Leaky Shields

[SevenOfCarina (OP)]

Aurora shields cannot be breached unless they are completely depleted, which renders large shielded vessels practically impervious to damage at high tech levels and makes armour rather obsolete. What I'm proposing is simple : let shield generators have a maximum amount of damage they can absorb completely, before they start letting a part of it through to armour.

Essentially, suppose you have a ship with two 100-point shield generators, for a total of 200 points of shields. A 100-point generator will have a maximum per-hit absorbance of sqrt(100) = 10, which will mean that any single hit that does more than 10 points of damage will leak the excess to armour. If the ship takes 100 2-point hits, then the shields will absorb everything, but ten 12-point hits will result in two points leaking per hit for a total of 20 points of armour damage.

As for why : this would make heavier, slow-firing weapons more effective and would make armour more useful at higher tech levels. Plus it would make missile warfare against shielded opponents more interesting as a few missiles with large warheads getting through point-defence might end up doing more damage than a large swarm of small missiles.

[xenoscepter]

Aurora shields cannot be breached unless they are completely depleted, which renders large shielded vessels practically impervious to damage at high tech levels and makes armour rather obsolete. What I'm proposing is simple : let shield generators have a maximum amount of damage they can absorb completely, before they start letting a part of it through to armour.

Essentially, suppose you have a ship with two 100-point shield generators, for a total of 200 points of shields. A 100-point generator will have a maximum per-hit absorbance of sqrt(100) = 10, which will mean that any single hit that does more than 10 points of damage will leak the excess to armour. If the ship takes 100 2-point hits, then the shields will absorb everything, but ten 12-point hits will result in two points leaking per hit for a total of 20 points of armour damage.

As for why : this would make heavier, slow-firing weapons more effective and would make armour more useful at higher tech levels. Plus it would make missile warfare against shielded opponents more interesting as a few missiles with large warheads getting through point-defence might end up doing more damage than a large swarm of small missiles.

 --- This? I like this. I like this just the way it is. That said, I'mma add some stuff onto it. However, I think I'm due for a Xenoscepter's Suggestion MegaPost, because at this point there are way more than two of them, they got out of hand a long time ago, and they are surely not all equal in quality. EDIT: Maybe another time...

 --- Maybe create a division in shield generator types? Call the first one... IDk "Deflector Shields" or something. A fraction of the size and cost of a "Real" Shield Generator and with a way faster regen, but less overall shield points and way "leakier". "Real" Shield Generators would be the current ones we have, but significantly better than the new kind in terms of "leakiness"

[TheBawkHawk]

I really like this idea. It would certainly help with the issue that is AMM spam, and anything that helps fix that is welcome in my books.

[Platys51]

I really like this idea. It would certainly help with the issue that is AMM spam, and anything that helps fix that is welcome in my books.

Wouldnt have any effect on AMM spam. Mostly for player ships as shields are fairly rare on NPR/Spoiler side. Most encounters are unshielded.

That said,I do quite like the change.

[Zincat]

I don't like this.  At all.
You are all thinking of end-game shields. But mid-game shields would be made near useless by this.

Already shields are in a spot where they're very weak early on, and only good beyond a certain tech. With these changes... why even bother with shields before the late game? Sure they'd still be good then. But they would not be good for a lot longer. You'd be more hard pressed to justify the tonnage usage.

And you'd still need plenty of point defense.
This change seems good for large, late game high tech ships. But they would make shields even more useless than now at mid-tech level, where armor reigns. Might as well dump the research points elsewhere.

This suggestion could only work with a heavy rebalance of shields, as to make them more useful early on. I honestly can't like this.

[xenoscepter]

I don't like this.  At all.
You are all thinking of end-game shields. But mid-game shields would be made near useless by this.

Already shields are in a spot where they're very weak early on, and only good beyond a certain tech. With these changes... why even bother with shields before the late game? Sure they'd still be good then. But they would not be good for a lot longer. You'd be more hard pressed to justify the tonnage usage.

And you'd still need plenty of point defense.
This change seems good for large, late game high tech ships. But they would make shields even more useless than now at mid-tech level, where armor reigns. Might as well dump the research points elsewhere.

This suggestion could only work with a heavy rebalance of shields, as to make them more useful early on. I honestly can't like this.

