Charged plating, or Strike woes.

[Itkovian]

Salutations.

 

One of the more unique components available to Strike fighters is the infamour Charged Plating, and after taking a good look at it I have come to the conclusion that even as a niche build, it is remarkably underwhelming. Especially in the late game when more people will have upgraded components.

 

As such, I wanted to bring it to people's attention (especially BW devs *grin*), in the hopes that this component unique to strike fighters receives some love in the future (and thereby giving Strike fighters some love in the process).

 

But let's look at the Charged Plating:

 

Charged plating gives you absolutely huge shields, but with 50% bleed through (40% when upgraded), which is pretty horrendous. To compensate, they give a 15 second long (19 when upgraded) 60% boost to damage reduction, which is actually pretty neat, but generally not enough to compensate for the drawback (hence why it was reviled in PTS).

 

Now let's take a further look at Charged plating for the Pike, which happens to have the Armour component instead of the Startguard's Reactor. This enables you to load up Reinforced Armour, which gives an extra 20% to damage reduction, for a total of 85% when Charged Plating is running (60+20+5 (for the strike fighter base)).

 

So if you fully upgrade Charged Plating, when your shields are up you end up with 40% shield bleed through, then 85% damage reduction. The end result is pretty stunning: only a TINY fraction of damage taken will make it through, for 19 out of every 30 seconds.

 

So at that point I was pretty interested in the possibilities: the Pike can be made quasi invulnerable for 19 seconds out of every 30. W00t. This is in exchange for being significantly vulnerable 11 out of every 30 seconds... well, actually more than that because you naturally wouldn't spend your time triggering Charged Plating (so gunship sneak attacks can be VERY dangerous).

 

However, that's when I discovered just how much stuff out there happens to have armour penetration. Rockets, Concussion Missiles, Proton Torpedoes of course, and even the Slug Railgun (just about the most ubiquitous railgun) get full amour penetration.

 

The end result is that this component, which provides a temporary massive tanking benefitt at the cost of constant vulnerability, can have even its main advantage completely neutralized by some upgrade, some EXTREMELY common (the slug railgun especially).

 

So in the end, Charged Plating fails to fulfill its potential, and ends up being as weak as it initially seems, even for builds maximizing its strength, because it is relatively easy to completely bypass the protection it offers, despite the significant drawbacks that already balance out its temporary protection.

 

As such, I'm hoping that the devs can take a look at Charged Plating and find a way to make it more appealing (decrease its bleedthrough by 10% by default, plus another 10 as its upgrade... or maybe make its tier 3 upgrades more useful for tanking), as it's definitely a component I'd like to use given that it is unique to Strike fighters.

 

TL: DR version: Charged Plating is meh, needs some love. Please.

 

Thank you.

Edited December 5, 2013 by Itkovian

[K_osss]

Is it confirmed that the Damage Reduction provided by Charged Plating is bypassed by the weapon upgrades you mentioned or do they only apply to the 5% +20%?

[Itkovian]

Is it confirmed that the Damage Reduction provided by Charged Plating is bypassed by the weapon upgrades you mentioned or do they only apply to the 5% +20%?

 

Admittedly, it is not... however I have had a few occasions when I popped my Charged Plating, then went from green to dead in less than a second. I don't think that's possible without full armour penetration at work.

 

If the 60% was impregnable, then it'd probably be useful, but even then I would have had to take a LOT of damage in that <1 second to get blown up. My theory is the 60% can be bypassed.

[Luckyluzi]

you forgot the +9% armor from companion (total 94% damage reduction ), chargeplating worked alot better on pts for me, befor the nerf to the hull heal ability from my copilot, i think armorpen only works against the armor and not against damage reduction but even with 60% damage reduction the damage is way to high with 40% bleed Edited December 5, 2013 by Luckyluzi

[Itkovian]

you forgot the +9% armor from companion (total 94% damage reduction ), chargeplating worked alot better on pts for me, befor the nerf to the hull heal ability from my copilot, i think armorpen only works against the armor and not against damage reduction but even with 60% damage reduction the damage is way to high with 40% bleed

 

Is there a difference between "armour" and damage reduction? Remember, Reinforced Armour provides Damage Reduction, just like the Charged Plating ability.

[Luckyluzi]

Is there a difference between "armour" and damage reduction? Remember, Reinforced Armour provides Damage Reduction, just like the Charged Plating ability.

