Is spaceship armor useless?

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

It's probably more accurate to say that whoever can saturate the void with more pewpewpew wins, as skill levels tend to be at least somewhat similar. Also, PD can get higher hit probability in the last phases of the missile flight by shooting at shorter and shorter ranges.

Well, that would depend on the exchange rate in 'pewpewpew'. Which given that the defensive weapons are likely VRF will be nowhere remotely near 1:1 unless you use the 'missiles are worthless' variant rule. (Missile Shield, that is.)

I need to grind some numbers PD versus missiles for tactical rules, actually. In final defensive fire, VRF beams are not the equal of fragmenting missiles. But killing all the buses before they get to make their own attack rolls might turn things.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

And battery construction seems to favour light beams over missiles, since you always take the tiniest beams available as long as you have enough gunners (likely you do if you have AIs of any sort!).

You always take the tiniest missiles available and give each launcher a gunner too, there's no difference there that I can see.