Armor/shield costs balance

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Armor/shield costs balance

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Armor/shield costs balance - 8/6/2013 1:41:59 PM

Roller

Posts: 14
Joined: 5/15/2010
Status: offline

Hi everyone,

I noticed a strange imbalance in costs between armor and shields. The following is for tech level 1, all resources are at price 0.8, in case that's important. Version is 1908.

Purchase costs are 125 credits for a shield generator and 43 credits for an armor unit.

For 100 protection value, you pay 125 credits for shields and 430 for armor. Maintenance cost is 38 credits for shields and 100 credits for armor.

Shield maintenance costs are 0.38 credits per protection value, or 3.8 credits per volume unit. Armor costs are 1 credit per protection value, 10 credit per volume unit.

So costs are very skewed in favor of shields, and that's without the shield ability to recharge and the armor's need to be repaired at further cost. In addition, the next shield improvement is at tech level 2 and for armor it is at tech level 3, which means that the imbalance increases further.

Thoughts?

< Message edited by Roller -- 8/6/2013 2:08:08 PM >

Post #: 1

RE: Armor/shield costs balance - 8/6/2013 3:28:45 PM

Canute0

Posts: 616
Joined: 4/30/2010
From: Germany
Status: offline

Old discussion, that comes with every new expansion.

If you don't like armor, don't add it to the ship and add more shields.
Basicly there is no need to balance that thing since all races got the same. Or did you see any AI use just armor and no shields and got a big disadvance from it ?

(in reply to Roller)

Post #: 2

RE: Armor/shield costs balance - 8/6/2013 4:14:14 PM

mSterian

Posts: 155
Joined: 7/25/2013
Status: offline

The AI has disadvantage because it uses default design which includes armor.

(in reply to Canute0)

Post #: 3

RE: Armor/shield costs balance - 8/6/2013 4:20:00 PM

ASHBERY76

Posts: 2136
Joined: 10/10/2001
From: England
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: mSterian

The AI has disadvantage because it uses default design which includes armor.

Rail guns?

_____________________________

(in reply to mSterian)

Post #: 4

RE: Armor/shield costs balance - 8/6/2013 4:25:01 PM

Strat_84

Posts: 84
Joined: 12/8/2011
Status: offline

... And on contrary to the player thinking himself smart to put only shields on his ships, the AI won't withstand a masterful spanking when facing railguns.

And anyway if things were as simple as just comparing damage, you're forgetting an important thing about armor: unlike a shield that takes all the damage all the time, the armor absorbs some of it.
Let's say you have a beam dealing 4 damage on a standard armor plate, 2 is substracted, which leads to a 20% chance to blow up the plate. Statistically that means 5 shots to destroy a single plate rated for a value of 10.

Meanwhile the shield would have taken 20 points of damage.