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[Sorbo]

Right now it costs OP gives very little in return, only worth using maybe on D-ships with damaged shields with woefully inefficient shield to begin with.

Surely in-universe people that came up with the mod spec realized that without shields any ship is a sitting duck and thought on ways to protect the ship by reinforcing it and coming up with new ideas. Could benefit from anything really, extra 10% minimum armor resistance, or perhaps a mild regeneration, maybe ship explosion damage resistance since they can't hide behind a shield from it, just something.

[yeahbutbttv]

It would be better if the hullmod had a complete redesign. As it is now its only useful for ships with a lot of EMP weapons, and because most fleets will have random weapons on them it's really just a dice roll on whether the shield shunt is useless or slightly less useless depending on the percentage of EMP weapons in the enemy fleet, which will vary from none to very few.

It would simultaneously be funner and more viable if father Mosolov actually made the shield shunt completely change how shields work, like instead of having it remove shields outright it would weaken the shields, causing projectiles and missiles to be able to pass through the shield, but at the same time slowing them down so that:

-Projectiles hit the armor and hull at lower velocity, causing less damage to be done to the ship by projectiles that pass through the shield.

-Missiles slow down so that point defense weapons can more easily take them out, but they still deal the same amount of damage if they hit (duh! they explode after all).

It could also generate less flux from the above weapons, but to balance it beam weapons (Which normally generate soft flux) could generate hard flux to the shield, due to it being weaker.

It would give the player the option to outfit ships to face low tech enemy types. There is a hullmod designed as a way to effectively combat high tech fleets, and it is called solar shielding, so why is there none to effectively combat low tech fleets, other than using high tech ships?

[Arcagnello]

The only vanilla ship I've found that can reliably install Shield Shunt and actually become better is the XIV Onslaught.
Integrated Hullmods
Heavy Armor, Integrated Targeting Unit, Reinforced Bulkheads
Additional Hullmods
Armored Weapon Mounts, Aux Thrusters(you can probably remove this and still have it work fine), Solar Shielding, Point Defence AI(could be removed if you got Elite Point Defence), Blast Doors (don't remember if you can install this without being short on Ordinance Points Later), Automated Repair Unit Resistant flux conduits could be a good idea but it's almost reduntant with Shield Shunt
Offensive Weapons
3x Storm Needler/Heavy Autocannon, Some HE weapons (mailers are ok, Heavy mortars would be great with both Gunnery Implants and Elite Ranged spec)
Rest of the weapons: Dual Flaks, vulcans

Best used with a Reckless Officer with the following skills:
Reliability Engineering
Elite Impact Mitigation
Helmsmanship
Gunnery Implants 
Damage Control
Elite Long Range specialization (allows the effective use of Heavy mortars and other slow projectile weapons)


It's a brick you can send facefirst into the teeth of the enemy to do its job until it litterally explodes. I'm planning to use one of those for the upcoming Dorito fight in my low tech campaign!



Ludd forsake me I went off topic again. I personally think Shield shunt would be great if it got rebalanced to cost as much as Hardened Shields but not only increased EMP resistance but also added Additional flux dissipation equal to the Shield Flux Generation the ship had before the hullmod.

It could singlehandedly make Low Tech able to compete almost as well as Midline/High Tech in late game.

[Amazigh]

The only vanilla ship I've found that can reliably install Shield Shunt and actually become better is the XIV Onslaught.

I think the fact that (ignoring the meme that is derelict contingent) the hullmod only really makes sense on one ship is quite telling of the fact that it's not in a good place.

I personally think Shield shunt would be great if it got rebalanced to cost as much as Hardened Shields but not only increased EMP resistance but also added Additional flux dissipation equal to the Shield Flux Generation the ship had before the hullmod.

This change to shield shunt? imo it would make it worth considering on a lot of lowtech ships, and maybe even some midline ones.

[Arcagnello]

The only vanilla ship I've found that can reliably install Shield Shunt and actually become better is the XIV Onslaught.

I think the fact that (ignoring the meme that is derelict contingent) the hullmod only really makes sense on one ship is quite telling of the fact that it's not in a good place.

I personally think Shield shunt would be great if it got rebalanced to cost as much as Hardened Shields but not only increased EMP resistance but also added Additional flux dissipation equal to the Shield Flux Generation the ship had before the hullmod.

This change to shield shunt? imo it would make it worth considering on a lot of lowtech ships, and maybe even some midline ones.

Well, that's the one ship I have made it work with. I'm pretty sure the winner of the latest Starsector tournament won with a Shield Shunt Paragon? Thrilling stuff!

