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It's fantastic. Correct, it does not affect the base armour. It also doesn't affect armour given by sheild components.

+40% to shields and 10% regen rate is *awesome*. Frigates become *awesome* against anything smaller than Delta torpedoes, and they only really start to look weak once Jihads show up.

Also very nice for all ships that have trouble getting to a 1:1 shield/armour ratio (hint: that'd be almost everything.) 1:1 (or better) shields:armour feels like a very nice target to help reduce the effect of capital ship missiles. With RS you reach this with Gorilla shields (en14.)

Usually RS costs ~10 points... Not much at all for what it gives you... If you have few LRTs it actually pays points.

The nerfing of armour components does hurt, in particular on orbitals. It is nice to have a little extra armour on BBs to increase the amount of armour per ship, which can make the difference between losing 1 bb per enemy missile salvo and losing none, assuming your stacked sheilds are enough to hold. But unless you have overwhelming force, that assumption will rarely be true without RS...

I haven't yet been able to convince myself NOT to take RS.

[Updated on: Wed, 28 February 2007 16:46]

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RS is good! Its like + 20% to average warship defenses for free. All intermediate+ players use the RS as one of default race design option. The fact that it not costs (gives about +10 points) in RW is like cheating.

People usually do (with or without RS) never put armor components on warships. They leave armor-only slot empty and use shield in shield/armor slot. Armor components are heavy and not cost efficent in Stars! so usually used only on orbitals (orbitals have way too low hull armor) and/or on overcloakers (there then for a weight).

For what i would buy it ... for 30-40 RW points anytime. But like i said already it is a free LRT so why you ask?

Also it does not matter what energy and/or construction tech settings you use. No difference if you have tech for wolf shield or bear shield it is 140% and it regenerates.

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LEit wrote on Wed, 28 February 2007 15:45

I think RS works well if you are either ahead or behind in energy -- My personal preference is to almost always take RS,

RS is my favorite also.

HE - I always take it, unless I think Weaps won't get to level 20, and nubs are out of the question. In Med to Huge games it is possible to skip the BB era entirely, or with minimal builds. That's obviously a judgement call, but RS CPS Nubs are such a tremendous advantage that it is silly not to take RS if the game might make it to high weap tech and nubs.

AR - I have had serious discussions about this one. I am for RS, and a buddy is for armor. I have seen first hand his point of view. It is somewhat nasty to try and fight Val/superlat armored BB's or Deathstars, especially if you only have Heavy blasters. Really messes up your day. Superlat Nubs can throw a wrench in calculations too. However, a AR is really the only race that can afford to do it properly IMO, as the iron costs are to much to recover from midgame ship cost inefficiencies. By the time you can scrap them, you don't get much iron back. No big deal for a AR, really big deal for everyone else.

-Matt

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[Updated on: Thu, 01 March 2007 17:07]

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Iconian wrote on Thu, 01 March 2007 19:32

Yes, they both regenerate. But, if you have cheap construction then you're likely to have better armor components available, as well as ships with better base armor. Expensive energy would mean you'd probably have weaker shields available. This combination would mean you might use Cow Hides on frigates and Wolverine shields on cruisers. You'd have a good armor/shield ratio on the Frigate (45/112), though not as good on the cruisers (700/168). In contrast, with cheap energy and expensive construction you might have the Bear shield on frigates with a lot of overkill on the ratio (280 shields but only 45 armor), though cruisers with Gorillas would get a much better ratio (700/490). To me the cheap con exp energy w/RS would seem to go better than cheap energy exp con.

You can take both normal.

Anyway your con will always be higher than your eny, afterall you don't want the con for better armor, you want higher con to get FFs above your enemies DDs, you want LFs, CCs, BBs and 300/500 gates ... This makes eny only a secondary field for research, it does not give you all that *necessary* stuff, you don't need better eny as fast as you need better con, so indeed cheap con and exp eny makes much more sense ... and then ... you pick RS and you boost your low level shields by 40%! Now ain't that cool!

(RS fan)

BTW most of the time you'll see CCs with wolverines and BBs with bears, ... nubs with gorillas have been spotted before as well, though usually by that time most races have enough econ to push their exp eny a bit harder and grab the eny18 shield ...

