Playing TEC rebel level 10 Raganov with a full supporting fleet cannot kill this thing, even in my wells.. with a supporting starship...
Playing on hard level...what am I doing wrong? Had bombers...everything I throw at it...Its now a level 10 beast ...help!!!
Aye I understand. And to be fair my tests did reveal I was partially under a misunderstanding as they revealed what I believd was the case was in fact true for phase missiles- but not for other shield-piercing damage. Which leads me to believe the whole thing is just a case of "the shield bypass chance is not rolled against enemy ships who's shields are down," which results in no more bypasses which results in no more mitigation bypass.
So in all honesty I kind of glad you prompted me to run the tests as they improved my understanding of the game's mechanics by correcting a partial misunderstanding(That I had previously believe a specific phenomonom to be more general then it is).
That said though, I still find it irritating that phase missiles tend towards killing ships with more shield points faster- a Defensive stat might be ineffective, but it should never actually decrease the ship's lifespan. Well if you uncover anything else with your own tests keep us updated.
bilun you truly have a talent to utter all of these words and actually say nothing useful or correct.
+1 karma for you
No, I'm certain that I am correct, you either misunderstand my point or are mistaken. In anycase lets see if we can work out specifically where your stance differs from my own
Agreed
I'll present an example later as to why this is not the case
Having more shield points has no relation to shield mitigation because the emergency generators story is just a backbone trying to put shield mitigation in a realistic context.
In general, Agreed. There is no intrinsic connection between shield points and mitigation.
My point is there is an interaction between phase missiles and shiled mitigation which is triggered by lack of shields. more on this later
Shield mitigation does not kick in when shields are depleted. In the story the generators kick in once the primary shields have failed but if you read it carefully else where you would see shield mitigation was always on during the first dps recieved.
Again, agreed. I am completely aware shield mitigation is always present.
What he's saying is if a unit has 2000 shields and 2000 hull points then shield mitigation when shields are assaulted is 15% and shields are eaten away receiving more damage up to the point emergency generators kick in when there 0 shield points where mitigation is around 65%+.
This is absolutely not what I'm saying. Shield mitigation growth has nothing to do with my point. If shield mitigation were permanently fixed at it's maximum the phenomenon I've observed would still occur.
The truth is the first shot from an assailant for example is mitigated at 15% , the second is mitigated at 50+.. because of the dps a ship receives. Massed phase missiles will have ships using the highest possible mitigation value like any other assault. Hes shield story is false. Hes trying to tell us a ship recieves more damage when theres shields as it waits for shields to drop to get higher mitigation values.Shield mitigation is never just 15% and then 65%. It rises depending on the attack by a percentage so at some times you could see it at 30%+. It varies by the incoming damage.
Yes, but with an y reasonable about of focusfire DPS it will pretty much stay at cap. And the amount of damage it takes to cap shield mitigation is trivial compared to the amount of total damage it takes to destroy a capitalship. As such you can basically assume capitalships getting focusfired are at cap mitigation for basically all of the damage it takes to kill them.
Anyway it seems you misunderstand the entire reason that phase missiles deal more damage to ships with shields still up. I reccomend you forget I ever used the term back-up shield generators- they are not central to this issue and it was my error to introduce the term in the first place as it has caused needless confusion. I'm going to give a step by step example of this phenomenon at work:
ASSUMPTION 1: Phase missiles that bypass shields are not affected by shield mitigation. it's well documented that this is the case.
ASSUMPTION 2: a focusfired capitalship can be assumed to be at max shield mitigation for the entire battle as long as it is focused. The damage it takes to hit shield mitigatio cap is not particularly significant as compared to the total damage it takes to destroy the ship. Yes this is a slight estimattion, but the relative error introduced isn't very statistically significant.
ASSUMPTION 3: Once shields are at 0, phase missile bypass chance nolonger occurs. This is what my test earlier in the thread confirmed.
So suppose we have a Ship firing 100 damage phase missiles on a capitalship with 75% shield mitigation. Assume max phase missiles tech(30% bypass)
Case 1, The capitalship has 2000 shields left & 75% shield Mitigation:
-each shot has a 70% of not bypassing shields, which is then reduced by shield mitigation. In this case the shot deals 25 damage to the capitalship's shields base damage is 100 and 75% shield mitigation is present
-each shot has a 30% chance of bypassing shields, ignoring shield mitigation. In this case 100 damage is dealt to hull
result: on average each shot deals .7*25=17.5 damage to shields and .3*100=30 damage to hull
Case 1, The capitalship has 0 shields left& 75% shield Mitigation:
-each shot has a 100% chance of not bypassing shields, and thus is affected by shield mitigation. In this case 25 damage is dealt to hull since the base damage is 100 and 75% shield mitigation is present
Overall Result:
On average phase Missile weapon deals 25 hull damage per shot when shields are down, and 30 hull damage per shot when shields are still up. That is a 20% increase in hull damage per shot.
