| Author |
Shield Enhancements |
Jim Starluck
Marshal
Templar Knights
Joined: October 22, 2001
Posts: 2232
From: Cincinnati, OH
|  Posted: 2009-03-06 22:47
Quote:
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On 2009-03-05 23:14, Gejaheline wrote:
You're correct, to a degree, Jim.
You've also got to keep in mind that whilst rotating your ship to face the enemy is all well and good, you still have a bare arc which will immediately take damage if you can't manouevre, and using your rear arc to take damage will cause your offensive power to plummet, as well as giving the enemy a massive tactical advantage.
On the other hand, ICC shields are much easier to orient to face incoming damage, and in order to reduce one arc to zero you will have to reduce ALL shield arcs to zero first, plus ICC have a layer of armour beneath that to absorb damage if an arc comes under unexpected attack, which can absorb damage until the shields are redirected.
So, yes, UGTO can potentially exceed the defensive power of ICC, but they will almost certainly take damage doing so, and it's much harder to pull off as well as potentially compromising their offence. An ICC ship can happily pour most of its armour-equivalent into its front arc while it charges directly towards you. Or stands back and fills you with missiles, as the case may be.
In a long-range fight, the ICC would quite happily win because it could just keep facing the enemy with its main guns, enjoying four times the HP and four times the regeneration on its single at-risk arc, wheras an UGTO ship would have to turn to direct its armour plates each time one suffered, which would consequently affect its ability to damage the enemy and limit its movement options.
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With the default capabilities, yes. My point is that having uneven Enhancements CHANGES that balance.
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Gejaheline
Fleet Admiral
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 19, 2005
Posts: 1127
From: UGTO MUNIN HQ, Mars
| Posted: 2009-03-06 22:55
Uneven drop rates, or uneven as in only shields or only armour enhancements? Because I'll agree with you on the first point, although it does raise the issue of there only being one third of the population as ICC.
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Dissembler
Cadet
Joined: December 16, 2007
Posts: 1
| Posted: 2009-03-06 23:12
Yes Geja, thats the only issue were trying to call attention to and I'm glad you see it. The uneven drop rates for enhancements are all that we`d like to see corrected. And the way its been shown, there is really only 2 solutions
1. Decrease armour drop rates and increase shield drop rates
2. Have all defensive upgrades effect both shield and armour like Zlarr`s Defence does
Also, would an admin or dev please chime in on this issue
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Jim Starluck
Marshal
Templar Knights
Joined: October 22, 2001
Posts: 2232
From: Cincinnati, OH
| Posted: 2009-03-07 00:59
Quote:
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On 2009-03-06 23:12, Dissembler wrote:
Yes Geja, thats the only issue were trying to call attention to and I'm glad you see it. The uneven drop rates for enhancements are all that we`d like to see corrected. And the way its been shown, there is really only 2 solutions
1. Decrease armour drop rates and increase shield drop rates
2. Have all defensive upgrades effect both shield and armour like Zlarr`s Defence does
Also, would an admin or dev please chime in on this issue
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Speak for yourself. I'm arguing entirely for Enhancements that affect Armor and Shields equally, like Zlarr's Defense. Drop rates didn't factor into my calculations in my post on the last page at all; I was working with the maximum potential defensive power a ship could achieve in an ideal situation.
Idly, I note that with one set of Enhancements that affects everything, you don't need to drop a set which is only usefull to one faction. Just one kind of Enhancement for everybody, so the drop rate is a lot easier to figure out.
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Light404
Grand Admiral
Joined: May 10, 2002
Posts: 54
| Posted: 2009-03-07 16:31
So how about it devs? Can you balance out the enhancements by making defensive upgrades instead of just armour or just shields?
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Eledore Massis [R33]
Grand Admiral
Templar Knights
Joined: May 26, 2002
Posts: 2694
From: tsohlacoLocalhost
| Posted: 2009-03-07 17:02
Quote:
| On 2009-03-07 16:31, Light404 wrote:
So how about it devs? Can you balance out the enhancements by making defensive upgrades instead of just armour or just shields? |
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what other kind of defense would you like enhanced ?
Currently there are only three types of defenses from getting you KILLED.
- Hull,
Ok some of you don't think this as a defense on a ship but, it do keeps you from getting killed.
- Armor,
A layer that rests on top of the hull. comes in all kinds of varieties with different functions.
- Shields,
A frequency wave device that deflects/stops weapons fire. ICC only.
You can say instead of just armor and shields, but those are about the only defenses a ship has.
No other object/noun/statistic prevents you from getting killed.
If this was a roll dice game the dev's could add another calculation to combat.
