How about a expensive armor that is called Phase Shift armor that runs on a amount of energy that blocks all solid attacks like rams and rockets and missles? and it has to be held on a large port or something. or make special ships with this armor.

That's a variation on one of the classes of shield suggestions.

I'm not a big fan of 100% immunity even if its limited to classes of damage, because it tends to lead to tactical stupidity.

I am however a fan of being able to custumize your ship to resist certain types of attacks. A couple of people have independently suggested armor variations which reduce damage from certain weapon groups.

yeah this only deflecs rockets, prox mines, missles and rams

shields = bad

Agreed. I dont think ships should be able to have the abilty to "deflect" any sort of weapon. Especialy not the ships we have now. However I think that in larger capital class ships should have some sort of one time use short lasting bubble that can go around them and set off any weapon with a prox setting (only to be used as a last resort, ie. The ship is down to about 6% and is running away and is only 2km away from the wh. But an avalon is right on its tail, when the nuke is in range the captian sets off the sheild/ecm/what have you, and the nuke detonates allowing the ship to slip away) Any invinciblity in my opinon == bad

Agreed. Also, the current frigate (even though it's not in 3.4.x) is way too easy to take out with fighters. I mean it's not only because of the fact that it's missing escorts and is completely stationary, it's also because most of the S-port weapons slice through the frigate's hull pretty quickly. Well, it takes time but IMO I think avalons and L-port missiles/rockets should only be able to damage it. That would allow the medium and heavy ship class to have a useful role in the game.

Armor is I think the way to solve that problem with the interaction of fighters with capital ships AND increase the value of the heavier weapons in the game. If for example the 'frigate' was immune to the first 1200 points of damage of any hit, then Tachyons would be useless, Sunflares would just scratch the paint, but Jackhammers would give a good solid hit, Screamers would shake the ship, and Avalons would still be the scary thing that they are. The only small weapon which could do serious damage would be the charged cannon (and only when really charged, which is dangerous near a capital ship). The only large weapons which would be useless are the gatling cannon style weapons - and they are clearly anti-fighter weapons.

I agree with Celebrim. Making a damage limiter armour (which is an extremely simplistic type) would work well. It's like real modern armour- Kevlar will stop somebody spitting a blow-dart at you, but it doesn't do much for a direct hit with a mortar.

[edit]Umm... bad comparison... oh well...[/edit]

uh this armor doesn't defelct avolon damage

"uh this armor doesn't defelct avolon damage"

Well, that is what I just said. The point is that Avalons are pretty much useless against fighters, but protecting your Avalon carrying ships would be essential to taking down big ships quickly. Thus, everyone has a role.