As shield mitigation gets higher, this gap grows further. Higher bypass chance via the Subverter's Shield disruption also increases the gap further.
So here's what it comes down to: against high mitigation targets, Phase missiles deal more DPS after mitigation to hull when shields are up then they do when shields are down.
That means their damage output gets lower when shields run out.
Ships with low shield totals have their shields run out sooner(from the 70% of phase missiles that don't bypass) and as a result will have longer lifespans against phase missiles.
Now there's certainly a point to be made about how dropping shields unquestionably increases your vulnerability to any incoming non-phase missile weapon, but in a focus fire scenario where all incoming damage is from phase missiles, lower shield totals do as a result translate into longer survival times.
All that said Riddle, now that I've led my underlying reasoning out sequentially, would you mind telling me which specific assumption or point about how phase missiles & shield mitigation you disagree with?
My test confirmed this result. Frankly being that I have presented evidence, the burden of proof now lies with you. Once tangible evidence is on the table, the way you think the game works does not really constitute a valid counterargument.
That's not to say you have to agree with me- but if you want to really present a valid counterargument you need to either run some tests yourself or point out a flaw in my tests that could account for the results.
Of course that said, Whether the phenomena I have described is a problem for game balance is entirely open to discussion- I'm merely argueing at this point that this situation is occurring. The impact on game balance is another issue entirely.
To summarize if you've forgotten the results of my test in game were the following:
I modified a ship to fire a 10000 damage phase missile with 100% bypass chance. I then fired on two high-hull dummy ships(after using other weapons to build up shield mitigation).
The first ship had 0 armor, 3000-5000 shield points at the time of firing the phase missile. This ship took 9,999-10,000 every time it got hit with a phase missile as long as it's shields lasted.(this proves ASSUMPTION 1)
The second ship had 0 armor and 0 shield points left(it only had 10 mas shield points so dropping it to 0 shield points was simple). This ship was observed to take 4000-8000 damage from the phase missile dependign on it's current level of shield mitigation. (This proves ASSUMPTION 3 as even with 100% bypass chance the missile was affected by shield mitigation)
There you have it: as per my tests The phase missile was shown tod eal more damage per shot to a target that has shield poitns left then one that doesn't. If you want to test it yourself my original test post had a link to the modified reference files to run the test.
This is true and i have not said it isn't.
I said shield points dont affect shield mitigation-dps received does.
Phase missiles do affect shield mitigation. This is how there bypass figure is applied on units. This is very important to understand.
When a unit has shield mitigation at 60% and phase missiles can bypass shields at a maximum rate of 30% then it actually means shield mitigation is reduced to 30% (regardless of shield points) so the damage received per phase missile shot is 70% before armor is applied.
In diplomacy and rebellion: the phase missile bypass adjustment is 30% after getting all the shield ignore/bypass research but the damage increase techs are different from bypass techs. NME warhead and advanced NME warhead only increase the base value dps of phase missiles.
The only way to make phase missiles get 95% of damage to affect ships is when you use a dangerous ship i call Mr subvert. This ships reduces the remaining 30% of shield mitigation after the max phase missile bypass to 5% of 60-30. Since shield disruption is 25% therefore 60 -30 -25 = 5.
Damage recieved = 100 - = 95
Shield By pass: 5% 10% 20% 25% 30% 30% etc
Shield mitigation: 15% 25% 50% 57% 67% 80% etc
Damage received 90% 85% 70% 68% 63% 50% etc
after the 30% barrier you then need a subverter to increase bypass by reducing shield mitigation.
Advent culture tec reduces the bypass figure by -20
You are correct that shield points don'[t affect shield mitigation. I never said they did. However shield points DO affect whether phase missile bypass chance allow the missiles to ignore mitigation.
You have a complete fundamental misunderstanding of how phase missiles work.
They do not reduce mitigation percentage directly. They provide a % chance on each attack to ignore both shield and shield mitigation entirely.
