Shields: Are they really that useful?

It matters, if you have shields and your enemy has Missles or MDs they are not good. But on a side note if you have a High Shield rating you take the square root of that rating and get that defense. So if you have 25 Shield Defense going agaist 10 Attack of Missles your safe.

There is alot of thinking and it does hurt my head some... I usually go up one tree and go with that.. If I need something else I will just trade for it instead in the other trees.

I presume you mean defenses in general, rather than the specific 'shield' category of defense?

If that is the case, then I can categorically say that defenses are extremely useful to have. It's not impossible for you to come out of a fight having taken only 3 or 4 HP damage, if your defenses are attuned correctly. Being able to send a single fleet in and destroying a significant portion of the enemy armada before it dies/needs repairs is a very, very nice thing.

The bigger your ships the more you'll want to focus on their survival. The more HP you have when you eventually upgrade a ship, the beefier that new ship will be. basically, once youve researched medium hull, its when you start to think of D. i've had 50 HP medium hull ships that had 10 laser attack. a fleet of 3 = 30 attack, fleet of for (logistics of 14) = 40 attack...

40 attack + 50 hp each = dead precursor "ranger" ship if not heavily damaged... (precursor ship is 24 mass D, 24 armor, ~50 HP.

warui is right, think about fleets too.. Maybe it might be a good idea to have two versions of ships, one with high defenses in Such and such Defense, the other in a different one. Then when you mix them in a fleet you add all that up.

BUt of course if you know that your enemy only has Beam weapons them by all means only use Shields, until they adapt, then switch.

Of course if your not playing on a Higher difficulty you don't have to worry about the AI adapting too much anyway.

In a fleet of 4 ships I'll have 3 high attack no defense ships and one ship with high defense and low attack. Combined it may give me a 20 attack and 5 defense lets say. Even that 5 defense against the right weapon really helps you survive, especially if you attack first.

I will always begin with more power = better fleet. But as long as I'm doing the attacking, but if an enemy has hi-tech weapons of a specific type then for sure I will start developing designs that can even completely negate the damage done making them untouchable by that empire. (Until they revise their own designs)

warui is right, think about fleets too.. Maybe it might be a good idea to have two versions of ships, one with high defenses in Such and such Defense, the other in a different one. Then when you mix them in a fleet you add all that up.

It doesn't exactly work that way - the fleet may have balanced numbers, but the ships themselves will still have the initial weapons/armor you gave them. The computer will just blow up the ships that have the non-optimal defenses first, because they're an easier target.

That said, it's not a bad idea to make mixed fleets, just expect losses in your non-optimal ships to be high.

Well, my balanced / defensive heavy fleets always trash the AI offense only fleets. If a ship survives, it gains xp, and eventually hps. a 40 hp each frigate fleet can be quite a monster.

Once my offense only fleets were getting slaughtered by the drengen high hp (I guess they were war party) fleets. Once I added decent defense they started surviving, and the tide of battle turned.

It's all about countering whatever the AI is building. I always put defense on a ship. Even if it is the wrong type it still helps out a little. My defensive fleets always slaughter the AIs more offensive ships. Even when they have twice the attack rating of mine. I've gotten to the point where I'll research at least the first set of each of the defensive types just so I can counter whatever the AI happens to show up with.

That's not the case for me. I usually go for missiles, they are the most powerful in my opinion. I kick AI butt when they come to me with a fleet of lets say 20 mass driver attack and 15 deflector, and I have a fleet of 24 missile attack and no defense. Of course I usually have more hp in these fights (usually about 1.5 times more), but I literally destroy dozens of their ships with my attack only ships. In my most recent game, I destroyed 75 of their attack ships and lost only 5.

And the funny thing is that I usually follow a defensive strategy once there is a war; so I tend to do defense with my attack ships The only thing I absolutely make sure is that I attack first. I think that gives you a BIG upperhand.
So in the end I still don't believe armor is all that needed, may be for huge ships to protect them, and just to fill up empty space thats left after you fill the hull with weapons.