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[Arcvasti]

It depends. I've blocked all the boarding drones, missiles AND hacking modules the boss has thrown at me[Double Defense Drone IIs FTW] some times, and had the same setup fail to catch anything important the next time. I've also had the second stage boss block 10-15 consecutive hacking drones and then not even hit one the next time around. Its down to luck mostly.

FAKEEDIT: Rock Plating is cool IMHO. Same with Titanium System Plating. And its better statistically then starting with 33 hp because it blocks multiple things of damage. I've shrugged off 4-damage hull missiles with Rock Plating. It just doesn't FEEL that powerful, not like the Zoltan Shield does. But its pretty neat. The Rock A's starting weapons are pretty pathetic though.

FAKEEDITX2COMBO: Especially on Hard, having to shoot twice as many missiles to do damage is REALLY bad. Its not a "Completely unbeatable" counter, but it makes your life miserable.

[Leafsnail]

Weird... I've blocked like 8 in a row before with my own defense drone.

I believe it depends on the ship layout.  Rounder and smaller ones (like the engis) are easier to defend.  The flagship's single defense drone has serious trouble though since it's so large, I can usually get a hacker through it after 3-4 shots.

[Arcvasti]

Weird... I've blocked like 8 in a row before with my own defense drone.

I believe it depends on the ship layout.  Rounder and smaller ones (like the engis) are easier to defend.  The flagship's single defense drone has serious trouble though since it's so large, I can usually get a hacker through it after 3-4 shots.

Wait, so they've designed it so that the Engi's[The drone-focused ships] gain the most benefit from defense drones? Thats really clever.

[Leafsnail]

I'm not sure if it's a conscious decision so much as a by-product of how the drone targeting mechanics work, but it would be cool if the engi ship was deliberately designed that way.

[GiglameshDespair]

Damn. Got to the third stage of the boss with zoltan A, but fell at the final hurdle. The first superweapon shot devastated everything.

[Jim Groovester]

I think rock plating is a really dumb special augment. 10% chance to take no damage, big deal. That is like starting with 33 HP instead of 30.

It changes your mind when it saves you from a breach missile that would otherwise kill your ship.

[Fikes]

I think rock plating is a really dumb special augment. 10% chance to take no damage, big deal. That is like starting with 33 HP instead of 30.

It changes your mind when it saves you from a breach missile that would otherwise kill your ship.

Only if you go on to win. In any other case it didn't save you from (most of) the 29 other points of you took.

I consider myself a somewhat unlucky person, so systems like rock plating bother me. They always seem to block damage when I don't need them to and fail me when I need them most. Personally I much prefer systems like the super shield. Give me 5 hits to get my weapons charged.

Almost all of the augments are usefull, I just find rock plating to be one of the least interesting for me.

Also on the whole firing to missiles at once to beat the defense drone... it just isn't worth it in the first few sectors. If you are dropping 6 missiles to beat a ship that drops 20 scrap you are just setting yourself back by fighting.

[Werdna]

I'm happy to start with dumb augments... just milk it's crappy bonus until the moment you need that handful of extra credits to buy something important, and sell it. 

[Mageziya]

Spoiler: Tekite, Two Crystal Crew, Sector 7: Rock Homeworlds (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Despite being Sector 7, it still worked. (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: A Fleet of my Own (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Absolutely Beautiful (click to show/hide)

What I like most about this is that the Tektite didn't technically do anything other than provide the Rock Plating necessary to get the stasis pod. It was a almost pure red map and one of the few green sectors was a Engi sector, the only second where you can both find and open the statsis pod.

The stasis pod opening is preferable, since, from what I've heard, opening the stasis pod gives you a quest marker while the Tektite starter crew member doesn't.

Whatever, I'm still happy right now.

[sambojin]

Rock plating is great for the above points (shots that will do more than 1 point of damage successfully avoided), plus I'm almost sure the percentages listed for dodge, rock plating and pilot/engine room crew +percentages are off by miles. There's some massive statistical curving going on, or hidden bonuses, or crew skill-stacking. 30% dodge is far more effective than that percentage indicates, even more-so with a good pilot/engine crew. I've seen my own and enemy rock ships shrug off far more damage than 10% would indicate. Maybe it's also "per-weapon-shot", so a 3 shot laser can still fail miserably to damage any hull points after 2 3-burst shots. Rock plating still seems to block way more than 10% in any case, but so does 25% dodge.

Might be early sector !science! time.

[sambojin]

I actually think it might be a combination of the above, with pseudo-RNG stacking (think DOTA 2. The more the percentage doesn't work, the bigger the percentage stacks, so it will eventually work).

So:
Everything that hits your ship (including beams) stacks your dodge/plating chance higher.
Dodge works on "per projectile", reverting to base value after one dodge.
Plating works on "weapon fired", regardless of projectile count or damage of projectiles, reverting to 10% after hull damage is subverted.
Pseudo-RNG may stack with any damage taken, possibly even auto-ion-shield-damage (??)
Crew skills may stack if at a console (?)

Testing time.

So, hull plating is good (way more than 10% sounds). Ion-auto-shield damage might stack the enemy's dodge, but it stacks your own as well if they hit you with it. It may stack plating chances as well.

