Shields -> Damage Reduction

[Vezzra]

My first pass, very quick adjustment to get something that seems testable, is to make the current Grid part be DR 1 (Damage Reduction 1), the current Shield part be DR 3, and the current MultiSpectral Shield part be DR 4, with no other changes. I'm going to go ahead and commit that as a stopgap change, since the game is pretty much unplayable/untestable with the current unmodified shield values.

I'd go with DR 5 for the Multi-Spectral Shield part, the other numbers are fine for a stopgap change. I'll delay my weekly builds until you commit that numbers, as it doesn't make much sense to produce test builds with unplayable stats.

[Dilvish]

My first pass, very quick adjustment to get something that seems testable, is to make the current Grid part be DR 1 (Damage Reduction 1), the current Shield part be DR 3, and the current MultiSpectral Shield part be DR 4, with no other changes. I'm going to go ahead and commit that as a stopgap change, since the game is pretty much unplayable/untestable with the current unmodified shield values.

I'd go with DR 5 for the Multi-Spectral Shield part, the other numbers are fine for a stopgap change. I'll delay my weekly builds until you commit that numbers, as it doesn't make much sense to produce test builds with unplayable stats.

OK, those numbers are now in, with MS Shield at DR 5.

[AndrewW]

In this scheme I think MultiSpectral shields would fit in around 3 or 4 (perhaps 3.5, they don't need to be integer, do they?).

Kinda takes away from the special nature of the MultiSpectral Shields though if you can research better shields. Maybe adjust them and move them up the chain?

Or perhaps allow researching on improvements to those if you have discovered them?

[MiniMe]

+1

The shields are the only useful discovery, imo. Besides Death Ray 1, if u get it early enough.
Perhaps add some better ships and/or parts. With the shields now researchable there is little point to race for the ruins anymore.

[Dilvish]

The other tech you can get from a Ruins is Death Ray I, which is fine IMHO. The big deal is not so much that you get something that you could not get anything comparable any other way, but that you have a chance to get it much earlier, or avoid a big expense for it. Additional shield levels should probably be quite expensive, so getting MultiSpec for free would still be a big deal. (perhaps they should be in fact the same shield as in the progression, just like Death Ray, so that it clears you to progress to the next level without wasting research on lower tiers.

[Geoff the Medio]

A hopefully quick question to consider: Currently the combat mechanics don't do anything to prevent ships that have a negative shield meter from getting extra damage per hit. The calculation is just

actual_damage = max(0, damage - shields)

so if there were negative shields, it would increase the damage. However, ship shield meter values are (or should be, if things are working) be restricted to never be below 0 during meter updating, independent of the combat code.

So, should it be possible to have negative shields on a ship? Might be useful for some content... Perhaps a part makes a ship unstable and more easily damaged as a downside?

[Dilvish]

...So, should it be possible to have negative shields on a ship? Might be useful for some content... Perhaps a part makes a ship unstable and more easily damaged as a downside?

Sure, sounds like an interesting option.

[Vezzra]

So, should it be possible to have negative shields on a ship? Might be useful for some content... Perhaps a part makes a ship unstable and more easily damaged as a downside?

The concept sounds interesting, however, I wonder: Wouldn't an increased susceptibility to damage that is implemented and therefore represented as a negative shield meter value be confusing to the player? To me at least that doesn't come across as very intuitive...

[AndrewW]

So, should it be possible to have negative shields on a ship? Might be useful for some content... Perhaps a part makes a ship unstable and more easily damaged as a downside?

The concept sounds interesting, however, I wonder: Wouldn't an increased susceptibility to damage that is implemented and therefore represented as a negative shield meter value be confusing to the player? To me at least that doesn't come across as very intuitive...

As long as it's clear in the description I would think it would be ok, though not every player is going to read the description...

[ogre]

shield disruptor/inverter//damage amplification
would give an extra bit of reasoning to using armor instead
also could take a weapons slot thereby lowering damage under unshielded circumstances

why do we not have an EMP?
disable logistics/shields/guidance/weapons etc weeee

[AndrewW]

shield disruptor/inverter//damage amplification
would give an extra bit of reasoning to using armor instead
also could take a weapons slot thereby lowering damage under unshielded circumstances

Do we need an extra reason to use armor instead?

[Geoff the Medio]

Wouldn't an increased susceptibility to damage that is implemented and therefore represented as a negative shield meter value be confusing to the player?

Possibly. The meter could be renamed to cover all kinds of damage reduction, be it from shields or something else. Regardless of the name, it could work without adding an extra system to the mechanics.

shield disruptor/inverter//damage amplification
would give an extra bit of reasoning to using armor instead
also could take a weapons slot thereby lowering damage under unshielded circumstances

why do we not have an EMP?
disable logistics/shields/guidance/weapons etc weeee

Combat mechanics are not planned to be made more complicated, with special abilities or powers. There could be effects that modify relevant meters outside of battle, though. I expect to add another storm / field that affects shields, for example.

[Vezzra]

The meter could be renamed to cover all kinds of damage reduction, be it from shields or something else.

"Damage Resistance"? A negative damage resistance would make sense...

[unjashfan]

OK, well, here's my take on this, to at least get something we can start playing with and testing. Currently shield DR (Damage Reduction) is stackable, and so the numbers I discuss are with that in mind. Nonstackable DR could be fine instead, but then would probably call for notably different numbers.

As has been suggested above, I think the shield DR should start at 1 for Grids. It seems we'd want to expand the number of researchable shield tiers to five...Since a Solar Hull potentially housing 26 (or even 27) DR5 shields would have a total DR of 130 (or 135), I think Death Ray needs to get at least a tad higher than that...

Shield stacking is really OP with the current mechanics. Arguably, the simplest solution is to make them non-stackable, but if we really want them to stack, we can make them internal slot only, which helps solve the solar hull slapping on ~26 shields problem (though it can still take 9, which is pretty ridiculous). I think the weapon damage numbers are fine as it is right now, especially since there are so many weapons, and I think it's wise to keep the numbers as small as possible (it's easier for players and us to do the math with smaller numbers ). Currently, the mass drivers are seeing very little use; it's often more effective to research directly to lasers instead. This is off topic, but I don't think we really need a mass driver 4 refinement (never used it, never seen the AI use it either). It makes our lives a little easier too if we have to make any changes, since the gap between mass driver 1 and laser 1 is smaller.

The current values seem fine to me though. I agree that we'd want to expand the shield tiers to five, but I really think that shields shouldn't stack.

It seems that building ships using the Acirema species grants ships an additional 5 shields, which is like a free multi-spectral shield boost. This is pretty OP as well, so maybe we should remove the species bonus similar to Laenfa and their stealth bonus on ships.

[Geoff the Medio]

It seems that building ships using the Acirema species grants ships an additional 5 shields, which is like a free multi-spectral shield boost. This is pretty OP as well, so maybe we should remove the species bonus similar to Laenfa and their stealth bonus on ships.

Or reduce the bonus to +1 to ship shields for Acirema?