Phase Missile block... not working as intended?

from Sins Forums

It's something I've observed since 1.03 from last thursday.

The phase missile block for the advent now uses positive numbers instead of negative. For some reason, in two games now, my mothership and a friend's titan (and other capital ships) both died while their shield where at 100%.

It happened with Culture research fully upgraded, in friendly culture. (Supposedly 20% additionnal block)

No phase missile block debuff were present.

I understand that phase missiles have a chance (30%) to bypass the shields, but doing over 7000 hull damage without a single shield point dropping seems far fetched.

Is the phase missile block research bugged and removing block chance?

33,163 views 24 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

With Stikalus subverters Vasari players can actually get their Phase missile bypass chance up to 50%.  Witht he advent's mitigation, even 30% bypass can very easily kill ships while their shields are topped off.  

 

 

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

Wait.. so the Advent culture research now makes them more sensitive to PM's?

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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Volt_Cruelerz, reply 2
Home | Gameplay | Journals | Forum | FAQ | Downloads
End of Volt_Cruelerz's quote
No they fixed that. It used to make them more vulnerable. Check the changelog of the latest patch.

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Teun-A-Roonius, reply 3

Quoting Volt_Cruelerz, reply 2Home | Gameplay | Journals | Forum | FAQ | Downloads
No they fixed that. It used to make them more vulnerable. Check the changelog of the latest patch.
End of Teun-A-Roonius's quote

Okay, that's what I thought..  I thought the OP was saying that they sent it the wrong way in 1.03.

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

Just did a game today, and a guy complained that his hull was taking damage, while his shields where full. He was fighting against a TEC. Might be a random global issue, not necessary related to vasari.

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting VzioNARY, reply 6
Just did a game today, and a guy complained that his hull was taking damage, while his shields where full. He was fighting against a TEC. Might be a random global issue, not necessary related to vasari.
End of VzioNARY's quote
This was probably caused by an Orkulus starbase that was no longer present in that specific gravity well. The Phase Jump disruption effect is present in every well the Orky has visited and doesn't get removed when the Orky jumps to the next well (not until it is destroyed at least). This causes all hostile ships to take damage when jumping out of one of those gravity wells. Really needs fixing...

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

I played several games as advent rebel against tec and advent players, and my ships were taking hull damage while having full or near full shields. I think it might be the culture research that causes this, but i dont know.

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

I'm not saying there isn't a bug, because honestly I don't know (and the sticking debuff from jumping Orkies clearly needs to be fixed)...however, I will say this...

At face value, a ship dying with 100% shields (or near 100%) isn't entirely unreasonable if it's an Advent ship...Advent regenerate shields much faster (one of the subfactions can even double it) and the high shield mitigation is going to make much of the shield damage be severely reduced...

That said, if it died unusually fast or never took a single point of damage to shields ever, that would be a little suspicious....

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top

Just did some testing.  2 bugs actually:

 

#1).  The phase missile blocking techs are actually making ALL enemy weapons have a chance of bypassing advent shields- not just phase missiles.  And presumably they are increasing the chance of phase missiles bypassing shields

 

#2).  These techs are applying their "bonus" to phase missile blocking even when not in advent culture.

 

 

The result is as soon as you research these techs, you passively give all enemy weapons a shield bypass chance at all times.

Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting bilun, reply 10
Just did some testing.  2 bugs actually:

#1).  The phase missile blocking techs are actually making ALL enemy weapons have a chance of bypassing advent shields- not just phase missiles.  And presumably they are increasing the chance of phase missiles bypassing shields

#2).  These techs are applying their "bonus" to phase missile blocking even when not in advent culture.

The result is as soon as you research these techs, you passively give all enemy weapons a shield bypass chance at all times.
End of bilun's quote
Well that's just plain stupid. Sometimes I wonder if the developers actually look at what they just changed in the code or whether they are just sitting in front of their monitors drinking beer...

Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Teun-A-Roonius, reply 11
Well that's just plain stupid. Sometimes I wonder if the developers actually look at what they just changed in the code or whether they are just sitting in front of their monitors drinking beer...
End of Teun-A-Roonius's quote

Or scrambling fast and making mistakes because the forum denizens are screaming "THE SKY IS FALLING! THE SKY IS FALLING!"

Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Ryat, reply 12
Or scrambling fast and making mistakes because the forum denizens are screaming "THE SKY IS FALLING! THE SKY IS FALLING!"
End of Ryat's quote
I still go with the beer scenario. But yours sounds quite plausible too I must admit.

Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top

you might not have 100% phase blocking.  That shield pact doesn't make you immune.

