The Hammerhead is a lot tougher now

NaffNaffBobFace

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Nice demonstration of what happens if you put more power to the guns but don't put more power to the coolers with the Cutlass.

Interesting the Balistics set off the shields - I thought they were supposed to bypass and hit the Armour instead?
 

Camural

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Nice demonstration of what happens if you put more power to the guns but don't put more power to the coolers with the Cutlass.

Interesting the Balistics set off the shields - I thought they were supposed to bypass and hit the Armour instead?
Not how the game works since forever and at this time. Even missiles and torpedoes that do physical damage only, eat the shields first. As long as the shields are still up, even a tiny bit, no damage to the hull is done (I only found a very few exceptions in all my hundreds tests).
 

wmk

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Yep, an "s" in the 3.3.0s build stands for shields. Or size. Or shield's size. Anyway, all ships equipped with Size 3 / L shields, like Hammerheads and Starfarers feel a little safer now.
Add Size 4 and 5 weapons to that and you have a relatively strong ship. / Starfarer Gemini has now 4 x Size 4 M6A Laser Cannons, gimballed, and 2 x Size 5 CF-557 Repeaters on the top turret, by default.

BTW, a question to the HH owners -- can you overlock shields in the latest 3.3 PTU builds? -- unfortunately I can't do that with Gemini; the shields overheat immediately and go down even if the coolers are overclocked. In 3.2.1 I could overlock the shields to some very high values.v
 

Camural

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Do any of these numbers even matter when you encounter a wild HH in the verse? I find these isolated tests very misleading.
For me it's always about minimizing the variables and having a controlled test environment.

So if a Hammerhead before 3.3.0 S could be killed by a Cutlass in 10 seconds under ideal condition, did this translate to 10 seconds in the universe vs a fully crewed Hammerhead? Of course not, but it gives you an idea what kind of damage one has to avoid.

If a Cutlass now after 3.3.0 S can kill a Hammerhead in 37 seconds under ideal condition then this doesn't translate into 37 seconds in the universe vs a fully crewed Hammerhead either. But it gives everyone an idea how big the buff is and what to avoid.

Sure doing real battle with real opponents only would yield much better data but it would also mean that just for minimizing the variables one has to redo each test scenarion X times which would mean dozens if not hundreds of hours of testing.
 

Shadow Reaper

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If shields are going to work against ballistics, I wonder who will use them? Seems to negate their primary advantage. Ballistics are generally slower to target, have more limited range, overheat faster and run out of ammo, so why would anyone choose them if shields work against them?

Have you tested this notion very recently?
 

Camural

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If shields are going to work against ballistics, I wonder who will use them? Seems to negate their primary advantage. Ballistics are generally slower to target, have more limited range, overheat faster and run out of ammo, so why would anyone choose them if shields work against them?

Have you tested this notion very recently?
Well you are talking about mechanics that might be in the game in a few years but not now, so no one can answer your question yet :). However, the Tarantulas did well in my 3.3.0 S test.
 

wmk

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This time I tested the changes after the 3.3.0 S patch (buff to large shields) on a Reclaimer and a Hammerhead by shooting size 9 torpedoes.
Very cool!
Now.. please unlist this video as soon as possible before CIG see it ; ) I don't want size 3 shields to be nerfed : )
 
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Michael

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If shields are going to work against ballistics, I wonder who will use them? Seems to negate their primary advantage. Ballistics are generally slower to target, have more limited range, overheat faster and run out of ammo, so why would anyone choose them if shields work against them?

Have you tested this notion very recently?
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
 

NaffNaffBobFace

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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.
 
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