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[Megas]

Lately, I have been trying this plus armor bonuses on midline and high-tech ships.  Ships with less armor and more inefficient weapons.

What is fun about it is AI does not need to worry about shields, and flux neutrality is only a minor consideration (because they cannot overload when they have no shield).  The ship can more easily support more guns longer, and there is not much downside for reaching max flux.  Player is not so pressured to get maximum vents to make it easier for autofire or the AI to control its flux.

For example.  I put the hullmods Shield Shunt, Heavy Armor, Resistant Flux Conduits, and Armored Turret Mounts (and ITU) on Fury, mount two Heavy Blasters, Proximity Charge Launcher, one Ion Cannon, and every other mount filled with burst PD.  Remaining OP goes into vents, if any.  The Fury charges ahead, unloads blasters on a destroyer or Falcon, and kills them.  If I used a more conventional loadout with shields, and tried to one-on-one with Falcon, Fury would probably die because it would eventually cower and let the Falcon outrange and kill it.  Without shields, Fury did not run away and unloads double blasters on the Falcon and kills it.

With Aurora, I could get away with three heavy blasters and multiple Ion Cannons.  With my fleet commander with a bunch of elite skills on autopilot, it could (barely) beat three SIM Dominators.  Not as effective as Dominator or as cheaply as Rampart with alpha core, but at least it did the job.

I tried Paragon without shields, and I configure for all-out offense on the large and medium energy mounts.  Four plasma cannons and four heavy blasters (or two heavy blasters and two phase lances with Adv.Optics).  Universals are dual flak and smalls are burst pd.  (Got to have some PD when ship has no shields.)  Despite no fortress shield (because it has no shield), it is fun watching paragon pillbox and unload disgusting amounts of long-range gunfire without worrying about fortress shield getting in the way.  With traditional Paragon with shields, I would not dare four plasma cannons unless I had elite Energy Mastery, Flux Regulations, Ordnance Expert, and every other dissipation buff available.  With shield forsaken for extra armor and guns, four plasma plus blasters was feasible, and if somehow sustained long enough to max flux, no big deal, it felt like using a much stronger autopulse that ran out of charges.

Odyssey is another fun one, with plasma cannons or tachyon lances, IPDAI IR pulse lasers, lots of missiles, and Xyphos or Mining Pods.  AI charges in like a maniac and slugs it out like a battleship.

Shield Shunt does not help every ship - those that cannot get sufficient PD or enough additional firepower.  I tried it with Shrike, but I could not put significantly more firepower or PD on it, and the result was one dead ship.  Tried it on Falcon and Eagle.  They took some more hits and I could use three phase lances on Eagle without problems using them, but it was not enough.  They died in fights that other ships (Dominator, Aurora, Rampart) could win.

Wolf was kind of interesting.  AI Wolf could duel one-on-one against other frigates more easily.  It still died, but at least it did more damage because it kept trying to dodge while maintaining attack range and attack more instead of running away or overload and die anyway because the other frigate popped it with ballistics.

So far, I have only played around with unlikely Shield Shunt ships in the sim.  I do not know if it works well enough against human bounties, let alone Ordos.

Shield Shunt seems like an alternative Safety Override.  A way to add more guns and see how much damage it can do before it dies.

I kind of wish Shield Shunt did more than add 15% armor.  If no more combat buffs, at least something to mitigate death like Rugged Construction or various Industry skills do, even if only to a lesser extent.

[Amoebka]

I put the hullmods Shield Shunt, Heavy Armor, Resistant Flux Conduits, and Armored Turret Mounts (and ITU) on Fury

You know, you could have just used that OP on vents, caps and flux distributor. Shield shunting to prevent overfluxing is a very silly approach. You would certainly not get away with it against Ordos. Tach lance and HIL murder even low-tech shieldless ships, high-tech paper isn't going to fare well.

The suicidal behaviour is sometimes useful, especially to force panic missile dumps.

[BigBrainEnergy]

With traditional Paragon with shields, I would not dare four plasma cannons unless I had elite Energy Mastery, Flux Regulations, Ordnance Expert, and every other dissipation buff available.

Trust me, you still wouldn't want that. In player hands you're better off mixing weapon types, and you can forget about the AI. That's just way too much flux for ANY ship to handle.

Overall an interesting experiment, I might have to test it out myself although "shield shunt high tech" sounds more like the title of a niche speedrun category rather than a viable strategy. There's definitely a lot to be learned about ship design by doing things the "wrong" way on purpose.

