Creating a damage-soaker ship?

It would seem like if the AI algorithm is as they have described it, this wouldn't be viable. Supposedly the AI aims to take out as much firepower as it can with as little damage as it can. A damage soaker would read as having to take a lot of damage, and not possess much firepower. On the other hand the fighters would have some firepower, but comparitively smaller damage capacity. The AI would then pop off each of the fighters before even engaging the damage soaker (completely defeating the purpose of the ship).

The early beta builds let this exploit happen.It was changed.

So it's an exploit to build a ship with a lot of defense on it? Maybe I'm not understanding this topic...(I'm still new to the game world, for the most part..sorry for my noobishness)

Starbane, Ashbery was talking about a previous test version of the game. Apparently it has been changed (i've not checked it myself yet though)

It is an exploit because then you would be unstoppable. You are gaming the system by having a ship with no guns and all defense. If you were really fighting and you new the enemy had a ship with no weapons and a ton of defense why would you waste any time attacking it. You would take the first chance you got and take out the ships that could do you serious damage and mop up the overly defensed ship at your leisure later. And for the original poster you can not do this now.

Starbane, lachniet was proposing creating a ship with basically ONLY defense, hoping that the AI would target it before hitting the weaker units that actually have offensive capabilities. In theory, if the damage soaker had enough defensive capabilities it could be nearly impervious to all the attacks, while the smaller units whittle down the opposing side. Apparently this worked at one point (pre-release), but the AI has since been modified to target differently.

its an exploit to build a ship with lots of defenses and no weapons and try to make the AI attack that ship above all others. You'd be better off making a capital ship and giving it good defenses

Throw a ranger in their. last one I found had 24mass defence and 48mass attack. IIRC that will soak 8 damage from beam or missile alone! Really good find early on.

The manual states that ships with the HIGHEST attack rating combined with the LOWEST defense rating will be targetted first.

It makes sense to go after the most dangerous and easily destroyed ship first, and this is exactly what it does.

So it makes sense to make balanced ships.