Quoting Teun-A-Roonius, reply 11

Quoting bilun, reply 10Just did some testing.  2 bugs actually:

#1).  The phase missile blocking techs are actually making ALL enemy weapons have a chance of bypassing advent shields- not just phase missiles.  And presumably they are increasing the chance of phase missiles bypassing shields

#2).  These techs are applying their "bonus" to phase missile blocking even when not in advent culture.

The result is as soon as you research these techs, you passively give all enemy weapons a shield bypass chance at all times.Well that's just plain stupid. Sometimes I wonder if the developers actually look at what they just changed in the code or whether they are just sitting in front of their monitors drinking beer...
End of Teun-A-Roonius's quote

Watch it, that sounds like something I'd say.

Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top

So to clarify..  They tried to fix it and broke it even further?

Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting SemazRalan, reply 14
Watch it, that sounds like something I'd say.
End of SemazRalan's quote
Touché Semaz. Touché.

And yes Volt is seems that way...

Reply #16 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Volt_Cruelerz, reply 15
So to clarify.. They tried to fix it and broke it even further?
End of Volt_Cruelerz's quote

Lovely...

Reply #17 from Sins Forums Top

Yep, my bad on this. I've uploaded a fix as a mod that resolves several reported issues:

+ Energetic Pulse Charging tech now includes FlashBeams.
+ Enemy ships now properly lose the Destabilize buff when a Vasari starbase phase jumps away.
+ Advent culture techs now properly give a phase block bonus.
+ Fixes changed weapon types for Destabilization ability.

Grab it from: https://stardock.cachefly.net/brian/103_Fixes.zip

You'll want to unzip this into:

C:\Users\username\Documents\My Games\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire Rebellion\Mods-Rebellion v1.03

And then activate the mod in-game. As this is a holiday week here, it's the best I can do on short notice. Sorry gang!

+1 Loading…
Reply #18 from Sins Forums Top

That's actually really cool you did that...hopefully a hotfix comes out, but seriously, thanks for giving us the files...

Reply #19 from Sins Forums Top

Good patch release Yarlen.

So can this be put into a shield research item instead of through a pact?  7DS will love you and I'll post nice things for a change if we can do this so the Empire won't have to have a passive research boosted ability that gives them their impenetrable shields through a buff like "Adaptive Shields"

MaxNumResearchLevels 4
priority 1.000000
researchBoolModifiers 0
researchFloatModifiers 1
researchModifier
    modifierType "ChanceToIgnoreShieldsAsDamageTarget"
    baseValue 0.800000
    perLevelValue 0.05000

 

will be trying it myself in a moment.

Reply #20 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting SemazRalan, reply 20
Good patch release Yarlen.

So can this be put into a shield research item instead of through a pact?  7DS will love you and I'll post nice things for a change if we can do this so the Empire won't have to have a passive research boosted ability that gives them their impenetrable shields through a buff like "Adaptive Shields"

MaxNumResearchLevels 4
priority 1.000000
researchBoolModifiers 0
researchFloatModifiers 1
researchModifier
    modifierType "ChanceToIgnoreShieldsAsDamageTarget"
    baseValue 0.800000
    perLevelValue 0.05000

 

will be trying it myself in a moment.
End of SemazRalan's quote

Pacts are research as far as the game is concerned, so yes you can use their modifiers with each other.

Reply #21 from Sins Forums Top

Yeah, just tested this modification to Researchsubject_ShieldTech1.entity to see if 7DS can give Empire their Impentrable Shields through research instead of through ability (modded adaptive shield buff) in ability 4 slot (which dev.exe hates)

MaxNumResearchLevels 4
priority 1.000000
researchBoolModifiers 0
researchFloatModifiers 3
researchModifier
    modifierType "ShieldPointsMaxAdjustment"
    baseValue 0.000000
    perLevelValue 0.050000
researchModifier
    modifierType "ShieldPointsRegenAdjustment"
    baseValue 0.000000
    perLevelValue 0.050000
researchModifier
    modifierType "ChanceToIgnoreShieldsAsDamageTarget"
    baseValue 0.000000
    perLevelValue -0.250000

**

Works nicely.  Should be able to give Empire base -85% and -5% per (3) research levels.  Interesting addition to Advent Culture -phase weapon blocking.  I'd've thought it'd be part of their shield research tbh, but nice way to make culture more useful for Advent vs Vasari.  It'd be nice for the TEC to have research like this, albeit at 3.5% per (2) research levels for 7% phase blocking.  Not much, but shows some adaptation after fighting Vasari so much.

Now can there be culture armor, hull regen, weapon range, max linear velocity and other nifty culture effects?

Reply #22 from Sins Forums Top

Just remember Samaz, ChanceToIgnoreShieldsAsDamageTarget needs to be a negative since it affects the chance of something penetrating, not the chance of shields blocking it.

Reply #24 from Sins Forums Top

Aye, it's a holiday week here, so hopefully this will tide folks over until we can get something more official out. ;)