Shield recharging components question...
 

I have questions about those components that recharge a shield when hit by a weapon.
1)if you have a shield recharge component, say that gives 10 points back into the shields, do you get those points immediately or only at the end of a combat round?
2)will such a component work only when that particular component is hit or always work until destroyed.
3)what TYPE of shield energy is given: plain shields or phased shield?
4)does question number 3 depend on what kind of shields are present?
5)I've never used shield rechargers - am I missing out on a good thing?
6)Has anyone done a study on the usefulness of this kind of component?

Re: Shield recharging components question...
 

1) You get them after that shot damages your ship. So, the shields generated from shot 1 will be there when shot 2 hits the ship.

2) They work until destroyed, and multiple components stack.

3) I think standard shields.

4) I wouldn't imagine so.

5) Not really. Standard (unmodded) Crystalline Armor isn't worth 1500 racial points. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

6) Probably.

Re: Shield recharging components question...
 

1) They seem to operate at the beginning of the combat round, actually. Although there's never any 'drain' on shields in the first round of combat so it's hard to tell. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Between rounds, let's call it.

2) Shield Regenerators work all the time, unless they are destroyed by enemy weapons. It's Crystalline Armor that requires a hit to regenerate shields.

3) Whatever type you have. If there are only phased shield generators present, it's phased shields. Remember that the presence of 'normal' shields causes phased shields to act like normal sheilds. The 'normal' shields have to be destroyed before the phased shields get their 'special' quality back.

4) Yes. See above.

5) Yes. In the right proportion they add tremendously to the effectiveness of shields.

6) I think so. I don't have any references but I think someone has posted carefully though-out ratios of shield power to regeneration power as optimal.

[ September 04, 2002, 21:22: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

Re: Shield recharging components question...
 

BM, Taz's question wasn't worded very well. While what you have said is true, I _think_ he was asking about Crystalline Armor, not Shield Regenerators. Look at this line:
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">That makes me think he means Crystalline Armor, cause Shield Regenerators don't do anything when hit by a weapon; they add shields between rounds. I could be wrong, of course. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Shield recharging components question...
 

In either case, whether it is Crystal Armor or Shield Regenerators, I think they are too weak by default and need to be upgraded.

Unmodded shield regenerators are a joke. You can't get any useful amounts of help from them because you would need to fill the ship with them in order to give you a useful amount of shielding in the middle of a fire fight.

In my game I modded them by boosting thier regen rate by a factor of 5. I put 3 of them on my ships and then they give a decent amount of output in the middle of a battle.

As for Crystal armor, I respect it for its low cost, high durablity, and light weight. But its shield regen properties are worthless. 25 points of shields from an incoming bLast isn't going to dull anything but the smallest and weakest weapons. Anything able to do a decent amount of damage will plow through the skeleton shields, rip through the armor, and tear into the ship.

But that's just me venting about the lack of usable shield regenitive abilites in an unmodded game.

Re: Shield recharging components question...
 

Just my 2 cents....

Boarding parties are obstucted by shields. Shield regen will restore some shields and keep the boarding ships from using the boarding strategy in strategic combat. This is true even if the shields are knocked down by the first shot of a combat round.

Of course security stations would be more useful. I once built an armor only Magnet ship to trap boarding ships. It had 4 security stations on board.

------------------------------------------------
Good flute, good sax, and a warm place for fiddlin.

Re: Shield recharging components question...
 

According to my calcluations, it turned out that for unmodded SE4, if your ship could be expected to survive 7 or more turns in combat after first being hit, then adding a regenerator would provide more protection than adding a shield generator instead.

So, unmodded regenerators are really only useful for small fleets or one-on-one fights, and/or for races with a significant To-Hit defense advantage

Re: Shield recharging components question...
 

Thanks Guys, now let me see if I understand.

Crystalline Armor will add to shields immediately
after a hit. While Shield Regenerators will only add to shields at the end of a combat round.
These components WILL stack. And most players think that in unmodded SEIV they are not worth the cost.

Seems to me that a combination of Emissive Armor and Crystalline Armor might be somewhat effective. (in the latest Version of SEIV)
Emmisive reduces by 30 and say Crystalline adds 20 to shields for a reduction of 50 each hit.

Re: Shield recharging components question...
 

Emissive and Crystalline will stack somewhat.
Emissive will get first shot at reducing the damage, and crystalline will add the remainder to the shields.

Crystalline is basically delayed-action emissive armor, since it reduces damage from the next hit, rather than the current hit.
Crystalline also provides a maximum protection of 50% damage absorption to low-hitpoint components. (Low hitpoint components = more than one destroyed with a single shot: vs WMGs, pretty much any component is a LHC.)
...Plus the boarding party defense...

If you combined Emissive and Crystalline, small-damage weapons could sap your shields and leave your ship open to boarding.

[ September 04, 2002, 21:02: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

Re: Shield recharging components question...
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Don't forget that crystalline armor stack. 8 CA III + EA III makes you impregnable to weapons with less than 150 damage. Even against bigger guns, it will prolong you survival immensely

Re: Shield recharging components question...
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Not if I understand crystal armor it doesn't. The points get put to shields yes, but they also get applied to the crystal structure and the ramor gets destroyed. You might be impregnable to one shot from a 180 damage weapon, but the second shot will get through. You seem to be saying it's emmisive armor with the bonus of putting the points to your shields instead of just disapating it nowhere. I don't think that's the case.

