If you focus on PvP, would you rather be running hull or defenses?

Honestly? Both.

Hull alone doesn't do all that well, (It does better than all defense) and all defense fails.

You want mostly hull, and as many special defense modules as you can + 1-2 researched defense.

After 870 kills, I'd say tank hull and back it up with some defense.

max your hull and weapons first then finish will defense, and keep adding defense until you have all 8 mods.

i dont use any of the special/weekly/NPC mods until i am full on the researched mods (maybe use 1 or 2 for random space filler), unless they are more powerful than the researched ones i have atm, but that isnt possible for me now because of how far i have researched - hence me filling up with my researched ones first. (never scrap non-researched mods)

but i have never been exclusively PvP, so i have also always kept one scanner and one cloak installed, and as i have space i would alternate adding def-cloak mods. but i am just now able to have full installation of weapons-def-cloak and will now be adding one more scanner and fill up with shields as my decks expand.

that is what i did and has worked great for me.

btw, i am almost at insane rep, rank 316 Heavy Star Destroyer,
Battles 54116 (Legend)
Player Kills 382
Deaths from Players 84
Non-Player Kills 4630

but i have slowed down on battles in the past several months to get missions done, working on getting 30 second energy recharge rate.

Unless you have like 1/4 to 1/5 of the attack of your enemy in def, doubling def should halve the damage just about. So for people with some def and some hull, basically ask yourself would it take less decks to double def, or hull ? In the end your toughness is a factor of (hull * defense) / (decks * enemyattack) . You can't control enemy attack, but you can control the others.

Can't agree with rogue reign any more than totally

Essentially he summed up how i constructed my ship

I also have always run at least one of the best scanners and best cloaks (currently two cloak to avoid the worst of the red badge mayhem)

I PVP more than him (1300 odd kills- dissed 161 times)

ship about same level and same size- and i never ever see him on bt- so i am guessing his cloak is reasonably good- i cycle through the bt a lot

unless his ship name something completely different- which it may be

I have also loaded a fair few extra modules and artifacts that boost scan- helps find those great planets- the best ships need the best resources

This totally. Defense is what makes your ship tough. Hull and sheilds are just more hitpoints. Having a bunch of hull and shields w/o any defense does nothing for you. I laugh when I hit other ships for 500-800 damage a hit, I know it's gonna be an easy kill. The thing is defense mods are HUGE, they're tied with scanners for the biggest mods you can stick on your ship, where as hull mods are very small. Sheilds are in between. Once you get all 8 guns on your boat, max out all 5 hull mods then all 8 defense mods then all 5 shields. Idk where you tech is at, but don't research guns past heavy nulls, they're not worth it for the cost for a long long time. On the bright side, once you manage to get the space for all of the mods, upgrading is easy as it takes much fewer decks to upgrade an existing mod than it does to fit a whole one on.

ty. and yes this is also my ship name

it depends on how far you are researched some mods, most of salvageable mods are 5 points of goodness per 1 deck
my Crimson weapons (auto lasers and auto phasers) went to rubbish when i researched Antiproton cannon, its a point where they become useless, but for other mods i am still siting on salvageable ones, because they are more space efficient.
P.S. you can install only 4 mods of defense

Untrue you can put on 8 models of defense. 4 thursters and 4 dampners. Where as you can only have 5 hull models. However while you can get more def then hull I still prefer hull to defense. If you are a heavy PVper and don't have to worry about many traps the only thing that will slow you down is not having enough Nano's and while defense does help with this at smaller lvl's having high attack and high hull or shield will make your attacks go much faster on others and save you on the ever needed nano's. And with the prices in the markets on nano's this is a good thing. lol Hope this helps but I went most of the game with very little defense and I think I ended up fine. lol

basically yes, just about what i had said "max weapons and hull first" (shields are to much space for the hit points you get) "then finish with defense, and keep adding defense until you have all 8 mods"

but many, if not most keep 1 or 2 scanners and 1 or more cloaks installed some if not most of the time as well..

if your ship is too small for all of this you may need to have an online ship build and an offline ship build.

say your online build is all guns, hull maxed, then as much def as you can get in there - (maybe 1 or 2 scanners or cloak if you have space.) (in hopes to defend against a hack or crit-hack)
(not so much need for cloak cuz you are online to defend yourself at that very moment an attack happens) (unless you are a hacker then your ship build would be more geared to that = max cloak , 1 to 3 scanners, then fill in space with as much hull as you can first then def to fill the rest of space (just incase of retaliation))

and your off line build is all cloak, hull maxed, then as much def and/or weapons as possible to fill in space, maybe 1 scanner (or 2).
(if you have decent cloak mods for your rank/size you wouldnt have to worry about attacks very often at all)

be a small ship build! never install a single defence or weapon module. rake in the kills hardly ever disabled. full of win

hull

Okay, after alot more killing. (now on leaderboard) I think that, you definitely need a balance. Focus on hull, but make sure you have plenty of defense to back it up.

i run 1 defense and im almost done building up to 5 hull, which is the ratio im going to keep for a very long time

-1 not going to be good in the long run i think

I go by both hull and defenses. My defense is extremely high for my rank, my defense research is 2 research tiers away from completion, and I am a VERY slow ranker.


My current modules in defense.


My current modules installed. Still need 2 more Exergonic Inverters to be complete.


My current stats. Just from 2 Exergonic Inverters, my upkeep went up from 197M to 319M CR / day. =(

Go for weapons, I have a quarter your def, tripole your attack, and 5 hull mods