Why Would I Ever Use Wood Armor?

[NinjaX]

The basic steel armor has more protection. It's also LIGHTER than wood armor.

[Epic Gamer]

Because its cheaper..... so economics.

[BrowneHawk]

Fast cheap boarding craft.

[Admiral Obvious]

Basic steel armor is heavier than wooden armor.

If you're talking about steel wall, youre sacrificing general HP for damage absorption, which only really matters for stuff like rifles.

Wood armor can take a cannonball and keep the stuff behind it kind of safe. Steel wall can't.

If you're using the anvil charge, in the campaign I suppose that's one way to get steel armor to cost the same as wood.

[NinjaX]

Let me clarify my argument:

[Wooden Armour] $2
HP: 35
Weight: 4
Absorb 1 blast damage
Absorb 3 piercing damage

[Steel Wall] $2
HP: 27
Weight: 2
Absorb 5 blast damage
Absorb 3 piercing damge

If I want a fast ship or a ship that goes high, I always want steel because it's lighter.

If I want a slow but powerful ship, I still go for steel to protect vs blast damage as well. Also, the weight decrease adds up more on a bigger ship.

Does that make sense or is the loss of 8 HP a huge deal?

[Ernst Cornell]

Originally posted by NinjaX:

The basic steel armor has more protection. It's also LIGHTER than wood armor.

wood armor, i dunno.
wood walls, ideal for not so important modules like the berths or corridors

[Admiral Obvious]

Originally posted by NinjaX:

Let me clarify my argument:

[Wooden Armour] $2
HP: 35
Weight: 4
Absorb 1 blast damage
Absorb 3 piercing damage

[Steel Wall] $2
HP: 27
Weight: 2
Absorb 5 blast damage
Absorb 3 piercing damge

If I want a fast ship or a ship that goes high, I always want steel because it's lighter.

If I want a slow but powerful ship, I still go for steel to protect vs blast damage as well. Also, the weight decrease adds up more on a bigger ship.

Does that make sense or is the loss of 8 HP a huge deal?

It does make sense. 8 HP however puts it into the range where the armor gets completely stripped from a single deck gun shot (30 damage), even with the 3 HP resistance, it will remove the piece. Wood armor can take one hit from the deck gun, and one more with the 8 remaining HP.

Regular cannons will strip both of them in one shot though.

Wood armor can also be shot 4 more times with a rifle before breaking too.

[KrysisMode]

Mostly comes down to what you're fighting. Metals worthwhile against AoE and small arms fire since it'll tank the little hits better and increase survival time. Good for withstanding flak batteries too.

In your two choices though wood is a superior pick for dealing with cannonfire as it'll withstand a hit better. Cannons deal much more damage so it becomes a matter of raw HP vs damage soaking. Heavy cannons in particular highlight this massively, they often blow right through even good armor in a few shots or just one on light armor AND have a lovely habit of wrecking whatevers behind it.

This is actually why solid ship design is more important over armor in my opinion. You see in the HP overlay while you design, well designed and solid ships are vastly more sturdy than something lanky or elongated. Even worse if you have something jut up or down like a dorsal turret. Compensate for the weight of a keel and you can end up with a ship that can take a pounding even in wooden armor. Steel and up just let it soak a few extra volleys.

Arguably though you could just out cannon the enemy ship and beat it in a damage race but thats not exactly cost effective which can matter in conquest mode. And there ARE ways to counter that as well to be wary of.

Sorry it's a bit of a wall but the games surprisingly deep, even if it does have hilarious issues with balance in a few areas. If it wasn't for flak I'd say bombers were broken as it gets, right now they're just insanely strong against anything BUT flak and fighters.

[Wenzel]

Originally posted by KrysisMode:

[snip]

Interesting post! Especially your remark about HP being more important than armor.

About balance: Admittedly, I've only started playing this game for real, but I suppose that it needs some kind of restriction-options for multiplayer battles? Right now, it seems like you'd fully go for one strategy and hope that the enemy does not show up with a counter-build? This might lead to extremely one-sided, un-fun battles?

One could restrict the mean service ceiling (to tackle overly bomber-heavy fleets), the number of allowed boarding parties, etc.? Of course not every fleet should end up looking the same, but without any restrictions at all I fear that multiplayer battles might be decided by extreme builds and counter builds?

[KrysisMode]

That'd be up to the devs honestly, you can find plenty of reasons on either side of the arguement there. It's kind of the best/worst thing about these kinds of sandbox designer games. There's absolutely nothing stopping you from making an extremely powerful unit that is extremely hard to deal with.

The real issue is there's no consequences for going straight up to the top of the map with an absurdly high service cieling. You can go straight to the top of the screen and unless you're facing wide angle/up angle weapons you are quite golden to use aimed shots and win mercilessly. I'm honestly surprised your crew and ship doesn't start to suffer from the wind currents that have to be up there.

[Wenzel]

Originally posted by KrysisMode:

I'm honestly surprised your crew and ship doesn't start to suffer from the wind currents that have to be up there.

Haha, random turbulences, oxygen and pressure systems for ships! Hello, add-on! :D