Leaky Shields

[nuclearslurpee]

I think folks are misunderstanding shield mechanics. Regeneration is not the problem with shields in most cases, since shield regeneration tech is the amount of shield points regenerated per HS per five minutes. Even a size-50 generator at MaxTech (regen 15) can only regenerate 12.5 points of shield per 5-sec increment, and with the kind of weapons you should be using at MaxTech this should not be a difficult amount to punch through. Shields are stronger against high-damage weapons because they negate the armor penetration profile of such weapons, the regeneration rate is a relatively minor consideration.

The only exception to this is if you are using missiles, only firing a wave every few minutes or longer, and not using enough to overwhelm the enemy PD + shields + armor to actually destroy the ship, which usually means you have either made a serious tactical error or have not done sufficient reconnaissance.

The problem with shields, if you consider it a problem, is that they are too efficient relative to armor in terms of raw damage absorption. This is due in large part to the scaling of Size^(3/2) which leads to size-50 shield generators providing about 75% of the same damage absorption as armor at the equivalent tech level. With armor, a generally accepted rule of thumb is that a ship will consistently take internal damage once its armor integrity drops below 50%, whereas for shields the entire shield must be defeated to deal any other damage, so in practice shields have a clear tactical superiority over armor in addition to their intended strategic superiority (due to not requiring expensive repair work). If we need to fix shields, I would prefer to see this scaling rebalanced so that armor remains a viable tactical option, rather than worrying about regeneration.

That being said, the suggested change would be an interesting way to add some balance here. At MaxTech, where shields are most powerful relative to armor, the strongest possible shield is 50*sqrt(50/10)*15 = 1677 strength, so a weapon with more than sqrt(1677) = 41 damage will leak through. The MaxTech particle lance can reach 100 damage, IIRC, so still 59 damage will leak through and likely drill a hole into the ship's interior. Similarly, a MaxTech advanced spinal laser (120cm) would deal something in the range of 400 damage (I don't have the game at hand to check this), most of that would get through a shield as well. If anything maybe the sqrt scaling is too much, but I think it is at least interesting to consider as another tactical option - the disadvantage of such high-damage weapons is their very slow ROF, so a fleet with higher-DPS weapons will be able to strike back several times even if the initial exchange of fire is unfavorable.

[nakorkren]

If the "problem" is that shields get too good at high tech level, why not make microwaves more effective against shields at higher tech levels? That way there is a way to address it, but it requires you (or the NPR) to utilize mixed-arms approaches.

[kilo]

I do not think that the idea of leaky shields presented here is good. High damage weapons are currently extremely effective against armor, as they can penetrate multiple layers of it and possibly even reach internal modules in a single salvo. This makes these weapons extremely dangerous. At the same time, this comes at a significant price, which are a huge displacement as well as a long recharging time. Shields are great to counter this type of weapons, as their damage per increment and ton tends to be low and shields do not leak and do recharge. Their weakness on the other hand are fast firing guns, which tend to be smaller and are rather bad at defeating armor.
If armor is not competitive compared to shields, you should consider reducing the cost and displacement of armor. This would allow you to bring more layers. Leaky shields would simply obsolete smaller guns.

[Gabethebaldandbold]

Maybe decrease the cost of some later tech armours and make a couple more?

[StarshipCactus]

If single high damage attacks are most effective against armour, why not add a mechanic where shields take a little extra damage per shot? So a missile with 9 damage might deal 10 or 11 damage to shields. This means single heavy attacks beat armour while lots of smaller attacks exploiting the small damage boost beat shields.

[kilo]

If single high damage attacks are most effective against armour, why not add a mechanic where shields take a little extra damage per shot? So a missile with 9 damage might deal 10 or 11 damage to shields. This means single heavy attacks beat armour while lots of smaller attacks exploiting the small damage boost beat shields.

I do not think missiles need to be buffed against shields or armor. The only defense you have against those is anti missile weapons. If these are insufficient armor or shields do not matter in the long run. It might only take a few extra missiles. Against beam weapons on the other hand, there are two types. There are those, which have a high damage at shorter ranges. They have so much DPM that they will overcome shield generators sooner or later. At longer ranges, there are only comparatively low damage option left. These do not benefit from your suggestion.
If you  want changes to missiles one could suggest an efficiency bonus for larger missiles. Larger engines get a fuel efficiency bonus right now and there is electronic warfare. That is it, but warheads could get a damage bonus if they are build above a certain MSP size. It would make larger missiles more viable compared to smaller ones. Right now most players just try to overcome the defenses and use like size 4 missiles for that. There is only very limited use for size 12 missiles on the other hand. You can build nice and large weapons, but there is no real point in doing so.

