Why would anyone pick armor or HP class ships over shields?

[Onimaho]

Curious what people think...

At least for me, picking an armor or HP based ship is more expensive and requires more micro-management. Since you must be paying attention and use some sort of ability to "recharge", where with the shield it does it for you in the background (there is also pilot perks that recharge shield upon kills).

Maybe development needs to re-think the balance between this options?

[Kage Goomba]

ehhhhh its trivial. You make kill - armor repairs itself - I occasionally have to repair the hull.
Perhaps some shield balance changes are coming?

[kelmenwong]

because there is NO shield penetration weapon against player at now, and shield regen more easily than armor

[Panfilo]

Pretty much all plating gives a %back on kills, you can stack a decent amount of dmg reduction and there's a defensive ability that refunds a % of dmg taken as well. Right now I have a Gunship I+ giving it a bit of shields, but even with that stripped away I don't feel like I take an unacceptable amount of damage. No shortage of nanobots in loot either.

[Jel]

Well the only reason i picked the gunship is for the additional weapon slots.
"double the gun - double the fun" - Sam Stone

Anyways, flying this thing without getting Serious Damage isn´t that hard.

Originally posted by kelmenwong:

because there is NO shield penetration weapon against player at now, [...]

well there is. Ever had a Viper firing those corrosive missiles at you ?

[Kage Goomba]

Originally posted by Jel:

Well the only reason i picked the gunship is for the additional weapon slots.
"double the gun - double the fun" - Sam Stone

Anyways, flying this thing without getting Serious Damage isn´t that hard.

Originally posted by kelmenwong:

because there is NO shield penetration weapon against player at now, [...]

well there is. Ever had a Viper firing those corrosive missiles at you ?

This.... hate those damn corrosion missiles.

[JustACorpse]

I currently prefer armor over shields. When you have large amounts of armor, and 7% return on kill, a single kill can bring you back into the fight for long enough to get another kill and so on. The gunship has a good deal of synergy with that idea, since you can really dish out damage with four guns, missiles, and the turret. Shields are more suited towards hit and run combat styles, and right now I don't see myself doing that much.

[Onimaho]

Originally posted by JustACorpse:

I currently prefer armor over shields. When you have large amounts of armor, and 7% return on kill, a single kill can bring you back into the fight for long enough to get another kill and so on. The gunship has a good deal of synergy with that idea, since you can really dish out damage with four guns, missiles, and the turret. Shields are more suited towards hit and run combat styles, and right now I don't see myself doing that much.

Everyone keeps citing the gunship, does it fire multiple primary guns simultaneously? Otherwise seems kinda useless as you only really need 2 and swap them for their cool downs.

[Fudge]

Originally posted by Onimaho:

Originally posted by JustACorpse:

I currently prefer armor over shields. When you have large amounts of armor, and 7% return on kill, a single kill can bring you back into the fight for long enough to get another kill and so on. The gunship has a good deal of synergy with that idea, since you can really dish out damage with four guns, missiles, and the turret. Shields are more suited towards hit and run combat styles, and right now I don't see myself doing that much.

Everyone keeps citing the gunship, does it fire multiple primary guns simultaneously? Otherwise seems kinda useless as you only really need 2 and swap them for their cool downs.

The gunship doesn't fire multiple primary guns, it has 4 hardpoints instead of 2 like the other ships, so in a sense it doubles damage on your primary. It also burns energy twice as fast.

[Kage Goomba]

The gun ship is an armor tank with multiple gun mounts and a unique special that is also a gun turret - it has more firepower and more armor - but is a "fatty" in terms of speed and maneuvering - you kill your target before you get out of the way basically.

It's more of a playstyle preference - personally I prefer the Interceptor/Sentinel.
In the end its just "an another ship" - same functions and basics - just more guns more options.

[OmegaFatWizard]

Gunship with some decent expertise on my shield gear pretty much have 43% damage reduction to armor and 700 odd shield and since the passive of 4 guns I can kill things so fast that some enemies don't even hit my fat ass so armor regen is no problem and emp to save my ass when I get swarmed only thing I could ask for is that turret ult being better

[Sporks]

Railgun lets you kill stuff before they can shoot at you!

[Sir Lucient]

There are quite a few "balance" issues with this game over all.

This whole topic brings to mind my personal ship choice, the scout ship. why worry about Shields, Armor or Hull when the enemy can't land more then 1-2 shots on me? Game is on Easy mode when nothing can actually hit you.

Plus

Originally posted by Sporks:

Railgun lets you kill stuff before they can shoot at you!

the Railgun is the most OP weapon in the game. Kill enemies with 2-3 hits (sometimes just one) out at 5-6km (3.5k with my Interceptor) And there is literally nothing they can do about it. Plus they just fly in a Straight line like "PLEASE SHOOT ME"

But even without the Railgun the combat became stupidly easy by the time I reached level 8. Now level 14 with 90% Superior gear these guys might as well be annoying flys. I really do hope we see more enemy types in the Update. And Smarter AI. I pray to all the gaming gods that these devs don't think Bullet sponges are the way to go. They don't need more HP they need to know how to actually pilot their freak'in ships.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

I tend to favor both shields and armor over hull points, as there are multiple ways to recharge both pretty quickly (I also favor fast recharge shields over large capacity shields, and I try not to get hit too much).

[Praesi]

Speed and Handling are superior in every way. I testet all ship types. The Scoutship has almost no armor or shield. But in combination with the 25% less damage perk while boosting. Its by far the strongest ship type. Almost no Weapon can hit you. While fun to play, its kind of too powerfull.

[Pappy]

With the damage reduction on the gunship and the armor repair on kill, I almost never need to even use nanobots to repair my hull even though my shield is often at zero. I typically end up selling extra nanobots rather than using them so with nanobots being plentiful enough to repair any damage done to my hull, there's really not much difference between the hull and shield.