So your options are +20% health, +20% damage reduction, or +10% evade.

Which do you take?

as I see it, there are strengths and weaknesses of each.

the +20% health armor is good for mitigating burst damage from sources like missiles and slug railguns that pierce armor, but are less able to deal with attrition via hydrospanner if you take that copilot skill, as it takes more time to repair

Deflection armor is good against blaster damage and non upgraded weapons that you will encounter most often, but is weak against proton torpedos, thermite torpedoes, and upgraded slug railguns, rocket pods, concussion missiles.

Evasion is on paper good against everything, but also on paper, half the benefit of the other 2 armors, and people claim that it is not a flat 10% chance to miss.

I choose HEALTH. . .

To many "Armor Ignores" and "Shield Pierce" abilities. . . Health is the only thing thats dependable for Effective hit points

+10% (+16% maxed) to evade in my scout. My evasion bonus is massive, over the 100% mark when I pop Distortion Field. It's very useful when you have a gunship drawing a bead on you as a scout.

People have claimed 100% evade doesn't evade all attacks though, that it's not a flat evasion chance. Would be nice if Bioware clarified this.

I'm not sure whether or not evasion works against missiles - I'm guessing that it does not. Still, a scout should be able to easily avoid most missiles given their manuverability and abundance of engine power, so what you really want to focus on with your equipment is avoiding non-missile attacks. Gunship railguns and the heavy lasers from strike fighters top that list.

Evasion builds, I think, are the best to go with for scouts right now. Of course, everyone's going to spend all their requisition gearing up evasion scouts and then they'll get nerfed with no refund, that tends to be the way of things here.

I'm not sure whether or not evasion works against missiles - I'm guessing that it does not.

You have chosen... wisely. Seriously, yes, evasion does not work against missile weapons, except rocket pods. That said, most missiles don't do well against scouts, who benefit the most from evasion. Everyone else, it works to some effect, but an evasion build is mainly for the scout ships. It keeps us from getting squished by anything except upgraded gunships.

+10% (+16% maxed) to evade in my scout.

Light armor adds 4%(10% maxed ) to evasion, not 10/16. You probably mistakenly added the 6% from a defensive crew member.

Max passive evasion for a scout is 41%. 10% base, 10% maxed light armor, 15% distortion shield, 6% crew member.

On a strike fighter, there's not a lot of reason to take evasion armor unless you like the RNG aspect of it. Even using the evasion crewmember, it is only about a 11% increase in effective health - and that is going to be dependent on how lucky you are.

On an evasion maxed scout, on the other hand it would be about a 17% increase in effective health. (Going from being hit by 69% of shots to 59% of shots is about a 17% decrease in blaster/rail shots that connect). While the health armor technically still comes out ahead mathematically speaking, a scout is mostly in danger from rail gun shots. Since even extra health may not help against a lucky crit, most scouts probably prefer to hedge their bets in not being hit in the first place.

I'm not sure whether or not evasion works against missiles - I'm guessing that it does not. Still, a scout should be able to easily avoid most missiles given their manuverability and abundance of engine power, so what you really want to focus on with your equipment is avoiding non-missile attacks. Gunship railguns and the heavy lasers from strike fighters top that list.

 

Evasion builds, I think, are the best to go with for scouts right now. Of course, everyone's going to spend all their requisition gearing up evasion scouts and then they'll get nerfed with no refund, that tends to be the way of things here.

Heavy Firepower Flashfire is IMO better overall, but yeah... evasion might get a nerf, too damn effective against anything that relies on lasers.

Heavy Firepower Flashfire is IMO better overall, but yeah... evasion might get a nerf, too damn effective against anything that relies on lasers.

Not to mention that when combined with distortion field it makes you (temporarily) invulnerable to turret fire.

Until they do nerf it I must admit I run with light armor to boost evasion because it can be so effective against blasters. That being said I pretty much only fly scouts for the daily double req, otherwise I prefer to fly my striker.

Light armor adds 4%(10% maxed ) to evasion, not 10/16. You probably mistakenly added the 6% from a defensive crew member.

