If one has multiple different shield types on a ship, some of which are better at blocking shield-bypassing weapons, how is this handled, including when shields start to take damage? Does the ship always benefit from the strongest type of shield, or is it based on the shield in the first (or last) hardpoint, or... something else? If the ship loses half its shields, does this change anything of the above?

I'd have to check the code, but I assume that a ship's shields take the penetration resistance of its best undestroyed shield module. As I understand it, the ship's shield system is an aggregate, with it's total strength determined by the sum of the undestroyed shield modules present; damage to the shields does not directly destroy the shield modules.

Arioch is exactly right. This is the actual code that determines the resistance level for a ship:
In human terms, it does just what he said -- calculates a resistance rank based on the ship's best non-destroyed shield system.

That actually brings something to mind that I've found a little odd. A ship with a destroyed reactor (that doesn't go critical and blow everything) is still fully combat-ready. I'd think damaging the reactors enough to force shutdown should probably disable a ship, or at least greatly impede their combat-readiness if we assume some sort of emergency backup power. Should the current behavior be changed?

nweismuller wrote:That actually brings something to mind that I've found a little odd. A ship with a destroyed reactor (that doesn't go critical and blow everything) is still fully combat-ready. I'd think damaging the reactors enough to force shutdown should probably disable a ship, or at least greatly impede their combat-readiness if we assume some sort of emergency backup power. Should the current behavior be changed?

While that would be realistic, I'm not sure it would make for good gameplay under the current damage/repair system, since a ship without power would be effectively destroyed, unable to move or operate its shields or weapons, and unable to repair after battle unless it happened to be in a friendly system with repair facilities. I think we would need to add more detailed repair rules to make that work.

Arioch wrote: I think we would need to add more detailed repair rules to make that work.

I think there may be some provisions in the code for ships that are effectively tactically immobilized, but, which can still move around the map using their strategic drives. Specifically, I think that's a state you can currently get into by destroying a ship's "maneuvering thrusters". Um, it might be reasonable to expand the current special case code that's effecting maneuvering thrusters to trigger a more general tactical (but not strategic) ship disablement in the case that all power supplies are destroyed in combat.

The practical effect would just be to make it a little easier to capture ships -- and capturing ships is fun, so I think it might be a positive tweak. That said, realism wise, it is awkward for the reasons Arioch points out, because really, if the ship is effectively shutdown on the tactical map, it should be shutdown on the strategic map as well. And a strategic shutdown would introduce game play problems.

I think, for the moment, extending the current special case (which I can confirm applies given the behavior of captured ships, which have all systems destroyed on capture) is probably the best option. We can always assume there's some sort of 'emergency on-site repair' sufficient to get them limping back to port until such time, if ever, the repair system is extended.

Disabling ships may be fun for the player when it's the enemy that's disabled, but I doubt that having the player's ships disabled would be very much fun. There would need to be clear UI feedback as to why the ship won't respond to commands, and ideally something that the player could potentially do about it... otherwise it's just an unnecessary frustration.

Thanks for the very clear replies on the shield question.

As to disabled ships - I'll add that it can already be somewhat confusing if one forgets that one ship in a big fleet has damage rendering it unmanoeuvrable. I've wondered why, after lassoing a huge group of ships, I couldn't move them - of course it's because one of them still had unrepaired damage that made it immobile. The most recent case involved a captured ship that looked the same as all my mercenaries (I was Phidi), so I forgot completely and sent the fleet, with the captured doorstop, on to the next glorious victory. Confusion.

If you have other ships in the fleet, and they won, I figure they can jury-rig something to help the damaged ship jump back out -- maybe just a big towline !

Otherwise, if all the ships in the fleet are mission killed, then they're lost. The game could assume the enemy (if present in the system) captured them after. Or just turn it into one of these derelict salvage bonus you get when you send a scout in a system.