Is armor really necessary in the current release when you have plenty of shields

[19MT70]

Per the title, is armor necessary in the current release if you have a ton of shields?

[Splutty]

Collision damage doesn't get prevented by shields. So it depends on whether you're "planning" on ramming asteroids or wreckage or not.

[19MT70]

Collision damage doesn't get prevented by shields. So it depends on whether you're "planning" on ramming asteroids or wreckage or not.

 

True but my ships explode when I hit an asteroid at speed regardless of armor cladding. Unless it's strictly necessary I'd rather skip it on my mid to early late game designs and save on the weight.

[Ohm is Futile]

Some NPCs actually spawn with shield penetrating weapons. Admittedly, they probably won't cause that much damage even if you don't coat your whole ship in armor, but, if you're unlucky and reckless enough with your designs, they could knock something expensive or important off your ship.

[Enzo Matrix]

I just cover my stuff with hull now, use a hull outer shell of the ship for the main body. I gave up using armor. Good hp, double the weight. I want a good mobility ship so I sacrifice this added hp for more mobility.

[Ohm is Futile]

I just cover my stuff with hull now, use a hull outer shell of the ship for the main body. I gave up using armor. Good hp, double the weight. I want a good mobility ship so I sacrifice this added hp for more mobility.

Yeeeeaaahhh.... but hull also requires power and more mechanics(fairly significant number of mechanics, actually) per m³ than armor. But yeah, you do save weight. That said, I think that ton for ton, armor provides more HP than hull, which could also translate in being straight up better depending on the thickness. AKA, if you're going to apply the same amount of hull as armor, then yeah, hull is lighter, but if you're going to apply a certain amount of HP, then you can actually "stretch" armor over a greater surface by making it thinner and achieve the same HP values for similar weight and then save on mechanics and power.

[Martin Levac]

Spaced/layered/ablative armor works really well against collision with anything. Just a few moments ago I noticed that I had more armor than I usually do (0.1 instead of 0.05, cuz I scaled the current ship by 2x), and the plating didn't pop, but the ship took some damage anyway. When plating is thinnest, it pops and ship takes no damage for same collision.

 

I usually make a T shape template, stick it everywhere I expect contact, i.e. corners, front, top. Framework plating works really well for that too cuz it pops easily and cheap to replace. In my previous ship, I had about 2,000 pieces of armor, but a total of only about 2,700 blocks. At one point I had over 3,500 pieces just for armor but that was too intricate with about 30 blocks per template.

 

Various template shapes, T, H, plate/angle complex, framework/armor combo, grid, grill, etc. All as thin as possible, typically 0.05 but I figured out that we can make it thinner if we c&p the template then scale it thickness-wise.