Slugs?

[drayelya1]

Are they useless for space combat? I found that a combination of beams and missiles are really broken in combat but, what about slugs? Is a full projectile missile with slugs build possible?

[Sizzlor]

Slugs generate flak which is needed to destroy missles, fighters and bombers. I normally use a missle and slug strategy. Slugs tend to be better at defense.

[drayelya1]

Originally posted by Sizzlor:

Slugs generate flak which is needed to destroy missles, fighters and bombers. I normally use a missle and slug strategy. Slugs tend to be better at defense.

I never feel like I have enough weapon slots...it’s nice to know I can do that though. Should I outfit all my ships like this or just outfit my protectors?

[Sekhriat]

Originally posted by drayelya1:

Originally posted by Sizzlor:

Slugs generate flak which is needed to destroy missles, fighters and bombers. I normally use a missle and slug strategy. Slugs tend to be better at defense.

I never feel like I have enough weapon slots...it’s nice to know I can do that though. Should I outfit all my ships like this or just outfit my protectors?

Really depends on what your opponents are using. If they have fighters/bombers, boarding pods or missiles, slugs are a boon. They deal damage while also negating a good portion of what your ennemy can do.

If all they use are energy weapons though, slugs are only short-ranged weapons. They aren't complitely bad, but they lose all of their utility in this case.

[Mulzaro]

Originally posted by drayelya1:

Originally posted by Sizzlor:

Slugs generate flak which is needed to destroy missles, fighters and bombers. I normally use a missle and slug strategy. Slugs tend to be better at defense.

I never feel like I have enough weapon slots...it’s nice to know I can do that though. Should I outfit all my ships like this or just outfit my protectors?

Sounds like you are mixing weapon types for one ship. It's better to make the ships do one thing well and then mix the ships instead.

[Aidanya]

I dont agree. Mixing is fine. I usually have 1 slugs on defender/coordinator ships and use the attacker/hunterships for dmg. attacker/hunter ships get a 10%/20% weapon boost but this doesnt work on the flak slugs provide (just their normal ship-ship dmg). So they are better used for other weapons.

Also the 2x and 4x module multipliers on the 3CP/6Cp ships do increase missile health but not flak dmg. Therefor slugs get worse bad at protecting vs missiles on larger ships.

Mixing weapons on 1 ship means you are not countered that easily. Which the AI does a good job at. True some hardcore players keep adapting their ships to what the enemy brings but most people dont. Balanced ships means you dont really have to change it as much.

However they have the best dmg at short range. With the way battle tactics work getting short range can be really easy. If the enemy picks long range you still get 1/3 of the battle at short.
If they pick medium u get 2/3th of the battle on short range. Not to mention they penetrate 20% of the armor plating which is 10% more than missiles.

Fun fact:
Did you know that shields are more effective at blocking slugs than armor plating.
shields work at 50% efficienty vs slugs and armor plating at 80% but a armor module gives you about half the dmg mitigation a shield module does (results may vary depending on ship hull and amount of modules). So on anything but the biggest ships its better to use shields. You may get even more use out of the power ot shields battle tactic too since you dont wanna pick short range tactics into slug weapons.

This actually makes slugs look rly bad as a weapon so i guess OP has a point.
Their only current role is to counter a heavy missile spammer.

[Mulzaro]

You dont get countered easily if you mix specialized ships instead of trying to put everything in every single ship. Not mixing weapons also lets you use the damage booster modules more efficiently. I always, however, try to have a balanced defense layout in my ships.

Also about the shield vs plating thing. You need to remember plating always works whereas shields stop working once they go to 0 hp (also emp in some edge cases). This means that if the enemy has lots of energy weapons the shields go down fast and dont work anymore unless you have shield rechargers.

[talemore]

Their role is what the maker wants them to be. Too bad shields are ignored when critical hitting.

[John Josep Jingleheimer Schmidt]

Originally posted by Sizzlor:

Slugs generate flak which is needed to destroy missles, fighters and bombers. I normally use a missle and slug strategy. Slugs tend to be better at defense.

same here, slugs early game are quite a smart run around during early game 10-60 turns (normal match) later on if your opponent has ships whit rockets and boarding pods you need those flak cannons you cant miss them or you will have a baaad day. lasers and rockets are a good mid-large battle option, if you can cheese it, but some players might find a way to punish you using that on their advantage on future ship designs. and remember who he strikes first strikes twice!

[Aidanya]

Originally posted by talemore:

Their role is what the maker wants them to be. Too bad shields are ignored when critical hitting.

They also ignore armor plating. So there is not really a way to design against it (only the hyperion armor module protects against crits).

Originally posted by Mulzaro:

You dont get countered easily if you mix specialized ships instead of trying to put everything in every single ship. Not mixing weapons also lets you use the damage booster modules more efficiently. I always, however, try to have a balanced defense layout in my ships.

Also about the shield vs plating thing. You need to remember plating always works whereas shields stop working once they go to 0 hp (also emp in some edge cases). This means that if the enemy has lots of energy weapons the shields go down fast and dont work anymore unless you have shield rechargers.

True shields stop working when your shield capacity runs out. But remember that only the blocked dmg is taken away from the shield capacity.

For the below example i used a hisso attack ship (1cp) with only the basic starter defense modules:

1 armor plating module gives you 9% dmg reduction. Vs slugs only 80% of that is effective so 7.2% dmg absorption. Base health of the ship is 2080 you would need to do 2241 slug dmg to destroy the ship.

1 shield module gives 270 shield capacity at an absorption rate of 24 with 50% penetration = 12%. That means the shield runs out after dealing 2250 dmg. of which only 1980 dmg is done to the ship (270 absorbed). So you would need to deal 2250 + 35 (the remaining hp on your ship). = 2285 dmg needs to be done to destroy the ship.

So shields win here by 39. This is so little we can practically say they are just as effective.


When you go up to 2 modules of each you get the following results:
armor plating: 2500 dmg to destroy the ship (yes exactly 2500).
Shields: are active for 2842 dmg done before running out. which deals 2302 dmg to ship. This is more than its max health of 2030. Therefor we can consider shields to be always active. as shields run out only after the ship has already died from the dmg that gets through.
needing it to do 2506 dmg to to destroy the ship. (it absorbs more but plating gives better health bonus and thus better max health making it close again).

So 6 dmg difference here. Again pretty much same effectiveness.

Note: This is all done with vs slug weapons. Results change vs other weapon types and armor modules start to come out on top on the larger ships (only slightly).

[Eclipse]

They are the only way to fight large carrier fleets. Not sure is it possible to beat proper carrier fleet without interceptors or top tier slugs. I like bomber modules+big slug modules on United Empire carriers. Though they are mainly for self defense.

[Autocthon]

Originally posted by Aidanya:

Fun fact:
Did you know that shields are more effective at blocking slugs than armor plating.
shields work at 50% efficienty vs slugs and armor plating at 80% but a armor module gives you about half the dmg mitigation a shield module does (results may vary depending on ship hull and amount of modules). So on anything but the biggest ships its better to use shields. You may get even more use out of the power ot shields battle tactic too since you dont wanna pick short range tactics into slug weapons.

This actually makes slugs look rly bad as a weapon so i guess OP has a point.
Their only current role is to counter a heavy missile spammer.

Shields also provide a relatively much larger pool of damage soak than armor does. And then there's the "Impregnable Shielding" deed reward module that has three times the total shielding of any other module in the game and has armor and HP roughly equal to adamantian armor. It's ridiculous.

Basically shields are broken and energy weapons are too good when you can get heroes that grant shield penetration effectively negating their downside.