(Where on Earth do I post this? I want to talk about a game mechanic in a wide sense, so General? I kind of want to suggest a change, so Suggestions? I provide a mod to try out the changes, so Modding? I really don't know, if you know better and happen to have superpowers, please move)When it comes down to it, armor just sucks and doesn't even come close in usefulness to shields, and low-tech ships' survivability is straight up inferior to high-tech's.
As soon as you can afford it, usually the best thing to do is to ditch low-tech garbage - largely to take advantage of the good shields high-tech ships get.
This makes sense, of course. High-tech ships are more advanced, more expensive, rarer, more difficult to maintain - it makes perfect sense that they would be superior, and they should be superior. But at the same time, it is a bit of a shame and a missed opportunity. I have always wanted to see heavily armored ships plow through a barrage of fire and fight back, hoping to blow their opponents to bits before their armor gives in. But what actually happens is that they explode.
Taking hits on armor doesn't impede your ability to dish out firepower, but armor will always give in eventually. Taking hits on shields reduces your ability to fire back, but properly managed, shields will last forever. This is an interesting dynamic that could make both of them valid choices in various circumstances... but it really doesn't, because armor is just weak. Even the strongest armor on ships like the Dominator or the Onslaught feels like lip service, doesn't stand up to strong assault for more than a few seconds, and doesn't offer even a faint shadow of the usefullness of the shield of a high-tech equivalent.
With the above in mind, I decided to experiment a little to see what could be done to help. Here's what I came up with.
The primary adjustment made was to armor ratings. All armor ratings were adjusted to a value given by the following formula:
((v/b) * 0.66 - 0.33) * v + v
where
v is the initial armor value, and
b is the "baseline armor value", dependent on class: 200 for frigates, 400 for destroyers, 900 for cruisers, 900 for capital ships except for battleships and 1100 for battleships (these are very close to the average armor of all ships of each class in vanilla, except for capital ships, which are lowballs because I feel they need a more serious boost to armor).
(Also rounded to nearest multiple of 25, except for very low values, where it's rounded to nearest mutiple of 5)
This formula exaggerates existing differences in armor: a ship of half the average armor will recieve no boost at all; a ship of average armor will recieve a 33% increase; a ship of twice the average armor will have its armor doubled. For reference, some before-and-after:
Name | Before | After |
Wolf | 150 | 175 |
Lasher | 300 | 500 |
Sunder | 250 | 275 |
Hammerhead | 500 | 750 |
Enforcer | 750 | 1450 |
Falcon | 750 | 925 |
Eagle | 1000 | 1400 |
Dominator | 1500 | 2675 |
Odyssey | 1000 | 1400 |
Paragon | 1500 | 2375 |
Onslaught | 1750 | 3025 |
Other adjustments:
- Reapers changed to Energy damage - they are an incredibly powerful and important weapon. There is no equivalent as dangerous to shield-based ships as the Reaper is to armor-based ships. This helps level the playing field a little.
- maxArmorDamageReduction in settings.json adjusted to 1 from 0.85, to make armor a little better against death of a thousand cuts - still not immune, however - even with this setting at 1, damage can never be completely blocked.
- Heavy Armor hullmod changed from 100/200/300/400 to 200/400/600/800 to keep it relevant among higher armor values.
(Skills affecting armor damage reduction probably also merit looking at)
What is the result of all this? I've only played a few hours so far, but my experience has been improved. Both playing with a low-tech, armor-heavy ship, as well as playing against them in a high-tech fancy boat. Armor feels like it actually matters a lot. Battles feel more tactical - it is a valid choice to armor-tank weaker attacks throughout the whole battle, not just something you do out of desperation when at high flux.
Despite the huge increases in armor values, it really doesn't seem exessive. A salvo of harpoons or a torpedo is not a lesser threat at all - in fact, it might be even more significant, because it robs you of armor that is actually very helpful now and forces you to use your shield, while previously you would have to use your shield anyway and that Harpoon hit is just hitpoint loss. Even the most heavily armored ships aren't unkillable - even 4000-5000 armor rating will give in eventually to sustained fire.
I strongly encourage you to try it out and let me know what you think and what adjustments are needed - I'm sure there's quite a lot to fix, especially at higher levels where I haven't had the chance to test a lot.
Link to a thread in Modding where you can get the altered files