Actually, no... I was mistakenly adding the increase modifiers to the 10% after I maxed it out. I didn't see that it increased the component's description when those got added. That explains a few things. /facepalm

I choose HEALTH. . .

 

 

To many "Armor Ignores" and "Shield Pierce" abilities. . . Health is the only thing thats dependable for Effective hit points

Unfortunately, since Reinforced Armor falls under the ARMOR component, any abilities that ignore armor would negate the extra hull health you gain. Reinforced Armor is quite effective against Shield Pierce though!

Unfortunately, since Reinforced Armor falls under the ARMOR component, any abilities that ignore armor would negate the extra hull health you gain. Reinforced Armor is quite effective against Shield Pierce though!

Yes, but it isn't classified as armor for the purposes of armor penetration. If it really worked that way, anything with armor piercing would automatically reduce evasion by 4-10% of anything using lightweight. And how would that even work? "You have 1200 health against all weapons... oh but you only have 1000 health against railguns"

Yeah... no. Armor pen is just effective against damage resistance - not evasion or increased health pool.

I'm starting to think one of the things that makes evasion so appealing is that no one is building for accuracy. Lots of people like rapid laser cannons, since close range is mostly moot you're starting with 85% or 75% accuracy before any tracking penalties are applied. Light isn't much better, though regular is decent but sacrifices dps. Quads beyond med range are starting at 85%. Burst is bad as well. So a lot of people are just spotting their enemy 10-25% evasion right off the bat.

Simply switching from rapid to regular will pick up around 15% more accuracy. Then there's crew skills, you can passively get 6% more accuracy, and there's two active skills here, one reduces evasion on the target and another increase your accuracy. Obviously you can only have one but the values are the same so it's basically the same effect.

Also while only available to scouts, targeting telemetry and sensor beacon both have effects on accuracy/evasion.

Overall I don't know there's a good answer to the question though. If you build for accuracy you can rip apart evasive units, if you build for armor penetration you can rip apart ships with high armor.

The way I see it, hp is the safe one since it always works, evasion is good for scouts and when people arn't building for accuracy, armor is good for strikes and when people are building for accuracy.

Unfortunately, since Reinforced Armor falls under the ARMOR component, any abilities that ignore armor would negate the extra hull health you gain. Reinforced Armor is quite effective against Shield Pierce though!

Armor is damage reduction not the actual armor slot.

Unfortunately, since Reinforced Armor falls under the ARMOR component, any abilities that ignore armor would negate the extra hull health you gain.

This is incorrect. It is the damage reduction from armor that is being ignored, not the armor slot as a whole. Any benefits the armor slot provides besides the damage reduction are still being applied, like evasion, health, etc.

If you want a ground combat analogy, consider a jedi knight wearing a heavy armor piece with extra defense and endurance on it. If he gets attacked by an attack that ignores armor, the attack's damage will not be reduced by the armor's damage reduction, but can still be deflected thanks to the defense stat on that armor, and the extra health still helps the knight survive.

Having played all but the purchased ships from the cartel market I have noticed that the Health Armor (once maxed out) combined with Quick recharge shields and the reactor that complements those shields have given me the best survivability for my play style. Those upgrades combined with becoming more skilled at my ship of choice has brought my death average down to about 3 - 4 per match.

Just like everything else in GSF the components that are right for me aren't necessarily the components that are right for you. The trick is to evaluate your skill and playstyle honestly and chose the components that match.

I can't imagine using anything other than evasion armor, since having no evasion is definitely noticeable for enemy gunships and makes you a big fat easy kill. I used hull strength armor until I realized that it wasn't giving me any noticeable increase in survivability, then switched to evasion armor and it was like night and day. The survivability increase from evasion just blows the other types of armor out of the water with the way things are now. IMO alternatives to lightweight armor need some buffing to compete, especially damage reduction armor which is totally ignored by slug railguns.

Well again a big factor in this is that most pilots are using blasters with pretty extreme accuracy penalties, and not equipping any systems that boost accuracy at all. Keep in mind rapid fire lasers are still extremely common, those are typically firing with a base 75% accuracy, and then tracking penalties on top of that. So my thought is right now the game favors evasion because no one is actively trying to counter it, how often do you see sensor beacons for example?

