(OT) Do you prefer to know game formulas?

[Caduceus]

I'll agree with Slick about the character of the game determining whether I give a fig about formulas. To be honest, I have calculated stuff a handful of times in SE IV, gotten the wrong answer and then determined that I was doing the math wrong, not the machine adding mysterious modifiers. Talk about embarassing.

[Power Man]

I do not need the exact formula or some complex damage table.

However I would like more complete discriptions of how some things work together.

For example, we are told that the Phase Polaron Beam goes through regular shields. The phase shield will stop the Phase polaron beam.
But we are not told how the phased shield works verses regular beams.
It seems logical that it would work better than a regular shield but how to tell?

[Bill Door]

Power Man said:For example, we are told that the Phase Polaron Beam goes through regular shields. The phase shield will stop the Phase polaron beam.
But we are not told how the phased shield works verses regular beams.
It seems logical that it would work better than a regular shield but how to tell?

Not necessarily, the Phased Polaron Beam could exploit a weakness in the normal sheilds that the 'phased sheilds' do not exhibit. This doesn't have to lead to increased conventional strength.

Example: The phased sheilds expand the 'spectrum' covered by the sheild. Any attack made on the conventional 'bands' are absorbed with the same degradation in sheild performance as the 'phased polaron' 'bands'.

Example: The phased sheild generator components are actually multiple different types of generator, each with its own specific defensive responsibility, sharing common support components. Thus the strain on the support facilities depletes the usefulness equally (I realise this is not the most brilliant of arrangements for a sheilding system, but it makes the point.)


Besides, after reading this, I feel that phased sheilds act a bit strangely when their name is taken into consideration. They could be more accuratly considered multi phase sheilds

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Interesting read, so far.

[Kamog]

Bill Door said:
Besides, after reading this, I feel that phased sheilds act a bit strangely when their name is taken into consideration. They could be more accuratly considered multi phase sheilds

Thanks for posting the link. That was an excellent article.

[Suicide Junkie]

Don't read it as "shield which is phased", but rather as "shield for phased stuff"

[Fyron]

Yeah... SE4 doesn't pretend to have any physics or pseudo-physics behind it.