As for the idea I'm proposing, Shield shunt is currently 10OP on capital ships, moving it up to 25OP-30OP while at the same time having it add additional flux venting that's either proportional or equal to the Flux generation the shield (the ship used to have) had would certainly make it a rather attractive option for ship with a lot of "inherent survivability"  but nout enough flux generation to properly field all its weapon mounts/necessary hullmods.

With all that said: I would try and experiment with the following:

The new Shield Shunt
Effects: Disables shields, raises EMP resistance by 30%(don't remember if it's this value), Adds flux dissipation equal or proportional to the (now disabled) shield's flux upkeep

High tech ships only recieve additional flux dissipation equal to 50% of their shield upkeep due to the ship having many inherent components and design choices that facilitated both the installment and the improvement of a shield system but that get in the way in the attempt of redirecting power to weapons systems

Midline Ships manage to almost flawlessly transition their shield apparatus to power weapons instead, but still find complications in removing the now unnecessary systems and therefore can only reach 75% of the shield upkeep being translated into additional flux dissipation.

Most Low Tech Ships were conceptualized or even built in times before the introdution of shieds themselves, the rest of them only have a marginal reliance upon them, making the inherent quantity of machinery and constricting design choices in order to run a shield system trivial compared to other design philosophies. This allows ships in the Low Tech line to fully convert their shield apparatus to an adjunct improving the ability to operate weapon systems, translating into a full 100% conversion of the past shield upkeep into now additional flux dissipation.


I've still got some worries about this change, namely some rather unorthodox ships with a lot of base flux upkeep (Conquest et cetera) but we would at least have a functional and competitive hullmod, maybe even having low tech become viable late game over either of the other two design choices avaiable to the player.

Thoughts?

[AcaMetis]

Thoughts?

Giving different bonuses to low tech/midline/high tech seems like it could cause a few problems. For one most skins aren't listed as any of those, they're listed by whatever faction made them. One could try going off of the base hull, but I don't believe that modded ships necessarily even shows ingame if the base hull itself is listed as being faction tech. And some ships don't even appear in the codex at all, so that could be a bother. Not to mention that this would close off the possibility of skins being a different style than the base hull, like the Buffalo (TT) is supposed to be (not that I think anyone cares about putting Shield Shunt on any Buffalo, but...).

Shield Shunt definitely does need a boost in order to not look like a complete waste of a hullmod, mind. My suggestion would simply be either a size-based bonus to flux capacity/vents (I guess capacity since SO already skyrockets vents and being able to double up on that might be horrifically broken? Than again the combo of +capacity and +vents might also be kinda busted...) or make the hullmod give some OP instead of costing OP to make your ship worse. An Onslaught can still make good use of it's shield just to catch the odd Reaper that gets through PD, Shield Shunt was added more for the AI than the player.

[Arcagnello]

Thoughts?

Giving different bonuses to low tech/midline/high tech seems like it could cause a few problems. For one most skins aren't listed as any of those, they're listed by whatever faction made them. One could try going off of the base hull, but I don't believe that modded ships necessarily even shows ingame if the base hull itself is listed as being faction tech. And some ships don't even appear in the codex at all, so that could be a bother. Not to mention that this would close off the possibility of skins being a different style than the base hull, like the Buffalo (TT) is supposed to be (not that I think anyone cares about putting Shield Shunt on any Buffalo, but...).

Shield Shunt definitely does need a boost in order to not look like a complete waste of a hullmod, mind. My suggestion would simply be either a size-based bonus to flux capacity/vents (I guess capacity since SO already skyrockets vents and being able to double up on that might be horrifically broken? Than again the combo of +capacity and +vents might also be kinda busted...) or make the hullmod give some OP instead of costing OP to make your ship worse. An Onslaught can still make good use of it's shield just to catch the odd Reaper that gets through PD, Shield Shunt was added more for the AI than the player.

That is an issue I considered, but then I (maybe foolishly) thought that -as with most new Starsector mechanics- modders creating their own ships, factions, weapons and skins usually decide to develop their own (most of the time organic and balanced) interpretation to follow the new balance the vanilla game shifts towards.

I, for example, fully expect most ships belonging to Hazard Mining Incorporated to have a low-tech denomination when it comes to apply the Shield Shunt Buffs, (that is if they even come with shields in the first place), most ships belonging to the Mayasuran Navy to be Midline when applying No Shield Best Shield and ships from Shadowyards Reconstruction Autority to be considered "high tech" when it comes to installing the Shunty boi.


I see you've also thought about taking a page from Ill Advised Modifications (from Vayra's mods, I think?) and add more OP to a ship (based on class size, of course) at the cost of a malus, in this case not having a shield system anymore. It could work aswell, I got no counter-argument about it.

