Shield Piercing

[Coldcrush]

A question about the math of shield piercing. Given a 100 damage attack and 20% shield piercing, do the shields eat 80 damage and 20 bleeds through or is it a double effect of 100 damage and an addition 20 through to the hull? Thanks!

[Armonddd]

Total damage done is unaffected. That attack would do 80 shield and 20 hull damage.

 

Don't ask me how this interacts with weapons that do different amounts of damage to shield and hull.

[Nemarus]

Total damage done is unaffected. That attack would do 80 shield and 20 hull damage.

 

Don't ask me

 

how this interacts with weapons that do different amounts of damage to shield and hull?

[Slivovidze]

how this interacts with weapons that do different amounts of damage to shield and hull?

 

I'm actually also quite interested in this. Please, uncle Armonddd, please? *sad eyes*

Edited February 14, 2014 by Slivovidze

[Luneward]

Total damage done is unaffected. That attack would do 80 shield and 20 hull damage.

 

Don't ask me how this interacts with weapons that do different amounts of damage to shield and hull.

 

I would imagine it would be a proportionate damage system. So if a weapon does 100 shield damage and 50 hull damage, 20% piercing would probably net 80 shield damage and 10 hull (since it does half as much damage to hulls).

 

Though honestly it's only really an issue if you use Bypass, and then not a significant one. Most weapons with shield piercing do the same damage regardless of what they hit. Thermite torpedoes are the only exception I could find - and I'll have to check in game to see if I can find the shield damage numbers as opposed to the hull.

 

Edit: But please Armondd, will you tell us how that works? (Yeah, sorry for killing the joke with a probable explanation)

Edited February 14, 2014 by Luneward

[Armonddd]

Alright, alright, I hate you all.

 

Essentially, what we're looking at is how much damage is dealt to hull after shield damage is calculated. This happens most commonly with shield piercing, but you can get a similar situation with ion weapons and thermite torpedoes. The complications arise from trying to apply multipliers in a sensible order, and without a combat log (hint hint) there isn't much we players can do to confirm or deny any ideas we might have.

 

In theory, Luneward is correct. 100 shield/50 hull with 20% shield piercing vs 100+ shields should do 80 shield damage and 10 hull damage. Unfortunately, funny numbers have me question those results.

 

Simplest and least problematic situation: burst lasers with shield piercing against a guy with a lot of shields. If you have increased shield damage, does all of the shield damage bleed through? If I take increased shield damage and crit for 1301 (1156 [base dps to shields] * 0.75 [fire rate] * 1.5 [critical multiplier]), do I do 104 hull damage (1301 * 0.08) or 88 hull damage (1301 * 0.08 / 1.18)? If I take increased hull damage in the same situation and crit for 1103, do I do 102 hull damage (1103 * 0.08 * 1.16) or 88 hull damage (1103 * 0.08)?

 

As I said, it's simple, and it doesn't make a huge difference either way. Two points of hull really shouldn't be the difference between a kill and your death. (It sometimes is, though, and that sucks.)

 

Ion railguns make for another easy example. They have no shield piercing, do about a quarter damage to hull, and use big enough numbers to make changes in math noticeable. If you ion railgun a guy at full shields, you'll get a nice big 1850. If you ion railgun a guy with zero shields, you'll get a piddly 463.

 

Next up: find a guy with a sliver of shields and full hull, and blast the poor schmuck with a fully charged ion railgun. From my memory, you'll see the full 1850 number pop up, and he'll take way more hull damage than he really should. Is it showing the theoretical shield damage, or is it showing the actual total damage dealt? Without a combat log, I couldn't tell you. One implies a failure to return a value or two to the function that displays flytext, and the other implies a failure to apply a damage multiplier.

 

To be clear, it's been a while since I've been bored enough to fly a gunship, and my own tests on this subject are limited. But I can definitely remember a number of times when an ion shot did way more damage than I thought it would, or when a buddy got an ion kill on someone with a significant amount of hull after I weakened his shields. Some of you guys actually fly gunships; would you say this seems about right?

 

Now let's combine the two: low shields and shield piercing. Again, we'll look at burst lasers with shield piercing and shield damage. The target has, we'll say, 500 points of shield remaining. Let's look at our 1301 crit again: theoretically this should be 500 shield damage and 679 hull damage ((1301 - 500) / 1.18). But wait! Shield piercing happens! So of that 500 damage, 8% or 40 damage should bleed through to the hull, dealing 34 additional hull damage after we negate the shield damage bonus. But then that would leave the guy with 40 shield remaining on that arc, and that clearly doesn't happen.

 

There are other considerations, such as blaster overcharge, targeting telemetry, and damage/frequency capacitors (all of my examples with burst lasers assumed range capacitors, I guess), but these are all linear increases to damage dealt, and thus shouldn't provide (m)any surprises.

 

So does shield piercing do nothing if (shield damage > shields remaining)? In what order are damage multipliers applied? Is increased damage to shields properly negated when the blast damages hull as well as shields?

 

yellow pls

[Slivovidze]

[DEATHICIDE]

My understanding In layman's terms, just for some who may still be a little confused:

 

-Hull only damage is never applied to shields, and is the first thing calculated on contact.

-Shield only damage never gets applied to hulls, and is the second thing calculated on contact.

-100% of plain damage always hits the shields first, and once the shields are at zero, the remaining points will then be applied to the hull.

 

Only regular damage is told by shield piercing how much of that damage will be affected by the shield, and how much will be applied directly to the hull instead.

 

-If applied to a critical hit on a target, that has for example, 10 shield damage, 10 plain, and 10 hull:

Each number should be changed to 11, assuming our crit gave us an extra 10%, and will then follow the rules as normal.