30% phase missile bypass does not reduce shield mitigation by 30%. 30% phase missile Bypass gives phase missiles a 30% chance on each attack of ignoring shield mitigation entirely and being dealt directly to hull. The other 70% of the time phase missiles behave as completely unteched weapons.
As my tests shows phase missile bypass does absolutely nothing once shields go down. the result is that phase missiles deal more DPS to hull when shields are up then down.
This is wrong and your just being stubborn about your beliefs.
Whats this % chance bs you've come up with out of the blue? This is not like the advent hit chance or chance to convert routine. Stop confusing everyone and adhere to whats happening with each missile that hits a ship. You should understand its not a magical trick left to chance like advent weapons being able to convert a unit. It is a plain percentage of dps that affects a ship for each missile. It does not mean one missile's damage is left to chance so get your facts straight before trolling mis information.
What you have said is so inaccurate that you've created a paradox where now each phase missile is either useless or not. You've also made the advent phase block techs go hay wire where they are an instant debuff for each phase missile but your trolling says not every phase missile bypasses. So what are you going to say about advent phase block? That its also left to chance? DO you see what you have done. The best advice for you is to study all the entity files and search for this chance business you have going on.
Phase missile bypass percentages are a debuff of shield mitigation. Period. Its not left to chance or luck. The chance business is a back story to make people think thats how phase missile work. 30% chance to bypass shields is too damn low for any weapon. There effect and ability to snipe ships means that number should be 70%+. DO you see the maths and why your figures are wrong? 30% chance is too low..... that itself is a hint that the bypass works in a different way.
I find it extremely amusing that you call me stubborn when I have submitted actual test data and your refuse to admit there's a chance that you are wrong- believing your qualitative understanding is unequivocally superior to any test result or calculation without having to run any tests of your own is a hallmark example of stubbornness. And incidentally you are also entirely wrong.
It does not mean one missile's damage is left to chance so get your facts straight before trolling mis information.
It can certainly be considered a raw % boost in damage. But the mechanism IS a percent chance per hit.
The thing is that statistically speaking when you are seeing as many attacks as you do with a fleet of PM-bearing weapons, the effect normalizes to the average very quickly(for example each squadron of bombers attacks 3 times in every 13 second period). With 20-30 squads of bombers that's 60-90 attacks per bombing run to normalize.
This is the reason that despite being a % chance it's not very rangery.
If you knew anything about statistics you'd know the more "rolls" are made the less random the average roll becomes. With a large number of rolls random chances become entirely reliable in their effects.
Phase missiles block techs lower the bypass chance, plain and simple. They don't introduce a second roll, but they do lower the initial phase missile roll's chance of bypassing. At least as far as I've been able to tell that's how it works.
It baffles me that you don't understand how PMs work. This is utterly common knowledge.
And yes 30% sounds low until you remember that phase mssiles that bypass ignore shield mitigation entirely.
Remember most weapon will have 70-75% of their damage removed by mitigation against capitalship targets. This means most weapons only deal about 25-30% of their listed value.
30% bypass chance means phase missiles right off the bat deal 30% of their listed value directly to hull. And their other 70% is affected by shield mitigation, not removed entirely. after a 70-75% reduction that other segment is 21-24.5%. SO with only 30% bypass chance Phase missiles actually end up dealing 51-54% of their listed damage on average where other weapons only deal 25-30%. That's not remotely weak. Yes 30% looks low, but the effect is so strong it's very powerful regardless.
If anything what should be a hint that you're dead wrong is the Subverter's Shield Disruption ability. Why should it give both weapon bypass chance and reduce shield mitigation if they were the same exact same effect(avoided shield mitigation)?
Also how do you think the phase missile % of damage to hull works if you don't believe in a bypass chance? You'll notice phase missiles deal damage to both hull and shields. And each individual phase mmissile only damages one(if you have only a single ship this can be observed fairly easily).
Again it simply boggles my mind that you can not have realized this- this is common knowledge. Heck, read the dang in game description of the first phase missile tech:
"Phase technology is made small enough to fit into missiles, giving them a chance to bypass shields and directly impact hulls."
On a side note, man have we hijacked this thread hard.
phase missiles do not bypass by chance and i say this out of my superior(not really but since you hinted it) qualilative way of understanding. 30% chance is too low while 30% drop in shield mitigation is the right calculations and its what phase missiles do.
I call for all the devs to prove this is wrong?
