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Armor over shields? - 1/29/2011 9:02:27 PM   
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Abraxis
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Status: offline 		I started a new game as the Ikkuro (Wookies), their special tech got me wondering. Is it a viable strategy to pack armor and robotic repair units on your ships rather than relying much on shields (maybe one unit just to help them get in close)?

If it works it would save a ton on fuel I'd imagine, which means fewer refueling trips (or more weapons :P), though at the cost of possibly having to sit around after battles for a bit self-repairing.

Has anyone tried anything like this yet?
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RE: Armor over shields? - 1/29/2011 10:13:48 PM   
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Data
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Status: offline 		yes, and indeed you need to wait after a battle for the ships to self repair
but I also rely on shields as well, don't want to be caught in a stormy gas cloud and have my repair units repair armor before or during the next battle

there is also the classic distinction that shields regenarate while the repair units will never repair the armor as fast as a shield regeneration....not sure if this still aplies here, I take this from MOO2 where you had 4 shields (one on each side of the ship) and you could rotate so that the depleated shield could have time to recharge while another one took the pounding.

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RE: Armor over shields? - 1/30/2011 11:28:25 AM   
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Kayoz
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Status: offline 		Is it only the Ikkuro who can repair components with their damage control unit? Does the "standard" one only mitigate damage that gets past shields/armour?

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RE: Armor over shields? - 1/30/2011 1:10:29 PM   
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J HG T
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Status: offline 		Everybody can have repair droids. They come after the damage control units in tech-tree. Ikkuros just have special droids like Kiadians have special ECM, Sluken special engines, Zenox special shields etc. etc.

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RE: Armor over shields? - 1/30/2011 6:16:09 PM   
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elanaahova
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Status: offline 		One caution, if I may. i believe only one repair unit can 'be active' on a ship at a time. So multiple repair bots won't increase repair speed. However, multiple repair components wiill, if the ship is badly damaged, increase the possibiblity that at least one of the repair bots will survive...

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RE: Armor over shields? - 1/30/2011 6:53:40 PM   
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Data
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Status: offline 		yes, elanaahova is correct...it's a design feature for this game that many components do not stack and can be stacked only for redundancy and backup
i like this feature for repair units, it prevents you from having the ultimate invulnerable ship....which many other games allow, really a game breaker (even my all time favourite, MOO2, had this)

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RE: Armor over shields? - 1/30/2011 11:51:56 PM   
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Abraxis
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Status: offline 		I know all races have the repair bot, I'm just trying to find a way to leverage the the advantage of the Ikkuro's special bot.

I created two fleets of 3 destroyer and 3 frigates each.  The first I followed my usual shield happy design, the other I went with about 40 units of armor and one shield for environmental hazards mainly. 


What I thought the difference would be:
I figured my armor heavy fleet would work under sort of a damage threshold system, being they would negate/repair damage up to a point, being nigh invincible before that point.  Once they start receiving damage per second in excess of that point however, it would get very grim, very fast.

What the Difference turned out to be:
They were massacred.  And their build/maintenance costs were twice as high as my regular fleet, though, they did use less fuel/energy.


So at the end of the day, I'm starting to think maybe this Ikkuro tech is worthless, under normal shield focused fleets, it only comes into play once shields are down.  When shields are down in a battle, it pretty much means game over for that ship whether they can repair themselves or not, the enemy isn't going to stop shooting, the ship is just slightly delaying the inevitable.

The only time it really has any worth so far as I can tell is in the rare small skirmish where two enemies meet, and your ship just barely beats the other.  Now rather then having to repair him, he can repair himself.

I'm struggling to see any reason for researching and using armor/repair bots over just getting better and more shields.  Which kinda sucks for the Ikkuro as their race advantage, if relied on, really just seems like a disadvantage.

Unless I'm just designing them poorly...

Edit: And in fact they don't even seem to repair properly, several months after a battle, one destroyer with 19 damaged components and another with 5, no change. Neither repair bot is damaged.

< Message edited by Abraxis -- 1/31/2011 12:30:39 AM >

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RE: Armor over shields? - 1/31/2011 1:36:33 AM   
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unclean
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quote:

What I thought the difference would be:
I figured my armor heavy fleet would work under sort of a damage threshold system, being they would negate/repair damage up to a point, being nigh invincible before that point. Once they start receiving damage per second in excess of that point however, it would get very grim, very fast.

