Shields - what do the percentages mean?

[SquadronROE]

So I've been playing this game for awhile (I didn't even realize there were versions past 1.1 though!), and I can't figure out what the %s are in shields and armor. Are they resistance #s? How do tehy work?

[Song]

They're the HP resistance percentages. The higher they are for a damage type, the more effective HP the armor has against that damage type (due to its resistance). It's not the easiest thing to decypher though.

[JohnBWatson]

I believe they work like this: An armor has 100 health, is level one and has a bonus of 65% against laser. This gives it 165 effective hp against laser, meaning it will take 165 laser damage to deplete all of its health. Thus, a weapon that can deal 16.5 damage and has damage type laser will hit the armor for 10 damage. Higher levels of armor are inherently more resistant to some lower types of weapon, but I'm not sure of the exact amounts. As a general rule, if your armor is a high enough level that a percent indicator doesn't even appear for a low level damage type, you'll be able to withstand a lot of it.

[sun1404]

John is right. The percentage means that when the armor is hit by a certain damage type, it's HP become 100% + that percentage in the damage calculation. It's a confusing system, but allow for more complex situations than normal 'get only half damage/only some percentage of damage' system.

Starting at level 7, armors won't show resistant rating on Laser and Kinetic, but is instead largely immune to them. I think level 7 have about 670% or more resistance rating to Laser and Kinetic. Level 9 and 10 is effectively immune to Laser and Kinetic, and almost immune to Particle and Blast.

[SquadronROE]

Gotcha, so higher percentages are most definitely better than lower percentages. That's really good to know. Looks like when I get back to my game tonight I'll be picking up a better shield!

[sun1404]

Higher percentage is generally better, but you must also take into account the shield's HP, regen rate, collapse downtime (not shown, and not really important), and what combat style you prefer. For example, high HP, high resistance shields are better for full on attacks aiming to destroy an enemy/enemy group in one attempt, or for slow ships/players that can't evade well, but fast regenerating shields may serve better for hit-and-run, or if you rely on evasion.

For the vanilla game without mods, the price of the shield is also a good indicator of it's quality, aside from it's level.

[JohnBWatson]

Higher percentage is generally better, but you must also take into account the shield's HP, regen rate, collapse downtime (not shown, and not really important), and what combat style you prefer. For example, high HP, high resistance shields are better for full on attacks aiming to destroy an enemy/enemy group in one attempt, or for slow ships/players that can't evade well, but fast regenerating shields may serve better for hit-and-run, or if you rely on evasion.

For the vanilla game without mods, the price of the shield is also a good indicator of it's quality, aside from it's level.

In addition, the possibility of keeping the starting shield for quite a while is something worth considering. Shields are quite expensive and require both costly reactors and lots of fuel. For the price of maintaining a powerful shield early on, you can easily buy a set of armor that will carry you up to St. Kat's star. Blast Plate is omnipresent throughout the early game shops and is very nearly immune to the two most common damage types there.

[Song]

Eh.....not really. Keep in mind that the percentage modifier is a hitpoint modifier: You can still be damaged by a very powerful weapon of that type. In the case of blast plate, it's immune to the standard 1d4 laser cannon blast (and all other guns with the same type of shot, so the dual, fastfire, mining and array weapons), but can take damage from turbolasers and up. Basically, fitting Blast Plate lets you ignore Corsair I's and the like and focus fire on the more dangerous targets once your shield goes down. But if you try ignoring incoming fire from lasers (and kinetic weapons) entirely, you're going to get hurt quite badly.

Shields tend to have lower resistances than armor of the same level, so keep in mind that while weapon X or whatever may not be able to hurt your armor, it can probably still take your shield down and leave you vulnerable to a more powerful enemy. That being said, I'm generally in the "ignore shields and buy armor" category in the early game. With care you can even remove and sell the shield for more cash and just run without one.