Geoschmo

Re: Shield recharging components question...
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Not if I understand crystal armor it doesn't. The points get put to shields yes, but they also get applied to the crystal structure and the ramor gets destroyed. You might be impregnable to one shot from a 180 damage weapon, but the second shot will get through. You seem to be saying it's emmisive armor with the bonus of putting the points to your shields instead of just disapating it nowhere. I don't think that's the case.

Geoschmo</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">No,no, CA does not channel the damage inflicted in shot, but ALL damage registered to CA up to its upper limit. Example: you hit ship with 6 CAIII (recharge 90 points) with some weapon doing 90 damage. If there are no shields before hit, after the hit you get 90 points damage to CA and 90 points shields. Next shot, you fire second such weapon - you strip all shields but do NO damage to armor. Before next turn, CA miracuosly channel 90 damage to shield, leaving target ship in exactly same state as before !

BTW, this is not a bug, this is how MM wanted CA to work.

Re: Shield recharging components question...
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">But this is not how others have described crystal armor working, unless I have totally misread them. What others have said is, taking your example, 90 points would be added to the shields on that first shot, BUT 90 points of damage would also be done to the armor itself. And by this process after a couple of hits your crystal armor is gone and you start taking damage to the ship.

Geoschmo

Re: Shield recharging components question...
 

Well, try it yourself http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif If weapon hit is smaller than total CA ability, damage to CA stabilizes at weapon hits, If weapon hit is bigger than total CA, damage slowly goes up until first CA is destroyed. It will lower total CA recharge and will start CA meltdown. But it will suck a lot of damage in the process.

Re: Shield recharging components question...
 

Well I tried it and you are correct Oleg. Sure seems like a bug to me though. Even with organic armor if you can pounce the organic armor ship with enough weapons you will eventually overwhelm it's ability to repair itself. With this you could actually make a baseship that was almost completly crystal armor that would be almost completely impervious to any standard weapon. You would only be able to do damage with a starbase mounted weapon, or with null space or possibly some of the other racial weapons. the only standard ship weapon able to break it would be a baseship mounted wave motion gun, and it would only tick off 5 points per shot. That would take 30 hits just to kill one piece of armor.

And it could withstand an infinte number of ships. That's just not right. And you could build a starbase that literally couldn't be damaged, even by another starbase if there was any way you get it withing range, which there isn't.

Of course you wouldn't have much room for weapons, but for an infinitly strong ship you wouldn't need much in the way of weapons, just one and a lot of patience will do. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Sure seems like a bug to me.

Geoschmo

Re: Shield recharging components question...
 

You are forgetting the effects of seekers. A stack of missiles seems to hit 'all at once' just like a stack of fighters, doing HUGE damage totals in a single hit. So, as with most things in SE IV, there is a way around the 'unbeatable' Crystalline Armor.

Also, mixing shield depleters with standard weapons will go a long way to screw up the advantages of CA. I've never seen a hit with a shield depleter recharge shields. Just 'interleave' them with your standad weapons so they get fired alternately and you've got something that will be much more effective than standard weapons alone.

Re: Shield recharging components question...
 

Yes, but there are nonstandard weapons like the null-space weapons. He's now sunk the king's ransom in CA into his starbase, and your weapons all bypass! Unless I'm misunderstanding the way null-space weapons work, he's hooped http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Oh, and as an afterthough, presuming you have no null-space weapons, the starbase (or any other vessel) would do well to have both a ton of CA and a modest amount of OA (organic armor). Then if you do manage to punch a shot or two through, the OA will fix up any failed/destroyed CA. Thus the complementing advantages of picking more than one racial trait... not that I ever pick crystaline http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

Re: Shield recharging components question...
 

There is another way to deal with the stockpile of CA - If you take the whole piece of CA in one shot, it will recharge only the overhead damage.
CA III has 150 points. If you hit with 200 weapon, it will blow up one piece and only 50 residual 50 will be channeled to shield. Of course in most cases you will have some shields to sap before getting CA itself in one shot, but basic idea when fighting CA is bigger is better !

Another good anti-CA weapon is time distortion bust. Once you get several levels in temporal weapons and mount TDB on light cruiser or bigger, you can eat heavily armoured crystalline ships alive. 4x shields damage makes a mockery out of CA. CA is in no way unballancing, it just add new interesting twist to SE gameplay.

[ September 05, 2002, 02:39: Message edited by: oleg ]

Re: Shield recharging components question...
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">No. Organic armor only regenerates itself. You can create other component families that use armor regeneration, sure. But they will also only regenerate themselves -- other components of the same family. You'd have to mod special armor to use both abilities to get that effect. And if you did, I think everyone would consider it unbalanced. Only Emissive Armor 'shares' its ability with other armors. And that's nasty enough now that it always takes damage 'off the top' before the damage is applied to any components. Combining Emissive and Crystalline armor is nasty and very powerful in the hands of a clever player.

[ September 05, 2002, 04:07: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]