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[FooF]

The Idea: Give Shield Shunt the old Damage Control Elite effect (reduces a single instance of huge damage by 60% every so often)

Why: It makes perfect sense with this playstyle, since, well...you can't avoid being hit.

To quote Alex via his blog post:

Damage Control is another skill with an elite effect that’s fun but requires you to be losing – if you take massive hull damage in a single hit, it gets reduced a lot. So if you play well and don’t make mistakes, you’re going to see no benefit from the skill, yay. Also if an enemy officer has it, you might be scratching your head when you torpedo their ship and it has way less impact than expected. (See: prior point about not really having that much latitude to go wild with these effects.)

I get his reasoning but since any ship could have Elite Damage Control, and some of them were safely tucked behind shields or extremely nimble, it really wasn't much of a benefit to those types of ships. However, all the Shield Shunted ships that actually want it are just big and slow Low Tech bricks.

For them, there's absolutely nothing stopping that Hellbore shot from ruining your day and the extra 200-ish armor that Shield Shunt provides really doesn't mitigate it. While in a lot of scenarios, having somewhere between 2500 and 3000 armor (and potentially "plussed-up" with Polarized Armor) negates a lot of even heavy shots, a single Reaper still blows a hole in your shell. A maxed out Onslaught XIV only needs 6 Hellbore shots to strip completely in one spot. Without a shield, you just have no way of really stopping these game enders.

Now that we've redefined and refocused the use-case scenario for this perk, the original objection of "you have to be losing to see a benefit" is partially negated. These ships 100% will take hits, and big hits at that. It doesn't stop the HIL from still being an existential threat but it would mitigate the lucky torpedo or Hellbore. Also, since shield shunted ships are pretty obvious by the lack of a shield, the other issue of not knowing why your torpedo did so little damage is also alleviated. (Note that a lot of ships that are just plain shield-less wouldn't see the effect anyways. The Invictus, which would love to have this, doesn't have a shield to give up and some of the unshielded Frigates just don't have the option either) Really, I see Shield Shunt as more akin to Safety Overrides: just a different style of play with its own benefits and disadvantages. Unlike SO, though, Shield Shunt only really benefits an already heavily armored ship.

So how to implement it? I could see it being part of the base package of the hullmod. After all, you are giving up your shield for what amounts to be 150-250 armor. Perhaps the S-mod effect improves the damage mitigation and/or how often it triggers. Also, since armor is sort of the lifeblood of a Shield Shunted ship, I'd suggest the perk affect the damage to armor, not hull. I suppose it could do both but that seems very strong to me.

Maybe something like:

Base effect:

• +15% armor
• Reduces the effect of damage on armor over 700 by 40% once every 6 seconds

S-Mod effect:

• An additional +15% armor
• Reduces the effect of damage on armor over 500 by 60% once every 4 seconds

Numbers can obviously be tweaked. Maybe the +Armor % is dropped to 10% or the perk is less frequent, or maybe the OP cost goes up. Overall, however, I think Shield Shunted ships are losing more than they gain currently. Yes, they can pump 100% of their flux into offense but being unable to flicker shields is a huge defensive step down. With something like this, they aren't quite as prone to getting ravaged by a single attack.

[Bungee_man]

Tangentially related, but I'd like to see effects like the massive one-hit damage reduction have some kind of visual/audio indicator. That was, IMO, the big issue with damage control beforehand. Difficult to tell when it saved you, difficult to know what was going on when it saved an enemy. Maybe some kind of shading/border effect for polarized armor, as well, so it's easier to understand why some ships are suddenly much harder to damage.

As far as requiring the player to be losing, it's always a good consideration, but I think this kind of effect is good across the board - a reaper can always come out of the blue, and the game's intended experience is ironman mode, which makes mitigating surprise hits like that very important.

[TK3600]

You are not paying for armor. You are paying for Increased 5% residual armor once hull is exposed. No armor is good for straight up block shots from hulls, except Invictus special Abrasive armor.

[FooF]

You are not paying for armor. You are paying for Increased 5% residual armor once hull is exposed. No armor is good for straight up block shots from hulls, except Invictus special Abrasive armor.

You’re going to have to explain this further. Are you saying that armor’s only purpose is to increase the residual armor of hull? If so, that couldn’t be further from the truth, but even if it was, there wouldn’t be a circumstance where anyone would rightly take Shield Shunt because a shield is infinitely more effective than a few extra residual armor points. Why wouldn’t you just take hullmods that increase hull by large percentages?

