I am looking at them for my 2 defense mod MC80.

I have always been a huge fan of ECMs and I am starting to like Blast Doors. When Redundant Shields came out I thought they were great, but I never used them because I was always using my only slot for ECMs.

Is this just another example of an upgrade in the 2nd place slot that never gets used because everyone always picks the upgrade that is just better, or do people us Redundant Shields?

When do you think it is better than ECM of Blast Doors?

Only in a niche max shield regeneration build. And even then I think ECM+RBD is better.

I've started using it more often. But that's because of a Meta shift... I was seeing a whole ton of Dodonna Bombers and fewer combat ships, so AP + RS, or RS+RBD was getting more mileage, taking all of the hits on shields rather than hull.

But I never see it on the Empire side.

I run a super pickle list at events and I started using Redundant Shields/RBD over ECMs/RBD and it is infinitely better since the most consistently strong lists are squadron heavy lists (Sloane/Gallant Haven), at least in my experience. I also believe R. Shields are a really good upgrade on a Jerry ISD2 since you can get max value from it. ECM has kind of fallen out of favor since no one really brings big heavy hitters without some form of token removal (i.e. Sloane/Boarding Troops/Intel Officer). But this can vary based on your local meta of course.

Edit: Taking R. Shields over ECMs kinda sucks if you're facing accuracy generation, but the reality for me is squadron heavy lists are way more powerful and have less counterplay than heavy hitters with accuracy generation.

Sensor Teams in da haus

On a per cost basis, you need RS to trigger at least three times to be worth the points. That knowledge must factor into both your build and your flight plan and is pretty tough to pull off in practice.

if you've got enough shield regeneration, you can forgo ECM for advanced projectors as your second upgrade and then use the regent to overcome the fact that you might not be able to brace, but you're talking RS plus STM plus super engineering to really play pull off. then you need to have a list that forces the opponent to go after your big ship to win the game.

theres probably a build out there on the variant of the current mc80 objective builds thst hasnr really been played yet.

All of the non cluster, non ecm defensive retros that see play are basically all about saving 3 damage points. RBD saves 3 face downs... AP saves 3 points by giving you access to far side or rear shields. Redundant saves 3 or so... they all essentially balance out.

its ECM that ruins choice by saving more damage overall for the points.

I run it in a crazy 2xMC80A with projection experts build.

So yeah, you have to have a way to expect damage often without destroying a ship. Jerjerrod or Projection Experts are the two things that come to mind to justify Redundant Shields.

I saw it once on one of my son's double ISD Motti builds. It was effective enough that I just mowed his squadrons and circled until I could pile fire into one rear arc for the win. Pretty sure I was planning Mothma corvette swarm, with a single MC30 Foresight as my flagship, and a mess of rogues. I think he melted 2 of my CR90s at long range before the end.

3 hours ago, Drasnighta said:

All of the non cluster, non ecm defensive retros that see play are basically all about saving 3 damage points. RBD saves 3 face downs... AP saves 3 points by giving you access to far side or rear shields. Redundant saves 3 or so... they all essentially balance out.

its ECM that ruins choice by saving more damage overall for the points.

So if we are saying they are all roughly equal than for points sake ECM/RBD is the most effective defense for the points.

12 minutes ago, BrobaFett said:

So if we are saying they are all roughly equal than for points sake ECM/RBD is the most effective defense for the points.

Full Disclosure:

If you operate under the assumption that Redundant Shields is only going to regenerate 3 shields in a game, and that Advanced Projectors is only worth the Rear Shields of your ship.

Yes.

If you get four shields out of Redundant, its about on par with RBD for points to effectiveness.

If you happen to get five workable shields out of Redundant, it places it ahead of RBD. Points to Damage Point. Of course, you've basically got to be hit by a Nose Punch for that to work out. (Since it would involve taking damage turn 1, since if you're alive to regen turn 6 status phase, its irrelevent anyway)

Judging it based on Points-Worth-of-Engineering-Value-to-points , then RBD is the most efficient of the lot, since it saves 9 Engineering Points worth of Damage, whereas even 4 rounds of Regen of Redundant is only worth 8 Engineering points.