[Megas]

You know, you could have just used that OP on vents, caps and flux distributor. Shield shunting to prevent overfluxing is a very silly approach. You would certainly not get away with it against Ordos. Tach lance and HIL murder even low-tech shieldless ships, high-tech paper isn't going to fare well.

The suicidal behaviour is sometimes useful, especially to force panic missile dumps.

With shields, that OP goes to Stabilized Shields, Flux Distributor, max vents and maybe some caps if I still have OP left; and I need to use less (powerful) weapons on the ship and be closer to flux neutral.  Armor Paragon may not as durable as one with Fortress Shield, but it is still about durable as anything else with more than 2000 armor backed by armor skills.  The point of no shields on Paragon is trading defense for more offense, to get maximum firepower and to tell AI "No, you don't get to use shields at all and waste time turtling!  Instead, you shoot more bullets than normal."  It is kind of fun watching AI Paragon focus-fire four plasma cannons and at least two heavy blasters/phase lances at enemies and watch them die fast.  I would need missile spam to do something comparable with another ship.  There is no way I can do that safely with a default shields loadout.  The best I can do is four plasma cannons only, and only if I have elite Energy Mastery and all other dissipation perks.  No shields Paragon can fire that for several seconds and does not need to min-max dissipation to do it.

Yes, HIL is a weakness, but it is not too common.  Also, against high armor ships, it takes a bit of time before HIL breaches armor.  Of course, the AI is generally dumb and gives the enemy the time it needs to burn a hole through armor.

I have my doubts on Ordos too, but then again, not every combat ship (even with shields) is good enough against Ordos, especially against double fleets.

The biggest problem with no shield, max armor ships are the officers.  They need to have Impact Mitigation and Polarized Armor.  Point Defense for extra oomph against missiles is probably a good idea too.  I put Impact Mitigation on nearly all of them anyway because all ships will take damage at some point and they want the hardened weapons and engines to offset the enemy's Target Analysis, but Polarized Armor is tough without Officer Training for the extra skill.  Currently, I need to give up Ballistic Mastery for Polarized Armor, which hurts for ships like Onslaught.  So many good skills, five does not feel like enough.

They work in the SIM (they better since my ships are skilled and theirs are not), so it is a start.  The main test is if it works in a fleet against human endgame bounties.  So far, I have tried no-shields Conquest against an endgame human fleet, and it has survived.  (Conquest that time was a brawler, with Mjolnirs and Locusts.)

Trust me, you still wouldn't want that. In player hands you're better off mixing weapon types, and you can forget about the AI. That's just way too much flux for ANY ship to handle.

It is way too much if the ship has shields.  Without shields, all of those weapons can work for a while.  That is part of the point of no shields, to fire more weapons safely long enough.  If the only benefit to no shields is a bit more armor from Shield Shunt, then yes, it is lame.

With that said, if I wanted Paragon for anti-Radiant, I would probably want two plasma and two tachyon lances.  Radiant always skims away from plasma range when it loses the flux war.  At least lances will do some damage after Radiant skims.

[Kos135]

I came up with a fun Shield Shunt build for the Dominator.

Weapons:
3x Annihilator Rocket Pod
2x Mark IX Autocannon
2x Heavy Machine Gun
Hullmods:
Built-in Expanded Missile Racks and Heavy Armor
Other hullmods-
Armored Weapon Mounts
Automated Repair Unit
Blast Doors
Insulated Engine Assembly
Reinforced Bulkheads
Resistant Flux Conduits
Shield Shunt
Solar Shielding
Unstable Injector
Flux Stats:
17 Vents
Officer (assuming both tier 4 leadership skills unlocked, max level, and you're lucky enough to get ideal skills)
Personality: Reckless
Helmsmanship (elite)
Missile Specialization (elite)
Impact Mitigation
Damage Control
Polarized Armor
Ballistic Mastery

Before using 3x Annihilator Rocket Pods I tried 3x Proximity Launchers. That works fine in 1v1 simulations, but in fleet battles the AI ends up hanging back and using the proximity launchers on fighters and missiles instead of doing what this build is obviously meant to do - charge straight up into a capital or cruiser's face and relentlessly hammer them, while shrugging off damage and ionization for as long as possible.

[Megas]

Played with more shield shunt high-tech ships in real fights.  The larger ones work okay against endgame human fleets, but falter against full Ordos with Radiants.  They do better against enemy fleets whose best ships are glass cannons (like Conquest) instead of bricks (like Onslaught).