Even a maxed Onslaught only has 150ish residual armor. That’s not a small amount but it doesn’t do much to anything to missiles or high impact rounds. Even some Kinetics will still do 30-40% of their damage against it, relative to minimum damage against proper armor.

While I understand getting through hull ends up taking the lion’s share of the time to kill, you still have to get through the armor. With Low Tech shield shunted ships, with skills, that’s no small order, except in the case of torpedoes and super-high caliber shots (which this idea hopes to mitigate some).

[Killer of Fate]

you aren't supposed to eat torpedoes
real anti-armour tools are only equipped by the mightiest of enemies, which are often rare or vulnerable. Those are uncounterable to heavy armour, but the increased flux presence is meant to give you an edge to kill them, but that is not the case. Cause you can be kited, you can be even outranged. You can find it difficult to make the tiny amount of bonus armour mean anything.

Armour is usually finite. Very finite. And you will never be able to make it be infinite. You will never make it better than shields. The only time you can is when you have ablative armour and the ridiculous range of Invictus.

Give up. And do the thing I recommend. Make the Shield Shunt increase fire rate and flux spending, so it can synergize with highly aggressive builds that can deal their weight even if half the weapons break from EMP or if the enemy is built really durably. Otherwise Shield Shunt is just a wasteful thing...

Even with this change it would be useless. Enforcers, Manticore, Eradicator, Dominator, Legion don't want to use Shield Shunt for its additional durability. They use it cause they want to have the spare flux to equip ridiculous weapons and fire without a worry in the world. This is the aspect we need to focus on. Instead of helplessly trying to make armour invulnerable.

The reason Shield Shunt isn't good is cause if it were good, it would be dumb. And if u break that, then it would become dumb again... Encourage proactivity. Encourage recklessness. Encourage fury.

[FooF]

you aren't supposed to eat torpedoes
real anti-armour tools are only equipped by the mightiest of enemies, which are often rare or vulnerable. Those are uncounterable to heavy armour, but the increased flux presence is meant to give you an edge to kill them, but that is not the case. Cause you can be kited, you can be even outranged. You can find it difficult to make the tiny amount of bonus armour mean anything.

Armour is usually finite. Very finite. And you will never be able to make it be infinite. You will never make it better than shields. The only time you can is when you have ablative armour and the ridiculous range of Invictus.

Give up. And do the thing I recommend. Make the Shield Shunt increase fire rate and flux spending, so it can synergize with highly aggressive builds that can deal their weight even if half the weapons break from EMP or if the enemy is built really durably. Otherwise Shield Shunt is just a wasteful thing...

Even with this change it would be useless. Enforcers, Manticore, Eradicator, Dominator, Legion don't want to use Shield Shunt for its additional durability. They use it cause they want to have the spare flux to equip ridiculous weapons and fire without a worry in the world. This is the aspect we need to focus on. Instead of helplessly trying to make armour invulnerable.

The reason Shield Shunt isn't good is cause if it were good, it would be dumb. And if u break that, then it would become dumb again... Encourage proactivity. Encourage recklessness. Encourage fury.

That turns Shield Shunt into a Low Tech Safety Override. SO already encourages berserker type play. We don’t need two.

The point of Shield Shunt isn’t to make armor invincible but to give it enough longevity to be a viable alternative to standard play. Yes, you get to focus on offense at the expense of giving up the shield but at no point should it be the optimal way. Increased flux and RoF with no range penalty on already sturdy, high PPT ships? I’ll take 7, please. Instead, if armor is less prone to being completely negated early, the increased offense is enough to win the day (without going completely overboard).

I can only assume you’re talking about Shield Shunt being used against Remnants/Omegas when you talk about “mightiest of enemies.” It doesn’t have to be optimal against them for it still to be useful. We’re not just talking CapnHector gauntlets where no amount of armor would last long enough. That said, my idea would help against the hyper-aggressive AI because while the armor is intact, they’re losing the flux war. Ordo hunting is sort of its own thing and not the metric I use to determine whether or not something is balanced. I’m looking to balance Shield Shunt throughout the game, not just endgame.

[Killer of Fate]

the function Shield Shunt serves is identical to wielding a weak shield Low Tech tends to wield. It's about absorbing lesser damage whilst utilising PD to protect yourself from incoming missiles. By adding a passive that greatly reduces damage from missiles you are doing... Well, I'm honestly curious how that would work. I mean, you would probably still need to defend yourself from missiles, as these come in many amounts. So, it would be just a get out of jail free card with little gameplay implications.

