KMC's Analysis of Large Shields (SPECULATION)

ThatOneKMC

@all Should I make this in video format?

Jared

ThatOneKMC
A: this isint discord
B: why? I think you can explain enough with just text

Lafiel

There are many more possible building setups imho, so I don't think this can be written off just yet. But I do agree the uses are diminished.
I'm thinking of asymmetric placement as well as sideway orientated shields; mixed guns including sideway lasers/EB etc.

kwhwwymwn

ThatOneKMC 18,000 block HP(block HP assumed to have the same 3x increase)

I think the large shield emitter will have 12,000 hp, so far the only part that have more than 1000 hp per tiles are the armored part like the weapons

kwhwwymwn

I don't think dividing a shield strength by its coverage make much sense
ie : you have a shield of 45,000 hp covering 9 block, that's 5,000 hp/block
But let's say you attack that shield with a railgun (9,000 damage and no penetration for simplifying calculs)
The railgun deals damage on a single point on the shield, but the shield coverage is still the same and it's hp reduced to 36,000 (4,000 hp/block)

The hp/block would make sense if the railgun went through the shield (dealing the 5,000 damage to that block of coverage and 4,000 damage to the ship parts) reducing its coverage to 8 block

Lafiel

kwhwwymwn I disagree. Shield strength density is a key metric in Abh balance, energy consumption, and cost (used to be before they got merged).
Yes, technically total shield strength and health HP are always the max amount counted against for any damage hit. In that sense shield density doesn't matter. But coverage is an important efficiency metric verses weapons fire especially volume fire which is the general case in battle rather than a single weapon. Obviously, this comes to bear when layered shields are at hand. You can bet there's always someone exploiting things.

kwhwwymwn

Lafiel I see what you mean by "volume fire", it's constant unfocused fire, right?
So yes, when you are under constant unfocused fire (assuming perfect conditions), each meter of the surface of your ship take the same amount of damage per unit of time, so in this case the shield strength density is directly linked to the amount of time the shield can resist, and so it's an useful metric when balancing shields of different size

But volume fire isn't a common thing in vanilla, focused fire is quite the norm, both in MP and against the AI (BH), and against focused fire you want each shield to protect as much thing as possible because a shield that isn't being hit is kinda useless

Lafiel

kwhwwymwn AI doesn't use focus fire that much. Anyhow, as I said about damage processing it doesn't matter. The full shield strength will always apply the same anywhere for focus fire as long as it's the same shield. And then no amount of shielding or armor will matter when facing focus fire; you only win some time.

kwhwwymwn

ThatOneKMC 18 battery hold

(I missed this one earlier)
I think by "3x strength/batteries" Walt meant 3 times more HP per battery
it's 2,500 (15,000/6) for the small shield and it would be 7,500 (45,000/6?) for the large one
so if the large shield have 45,000 shield HP, it'd mean they have 6 batteries like the small one
but it could also mean the large shield is even stronger if it has more batteries
and since Walt said the art wasn't final on the screenshot (both shields look like a resized version of Kroom's art for the small external shield), we can't use the graphics as a proof it has 6 batteries

kwhwwymwn

Lafiel you only win some time

isn't that the goal of all defenses, winning time so you can destroy your opponent before it destroy you?

Lafiel The full shield strength will always apply the same anywhere for focus fire as long as it's the same shield.

in the case there is only one shield and assuming no shot where gonna miss and that all the part protected by the shield are equally valuable, the shield coverage doesn't matter if the shield catch all the shots, and if the shield doesn't catch all the shots, it means some shots are damaging your ship, which is not good if the parts are destroyed

in the case there are several shields, it's better to have each area protected by several shields instead of having only one shield assigned to each area, because you don't want your ship to take damage as soon as one shield is down

Lafiel

kwhwwymwn isn't that the goal of all defenses, winning time so you can destroy your opponent before it destroy you?

Protection has 3 different goals for efficiency reasons. For Cosmoteer it's only two: invulnerability (as in BB armor) and buying time for vital system(usually internal armor).

kwhwwymwn in the case there is only one shield

When talking about part design or performance you only look at one part not a group unless it's a modular design. Considering groupings is ofc an advanced level of design. Abh has plenty of those.

When caching shots timing or simply game tick is important as they are all summed up for the tick so we end up back to the same as focus fire. The difference being the point of focus, hence, the breach and location of internal damage.

kwhwwymwn

Lafiel invulnerability (as in BB armor) and buying time for vital system(usually internal armor).

imo, invulnerability is the same as buying infinite time

for the rest, I'm gonna stop arguing, I feel like we drifted far enough from the original argument that was whether or not the shield strength density was worth considering, and since you didn't convinced me, I still think that we have to consider the total strength of the shields to see how much a part is protected