Armor Fury will run over smaller or weaker ships early in the fight.  Fast with decent armor and extra guns is nice.  However, even with more burst PD and PD buffs, it was not enough to stop all missiles reliably.  If an enemy battleship or multiple ships focuses heavily on them, they will not last.  They survived fights at low hull.  I doubt they would work in an Ordos fight.

Paragon is too expensive to give up shields.  It takes damage too easily for its DP cost.  If Paragon was a 40 DP ship like Onslaught, Shield Shunt might not be a bad idea.  It can do a lot of damage to human ships easily, but Ordos is too strong for Paragon without friends (because Paragon ate too much DP).

Odyssey did better than Paragon, or more precisely, Odyssey costs less DP than a Paragon for a fast ship with armor, missiles, and big guns.  Odyssey gets its nose blasted and will take heavy damage.  It survived in human bounties.  Against a single Ordos, Odyssey died after halfway through the fight.

After some fights, the heavy armor damage meant shield shunted ships cannot chain or fight back-to-back battles because damage has not been repaired yet.  I kind of wish Shield Shunt offered another minor (campaign) buff to make its use more tempting.

I came up with a fun Shield Shunt build for the Dominator.

My Dominator build had two Mark IXs, three Harpoon Pods, two Heavy Maulers, and nine Vulcans.  s-mods were Heavy Armor and Expanded Missile Racks.  Other hullmods were Armored Mounts, IPDAI, ITU, Resistant Flux Conduits, and Shield Shunt.  Rest of the OP went to vents.  Officer was Aggressive level 5 with Combat Endurance, Impact Mitigation, (elite) Point Defense, Gunnery Implants, and Polarized Armor.  In the SIM, I have replaced five of the Vulcans with three Railguns for more kinetic damage.  I forgot to replace them in real fights.

[Kos135]

My Dominator build had two Mark IXs, three Harpoon Pods, two Heavy Maulers, and nine Vulcans.  s-mods were Heavy Armor and Expanded Missile Racks.  Other hullmods were Armored Mounts, IPDAI, ITU, Resistant Flux Conduits, and Shield Shunt.  Rest of the OP went to vents.  Officer was Aggressive level 5 with Combat Endurance, Impact Mitigation, (elite) Point Defense, Gunnery Implants, and Polarized Armor.  In the SIM, I have replaced five of the Vulcans with three Railguns for more kinetic damage.  I forgot to replace them in real fights.

Sounds more like a giant PD brick than a strike cruiser. My shunted Dominator is geared towards one specific task, making a beeline towards the nearest high DP ship and wrecking it as fast as possible. It's not meant to be balanced, it's not meant to have an option against every conceivable threat. The assumption is that it will have support from the rest of the fleet.

[Megas]

IPDAI on Dominator is mainly for Vulcans to track well enough.  Another reason is combining it with elite PD to extend Railgun range enough to nearly match Mark IXs and add more damage.  I would not replace Vulcans with Railguns on a Dominator with shields because exceeding flux neutrality much while shields are online is a bad idea.  It is not so much a PD-brick as simply having enough defenses to avoid unnecessary damage from the enemy's missiles.  If I did not use small weapon PD, I would need to use dual flak in the medium mounts and doing that hurts its offense.  My goal for Dominator is simply to fight and kill things as long as it can.

[Amoebka]

Ballistic rangefinder on Dominator gives railgun more range that elite PD (+560 vs +480 with just ITU, +785 vs +655 with full skills), without requiring an elite skill.

I feel like you might be too concerned with being overfluxed, especially on high-tech ships. In my experience, most ships handle being overfluxed by 20-30% perfectly well, and ships with good mobility systems can be overfluxed by pretty much any amount.

[Megas]

Ballistic rangefinder on Dominator gives railgun more range that elite PD (+560 vs +480 with just ITU, +785 vs +655 with full skills), without requiring an elite skill.

It does, but that is more OP spent, and does not work if I have IPDAI installed already.  I usually use IPDAI on Dominators without flak primarily because Vulcans need them to track missiles like Salamanders or worse reliably to shoot them down.  Vulcans do not have good enough shot leading without IPDAI.  Railgun with IPDAI becomes multipurpose.  Good PD and assault in one.  With elite PD, it is a (cheaper) substitute for Ballistic Rangefinder, even if not quite as good for Dominator.  If I did not use elite PD, then I would skip Railguns altogether and use nothing but Vulcans in the small mounts if I want Maulers in medium mounts.

Most elite effects on skills are not that big a deal.  The biggest exception is Point Defense.  +200 range is a game-changer.  The only other skill I would consider elite with my current officer's five skills would be Combat Endurance for hull regeneration.  (Missile Specialization is great too, but I do not have the skill on the officer.)

