Armour and Hull Reinforcement

[Relix Typhon]

I just wanted advice and opinions on improving the armour of ships. I've read a bit on how it works in game but it doesn't seem as simple as "adding armour protects your ship more", its all to do with integrity and module damage etc.

From my own experience, I added Military Grade Composite and and some Hull reinforcement packages to my Viper MkIII but it just made the handling terrible. And I don't find the MkIII particularly good at handling anyway (note: I'm not the best combat pilot, so I'm sure when I get the hang of flying it to its strengths, I'll find it better)

Either way, any thoughts and insights to armour would be welcome

[TorTorden]

I'm no expert but I find most small ships to need manoeuvrability more than the armor.
And the rest is up to choosing your targets I don't necessarily expect to be able to kill pythons and fdl npcs (at least not an upper ranked one) with a viper.

My main tip would be to keep an eye on optimal mass for the thrusters and your ships current mass, keep mass down as far as possible and to just play around with modules to find your own best biuld.

There is a reason why my stats read 9+ billion spent on outfitting modules

[BaseKillerWolf]

For the Viper (and other small ships), I'd recommend doing what Tor said and focus on maneuverability. Install a hull reinforcement package if you find your health dropping too fast if your shields break, drop the Military grade armor, and definitely upgrade your thrusters. You'll want to outmaneuver your target and shoot them from their blind spot(s) as much as you can.

Armor/HRPs is better for medium/large ships where maneuverability is scarce. You're a big target, so you're going to be constantly taking hits. Its all about enduring the fight so that your target pops before you do.

[JohnLuke]

Personally, I've never used armor on any ships except military grade bulkheads on my Python currently because it's my mission / engineer runner ship and gets into some dicey situations. When I was using the Python for bounty hunting it had standard lightweight bulkheads to maintain maneuverabiliy.

I have some HRP's on my Vette, but didn't like having military bulkheads on it because it killed what little maneuverability the ship has as it is.

Maneuverability absolutely is king on small ships. Fly fast, turn hard, kill from behind.

BTW, I'm a shields guy. I use SCB's on my combat ships and if I loose shields in a battle then I'm running for the exit. Some other players aren't as concerned with shields and therefore benefit from stronger hulls since they continue to fight with no shields. To each their own.

[TorTorden]

Depends a lot on the ship itself as well.
Trying to shield tank an fas or the clipper just ends in absolute frustration. The reverse is true for ships like the courier or fdl that has far superior shields than hull.

Personally I'm running mil spec and some bulk heads on the vette but I'm starting to consider removing them.

The bigger ships conda, cutter or corvette is fairly much pilots choice.

Although I'm just saying. The c7 scb banks adds as much mass as military armor on the vette.
If you stick with b grade cell banks it's almost twice that so thinking shields save mass that's not really the case.

[Relix Typhon]

Ok that all makes sense , thanks guys. The Mil Grade Reinforcement was mainly as a backup to give me more time to bug out if the shields broke.
I have A rated everything apart from Life Support and sensors. I'm going to try putting the Lightweight Alloys back on and even dropping the FSD to a D (while in system, upgrading when I need to move it), see how that goes.
I've been playing in the CG for a couple of hours and find that although the lateral thrusters are a bit weak, using FA off is very good (when I'm not spinning out of control )

And as for choosing targets, I let the POlice do most of the work lol

[TorTorden]

I tried stripping the vette for armor now and quite honestly can't tell the difference outside of jump distance.

I think they really changed some stuff in 2.1 with how bulkheads and armor work cause before if you went over 1700ton mass on the vette it was a slow pig.
Now the difference from no additional armor and a rating 660 something and fully tanked at almost 2500 hull points is less than half a rad per second in pitch/yaw/roll as seen in outfitting.
Of course aims only use d class bulkheads.

Besides if I wanted something good quick and nimble I would fly a vulture.

[JohnLuke]

I'll have to play with bulkheads on the Vette when I get back to the bubble. It's been quite a while since I experimented with it, so indeed.... maybe things have changed.

[pargyrak]

I had a unfortunate encounter with 2 Expert Anacondas and an Elite one after while returning from HAZ RES at LFT 133 with less than half my shields. Went down to 42% hull so I got 2 4D Reinforcements and I while tune them at Selene after the LFT 133 BH CG

Could get 5D but extra weight for small difference...

[TorTorden]

I'll have to play with bulkheads on the Vette when I get back to the bubble. It's been quite a while since I experimented with it, so indeed.... maybe things have changed.

I am absolutely sure it has. Pre 2.1 simply putting mil spec on changed things quite drastically, bulkheads even more. So I used them rather sparingly but lately i notice considerably less impact in manoeuvrability from bulkheads. Could be my dirty drive tuning helping. But shield cell banks weigh as much as bulkheads these days.

If double also select your thrusters in outfitting you can see your pitch/roll/rate.

I do however get much more impact from putting pips to engines.
If you fight with pips to system and weapons then the vette hardly turns. But if you take fire without pips to system shields buckle surprisingly quickly.

Of course you don't need armor when you never loose shields but I have had instances where I did loose shields and my hull goes from 100 to 40 in the blink of an eye.
And military hull has thus been the difference of a rebuy and a repair bill.