Ratio weapon/armor/shield

Depending on a lot of things: Their role, size of ship, engagement distance. For me those are the 3 main criteria.

Armor has a bit of a "diminished return." The first & second piece of armor drastically increase your survivability, while the 5th and 6th+ only add smaller increments (in ratio).

Same thing with weapon damage. When you already have 5 Weapon X on a ship, the 6th weapon doesn't add much in terms of fire power.

That being said, my armor/weapon ratio decreases as my engagement range increases. I do not mix weapon ranges on my ship designs, so I know exactly where they'll hover around during an engagement. So, for example, my long range ships have nothing but missiles & PDs, low armor. My short range ships has only short range guns, PDs, and lots of armor.

So my ratio changes, and is not set.

Like Hexxon i design my ships based on the roles I want them to take.

If I want a ship that is going to be doing a long campaign of attack and hold then i'll have a lot high shields to weapon ratio.

However for attacking strong holds, i'll create a suicide fleet to crack the defences, probably loading up with mass long range or possibly fighter fleets. My current trick is missile ships with 1 fighter bay each fully loaded.

Your lord and master (below Foamy) LordHavoc

Its easier to see from Weapon stand point, but it applies equally to armor.

Your first weapon does LOT, changes your ship from 0 damage to lets say 5 damage/sec.

Your second weapon DOUBLES that damage, from 5 to 10 damage/sec.

Your third weapon addition, only a 1.5 time increase from 10 to 15 damage/sec.

Your fourth weapon is only a 33% boost, from 15 to 20 dam/sec.

Same with armor.

On my attack ships, I have the usual required components plus max speed components. After that its a "Weapon/Armor/Shield/PD". First component to deal damage the rest to keep my ships alive long enough to deal that damage.

Same works for weapons of course.

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go to this Wiki if interested. No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE

Lol, good point.

But I don't know about designing your ships to be able to withstand more salvos, as the second part of the equation is out of your hands. It is up to your enemy to decide how big his fleet is any point, and how homogeneous his weapon mixes are. Those determines the salvo size.

Although it seem to work for Psieye, I don't really take that into consideration when I designing my ships.

Damn Psieye I'd never really considered that one before lol -note to self, design armour loadoutt more carefully-
Though I also use the "command ship" tactic in fleets

You can invert my question too - how little armour is still enough to get by on single-encounters? Ships that are designed to take losses in big battles (by being overkill targets) to protect the rest of the fleet.

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go to this Wiki if interested. No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE

How about packing those overkill ships to the brim with armor and shields, just a small gun or two ( tractor beams ) , and set them to ram ?
So they should survive at least two, or three capital hits if no skipping weapons are deployed.

Remember : Pillage! then burn.
- Cpt. Kaff Tagon