Critical hits should not change the behavior of damage application, and will still flow in the order of shields>hull, as the critical damage should be applied to the entire shot as a whole, and not to each damage type separately.

(In other words you shouldn't see a partial crit, as it is all still a single shot, making it either 11/11/11 or 10/10/10)

 

 

-If the weapon does 100 points of plain damage, and 10 points of direct hull damage to the target, but has 50% shield piercing, vs a 100 shield and 100 hull target, it will leave you with 50 shield and 40 hull, as half of the plain damage is being told by the shield piercing to avoid the shields and go directly to the hull, and the shields are only allowed to eat 50 points.

 

-If the weapon does 100 points of shield damage and 100 points plain damage with 90% shield piercing to a target that has 40 shield and 200 hull, the target will be left with with 0 shield HP, making the shield piercing irrelevant, and 100 hull HP because there are 100 points of plain damage, with the extra shield only damage disappearing after the shields were brought to zero.

 

I hope I got this right, and didn't unintentionally bastardize the facts with my boil-down(though I'm sure I will be back-handed promptly if so)!

Edited February 14, 2014 by DEATHICIDE

[Armonddd]

-If the weapon does 100 points of plain damage, and 10 points of direct hull damage to the target, but has 50% shield piercing, vs a 100 shield and 100 hull target, it will leave you with 50 shield and 40 hull, as half of the plain damage is being told by the shield piercing to avoid the shields and go directly to the hull, and the shields are only allowed to eat 50 points.

 

I am very confused. What is plain damage, and how does it differ from shield damage and hull damage? Do you mean total damage before it's broken down into hull and shield damage? What weapon does "plain damage" in addition to "direct hull damage"? What weapons do "plain damage" in addition to "damage to shields" and "damage to hull"? The game defines direct hull damage as damage with 100% shield piercing (i.e. seismic mines). I don't think you're talking about shield piercing, because shield piercing doesn't increase the total damage dealt (in your 100 damage example, if you meant 10% shield piercing, your shot would do 90 shield and 10 hull damage).

[Zharik]

Total damage done is unaffected. That attack would do 80 shield and 20 hull damage.

 

Don't ask me how this interacts with weapons that do different amounts of damage to shield and hull.

 

Granted I have not had a chance to test this, but I think it works this way:

Weapon X does 1800 damage vs shields and 200 vs hull

You have 20% shield piercing

80% of 1800 to the shields = 1440

20% to the hull = 40

 

Weapon Y does 200 vs shields and 1800 vs hull

You again have 20% shield piercing

80% to the shields = 160

20% to the hull = 360

 

So basically if never really works out to a whole lot per shot, but if the target is already damaged, it might push them over the edge.

[Zharik]

I am very confused. What is plain damage...

 

I am pretty sure he meant weapons like Proton torpedoes, and EMP missiles?

 

AKA "plain damage" = 100% shield penetration and 100% armor penetration weapons.

Edited February 15, 2014 by Zharik

[Luneward]

Now let's combine the two: low shields and shield piercing. Again, we'll look at burst lasers with shield piercing and shield damage. The target has, we'll say, 500 points of shield remaining. Let's look at our 1301 crit again: theoretically this should be 500 shield damage and 679 hull damage ((1301 - 500) / 1.18). But wait! Shield piercing happens! So of that 500 damage, 8% or 40 damage should bleed through to the hull, dealing 34 additional hull damage after we negate the shield damage bonus. But then that would leave the guy with 40 shield remaining on that arc, and that clearly doesn't happen.

 

I think you're overthinking that point. I again think it is probable that the shield piercing damage is resolved first, then the remaining damage is applied. So the remaining 1200 or so damage still needs to take the shield out before it applies the rest of it. Though the fault in my logic there is that would make any amount of shield piercing useless on targets that have less current shielding than your average blaster damage. Perhaps that is the case though. After all, armor piercing doesn't provide any benefit if your target doesn't have any damage reduction.

Edited February 15, 2014 by Luneward

[Armonddd]

I think you're overthinking that point. I again think it is probable that the shield piercing damage is resolved first, then the remaining damage is applied. So the remaining 1200 or so damage still needs to take the shield out before it applies the rest of it.

 

Yeah, that would be logical. And if I were a developer, I would have coded it something like that. Unfortunately, I'm not, so I can't confirm that's how it works. Again, some of the silly numbers and kills I've seen make me question how it's coded -- and it could be fine and I could be wrong, that's perfectly reasonable too.

[DEATHICIDE]

I am pretty sure he meant weapons like Proton torpedoes, and EMP missiles?

 

AKA "plain damage" = 100% shield penetration and 100% armor penetration weapons.

 

Cluster missiles should have what I am calling "plain" damage, for an example.

[Armonddd]

Cluster missiles should have what I am calling "plain" damage, for an example.

 

Before shield piercing upgrade, you mean?

[DEATHICIDE]

Before shield piercing upgrade, you mean?

 

Yeah, stock style

[DEATHICIDE]

I suppose my post was a little confusing if you are looking at blasters, which state "damage to hull" damage to shields" being that when shield piercing of say 10% is applied, it will do 10% of the "damage to hull" number along with the full amount of the damage to shields, if the damage to shields amount can drop the target's shields to zero, then the damage to hull is applied. (keeping in mind there are no official numbers so behind the curtain things could happen that I don't know about)

 

For some weapons though, these two numbers are the same, so I had called them "plain damage".

 

Rocket pods, seeker mines, a few others I am sure...

 

Guess I was just adding more confusion after all :s oops

 

I would like to meet someone in a GSF match and fly into a corner then shoot eachother to bits a few times on camera and record some numbers to be sure there's not something extra going on, but I'm really not that ambitious

 

Maybe a dev will turn on the flashlight some time.

Edited February 15, 2014 by DEATHICIDE