Pilot Archive

Recently I've been playing about with the new quest reward ships a lot (the arc and the grievous ship) and have a really hard time getting the setup that I want, especially as most of the high level / damage weapons have stupidly high mass. We have a pretty solid shipwright in our guild and even he is struggling to make or RE the exact spec I'm after for the low mass greivous ship.

I can solo pretty much everything tier 5 in space these days (gunboats occasionally give me a bit of hassle if I'm not paying attention to what I'm doing)

Whilst chatting to a guildmate he brought up an interesting idea, he suggested I just ditch my armour and rely on only my shields, his thinking was if you are under fire and they've knocked out your shields you are toast anyway, armour just prolongs the inevitable.

My thinking was put some rubbish level 1 low mass armour in there just to give me enough time to hit captoshieldshunt4, but I'm leaning towards just ditching the armour and using the extra bit of mass to squeeze a bigger weapon or shield in there. Also thinking I should just put in low level / low mass weapons and rely on overcharge commands to get that extra "oompf!"

Any thoughts?

I haven't used armor on a starfighter since I hit 3/3/3/3. Personally I consider it a waste of mass. If you have some decent shields with a good recharge rate by the time they burn through your shields you're pretty much toast anyway.

armour? Whats that. I don't think I ever us'd armour unless after outfitt'n I had extra mass.

Shields. They recharge, and you can cap to shield shunt. Once armor is gone, it's toast, and even with really good armor, you don't get all that much protection for the mass it uses. I use just really low armor as a last line of defence.

The only reason I leave it on is because it sometimes gives me a few extra seconds to get out if I need them...

Message Edited by TomedNor on 06-14-2005 10:41 AM

I use cert 2-4 armor. It often saved my components from going disabled including pvp.

I think I'm gonna ditch all my armour and outfit everything with better shields and weapons (wonder how much I can get in my krayt without armour...droool) and maybe stick some cert 2 armour in only if I have extra mass left to play with.

Thanks for the help all

I don't usually mess with armor unless I'm flying a POB or a B-Wing. I keep token Type II armor on my X-Wing for those really harsh encounters, but I flew from Novice to 4333 with an unarmored Z-95. Its a nice margin for when you really hose yourself in a furball, but it really does come down to a waste of mass.

i conducted much testing in regards to armor.

to sumarize....this is the benefit of armor......

saves you from dying from blast fire for about...umm.......3 seconds.

...unless your using a capitol ship.......use your mass elsewhere....and like the above postere said..if ya absolutely need it..use the low mark levels.

I use Mark I or II in my fighters, but its tweaked to fit whatever mass is left, even if that means Mark I with weight reduction. I use Mark III I believe in my Firespray, but I'm currently redoing the load out. More likely then not, its going to end up Mark IV in front and Mark I or II in back, coupled with Shield Front Adjust Heavy. I'm trying to gear the entire ship to a frontal assault-boost mentality since that seems to be how I kill most player A-wings and JSF using that beast.

My biggest beef with armor is that after repairing it once or twice, you might as well replace it because the effectiveness to mass has dropped so much. Decay should take off hitpoints, not armor, so that its not quite as disposable as it is.

I rarely get hit so I just use armor and ditch the shield. Armor doesn't drain the reactor which is a big bonus.

Hah, just joking. Alternatively you can just drop the front armor. The rear is usually where I'd need armor. Normally I just slap on some light armor but I'm prepared to drop it if weight ever gets tight. I'm flying a heavy Scyk now so weight hasn't been an issue and I'm fully armored.

ya i just get the best shield i can then once i have everything else on put some armor on if i still have mass. its nice to take a hit or 2 if you shields run out, but other than that not very useful

I use REed Corellian Triplate on my JSF since you can get about 1320.x coverage for 5-6k and lower.

With the new heavy ships, and being only tier 1, I can still use armor and have plenty of mass left over. Means that I get to just ignore mass at lower levels and that way all the real important stats are maxed out.

Armor is pointless, but helps in those tight situations....