R5: One of the unique traits of menacing ships is that their cost does not change regardless of components, so in 3. With shield hardening, that damage would start getting applied to the shields *before* smashing up armor and hull. Added new aux components that use Living Metal or Zro to provide late game armor and shield hardening. Go to Stellaris r/Stellaris. The chosen one remains exactly the same, except for the admiral, he also lost his evasion in exchange for Shield Hardening. Stellaris 2. I had an idea for a star that's got some psionic mist around it, like shrouded worlds. Autocannons are extremely short range. #2. Update: Mar 19 @ 1:39am. Just small slots though, the medium lasers can't compete with plasma. My ships slots are half armor, 25% crystal, 25% shields. ) Non penetrating weapons have nasty -50% and -75% vs shield modifiers, but penetrating weapons don’t! Even with 100% shield hardening, my whirlwinds don’t have any penalty against shield and will outperform a plasma cannon in. A disruptor fleet can absolutely wreck an artillery/torpedo fleet 4x its fleet power, but defense platforms can wreck a disruptor fleet 2x its fleet. I've had trouble figuring this out exactly, but this is what it looks like. Shield strength, against full shield penetrators, is given by. " Even at 100% armour pen it still reduces damage. Hull is 3300. It worked much better as a LAN game, because the games were shown on a projector and everyone could see what was happening; you'd get all sorts of trash-talking and cheering as people would head back to their computers to tweak their ship design and its basic AI instructions. Living Metal and Zro are kinda weird resources because they have very few uses. Where's my fucking reactive armor, goddammit. +100 Shield Hit Points +100 Armor Hit Points +20% Shield Hardening +20% Armor Hardening; Any This leader has devised new ways to harden armor. Stellaris 3. An example would be the 100% shield bypass ability of missiles, physical torps, and fighter craft. Stellaris Wiki Active Wikis. As probably most of you know. Can't terraform Mars then. Stellaris Wiki. Tried again, happened again. 100% is overkill and make bypass weapon useless, but there should be incentive for player to not going for bypass as a no brainer. 1 shield regen, 15% shield hardening. All Discussions Screenshots Artwork Broadcasts Videos Workshop News Guides Reviews. A tl;dr summary of what others have said in this thread, for those who dont read stellaris math essays: Armor and Shield hardening will force weapons with the "penetration" function to shoot at what they're supposed to penetrate, a portion of their damage going to the thing they're supposed to ignore. How do you change your starbase to all armor instead of armor and shields in a Shield Nullification system? Only Defense platforms are in the ship designer not Starbases! Regards < > Showing 1-2 of 2 comments . 6 beta version at all. Sentient livestock is still just livestock. Mining lasers are pretty useful if you're trying to finish the game in under 100 years. Later i tried picket cruiser with hardeners. 6 “Orion” update includes many changes to combat. These are also stack. It seems like most people are favoring armor over shields lately, partially because armor, even if it's not as cost-efficient, just offers more protection than shields now, but also partly because there are quite a few powerful weapons, like fighters and missiles, that simply ignore all shields anyway, yes, there is. 25 shieldpoints. Montu just released a defensive component tier list if you want a more indepth explanation. This is both due to the prevalence of shield piercing or shield damage bonus weapons (both in the meta and by the AI) and due to how armor Regen is tied to hull Regen. Three grants 45%Stellaris Real-time strategy Strategy video game Gaming. It worked much better as a LAN game, because the games were shown on a projector and everyone could see what was happening; you'd get all sorts of trash-talking and cheering as people would head back to their computers to tweak their ship design and its basic AI instructions before submitting the new version to the. Because if two mods modify the same rule or scripted trigger, only the last loaded one will apply, causing prob. You’ll see your numbers go up in the ship designer, 1. Destroyers are only good at. E. R5: Found a choke point on a pulsar that gives 100% shield nullification. Also, shield/armor hardening could make a disruptor. The shield hardening is just a minor problem, I will test it later though. The Stellaris 3. The weapons all appear to tend towards major penetration of a defensive layer, like shields or armor. Adaptive (Lost Colony origin), Charismatic (Hive Minds or Driven Assimilator), and Thrifty (Megacorps or Merchant Guilds) are situationally quite good. 0 (Actual), Amazing Space Battles, UI Overhaul. Its just farming. The AI empires just can't keep up late game, so the only