Advanced Projectors (on a 3 rear shield ship) is either worth 6 points (Shields you'd be bringing up to equal 3 more shields taken), or 3 points (3 transferred shields), either way, making it the least efficient by rating.

But you can't unfortunately rate ECM that was a comparison, because you can't judge saved damage points directly on engineering points without knowing how many shields you have versus how many hull... Which is why I use the Damage points saved directive.

For that note, Cluster Bombs damage rating is highly variable, but it is, effectively, worth 1 point of Damage per turn remaining if you make the assumption the damage dealt out will kill its target . So if you kill a Black die bomber target turn 3, then the best you can say is that it has saved turns 4-6 worth of Damage, at an average Black die damage of 1 (so 3 damage), again, fairly average. (Which arguably puts it on the level of the other ones... ironic and unbelievable, isn't it? )

The points saved is better if the threat target is a B-Wing/Scurrg/Decimator - something with more than the average bomber damage of 1. Which again, if it works turn two, makes it even better, and if you kill a B-Wing target turn 2 with it, then its effectively saving you the most damage of the lot......

Which, of course, just goes to prove that the whole metric is obviously unbelievable , because you shouldn't be able to semi-mathematically infer that Cluster Bombs are useful.

But it requires big assumptions:

1) Your threats are Bombers, not Ships. Which is the opposite of ECMs, which are only efficient when your threats are Ships, not Bombers.

2) between the cluster bombs and whatever else, the Cluster Bombs is going to eliminate that target as a threat, either because you killed it, or you dropped it so low in hull it flies away and does nothing else in the game to not give up its points.

Which, honestly, are big assumptions.

But theoretically possible. Especially since you can't defense token Cluster Bomb's damage.

...

I unwittingly made a case for Cluster Bombs as efficient damage mitigation .

I feel dirty.

(At least its not a very good case.)

The advantage of RS over RBD is the possibility of keeping crits off of your hull, which FFG tends to value quite highly in determining balancing value.

7 hours ago, Hrathen said:

I am looking at them for my 2 defense mod MC80.

I have always been a huge fan of ECMs and I am starting to like Blast Doors. When Redundant Shields came out I thought they were great, but I never used them because I was always using my only slot for ECMs.

Is this just another example of an upgrade in the 2nd place slot that never gets used because everyone always picks the upgrade that is just better, or do people us Redundant Shields?

When do you think it is better than ECM of Blast Doors?

In my local meta ECM is very rarely used, and I can not remember Blast Doors ever being used, Redundant Shields on the other hand it makes it to the table lots.

2 hours ago, CDAT said:

In my local meta ECM is very rarely used, and I can not remember Blast Doors ever being used, Redundant Shields on the other hand it makes it to the table lots.

Blimey - no RBDs ever? My super pickle never leaves home without them. In fact, he'd love to be able to take two sets...

19 minutes ago, Rearadmiralsdoitinspace said:

Blimey - no RBDs ever? My super pickle never leaves home without them. In fact, he'd love to be able to take two sets...

Super pickle?

1 minute ago, CDAT said:

Super pickle?

MC80 tank - with Raymus, RBDs and advanced projectors.

4 hours ago, Drasnighta said:

...

I unwittingly made a case for Cluster Bombs as efficient damage mitigation .

I feel dirty.

(At least its not a very good case.)

You didn't put all your brain on it.

4 hours ago, Drasnighta said:

For that note, Cluster Bombs damage rating is highly variable, but it is, effectively, worth 1 point of Damage per turn remaining if you make the assumption the damage dealt out will kill its target . So if you kill a Black die bomber target turn 3, then the best you can say is that it has saved turns 4-6 worth of Damage, at an average Black die damage of 1 (so 3 damage), again, fairly average. (Which arguably puts it on the level of the other ones... ironic and unbelievable, isn't it? )

The points saved is better if the threat target is a B-Wing/Scurrg/Decimator - something with more than the average bomber damage of 1. Which again, if it works turn two, makes it even better, and if you kill a B-Wing target turn 2 with it, then its effectively saving you the most damage of the lot......

