Posted by: Iceranger
« on: July 18, 2020, 09:53:59 AM »Iceranger:QuoteECM 1 might not be so valuable against AMMs for fighters. If the accuracy of the missile is high enough, the ECM can be negated. For example, if your fighter is 20kkm/s, against a AMM that has 100% chance to hit a 22kkm/s target. Then this missile will have 110% hit rate against this fighter, or 100% when it has ECM1.
Also, due to the shock damage change, even AMMs now have a chance to induce shock damage on fighters. So armor on fighters is much less valuable than before.
- I'm not entirely convinced that the ECM 1 is less valuable after building the above examples, but that's not the point of this reply. I feel the point about shock damage is misleading, and so in the spirit of the thread I'll chime in. The value of armor isn't against shock damage, it's against sandblasting. The Escort invests 25 Tons for it's ECM 1,and while the Example AMM could and would spam it to oblivion and then some, BasileusMaximos is doing something very wrong to get within 766,000 km of the enemy in a bomber to start with. The Armored Escort on the other hand, even at Composite Armor Tech, invests a mere 35 tons t literally double the amount of armor that the Example AMM must grind through. The Fast Escort is simply faster than 20,000 km/s so the ECM 1 is still valuable even against the Example AMM.
- Armor is probably a lot less valuable than it was in VB6, but I feel like you might be devaluing it a bit overtly. Shock Damage is inherently RNG, while sandblasting the armor is not. 35 Tons for double the endurance is a tremendous return on investment, and cheaper than shields to boot. ECM 1 is a nice to have, but ECM 2 or 3 would certainly be much better. I think a lot of it comes down to design, but this thread is called "PD Fighter Analysis" so I felt compelled to chime in... even if I'm splitting hairs. I did learn something though! I learned that AMMs scale way harder than I previously thought. >.>; @BasileusMaximos - I would encourage you to make a new thread about this, so we could better help you. The range of your bombers, ASMs, the range of the enemy AMMs, their tech level, your tech level... these things matter a lot. We'd need that to give you a good solution.
The point of armor is never to protect against shock damage, it is never the way how armor works anyway. In VB6 armored fighters allow you to defend against sandblasting without worrying about the probability of shock damage. That's why I say armor now is less valuable than before (in VB6). Not sure how that is over devaluing it.