Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 2 – Imperial Navy Upgrades

Imperial Navy Upgrades

Other Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 2 Guides:

• Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 2 – Imperial Navy Skills
• Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 2 – Imperial Navy Ships
• Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 2 – Beginners Guide
• Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 2 – Tips and Tricks

Navigational Shields

• Damage caused by asteroid fields, minefields and spore fields is nullified.
• Applies to all fleet’s ships

This passive ability is a decent upgrade for the fleet that simply removes enviornmental damage. This ability is more useful for kiting/ambushing/harassing types of fleets as these battlegroups tend to hug the outer edges of the map. It also allows players to more easily put their ships into asteroid clusters as being stationary within them allows ships to be stealthed. For the Imperial Navy this skill has little value unless you plan on using any of the strategies previously mentioned. Most Imperial vessels aren’t fast enough to catch enemy ships by suprise, but this may have more merit with a massed Nova Cannon strategy.

Improved Augur Array

• The indentification range of the ship is increased by 4,500 units.
• Applies to fleet’s escort ships and light cruisers

An excellent ability for improving the scouting potential of your fleet, this upgrade gets better with the more ships you have under the escort/light cruiser classification within your fleet. If you are only taking this upgrade to simply improve around 2-3 ships in your fleet, I would pass on it. There are better upgrades available to you. If however you build a fleet consisting of only light cruisers and escorts, this is a must.

Power Ram

• Ramming damage is increased by 50%
• Applies to fleet’s Imperial Navy ships with spurs.

Do you want to smash your ships into your opponents? This is the perfect upgrade for you. Aside from the coolness factor that this ability brings it is at times questionably viable. Here are the reasons why:

1. First, if we look at what “spurs” are for the Imperial Navy, they increase ramming damage on ships that have them equipped by 300% to escort class ships and 50% to line ships (everything else that isn’t an escort). This ability would stack with these passives to bring it to 350% damage versus escorts and 100% damage bonus versus line ships. You have to ask yourself if this minor damage boost is honestly worth considering, if it was higher say 100% then it might make it more promising.
2. You have to remember that Imperial ships are slower than most other factions, so if you take this against Eldar and go against a good Eldar player who doesn’t let you get close to their ships, this upgrade is wasted.
3. There are some factions that the Imperial Navy doesn’t want to get into close combat with. The Tyranids and Space Marines are prime examples of this. Both of these factions want to get close so that they can board you with their superior troop efficiency. Why would you allow what these factions want to do and play into their hands?

Auxiliary Shield Capacitors

• Increases shield regeneration speed by 25%
• Applies to all ships

This upgrade is the first amazing one of the list. In no way is this upgrade ever wasted or useless unless someone destroys the generator system on your ships. The fact that you have your shields recharging faster means that they are up more and absorbing more damage. Over the course of an engagement this can mean that your shields were up 1 to several more times than they would have been without this upgrade. Understand that the amount of damage mitigation in the long term of a fight can counter an opponent quite well and can mean the difference between you outlasting your opponent and just falling short of victory. Even if your ships are hit by something like a disruption bomb, the fact that your shields will be up sooner means that you recover faster and are better able to disrupt future attacks.

Aurent-Pattern Weaponries

• The range of macro-weapons is increased by 4,500 units, and by 4,500 units for lances.
• Applies to the Flagship

This upgrade is questionable at best. That doesn’t mean I discourage players attempting to make it work or by trying new strategies, but considering that this upgrade applies to only one ship and simply increases range, it falls quite short. If it improved accuracy or had other sort of effect, it might make this good, but consider the following:

1. The fact that it improves the range of macro weapons isn’t really a buff. Considering the accuracy drop off for macro-based weapons is 20% per 4,500 units of increased range, this means that your weapons will become less efficient.
2. It works well with a ship whose primary armarment is lances, as lances do not suffer an accuracy penalty. However, there are only two lance-focused ships in the Imperial Navy, the Gothic Cruiser and the Apocalypse Battleship. Unless you plan on runing either of these ships as your flagship what is the point?
3. One of the ship stances you can select in game is called “Lock On” which increases the effective range of that ships weapons by 4,500 units AND increases accuracy by 20%. There is a stance on your ships that is better than this upgrade…

Short-Burn Torpedoes

• The speed of torpedoes is increased by 50%

What a simple and beautiful upgrade all in one. This one shouldn’t be that hard to understand and see the value of. Considering nearly every ship that doesn’t have a Nova Cannon has access to torpedoes makes this upgrade very tempting. The fact that these weapons fly faster demands that your opponent be cautious and very reactive to mass volleys.

Emission Dissipater

• The ship can use maneuvers while in the “Running Silent” stance without being revealed
• Applies to fleet’s escort ships and light cruisers.

This ability allows you to basicly move across the battle zone undetected while going at max speed. Obviously, this upgrade gets better with the more ships you have under the escort/light cruiser classification within your fleet. If you are only taking this upgrade to simply improve around 2-3 ships in your fleet, please pass on it. There are better upgrades available to you. If however you build a fleet consisting of only light cruisers and escorts, this is a must.

Culexus Assassin

• Lightning Strikes inflict a 500 morale loss in addition to other effects
• Applies to the flagship

An upgrade that makes your flagship’s lightning strikes incredible effective at breaking enemy ships morale and maybe even causing a mutiny. This upgrade is a lot of fun as it simply allows you to click on an enemy warship that is somewhere around 50% morale and instanly make it abandon the battle. It is interesting and sits on a pendulum when it comes to effectiveness:

1. Completely useless versus Space Marines as they don’t suffer from morale based effects.
2. Highly effective versus the Orks as the primary way to beat them has never been by destroying them but by making them flee the field.
3. Will force a “Rally” ability from the opponents flagship which will make ships with the “mutiny” effect rejoin the battle.
4. If used on the opponents flagship however, they will lose it unless there is another way that a faction can get it back (of which I’m aware of none). Very useful for removing flagships from fights if you are able to get their morale down.
5. Some factions have inherently high morale values, such as the Necrons, because they field fewer ships. This ability loses potential against factions like this.

Armor Piercing Ammunition

• At short range (4,500 units), the armor of the target is reduced by 50 against macro-weapons.
• Applies to ships with macro-weapons

This upgrade is very strong as it is a very potent buff for the Imperial Navy’s most used weapon, the macro battery. This gives the Imperial Navy an effective way of dealing with heavily armored factions since access to lances is limited. However, this ability does suffer from the same negative effect as the ram does, in that there are some factions the Imperial Navy simply will not do well against up close. Again this upgrade doesn’t do anything outside of short range so against enemies that will kite or harass you from afar (Chaos/Eldar) this does nothing. This upgrade however is incredibly powerful and will devestate your opponents in close range broadside-based combat. The choice is yours.

Agripinaa-Pattern Void Shield

• Gives a 25 armor value to shields
• Applies to all ships

Another shield based upgrade and no suprise its good. This upgrade essentially makes your shields more durable and resist more oncoming fire before they deplete. While this upgrade is not as effective as regeneration, it does make the shields of your ships stronger and more of a headache for your opponent. The reason why it is not as good as regeneration comes down to the fact that this has no effect on things which bypass shields or simply nulify them, whereas regeneration will make sure they come back online faster from said abilities.