On Outfitting: Part 3, Defences
10 Apr 2021Kissamies
In the first two parts we covered the offensive systems and now it's time to move on to protection. The biggest, most notable factor of it is shields, but hull and module protection plays a part too, as well as some utility mounts that throw off enemy's aim. In this part you will learn about my approach to defensive outfitting.The important dichotomy with armour and shields is the raw strength vs resistances. Raw strength is pure durability that is counted off by incoming damage while resistance reduces the incoming damage of certain type. The basic types are thermal, kinetic and explosive. There is also absolute (mostly from plasma and collisions) and caustic, which is in the realm of Thargoids. The latter two is harder to find resistances against. My approach to this dichotomy is to try to get the best effective protection by balancing the factors. I always seek to balance the basic types of resistances as well.
First of all the hull. In non-combat ships I simply use the Lightweight Alloy armour with Heavy Duty mod. On combat ships I go for Reactive Surface Composite if I can spare room for Hull Reinforcement, which will them be engineered for maximal thermal resistance to balance it all out. If it's just armour, I'll go for Military Grade Composite. The Armour mod is either Heavy Duty or Lightweight depending how much I happen to value mobility with that particular build. Additional Hull Reinforcements are rare, but can be seen on some of my really hull tanky ships. The ship being so hull focused, they'll always be Heavy Duty. Experimentals usually get used to fine tune the resistances so that they are as balanced as possible. I also have Guardian and Meta-Alloy reinforcements unlocked, but they never get used, except perhaps sometimes to add a bit of resistance in AX builds.
For Module Reinforcements I always try to have at least one on a combat ship even when I don't expect the shields to go down at all. On more hull tanky ships I have at least 2. The Guardian version is better than Human version and I always use it, except if I am in a very strict power budget.
Shields are the most beloved defence and perhaps a bit overpowered. I don't use regular shields at all in these days. It's always either Bi-Weave or Prismatic, and I generally prefer the former. I often have problems with power and BW uses less power, though it taxes the distributor more when recharging. The fast recharge speed is really nice for some tactical hit and run, and it synergises with high resistances nicely. Then, some Guardian Shield Boosters can be added to turn it into something of a hybrid. If you have a wingmate with a Concordant Sequence laser, you can get your BW shield back to full power in couple of seconds. Overall, I feel like BW is definitely preferable to Prismatic in the long res site pirate hunts and can be made durable enough with proper building and engineering to be able to hand any conflict zone.
My standard approach is the Reinforced mod. This doesn't really play into the BW's strengths, but extra raw MWs usually works better overall than maximised resistances. The experimental is often Fast Charge, but it depends a lot on the distributor. If I have a lot of shield boosters, I may use up one of them on full thermal resistance. Otherwise it'll be the standard shield booster array. The other approach is the Thermal Resistant, which works very well for balanced out resistances and overall resistance build with increased ratio for Resistance Augmented boosters. Emphasising the regeneration speed goes with this one, so definitely the Fast Charge.
I mostly use the Prismatic shields for 'run away' shields for cargo ships, but also some combat ships meant for short encounters only. Also a really major component in my AX Cutter. With Prismatics you can get away with not using your biggest Optional Internal slot and still have decent shield power. With non-combat ships I go with smallest possible and with combat/multipurpose ships either biggest slot or one size smaller. I feel that the raw MW power is more important and more easily multiplied with Prismatic shields, so I tend to lean even more on Heavy Duty boosters. The engineering mod for the Prismatic generator itself is always either Reinforced or Enhanced Low Power.
I am not very fond of Shield Cell Banks, but with combat prismatics you can't really do without. I also use one for CZ emergencies only on my bi-weave shielded Corvette. I am unsure which engineering is better, Rapid charge or Specialised. Rapid charge against other commanders obviously, but I usually fight against NPCs, which I have never seen with feedback rails. Specialised can run cool enough to make heat sink unnecessary, but you can 1 heat sink double bank with rapid. I guess that at this point I don't have a better opinion than 'it depends on the overall build'.
My standard array for Shield Boosters is 1 Resistance Augmented for every 3 Heavy Duty, starting with the res. augment and then filling out the heavy duties. The 5th booster may be a Thermal Resistant in some cases. I used to go for all A grade, but nowadays I think the grade doesn't matter so much because the engineering dominates. If I mix and match grades, the heavy duties get the lower grade because of the weight multiplier. I have been rebelling against the meta of having all shield boosters and trying to have no more than 4 of them in a 8 utility mount ship, but I have been slowly giving up. I still try to not have all shield booster ships, though. The experimentals lean towards balancing out the resistances as much as possible, but lately I have been starting to favour Super Capacitors on my heavy duty boosters.
The other utility mount defence systems are Chaff Launcher, Point Defence and the ECM. Chaff is useful on small and medium ships, but I have also used it on large cargo ships to keep the gimbals from targeting my FSD or power plant. The engineering mod is invariably ammo capacity. PD is ideally used in pairs, one above and one below, but I quite often use it singly just to protect the cargo hatch from limpets. It also sees use at ships meant to visit the Guardian sites to protect the SRV from missiles. Whatever the use, its usually engineered for lightweight. ECM is a bit more active anti-missile and anti-limpet measure than the point defense. It finds its way in my smaller ships or mining ships that really should have 2 PD turrets, but can't spare the mounts. So always just 1 and the location doesn't matter. Also can use it to kill my own collector limpets once I'm done with them.
While not really defensive systems, I'll shoehorn the repair modules to this section: the Auto Field Maintenance Unit, or AFMU, and Repair Limpets. After all, like the shields regenerate themselves, and SCB can speed up the process, these modules can be used to regenerate module and hull integrity respectively. These are not common modules for my ships, but there are 3 notable exceptions: The exploration Krait Phantom, the experimental shieldless combat DBS and the AX Cutter. AFMU is essential for the Neutron Star Highway since each jet cone boost damages the FSD. For the exploration build I'll try to get the biggest one possible after all the more important modules have found their place. 5A in my Phantom. This will make the synthesis more effective. The power usage is not an issue because I only turn it on when I use it. I'm less respectful with it with my combat builds and just shove it in whichever leftover spots I have. It's mostly there for the cockpit canopy anyway.
For the Repair Limpets I recommend the D grade. The only difference is range and that doesn't matter for self-repair. If someone else wants to get repaired too, getting close will be their problem, not mine. I first installed these on my exploration Krait just in case I perform a so violent lithobraking maneuver that my shields can't absorb all the damage. I don't even carry the limpets these days, just be ready to synth them. Then I also put one on the shieldless DBS and have been pretty happy with it so far. For the AX Cutter I use the Decontamination Limpet variant, which removes the caustic damage and also repairs the hull a bit. The repair is so weak that I have been starting to wonder if I wasn't better off with straight up repair limpets and using overheating to get rid of caustic like everybody else.
Speed and maneuverability are also very important defences, but more about those in the next part.