What does culture actually do?

Culture affects productivity -- it shifts allegiance towards you, and away from the enemy (depending on if its an enemy or friendly world). Of course, the enemies culture does the same thing, in reverse.

If allegiance drops to 0, the planet is uncolonized. Any planetary income (including mines, taxes, and I believe trade) is reduced by your allegiance modifier -- e. g. 75% allegiance leaves you 75% income, 25% allegiance leaves you 25% income, and 110% allegiance gives you 110% of income.

Ah, I see, thanks for the explanation. I guess the computer must've mirrored my research and buildings because I couldn't manage to push the allegiance down to zero.

There are also racial bonuses in areas affected by culture. The TEC regenerate antimatter faster, the Vasari get a damage bonus, and the Adept get a shield mitigation boost.

However, I'm not sure how this works in team games. For instance, if my teammate and I are both Adept, and I'm fighting in his culture, will my shield mitigation be improved? What if I'm Adept and my teammate is TEC? Will my antimatter regenerate faster in his culture?

Also, StealthCat, capital ships impede the spread of enemy culture, so that might account for why yours wasn't advancing.

-Tom

It's also a prerequisite for Insurgency, one of the best TEC research options in the end-game.


They really need to make your capital planet immune from cultural subversion, however.

-Tom

It's not? I haven't played enough to see this happen, though it seems to me that whatever planet has your capital should be immune to subversion.

Why? There's no logical reason why it should be completely immune.

Well how about we look at it this way. If you are playing and you subvert every one of your enemies planets except for their capital, and you still can't defeat them, then something is wrong. So why not, if not for balance's sake in a multiplayer game. That of course is just my opinion. Take it for what it is.

I don't really see a reason to make a capital immune to culture. If the enemy is getting culture into your capital, you have other problems anyways.

Try playing Point Blank, then. Go on, I'll wait. You won't be so condescending when you've captured every single planet except his capital and you're out of logistic slots for a broadcaster.

That's an entire one map, and you can scuttle something if you really need it. Virtually no other maps starts you that close to someone, and making balance changes because of specific maps seems like a bad idea to me.

OOT: What does shield mitigation do?

I see the number rise significantly when the ship gets attacked, then decrease back to its original state when left alone. What does this mean?

Its a % of damage knocked off any incoming fire. It raises as your ships take damage, and drops when they don't.

One thing about mitigation I haven't been able to tell yet. Does the shielding damage prevention still have an effect once your ship's shields are down?

So, are shields still the secondary HP bar or are they a damage buffer? Or are they both?

e.g: if you have a ship with full shields and 21 damage mitigation. The ship gets hit for 23 damage, what happens?

Will the shields take 2 damage? Hull take 2 damage and shields take 21 damage?

Shields recharge constantly (even when depleted), so once in a while you'll still have to do 2-3 points of damage to the shield. But otherwise, once the shields are down, shield mitigation is no longer relevant. That's when armor comes into play

Mitigation is percentage based, though, so a ship with 21% mitigation will take 79% of the 23 damage. The damage is not shared between shields and hull, it all goes to shields. Those familiar with EVE shouldn't have much trouble with it, since it's the same way resistances work there.

Say you have 50% mitigation and something shoots you for 100 damage, you take 50.
Now you increase your mitigation, say, by 6% (Advent culture bonus). So you have 56%, and you take 44 damage now. That's 6 less damage, or slightly more than 10% damage reduction (44 vs 50)

So all damage goes direct to shields? Then when shields are gone, that's when armour comes into play? Gotcha. Thanks.

Yep, there are some abilities that bypass shields and do direct hull damage (nano disassemblers for example), and phase missiles have a chance to ignore shields and do hull damage.

Don't forget about armor chopping off some damage as well.

RTFM Annie -- the manual says emergency shield generators keep it up even when shields are down. Dunno if thats true in game, but thats what the manual now says

I've seen that quote in the manual too, but now that I think of it, it seems rather ambiguous. Everything's kosher right up until "Once the primary shield has failed..." To me this implies, that's how armor reduces the damage...not necessarily continuing effects of shield mitigation? I'm new so...is there a way to lab this? Regardless once shields are gone, ships start poppin' purty quick.

And about the topic...the reason culture might not be doing much is because...oh. Someone already mentioned cap ships.

What are you talking about?