What to do about shields?

[00DeadMonkey]

So I've gone ahead and put the old projector shields on my two main units... but they SUCK! I have yet to see any of the shields deflect a CRAM at STR 3 which used to be the standard. Is it worth it to keep them or should I just switch them over to Lazer scatter to help out the smoke?

[Ryven]

CRAM shells will most of the time go right through shields even with strength 10, and with the recent changes to shields. All shells fired will have RNG whether they will bounce off or go right through.

[muricaderp]

Ive never really put shields on anything i make, they (to me) have been useless since inception, if you want survive long term, stick to Mothershipping and using Repair Tentacles as child objects with amount of resources appropriate for the creation.

[maestro]

Yeah I don't like shields with the RNG hit or miss they don't seem worth it. Don't tell the Cheesy Dawn tho. They put shields on shields.

[FourGreenFields]

Even at max strength and perfect angle, you cannot get more than 40% reflection chance.

That doesn't mean they're useless, but you can no longer rely exclusively on shields.

Originally posted by muricaderp:

they (to me) have been useless since inception

Before the changes shields were practically mandatory if you went for performance (unless you built truly tiny craft or knew you would only be facing stuff that ignores shields anyway). I'm not sure how you reached that conclusion.

[jorixxupalorn]

the old shields got nerfed to hell alright. I'm pretty sure layering them is useless now too. As soon as a shell is fired the game calculates if it'll pass through shields or not. If the shell makes the roll, then it'll pass through all shields, be it 1 layer or a hundred. I've ditched the old shield walls in favor of the new shield generators that just buff armor

[00DeadMonkey]

Originally posted by jorixxupalorn:

the old shields got nerfed to hell alright. I'm pretty sure layering them is useless now too. As soon as a shell is fired the game calculates if it'll pass through shields or not. If the shell makes the roll, then it'll pass through all shields, be it 1 layer or a hundred. I've ditched the old shield walls in favor of the new shield generators that just buff armor

Except the new ones are so painful to use. You need to build your ship around using them.

[liquidsarcasm]

Originally posted by 00DeadMonkey:

Except the new ones are so painful to use. You need to build your ship around using them.

I haven't gotten around to trying the new 'ring shields' yet, I was wondering, if a single block on the 'ring' system gets taken out, does it disable the whole device? if so, i'll probably not bother using it. If the system is too fragile, I'd rather just stick with stacking extra armour on my craft instead.

[00DeadMonkey]

Originally posted by liquidsarcasm:

Originally posted by 00DeadMonkey:

Except the new ones are so painful to use. You need to build your ship around using them.

I haven't gotten around to trying the new 'ring shields' yet, I was wondering, if a single block on the 'ring' system gets taken out, does it disable the whole device? if so, i'll probably not bother using it. If the system is too fragile, I'd rather just stick with stacking extra armour on my craft instead.

I think if you break the ring it stops. You also have to basically put it in the outer most frame of your ship since anything outside it won't get buffed. Honestly I'd rather just layer the armor 4 thick and add some air gaps.

[Nobsniper]

Originally posted by 00DeadMonkey:

Originally posted by liquidsarcasm:

I haven't gotten around to trying the new 'ring shields' yet, I was wondering, if a single block on the 'ring' system gets taken out, does it disable the whole device? if so, i'll probably not bother using it. If the system is too fragile, I'd rather just stick with stacking extra armour on my craft instead.

I think if you break the ring it stops. You also have to basically put it in the outer most frame of your ship since anything outside it won't get buffed. Honestly I'd rather just layer the armor 4 thick and add some air gaps.

its not that the stuff outside for the ring does not get buffed, the buff is based on (Area of ring) / (Area of ship) increasing its size only increases the AC buff it does.
All the blocks on that face are effected whether or not they are in the Area of the ring

[00DeadMonkey]

Originally posted by Nobsniper:

Originally posted by 00DeadMonkey:

I think if you break the ring it stops. You also have to basically put it in the outer most frame of your ship since anything outside it won't get buffed. Honestly I'd rather just layer the armor 4 thick and add some air gaps.

its not that the stuff outside for the ring does not get buffed, the buff is based on (Area of ring) / (Area of ship) increasing its size only increases the AC buff it does.
All the blocks on that face are effected whether or not they are in the Area of the ring

Okay then that just wasn't that clear when I read it. That's still not great but not as bad.

[Space Commander Nemo]

Not gonna lie, I'm kind of impressed with them. I just gave them a shot, and my half built ship is slogging it out on nearly even ground with Bulwarks. You can stack them around each other to save space as well. The only drawback is that they take up basically a room (like any other component I suppose) instead of squeezing into wherever you can fit them.

Bumping some lightweight alloy to 17 armor is a big deal. Metal can get to over 20. My shield setup is something like 8mx20m, which is nothing in a huge battleship. Although a broken ring will act like a 1m particle cannon firing from inside your ship.

[liquidsarcasm]

Originally posted by Space Commander Nemo:

Not gonna lie, I'm kind of impressed with them. I just gave them a shot, and my half built ship is slogging it out on nearly even ground with Bulwarks. You can stack them around each other to save space as well. The only drawback is that they take up basically a room (like any other component I suppose) instead of squeezing into wherever you can fit them.

Bumping some lightweight alloy to 17 armor is a big deal. Metal can get to over 20. My shield setup is something like 8mx20m, which is nothing in a huge battleship. Although a broken ring will act like a 1m particle cannon firing from inside your ship.

Isn't the normal bonus you get from 'armour stacking' generally more than that though? 1m Alloy stacked in front of 1m metal should have about 28 armour. 2 layers of 1m metal will have about 30, and these examples are just from stacking the first layer.

[00DeadMonkey]

Originally posted by liquidsarcasm:

Originally posted by Space Commander Nemo:

Not gonna lie, I'm kind of impressed with them. I just gave them a shot, and my half built ship is slogging it out on nearly even ground with Bulwarks. You can stack them around each other to save space as well. The only drawback is that they take up basically a room (like any other component I suppose) instead of squeezing into wherever you can fit them.

Bumping some lightweight alloy to 17 armor is a big deal. Metal can get to over 20. My shield setup is something like 8mx20m, which is nothing in a huge battleship. Although a broken ring will act like a 1m particle cannon firing from inside your ship.

Isn't the normal bonus you get from 'armour stacking' generally more than that though? 1m Alloy stacked in front of 1m metal should have about 28 armour. 2 layers of 1m metal will have about 30, and these examples are just from stacking the first layer.

It stacks with armor stacking. As far as I understand it the outer most armor gets boosted to a higher value and that stacks with everything behind it as normal. And the shield effect moves inwards as armor is blown off.

[00DeadMonkey]

So just a general note, I just did some testing on the ring shield and on a reasonable sized ring (Which I took to be ~20X14 for a medium craft). Shot a 500mm 6m long HEAP at it and got the following: It did buttkiss for double stacked wood, showed noticeable improvement with double stack metal and took a another volley of 3 shells to punch through. Double metal was similarly buffed, 1-2 more volley's.

[Space Commander Nemo]

Isn't the normal bonus you get from 'armour stacking' generally more than that though? 1m Alloy stacked in front of 1m metal should have about 28 armour. 2 layers of 1m metal will have about 30, and these examples are just from stacking the first layer.

I just dont understand the way it reads in-game. I've got 2m of Heavy armor behind 4m of metal behind 1m of alloy and it says "armor buffed to 17.2", but I'm pretty sure it should be something like... oh, 40ish?

Either way, a direct hit from a Bulwark or Cezar can barely make it past the outer layer of armor in my case. I've never been able to pull that off in a sub-million cost ship.