S-13 Sting Armor

[OpeningToEndgame]

I currently use the Damage Reduction. I thought about switching to Evasion, but I wasn't sure. Max Health, doesn't seem viable for the sting.

 

What does everyone else use?

[Brewski]

At the moment, maxed evasion is still king in terms of survivability for a scout, so you should switch to Lightweight armor. The passive 41% Evasion you get from that, the scouts natural evasion, Distortion Field and selecting a companion with the evasion boost is where you want to be. (At least until it gets nerfed down a tad.)

[Ashnazg]

I currently use the Damage Reduction. I thought about switching to Evasion, but I wasn't sure. Max Health, doesn't seem viable for the sting.

 

What does everyone else use?

 

Evasion here.

 

I am a high mobility ship, I die to burst damage when someone lands a series of lucky shots, not to sustained damage like a low-mobility ship might (e.g. strike fighter), for that reason damage reduction and max health are useless to me because I would rather roll a die to avoid a lucky shot entirely, than simply take a marginally reduced amount of damage from it.

[hyunkel]

Damage reduction doesn't help: almost every weapon have a sort of armor bypass.

 

Max health is a bit more useful, but i prefer Lightweight: it really help your's survivability.

[OpeningToEndgame]

That would explain why I have such a hard time trying to hit people at 1000 meters with Burst Laser so much. It seemsl ike I never am able to hit them.

[OpeningToEndgame]

I'm also guessing Treek would be the best companion then. That 15% over 20 seconds is the only thing I see for Evasion.

[Sharee]

Lets say you have a ship with 1000 hull and 1000 shields. An attacker is shooting you doing 10 damage on a successful hit.

 

1, If your craft has no armor, the attacker needs to shoot you 100 times into shield and 100 times into hull, 200 total

2, if your craft has reinforced armor(1200 hull) he needs to shoot you 100+120=220 times

3, if you have deflection armor he does 10 per shot to shields and 8 damage per shot to hull and needs to shoot you 225 times(100+125)

4, if you have evasion armor he needs on average to fire at your shield 110 times and at your hull 110 times (10 shots at each will miss) for a total of 220.

 

So, it looks like the deflection armor is best. However, caveats:

 

- The above is only applicable when you have equally strong hull and shields. The stronger your shields are compared to the hull, the better evasion becomes compared to the other 2 options. (plus for evasion, as shields are usually stronger than hull)

 

- deflection is vulnerable to armor piercing, and many popular weapons have 100% AP.(also plus for evasion)

 

- evasion enables you to avoid special effects like ion energy drain. another plus

 

- evasion on the other hand does not protect against missiles and mines(and crashing into obstacles:o) That's a minus

 

 

TLDR: i'd say go with evasion. Might re-evaluate after bombers are introduced, which will both increase non-evadeable damage sources(mines), and reduce the prevalence of AP weapons(less scouts due to the bombers)

Edited January 29, 2014 by Sharee

[Luneward]

I'm also guessing Treek would be the best companion then. That 15% over 20 seconds is the only thing I see for Evasion.

 

Look harder then. About half of the crew in the defensive section offer a 6% passive evasion bonus. Treek is a tactical crew member, so you could in theory run both. The long cooldowns on most companion skills make them more of a personal choice. Most people probably take Hydrospanner or Bypass over Running Interference. Though the nerf to Bypass and the slight increase in Running Interference ally buff could make it a more viable choice when the.

 

The 15% can be powerful, true, but kind of pales in comparison to the 65% bonus for 6 seconds of every 20 you can run with by using distortion field.

 

Unless you're trying to be more covert in approach, I would take Kendra Novar/Mako over Treek for the R-I skill. The boost to communications and sensors is a bit more useful than dampening in most games. And sensor tuning is more of a Blackbolt thing than a Sting option.

Edited January 29, 2014 by Luneward

[Zoom_VI]

Damage reduction is the worst option as there is too much armor ignores floating around. Lightweight is effective but if your not using Dfield it honestly isn't that great. Passive evasion is only really effective if its stacked. HP armor is the best for non Dfield scouts as extra HP cannot be ignored.

[Itkovian]

Lets say you have a ship with 1000 hull and 1000 shields. An attacker is shooting you doing 10 damage on a successful hit.

 

1, If your craft has no armor, the attacker needs to shoot you 100 times into shield and 100 times into hull, 200 total

2, if your craft has reinforced armor(1200 hull) he needs to shoot you 100+120=220 times

3, if you have deflection armor he does 10 per shot to shields and 8 damage per shot to hull and needs to shoot you 225 times(100+125)

4, if you have evasion armor he needs on average to fire at your shield 110 times and at your hull 110 times (10 shots at each will miss) for a total of 220.

 

So, it looks like the deflection armor is best. However, caveats:

 

- The above is only applicable when you have equally strong hull and shields. The stronger your shields are compared to the hull, the better evasion becomes compared to the other 2 options. (plus for evasion, as shields are usually stronger than hull)

 

- deflection is vulnerable to armor piercing, and many popular weapons have 100% AP.(also plus for evasion)

 

- evasion enables you to avoid special effects like ion energy drain. another plus

 

- evasion on the other hand does not protect against missiles and mines(and crashing into obstacles:o) That's a minus

 

 

TLDR: i'd say go with evasion. Might re-evaluate after bombers are introduced, which will both increase non-evadeable damage sources(mines), and reduce the prevalence of AP weapons(less scouts due to the bombers)

 

Also, consider that shields regen quickly, whereas hull does not. So the armour that also has an impact when you have shields will be "effective" much more often than those that only affect hull.

 

So reinforced armour is nice and useful, but only if you get hit through shield (due to shield piercing or having run out of shields). Lightweight armour, on the other hand, will reduce the chance of even your shields getting hit. And since odds are you won't be sitting still, avoiding a hit while at the shield level tends to be more useful than having protection that only affects you once your shields are gone.

 

Even though lightweight only gives 10% extra evasion, compared to 20% more reduction/health, the fact that it extends to shields makes it far more useful, as your "effective" can be much higher when you factor all the shield regeneration you can do in a single lifespan (the enemy there, of course, is burst damage that tears through your shields, but evasion tends to help with that too).

[Sharee]

Also, consider that shields regen quickly, whereas hull does not.

 

Shield regen is a factor, yes, i just didn't want to overcomplicate the post. I suspect it was too long for average reader attention span even without that anyway