"7. Changed - Engine Damaging Weapons no longer skip shields."
"To make a long story short (too late), I think that it makes sense for shields to interfere with a weapon of this type, and it does not make them useless. Rather it forces them into a more secondary role, which makes sense given the type of weapon they are."
Except for the problem that by the time a ship's shields go down in SE4, it's ussually about to die anyway. This really cripples these weapons and IMO should be moddable.
EDIT: and it *completely* kills off the massive engine killer. Because it's a once-per-combat weapon and the AI will fire as soon as possible, you have two options:
-let the thing be nothing more than a big gun that hits shields
-let it do so much damage that is breaches ANY ship's shields and kills the engines.. making it completely unbalanced and overpowered. Not because of the engine damage, but because of the shield damage!
Phoenix-D
[ May 23, 2002, 20:00: Message edited by: Phoenix-D ]