I wouldn't see an issue with Shield Shunt, Overridden ships (after the flux dissipation increase overhaul). First things first, it negates a few viable long range build using shield shunt (Double gauss Dominator anyone?); secondly, if a particular ships becomes absolutely broken and starts murdering everything despite having no shield system and only 450u range on all weapons, then the balance issue lies within the ship itself, not the changes.

Shield Shunt definetly feels (to me) like an alternate way to make a ship effective, making the AI's job easier by eliminating the hassle of having the Hard Flux Mechanic entirely is a nice side effect and nothing more.
AI control of ships has already got a whole lot better even when compared to just 0.91, having hullmods with their main use only revolving around making stupid AI behaviour less stupid is a surefire way to have them become useless appendices to the hullmod roster in the (near, maybe not so near) future.

[AcaMetis]

That is an issue I considered, but then I (maybe foolishly) thought that -as with most new Starsector mechanics- modders creating their own ships, factions, weapons and skins usually decide to develop their own (most of the time organic and balanced) interpretation to follow the new balance the vanilla game shifts towards.

I, for example, fully expect most ships belonging to Hazard Mining Incorporated to have a low-tech denomination when it comes to apply the Shield Shunt Buffs, (that is if they even come with shields in the first place), most ships belonging to the Mayasuran Navy to be Midline when applying No Shield Best Shield and ships from Shadowyards Reconstruction Autority to be considered "high tech" when it comes to installing the Shunty boi.

I think most indeed follow vanilla, but I wouldn't want to force such a classification on modded ships either. Like correct me if I'm wrong but I believe at least a few mods have added outright alien (or otherwise too bizarre for words) ships which wouldn't neatly fit into the low/mid/high categories, at least in a way that's intuitive to the player.

I wouldn't see an issue with Shield Shunt, Overridden ships (after the flux dissipation increase overhaul). First things first, it negates a few viable long range build using shield shunt (Double gauss Dominator anyone?); secondly, if a particular ships becomes absolutely broken and starts murdering everything despite having no shield system and only 450u range on all weapons, then the balance issue lies within the ship itself, not the changes.

...I completely forgot about SO's range limitation. Yeah, 450 range cap on a ship with no shield would be peak high risk/high reward. Extremely allergic to a Salamander/HIL Sunder. I guess maybe Hyperion could survive it, with it's ship system, but with that thing's logistics profile it better survive impossible odds...

[Amoebka]

Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I think mods shouldn't be considered at all when designing the base game. If modders add some crazy new tech types, it should be on them to make them fit with the existing mechanics.

[SCC]

I don't think Shield Shunt should work differently for different techs anyway. High-tech naturally relies on shields more, so getting rid of it is riskier for high-tech than low-tech, and all but Paragon have less range than other ships. High-tech shouldn't be penalised for taking a higher risk than low-tech.

[Undead]

I like the concept mentioned here that the shield shunt would be as good for low tech as hardened shields for high tech ships, with the similar OP cost but with ah effect that would make it extremely desirable for low tech ships, and we all know that low tech is left behind in lategame (except onslaught, he is alright). Like something that would change the curernt non-existing low tech frigates (please add them, lasher sucks and he only exists to make other frigates look better - which is an important role though) to the similar utility level as omens or monitors (that are mid tech, believe it or not).

[Amazigh]

I'm pretty sure the winner of the latest Starsector tournament won with a Shield Shunt Paragon? Thrilling stuff!

Note that it was using the "old" version of shield shunt that was from a mod, it provided a flat 50% flux dissipation bonus and no emp resist. (iirc)


Also just did a check of some stats, and well, refunding the default flux cost of shield usage might not be balanced at all, lets look that one ship in paticular, The Odyssey:
1000 dissipation, 250 shield upkeep, so a mere 25% boost to base flux dissipation. and with your proposed scaling based on tech levels? that'd be down to a boost of only 125.
It is also the most fragile combat capital under its shield. (excluding the Atlas MK.II which is only slightly weaker anyway)

[Retry]

Odyssey is an outlier, with 0.25 shield upkeep.  The vast majority of shielded warships have shield upkeeps within the 0.4-0.6 range.

[KDR_11k]

What if we just merge SO and shield shunt?

But seriously, I think a speed boost from removing the weight of the shield generator would make sense.

[Arcagnello]

What if we just merge SO and shield shunt?

But seriously, I think a speed boost from removing the weight of the shield generator would make sense.

Theoretically buffing Shield Shunt that way would also make sense, yes. You could even give it the directly opposite effect of Makeshift Shield Generator and having it improve top speed and handling by 10% (or was it 15?) and, unlike the Hullmod nerfing top speed, it would still cost the same as now to install. I could see that.