Phase missiles - good or bad?

phase missiles which phase bypasses shield migation, which is an extremely good advantage.

waiting for people to use the manual argument.

Does this mean that Shield mitigation is still active when the shield is depleted?
if not, i dont see the benefit.

Shield mitigation, AFAIK, only works on shields. It's base is 15% and works only when damage being taken is >12.5. Thereafter, mitigation increases by 1% for every 10 damage received until it caps off at 60%(or higher for Advent). So at 60% mitigation, you're only doing 40% of your full damage. Phase Missiles cause mitigation to go up, but if they successfully negate shields, then they aren't affected by shield strength, shield mitigation, or shield regeneration and can deal full damage unless armor comes in the way.

Once the shields are gone(or bypassed by Phase Missiles), you get armor, which provides a 5% effective hp boost for every point of armor. Thus, 5 armor gives you 25% more effective hp and means that any attack that hits the hull will actually be 125% of the actual damage done - so the net result is the hull takes 80% of the damage and the rest is deleted thanks to armor.

This means Phase Missiles are deadly against ships which don't have much in their armor ratings - like all Advent ships. But they aren't so particularly effective against those ships who use armor instead of shields as their main defense - like TEC and other Vasari ships. Still, bypassing mitigation can be a big boost as you don't have to waste effort on those pesky shields.

Phase Missiles are also best when researched fully - the research is what gives them their 25% chance to negate shields, and this means more shots get through and less problems from hull repair. And then they have their NME Warheads that give them a 20% raw damage boost. Tactically, Phase Missiles make focus-firing a no-brainer because you're not bothered by shield mitigation spiking, and because focus fire means more shots get through and less time for hull repair. Armor isn't affected by how much stuff is hitting it, since it's mitigation is flat - the same thing if 10 damage is hitting it or 1000 damage is hitting it.

Guardians and Dunovs. Shield restoration can be a bitch, it's always nice to bypass it. There are no instant restoration abilities for hulls.

I understand that bypassing shields, means doing more damage pr missile.
And IF I only had missile frigites i might kill the target ship by doing only hull damage (best case theoretical scenario).

But in my experience any ship im shooting at will take both shield and hull damage and by the time its dead both shield and hull will be depleted.
I have never in my experience seen any ship die with 0 hull and more than 0 shield.

So while yes, 1 phased missile does more dmg, the total incoming damage would be the same, since other attacks are hitting the shield instead of the missile.

Is there something factually wrong with what i just wrote?
I want to use phase missile, i just can't see why they should be any good.

According to the manual, 'shield' mitigation applies whether the shields are up or down.

Several people believe that phase missiles bypass mitigation when they successfully 'phase', but I don't think there's been any dev confirmation.

Depending on the numbers involved, though, simply bypassing shields can still give a ship an advantage over one that can't bypass shields.

Oh, and when I play Vasari, I quite regularly see enemy Cap ships blow with a good chunk of their shields still remaining, so I'm a fan of phase missiles.

Shield mitigation works even when shields are down.

Phase missiles upgrades give phase missiles more chances to bypass shield, but when they do so, they also bypass shield mitigation.

So when a ship has reached 50% shield mitigation a missile that phases will do double damage.

A ship that does 20 damage and shoots 10 shots in a ship that has 50% mitigation will do 10 * (20-50%) =100 damage to shields
The same ship with 20% phase chance shooting a ship with 50% mitigation 10 times will do 8*(20-50%)+2*20=120 damage

Has this been confirmed? I see people saying it, but I don't see where they're getting it from, and I like to be sure.

If shield mitigation is inherently tied into a ship's shields, what part of "bypasses shields" doesn't make sense to you? The fact that these things can cut through mitigation (which sticks around after the shields are down) makes them extremely effective against ships whose shields are down - in fact, I'd say they're even better then than against ships with their shields up!

Sofar the main points are:
Shields reduce incoming damage.
The more incoming damage, the higher reduction
This reduction is still in effect, after all shield is depleted <- the wierd, but very significant, part
Phase missiles has a chance to ignore this reduction <- Anyone got hard facts to back this up?

Shield reduction starts at 15% and ramps up to a max of 60%.

I assume this shield mechanic is in place to deter people from focusfiring and instead let the fleet AI handle the combat, which in the overall game "allows" people to focus in macro management instead of micromanagement.

I know i wohn't let the ai handle the fight, if I can significantly increase the effectivenes by doing it myself.

do you know why said I was waiting for people to bring up the manual argument in my previous reply?

the manual states that shield mitigation applies to the hull only if the shields are down, which means that if you do take the manual as being correct (which is unlikely as the infocards, which give false ingame info) then the missiles that have phased through and hit the hull before the shield went down will ignore shield mitigation.

