Aquilaeians - and shield-skipping weapons (Master Belisarious, thx!)

jim · #1 March 15th, 2002, 02:52 AM

The AI of these guys is wonderful in combat!!

What a neat hedgehog! Reminds me of Royal Marines forming square in the Hornblower and Sharpe stories - though the Aq's do not use a square.

I had no idea that engine killers were shield skipping weapons!

These guys would kill the engines of a ship and, if they did not destroy the ship in that round, they'd engage it again and now .... no shields! I had not placed a supply unit on each one! No engines - no supplies - no shields - no defense!!!

Are any of the other specialty weapons shield skippers like these? (jim off to investigate! ;-) )

Anyway, nicely done Master Belisarius! Nicely done!

PvK · #2 March 15th, 2002, 04:01 AM

Yes. Weapon-damaging and shield-damaging weapons also skip shields.

Oh nooooo....

jim · #3 March 15th, 2002, 06:41 AM

Yes, and I confirmed it, just to prove it to myself. I did it in the Simulator and then I went to a saved game, built the test ships, then gifted them to the AI and proceeded to beat on them.

This looks like it will make me do a major rethink on how to design ships!

This seems odd, btw, but very interesting.

Every time I think I've got it figured out ...

Wait!

If I had a quantum reactor aboard, would the loss of all engines still bring down shields if I did not have a supply gizmo? That is, the q reactor makes unlimited supply, but I'm not sure it STORES it!

What about if I had a solar panel but lost all engines (and had no supply unit)?

I did not test those.

TerranC · #4 March 15th, 2002, 07:06 AM

The supplies are still endless.

At least in the original.

Urendi Maleldil · #5 March 15th, 2002, 09:20 AM

Any weapon that targets a specific type of component skips shields, even phased shields.

Phoenix-D · #6 March 15th, 2002, 09:34 AM

In umodded SE4, that's correct. However, two damage types- boarding party and security station killers- do NOT skip shields. So if a mod uses those two damage types, they won't skip shields.

Haven't tried only planet killers, not sure if it even works.

Phoenix-D

Urendi Maleldil · #7 March 15th, 2002, 09:35 AM

Really, I though they skipped shields too. Oh, well.

Master Belisarius · #8 March 16th, 2002, 01:57 AM

quote:
Originally posted by jim:
The AI of these guys is wonderful in combat!!

What a neat hedgehog! Reminds me of Royal Marines forming square in the Hornblower and Sharpe stories - though the Aq's do not use a square.

I had no idea that engine killers were shield skipping weapons!

These guys would kill the engines of a ship and, if they did not destroy the ship in that round, they'd engage it again and now .... no shields! I had not placed a supply unit on each one! No engines - no supplies - no shields - no defense!!!

Are any of the other specialty weapons shield skippers like these? (jim off to investigate! ;-) )

Anyway, nicely done Master Belisarius! Nicely done!

Hey Jim, thanks for the kind words!

The weapons in the standard tech tree that skip Shields are the Shield Disrupters (destroy the Shields), Engine Damage Weapons (Ionic Disperser and Ionic Pulse Missile), Weapons that Damage Weapons (Tachyon Projection Cannon), Whormhole Beam (small damage and random move), Tractor and Repulser Beam (move and small damage), Computer Virus (destroy the Master Computer), Null Space Projector (skip Shield and Armors), Temporal Shifter (from the Temporal Tech Tree), Mental Flailer and Allegiance Subverter (From Psychic Tech Tree).

Suicide Junkie · #9 March 16th, 2002, 02:21 AM

Note: The wormhole and tractor/repulsor beams
do NOT do damage the damage rating for the wormhole beam only indicates out-of-range (0) or in-range (non-0).
The tractor/repulsors damage rating indicates how many squares the target will be moved; it does no physical damage.

Krsqk · #10 March 16th, 2002, 03:11 AM

I've been using tractor/repulser beams quite a bit lately on WP Defense starbases. At massive mount, they work quite nicely as a tractor/ionic disperser/tachyon thingummy/repulser combo.

Anyway, IME, tractor/repulser beams do damage if 1) they hit shields, or 2) they affect the target ship. Now, 4 damage isn't likely to take out much; but hey, every little bit helps.

This was under 1.49, btw; don't know if that changed in Gold.