If i remember right the original "design descripton" was to have laser to tear down shields and ballistics to cut through this sweet armor. So ballistics will be probably much better against armor. But we will see how the balancing will turn out.
Armor isn't fully implemented yet right?
Also i wonder how my caterpillar will be right now
The way I remembered it was that Ballistics by-passed shields but had to chip through Armour, while Energy Weapons could melt Armour in
seconds but had to get through shields.
The advantage of ballistics was they caused permanent and immediate damage against a target, the disadvantage was that they were ammo-limited.
The advantage of energy weapons was that they were not ammo-limited but had to get through the defending shields which could regenerate too, but once through would destroy a ship very quickly.
The one exception to the above was the Neutron cannons, NN13's and NN14's which were energy weapons but they bypassed shields to do direct damage to the hull like a normal energy weapon. To balance this they were
super short - range, I think only about 500m to 700m.
Unless some kind of gravitation shields come in which deflect, slow down or stop ballistics I can't see how energy shields are going to help against Tarantulas or Mantis...?
Thats the way I remember it...?
Back when you could drop your shields with a keyboard button, In AC if I was fighting against a starter ship i'd drop my shields to make it fair for them, the ballistics didn't get an advantage but the energy weapons would give me a run for my money, without shields it's like a knife through butter.