[alex_brunius]

If single high damage attacks are most effective against armour, why not add a mechanic where shields take a little extra damage per shot? So a missile with 9 damage might deal 10 or 11 damage to shields. This means single heavy attacks beat armour while lots of smaller attacks exploiting the small damage boost beat shields.

Isn't this already built into the damage distribution and other mechanics though?

Small damage fast firing weapons by default have higher dps which enable them to eat through shields quickly, while randomness ensures more of the armor strength will be used against such attacks before penetrations of armor starts happening.

I don't think you need special mechanics for this tbh. Shields are already stronger against high penetration lower dps weapons as their full strength can be used.

[Warer]

While personally I quite enjoy the thought of leaky shield perhaps a more "balanced" way to handle it that the weaker a shield gets the more leaky it becomes? Something like 50% Shield strength lets through ~up~ to 50% damage with a degree of randomness. Perhaps even adding something like a shield hardness tech that effects how much effectiveness a shield can lose.

[Bremen]

As far as shields becoming dominant at high tech levels, I think the best way to deal with that would be to rebalance shield HP. IIRC, the amount of shield hp per ton relative to armor hp per ton gradually increases as your tech level goes up, which then gets multiplied by the bonus from larger shield generators so they get more and more potent per ton. It might be best to smooth that out so that the base shield hp per ton improves at exactly the same rate as armor hp per ton, and only the larger generators make them more efficient over time.

I'm not sure shields need to be leaky, since armor already is and having them function in different ways is good for variety. But if the game did use "leaky" shields what I'd prefer to see would be some mechanic where damage to shields had a chance of damaging the shield generator itself, ie if a ship has a 100 point generator and you hit it with 50 damage, maybe there's a chance the component itself burns out and has to be repaired. If the chance of the generator burning out was flat regardless of the damage of each hit, that might even further specialize shields and armor into different roles - armor can be penetrated by a single large hit, shields have a chance of being brought down by a large amount of small hits.

[nuclearslurpee]

As far as shields becoming dominant at high tech levels, I think the best way to deal with that would be to rebalance shield HP.

Actually the problem is more in terms of armor scaling than shield HP scaling. Beyond the Ceramic Composite Armour (strength 10 per HS), armor tech scaling is lower than the typical +25% per tech level that defines most tech lines in Aurora, actually about +20% on average. If you increase armor strength by +25% per level (beyond 10/HS) and keep everything else constant, the ratio of maximum shield strength per HS to armor strength per HS caps at about 55%, versus 75% as it currently stands. Empirically, armor protection degrades significantly after about half of it has been destroyed, so a 55% ratio of strength per HS between shields and armor is about the right point to balance them. The catch is this would also require Steve to change the hardcoded ground forces attack values which are not in the DB to maintain parity, otherwise rushing plasma will be a permanent necessity for ground combat.

While shields are generally preferred to armor at higher tech levels, it should be noted that they are vulnerable to a few things, notably including mesons which IIRC are not affected by shields - a ship with over 9000 shields and only one layer of armor may find itself in deep trouble in a jump point assault into a meson defense base for instance...

[Zincat]

I still don't see how any of this is a problem. Armor is heavily favored in the early game. In the late game, shields are more effective in general

Both still have their niches where they are useful in every period of the game, it's not like shields are useless in the midgame or armor is useless in the end game. It's just that you'll generally shift over time from an armor-heavier setup to a shield-heavier setup.
That's fine, it's called progress. I don't think that armor or shields are so unbalanced  as to deserve a rebalance right now.
And if you instead go 100% armor or shields, on the ground that "I am minmaxing", you'll just have to make a sad face when you meet the hard counter to your defense choice.

There is no written rule anywhere that weapons and defenses must always keep the same balance over the course of a game. So why change it? It's fine the way it is, as your tech progresses different options become more viable.
Do you really want to have everything perfectly balanced to the point all choices are the same? I certainly don't, that simply means choosing is meaningless because the results are the same.
And if you do, I suggest the first thing that needs to be done is nerfing missiles in the early game anyway, certainly not shields in the late game. Early game missiles are the most unbalanced thing ever, compared to other weapon options.

It's the same thing as for railguns and gauss, which becomes a better PD only at high tech level. It's the same thing for cloacking, which is basically useless at low tech levels. Every technological era will have options that are generally better or worse, but so long as all are viable, that's fine. No need to stress over it.