You cannot balance this without it becoming obviously better than the other option. Because these two methods of durability function identically, you would either end up making Shield Shunt mandatory, cause it would be a better option than a *** shield. Or non-existent as it is currently. The current state of Shield Shunt ironically enough has a lot of nuance to it. Cause you can make it good, but you need to spend an s-point to make it good. Alternatively, it makes 0 sense.

Whilst sure, it would function synergistically with SO and serve as another form of SO, would it really be that bad? Why is it that giving hullmods that have huge gameplay implications and offer aggressive playstyles is immediately a bad thing? We have like 20 hullmods serving a long-term or a defensive function. But like 1... For offensive capabilities. Maybe 2... The Phase thingy for phase ships. We should in fact create more options, considering the fact that SO will soon be reworked, and then its identity will require additional members to be reinforced.

[FooF]

the function Shield Shunt serves is identical to wielding a weak shield Low Tech tends to wield. It's about absorbing lesser damage whilst utilising PD to protect yourself from incoming missiles. By adding a passive that greatly reduces damage from missiles you are doing... Well, I'm honestly curious how that would work. I mean, you would probably still need to defend yourself from missiles, as these come in many amounts. So, it would be just a get out of jail free card with little gameplay implications.

I see it as the opposite: you want the shield to take the heaviest blows and the armor to take “lesser damage.” Armor is specifically designed to mitigate Kinetic and Frag rounds and lesser damage/shot HE. If you use the shield to block everything, the poor efficiency cripples your offense but if you use it just to absorb big HE torpedo or Hellbore rounds, it does its job protecting the armor from being removed too soon.  The fact that it’s an infinitely renewable resource is the reason Shield Shunt is such an opportunity cost.

Flickering the shield to absorb the Reaper hit is the “get out jail free card” under normal conditions. It’s when you add Shield Shunt you realize how much you miss it. The funny part about shield shunt isn’t that you actually have more offense: it’s just that you don’t have the option to burden yourself with hard flux from shields. It’s also a different philosophy because the ship can’t be overloaded. Again, at the expense of taking all damage on armor/hull.

The idea presented doesn’t render shields obsolete. Far from it, actually. The armor is still taking some damage, and as you succinctly pointed out, armor is very finite. It just reduces the amount of armor lost from high damage/shot weapons that may not be avoidable. After all, PD doesn’t stop Hellbore shots or Plasma Cannons. Shield shunt removes a ship’s ability to mitigate these kind of threats and I feel those are enough to warrant some compensation from the hullmod.

[Killer of Fate]

there is only one weapon that works this way. And it's Hellbore, which is now rare. The only factions that have access to it are the Luddic Church and Independents/Mercs. And because Luddic Church doesn't have Dominators, Onslaughts or Legion. And their weapons of choice are Retribution (garbage) and Invictus (easily countered). They have Manticore... I guess. But it doesn't really matter. Their doctrine is quantity, so they are weak. And they have one military world. And a crisis that is just kinda easy to beat. I think that the amount of bounties also sort of corresponds to the amount of systems a faction has. And whether you are on good terms with said faction. And because Luddic Church's colonies are out there. And they have horrible choice of weapons and ships, you don't exactly prioritise to befriend them.

All weapons besides Hellbore either do humongous damage against shields: Plasma Cannon. Phase Lance, Tachyon Lance (low flux venting + beams = death). Suppressive fire anti-armour (Hephaestus is the most common large in the game per encounter most likely). And then... Missiles...

So, on paper. Yes. You are right. In practice. No, you are wrong.

Also, if you are hoping for the Mercs and Indies using the Hellbore. Autofit will usually replace it with something higher up, I presume. That applies to merc fleets with s-mods. Autofit really hates primitive weapons from what I gather. I tried making Enforcers with Heavy Mortar and Heavy Needler for the Hegemony. And the thing kept replacing Heavy Mortars with Maulers constantly even at 0.05 autofit chance.

But even if the autofit isn't crazy and I just had a stupid roll or something I can't explain, then ships with Hellbore would still be rare. Very rare.

Breach is the only thing that really applies to the shield logic. But then again, a Shunted ship will have enough PD to try to shoot it. It's an extremely minor thing. Otherwise everything works exactly the same.

In fact I remember a saying... A good Shield Shunt build is a build exactly the same as a normal build except with Shield Shunt added to it. That's because there is no gameplay difference between using a crappy shield or a Shield Shunt, except Shield Shunt is worse. Or better than a shield. And does a better job at eating minor damage.

