Armor and when to repair.

[Steel]

When do you repair your hull amour in battle? When you start to take on water, 25%, 50%. Does it matter what ship you are using and the types of ships you are apposing?

 

Some SOL like the Sanni and Vic have very strong amour and many ships find it difficult to damage them at range. This is until the hull has taken considerable damage and has degraded. However size is relative and the match up could be a Surprise verses a fleet of cutters. In that case I assume the Surprise would have a very bouncy hull at long range much like the Sanni or Vic at "higher tier" games. 

 

So if you take more damage with degraded amour does it behoove the "top tier" Ship to use their hull repair early on to maintain that edge? Should smaller ships use it as a last resort? When is the best time and place to use hull repair?

[Fig]

I always repair only when i start taking water. 

[Galileus]

I always repair only when i start taking water. 

 

Doesn't that mean you keep the leaks, because AFAIK repair doesn't fix the leaks coming from armor degradation?

[BungeeLemming]

If you are in a fleet action you should always keep the side you get fired at high.

Once you get below lets say 60% armor you start taking lots more damage and guns get disabled at high rate.

 

If you are in a brawl you can try to distribute the damage taken on all broadsides and thus I agree: the later the better if you are safe to repair up.

[Aussie_Fox]

I always repair only when i start taking water. 

 

 

two things will happen here

1. you will waste a repair kit fixing a leak that going into survival could have fixed.

or

2. you wait too long and your leaks continue to leak.

 

 

on another note. until the new damage model comes in, 2/3 of my repair kits seem to go into my pump lol. so essentially i only get to repair once at around 40% armour loss.

[Prater]

Doesn't that mean you keep the leaks, because AFAIK repair doesn't fix the leaks coming from armor degradation?

I guess I am not following Galileus. Repair fixes armor loss, it doesn't fix leaks. I think Fig is stating he doesn't repair until his armor is low enough to start taking water.

two things will happen here

1. you will waste a repair kit fixing a leak that going into survival could have fixed.

or

2. you wait too long and your leaks continue to leak.

on another note. until the new damage model comes in, 2/3 of my repair kits seem to go into my pump lol. so essentially i only get to repair once at around 40% armour loss.

1. ????

2. ????

My response:

Depends on the ship and what you are doing. There is not a right answer for the ships in general. How you repair an sol is different than how you repair a frigate, which can be different than how you repair a fore-and-aft craft, and all these can be different in different situations.

[Rramsha]

Also try to repair if you know there is going to be a lull in the fight because the repair works over time. If you are going to repair while still getting shot, you will lose most of the benefit of the repair. Sometimes this means repairing during a lull even if your armor is not fully gone but mostly gone , this allows you to take advantage of the repair time and not lose the repair while you are still under fire.

[Pullie]

Either when not repairing means sinking or when I can get out of close engagements to hit full armor again to bounce everything.

[JeeF]

Smart use of repairs can be a major factor in a fight and the repair "tactics" don't make any sense. It's just too much abstraction. I'm hoping for a revemp in dm4.

[Grim DeGrim]

I've experimented a bit. Depends somewhat...

Generally, I wait... Often taking on LOTS of water as I cycle out of battle. Sometimes they stop shooting at you, thinking you are done.

If I'm in the largest ship, I sometimes use one early - especially if we've successfully eliminated the opposing big(s). I'll rep to a high state of armor (near full) as the remaining smaller shops will have difficulty in pen'ing my broadside.

EDIT: by largest ship, I mean Constitution & up... I don't think I'd employ #2 strategy below consti, as carronades and 6 pounders will pen pretty much everything from here down (based purely on feel, no imperical data to support).

Neither scenarios are hard & fast rules, but they seem to be the more common scenarios.

Edit: reminds me of one time I sank with 2 reps left, while in a victory. I jammed the buttons quickly (5 and then 1), but it seems only the "1" button was hit correctly. It was way too late when I noticed. I sank. It was tragic. We lost a close match up as a result...

Edited March 9, 2015 by Grim DeGrim

[Grim DeGrim]

1v1 is different again, I'm surprised JeeF no comment, as I see that Doran pretty much always pops one before more than half on a broadside (typically he has dmg on both bs, but pops before 1 before more than half armor gone on 1 side).