real challenge after year 200 is the end game crisis. Shields balanced with armor, shield capacitor and regenerative hull tissue as auxiliary slots. Effectively, a relic aux slot component that offers at least 30% total hardening, and some total HP preferably through a percentile HP buff to both armour and some slight buff to shields; let's give an estimate of 20% Armour Hardening, 10% Shield Hardening, +20% Armour HP, +10% Shield HP, minor resistance to some of the nonsense on this list o. Think about it, your have more than enough shield and armor slots to reach 100% hardening on the shields and reach 60% hardening on the armor thanks to having four utility slots. Observe the full damage going through shield. A quick search reveals that shield hardening apparently stacks. 34. Ironically, there is an advanced armor option known as Dragonscale Armor. 5x divider on shields. I recently fought the Unbidden, which I hadn't done in a long time. 64) with it. Shield Hardener: 10 1: 15 +15% Shield Hardening: With these modifications, the fields generated by our shield emitters will partially deflect attacks that would otherwise bypass the shields. Contrast that with the Ancient Shield Overcharger, which not only provides the starbase a massive +50% shield hardening (and +50% shield hit points), but also gives each defensive platform +25% shield hardening (and +25% shield hit points)! And there's a new shield-alternative, the Ancient Suspension Field. And Unbidden anchors now give their ships shield hardening and boost shield regen. Zro is also used for Psionic Shields - effectively T7 shielding. The juggernaut is different because it can rotate so the arc emitters can always fire. ago. The only exception is when using psi-cloaking in conjunction with psi-shields/barrier. A weapons intrinsic hull/armor/shield damage/bypass applies to the base damage first, before any other modifiers. MuffinFIN • 5 yr. Stellaris ship design is certainly more interesting than it was pre-3. Stellaris. Archeao Engineers problem. It may not be the strongest of origins, but when you play to its strengths it can cover all of your resources with just merchants and scrap miners. 50% shield hardening. Are extremely powerful vs AI. A weapons intrinsic hull/armor/shield damage/bypass applies to the base damage first, before any other modifiers. But if some torpedoes do get by, I wonder what is the best defense on my large ships? The. That'll teach 'em. This is a representation of time internal. Due to their ability to bypass shields, Strike Craft are very effective against other Strike Craft. Once you enter war they are forbidden to use your gateways, and you cant enter theirs. When needing to mass produce fleets to fight enemies with and quickly replenish, it's best to rely on something solid like Alloys or even some of the rarer resources since those are relatively inexpensive (the highest you'll see in a big fleet size is roughly ~200 per one resource). +25% Shield hit points +25% Shield hardening Planar Mastery astral action There is no stronger barrier than a tightly knit lattice of Astral Threads. Still, it does help shield-based fleets to harden against strike craft; I'm not sure if armor-heavy fleets, though taking bonus damage from strike craft in armor, would want to. Added new aux components that use Exotic Gases, Rare. It is developed by Paradox Development Studio and published by Paradox. Ancient Shield Overcharger 100 45: 360: 15 2 +33% Starbase and Defense Platform shield hit points without Archaeo-Engineers +33% Starbase and Defense Platform shield hardening without Archaeo-Engineers +50% Starbase and Defense Platform shield hit points with Archaeo-Engineers +50% Starbase and Defense Platform shield hardening. Losing 100 Ar or 125 Sh to get 65 Hull. There's only one way to repair ships without going back to a space port, you can research a tech gained from space beings that allows organic armor that repairs over time. Refire rate and general stats have been adjusted. 1;. There. 5 days. These are the numbers: (With CI Plating) Hull: +65 Nanocomposite Armor: +100 Shields Lvl III: +125. About this site. Generally I find an even split between shield and armor components to be most effective, favoring armor in case of odd numbers, and toss in a shield hardener on cruisers or larger. Most of my games last about two days. I like shattered ring. so if you are already at 100% hardening, and you reduce hardening by 15%, but in return are able. The shield regen is just insane and my. In fact, except for the Crisis Empire, no one can afford to use expensive hardening for every ship in the fleet unless you don't care about the total number. Go to your Steam library, right click on Stellaris -> Properties -> betas tab -> select "stellaris_test" branch. Cruiser designs using torpedoes works well with afterburners as they rely on getting close, so do destroyers using picket designs. The Stellaris 3. Negative shield negation