I'm starting to think one of the things that makes evasion so appealing is that no one is building for accuracy. Lots of people like rapid laser cannons, since close range is mostly moot you're starting with 85% or 75% accuracy before any tracking penalties are applied. Light isn't much better, though regular is decent but sacrifices dps. Quads beyond med range are starting at 85%. Burst is bad as well. So a lot of people are just spotting their enemy 10-25% evasion right off the bat.

 

Simply switching from rapid to regular will pick up around 15% more accuracy. Then there's crew skills, you can passively get 6% more accuracy, and there's two active skills here, one reduces evasion on the target and another increase your accuracy. Obviously you can only have one but the values are the same so it's basically the same effect.

 

Also while only available to scouts, targeting telemetry and sensor beacon both have effects on accuracy/evasion.

 

Overall I don't know there's a good answer to the question though. If you build for accuracy you can rip apart evasive units, if you build for armor penetration you can rip apart ships with high armor.

 

The way I see it, hp is the safe one since it always works, evasion is good for scouts and when people arn't building for accuracy, armor is good for strikes and when people are building for accuracy.

 

 

 

Armor is damage reduction not the actual armor slot.

To my knowledge scouts are the only ones who get a ship component that grants an accuracy buffing ability that you could stack with a co-pilot active. In theory that means scout's can have both an accuracy and evasion build. For the rest an accuracy build relies on a companion 6% passive buff to accuracy and a co-pilot abilities. No matter what ship type it you fly relying on actives for an accuracy build means you're (probably) building to counter one ship type (unless you have very poor firing arc management). An accuracy build still gets the short end of the stick since the passive buffs to accuracy are less than the passive buffs to evasion. I would assume that all this makes an accuracy build unappealing since it lacks versatility of other builds and won't be as useful if the other team isn't scout heavy.

From the way I see healing numbers pop all the time I think the lack of any means of repairing your ship outside of co-pilot abilities has leaned everyone towards using the spanner co-pilot. Maybe that will change once we have repair ships (bombers?) in the game. At least I should hope we'll have more diverse co-pilot builds once repair ships are in game.

To my knowledge scouts (who benefit most from evasion) are the only ones who get a ship component that grants an accuracy buffing ability that you could stack with a co-pilot active. For the rest an accuracy build relies on a companion 6% passive buff to accuracy and a co-pilot abilities. No matter what ship type it you fly relying on actives for an accuracy build means you're (probably) building to counter one ship type (unless you have very poor firing arc management). I would assume that makes an accuracy build unappealing since it lacks versatility of other builds and won't be as useful if the other team isn't scout heavy.

 

From the way I see healing numbers pop all the time I think the lack of any means of repairing your ship outside of co-pilot abilities has leaned everyone towards using the spanner co-pilot. Maybe that will change once we have repair ships (bombers?) in the game. At least I should hope we'll have more diverse co-pilot builds once repair ships are in game.

As far as hydro spanner I've actually stopped using it at all, it's nice to be able to repair your hull but I've found it just so rarely makes a difference it's not worth it. If it was more like 5-600 hull heal I'd use it, but 250 per minute is just not enough. So that frees up an ability slot, but even if people are all taking hydrospanner it goes back to what I'm saying about no one actually trying to counter evasion.

So you have 6% passive + 20% active, negates more than half a scouts evasion. Some weapons do have higher base accuracy and skills that reduce tracking penalties or increase accuracy as well. If two strikes were working together they could totally eliminate a scout's evasion and go a bit beyond, once places -20% evasion debuff, other uses +20% accuracy. They do last 20 seconds so you can keep them up decently.

While a scout is the only one who has a component to increase accuracy, he also has one that can reduce evasion. You can have up to 2 sensor probes out which reduce evasion by 10%. Not sure if they stack, but a few scouts could cover a pretty sizable volume of space with a passive -10% evasion. Targeting telemetry's active ability can also be upgraded to reduce evasion.

Now granted yes I would like to see more options added for increasing accuracy or debuffing evasion, but there are definitely some decent anti-evasion options out there.