 --- Perhaps OP can clarify, but my understanding is such: You have two ships. Sip A has one shield generator with 200 Points of protection while Ship B has two Shield generators of 100 points combined for 200 points of protection. Ship A and Ship B each get hit with 100 strikes of 2 points each, no damage is done to the armor. Ship A takes 10 strikes of 12 points each and is left with 80 shield left and no damage to the armor. Ship B takes 10 strikes of 12 points and is left with 100 shield left, but 20 less armor. As presented however, SQRT(100) is still a problem, since anything less than 10 would effectively have no shield strength, since the minimum damage a weapon can do is one, rather than fractional. That is to say, a shield of 7 would overcome by even a 1 point strike, thus that strike would end up dealing all it's damage to the armor. So a SQRT(100)+Shield Strength Tech would be better IMO. Alpha Shields would never be overmatched by Gauss or anything firing at 1-Point damage range, but a 10 point Alpha Shield would block Particle Beam 2s at any range, 10cm Railguns at any range and so on... until the shield is depleted of course.

 --- Perhaps OP could clarify though, I may be misunderstanding.

[Migi]

This is essentially a version of shock damage for shields.
AFIK currently the best way to combat shields is maximising damage per second (which generally means the most powerful weapon you can get to fire every increment). This change would make high damage per shot weapons more effective against shields instead.
However the best way to defeat armour is more mixed with high damage per shot weapons causing shock damage, high penetration weapons (I'm mostly thinking of Particle Lances) causing faster internal damage, and high damage per second weapons exploiting weaknesses caused by the first two types and/or 'sandpapering' armour away.

So one possible outcome is that high penetration weapons become much less relevant, because high damage per shot weapons can leak through shields, but high penetration weapons cannot, or at least not to the same degree.

Also having the damage leak limit determined by each individual shield generator makes sense, but AFIK (I can't check right now) Aurora allows multiple sizes and strengths of shield generators on a single ship.
This means you would need to develop a rule for determining which generator is used for the leak calculation.
Alternatively you need to add a rule that ships can only have 1 design of shield generator, similar to engines and jump drives.

Finally you didn't specify what happens if the shield is at partial strength. If the damage leak increases as the shield strength is reduced, then it makes the order that weapons fire more important. This might also cause issues like in VB when a small missile salvo could use up point defence capability which a rational crew would use against a larger salvo.

[xenoscepter]

This is essentially a version of shock damage for shields.
AFIK currently the best way to combat shields is maximising damage per second (which generally means the most powerful weapon you can get to fire every increment). This change would make high damage per shot weapons more effective against shields instead.
However the best way to defeat armour is more mixed with high damage per shot weapons causing shock damage, high penetration weapons (I'm mostly thinking of Particle Lances) causing faster internal damage, and high damage per second weapons exploiting weaknesses caused by the first two types and/or 'sandpapering' armour away.

So one possible outcome is that high penetration weapons become much less relevant, because high damage per shot weapons can leak through shields, but high penetration weapons cannot, or at least not to the same degree.

Also having the damage leak limit determined by each individual shield generator makes sense, but AFIK (I can't check right now) Aurora allows multiple sizes and strengths of shield generators on a single ship.
This means you would need to develop a rule for determining which generator is used for the leak calculation.
Alternatively you need to add a rule that ships can only have 1 design of shield generator, similar to engines and jump drives.

Finally you didn't specify what happens if the shield is at partial strength. If the damage leak increases as the shield strength is reduced, then it makes the order that weapons fire more important. This might also cause issues like in VB when a small missile salvo could use up point defence capability which a rational crew would use against a larger salvo.

 --- IIRC, you can only mount one design of shield generator in C#, just like engines and jump drives. This was as such in VB6 as well. Now under Shield Strength Tech + SQRT(100) for determining the "leakiness", hereafter referred to as "bleedthrough" or "bleed", any given shield design will have a bleedthrough equal to the Shield Strength Tech used in it's design, plus any excess strength up to 10% of the design's maximum strength. As it takes damage, the excess up to 10% would be ablated away until only the minimum remained. So a 100 point design with Alpha tech will always let through a minimum of 2 damage, while at full strength it will always bleed damage from strikes exceeding a strength of 11 to the armor, with the armor soaking the difference.

