basic shield info

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relanat
Militia Captain
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Joined: Tue Nov 05, 2013 9:56 am

Thanks to Oddball for the topic idea.

Shields in Transcendence can have resistances built into them. These resistances affect how long and how well your shield will protect you from enemy weapons fire.

As an example look at the first shield in the image below., the hull plate ionizer. On the third line you will see three grey dots followed by "+215%". After that is a green star with "-25%" and then a brown/white star with "+25%".


The second part of the image is a list explaining what the little images mean (this list can be seen when playing a game by pressing 'F1'). They are weapon damage types. From this list we see that the three little grey dots are kinetic damage, the green star represents particle beam and the brown/white star is blast damage.

By comparing the damage type to the percentage value next to it we can determine how resistant a shield is to any damage type. The hull plate ionizer is very resistant to kinetic damage as the percentage value is +215%. It is slightly resistant to blast (+25%) but is vulnerable to particle beams (green star with -25%). If a damage type is not shown then the shield has no extra resistance or vulnerability to that damage type.
How does this help us? If your ship is equipped with a hull plate ionizer then you will be able to fight ships armed with kinetic weapons very well. This is because this shield will take a lot more kinetic damage than most other shields before collapsing. So you can damage the enemy while being protected yourself.
Similarly if you want to attack a ship which has a hull plate ionizer then you are better off using a particle weapon. This will take down the shield much more quickly than using a kinetic weapon. A blast weapon will also collapse the shield but will take slightly longer than a particle weapon of the same hp as the shield has some resistance to blast damage.


Next in the image is the Solon shield generator. It has a whopping +670% resistance to laser (red star) damage. This makes it immune to low-power laser weapons and it can take a while to collapse the shield with higher powered laser weapons too. But it is fairly susceptible to all other damage types. While this is a great shield, you cannot fire your own laser weapons through it if you have one installed so need to have non-laser weapons installed.


The Urak mass driver is a kinetic weapon. We can see the 'three grey dots' kinetic image on the third line followed by a hp value. Using this weapon against a hull plate ionizer gives little damage to the shield so takes longer to collapse it. The laser cannon would do better as the hull plate ionizer doesn't have any extra resistance to laser damage.

Similarly the laser cannon will be useless against a Solon shield. Although the Solon does have +35% resistance to kinetic damage, the Urak mass driver will collapse the Solon shield. The laser cannon never will.


On the fourth line of the shield description is 'MW' followed by 'Regen' with a number in hp/sec.
'MW' is how much power a shield uses when restoring itself. Shields with high MW values need more powerful reactors but usually regenerate faster as well. Shields also use power when sitting at full power, but only a fraction of the full MW rate. So you can save some fuel by turning the shield off if you aren't in a dangerous area.
'Regen' is how quickly a shield can restore its power. As an example if you have a shield with a rating of 50hp (shield hp is shown at the beginning of the third line) and regen of 5 hp/sec then it will take 10 seconds to restore itself to full power. If the regen rate was 10 hp/sec then it will only take 5 seconds for the shield to restore itself.
One thing that isn't obvious is that shields take a certain amount of time to reset themselves if they have collapsed. So after the shield collapses to 0hp there will be a delay of some seconds before it starts recharging. This varies from shield to shield.

A handy hint is to have a shield that is resistant to some damage types and armor that is resistant to other damage types. That way you are failry well protected all round.
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shanejfilomena
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relanat wrote:
Mon Apr 09, 2018 4:29 am
Thanks to Oddball for the topic idea.

Shields in Transcendence can have resistances built into them. These resistances affect how long and how well your shield will protect you from enemy weapons fire.

As an example look at the first shield in the image below., the hull plate ionizer. On the third line you will see three grey dots followed by "+215%". After that is a green star with "-25%" and then a brown/white star with "+25%".


The second part of the image is a list explaining what the little images mean (this list can be seen when playing a game by pressing 'F1'). They are weapon damage types. From this list we see that the three little grey dots are kinetic damage, the green star represents particle beam and the brown/white star is blast damage.

By comparing the damage type to the percentage value next to it we can determine how resistant a shield is to any damage type. The hull plate ionizer is very resistant to kinetic damage as the percentage value is +215%. It is slightly resistant to blast (+25%) but is vulnerable to particle beams (green star with -25%). If a damage type is not shown then the shield has no extra resistance or vulnerability to that damage type.
How does this help us? If your ship is equipped with a hull plate ionizer then you will be able to fight ships armed with kinetic weapons very well. This is because this shield will take a lot more kinetic damage than most other shields before collapsing. So you can damage the enemy while being protected yourself.
Similarly if you want to attack a ship which has a hull plate ionizer then you are better off using a particle weapon. This will take down the shield much more quickly than using a kinetic weapon. A blast weapon will also collapse the shield but will take slightly longer than a particle weapon of the same hp as the shield has some resistance to blast damage.


Next in the image is the Solon shield generator. It has a whopping +670% resistance to laser (red star) damage. This makes it immune to low-power laser weapons and it can take a while to collapse the shield with higher powered laser weapons too. But it is fairly susceptible to all other damage types. While this is a great shield, you cannot fire your own laser weapons through it if you have one installed so need to have non-laser weapons installed.


The Urak mass driver is a kinetic weapon. We can see the 'three grey dots' kinetic image on the third line followed by a hp value. Using this weapon against a hull plate ionizer gives little damage to the shield so takes longer to collapse it. The laser cannon would do better as the hull plate ionizer doesn't have any extra resistance to laser damage.

Similarly the laser cannon will be useless against a Solon shield. Although the Solon does have +35% resistance to kinetic damage, the Urak mass driver will collapse the Solon shield. The laser cannon never will.


On the fourth line of the shield description is 'MW' followed by 'Regen' with a number in hp/sec.
'MW' is how much power a shield uses when restoring itself. Shields with high MW values need more powerful reactors but usually regenerate faster as well. Shields also use power when sitting at full power, but only a fraction of the full MW rate. So you can save some fuel by turning the shield off if you aren't in a dangerous area.
'Regen' is how quickly a shield can restore its power. As an example if you have a shield with a rating of 50hp (shield hp is shown at the beginning of the third line) and regen of 5 hp/sec then it will take 10 seconds to restore itself to full power. If the regen rate was 10 hp/sec then it will only take 5 seconds for the shield to restore itself.
One thing that isn't obvious is that shields take a certain amount of time to reset themselves if they have collapsed. So after the shield collapses to 0hp there will be a delay of some seconds before it starts recharging. This varies from shield to shield.

A handy hint is to have a shield that is resistant to some damage types and armor that is resistant to other damage types. That way you are failry well protected all round.
Could have used that when I first started .....Happy you put it up, hopefully it will keep more Pilgrims alive :)
Flying Irresponsibly In Eridani......

I don't like to kill pirates in cold blood ..I do it.. but I don't like it..
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