That threshold does exist, it's just at the fighter/missile level. Like you found out found out anything else tears through it like a bag of leaves.

But I agree, going armor over shields just doesn't work, it's way too expensive and takes way too many resources to work. I have a feeling that that armor isn't even supposed to be viable at all, since ships constantly try to repair themselves at spaceports when their components or armor are damaged (even if they have repair bots) and you have to click on things like a maniac to keep them from retreating.

quote:

I'm struggling to see any reason for researching and using armor/repair bots over just getting better and more shields.

As far as I know there really isn't, armor's good against missiles, fighters and those space scorpion things, but that's about it.

IMO this game could use a shield piercing weapon or weapon mod, seems like an interesting way to make armor worth the research. Either that or the reactive rating needs to be doubled so that the damage threshold you were talking about is around blaster level.

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RE: Armor over shields? - 1/31/2011 7:31:22 AM   
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Data
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Status: offline 		i think the latter is better as shield piercing weapons can also lead us to armor piercing ones

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RE: Armor over shields? - 1/31/2011 7:34:42 AM   
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adecoy95
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Status: offline 		it could also use a way to track how much armor you have left

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RE: Armor over shields? - 1/31/2011 7:37:39 AM   
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Data
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Status: offline 		agreed on this to, currently you have to check the components on the ship to see the damaged armor....not very handy in a tight spot

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RE: Armor over shields? - 1/31/2011 3:41:46 PM   
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cmdrnarrain
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Status: offline 		Armor also slows down your ship a whole bunch which means it is easier to hit, etc.

On the ships which weren't repaired did they also have their reactors destroyed?  I believe repair bots require energy to work.

Repair bots work the best on large ships.  I would however love it if the private sector used repair bots.  It might reduce the huge number of damaged ships floating around.  


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RE: Armor over shields? - 1/31/2011 4:27:28 PM   
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Abraxis
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Status: offline 		Their reactors are fine, it looks like the only damaged components are armor, maybe the bots just don't repair armor? Kinda lame given how underpowered it is

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RE: Armor over shields? - 1/31/2011 5:08:54 PM   
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Data
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Status: offline 		i just checked the pedia on the assumption that they indeed repair only internal systems and not armor (like in MOO2 for example) but have not found a definitive answer in there....it should be easy to test, since you don't see them repairing the armor I suspect that they don't

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RE: Armor over shields? - 2/1/2011 1:01:43 AM   
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elanaahova
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Status: offline 		Commandernarrin: I think repair bots CAN be used in the private sector, IF you add them to the design of transport / passenger / mining ships, and obsolete any designs of that class that don't use the bots.

I'm curious, you wrote that you have many civvy wrecks all over the place. I don't experience that in my games, generally. Do you design your civvies with max warp speed, and decent acceleration, and turning? It might be useful to us all to compare our various designs for civ ships?

BTW, armor does have some effectiveness against fighters.

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RE: Armor over shields? - 2/1/2011 4:51:14 PM   
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cmdrnarrain
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Status: offline 		Repair bots can be used by the public sector.  The problem is that as soon as you do a mass upgrade to add new tech the repair bots disappear from the design.

I don't design my civvys as I like to mass upgrade and the edit function doesn't seem to work correctly.  Not that I would do it anyway as I'm more then happy to let them run automatically.  

My damaged civvys are mostly the result of area effect weapons used by other races.   I doubt most players even notice the number as they are buried amongst their other civvy ships and you can not sort by them. 

Simple solutions,
1) Have repair bots added to the civvy design automatically
2) Make civvy repair ships which go around automatically repairing civvy ships/bases
3) Allow you sort and scrap them
4) Add a button to the lower left hand window which allows you to click through them to easily send repair ships

I think 2 is the best solution, with 1 working too after you have researched the tech because both happend automatically.  The currect method of fixing them is very time consuming as you have to look over hundred of civvy ships find one and send repair ship, rinse and repeat for each one.   


