hmm, i should have started reading this sooner, it's very interesting.

I recall there beind shield arcs, so this should probably apply to each arc individually. And I agree on there being some kind of limited cumulative effect,

Say a weapon with damage 100 shoots at a shielded ship, lets say for calculation ease that all hit occur within generally the same timeframe.
First hit, and the shield arc gains 100 damage, and 20% mitigation
Second hit, within a small time, shield arc gains 80 damage and an aditional 10% mitigation for a total of 30%.
Third hit, shield arc gets 70 damage, and an additional 5% mitigation.
etc etc.

Now the attacking ship needs to reload, so the shields recarge at a set rate, but the mitigation also drop at an exponential rate, slowly first, but faster until the mitigation is 0.

The enemy has finished reloading, so it fires again, dealing 100 damage, adding 20%mitigation. The next shot is targeted at another ship, so the mitigation drops a bit, down to 17%. the next shot hits, dealing 83 damage, and adding more mitigation (somewhere between 10 and 12% i'm not good at exponential calculus at 2330) so the next hit would be mitigated 27-29%.

All numbers are open to tweaking of course. I don't design games

This of course, presents interesting questions.

- Do all weapons (lasers, rockets) add equal amounts of mitigation?
- How will the ammount of added mitigation depend on damage?
- What makes a good balance for shooting? Two ships shooting at one target deal less damage then two shooting at two, but taking on a single target will destroy it faster, so you take less damage.
- How will mitigation effect beam weapons? is it a single hit or do they add up to a lot of small hits?
- how does one factor in mitigation in the damage per minute rating? it won't be the simple division we usually make (X damage per Y seconds, makes Z damage per second)
- Do rapid fire weapons ramp up the mitigation really quickly?
- How does one time the big impact on the big ships? all of the torpedos hitting at the same time is a waste of damage.

intriguing

I think that was questioned and denied.

I was thinking quickly and then tapering off slowly.
that way focus fire is detrimental over time.

the focus fire principle I was talking about.

I would think that a big disturbince (i.e. phasenuke) would make a larger disturbance in the shield than say, a 50 cal round.

Also, the % gain in mitigation should probably be proportional to the power of the weapon hit that caused it. In Paradoxnt's example it was a fixed 25%, which is fine for conceptualizing the mitigation gain mechanics. But in actual practice some dolt strafing in his interceptor should not provoke the same shield response as taking a hit from the main gauss cannon of a Kol battleship.

Sorry about that WedgeHG. I was just trying to make an example.

I agree with you that there will have to be some hard calculations on weapon power and the shield resistance they cause.

Nono, your example was great at explaining the concept. Throw too many ideas in there at once and it gets too confusing. Variable mitigation gains based on weapon power is just another layer over the top of it.... and it looks like schem had the same idea while I was typing my post lol

aha, so mine was the original   

First it was me and Schem, while I have retired to other forums it seems that Schem made a new buddy.

Now we have two spamers... sigh

Welcome back then, Great Emperor. It is good to have another voice of reason on board to keep Schem in check...hehe

you mean three.

Shhhhh, don't tell him that. He is already sad enough, let's not further depress him.

So the lower the shields, the bigger the flux? Perhaps because there is more "room" left for energy?

Would that mean that it's not sensible to concentrate all fire on one vessel because it's shield resistance makes you throw away a lot of energy for nothing? It seems as though it is more sensible to slowly destroy the shields of several ships than try the quick breakthrough on one. Which seems like a great gameplay element!

Yeah takes does make more sense, but only if the mitigation remains stable for a while, and not immediatly start dropping, then it's better gameplay as well as (for me) more consistent.

Also, yeah, the shield arcs were indeed dropped, my mistake


I disagree on that. If the shields are more drained, they have less power remaining, I think the mitigation should remain the same.

But that depends on how you think the generators work. If they're like a pump, pomping a constant ammount of energy into the shields (visualise a bucket) then it makes sense to have an equal ammount of mitigation.

If you think of the shields like a field and a capacitor, then the mitigation would decrease, as you have less to work with.

I agree, but we already know that the lower the shields, the slower they are decreased. Unless this has nothing to do with mitigation.

or if the drop off is slow (i.e. it becomes negligible over 5 seconds or so)

I think the "lower the shields" Mechanic was removed to make room for this.
otherwise it becomes too complex, too complicated and too powerful.

When was this said?! Darn, I keep missing things!

I thought it would prolongue the fights nicely though. And effectively make you attack several targets instead of fousing all onto one ship.

Side Question :

Are there weapons or special weapons that negate shields alltogether.

while it would prolong battles it could cause several bad issues
1) big ships have an exponential defense
2) it really doesn't accomplish much (gameplay wise) without some other feature (i.e. a ship looses capacity as its more damaged etc.) the result is that focus fire is just as favorable as ever
3) what if you're blasting away at a big ship, with huge shield integrity at low health? you'd do almost no damage!

key word "THINK"

Hey P5y, I think there are weapons that drain shields and AM. There are probably other secret weapons that we won't see for a bit yet.

Now Schem, its not good to be a hypocrite

And anyways, I think that in a battle you would try to spread out your fire in the first place, look at some of the pics, the fleets are made of hundereds of ships, so I dont think taking them out one at a time is a smart idea.

Secondly, I think this would really help some ships get away easier. Knowing that lower shields provide more cover will make me keep the ships tactically engaged untill they are lower only to turn around and run away when the foe starts doing less damage.

Can't say I agree with you there. While you are taking less damage per shot, there is still less of your shield left so a weakened shield will still become completely depleted sooner than a shield that is at full power to begin with.

You forget that theres a hull.

pssh. like my ships would need a hull.
my tech is so advanced, our shields so strong our people just... float there...

yeah...

Right. And it starts taking damage when the shield is gone. And a fully charged shield is going to last longer than one that has already been beat on for a while. Because while the beat-on one is stronger, eventually the fully charged one will get beat on and be in the same state as the beat-on shield... only it took a while to get it there... get it?

@Schem: I think we need to take this to the "you know what" thread

I get it, what I was saying was that. Since I that even though the shield would be low, I would know that this small fraction would last longer than the small fraction of the a fully charged shield. So I would get away while this last small bit protects me, and if it doesnt then theres the hull. I was discussing tactics not mechanics.