There is only like a minor aggression factor, which people tend to not really focus on when trying to rework Shield Shunt. Instead aspiring to make it basically outdo the shield and then make it mandatory.

[Rusty Edge]

In fact I remember a saying... A good Shield Shunt build is a build exactly the same as a normal build except with Shield Shunt added to it. That's because there is no gameplay difference between using a crappy shield or a Shield Shunt, except Shield Shunt is worse. Or better than a shield. And does a better job at eating minor damage.

You can't let a normal build run as hot on flux. As long as a shunted ship has some missiles, or backup, it's still registered as a threat, and can't overload. And even active venting is faster than venting during an overload.

You seem very knowledgeable on the high tech ships, and how to turn them into unstoppable murder machines, and if I ever wanted to dabble in high tech ships I would probably go to you for advice.

But As long as you're critiquing low-tech builds and mechanics, you ought to actually play with them and figure them out.

[kaoseth]

I don't think even with that bonus shield shunt will be worth it.   
 
The crux of the problem is that what you gain (30%+ more armor) doesn't compensate for what you lose (infinite damage absorption at the cost of flux). Specifically, unlimited regenerative hitpoints of shields that is required to win wars of attrition. The entire game is designed around this war of attrition that the flux gameplay gives.  And outside of human piloted ships, the AI tries to fight wars of attrition. Ships dive in, shoot do damage, escape when high flux to vent.  Human players rely on spike damage to short circuit that (4+ antimatter blasters at once), venting strategically at low flux, and positioning behind shields to get hull hits. 
 
I truly think that the only way that shunt will ever be worth it, is with the addition of a hull mod adds armor regen, or the addition of support fighters that can repair armor/hull.  I favor the fighters, because that means you can have a nearby Moria repairing tank on an onslaught.  And fighters can be shot down and otherwise disrupted, instead of something unstoppable that can be modded into the Onslaught.   And this is truely frightening with the Invictus, so a way to shut it down is required. 
 
With the current shunt, I believe the only weak case to use it at all is for shunt on reckless suicide builds that don't have SO.   As SO gives the double venting and increased ship speed makes shields tank twice as strong, which the 30% armor doesn't even come close too, (and SO prevents it outright). 
 
Which leads me to feel in the current game, that the only ship worth putting shunt on is the Vanguard, and only when in the special role of using them as sacrificial lambs.  It's rugged construction removes any care if they die, its damper field is very compatible with armor and doesn't work with shields.  Plus it can bring 3 reapers for that alpha spike damage while being faster than a Centurion. 
 
(edit, clarified statements)

[FooF]

We already have regenerating hull (Elite Combat Endurance) but regenerating armor would have to be a special case: like a ship system that the whole hull is built around. I just don't see general-purpose regenerating hull ever being widespread. Why? It would be exactly what Killer of Fate was describing: 100% optimal for high-armored ships. Same goes for a support fighter that repairs: what prevents a ship from adding Converted Hangars and adding it to repair itself? Seems like it would be optimal. Not that the idea doesn't have merit, it's just that it seems like a no-brainer for a lot of Low Tech ships. It would also be near useless for middle-to-low armored craft for the same reasons Alex axed the original elite effect of Damage Control. Unlike say, Hardened Shields, which is universally useful for every ship with a shield regardless of its original efficiency, a regenerating armor skill, hullmod, or fighter would really only be worth it on ships planning on armor tanking.

Shield Shunt is a hard sell for the some of the reasons you mention. +30% armor (and that's if you S-mod it) is no substitute for a shield at face value. [Note that +15/30% armor is +15/30% base armor, not modified armor. An Onslaught and Onslaught XIV with Heavy Armor both get the same benefit from Shield Shunt (+262.5/525).] However, an Onslaught putting its shield up to block all shots is an incredibly inefficient way of using its flux capacity. Yes, the resource may be infinite long-term but not in the frame of battle. Take a Heavy Needler volley: it does 3000 hard flux damage to an Onslaught's shields (~18% of total capacity) but only 112.5 damage to armor. Even less if you have Polarized Armor or Impact Mitigation. Yet, in the name of "but the shield is renewable and armor is not", some folks would prefer the Onslaught take the hit on shields despite it being over 25x more flux efficient to let the armor do its job.