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RE: Armor over shields? - 2/1/2011 5:01:00 PM   
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Data
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Status: offline 		if you put constructor ships on auto they will (among other things, indeed) go and repair them automatically....no need for you to identify them

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RE: Armor over shields? - 2/1/2011 5:53:40 PM   
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cmdrnarrain
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Status: offline 		It appears to be a very low priority for them as I'm running a small map with 16 automated construstors, have stations all of the place and still have a bunch of unrepaired civvys.

I also tend to leave my construstor side bar open and I've only seen them repair a civvy once.

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RE: Armor over shields? - 2/1/2011 6:44:59 PM   
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adecoy95
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Status: offline 		in the expansion there is a que repair button, so you can be sure they will get there as soon as they are done with whatever they are doing at the time

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RE: Armor over shields? - 2/1/2011 7:14:38 PM   
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Data
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Status: offline 		ya, but you still need to locate the ship that needs repairs and this was one of his initial complaints

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RE: Armor over shields? - 2/2/2011 3:14:49 AM   
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elanaahova
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Status: offline 		Yes, it is a chore finding the ships in need of repair. I use the window in the lower left corner of the screen, and click thru the ships. The image will show a wreck image if the ship is bad off. And, when the civ is first damaged, a message comes up, "ship needs repair, yada..."

*** It would be nice if the ship / base menu screens (top of monitor) had more filters. *** Havn't tried it, but, perhaps, the set of buttons along the left middle of the screen might allow user to cycle thru the ships quicker?

I don't use the auto update on ship design - is this where you are wishing the AI did a better job?

< Message edited by elanaahova -- 2/2/2011 3:16:39 AM >

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RE: Armor over shields? - 2/2/2011 7:27:22 AM   
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Data
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Status: offline 		no, putting the ship on auto once it's out there is the setting in question
the auto upgrade is another story

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RE: Armor over shields? - 2/2/2011 9:07:35 AM   
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unclean
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Data
i just checked the pedia on the assumption that they indeed repair only internal systems and not armor (like in MOO2 for example) but have not found a definitive answer in there....it should be easy to test, since you don't see them repairing the armor I suspect that they don't

They definitely repair armor.

Repair bots have always worked fine for me, not sure why it's going wrong for Abraxis.

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RE: Armor over shields? - 2/2/2011 9:44:39 AM   
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Data
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Status: offline 		thanks, unclean, good to know that for sure

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RE: Armor over shields? - 2/4/2011 5:04:14 AM   
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Abraxis
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Status: offline 		Weird, were you using the special Ikkuro repair bots? I let both these ships sit around for months and the repair bots definitely weren't damaged. I can't think of any other factor other then maybe the Ikkuro bots are bugged, unless you were using them too... I'll have to play around with them a bit more. If they weren't working at all maybe I need to re-do the experiment.

Edit: Okay, apparently I am on crack or something. I just loaded the file again, thinking maybe it wasn't working cause they were low on fuel (in the red). I refueled them and they started repairing. Then I got mad and reloaded again because that didn't make sense (they still had energy and some fuel after all).
I sent one ship into deep space (where I'd watched them last time [months before this] when nothing happened) and left the other in the star system. Both started repairing. So I don't even know what to say, I wrote that comment above well before I made this save and the number of damaged components is the same up there as upon loading it. Yet right after loading they begin to repair.

Perhaps I've angered a higher power or I've gone mad...

I any case, the rate at which they repair still seems too slow to be useful in combat

< Message edited by Abraxis -- 2/4/2011 5:43:58 AM >

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RE: Armor over shields? - 2/26/2011 5:09:02 PM   
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Foraven
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Status: offline 		Unless it has been changed in the expansion, armor do soak some of the damage it receive before getting damaged. At higher tech levels, armor can soak a lot of damage and makes the lower tech weapons unable to dent it, and reduce incoming fire by a lot. For armor to be viable as the main defense though, it needs to be of a pretty high level, low level armor will just allow your ships to take a few more hits before internals takes damage. Not sure, but i think damage control does make armor more effective as damage received gets reduced.


< Message edited by Foraven -- 2/26/2011 5:10:13 PM >

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RE: Armor over shields? - 2/26/2011 6:42:19 PM   
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Data
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Status: offline 		afaik damage control applies to internal systems only, not armor

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