted, which always made me doubt myself, and think "Maybe armour isn't worth as much after all?"

Armor definitely is worth it, but there are a lot of caveats, see below

(Full disclosure - I'm always flying in small ships, so I suppose my armour's 'hardness' counts for nothing... and in a CZ, you never know exactly what kind of engineering the other ships have on their weapons, either. And knowing that you are seconds away from death probably makes the damage to your hull seem more serious, I suppose...!)

Thanks for putting my mind at rest!

Small ships do suffer from low armor hardness—most NPC-s use kinetic weapons with relatively low armor piercing and so eg a Courier takes full damage from just class 2 MC-s whereas a Chief takes what, only half? Add in the fact that reactive armor has a high speed penalty on lightweight small ships and standard lightweight hull is extremely vulnerable to kinetic and explosive damage (and NPC-s love to spam missiles) and the result is that even a quite well-fit small ship is vulnerable once the shield goes pop. Viper MKIV is maybe the only exception, that's a hardy little tank

 

[SergMx]

Armor strength can actually be quite well abstracted using MJ-s as hitpoints. Every weapon, from clubs to discarding sabot fin-stabilized anti-tank rounds to lasers, boils down to putting energy into the target. And the resistances are good abstraction, too. Medieval plate harness is almost invulnerable to cuts, but suspectible to piercing and downright vulnerable to concussion, even if the energy the different weapons apply is the same.

Armor definitely is worth it, but there are a lot of caveats, see below

Small ships do suffer from low armor hardness—most NPC-s use kinetic weapons with relatively low armor piercing and so eg a Courier takes full damage from just class 2 MC-s whereas a Chief takes what, only half? Add in the fact that reactive armor has a high speed penalty on lightweight small ships and standard lightweight hull is extremely vulnerable to kinetic and explosive damage (and NPC-s love to spam missiles) and the result is that even a quite well-fit small ship is vulnerable once the shield goes pop. Viper MKIV is maybe the only exception, that's a hardy little tank

I like this thread, maybe it will shed some light on some questions that I've been looking for a long time.
Although the shield can be replenished but it only happens when the timeout for hitting has passed plus the shield resistance increase at 4 pips. And the shield has a large signature so the shield issue is less interesting.
But armor is another matter. I well remember the patch when the warships introduced combat slots and were added module amplifiers.
And there is still an effect of corrosion and therefore with armor is very complicated.

 

[Ytterium]

And there is still an effect of corrosion and therefore with armor is very complicated.

Corrosion is very simple. It reduces armor hardness by 20, and increases incoming damage by 25%.

 

[SergMx]

Corrosion is very simple. It reduces armor hardness by 20, and increases incoming damage by 25%.

What kind of damage? Thermal or all of it?

 

[BetaToaster]

Corrosion is very simple. It reduces armor hardness by 20, and increases incoming damage by 25%.

Apparently not that simple
It actually increases the armor piercing of incoming attacks, rather than decreasing armor hardness.
E.g. firing Cytoscramblers (piercing 1) at a DBX (hardness 42) gives:

damage multiplier without corrosion: 1/42 ~= 2.4%
wrong formula: 1/22 *1.25 ~= 5.7%
damage multiplier with corrosion: 21/42*1.25 ~= 63%

As you can see, Cytos against corroded hull are only viable because corrosion works in this unintuitive way.

 

[Ytterium]

It actually increases the armor piercing of incoming attacks, rather than decreasing armor hardness.

Ah yeah it was one or the other lol I forgot which

 

[Morbad]

AFAIK, yes, assuming that both the shield and armor have exactly the same resistances.

Only at zero SYS pips. Anything above that adds an additional layer of resistance to the shields.

Edit: I see that zero pips was a condition mentioned in the OP.

 

[SergMx]

Only at zero SYS pips. Anything above that adds an additional layer of resistance to the shields.

Sorry if I sound harsh, but there may be newbies here and you need to write more precisely for them.

These pips are not relevant to the fight against the Thargoids.