 --- So yes, higher pen weapons like Particle Lances would go through weaker shields better than DPS weapons, but DPS weapons would go through more powerful shields faster than the Higher pen weapons. As to firing order, grouping your B-FCS can accomplish this.

[Scandinavian]

This would fuzzy out the difference between different damage templates (e.g. particle lances and large lasers) as long as the shields are up.

I have no view on whether that is desirable or not, but it's a consequence.

Of course shields already do that, so...

We could also have the shields absorb up to [shield strength]/[number of armor columns] (give or take some multiplier), minimum of 1. Making the shield serve as basically a regenerating armor belt, but otherwise leaving the damage template mechanic intact.

[SevenOfCarina (OP)]

The formula I'm proposing is : (MPHA = maximum per-hit damage absorption)
MPHA = ROUNDUP((SQRT(Maximum Shield Strength))
This way, shields would always be able to absorb strength-1 hits. MPHA would be depend only on maximum shield strength and would not change as shields are depleted.

I don't like this.  At all.
You are all thinking of end-game shields. But mid-game shields would be made near useless by this.

Already shields are in a spot where they're very weak early on, and only good beyond a certain tech. With these changes... why even bother with shields before the late game? Sure they'd still be good then. But they would not be good for a lot longer. You'd be more hard pressed to justify the tonnage usage.

This change wouldn't actually do anything in the early game unless you like engaging from point-blank ranges. At the same tech level, the maximum per-hit damage absorption (MPHA) of the largest available shield generator is always greater than the maximum damage done per hit by the largest laser available with the longest range-modifier tech available at half of the maximum possible beam fire control range. In practice, leaky shields would behave exactly like shields do now in the early-game and mid-game.



If you look at the table, max-size shields won't start leaking damage against equal tech lasers unless you close to less than a third of maximum BFC range.

Edit: Actually, looking at the table, it seems that sqrt(max_strength) is not aggressive enough - max-size shields will never leak against equal-tech railguns or particle beams, and only leak against lasers at very close range. Particle lances present a problem, however - they're now really good against both armour and shields, so they might need a debuff versus shields like microwaves gain a buff. Microwaves are better now, and plasma carronades are significantly more deadly at the ranges where they are effective.

[Zincat]

I will admit this looks a lot better than I thought, especially because I assumed you wanted to use current shield strength in your formula, and not maximum strength. My reservations are still there though.
Yesterday I wrote a hasty post because I didn't have much time, I apologize for that. Let me explain.

The crux of the matter for me is that these changes, though they would look a lot better than I initially thought, are still a net decrease in how strong shields are as an option at all levels. Simply put, these changes you propose can only make shields weaker in some situations, never stronger. And do we need this balance-wise? In my opinion, the answer is no.
Don't get me wrong, this suggestion is flavorful, and might even be fun. I am not against "leaky" shields in principle. I just think that unless shields are refactored somehow, these changes you propose are unbalanced, especially in the context of armour vs shields.

The situation we have right now is this:
- Early game, armour is really the only option. Early game shields cannot block any meaningful amout of damage for ships expected to TAKE damage. So, it's armour only for main line ships, and the problem is compounded by the fact that research points are at a premium.
- Mid game shields gets progressively more viable. However armour is still a very strong option. Yes, the optimal solution mid game is to have strong armour and as many shields as you can fit on your ship. But... do you have enough research to do that? And also, mid game having an armour only ship is still a good option, while a shield only ship is not a good idea.
- Late game yes you are correct, shields get stronger and stronger. Having some armour is still necessary though, and an armor only ship, while not optimal at all, can still work. Research is less of a concern at this stage.

So we have a situation right now where the research "curve", so to speak, is heavily in favour of armor until the later stages. Which is not a bad thing in principle, as for a lot of techs the balance during the game does not stay the same (I'm looking at you missiles, you're simply too strong early game).
But your changes would move the shields "good enough to use" and "very good" points even further down the research line, and I don't think this is balanced.

