Multicrew combat issues in 4.7 Core Problem: Reduced TTD/TTK against large ships and more prominent stalemate situations The addition of armor thresholds made a difference when it comes to loadout choices against large ships, ensuring that there is no longer a “one weapon fits all situations” scenario. While this made larger ships somewhat more resilient against smaller ships, the current armor system has only serves to delay the inevitable. The observed behavior in the PU is that players do not engage a larger target because it can kill them, but rather because they cannot kill it—and it cannot kill them or players hold a multicrew ship until they have the right weapons to disable it. On the other side of the coin, when a target can effectively damage another ship’s armor, the situation often becomes one where the armor is depleted so quickly that the ship is easily disabled before it can remain a meaningful threat in the fight. Please note that the purpose of this post is to highlight issues with larger ships in current PU scenarios and help the relevance of multicrew ships. Armor HP and Thresholds The current armor threshold system incentivizes stalemates where neither party can or will engage the other. Smaller ships should not feel very threatening to a larger target unless they are “swarming” it. This would encourage fighters to still engage and attempt to disable surface elements such as turrets, PDCs, etc., without becoming obsolete in larger squadron fights; Optimal loadouts, such as cannons, should be encouraged for these scenarios because they are more effective against larger ships—not made mandatory due to hard thresholds; Armor HP, on the other hand, feels lackluster and provides low durability in combat. The moment a single fighter has specialized weaponry to deal with a larger target, the armor HP is reduced so quickly that the survivability of the ship becomes questionable at best. For example, two Hornets equipped appropriately can neutralize fully crewed Idris with significant ease (under 2 minutes) and little risk due to the current state of turrets/Armor threshold values. Another example is a Crewed Perseus being easily disabled by a single Meteor on a smaller timeframe; Currently, armor depletion is calculated such that mitigated alpha damage is applied fully to armor HP, causing armor to drop significantly from short volleys of any penetration-capable weapon. Disproportionate Armor vs. Ship Volume Ratios There is an imbalance when it comes to armor threshold values and armor HP. As ship mass and volume increase, armor HP and durability do not scale proportionally especially as the cross section increases and, therefore, the ease of weapon hit. An example of this is Redeemers having armor values close to a Hurricane, despite the significant differences in mass,volume and cross-section between the 2 ship classes. This results in ships that visually and conceptually convey an “armored” feel not meeting expectations, instead feeling quite fragile for their size and intended fleet role. Penetration Feedback Currently, there is no visual feedback on turrets or ships indicating whether their weapons can penetrate a target’s armor. This leads to situations where less experienced gunners waste time firing at targets they cannot damage, further reducing the already impaired performance of those turrets or newer players doing PVE bounties being unable to know if their targets are killable. PU Issues Bounty hunting and piracy are significatly affected by these changes. They lead to situations where players choose not to engage a target simply because they are unable to do so, preventing a loop from occuring naturally; There is significant preparation time required for PU activities. Having to scout a target, return to reconfigure a loadout, and then re-engage further exacerbates the issue; In fleet compositions, these changes also result in situations where, once all viable targets are destroyed, some fleet members are left with no meaningful role in the engagement, especially given how turrets now correlate to the main ship's armor thresholds; “Feast or famine” scenarios become more acute. Engaging with the correct weapons often leads to a very quick kill or disable, while engaging without the proper loadout discourages interaction altogether. Neither outcome is ideal for either party.