Elite: Dangerous PvE - Mobius

While sitting in dock, drinking a cuppa & waiting for the 'War Crimson' paintjob to dry on Monty, I found m'sel staring at my internals (as you do!) and had the strange feeling I was missing something...

...yes, there it is, the HRPs

Now, to the best of my knowledge, there isn't a designated standard unit for 'hull strength points' so dammit, I'm gonna give it one!

As we're talking toughness to weapon assault damage here, I'm gonna call them :- Seagals

So, anyway - I had been using 3 x 5D, 1 x 4D & a 3D & was wondering whether to fit another 3D where I'd got rid of the FSI (useless in a CZ) & noticed that the correlation between the weight of the module, and it's Seagal rating, was decidedly non-liner.

So I whipped the old speaking sliderule out & 'ran the numbers'....

5D = 12.18 S/ton
4D = 20.63 S/ton
3D = 32.50 S/ton

Basically meaning that smaller HRPs are more 'efficient' at increasing the Seagal rating of your armour.

So, a quick trip to Coriolis.io & a variant comparison -

by fitting 6 x 3D HRPs, I only lost 200 Seagals in armour for a weight-saving of 72 tons! (Bonus = +1.24ly jump range)

..and yes! 3Ds are in stock everywhere in Exioce

Only one thing for it then - try it & see. Does a 72 ton diet give the ol' snake a bit more snap to her dance-moves?

*

It I don't return, I want my memorial plaque to read "Well at least I tried"


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UPDATE
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2D = 23.75 S/ton

(Being thorough ) So 3D is on the top of the curve.

Congratulations Commander, it works I tested it on my Viper mk4 warbird configuration on Coriolis by replacing the 16 ton 4D HRP with 2 x 3D HRP and not only did my armor points go up from 700+ ( w/reinforced hull) to nearly 900 - it was cheaper as well. No weight gain either.

If a ship has the internal space to spare then 3D HRP is much better.

Agreed

I took THIS build into the HiCZ near Fort L, Monty seemed a bit sharper-handling but I've no idea about the armour as I never so much as lost a full ring while I was there.

OK, OK, I was picking on the wimps - but it was a test-flight, whatchagonnado?

That's really interesting. I did a similar thing for SCBs back before 1.5 that had similar results...i.e. the most efficient use of SCB's was loading up with 4 B3's + 4 B2's and firing off 2 B3's + 2 B2's at the same time due to the Python's slot layout. This maximized total shield boost potential while minimizing the weight added from the SCB's. In other words, it fit the MIN/MAX mindset perfectly. Granted 8 B2's would have been the actual maximum efficiency for weight:boost ratio, but reduced to the total amount of boost overall.

In reference to SCB's before 1.5. I found there to be an inverse relationship between weight efficiency vs. power usage efficiency for the different classes of SCB; the lower classes gave more boost per ton whereas the larger classes gave more boost per power usage.

I mention this only because it seems to hold true for the HRP's as well, which would suggest the same person designed both.

I was once all about multipurpose ships and as such had to find all the little shortcuts that would give them the edge. This one is actually one I discovered a while ago myself, but after I lost one of my "optimized" ships I changed my thinking. You will always want more of X and you have to find what is best for you to get there. If your shields go down fighting a flock of Clippers and you lose the ship you might rethink it. If your shields have not gone down in a month or longer maybe you should ditch armor all together.

Good catch, it seems to me really that the larger hull platings only really benefit if you only have one larger class slot open, so you have the choice of fitting 1 D5, but multiple HRP's are out of the question.

But if you have more than one slot you are better off using smaller class modules due the manoeuvrability penality, even though it's technically possible to gain more hull strength it might not be a good idea.

I'm even contemplating going down to reinforced armor rather than mil spec, at least on the vette, those shields are yet to go down, but with the python I got mil spec armor after having a rather quick "oh shit I need to leave" moment where I had lost shields, and merely 4 seconds later was down to 50% hull.

I've had a couple epiphanies myself recently.

One: if shields don't hold up so well these days and it's good to sacrifice some maneuverability for added armor, you can gain a lot more armor for less added mass by using HRPs instead of stronger bulkheads. So I think I'll stick with the lightweight bulkheads. The seagulls must be terrible on stronger bulkheads.

Two: If you are losing shields and having your hull ripped to shreds in seconds, then you are probably doing something you shouldn't. If you're taking on a wing of Pythons or clippers, or a wing of 6 or 8, you probably deserve to take some damage. Do you really think a lone bounty hunter would realistically go up against those odds? The same may hold for CZs. I think some situations are really meant for having wingmen to even the odds.

Nothing wrong in having a dimensionless quantity (i.e. just a number) to express the relative strength of armour.

The Rockwell scale, for example, would provide a way to compare hardness using a simple number derived from a standard test.

If you wanted to get absolute about it, I imagine you'd need to look at force (in Newtons) applied over area (in square metres) sufficient to deliver a standard amount of damage.

Or perhaps you could go down the kinetic energy road e = 1/2 mv2.