This is an idea I have tossed around in my head for a few years. I’m going to guess that someone has had this idea before, or maybe it’s got unforseen drawbacks, or whatever. However, I think most people can agree that shields are massively OP, and usually make the TTK in battles ridiculously long
So hear me out. What if shields didn’t always block 100% of incoming damage while they are up?
The general idea here is that the more damaged your shields are, the less damage they block. So let’s start with the 100% to 95% range, we’ll let shields block all damage at this time to allow the first shot or few to be absorbed every time. After this point, as your shields become more and more damaged from 95% to 0%, there is a growing chance that a semi-random amount of damage from weapons can bleed through.
So for example, at 94% shield health, we’ll say that there is a 1% chance that up to 1% of a shot’s potential damage can bleed through the shields and damage the ship. If the shields are at 1% stength, there is a 50% chance that up to 50% of a weapon’s potential damage can leak through the shields. Basically it would scale with the health of the shield, with enough of a randomness there to make it feel natural while still offering some protection.
Ships with ridiculous shield strength would of course still have an advantage here, but the pilot of that ship wouldn’t be a near immortal god anymore who only fears reverb. They would need to invest in something more than simple lightweight bulkheads if they didn’t want to be destroyed before their shields fully drop.
Personally, I can foresee two possible issues, which I have ideas on how to work around:
Issue 1: Dedicated combat ships with nothing but hull reinforcement packs would be able to shred multirole ships all the more easily now.
My proposal: Make the benefit of hull reinforcement packs diminish if you have more than one, similar to the concept that Fdev almost put into play with shield boosters awhile back. This would close the gap some between dedicated combat ships and multirole ships, and make it easier for multirole ships to defend themselves by sacrificing one internal for hull protection. Sure, this would make hull tanks even more worthless than they already are, but we could have a separate discussion on how silent running could use a buff to address that.
Issue 2: Beam lasers. These weapons, on a technical level, probably fire dozens of “rounds” per second in order to work, so wouldn’t this allow them to pretty much bypass the randomness I mentioned constantly damage a ship’s hull through shields?
My proposal: Well maybe, but it would be a tiny amount of damage. Might create a spark show in the cockpit, but I couldn’t imagine each individual hit doing more than 0.1% damage. In case I’m wrong though, for these weapons specifically, maybe after the initial strike, don’t give the weapon another chance to penetrate shields for 0.5 seconds or something.
What about collisions? Well that 5% window would save you from bumps in the mail slot. Beyond that though, if you ram something or someone, you better be prepared to suffer hull damage. Assuming the tradeoff isn’t worth it, this may cut down on the cartoonishly stupid ramming we see people do to damage another ship. Not much of a loss IMO, but a ship with enough reinforcement would still walk away with less damage than their opponent.
The last question, what about the penetrating engineering effect? Well I suppose it could serve as a small buff to a weapon’s chance to penetrate shields, and remove the 100% to 95% immunity window.
Thoughts?
So hear me out. What if shields didn’t always block 100% of incoming damage while they are up?
The general idea here is that the more damaged your shields are, the less damage they block. So let’s start with the 100% to 95% range, we’ll let shields block all damage at this time to allow the first shot or few to be absorbed every time. After this point, as your shields become more and more damaged from 95% to 0%, there is a growing chance that a semi-random amount of damage from weapons can bleed through.
So for example, at 94% shield health, we’ll say that there is a 1% chance that up to 1% of a shot’s potential damage can bleed through the shields and damage the ship. If the shields are at 1% stength, there is a 50% chance that up to 50% of a weapon’s potential damage can leak through the shields. Basically it would scale with the health of the shield, with enough of a randomness there to make it feel natural while still offering some protection.
Ships with ridiculous shield strength would of course still have an advantage here, but the pilot of that ship wouldn’t be a near immortal god anymore who only fears reverb. They would need to invest in something more than simple lightweight bulkheads if they didn’t want to be destroyed before their shields fully drop.
Personally, I can foresee two possible issues, which I have ideas on how to work around:
Issue 1: Dedicated combat ships with nothing but hull reinforcement packs would be able to shred multirole ships all the more easily now.
My proposal: Make the benefit of hull reinforcement packs diminish if you have more than one, similar to the concept that Fdev almost put into play with shield boosters awhile back. This would close the gap some between dedicated combat ships and multirole ships, and make it easier for multirole ships to defend themselves by sacrificing one internal for hull protection. Sure, this would make hull tanks even more worthless than they already are, but we could have a separate discussion on how silent running could use a buff to address that.
Issue 2: Beam lasers. These weapons, on a technical level, probably fire dozens of “rounds” per second in order to work, so wouldn’t this allow them to pretty much bypass the randomness I mentioned constantly damage a ship’s hull through shields?
My proposal: Well maybe, but it would be a tiny amount of damage. Might create a spark show in the cockpit, but I couldn’t imagine each individual hit doing more than 0.1% damage. In case I’m wrong though, for these weapons specifically, maybe after the initial strike, don’t give the weapon another chance to penetrate shields for 0.5 seconds or something.
What about collisions? Well that 5% window would save you from bumps in the mail slot. Beyond that though, if you ram something or someone, you better be prepared to suffer hull damage. Assuming the tradeoff isn’t worth it, this may cut down on the cartoonishly stupid ramming we see people do to damage another ship. Not much of a loss IMO, but a ship with enough reinforcement would still walk away with less damage than their opponent.
The last question, what about the penetrating engineering effect? Well I suppose it could serve as a small buff to a weapon’s chance to penetrate shields, and remove the 100% to 95% immunity window.
Thoughts?
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