adds to your shield value after all other calculations. #15. This makes shield capacitors basically the strongest defensive upgrade in the entire game, by a wide margin, as every ship in your fleet should be regenerating upwards of 60 shields every day continuously. The great khan event is brutal. Smaller ships only have one aux slot. Stellaris. Takes 180 power, cost 44 Alloy 12 MAs In total shield amount, matches T3 normal shields without the AP, or falls between T4 and T5 (about T4. Tactics Forever, before the dev put it on Steam and then gave up on it. Age of Wonders 4 Empire of Sin Cities: Skylines 2 Crusader Kings 3 Europa Universalis 4 Hearts of Iron 4 Hunter: The Reckoning Imperator:. You have Focused Arc Emitter for a big damage weapon against large ships, Strike Craft. Larger ships have more. Originally posted by NixBoxDone:Capacitor increases shield hit points by 10% so not really that great unless you already have amazing shields, in which case it's overkill. So the Whirlwind Missiles and Strike Craft both pierce shields. 30% armor hardening on top cuts it by another third. Stellaris is discrete in nature, as any software is, and it has to try to represent our continuous time in the best possible way. Losing 100 Ar or 125 Sh to get 65 Hull. This, plus the other randomly rolled admiral traits make them absolutely bonkers. Destroyers are around 2k health and 50% evasion. Toggle signature Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors. The downside if that they use power and missiles/torpedo bypass them entirely. Shields won't regenerate at all unless a charger is present (in vanilla game that is). Ancient Shield Overcharger 100 45: 360: 15 2 +33% Starbase and Defense Platform shield hit points without Archaeo-Engineers +33% Starbase and Defense Platform shield hardening without Archaeo-Engineers +50% Starbase and Defense Platform shield hit points with Archaeo-Engineers +50% Starbase and Defense Platform shield hardening. View this video if you w. 02 DPS to be fair. +20% Shield Hardening +20% Armor Hardening; Any This leader has devised new ways to harden armor. Increased the base damage of Flak PD. Attack the ship with a shield penetration weapon 3. 1) They added Shield/Armor Hardening mechanics, giving different means of defense against piercing weapons (however these are very limited for ships with 1 Aux. 7 throwing this strategy out the window. 2 thirds armour 1 third shield. There's no reason for these things to be mutually exclusive they're not op. Stellaris 3. It will take 4 seconds to bust the shield (+50% bonus) but 12s to bust the armor (-50% penalty) = 16s total. my shield nullification surprise. Legacy Wikis. Let's div. Stellaris > General Discussions > Topic Details. This means it now has 90/2=45 % reduction as the penetration ignores armor value only looking at percentage. Shields can be stacked higher than armour with shield capacitors and have the benefit that always regen after a battle. Autocannons now have a faster fire rate (and thus are very high damage for their weapon size, but have very short range). This community wiki's goal is to be a repository of Stellaris related knowledge, useful for both new and experienced players and for modders. Added Armor Hardening and Shield Hardening modifiers, which reduce armor and shield penetration. . If I take a corvette, and add plating, it takes the place of a slot which could be used for armor or shield. The planet was said to "glow like a sun" at the fury of missile, kinetic and energy attacks unleashed upon it. frac {a} {a + 60} * ( 100% - p% ) I. Go to your Steam library, right click on Stellaris -> Properties -> betas tab -> select "stellaris_test" branch. except corvettes since they only have 3 slots, they use 2 armor 1 shield. g, 100% penetration vs 75% hardening means 25% of the damage goes through. Similarly the pulse armor adds both armor and shields in excess of what you’d get with just T5 components. Hardening, instead of subtracting from penetration, can scale it down; a ship with 20% shield hardening reduces 100% penetration to 80%, and 10% penetration to 8%. So in average the same amount of shield or armor will least half as much time as the hull. I repeat, 100% shield hardening. The Juggernaut has enough power and slots to put 7 of those and fill up the rest with shields. E. Should say something like "track all projects". Fixed materialist culture workers (and death chroniclers) not having the effects of the Charismatic or Repugnant traits. Losing 100 Ar or 125 Sh to get 65 Hull. Stellaris: Armor Hardeners are very effective. I was able to see that they now have 50% shield hardening (which makes sense to me. Takes 90 power, cost 22 Alloy 10 MAs L: +750 shield HP (1200 with AP), 11. as it is with the shields e. On a single medium slot of 100 shield points with 5 recharge per day you will recharge 5 per day, or 5% of your capacity. There are few weapons in the galaxy that can penetrate the hulls. One living metal, and one for the shield, and later with 2 shield. Not on corvettes though. Increased the range of Energy Siphons. If your FAEs/disruptors/etc. Stellaris. 