Ships & Modules

I don't get it. So if my ship has weak kinetic resistance does that mean I equip EM hardeners to make up for it? And why do shield and armor resists always oppose each other? Its needlessly complex.

Yes.

Yeah. Make it just "Defense: 6542", "Health: 64869" and "Attack: 515"

Thread has been moved to Ships & Modules.

Each type of HP is more vulnerable to one type of damage than another. Shields are typically vulnerable to EM damage, while armor is typically vulnerable to explosive damage.

When a resist reads 40%, that means that, when you take damage of that type, you subtract 40% of it. So, if you were to take 1000 EM damage but you have 40% EM resistance, you instead only take 600 EM damage.

Shield and armor resists are polarized in opposite ways to add meaning to damage type selection on the part of the attacker, and to enable "smart" decision making. For example, if you're fighting a Maller, you know it is almost always armor-tanked, so the vast majority of HP you have to chew through will be weak to explosive or kinetic damage. If you have the option to, you can switch to one of those damage types to try to make the fight swing your way. If you tried to use EM damage (like if you shot it with lasers), you'd have a much harder time. The case is flipped against a Moa, which is a heavy shield tanker and has very little armor. You want to be doing EM damage and avoiding explosive damage in that case.

Also, heads up: T2 ships mix up damage resistance profiles, making stuff even more interesting.

Thanks for the help! :d

So this game is about tradeoffs but I should try to even out my resists? My head hurts.

My guess would be that they are making the distinction between the impact of an object designed to explode on impact, so a partial penetration, explosive shell, versus a shell or weapon that imparts all its force as kinetic energy originally imparted to the shell or projectile, which makes perfect sense in the case of railgun and blaster ammo.

Projectile ammo explodes on contact, and so is 'explosive'
Hybrid ammo is greatly accelerated with large amounts of energy on firing, to do damage through impact, so it's 'kinetic'
Just a matter of loosely working with terminology, I guess.

The real weird part to me, is fiery explosions in space.

In PvP... as much as possible in one type of tank without compromising the rest of the fit. But you will always have a resistance "hole" somewhere. There is no real getting around that.

Example:

[Tristan, PvP Brawler]
Damage Control II
200mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Adaptive Nano Plating II

Limited 1MN Microwarpdrive I
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I
X5 Prototype Engine Enervator

Light Ion Blaster II, Antimatter Charge S
Light Ion Blaster II, Antimatter Charge S
[empty high slot]

Small Trimark Armor Pump I
Small Anti-Explosive Pump I
Small Hybrid Burst Aerator I

Hobgoblin II x5


Armor Resistances:
EM: 57%
Thermal: 44%
Kinetic: 44%
Explosive: 46%

As you can see... I "plugged up" the Explosive "hole" with a rig (it would be 23% without it). However in doing so my Thermal and Kinetic resistances are lower than everything else.
Now if I tossed the Anti-Explosive rig in favor of another Trimark rig I would be able to resist more damage against EM, Thermal, and Kinetic damage... but then I would become extremely vulnerable to anyone who does Explosive damage.




In PvE... unless you are fighting Sleepers (in wormholes) or Incursion Sansha (found only in Incursion areas) you only need resistance against two damage types... which depends on the NPCs.

Examples:
Amarr, Blood Raiders, Sansha, Rogue Drones: Deal EM and Thermal Damage, are weak against EM and Thermal damage.
Gallente, Caldari, Guristas, Serpentis, Mordu's Legion, "generic mercs": Deal Thermal and Kinetic Damage, are weak against Thermal and Kinetic damage.
Minmatar, Angel Cartel: Deal Explosive and Kinetic Damage, are weak against Explosive and Kinetic Damage.
Sleepers: Deal omni-damage, are weak against nothing.
Incursion Sansha: Deal omni-damage, are weak against nothing.

Explosions have the same requirement as fires:
Fuel (Gun powder or equivalent)
Oxygen (Gun powder contains it's own oxidizer)
Heat (Blasting cap)

As the casing is built to contain the explosion until a failure happens (bullet detaching from casing), guns will work in space.

If you thought otherwise, I suggest going back to grade school or stop doing the bible.