Another thing, if you use wolverines on CCs : 700/168 ? ... that hull has more than one slot to fit shields.

mch

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Iconian wrote on Thu, 01 March 2007 20:32

Not always free . . . not on my design anyway.

Yes if you have NRSE, OBRM, NAS and RS from "bad" LRTs then RS costs you 10 points. It is because you have too lot of bad LRTs.
10 advantage points is "free" for me. >50 RW points are the things about what to think.

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Yes, they both regenerate. But, if you have cheap construction then you're likely to have better armor components available, as well as ships with better base armor.

If race has strong economy it may take both energy and construction expensive or one of them normal. Expensive fields are possible to research too ... i remember it feels like few turns effort to research expensive propulsion to 23 with 150K resources IT.

Relatively high construction is good on its own. The armor parts are side effect ... my impression is they are useful without RS on battleships or on nubians but never really impressive. The hulls have good armors. Majority of the hulls becomes available by construction 13. Few (mostly special racial hulls) by construction 17 and only one at construction 26. So until construction 13 it is obviously high priority investment, no matter if your race has it cheap or expensive.

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So, since I've never tried playing with RS before, what sort of changes in strategy would you have to make?

You just have bit better warships with RS. That does not really affect your strategy. Try to have fewer and better balanced warship designs and try to keep them as bigger fleets. Shields stack and stop regenerating when they have taken down to 0.

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Generally the only thing I put armor plating on would be orbitals, because it's half cost and I don't have to worry about maneuverability.

Not even organics on ships? They're lighter and cheap than other armors. Unless you have a Germ shortage, is there a reason not to use them?

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You can take both normal.

Could--and yes, the final cost overall is less--but sometimes, particularly early on, cheap con is quite useful

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you don't need better eny as fast as you need better con, so indeed cheap con and exp eny makes much more sense

Exactly

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Another thing, if you use wolverines on CCs : 700/168 ? ... that hull has more than one slot to fit shields.

Yes . . . sometimes they'd be useful there, but generally I think I'd prefer more beams, torpedoes, or computers.

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It is because you have too lot of bad LRTs.

Probably. But in my design I chose each of those bad LRT's for at least two reasons. If your design has the LRT's you want, can you really say it's too many? After that it just became a question of whether RS is worth those additional points and the hab reduction. If I take RS and lose 5% of my ending economy, is it worth it?

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You just have bit better warships with RS. That does not really affect your strategy.

What I'm mainly wondering about is ship design strategy. Organic armor and Superlatanium seem like the best in the game. Would they be worth putting on ships if you have RS?

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Iconian wrote on Mon, 05 March 2007 00:47

If I take RS and lose 5% of my ending economy, is it worth it?

Yes. I believe i already said that fair price for RS is over 30 RW points.

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Organic armor and Superlatanium seem like the best in the game. Would they be worth putting on ships if you have RS?

NO. Do not put armor on ships. Leave the "armor" slot empty.
Armor is out of balance too pricy.

Example of Superlatanium: 1500 dp costs 92 resources ... Nubian hull: 5000 dp costs 150 resources. Why to pay 61% of another nubian hull cost and get only 30% of its armor? With RS it is just more obvious 15% of armor for 61% of price?

Build more nubians merge them into fleets and use that super duper latanium only as tech scrappers.

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Hi!

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Armor is out of balance too pricy.

Another reason to not put armor on your main fighting ships is weight. Heavy ships are too easily counterdesigned. Like: you go with armor and R-3 weapons, opponents uses no armor and R-2 weapons for a half your price, for last move, first shot, and you dead.

BR, Iztok

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iztok wrote on Tue, 06 March 2007 14:24

Like: you go with armor and R-3 weapons, opponents uses no armor and R-2 weapons for a half your price, for last move, first shot, and you dead.

Wait, I know lighter gives last move, but where does it say anything about first shot? I thought that the only determiner was initiative (hull init plus weapon init plus computers). If total init is equal, I thought it was then random. Am I wrong?

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[Updated on: Tue, 06 March 2007 23:40]

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joseph wrote on Thu, 08 March 2007 01:34

Moving last is not a problem (you move after everything but other missile ships anyway).

You probably did mean "before". Heavy ships move first, chaff last. Missile BB with organic armors may well move after one without them but more often moves before.

That is because actual weight of ships in slots is somewhat randomized before battle and weight difference of few % does not quarantee movement advantage.

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