Engine upgrades are worth their weight in gold if pseudo-rng is used.

theory: Fire beams/breach bombs *may* take away crew-stacking-bonuses at consoles because they go into auto fix-up mode away from a console rather than dodge-stack, but are highly useful anyway. So are teleporters, mind controls and hacking (which immediately puts enemy crew into "kick down doors/fight" mode). But only maybe. If console-crew skills stack in any way.

But I'm pretty sure it's a standard pseudo-rng, otherwise I'd never be able to rely on the dodge chances. It still seems higher than the numbers indicated though.

[lemon10]

I can't fire up the game at this exact moment to check, but all the sites say that rock plating blocks 15%, not 10% of attacks (which means one in 6.66 instead of one in 10). They might have changed it for advanced edition though and the sites might be wrong.

(shots that will do more than 1 point of damage successfully avoided)

It still only blocks 15% of those attacks. Having it block a 4 damage missile is nice, but that means that (on average) 6.66 other 4 damage attacks got through just fine.
Now, you could be right about it blocking more then 15% (although I think that unlikely), in which case it become a significantly better augment. As it is though, it should end up blocking like 9-16 (assuming you take somewhere from 60 to 110 points of total damage) points of damage. It is a decent augment (especially since you can sell it for a pretty penny), but it isn't the best by any means.

I actually think it might be a combination of the above, with pseudo-RNG stacking (think DOTA 2. The more the percentage doesn't work, the bigger the percentage stacks, so it will eventually work).

So:
Everything that hits your ship (including beams) stacks your dodge/plating chance higher.
Dodge works on "per projectile", reverting to base value after one dodge.
Plating works on "weapon fired", regardless of projectile count or damage of projectiles, reverting to 10% after hull damage is subverted.
Pseudo-RNG may stack with any damage taken, possibly even auto-ion-shield-damage (??)
Crew skills may stack if at a console (?)

Testing time.

DOTA's psuedo RNG still has it average out to the listed amount over time. Now, if you are right and it takes some wonky stacking calculations I could see it getting higher then its listed chance, but if it was done in any reasonable manner, it should still even out to what is listed.

Now, I don't have any evidence of course that it isn't happening this way, it seems unlikely that it would work like that (especially for the rock plating, which would have no reason at all to get stronger the more your sheild is hit). Either way, even with pseudo RNG, the end value will equal the listed value unless he royally screwed it up in coding it.

[EnigmaticHat]

-snip-

30% dodge is better than it sounds, because its effectiveness stacks with your shields.

Let's say you're in the early game and the enemy ship has a burst laser MK 1 (2 shots) to your one shield layer.  You have 30% dodge (for some reason).  Chance of taking damage from a single volley?  49.9%.

Then let's say a ship is shooting at you with a burst laser Mk III (five shots) to your four shield layers and 30% evade.  The chance that you'll be damaged is now ~16.8%.

Now the enemy may have more guns, but they probably won't fire them all in unison due to AI dumbness.  Because your shield and evade stack with each other, even with 30% evade (which is bad for the lategame) you are still heavily resistant to laser weapons.  This is why missiles suck so much to fight against, because they give you one flat evade chance.

[BurnedToast]

It still only blocks 15% of those attacks. Having it block a 4 damage missile is nice, but that means that (on average) 6.66 other 4 damage attacks got through just fine.

rock plating only "costs" 40 scrap (the opportunity cost of not selling it).

40 scrap for a flat 15% damage mitigation is significantly better then buying engine power, and arguably better then buying half a shield bubble. Furthermore it stacks with both of those and works against anything (it even blocks damage from fires).

On it's own, no, it's not an amazing, game-changing augment. It's not one of the top 3 that most people would pick if they could fill their 3 augment slots with anything they wanted.

But it's worth keeping till you find something better, especially considering I often finish the game with less then 3 augments (or with augments taken by something worse then rock plating). There's no reason to sell it at the first shop you see, since the scrap will (probably) help you less then the rock plating does, unless you're super desperate for that second shield bubble or something.

Also: I have no reason to believe FTL uses any sort of pseudo-rng, as far as I can tell what you see is what you get. DotA and such use a pseudo-RNG to make things less streaky because they are competitive games, and too much randomness in a competitive game is bad. FTL is not a competitive game... in fact having the RNG dick you over and make you lose because of a streak of bad luck seems like something the developers would embrace given how much it happens with everything else.

Without a massive amount of trials and data crunching (or reading the code, or asking the developers) I don't think we can really say for sure though. Just a "feeling" you have is not good enough, and just a few hundred trials is also not good enough.

[EnigmaticHat]

The thing about rock plating is that, unless you're playing really badly, most enemy shots will hit your shields instead of hull.  It also doesn't prevent system damage, which means an unlucky missile hit can still send things spiraling out of control as usual.

The main good thing about rock plating imo is that (like cloak and defense drones) it increases the maximum defense you can achieve.  Once you've reached 8 shield power 5 engine power there is no practical way to upgrade your defenses unless you have additional systems or augments.  Rock plating is another stacking layer of defense you can achieve.

40 scrap on the other hand... om nom nom scrap.  On hard mode I'd sell it early game the vast majority of the time because 40 scrap is massive for 1st sector hard mode and all the Rock ships want either a teleporter or a new gun in the 1/2nd sector.