Cluster could save you turns 4-6 of b-wing modified (BCC+Toryn) damage and give you the points of the squadron, so we should count

- squadron's points

- modified average damage

- modifiers' fraction of points now the squadron is dead. Only external modifiers. Keyan skill is covered by his points.

Against

- cluster bomb cost

Killing a decimator you save 4.5 damage per -17 points!!

With Sloane around even killing a single TIE means around 2 damage + 1 token with a 3 points profit.

Is that a good case? IS THAT A GOOD CASE?!

I suppose it is still not.

so your case boils down to ... do you know your going up against Sloane 100% of the games you'll be playing with this list?

do you have a list that wants to be 400 points and you dont know what else will take you to 400 points?

I refer ECM and RBD over RS. If enemies see you have RS they may not shoot at that ship unless they can go a significant way to destroying it on that turn. Opponents know the last thing they should do is try and kill you with light-moderate damage accumulated over 5 turns.

There are a few examples when RS gets an extra benefit by being used to repair shields from damage from other sources.

• As @Church14 says if your ship has Projection experts then RS can help repair the self inflicted damage you take to repair your other ships.
• If you are playing Dangerous Territory as first player then landing on a wreckage obstacle and taking 2 shield damage early in the game can start to be repaired straight away, even if the enemy are not yet a threat or choose to shoot a different target.
• Playing Planetary Ion Cannon can have a similar effect as you use your ship with RS and maybe a repair command plotted to deliberately clear the token away early.
• If you use Moff JJ a lot for hairpin turns then RS can benefit a ship not being targeted by the enemy.

12 hours ago, Drasnighta said:

its ECM that ruins choice by saving more damage overall for the points.

Only on the brace on really big shots, which means if they aren't running a list that both takes really big shots AND has a high propensity to get accuracies, it doesn't really save those points at all. Even then, in situations where they are taking a couple of different shots, the cost savings might only be the difference between the highest braceable shot versus the next highest braceable shot.

I think the ECM tendency comes from the fact that in those situations where an ISD-II does shoot you, you really really emotionally feel the effect of all that damage at once, and you REALLY regret that lack of ECM. Its just that ECM might very well sit unused for 3-4 games before that one game comes up.

32 minutes ago, Vergilius said:

Only on the brace on really big shots, which means if they aren't running a list that both takes really big shots AND has a high propensity to get accuracies, it doesn't really save those points at all. Even then, in situations where they are taking a couple of different shots, the cost savings might only be the difference between the highest braceable shot versus the next highest braceable shot.

I think the ECM tendency comes from the fact that in those situations where an ISD-II does shoot you, you really really emotionally feel the effect of all that damage at once, and you REALLY regret that lack of ECM. Its just that ECM might very well sit unused for 3-4 games before that one game comes up.

It's not just that. If you can save more than 3damage in a game by using ECM to use an acc targeted brace, you are ahead of all other defensive s, and that is easy to do. Because it doesn't have to be all at once.

Using a Arquitens Command Cruiser with both Redundant Shields and Projection Experts is something thats pretty useful. Also works great in a Jerjerrod Fleet.

Same can be done with a CR90B.

SO what we are saying here is that those CR90B's, running alongside your death pickle, should be packing cluster bombs.

Good to know.

1 hour ago, Drasnighta said:

It's not just that. If you can save more than 3damage in a game by using ECM to use an acc targeted brace, you are ahead of all other defensive s, and that is easy to do. Because it doesn't have to be all at once.

That's fine and all if there list has high dice shots that produce accuracies. If they don't, it did precisely nothing for you.

in my experience, the ECM is either worth some really large number of damage points saved because they could make a several rounds of really big shots, or it is worth nothing because their list just didn't produce accuracies. There is an element of perception bias here because really big results tend to stick out in our minds whereas the standard results are less noteworthy. There's a reason a number of high level players are fine running without ECM in major events.