Focused fire

Yes, hover over the target and look at its "Shield Mitigation".  There is a more detailed description in the manual you should have in the Sins directory, or in the book if you bought the boxed copy.

It does get a boost, but in most cases its still better to focus fire.

What's the logic behind that? Or is it a special ability?

I have been playing the game for the last 14 hours and I must say that to take out one of those capital ships definitely need to focus fire. Bombers to soften it up then one of the capital ship weapon that removes shields.

As to the shield mitigation it has saved a few of my capital ships when they need to make a tactical withdrawal.

As to the logic, maybe just a simple matter of if too many ships fire on one target some may not get a good lock and not hit a critical system.

However, a previous post was right, the ships don't move too much during battle. It would be nice if a patch can make the ships turn and weave about, maybe to avoid fire from other ships.

Basically, this was a design decision from a gameplay perspective. Making focused fire too effective would make people who micromanage battles way too powerful. So instead of big fleets firing weapons all over the place and having cool battles, players would be forced to micro manage every battle instead of relying on the excellent Fleet system they have in.

My suggest is that while shield mitigation is a decent enough system and explanation for this gameplay mechanic, I'm thinking you could tone it down bit then add (or just add) another system that comes from a tabletop miniature wargame about fleet scale starship combat.

The idea is basically Suppression Fire, much like infantry ground combat. It sounds a bit silly, but it's not a bad rational. Basically, as starships take hits and the weapons explode on their shields or hull, the ship shakes, crews get rattled, finely tuned weapons get thrown slightly off target before being readjusted. Shield flares and explosions blind sensors, defense grids have to be prioritized and adjusted, and classic scifi stuff happens like control panels explode on the bridge.

The gameplay effect of this would be that ships under fire, even if it doesn't immediately kill the ships, still makes them less effective, giving a player an incentive to make sure all enemy ships are under fire.

Focus fire is still better because you get shields down fast. Focusing stuff like light carriers, or LRMs is what wins big battles.

I was discussing this problem of micro meaning you need a way to weaken focus firing on another forum and had this idea. My solution to this problem would have been to amplify damage done to you by a ship that you did not have available weapon systems to shoot/were not targeting, to represent a vaguely abstracted fields of fire and vulnerable spots concept. This bonus damage would get diminishing returns as more ships targeted the overwhelmed one. A capitol ship with multiple weapon systems could take normal damage from say 3 ships before the amplification effect came into play, whereas a single gun light frigate could only go one on one. If you fired all your ships at one ship, then true you would get bonus damage but your fleet would receive far more total bonus damage from an equally sized enemy fleet which was firing at you with one ship hitting one ship.

This bonus damage would also apply to siege frigates bombing a planet and ignoring your defenses, and enemy fleets trying to jump out of your system. Any ship which you are not targeting(you don't have to be in range), which is attacking you gets bonus damage to you. This would be viewed as being because you are not monitoring its weapons fire, and taking appropriate evasive action. In a multi-way fight, it would be because multiple eneamy ships could overlap their fields of fire to remove your ability to evade and avoid fire on vulnerable areas.

1 on 1 (frigates) - No bonus damage
2 on 1 (frigates) - Untargeted ship deals 50% more damage
3 on 1 (frigates) - Both untargeted ships deal 40% more damage
4 on 1 (frigates) - All untargeted ships deal 30% more damage
5 on 1 (frigates) - All untargeted ships deal 25% more damage
6 (or more) on 1 (frigates) - 4 most powerful untargeted ships deal 25% more damage

Imagine a 5 on 5 fight where one player focused fire and the other split fire. The focuser gets an additional 100% firepower on a single target, making him effectively 6 ships. The divider who is firing all but one of his ships against ships targeting someone else gets an extra 200% damage, making him 7 ships.

Most of the problems with the game emerge from tactical simplicity in combat,the huge weighting towards resilience over guns, and the inability to pin your enemy down. I think this would be a tactical complexity the combat AI and strategic AI (which are both excellent) could have handled and would have added a bit more complexity to the game. All it needs is for the unmanaged AI to choose between demanding an even exchange of fire (out gunned, holding for time) or trying to maximize the number of ships targeting ships not targeting them, and not being targeted by too many fellow ships (maximum damage, uniform enemy fleet, battle can be won) and focus firing (enemy special ships, repairers, shield buffers etc).

I hope the AI gets a rewrite to account for or maybe I should say prioritize focused and split fire bonuses when doing single and multi fleet engagements.

yes same here. In my opinion its leaning a bit too much towards micro managing - the individual fights that is.

ah yes, shield mitigation! if i'm not mistaken I proposed the concept pre-beta, I believe...

well in any case, the contrived reason for the sheilds getting more powerful is lengthy and technical (and probably wrong) but the use is mostly for gameplay: it means that someone who is focus firing will at least be slowed down. however, its not all that powerful, so focus firing remains the strategy of the day.

I per say love the idea of boost to units that have been targeted by multiple ships to disscourage micromangement but to be completely honest I have not seen this to be very effective as the pros to mass targeting still seem to out weigh the cons but then again I don’t really understand the system
I......guess what I’m trying to say is if the bonuses to the 1 could be upped but having said this what worries me is a huge fleet warps in to start its assault and attacks the one frigate that’s guarding the system and they get defeated (damb there goes the campaign)
Any help on this topic to clear my foggy mind of misunderstanding would be appreciated

Well if you want to build a game around the exact opposite of focus firing, then the person who brings more ships will simply win! Can't really have it both ways. Dead ships deal no damage, that's why you will always try to focus on the weak link, or the glass cannon of the bunch.

verry good point Astax
verry good point indeed

I have to agree. I always focus fire (about 5 to 1) on the weakest ships in the pack and even chase them if I must. I dont mitigation to a degree but dont over do it or it will severly hamper tactical options and that is always bad.

Remember boys and girls, the more options the better for us all.