But at current its; plz pick what defense layer you want Enhanced.
[ This Message was edited by: Eledore[NL] on 2009-03-07 17:07 ]
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Light404
Grand Admiral
Joined: May 10, 2002
Posts: 54
| Posted: 2009-03-07 17:16
Quote:
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You can say instead of just armor and shields, but those are about the only defenses a ship has.
No other object/noun/statistic prevents you from getting killed.
If this was a roll dice game the dev's could add another calculation to combat.
But at current its; plz pick what defense layer you want Enhanced.
[ This Message was edited by: Eledore[NL] on 2009-03-07 17:07 ]
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Our choice of defensive upgrades is almost impossible to enhance because the drop rates for advanced shields is sooo low that we will never get any, and if youve read through this thread and seen all the calculations youd see that by simply making the armours effect shields and armour equally, like Zlarrs, everything would be even. Whereas collecting shield only upgrades still puts us at a disadvantage.
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Jim Starluck
Marshal
Templar Knights
Joined: October 22, 2001
Posts: 2232
From: Cincinnati, OH
| Posted: 2009-03-07 18:03
If every faction in the game had both Armor and Shields (and perhaps ICC just had better shields than everyone else), it would make sense to have seperate enhancements for them. But this is not the case, has never been the case, and is unlikely to ever be the case. Shields have always been a uniquely ICC feature and I don't see any reason why this should change.
My point is that no matter how much stronger shields are than Armor--with or without the use of intelligent tactics--splitting the Enhancements changes the balance. UGTO and K'luth ships get a greater defensive bonus from the same number of Enhancements than ICC does. Even if ICC defenses are still stronger on paper, in practice their advantage can be almost entirely negated.
[ This Message was edited by: Jim Starluck on 2009-03-07 18:04 ]
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Light404
Grand Admiral
Joined: May 10, 2002
Posts: 54
| Posted: 2009-03-09 00:39
Still wondering why none of the admins or devs have chimed in on this issue?
Its a rather large issue to almost a 1/3rd of the DS community, and the community has even come up with a solution to the problem that the UGTO, Kluth and ICC can accept
If it is a too large a pain to consolidate shields and armour into one enhancement please let us know so we don't feel like our concerns are being ignored.
And yes I know there are other things that need to be worked on and all that but it seems like all the major issues were worked out last patch (they have to have beeen since the next thing on the dev log is nerfing supply range and using the upgrade screen in nav (why would you want to do that?))
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MrSparkle
Marshal
Joined: August 13, 2001
Posts: 1912
From: mrsparkle
| Posted: 2009-03-09 01:39
I don't see what the big problem is? Zlarr's Defense is a fairly common "rare" that addresses this issue. It's almost as common as advanced armor. ICC get a lot more use out of Zlarr's than UGTO does, and UGTO gets a lot more use out of advanced armor than ICC does. Both are pretty common as far as rares go; I have quite a few of each sitting in storage waiting to be traded for multiplexers or better.
And if there's such a thing as advanced shield, I've never seen one. Heck, today I found my first Energy Recharger Mark I, which I think is extremely rare considering how un-useful it is (well, it's more useful than the jumpdrive energy, but it's only 1 use and recharges 50% energy...not that useful for something that rare. The usefulness/rarity ratio is out the window on this one).
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Shigernafy
Admiral
Joined: May 29, 2001
Posts: 5726
From: The Land of Taxation without Representation
| Posted: 2009-03-09 01:46
There are special shield thingers, yes.
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Light404
Grand Admiral
Joined: May 10, 2002
Posts: 54
| Posted: 2009-03-09 10:33
Icc and ugto get the same benefit out of Zlarrs defence, no matter what ship you play its stll an overall ncrease of 7%. if you do the math and read the rest of this thread it has been proven. Also, there can only be ONE zlarrs outfitted to each ship, whereas armours (as commhawk has done) can be fitted eight times--> huge difference. ill take +48% overall defence increase over a mere 7% plus the measly bit of armour anyday.
And maybe some of us dont want to fit all multiplexers on our ships. I have multiplexers on my ships yes, but I'd like to have the survivability factor more especially in the face of flux, and with nothing but advanced armours around, Icc simply cannot upgrade defences effectively.
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Jim Starluck
Marshal
Templar Knights
Joined: October 22, 2001
Posts: 2232
From: Cincinnati, OH
| Posted: 2009-03-09 13:25
What Light said. Zlarr's Defense IS the kind of Enhancement that works for everyone, but we can only put one on any given ship. It doesn't solve the problem, just slightly mitigates it.
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