An article written by Lestin Giboulot
Hi!
In this guide, we will detail the armours and their different mechanics.
Read our articles:
Armours Bulkheads
Every ships have an armour to protect their hull, it is called the Bulkheads. Bulkheads are different from the other armours you can reinforce your ship with.
The heavier it is, the more resistant and expensive it will be.
Light Armour
Installed by default on every ships. It doesn’t add any mass or resistance to your ship, but it is very light so be careful!
Standard Resistances:
- Kinetic: -20%
- Thermal: 0%
- Explosive: -40%
Reinforced Armour
An enhanced version. A little bit more resistant to collisions and damages, at the cost of a few additional tons on your ship.
More Hull Points (HP), same resistances.
Military Grade Armour
The first great armour for every fighters. You can get the most of Hull’s Health Points out of it, and your hull will be sturdy. The best ratio price/quality.
Even more Hull HP, same resistances.
Mirrored Armour
A variant from the Military Grade one, optimised to resist against thermal weapons. We don’t recommend it, in any situation.
- Kinetic: -75%
- Thermal: 50%
- Explosive: -50%
Reactive Armour
Very expensive, the best armour bulkheads! It is optimised to resist against kinetic and explosive damages at the cost of a lower thermal resistance; Which means you can mod it Thermal thanks to the Engineers! By doing so, all of your resistances will be positive.
- Kinetic: 25%
- Thermal: -40%
- Explosive: 20%
Mechanics
Earlier, we told you the difference between bulkheads and armours.
Now, the Armours have Resistances and Hull Points, while the Bulkhead has Hardness.
With these, you have to keep in mind that every weapons have a Penetration factor, which vary with the weapons types and classes/sizes.
▲ First thing to keep in mind: If the Penetration factor of a weapon is superior to a Hardness factor, the weapon will inflicts its full damage.
If it is lower, the damage will be decreased depending on the following formula:
Net damage = Penetration / Hardness * Base damage
▲ Second thing, this formula is applied before the damage type and the associated resistance.
Examples
Shot of a Gimballed Cannons size 2 on an Anaconda with a Reactive Bulkhead (not modded):
- Base damage: 21.3
- Weapon’s Penetration: 50
- Hardness: 65
- Kinetic Resistance: 25%
50 / 65 * 21.3 = 16.4
16.4 – 4.1 = 12.3
→ The net damage from a base of 21.3 will be 12.3 per shot
A single shot of Pulse Laser size 2 on an Anaconda with a Reactive Bulkhead (not modded):
- Base damage: 3.5
- Weapon’s Penetration: 35
- Hardness: 65
- Thermal Resistance: -40%
35 / 65 * 3.5 = 1.9
1.9 + 0,76 = 2.66
→ The net damage from a base of 3.5 will be 2.66 per shot
A single shot of Accelerated Plasma size 2 on an Anaconda with a Reactive Bulkhead (not modded):
- Base damage: 51.3
- Weapon’s Penetration: 100
- Hardness: 65
Resistance: Plasma inflicts absolute damage and ignore a large amount of resistances. Read our article about Damage.
Plasma weapons Penetrations are superiour to every Hardnesses, and thus their net damage is equal to their base damage: 51.3.
→ Net damage are 51.3 per shot
Note:
Plasma weapons are absolute and ignore resistances, the majority are only of one type but some fall under several resistances like the electric cannon (thermo-kinetic) Railgun.
In this case, the damages are divided into two parts and the calculations are done in the same way, each with the according resistance.
Enhancements
You can enhance your Armours and Bulkheads with the Engineer « Selene Jean », she is the only one dealing with these modules!
Heavy Duty are adding more Hull Points to your ship, and you can mod specifically for Thermal, Kinetic or Explosive in order to optimise your resistances. Increasing one resistance will decrease the other two ones so be careful.
Armours are done with Hull Reinforcements Packages.
Recap
► Offensively, we have demonstrated that it’s better to favour large weapons to attack hulls, due to their higher penetrations.
► Defensively, we compared the different hull models. From my experience and the community, I retain two configurations:
- Military Grade Armour, modded « Heavy Duty »
A good choice at a still reasonable price for the resistances it provides. Be careful however, kinetic and explosive resistances are not on your side if your shields collapse. - Reactive Armour, modded « Thermal »
A very expensive choice with lower overall resistances, but better net resistances since all the resistance percentages are positive.
Of course, you always benefit from having a maximum of hull reinforcements.
Regarding the Engineers mods, you can’t go wrong with « Heavy Duty » as it adds +15% in each of the resistances and contributes toward the hull points. However you can choose to boost one resistance in particular, aaround +29% while decreasing the others by around -10%.
Data
Bulkheads Hardnesses:
- 20 → Hauler / Sidewinder
- 28 → Eagle / Imperial Eagle
- 30 → Imperial Courier
- 35 → Adder / Cobras MkIII & IV / Dolphin / Type-6 / Viper MkIII & IV
- 40 → Diamondback Scout
- 42 → Diamondback Explorer
- 45 → Keelback
- 52 → Asps Scout & Explorer
- 54 → Type-7
- 55 → Vulture / Orca
- 60 → Federal Assault Ship / Federal Dropship / Federal Gunship / Imperial Clipper / Beluga Liner
- 65 → Alliance Chieftain / Alliance Challenger / Anaconda / Krait MkII / Python / Type-9
- 70 → Fer-De-Lance / Federal Corvette / Imperial Cutter
- 75 → Type-10
Weapons Penetrations and Damages
You can read this from a fitting website, such as Coriolis.