3. That'll teach 'em. Just what it say on the tin. • 20 days ago. Whirlwind missile cruisers with artillery computers, combined with point defense/missile destroyers with artillery computers. Paradox recently added Armor Hardening and Shield Hardening components that utilize them, but it's still pretty common you won't have much to use these on. That's probably because you're in a system with a. More counters should exist for different strategies, and mixed fleets should be more viable than before, covering for the weaknesses of other ship types. Stellaris Dev Diary #312 - 3. I have 9 fleets all consisting of- -1 titan -1 hanger cruiser -26 max hanger battleships -all with 3 shield hardening -max shields -all with a fleet power of 1. You are correct that hull regen is per month. Negative shield negation adds to your shield value after all other calculations. The wiki doesn't say anything about them having point defense. All Discussions Screenshots Artwork Broadcasts Videos Workshop News Guides Reviews. Can confirm - fastest with few pauses can get you through the first 150 years or so on one sitting. Unfortunately with the new 3. Added new aux components that use Living Metal or Zro to provide late game armor and shield hardening. Contingency have massive range XL weapons that will OHKO anything they hit, and Unbidden gets shield hardening, and more importantly, silly shield regen as 2nd and 3rd crisis (I ran the math, their battleship regen. 1 comment. A ship with 1000 hull/armor/shield with 50% shield hardening when fired upon only by missiles will die in exactly the same amount of time as the same ship but with 100% shield hardening. Much more likely to get declared war on since, again, the AI thinks your fleets are much less dangerous than they actually are. Go to your Steam library, right click on Stellaris -> Properties -> betas tab -> select "stellaris_test" branch. . 67. 1M I wanted to know if strike craft/swarm craft(not sure witch is best of the two) where the best at dealing with AI fleets so I gave it a try. Rule 5: After a robot empire defeated a biological empire in a war, I wanted to see what exactly they. . Stellaris Wiki Active Wikis. In the olden days of stellaris when the resources were only available as deposits and gave empire wide buffs they felt a lot more like. It may not be the strongest of origins, but when you play to its strengths it can cover all of your resources with just merchants and scrap miners. Damage 16 - 24 +100% Shield Penetration. Shield Hardener: 10 1: 15 +15% Shield Hardening: With these modifications, the fields generated by our shield emitters will partially deflect attacks that would otherwise bypass the shields. hardening * total. It is developed by Paradox Development Studio and published by Paradox Interactive. That’s how badly hardening gimps penetration weapons. Members Online Does 100% shield hardening work?If I take a corvette, and add plating, it takes the place of a slot which could be used for armor or shield. Does 100% shield hardening work? Does that mean you don't need armor at all? Each Ancient Suspension Field gives +15% shield hardening. +30% Armor hardening +30% Shield hardening +150% Army morale +75% Army health −85% Army collateral damage +2 Planetary combat width +25 Years leader lifespan +40 Monthly research +25% Sublight speed; −50% Time spent missing in action +75% Archaeology excavation speed +25 Years leader lifespan +50 Monthly society. They DO have a tooltip that says that Archaeo-Engineer ascension perk adds 75 shield points to them. So you can either go shield hardening or armor hardening, and it is usually better to go armor hardening due to all of the. If I don't have it, I make full shield platform with shield hardening and rockets, one medium and one small slot. I like shattered ring. So yes they do deal double damage to corvettes. Versatility: this machine-only tradition is carried by a single benefit: +2 Amenities per Maintenance Drone. Armor a in the presence of armor penetration p reduces hull damage by a percentage. I don't know why it would be small, other than your resolution setting being set to an absurdly high number, but there is a UI scaling option in the menu that might fix this (if it doesn't, lower your resolution maybe?). Early game of course I do the classic hangar DP, since they easily counter small ships. Stellaris Real-time strategy Strategy video game Gaming. Based on pre-2. Yes they stack. If you mean by penetration resistance, then yes. Strictly speaking, I haven't found a lot of use for. Similar argument applies to, e. Added Armor Hardening and Shield Hardening modifiers, which reduce armor and shield penetration. Don't forget to turn. If it's the Disruptor then they're going to get a lot more dangerous overnight, and