Overcharge is a little confusing to me.

[evil713]

I get that 1: Power is built up from damage (only shield hits?)
2: Overcharge only affects weapon bay mounts, ie not turrets, and siege mounts, and the boost is even shared across all relevant mounts
3: Does not boost missiles, point defense or fighters.
4: Profit?

What I am not getting is how much the boost is. It has not appeared as a tooltip modifier to me so i don't know if it is a percentage increase at the various ranges, or if its a flat damage increase.

And if the charge is evenly divided between weapons that can fire it, does that mean a single eligible weapon will get an incredible boost?

[sven]

And if the charge is evenly divided between weapons that can fire it, does that mean a single eligible weapon will get an incredible boost?

Yes. The boost is just a flat percentage (50%) of shield damage taken, so, if your only eligible mount is, say, 1 heavy laser, and you take 200 damage before using the overcharge, you'll get a +100 damage boost; massively increasing the damage done by that attack.

We went with a flat boost, rather than a percentage bonus, because it scales better with improvements in shield and weapons tech. However, there are some eyebrow-raising edge cases (like the +100 damage laser attack), where the Orthin appear to have figured out how to route *massive* amounts of excess energy through a very modest weapon system.

A tooltip specifying the amount of bonus charge would certainly be a good addition.

[evil713]

does this absorption scale with ship size?

[sven]

does this absorption scale with ship size?

Well, not directly. But bigger ships will have stronger shields, and the amount of charge that you can absorb is based on your max shield strength. So, generally, bigger ship -> more shield points -> more overcharge damage potential.

[siyoa]

However, there are some eyebrow-raising edge cases (like the +100 damage laser attack), where the Orthin appear to have figured out how to route *massive* amounts of excess energy through a very modest weapon system.

I am still trying to figure out if I like it this way or should I mod it to something like overcharge damage should not exceed max damage of a weapon, i.e. weapon with overcharge can do max double damage than regular

[harpy eagle]

I like the idea of a cap, just so damage values don't get unbelievable, but capping the damage to double might be a bit too limiting. How about five times the weapon's max damage?

Also, is the bonus energy weapon damage applied before attenuation?