Thris read has become "Riddled"...
Unfortunately this is true.
I love it when someone shoots themselves in the foot. Bilum gives "Phase technology is made small enough to fit into missiles, giving them a chance to bypass shields and directly impact hulls." as the research description.
no where in that description (nor that I have found on the rare occasion I played Vasari) dose it say that Phase missiles ignore mitigation. I always thought that the shield mitigation thingy was like the hull polerisation on Enterprise or force fields that reinforce a ships hull plating.
Bilun obviously needs a new pair of glasses since phase missiles do not bypass shield mitigation at all. They merely bypass the shield points of their targets by chance, but are still affected by armor and mitigation when impacting a ships hull directly, like every other weapon in Sins.
The MP crowd is going to hate me for this, but have any modders delved into how shield bypassing works as part of their ongoing edits of Sins of a Solar Empire?
No offense to you MP players, but knowing how the nuts and bolts work is something we modders excel at since we regularly pull apart the game and put it back together in a completely different manner. RiddleKing and bilun may be better equipped to argue balance, but if you want to know how something actually works, ask a modder.
Contrary to popular belief, there was a time that jbaum absolutely sucked ass at rebellion because all he did was spam corvettes...even if you built pure flak, he'd still build corvettes...
Then one day I caught him talking to someone in the lobby...they asked jbaum if he knew what armor type corvettes were...he didn't know....
That's better than radioactive, who I discovered doesn't even know what the amor types are...
Then there's Greg and Player Slayer, who think detonate AM can disable culture centers....
I can't even count how many times RiddleKing has been wrong about something, not because he's stupid, but because the damn wiki is awful and doesn't properly explain things....and I'm pretty sure he does more research about these things than most of the MP community...
Skilled players may be skilled and have good intuition, but that doesn't mean they understand game mechanics...
That's pretty much what I'm saying. They know how to beat the system, but they don't know how it really works.
I've read some of the stuff on here about weapon and armor types and I still don't get it. which, admittedly, is probably part of what gets me killed on the times I can get online. hell till recently I did Kol an tec rushed for that alliance among rouges thingy.
I've also been told on a couple of other games online that I'm not aggressive enough, mostly cos I'm stuck offline playing against thick AI's that can be dealt with fairly easy with one big push. problem is I don't think I'd be classed as a turtler either cos I just don't really bother with static def unless there's something important about a planet.
...Or GTFO of course if you don't know if what they do either.
Now now Seleuceia... lets not get ahead ourselves. I just think that dealing with percentages is nasty when calculating probabilities. 30% chance seems a bit low... Don't you think? Thats the maximum researchable phase missile bypass chance according to bilun.
Now if you think about it then the first PM research only gives a new or extra 5% chance? Damn.. out of 100% you guys are telling me that the chances your phase missile bypass shields could be 5%.. Are u really gonna agree with that concept? Are any of you here going to approach a fleet of assailants so cork sure thinking, "hes missile have only got a 5% chance they would bypass so im good.
heres a theory:
Theres a 5% chance ill get to sleep with 5 wemen today? I think this is a very correct statement. Some might argue it could lower but i can sure you that 5% aint much anyway. Same as PMs. Biluns theory makes them feel weaker than how they perform in game.
1 in 20 shots might not be much, especially in the early game but at rank 6, it's nearly 1 in 3 shots doing direct, unmitigated damage to the target's hull. Those odds add up to a pretty sizable chunk of extra damage when there's a horde of bombers or assailants involved.
Assuming that theory is true, anyway.
Bypass chance is bypass chance: they do not transmit that percentage of damage to hull through shields; it is a percent chance for a weapon to ignore shields when fired. This is why they're brutal when fired en-masse since that's that many more chances for shots to get straight through the shields, and yes, mitigation. What I believe, but have no proof for, is that when shields are depleted they still have a chance to bypass mitigation since that is handled as a function of shielding rather than hull.
Also, shields have a base 100% block chance for weapons fire, and anything that affects that (like phase missiles) is additive. The Advent culture researches modify that chance positively, so with all researches done they have a 120% chance to block incoming fire, and the teched-up phase missiles subtract 30% from that total, making it a 10% chance they'll penetrate instead of 30%.
Modders can actually have a complete field day with shield bypass and definitely create some technological arms races over bypass and block chance increases since Diplomacy added that block rate modifer with the Shield Pact, which is yes, a research subject so that modifier can be used by any research subject. "Soft shields" can also be made with a tech that has a strong negative penalty to block rates as a base value, which would definitely be unusual gameplay for Sins.