I have not wrapped my head around the timing, though I suspect it is to prevent drag that comes from water in the hold, and additional crew damage received from weakend bs armor....... Both of which impact ship sailing characteristics (critical in 1v1), and crew loss impacts dps in addition.

Edited March 9, 2015 by Grim DeGrim

[Elysion]

Just how much does repair repair and is it variable? Sometimes it seems like repair makes me almost back to full when i use it at around ~half on a side, but other times ill use one and it barely seems like it ever accomplishes anything, even if im only taking light damage. Does the repair effect itself stop working as well if you take a hit?

[Grim DeGrim]

I think it is % based...so should be the same on any ship proportionately (someone confirm).

 

If you're taking damage, you may not notice it.  As for repairing, I generally only do so after entering survival mode (you repair X% faster....there is an old thread around...tells the pros and cons of each mode).

 

Here it is, an oldie...  While it is not worded clearly...20% faster repair...but if I'm in another mode, it is -50% repair speed...so can I say that repair in Survival mode is 70% faster...(?)

 

Edited March 10, 2015 by Grim DeGrim

[JeeF]

You're right, in duels we don't care as much about hull damage and pop repairs whenever, preferably as soon as none of it is wasted due to being full hp. Early survival mode is usually game over and water in the hold is worst. I was thinking of the run of the mill pvp matches; I find it's rather annoying to see focused fire wasted on a ship with depleted armor, as its pulling away from the line to repair behind teammates. Switch to survival, delay the repair, and you're almost impervious to damage. That kind of stuff. The logical thing to do on a real ship would be to repair everything as it gets damaged, maintain 100% condition, but we end up doing the opposite.

[Elysion]

huh, i can see how the different modes can affect maneuverability, but why do they change max speed?

[Grim DeGrim]

Well, you kind of prove the point in why it makes sense to wait: 

 

• Fire is poured into that ship relentlessly.  To your point, opponent fire is wasted.  But if I pop a rep while cannonballs are pouring into my smouldering hulk of a ship, then I'm actually giving them purchase in terms of true damage dealt. 
• Whereas if I sail to cover, and then rep, I actually get the benefit of the repairs PLUS any DPS my opponent wasted while firing on me.

[Grim DeGrim]

huh, i can see how the different modes can affect maneuverability, but why do they change max speed?

They changed it...it is now acceleration to max speed.

[Steel]

What happens when you shoot a ship with no amour? More Leaks, dead crew, is there an invisible superstructure health pool ? When someone stern camps a puts round after round into the depleted rear of a ship of the line does it just kill the crew? In that case should you use grape on the stern and not double?

[Prater]

Goes through to the other side, disables guns, kills crew, leaks etc, etc.

[Johny Reb]

huh, i can see how the different modes can affect maneuverability, but why do they change max speed?

The picture he provided is from a very old build from back in the testing days. Max speed would be cut when in survival which made it almost impossible to run away. I had a good fight with an old tester during those day named Ink. (I havn't seen him in awhile. Hello ink. Are you still out there?) He got trapped behind some land and I was able to make a break for it (he was winning) but I would have sunk if not for survival mode. We chose to play the chase out. I had to change from sailing mode back to survival every 5 minutes to keep from sinking. This allowed him to slowly catch up to me and with 1 1/2 minutes till the round ended he was able to pull a broadside on me and had me finished. I almost made it!  It was a fun chase.

 

That led to us complaining about that mechanic and eventually they changed it. Speed is no longer effected in survival mode.

 

You will also notice the UI looks different, the sails are on a slider, and there were 4 repairs.

[Grim DeGrim]

Johny Reb: is the % still correct? Ie, I repair 70% faster in survival?

[BlouBulle]

On small ship battles you can repair late if you are in a 1v1 and look like you are going to win, however you will lose guns (crew isn't as important), in bigger battles or if you are a bigger ship in the battle you may lose the game by repairing late as having 10 extra guns means nothing if you let your armor go down and get the guns knocked out.

 

It is totally situational.