I feel like you might be too concerned with being overfluxed, especially on high-tech ships. In my experience, most ships handle being overfluxed by 20-30% perfectly well, and ships with good mobility systems can be overfluxed by pretty much any amount.

The high-tech ships I have in mind do not have omnidirectional mobility systems, except Aurora.  They can rush in, but they cannot quickly back off.

Ships without shields can get away with being overfluxed more than that.  The point of overfluxing in a no-shields ship is to fire more guns than usual safely, and AI does not try to run away when flux gets high.  Instead of one heavy blaster on Fury, I can use two.  It is trading defense for more offense.  Armor Fury with two blasters dies faster than normal Fury with one blaster plus one minor weapon, but kills enemies faster too.  That might be worth the increased danger in anything less than double endgame fleet fights.

I just tried armored Furies in a single Ordos.  They died about halfway through the fight or a bit later.

[Amoebka]

You don't use elite Impact Mitigation on your Dominators? I feel like the ship really can't work without some sort of maneuverability booster. Ordinance Expertise is another really sweet elite effect for low-tech.

Elite PD is super nice, but I feel it's mostly for high-tech ships. There aren't that many good high-tech skills, so might as well grab PD. Low-tech has a lot more options.

EDIT: Fury is probably the weirdest choice for this experiment. You are sacrificing a synergy slot for the second heavy blaster. Missiles would serve the same purpose as your shenanigans (faster kills at the expense of longevity), without opening up the risk of catastrophic failure. If a shieldless ship catches an unfortunate reaper from fulgents of a wave of flash bombers, you are instantly down a ship and start losing local number superiority, which spirals out of control quickly.

[Kos135]

Shield Shunt on a high tech ship seems like a bad idea, considering that high tech relies on shield tanking to survive. The whole point of a Shield Shunt build is to allow a ship to fire on a target indefinitely, and if you design a ship to have no shields, low armor and low hull then it won't survive for very long.

That's one of the reasons why I chose the Dominator for my Shield Shunt build. It has tons of armor and hull, frontal firepower and a burn drive. It can charge right up into the target's face and unload on them while safely ignoring the enemy's attempts to pull it off of their big, shiny, high DP capital ship.

Reinforced Bulkheads is also very nice to have on a berserker-style Shield Shunt build. Not only does it give a huge 40% bonus to hull points but it lets you recover the ship if it gets popped.

[vladokapuh]

shield shunted ships that i consider good enough are onslaughts, legions (xiv), and dominators
not much else can use it well, and those also still just fall in some longer battles

shield shunt hullmod itself is very weak and outside of getting the AI to shoot, not good, it needs buffs. Paying points to remove shield and only get 15% armor for that is just not enough

[Amoebka]

It used to give 25% armor instead of 15% (along with armor skills being stronger), but it got nerfed. It's one of those cases where Alex just doesn't seem to want a playstyle to be viable and nerfs it if it sees any play at all. Another example is defunct civillian packages and high scatter amp.

[Kos135]

It used to give 25% armor instead of 15% (along with armor skills being stronger), but it got nerfed. It's one of those cases where Alex just doesn't seem to want a playstyle to be viable and nerfs it if it sees any play at all. Another example is defunct civillian packages and high scatter amp.

Shield Shunt w/ 25% armor and 25% ion resist would be good imo.

As for ships with the Civilian-grade Hull hullmod, they're supposed to be crap.
Except for the Atlas Mk.II, that ship is crazy. If you build it in certain ways it can put Paragons and Onslaughts to shame. It honestly needs to be nerfed, maybe increase its DP cost from 24 to 30?
I think there should be a place for civilian ships on the battlefield as disposable cannon fodder, but right now Starsector doesn't do the whole "quantity has a quality all its own" philosophy of warfare very well. Crew casualties are one thing, you should expect that if you're running a Quantity > Quality fleet. But the main issue is the 30 ship fleet cap. I'm not saying there shouldn't be a fleet cap, but there should be PC skills that increase it and other ways of increasing it for those of us who enjoy using screens of cannon fodder.

Higher Scatter Amplifier is a big letdown. The concept (strength > range) isn't the problem, it's just a weak hullmod. You're trading all that range for relatively little power. It needs a bigger damage buff to make it worth using. Since the game is always being re-balanced and there's always something that's OP in any given build (Thunder Interceptors used to have harpoons lol), why not kick the damage buff up from 10% to 40 or 50%?
That might give me a reason to finally run Shrikes in my fleet!