The Hammerhead is a lot tougher now

[Deroth]

Anyone know the new shield health cap for the Hammerhead?

I've played so many space games I could be getting it mixed up but I thought in a video last year it was explained that ballistics would have bleed through damage to the armor and hull but the shield health, type, and attachments could mitigate just how much blood through damage the would be.

 

[at-2500]

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.

Oh, I thought lasers were good for shredding the shields and ballistics go through shields but are slowed by shields... then I guess I will change my Freelancer loadout to distortion for getting rid of the shields and laser to do the rest... hmmm... have to try this out.

 

[NaffNaffBobFace]

Oh, I thought lasers were good for shredding the shields and ballistics go through shields but are slowed by shields... then I guess I will change my Freelancer loadout to distortion for getting rid of the shields and laser to do the rest... hmmm... have to try this out.

Good plan, someone on Youtube must have done this by now?

If not, here's what I think would be a good the plan for the test:

Fire ballistics at a ship with shields up. See how long it take to blow it up. Then, firing from same distance at same spot on the ship, get them to turn it off which will lower the shields and then fire away. If the amount of shots is the same shields do nothing, if different we can then work out how much % difference shields make to ballistics.

Repeat the same test with lasers to see if they do actually kill a shield-less ship faster.

 

[at-2500]

Good plan, someone on Youtube must have done this by now?

If not, here's what I think would be a good the plan for the test:

Fire ballistics at a ship with shields up. See how long it take to blow it up. Then, firing from same distance at same spot on the ship, get them to turn it off which will lower the shields and then fire away. If the amount of shots is the same shields do nothing, if different we can then work out how much % difference shields make to ballistics.

Repeat the same test with lasers to see if they do actually kill a shield-less ship faster.

Firing at the same location on a ship is not good for me, I am a very bad shot given all the "aiming water" I drink.

I actually first went a different path, and looked at starcitizendb.com in order to figure this out, and by comparing the 3-second DPS average I conclude:
Distortion guns indeed have a higher DPS when compared to laser weapons of the same size making them the better choice for killing the shield - which makes a lot of sense gameplay wise as they only do damage to the shield and not to the hull.

I also looked at an old COMM link article about shield design, and there is mentioned that damage from laser and distortion weapons goes into the shield first, while for ballistic guns, around 60% of the damage goes to the shield and the remaining damage is dealt to the hull directly, depending on shield, shield subcomponents etc...

Ballistic guns and laser guns seem to do similar damage to the hull if there is no shield, but a laser has a high EM radiation making you a simpler target for EM-tracking missiles etc while ballistics have limited ammo. Interestingly, heat output is similar between ballistic, laser and distortion guns.

The values in the startcitizendb have not been updated since 3.2.1 though, and I feel that the shield article doesn't contain all the information...

 

[NaffNaffBobFace]

Firing at the same location on a ship is not good for me, I am a very bad shot given all the "aiming water" I drink.

I actually first went a different path, and looked at starcitizendb.com in order to figure this out, and by comparing the 3-second DPS average I conclude:
Distortion guns indeed have a higher DPS when compared to laser weapons of the same size making them the better choice for killing the shield - which makes a lot of sense gameplay wise as they only do damage to the shield and not to the hull.

I also looked at an old COMM link article about shield design, and there is mentioned that damage from laser and distortion weapons goes into the shield first, while for ballistic guns, around 60% of the damage goes to the shield and the remaining damage is dealt to the hull directly, depending on shield, shield subcomponents etc...

Ballistic guns and laser guns seem to do similar damage to the hull if there is no shield, but a laser has a high EM radiation making you a simpler target for EM-tracking missiles etc while ballistics have limited ammo. Interestingly, heat output is similar between ballistic, laser and distortion guns.

The values in the startcitizendb have not been updated since 3.2.1 though, and I feel that the shield article doesn't contain all the information...

Many thanks for the information, it will be interesting to see how it all balances out - definitely not as simple as i'd first thought. I havn't seen much info on the Neutron Guns recently so i'd imagine they don't simply bypass the shield anymore, either.

 

[at-2500]

Many thanks for the information, it will be interesting to see how it all balances out - definitely not as simple as i'd first thought. I havn't seen much info on the Neutron Guns recently so i'd imagine they don't simply bypass the shield anymore, either.

Yeah, I found no real information about neutron guns, but I remember that I read something like that.
From the numbers in the db, the DPS of neutron cannons are too high to not make them imba if they just pass through the shields.

I am also looking forward to the balancing, I hope that the DPS gap between distortion and laser ends up somewhere so that it makes only sense for stealthy low-energy ships to use 2x distortion plus 2x laser instead of 4x laser

 

[Cauac]

Firing at the same location on a ship is not good for me, I am a very bad shot given all the "aiming water" I drink.

I actually first went a different path, and looked at starcitizendb.com in order to figure this out, and by comparing the 3-second DPS average I conclude:
Distortion guns indeed have a higher DPS when compared to laser weapons of the same size making them the better choice for killing the shield - which makes a lot of sense gameplay wise as they only do damage to the shield and not to the hull.

I also looked at an old COMM link article about shield design, and there is mentioned that damage from laser and distortion weapons goes into the shield first, while for ballistic guns, around 60% of the damage goes to the shield and the remaining damage is dealt to the hull directly, depending on shield, shield subcomponents etc...

Ballistic guns and laser guns seem to do similar damage to the hull if there is no shield, but a laser has a high EM radiation making you a simpler target for EM-tracking missiles etc while ballistics have limited ammo. Interestingly, heat output is similar between ballistic, laser and distortion guns.

The values in the startcitizendb have not been updated since 3.2.1 though, and I feel that the shield article doesn't contain all the information...

You might want to check this out:

Star Citizen 3.3 component data

 

[maynard]

You might want to check this out:

Star Citizen 3.3 component data

good find

 

[Cauac]

good find

All thanks to -AotW-Malogos, once again.

 

[at-2500]

You might want to check this out:

Star Citizen 3.3 component data

Awesome, looks like distortion is more powerful now! Maybe I do have to try this...