Hardening may become vastly more important. . Toggle signature "And as the 34th Rule of Acquisition states: 'Peace is good for business. . This is a discussion thread, where you can discuss amongst yourselves the changes in the 3. A place to share content, ask questions and/or talk about the 4X grand strategy game Stellaris by Paradox Development Studio. NagolRiverstar • 1 mo. Added Armor Hardening and Shield Hardening modifiers, which reduce armor and shield penetration. You are far better off with basically any slot except for them Reactor booster is a bit useless as well IMO except perhaps early game. Cool. #2. Meaning you can get 100% hardening on a large ship, pretty easily. And ye, I'm already undetectable and in a "sweet spot". The Ether Drake guards the planet known as Dragon’s Hoard and is one of the guardian creatures of Stellaris. :- ( (building a new fleet is much. So reviewing the stats of the ships 200 years into the game and this is what I get: Titans are around 31k total health and 9% evasion. I went the Evolutionary Mastery route this game (I know everyone says it's inferior, but I have fun with it and specializing pops, especially when I have slaves), I got the alien box event which gave me limited regeneration, AND I found the artifact. However 100% hardening is not necessary unless you are making some supertroll late game multiplayer build. 189 commits. I just have to wait a few dozen years for gathering alloys and the game is really-really slow for my PC is old and Stellaris is unoptimized as hell. I fly with a combination of torpedoes and stormfire cannons. More counters should exist for different strategies, and mixed fleets should be more viable than before, covering for the weaknesses of other ship types. I recently fought the Unbidden, which I hadn't done in a long time. Those Khans are notoriously sickly. L gates are different though and they can still enter from the closest I gate into the cluster and go through your L GATE gateway. 2 comments. Stellaris. Stellaris. View this video if you w. 29. Added Armor Hardening and Shield Hardening modifiers, which reduce armor and shield penetration. Stellaris: Psionic Shields & Cloaking Combat Testing. 6 is now available on PC. Weapons in stellaris increase in cost, energy and damage output by 30% every tier. As accidental fly into a pulsar system means if you have the other way you get wrecked. Fixed materialist culture workers (and death chroniclers) not having the effects of the Charismatic or Repugnant traits. Discussion So which one is best based on your experience with the game so far. 34. 0. Added Armor Hardening and Shield Hardening modifiers, which reduce armor and shield penetration. 5 to hull, 18. Relic fighters + some normal artillery = a fun combo, Relic fighters **melt** corvettes and woe to any corvette that puts on shield hardening when the swarm missiles come knocking Relic Lasers can wreck through heavy armored ships that the AI uses, however i never bothered to slot them as i'd prefer longer range weapons in every slot. Upload Attachment EDIT: the philosophy this is based on is pre-3. +20% Shield Hardening +20% Armor Hardening; Any This leader has devised new ways to harden armor. There are many ways to bypass the shield, and armor can also get hardening (as there are also ways to bypass armor), and you should focus on only one hardening to make it actually viable. +30% Armor hardening +30% Shield hardening +150% Army morale +75% Army health −85% Army collateral damage +2 Planetary combat width +25 Years leader lifespan +40 Monthly research +25% Sublight speed; −50% Time spent missing in action +75% Archaeology excavation speed +25 Years leader lifespan +50 Monthly society. . Came up with Stellaris build that pumps out absolutely nutty leaders (and especially admirals) by the mid game. With a mid-game fleet of 110, needing to upgrade my ships with just Ancient. Q2. I prefer armor Regen and have a slight armor favoritism. I think there is a slider in the options menu to scale the UI. Jump to latest Follow Reply. Not on corvettes though. Just had a random thought here. 103 votes, 17 comments. the wiki doesn't have one but I would imagine just "clear" would work if anything is going to. 0 unless otherwise noted. I have 9 fleets all consisting of- -1 titan -1 hanger cruiser -26 max hanger battleships -all with 3 shield hardening -max shields -all with a fleet power of 1. 4. The Stellaris 3. Go to Stellaris r/Stellaris. Added Armor Hardening and Shield Hardening modifiers, which reduce armor and shield penetration. malakhglitch Rogue Servitor. invol713 • 5 yr. Right now though, I am gonna probably change it again, going 10/15/20/25/30 instead, maybe even higher like 15/25/35/40/50. All Discussions Screenshots Artwork Broadcasts Videos Workshop News Guides Reviews. Penetrating weapons are underrated imo. ago. This will not only help balance armor vs shields. 