First off, I'd like to say I'm thrilled to see this influx of new voices. I was about to lose my sanity arguing with Riddle.
I'm fairly confident in my understanding of the game's nuts and bolts. Is there anything I said that was wrong? As you may have noticed I'm been using calculations and tests using modded game files(to make data easy to collect in an accurate manner) to substantiate everything I've said- not the qualitative assumptions pro players seem given to.
And frankly every test I have run has produced the expected results from my understanding of how things work.
I fully appreciate the level of understanding that comes from modifying and working with game system- in general I'm a very formal learner for games in general- I spend as much time picking apart the systems, running tests, draft and testing theories, and researching in general when I'm obsessed with a game as I do playing it. More over I agree that most competitive players don't really bother to learn the game mechanics formally and quantitatively. So understand me when I say I appreciate the depth of knowledge long time modders must have of the game in general- But that alone isn't enough to summarily dismiss the arguments of non-recognized modders without explanation.
So tell me, what exactly have I misunderstood?
Did you see my post earlier on? I ran a test. a 10,000 damage phase missile was given 100% shield bypass chance and fired on a ship with 0 armor and 30-40% shield mitigation. The phase missile was fired from a capitalship to a ship with light armor, so there was no greater then 100% dmg:armor conversion. No other techs or abilities were researched or used(besides the tech used to give the shot 100% bypass chance).
The ship took 9999 hull damage. Shield mitigation is not applied to phase missiles that bypass. If it were, the ship wouldn't have taken more then 8300 damage under any circumstances(since minimum shield mitigation is 17%).
That's why phase missiles are so superior to any other weapon type. After shield mitigation most weapon types deal 25-30% of their base raw damage to shield, then hull. Phase missiles deal 30% of their base raw damage directly to hull and another 17.5-21% to shields then hull(the latter ebing the portion that doesn't bypass).
As you can see with 30% bypass chance, phase missiles actually are dealing more hull damage per second then shield damage per second.
Put another way, ignoring 65-75% shield mitigation is a 200-300%(x3-x4) damage increase on attacks that bypass. So a 30% bypass chance in on average a 100*(1+.3 *(2)) to 100*(1+.3 *(3))= 60-90% damage increase(whereas most other weapons on average are a 30% damage increase). Factor in the final +10% damage phase missile tech and that raises to a 176-209% damage increase- easily 3x a much as other weapon techs. And a large portion of the damage is dealt directly to hull.
Again, if you distrust my results, my post on the previous page has the uploaded modded reference files and testing procedure, so feel free to test it yourself.
My comment about MP players not knowing anything was mainly directed at people like RiddleKing who like to bash us modders as n00bs since we don't play MP, nothing at you, bilun. Keep making modified files and eventually you'll become assimilated into the Collective.
As to your second part, your quote is screwed up so I'm assuming you're replying to Teun-A-Roonius.
Ahh, glad to hear it.
Also, thanks for the heads up o nthe quote- you are correct, that was meant for Teun(quote is fixed now).
I habitually highlight text as I read it somethings, and the fact that when you hit any quote button it automatically quotes and *still* highlighted text gets quoted(regardless of whether the text was written by the guy you hit quote for), causes me to screw up quotes every one in awhile on these forums.
Bilun, I stand corrected. Thanks for explaining it in an understandable reply rather than rubbing your superior knowledge in my face in an insulting manner, like some other people would have done without a doubt.
I also noticed today how seven Kanraks nearly killed my capitalship single handedly while it still had 2500 shield points when I had to retreat it. This proves you are definitely right about the amount of damage applied to the hull by those shield-bypassing missiles.
I honestly think a nerf to phase missiles is in order. Reducing the bypass chance to max 15% wouldn't be a bad idea IMO. Otherwise, the dev's should make sure the bypassing missiles are still affected by shield mitigation, like any other weapon in the game. Kind of retarded to grant a single faction such an enormous damage increase on one of their most used weapons...
Glad to do do so- heck I'm always thrilled to talk numbers with anyone who is willing to put up with my tendency towards rather long posts.
Aye, I agree entirely. I've long thougth phase missiles could do with a reduction from 5% bypass chance per rank to maybe 3.5-3.5% per ranks(which would of course result in 18-21% bypass after all 6 ranks).
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