The 'Exploring effects of simultaneous combat' thread by Velben seems to suggest that while there may be some form of shift in the next version of the combat system, ships with heavy defenses still are not as capable as ships with heavy weapons. It even seems that in some cases, the ship with better weapons is flat out better no matter if attacking or defending.

For example, Kanvium, which has an absorption of 4, costs 80mp. By contrast, a Quantum Driver does 4 damage and only costs 37mp.

Or take Ultimate Invulnerabilty, which is a sheild that has an absorption of 9. That costs 140mp. Disruptors III costs 70mp and does 8 damage. And let's not even get started with the Doom Ray. The Disruptor is also slightly smaller.

I've tried repeatedly to make effective defense-based ships, and its always failed. Not because the defenses are ineffective, per say. For most of the game you can put a ton of defenses on a ship, enough to make the ship very nearly invulnerable to a particular damage type. The problem is that those ships are also absurdly expensive. They're simply not worth the cost. Take the Sheilds vs. Beams example above...Disruptors vs. Sheilds, the weapon is half the cost of the defense. Let's say the hull is small (55mp) and has three Hyperdrives (10mp) for a total of 85mp without weapons. A ship with 5 Disruptors costs 435. The ship with five Ultimate Invulnerability sheilds will cost 785. And it can't shoot. Hah!

Every defense line has its cost increase dramatically as they evolve. This is not the case with the weapons systems, which see costs rise far less. Using the beams vs. sheilds example again, Beams, from Particle Beam to Disruptors III, increase in cost 280 percent, fromt 25mp to 70mp. Sheilds increase 466%, from 30mp to 140mp. Again, I'm not using Doom Ray because trying to use ANY defense against it is just about impossible.

It just isn't fesible to build ships with heavy defenses because they cost far to much. Ships with heavy defenses won't be built no matter the system as long as this is true. At its heart, a 4x game is about it's numbers. And these numbers show that weapons easily beat even the defenses that are suppoesd to stop them, in an economic sense.


I'm also very surprised by their cost becaues of this - trying to counter is, in the long run, is always going to be ineffective. Why? Because a defense only defends well against a certain attack. The other two work. That means if any random empire attacks you, there is a 2 in 3 chance that your defenses won't work. However, there is only a 1 in 3 chance that your weapon type won't work. Supposedly this is negated somewhat because if you're smart, you'll be building defenses for those empire you plan to war or which think are going to attack you. Empires don't randomly declare war. Still, it seems odd.

I think that defenses need a cost overall. What do you think?