2x regenerative hull tissue. oppressive ways of gathering food. You might get a clue that the khan is overextended or outmatched, and then you can start preparing for the independence wars. Patch 19-03-2023. In this video I test out the new Armor Hardeners which is part of the new 3. Stellaris. Legacy Wikis. Secondly, Disruptors and Arc Emitters should be nerfed down to only have 50% shield bypass. 7 Jobs List (WIP) Original code by bipedalshark Parser code :. Also, shield/armor hardening could make a disruptor-based. I'm assuming. Stellaris Sub: Look at how I stack all these modifiers to make the most meta build and roflstomp the AI which barely is able to comprehend its own game!Go to Stellaris r/Stellaris. Shield Capacitor: 10 1: 20 +10% Shield Hit Points: These capacitors store surplus energy which can quickly be transferred to reinforce a ship's shields. Only by about . Was wondering if this also applies to archeo. Added new aux components that use Living Metal or Zro to provide late game armor and shield hardening. Losing 100 Ar or 125 Sh to get 65 Hull. , if you look at the damage taken by shields and it's got a line for Focused Arc Emitters. Shield Hardener: 10 1: 15 +15% Shield Hardening: With these modifications, the fields generated by our shield emitters will partially deflect attacks that would otherwise bypass the shields. My enemy has mountains of torpedoes (no neutron launchers). Now say, 30% shield hardening cuts Disruptor damage by a third. Zro is also used for the Advanced Shield Hardener, and psi-phase field generator. ago. Strong and robust do affect the crystal, gas, more production though. Modding it back in is easy enough, but i guess PDX were concerned about how fast shields recharge once it's enabled. That’s 17. 5 days. I will make sure to explain this a bit better when its time. Apparently this happens in a pulsar star system and I assume it affects all ships, friend or foe, and that there is no way to eliminate it other than to get. that means with armor you can potentially have a more cost-efficient ship due to lower-tier reactors, or have excess energy which translates into ever so slightly better evasion. The other version is "%chance to reduce any damage from penetrating at all". That’s either by design or by technical limitation. +30% Armor hardening +30% Shield hardening +150% Army morale +75% Army health −85% Army collateral damage +2 Planetary combat width +25 Years leader lifespan +40 Monthly research +25% Sublight speed; −50% Time spent missing in action +75% Archaeology excavation speed +25 Years leader lifespan +50 Monthly society. Further, with 30% Armor Hardening your corvette has 286 EHP. , if you look at the damage taken by shields and it's got a line for Focused Arc Emitters. Unbidden anchors provide 50% hardening to all units in the system. R5: My admirals come with the Clone Ascendant, Psychic, and Brain Slug Host traits; giving me 40% fire rate, -30% ship upkeep, 20% evasion, and 10% ship damage. But yes, in absence of hardening penetration is very good, considering the armor and shield values are much higher than. Its DPS is 4. invol713 • 5 yr. Shield hardening means weapons that ignore shields (strike craft, missiles) will need to deal damage to the shields. It does diminish in effectiveness slightly when faced with shield hardening. Like this: Unbidden have 75% shield hardening, Prethoryn have 75% armor hardening, and Contigency have 50% shield and armor hardening. Shield hardening was extremely useful in my last game (mostly against the Scourge). +20% Shield Hardening +20% Armor Hardening; Any This leader has devised new ways to harden armor. 1680x8 shields or 13440 points. There is too much data tied up in a planet. And it will be 250 out of combat regardless of the number of repeatables, since it is always 5 times the fixed values listed on the components, just like the armour/hull regen is always 1/20th of the percentage value listed on those components. Even with just one from each meaning, that 25% of the disruptor damage taken by the shield, then armor. 60 armor will reduce hull damage by 50% against 0% armor penetration, or 25% against 50% armor penetration. As for the shields and armor (Suspension Field and Pulse Armor), they have hardening characteristics. That's some. More counters should exist for different strategies, and mixed fleets should be more viable than before, covering for the weaknesses of other ship types. One of the several reasons that armour is generally considered a better defense than shields in Stellaris is that there are a lot more weapons that penetrate shields than armour, as well as more weapons with high damage multipliers to shields. Discussion. PSA: Menacing ships do cost minor artifacts if you slap archeo-tech on them. I don't think they've discovered shield hardening at all, since starfighters seem to completely bypass shielding on capital ships. and with the introduction of armor and shield hardening it's just not effective. last week.