The counter argument is that taking hits on armor is death by a thousand paper cuts, and that's 100% true. But...at least they're paper cuts. Meanwhile, the Onslaught is going full bore with a sledgehammer to its opponent. Now they are taking 3000 hard flux damage on their shields and Onslaught just. Keeps. Coming. It is very similar playstyle to SO: you have to lean really hard into your offensive superiority early or you'll lose the battle of attrition. It is absolutely a short-term gain, long-term loss. But continue with the the analogy of of Safety Overrides, with Shield Shunt, a random Kite with a Reaper can now force your CR down to 15% in the first 30 seconds of the of the fight. That makes a hard sell even harder, hence the original idea. It still doesn't necessarily protect heavy capital from a Hammer Barrage or Plasma Cannon volley (only the first round would see any reduction) but the armor saves add up, just like the paper cuts on the other end.

Ultimately, I'm only looking for something like a 10-15% increase in overall survivability for Shield Shunt. The perk would simply level the bumps the ships undoubtedly take to a more moderate level from a catastrophic one. There's no feeling worse than being in an armor tanking ship and getting your front armor blown clean off by a lucky shot. You feel crippled the rest of the battle and your primary method to victory (winning the flux war by not taking hits on shields) is now out the window. The predator becomes the prey. If you have a shield, shame on you for not getting it up on time but the Shield Shunted ship doesn't have that option. And, as mentioned, the +15/30% armor isn't much compensation for losing that safety net.

[kaoseth]

... 100% optimal for high-armored ships. Same goes for a support fighter that repairs: what prevents a ship from adding Converted Hangars and adding it to repair itself?

That's assumption is 100% dependent on how fast they repair.  If it takes 60 seconds for 10 theoretical armor repair fighters to repair 500 armor, then is it still optimal? If you said yes, then what about 50 armor?  There's a point in there that it becomes suboptimal, and it's just about finding the right balance.  And there's also OP cost to consider. 30 op could make someone think twice. 
 
Yes, a converted hanger will add the opportunity to save itself...  Until they get swatted down, because they are fighters.  Then it's dead weight until they relaunch.  There are really a lot of knobs to turn like repawn time that can balance it.     

It would also be near useless for middle-to-low armored craft for the same reasons Alex axed the original elite effect of Damage Control. ...  a regenerating armor skill, hullmod, or fighter would really only be worth it on ships planning on armor tanking.

Shunt itself is in that position, being near useless for middle to low armored craft.  I personally don't feel the need to have every hullmod be a benefit for every ship.  lieutenant and player skills are another matter, given how invested you become and their ability to jump from ship to ship.   

an Onslaught putting its shield up to block all shots is an incredibly inefficient way of using its flux capacity. Yes, the resource may be infinite long-term but not in the frame of battle. Take a Heavy Needler volley: it does 3000 hard flux damage to an Onslaught's shields (~18% of total capacity) but only 112.5 damage to armor. Even less if you have Polarized Armor or Impact Mitigation. Yet, in the name of "but the shield is renewable and armor is not", some folks would prefer the Onslaught take the hit on shields despite it being over 25x more flux efficient to let the armor do its job.

It's almost always worth it, even for the Onslaught, to let damage go to shields when flux level is not a hinderance to shooting or in danger of overload.  Even a simple rule like below 50% always keep it on can accomplish that.  Why take any damage at all when it can be avoided? 

The counter argument is that taking hits on armor is death by a thousand paper cuts, and that's 100% true. But...at least they're paper cuts. Meanwhile, the Onslaught is going full bore with a sledgehammer to its opponent.

I'd contend, the current shunt 30% bonus, a well balanced opponent will 100-0 kill a well spec'd shunted Onslaught faster than a well spec'd non-shunted onslaught with no flux and shields up. My impression is that 30% is not enough.   
 
Which is why I suggested the fighters repairing armor thing.  You can have another ship providing the recovery while the fighting happening, but it costs the use of the at ship.  And shutting down fighters is very easy to do.   
 

I had another idea for a Shield Shunt replacement.   Re-theme it to be "Shield shunt redirects the shield to inside the ship". No outward shields, but before hull damage is applied, it's applied to your shields while below x% flux (turned off during overfluxed)  x% being something like 50 or 75%.   
 
The concept is that it changes the damage path from shield->armor->hull into armor->shield->hull.  No outward shields is an a boon as it's a smaller target.  But the primary reason to do this is that armor reduction is done first before applying to shields. at the cost of shield capacity, as only x% of flux can be used for the shield. 
 
Not sure how I feel, but it still has shields so it still can participate in the war of attrition, though in a weakened state as you participate in that war after armor becomes stripped instead of before.   Probably should throw something extra in like armor damage is reduced by y%, or keep the 30% armor bonus from before.