Shield malfunction through shields?

Does anyone here know of an effect in the game that would cause shields to drop without taking the shield generator (or powerplant) to below 60%?

I had this happen in PvP and I’m curious about how it happened. The attacker was using flechettes (which obviously go through shields) and maybe pulse lasers or mines? Definitely flechettes though. If there were mines, I guess they may have included reverb cascade, but the shield generator was fine in terms of health so that seems unlikely to be the cause of the shield dropping.

I have three explanations,

1. Lucky malfunction, despite the shield generator still being above 60%. The attacker was definitely hitting with flechettes, so it might just be a lucky roll on the malfunctions, causing the shield to drop while the generator is still healthy. The powerplant was also well over 60%.

2. Some kind of flechette / scramble spectrum combo? Perhaps the flechettes momentarily make a hole in the shield? Seems unlikely but might be a thing; I’m not clear exactly how objects pass shields (hostile limpets, flechettes, your own outgoing projectiles, your SLF passing both ways freely). I’d expect that some objects just ignore some shields, rather than making holes, but - maybe? Hole in the shield, hit the hull with scramble spectrum, take down the generator?

3. Some reverb cascade / flechette combo? Perhaps those two interact in some way that can drop a shield when the generator is still healthy? Say, you hit a reverb mine after taking a bit of damage from a flechette, and this causes a malfunction?

I was impressed, anyhow. It was a way of taking out a maxed-out prismatic shield I’d not seen before. Torps, sure. Mines, likewise. Flechettes, likewise. But in all three cases I’d expect the generator to be at or near zero before the shield drops, or at least a very low health on the powerplant.
 
That might well be the issue.

I had thrusters, shield, life support, sensors, fsd all in p1 but also a guardian fsd booster was in p1 when it should have been p5. That may have tipped the p1 group over 50%, which would cause the shield to drop if the PP malfunctions.
Still feels like a lucky shot to have a healthy PP malfunction.

But yep, this is almost certainly on me for adding a module and not resetting priorities properly.

Also, cool that flechettes can be so dangerous in the right hands. Must practice more with flechettes. :)
 
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