 

i think is pretty similar to ground pvp, on my vangaurd i have 30% damage reduction from armor and for example additional 25% from reactive shield, armorpen only works against the 30% from armor

 

if not than charged plating is pretty useless , a good way to test this would be to combine this with the 30% reduction copilot ability , if you get destroyed with 90% damage reduction and 35% armor we could be sure that armorpen works against both

 

and dont forget charge plating is a huge shield ~3000 hitpoints/arc yes but its not infinite, maybe a proton torpedo hits you (100% bypasses shields AND armor)

Edited December 5, 2013 by Luckyluzi

[Yndras]

On paper charged plating for ft-6 strike fighters has a higher time to live....

 

For example, a standard over charged blaster fired from rapid fire lasers will hit for approximately 250.

 

A strike fighter with upgraded health and charged plating will have 1450 health, and 2790 shields with 25% damage reduction using deflection armour.

 

This means, with every shot, the fighter pilot takes 25% of 50% hull damage or 94 hull damage per hit. Or 15.5 direct laser hits.

 

In comparison, a fighter with quick charged shields has 1450 health, and only 1260 shields keeping the 25% damage reduction using deflection armour on and one shield arc you would require 5 direct hits to drop the shields, keeping in mind these regen at 60% while taking damage. Its normal regen rate is 157 per second, so while taking damage it will regen 94.2 shield power per second. Assuming you don't notice the enemy behind you, and it takes you less that 6 seconds for you to notice that your shields are taking damage your shields would probably handle one laser hit every 2.6 seconds. This is important.

 

Quick charged shields, will only take 5 shots before they are negated, on the lowest damaged output weapon available, meaning your hull then gets hit by the full brunt of the lasers, meaning in 7.7 more hits, your ship is destroyed.

 

So in total, you need 12.8 direct hits to destroy the strike fighter on any one shield arc. The math shows that the strike fighter is better off with charged plating, as theoretically it takes more hits to destroy it.

 

The problem comes in when you add the pilot, Using the abilities and manoeuvring, A strike fighter with charged plating disadvantages himself because he is ALWAYS taking hull damage. Sure his shields are large, and he will always have shields, but he will always take hull damage on a hit. Quick charged shields on the other had provides total stopping power, meaning if the pilot can out manoeuvre hit opponent, his shields will take all the damage, fully upgraded the regen rate of these shields is insane, and the 30% boost is just enough to recover your shields if your slow to react to an attacker behind you.

 

the Difference is more staggering when taking on a gunship. A hit from a rail gun will sting you for 1600 damage.

 

Charge plating would take 600 damage on the hull.

Quick Charged shields would take 255 Damage to the hull.

 

The pilot with quick charged shields would be dead the next hit, but if the gunship pilot has Shield piercing, giving him 10% more shield bleed-through and ignore armour then we get a different picture

 

Charged Plating would take 960 hull damage

Quick Charged Shields would take 340 damage.

 

Now I know the 60% hull damage reduction would change those number significantly, and on the second hit, the strike fighter with charged plating would take much less damage, 360 if he activated his ability, but I know what ship id rather be in, the one in better shape to run than the one ruined in one shot.

[Itkovian]

if not than charged plating is pretty useless , a good way to test this would be to combine this with the 30% reduction copilot ability , if you get destroyed with 90% damage reduction and 35% armor we could be sure that armorpen works against both

 

Well, ok, there's also the very real possibility there is a max damage reduction, sort of like how there's ceilings in the ground game.

 

But what I can say is this: sometimes when I popped Charged Plating, I felt nearly invincible, taking missile hits that did nothing the hydro spanner ability couldn't cope with... and then 2 or 3 times I got completely obliterated by hits, more than likely from armour penetrating weapons (probably an upgraded slug railgun... we're only talking about the tier 3 upgrade now, most dedicated gunship pilot probably have it unlocked already).

 

Either way, it would be great if bioware would post some clarification of that mechanic. Regardless, I think charged plating needs some love.

[Itkovian]

The pilot with quick charged shields would be dead the next hit, but if the gunship pilot has Shield piercing, giving him 10% more shield bleed-through and ignore armour then we get a different picture

 

Charged Plating would take 960 hull damage

Quick Charged Shields would take 340 damage.

 

Now I know the 60% hull damage reduction would change those number significantly, and on the second hit, the strike fighter with charged plating would take much less damage, 360 if he activated his ability, but I know what ship id rather be in, the one in better shape to run than the one ruined in one shot.

 

Actually, I don't think the 60% damage reduction matters in that example. The railgun will just blast through.

 

That said, I must say that the railgun WITHOUT the armour pen (I charged quite a few gunships) when running charged plating doesn't do much damage... but that 100% armour pen is just tier 3 for slug railguns, so eventually pretty much every gunship will have that upgrade.

 

End result? Charged plating needs love.