Shields?

[Paladin]

I didin't forget the anti-shield (wich is a good thing, if only the AI could be better ;-) The point is that Crsystal Armor regenerates the shield BEFORE any damage is applied to the internal structure...

Fortunately, there are always ways to deal with this, but it's kind of lame to have Heavy weapons (Light cruiser or better) to destroy a single frigate equipped with Crystaline Armor...

And then There's always the Psychics...
;-))

[Taqwus]

(Battlestation notes -- for 26k minerals, you can get one with a Master Computer III, 30 Crys Armor III, 6 Phased Shield Gen V, 4 Shield Regen V, ECM III, Sensors III, Multiplex III, 3 (M) Shard Cannon X, and 1 (M) Wave-Motion Gun III. For the price, it's fairly hard (for most races) to kill. And, with a MC and pretty heavy shielding, it's going to be hard to subvert/board it, as well. Might serve well as a very tough resupply base for a warp-point defense, especially with a few attack cruisers for backup and a repair ship).

Shields are good if you're going *against* Crystalline folks, 'tho, considering that shard cannons pierce armor. Crystalline vs. Crystalline in a Black Hole sector would be a very, very nasty fight with all damage going straight to components... Shields also stop boarding parties, although I've never seen the AI try.


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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[Paladin]

This battleStation seems a bit extreme, but it is fairly impregnable... (did you see the upkeep costs??)

On the other hand, I once had one of my advanced colonies toasted even if it had an equivalent baby (well, only 3rd generation, but that was more than all oponents ;-)

The station just happened to be on the far side of the planet, so the ennemy fleet just shot the colony to death, and was afterwards obliterated by the station...
I remained with a perfectly invincible defense base with endless supplies above a dead planet, holding off entire armadas of incomming ships... (it was no in ennemy territory ;-))

I can see it would still be feasible to get past one of those stations, like with a massive shield disruptor (say, model II with 2000 shield points) and boarding parties (lots of them, did I hear "SelfDestructDevice?" ;-)
On the other hand, I can barely begin to imagine the glimmers of the kind of AI that would be needed for this and I'm at my desk in an AI Univ. Lab ;-)

A human player could get around if he really wanted to, but a computer would have a real hard time to do so...
Maybe somekind of multiagent system...
(having the ministers as independant agents would be cool, imagine them "argue" over a course of action ;-))

[This message has been edited by Paladin (edited 24 August 2000).]

[Lerchey]

There seems to be some confusion about how shields work. Let me 'splain to y'all.

Each shield generator will create a specified number of shield points. Thus, a "100" point shield generator generates... 100 points of shields!

Shields take damage BEFORE non-shield skipping weapons do damage to either armor or components. The GENERATED SHIELD POINTS take the damage. Thus, a ship with 1 100 point generator will have 100 shield points. If hit with 2 40 kt damage shots, it will lose 80 points and only be worth 20. The next 40 point shot will kill the shield and "components" will take 20kt of damage.

Shields are not "randomly bypassed". Some weapons are listed as bypassing shields (eg, phased energy weapons). These do not reduce shields points, but rather ignore them causing damage to the ships components (unless, of course, it has armor).

There does seem to be a bug somewhere with some weapons vs shields where damage is "healed". I've sent Aaron a save file in which this happens reproducabley (sp?).

Hope that helps.

John

[Lerchey]

Someone asked about how to see your and enemy shield levels in tactical combat. During any part of the tactical round, you can select a ship by right clicking on it. You will get a "details" window up which will show movement, current shields, and damage (in kt). Clicking on components will list the ships components, with "damage markers" where killed components are. Right clicking on a component will list details about it.

Johnnyplaytester

[General Hawkwing]

Just an opinion question: What combination of shields/armor (amount) do you use early game (tech levels 3 or less)?