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[Unfolder]

Hello I have been playing a lot of Starsector+ and one of the main tactics of a lot of the higher end factions are "EMP missiles" that seem to specialize it overloading shields for a long time. Sometimes I am disabled for as long as 8-10 seconds and it is really surprising and disorienting. I have some questions about overloading, specific to Starsector+ if the dynamics are different:

1. What determines how long a ship is overloaded for? Is it a ratio of hard flux damage over capacity, relative to total capacity?

2. Do EMP weapons, in particular missiles, add overload time if they are part of the final "strike" that pushes it overcapacity? Moreso, say, than the raw damage EMP would have inflicted on non-overloaded shields? (if that makes sense)

3. What about beam weapons that add only soft flux, can they overload shields for more than a second? If you think about it, they shouldn't be able to, since they add damage in a linear stream, so an overload should only register as one point of flux overload. But I may be thinking about the wrong way.

4. What does shield efficiency have to do with overload times, it it a modifier? For example, do overloaded 1.20 stay overloaded longer than 0.8, if given the same flux overload?

5. Are therre weapons that can overload a ship WITHOUT their shields being up? IF so, how does the numbers work on that.

6. Finally, in an related question, as I understand it, damage goes thusly: HE: 50% to shields, Kinetic: 150% (or is it 200%?) to shields, Frag: 25% to shields. What is the modifier to shields for EMP weapons?

[Thaago]

Hi!

1) I believe it is determined simply by the size of the amount you go over flux capacity, but I am not sure of the forumula. Bigger hits produce more time.

3) I'm not sure. In my experience beams overload for short durations of time, like 4 or 5 seconds. Then again things like phase beams can produce a huge amount of damage in a short time. Tachyon lances are special (see below).

4) Ships with worse (higher) shield efficiencies take more damage when hit on the shields. I would guess that they overload for a bit longer because they get higher over the flux limit, but that could be incorrect.

6) He 50%, Kinetic 200%, Frag 25%, and EMP does nothing to shields (or armor or hull). however


2/5) SS+ adds a mechanic where several weapons add flux directly to the pool, regardless of shields being up or down. Often these weapons also have EMP, but adding flux has nothing to do with EMP! The Ion Torpedoes and Tachyon Lances both do this. They can cause extremely long overload times if you are riding the upper flux limits as they push you far over - it is no longer possible to run ships shields down at max flux with these weapons in the game as a single hit is game over.  D.R. has been toning things down to balance these weapons, but I think the mechanic just doesn't work.

[Dark.Revenant]

Ion Torpedoes ARE torpedoes.  It is supposed to be as dangerous as taking an Atropos to the hull.

And the Tachyon Lance doesn't have that mechanic any more.


The only ones left with weapons that do that are the Templars, who don't follow the rules anyway.

[Alex]

Answers, regarding vanilla:

1: Base minimum duration for ship size, plus extra time based on "overkill" damage to the flux bar. Base is 4/6/8/10 (frigate through cap), maximum is 15 seconds for all sizes. It only takes 25 points of damage per extra second of overload.
2 & 6: No. EMP damage has no effect whatsoever if it hits shields.
3: They'll do the base time, but won't get much overkill.
4: Nothing beyond reducing the amount of overkill damage, and so indirectly reducing the overload time.
5: Not in vanilla. EMP used to do this very early on and it was very hard to balance.

[xenoargh]

It only takes 25 points of damage per extra second of overload.

That explains a lot about why Overloads sometimes are really huge, sometimes not, from exchanges that are fairly minor in scale, like minor Kinetic hits from a passing fighter.

It seems excessive; it really should scale with ship size, imo; something like 25/40/55/70.  I almost think it should scale linearly with Flux Capacity, personally, so that there's a significant material difference between Overloading a Paragon and an Onslaught or a Dominator vs. an Odyssey, but that's just me.

Being able to effectively kill a cap with just 125 more damage on the last hit (5 seconds is a 50% more Overload time, and it usually means you're dead via TKO) is kind of a big deal.  For example, a single Atropos delivers that much.

On the reverse side of that, Frigates should recover faster, with a cap of 10; it's always seemed a bit weird that they get thrown into massive Overload by stuff, given their smaller Flux Capacity.

[Megas]

In my experience, bigger ships already tend to overload longer than small ships.  Also, I see Damage Control 5 almost a must.  Overloads without that perk are already a death sentence.

[Alex]

@xenoargh: Yeah, it could probably stand a bit of tweaking at some point. If I were redoing it, I'd probably base the duration on the strength of the last hit rather than the overkill amount, more predictable that way.

[xenoargh]

Yeah.  Anyhow, just Minor Stuff, really.  Far more important fish to fry atm, I'm sure