Shield mitigation. I don't know how exactly the mechanics of it work though, but the upgrades are beneficial.

It can be particularly tough on Advent fleets.

It's not a small amount.. math's been done, and the damage boost from the phase missile tech rivals that from the generic +% damage techs. Phase missiles bypass all shield mitigation, which means they do full damage to the hull 30% of the time. They are very good when fighting shield-tanked Advent fleets with Motherships and Guardians.

Better yet, Vasari bombers actually use phase missiles, so they benefit from the tech as well - it's not just the Assailants and Capitals

They also have a support cruiser that increases phase missile chance by 25% was it? Which gives them a 55% chance to penetrate and do full damage. Hard to argue with that

Let me see if I'm hearing you guys: there is something called shield mitigation, which is different from shields, and the Assailant's ability to sometimes bypass shield mitigation makes it a more efficient damage-dealer?

I know the upgrade probably does something (otherwise it would be incredibly dumb), I just want to understand how the game mechanics work. It seems weird to have so many "health" concepts (shields, shield mitigation, hull, armor...) in one game.

Amish- "I'd say as a ship is targeted, it's mitigation climbs from 15% to 57%." The "I'd say" in this sentence is confusing me. Is this an actual figure, or are you guesstimating 57%? That would mean that in general ships do less than half damage. Really?

Sorry Procumbo, I wasn't trying to be vague.

I was referring to the most common target: non capital ships. All ships have base shield mitigation 15%. That's what it starts at for every ship. For all non-capital ships, the mitigation maxes out at 57%.

For capital ships, it's higher, I've just never bothered to check how much higher. I think it's 70%, but don't hold me to that.

The faster you do damage to a target, the quicker its shield mitigation climbs.

Shield mitigation itself is different from hull points and shield points. Shield mitigation is a multiplier that is applied to the damage being done to a ship. It's a reduction in all cases. This is why having an entire fleet target one ship is not recommended in SOME cases. So much of your damage is negated it could be better used elsewhere.

I didn't realize the shield mitigation is variable. I pretty much always target-fire a single ship with my whole fleet, but maybe that's actually wrong.

Kitkun- "Shield mitigation takes a shot that hits while shields are up and then removes that percentage of the damage." The "Training Manual" that comes with the game seems to say that mitigation works even when shields are down: "Once the primary shield has failed, emergency generators are brought online to maintain this last line of defense throughout the armor of the hull" (p. 45).

So really, "shield mitigation" is kind of a misleading name for something that has nothing to do with "shields." It's actually a game mechanic that universally reduces damage dealt to ships, but to a greater degree the faster they're being damaged. If you took away the variability, it would be the same as reducing all weapons damage by a flat rate - in other words, irrelevant. All of which makes me wonder why the developers included this concept in the game. As far as I can tell, it has two main effects: 1. Discourage target-firing a single ship with your whole fleet. This tactic is often mandatory in RTS games, because by focusing on a single target you kill it quickly, stopping it from dealing damage, and don't allow damaged units to retreat and repair. But punishing a high damage rate counteracts the inherent advantages of going all-out at one target. 2. Give the weaker side an edge in imbalanced fights. It won't allow the weaker fleet to win, but it will allow it to survive longer.

In fact, these two factors fit right in with Sins' philosophy contrasted to other RTSs: slower and less micro-intensive (and therefore, arguably, more strategy-intensive and grander, more epic).

Rename shield mitigation to shield frequency rotation or so. Then everybody who ever watched an episode of Star Trek will know what it's supposed to do

Its the same as nothing changed except now we get more fighters/bombers per Lanurak. Which means we kill even faster as we have MORE PHASE MISSLES then ever.

Actually, once shields are down mitigation still applies to hull damage. This was a change from beta to final. The only way to bypass shield mitigation is with phase missiles

The technobabble explanation from the manual. I know it's a fact that mitigation is in effect shields up or down, but this news that phase missiles completely bypass mitigation was new to me. I remember the arguments about it months ago and didn't realize a conclusion was finally drawn. Last I had heard, it was assumed phase missiles simply traveled through the shield, impacted on the hull and had their damage reduced by X%. So have phase missiles really been confirmed to negate mitigation entirely, Annatar, et al?

Fully upgraded phase missiles are awesome, especially coupled with subverteers.

When you have your RA set up, cash and ressources are here only to build subverteers, and tech/planetary improvement. So you can max out your military techs. Don't forget to grab the special abilities for every ship btw in order to improve the effiency of your RA's ships. But that's off topic

Upgraded phase missiles are neat as said before for targetting a cap ship and make it retreat or even destroy it if his owner doesn't pay attention. It is also useful to help take out HC quickier.

Upgraded phase misisles makes that "oldie" assaillant still an interessting unit in late game warfare.

i think shield mitigation mostly mean shield focus. the more ships attack one ship the more the mitigation shield (seprate from acctual shields) can focus on defending the general areas as in if you have one gun firing, you cant realy predict where it will land, but with several, you can triangulate (find general area) were they are most trying to hit. does this make sense to anyone?