In any case I think its best to ignore the manual and go by what has been tested (check for other threads).
numerous tests have confirmed phase missiles that phase through ignore shield mitigation.

I also think phase missle at Tech lv 1 or 2 makes it worse rather than better, because of the dual regen you pointed out. I only bother with the research if I can go all the way to Tech 4 or 6

The Subverters can increase phase missile bypassing shields. Also, apparently, any weapon fired at a vessel that the Subverter has messed with their shields has that 25% chance to bypass shields.

So phase missiles bypass 50% of the time (at max research) and everything else 25% of the time.

The Desolator is so awesome because of the phase missiles alone.

This is one of the great unanswered questions in Sins.

Can a developer step in an straighten us out please!

Phase missiles are devastating vs Advent. Advent tech focuses on powerful shields and largely neglects armor strength. I had one of my Radiance battleships go *POP!!* once with almost 2k shield points left. That's a rather extreme case, the guy had about a billion Assailants and a couple Desolators with (evidently) maxed out torpedo technology. However it does serve to demonstrate how effective the technology can be.

There's Hull repaired per second abilities that are jsut as effective.

I'm curious about this too, but does it matter?

Even if I killed shields 100%, then started on Hull, wont shield still recharge and block some damage?

I know for a fact, if I retreat or win a battle where I had no shields and 1/2 hull, after 2 minutes, I'll have some shields and some hull repaired afterward. Its not like shields only regenerate if hull is 100%.

Phase missiles seem good from experience. I dont think they are good enough to negate shields outright, but they are about as good as any other weapon upgrade.

Also, I have killed ships with shields left, but usually its because they had regenerating shield abilities.

AntiCommie,

Late game when Advent use Iconus Guardians and the Progenitor to constantly boost shields, it matters. Vasari can actually blow up Advent ships even though the shields keep getting recharged getting enough missiles thru to knock out the hull.

The real question everyone is trying to figure out is if there is much advantage early game or against TEC. There are some rumors that the phase missile bypasses mitigation when it phases, which would be handy, but otherwise it would seem to be kind of a wash like you describe.

subverter + assilant swarm = dead cap before it shields drop

priceless

This is not an unanswered question. Phase missiles are a huge increase in average damage.

Imagine a missile hits your ship for 100 points of damage, but you have 75% shield mitigation. If it hits normally, it does 25 points of damage to your shield, if it phased, it would deal 100 points of damage, directly to your hull. If you were lucky enough to get all phase shots, you would avoid having to deal 50-66% of the damage (his shield would still be at full strength when he dies), and each shot would be dealing 4x normal damage, so you'd be killing ships 10 times as fast or so.

Realistically, it would be around 2-4x as fast assuming 75% mitigation. Even at 57% mitigation, you could get maybe 1.3x to 2.1x, which is a lot more than maxing any normal weapon research would give you (roughly a fixed 1.3x)

Durikkan, yes, I think everyone stated that it is especially good against Advent, no one is denying this. However, against TEC with their low shields and great hull and armor, it isn't clear how much of an advantage it is.

If you are confident that it kills caps 3 to 5 times faster, or up to 11 times normal, please share how you came up with those numbers. I don't think anyone is really denying that it is good, but it seems to be much more specialized vs Advent.

It looks like I must have edited it while you were posting, sorry, I tend to edit my posts continously until I'm satisfied (I'm just weird like that).

You say something about the TEC's low shields and high health, but, shield mitigation applies to hull as well, and phase missiles completely ignore mitigation when they strike, in my various tests. When it's just hull left, occasionally, you'll see that a phase capable shot will seem to do double or triple damage to the hull, but it's because the shot phased, so it ignored the shield mitigation, so instead of striking the hull for 43% damage (100 - 57), it strikes for 100% damage.

Shield mitigation applies whether the shields are up or down. Ever notice that ships don't take a shitload more damage when their shields drop? Yeah, that's why.

It's possible phase missiles bypass mitigation-i'm not sure.

its easy to teat, get one assilant and test it against something, compare hits

I've seen someone else post that its definately better then non phased. I think their results showed like a 20-30% faster death after phased.

What I mean, when I say "does it matter" is shields recharge every second. So if I use a laser that does 10 damage every second, and shields recharge 2points every second, only 8 damage will ever hit your hull.

Of course, phasing is better because it does this constantly. It makes shield recharging powers less helpful, but not obsolete because they dont have 100% phasing.