No Shield Strategy: Viable? Intended?

[wminsing]

So in my current Yoral game I've been eschewing shields (filling up the slots with Reinforced Bulkheads) and using only matter weapons (no beams) to negate the shields my enemies use. The attrition rate on my destroyers is very high but then they are cheap and I'm turning them out at most of my colonies. I put the energy I would be putting towards shields towards the fancy weapon traits instead. So far it appears to be working OK, but I see the AI puts shields on almost everything except for a few missile boats. So is the tactical engine intended to be balanced towards shields, or can I build a fleet that's unshielded and unafraid and have them compete equally?

-Will

[Zaskow]

No shields method makes missiles/torpedoes and fighters very effective against your ships.

[Arioch]

Concentrating on shield-piercing weapons should be a viable strategy, but I don't know that forgoing shields yourself buys you much, except more ammunition for missiles. I guess you can double up on reinforced bulkheads, which might be favorable if you rush to the next armor level.

[sven]

So is the tactical engine intended to be balanced towards shields, or can I build a fleet that's unshielded and unafraid and have them compete equally?

My intent is that unshielded builds should be viable, in some situations, at least.

There are a few other techs and components I've been planing to add to the tech tree that should give you more options for a no-shields strategy, the big (and often-requested) one being auto-repair modules.

It's also my intent to add more design / research templates to the AI's behavior set, so in future games, you may sometimes have a chance of running into Yoral who are using something like Will's strategy, rather than just the same old missiles->shields->hellbores pattern that we now all know so well.

[echo2361]

It's also my intent to add more design / research templates to the AI's behavior set, so in future games, you may sometimes have a chance of running into Yoral who are using something like Will's strategy, rather than just the same old missiles->shields->hellbores pattern that we now all know so well.

I like the sound of this a lot. It's nice to go into a game not knowing exactly what to except from the AI's ship designs. Having the enemy occasionally throw something unexpected at me like unshielded ships designed to pierce my own shields provides interesting challenges.

[wminsing]

No shields method makes missiles/torpedoes and fighters very effective against your ships.

Luckily I can bring so many PD coilguns to the fight and pack my ships in so tight, since I gave them to every DD variation, at this point enemy ordnance basically has zero effect against me. I get hit by those crazy Marauder torpedoes once in awhile but that's about it. My main problem has been against Marauders in general, since they have some terrifying beam weapon on their capital ships that tears my DD's up. I'm hoping my new Railgun armed Heavy Destroyers will help deal with those situations.

Concentrating on shield-piercing weapons should be a viable strategy, but I don't know that forgoing shields yourself buys you much, except more ammunition for missiles. I guess you can double up on reinforced bulkheads, which might be favorable if you rush to the next armor level.

Yes, I've been favoring armor research and actually eschewing extra ammo for just more bulkheads. I suspect that if I didn't have such an economic edge my strategy wouldn't be working but I afford to trade DD's for anything else the enemy throws at me at about a 2:1 ratio and still win.

My intent is that unshielded builds should be viable, in some situations, at least.

'

I'm also fine if the answer is that at some point I'll need to bite the bullet and add shields, and techs just delay the point where that needs to happen. My strategy worked better in the early game but appears to have been become weaker as everyone else trots out better weapons.

-Will

[evil713]

There is only one shield piercing weapon though, coilguns.

And yes it is viable but you cant upgrade past that when it comes to ship design.

even with max hull as soon as the enemy starts getting into ion cannons (which really should have additional armor damage as a perk) there at a tech level where they start to leave you behind.

the other counter to your armor tank is infact lasers and turbo lasers with armor piercing mods, and I don't think hull tanking is viable in this game.