This is fact made worse by how research works. Especially at the start you don't have a lot, and so you'll dump a lot of points in one weapon system and one defense system. And I will argue that early on you'll 100% choose armour. Besides, shields require TWO different researches, so it costs a even more reseach points wise. To make an example, according to the wiki lvl 4 armor is 10000 RP. Lvl 4 shields with lv 4 shield regen is 8000+8000=16000 RP. From those tables on the wiki, shields always cost 60% more of the correspective level of armour, and that's before you research the actual shield component.
Your table, while correct numerically, is not taking into account that.
Until well into the mid game, you will not in fact have equal weapon and shields research level, because you'll be dumping more research points into armour. Shields cannot be used effectively early on.
And this is even worse for those of us who play with reduced research rates or house rules, because we stay in the early and mid game for a LOT longer.

So as you can see, these are my concerns. Aside from particle lances, and large warhead missiles which can still be used with massed boxed launchers, the issue is that there is a problem of early-mid game usability and research, and your changes would require even more research investment into shields to make them viable.

You suggestions, which DOES sound flavorful and fun, would only work in my opinion if shields were refactored to be more viable early on, maybe increasing the shield strength per tonnage or reducing the research needer or both.

[SevenOfCarina (OP)]

I will admit this looks a lot better than I thought, especially because I assumed you wanted to use current shield strength in your formula, and not maximum strength. My reservations are still there though.
Yesterday I wrote a hasty post because I didn't have much time, I apologize for that. Let me explain.

The crux of the matter for me is that these changes, though they would look a lot better than I initially thought, are still a net decrease in how strong shields are as an option at all levels. Simply put, these changes you propose can only make shields weaker in some situations, never stronger. And do we need this balance-wise? In my opinion, the answer is no.
Don't get me wrong, this suggestion is flavorful, and might even be fun. I am not against "leaky" shields in principle. I just think that unless shields are refactored somehow, these changes you propose are unbalanced, especially in the context of armour vs shields.

I understand where you're coming from, and I agree that a refactor would be necessary. I would rather that not be a straight increase in shield strength per HS however, since that would just screw with the balance again. Ideally, shields and armour would complement each other such that even very light shields plus some armour would provide better general protection than heavy armour, but I'm not sure how one would go about doing that.

IMO, shields could use a rather significant increase in regeneration rate, such that they'd regain their health multiple times over in the span of a typical long-range beam engagement - right now, they regenerate in ~300s, which is forever in beam combat and simultaneously much shorter than the span between reduced-size missile salvos. Faster regeneration could make kiting nonviable and would also help with AMM spam when combined with leakiness. It would be interesting if regeneration rate increased with shield depletion, too, but that would be more work to implement

Also, regarding the particle lance problem : it might be better if damage that leaked through shields "splashed" against armour and used a depth-1 penetration profile (like missile warheads, carronades, and ramming), instead of using the profile of the originating weapon.

[mike2R]

I really like this idea, but the criticisms make sense too.

Perhaps if alongside this, shields only had a chance of taking any damage at all from very small hits?  If even early shields had a decent chance of shrugging off a size 1 hit, then there would be a point to them. And AMM spam would also be mitigated.

[Scandinavian]

The crux of the matter for me is that these changes, though they would look a lot better than I initially thought, are still a net decrease in how strong shields are as an option at all levels.

I am not convinced that this is true. Consider a 20 thousand ton TL4 light cruiser with 5 bands of armor and 2x70 shield points eating a salvo of fifteen strength 20 warheads.

Under the current shield logic, it would suffer eight full-strength str. 20 warhead impacts, scoring four rows deep gashes in its armor. (Seven of the warheads would expend against the shield, draining it completely.)

Under the proposed rules, it would suffer 15 strength 11 explosions instead, each scoring only 3 layers deep.

It's not immediately obvious to me that 160 damage in eight double wide 4-layer missile patterns is more desirable than 165 damage in twenty single-width 3-layer missile patterns.

If your ship is instead a 10 thousand ton destroyer with only three armor layers and one shield generator, being hit by half as many of the same missiles, then it's even less obvious.

[M_Gargantua]

I don't think the general overpenetration in the same vein as the current shock damage model is appropriate for shields.  If you start to allow them to "leak" damage then its just armor mechanic under a different name.  You just shift the tonnage from armor into shield generators.  Better to just rebalance shields vs weapons.  Maybe add a regen delay where you need a few combat ticks of delay without meaningful damage (don't want to allow stunlock with gauss) where the shields can't transition from tanking to regenning.  Or substantial buffs to microwave or some missile equivalent.