To my knowledge scouts are the only ones who get a ship component that grants an accuracy buffing ability that you could stack with a co-pilot active. In theory that means scout's can have both an accuracy and evasion build. For the rest an accuracy build relies on a companion 6% passive buff to accuracy and a co-pilot abilities. No matter what ship type it you fly relying on actives for an accuracy build means you're (probably) building to counter one ship type (unless you have very poor firing arc management). An accuracy build still gets the short end of the stick since the passive buffs to accuracy are less than the passive buffs to evasion. I would assume that all this makes an accuracy build unappealing since it lacks versatility of other builds and won't be as useful if the other team isn't scout heavy.

You're forgetting one thing. Primary weapons for scouts have a significantly lower accuracy rating (except the Quad Laser) than that of the strike fighters' primary weapons (except Rapid Fire) or the gunships' rail guns (yes, I know, secondary weapons, their primaries are about equal to the scouts'). This is to make a distinguishable difference between taking Blaster Overcharge or Targeting Telemetry... in order to max your damage potential, you have to sacrifice accuracy. Even then, it's an active ability, so your accuracy normally sits in the low-to-mid-90s as a scout depending what your primary weapon is, and if you have an offensive crew with 6% increased accuracy (which is a must-have for a scout).

The thing is, people like to distinguish the "build" of their ship. It's evasion build, or it's accuracy build, or it's pew pew build, or it's speed build... there's multiple build types on all ships. You can focus, sure, but you sacrifice something in turn. I run heavy evasion, heavy accuracy, heavy CCM. Three builds, because the components and upgrades don't conflict. I don't have to drop my accuracy to beef my turn rate. I do sacrifice damage to increase accuracy. Best way to say it, there's three main build categories for each ship... the offensive build, the defensive build, and the power build. So it's not out of the way that you have an evasion and an accuracy build for scouts... that's just their defensive and offensive builds.

You're forgetting one thing. Primary weapons for scouts have a significantly lower accuracy rating (except the Quad Laser) than that of the strike fighters' primary weapons (except Rapid Fire) or the gunships' rail guns (yes, I know, secondary weapons, their primaries are about equal to the scouts').

Depends on the weapon. There's a decent disparity in accuracy between quads and heavy cannons, but regular are only 5% less than heavy. Regular has less tracking penalty so they're probably pretty close to heavy cannons in terms of accuracy. So really the flashfire has some accuracy penalty but the nova doesn't really suffer much of a penalty.

You're forgetting one thing. Primary weapons for scouts have a significantly lower accuracy rating (except the Quad Laser) than that of the strike fighters' primary weapons (except Rapid Fire) or the gunships' rail guns (yes, I know, secondary weapons, their primaries are about equal to the scouts'). This is to make a distinguishable difference between taking Blaster Overcharge or Targeting Telemetry... in order to max your damage potential, you have to sacrifice accuracy. Even then, it's an active ability, so your accuracy normally sits in the low-to-mid-90s as a scout depending what your primary weapon is, and if you have an offensive crew with 6% increased accuracy (which is a must-have for a scout).

Oh don't get me wrong I get that. I was simply making the observation that strikers (I don't have a gunship so I can't comment there) are more limited that scouts in having an accuracy build. I didn't mean to imply that it was OP or some such that scouts have the option and think that it's balanced since as you say you have to trade power for accuracy (or visa versa).

As far as hydro spanner I've actually stopped using it at all, it's nice to be able to repair your hull but I've found it just so rarely makes a difference it's not worth it. If it was more like 5-600 hull heal I'd use it, but 250 per minute is just not enough. So that frees up an ability slot, but even if people are all taking hydrospanner it goes back to what I'm saying about no one actually trying to counter evasion.

I do think it would be better if they made it a % of the hull rather than flat heal so all classes would derive the same benefit from the spanner.

I may have to look into doing an accuracy co-pilot build though to see how that works. Although it looks like to get an co-pilot accuracy buff it'd have to be from a companion that gives either sensor focus or comm range. I get what the buff to sensor range does but does anyone know what sensor focus range does?