Major bug with pilot revamp - Trauma Response, Inelastic Collisions, and others affected

anubis77c

I've been holding off posting this, but since it was discussed on the ten-forward stream last night, it's time to put down an official post about it.

The pilot revamp modified the way that Emergency Power to Shields works, where it provides a drain immunity. Patch notes:

Now also grants Immunity to Shield Drain when your Shields are reduced to 20/35/50% total Capacity

The way this seems to work is that it checks every second to see if your shield capacity is below the amount listed. The problem is that this check every second is being counted as a NEW shield heal activation.

Therefore, anything that activates based on this results in unintended results. For example:

• Starship Trait: Trauma Response - this now grants 75% shield pen within 10 seconds of using emergency power to shields. Since shields have an innate bleedthrough of 5% or 10%, plus the skill tree shield pen, you can build a ship with 100% shield pen all of the time quite easily.
• Starship Trait: Weapons Hot Deflectors to Full - the secondary shielding from this trait is reapplied every second. I do not have this trait to show an example, so I'm not sure if the weapon haste is stacking too, but it could be.
• Personal Trait: Inelastic Collisions - somewhat negated by the shield bleedthrough from Trauma Response above, but now this trait activates every second, resulting in 99% reduction in damage to shields.... all the time.

There could be more issues but those are the main 3 causing problems right now. Obviously it's been a hot topic in PvP lately but it's going to start affecting PvE as well.

anubis77c

Add the Starship Trait "Shield Overload" to the list of things wonky with this change to emergency power to shields

anubis77c

More data for you in a controlled test.
Two ships, in a pvp map on opposite teams.

• Specializations are turned off
• Traits are unequipped
• Consoles etc are still there which is why the ships have such high hull resistance values

Results:

---

INELASTIC COLLISIONS

---

---Nothing active---
[2:25][Combat (Self)]Your Phaser Wide Angle Dual Heavy Beam Bank gives 841 (670) to Aoife's Shields
[2:25][Combat (Self)]Your Phaser Wide Angle Dual Heavy Beam Bank gives 802 (639) to Aoife's Shields
[2:25][Combat (Self)]Your Phaser Wide Angle Dual Heavy Beam Bank gives 800 (637) to Aoife's Shields
[2:25][Combat (Self)]Your Phaser Wide Angle Dual Heavy Beam Bank gives 799 (636) to Aoife's Shields

Average shield damage: 810.5


---Emergency Power to Shields 3 only---
[2:29][Combat (Self)]Your Phaser Wide Angle Dual Heavy Beam Bank gives 475 (609) to Aoife's Shields
[2:29][Combat (Self)]Your Phaser Wide Angle Dual Heavy Beam Bank gives 522 (670) to Aoife's Shields
[2:29][Combat (Self)]Your Phaser Wide Angle Dual Heavy Beam Bank gives 438 (562) to Aoife's Shields
[2:29][Combat (Self)]Your Phaser Wide Angle Dual Heavy Beam Bank gives 450 (577) to Aoife's Shields

Average shield damage: 471.25


WITH Emergency Power to Shields 3 + INELASTIC COLLISIONS
[2:25][Combat (Self)]Your Phaser Wide Angle Dual Heavy Beam Bank gives 379 (653) to Aoife's Shields
[2:25][Combat (Self)]Your Phaser Wide Angle Dual Heavy Beam Bank gives 329 (566) to Aoife's Shields
[2:25][Combat (Self)]Your Phaser Wide Angle Dual Heavy Beam Bank gives 352 (607) to Aoife's Shields
[2:26][Combat (Self)]Your Phaser Wide Angle Dual Heavy Beam Bank gives 368 (633) to Aoife's Shields

Average shield damage: 357

---

TRAUMA RESPONSE

---

---No trauma response trait---
[2:31][Combat (Self)]Your Altamid Plasma Dual Beam Bank gives 1477 (1043) to Old Major's Shields
[2:31][Combat (Self)]Your Altamid Plasma Dual Beam Bank deals 154 (2589) Plasma Damage to Old Major

[2:31][Combat (Self)]Your Altamid Plasma Dual Beam Bank gives 1303 (897) to Old Major's Shields
[2:31][Combat (Self)]Your Altamid Plasma Dual Beam Bank deals 133 (2284) Plasma Damage to Old Major

[2:31][Combat (Self)]Your Altamid Plasma Dual Beam Bank gives 1443 (1033) to Old Major's Shields
[2:31][Combat (Self)]Your Altamid Plasma Dual Beam Bank deals 153 (2530) Plasma Damage to Old Major

[2:31][Combat (Self)]Your Altamid Plasma Dual Beam Bank gives 1277 (823) to Old Major's Shields
[2:31][Combat (Self)]Your Altamid Plasma Dual Beam Bank deals 122 (2240) Plasma Damage to Old Major

Average shield damage: 1375
Average hull damage: 140.5


---with 10 stacks of trauma response---
[2:34][Combat (Self)]Your Altamid Plasma Dual Beam Bank gives 69 (54) to Old Major's Shields
[2:34][Combat (Self)]Your Altamid Plasma Dual Beam Bank deals 1111 (2274) Plasma Damage to Old Major

[2:34][Combat (Self)]Your Altamid Plasma Dual Beam Bank gives 69 (56) to Old Major's Shields
[2:34][Combat (Self)]Your Altamid Plasma Dual Beam Bank deals 1146 (2285) Plasma Damage to Old Major

[2:34][Combat (Self)]Your Altamid Plasma Dual Beam Bank gives 66 (52) to Old Major's Shields
[2:34][Combat (Self)]Your Altamid Plasma Dual Beam Bank deals 1079 (2181) Plasma Damage to Old Major

[2:34][Combat (Self)]Your Altamid Plasma Dual Beam Bank gives 79 (54) to Old Major's Shields
[2:34][Combat (Self)]Your Altamid Plasma Dual Beam Bank deals 1118 (2602) Plasma Damage to Old Major

Average shield damage: 70.75
Average hull damage: 1113.5

---

Conclusion

---

Inelastic collisions is working but doesn't actually make shields take 99% less damage as stated on the description. This is NOT new, it has always been this way, since shield resistances are capped at 75% according to the formulas. However, it is a sizable reduction in shield damage and appears to have 100% uptime as Emergency Power to Shields does reapply this every second while active.

Trauma Response is particularly broken and allows ship weapons to almost completely ignore shields. During this test, with one activation of Emergency Power to Shields, my ship showed 1808 shield penetration skill (translates to 90.4% shield pen). My target ship had resilient shields (5% innate bleedthrough) so I was at above 95% shield pen in this test against my target ship. Against NPC enemies, I have full 100% shield pen at all times. Screenshot of stats:


Weapons Hot Deflectors Full provides secondary shielding for 30 seconds. In the past, when this secondary shielding was removed (by damage), that was it. However, it now grants a continuous re-application of these secondary shields as soon as they are depleted. For example, if my target uses Weapons Hot and activates Emergency Power to Shields, and I fire on them, the very instant the secondary shields are gone they reappear back to full, for the entire duration of Emergency Power to Shields - which means, 100% uptime on secondary shielding (except for shield penetration ^ like Trauma...).

Please, do not just fix Trauma Response. The root cause of the issue is the changes to Emergency Power to Shields - that must be corrected as well. Thanks for your time.

anubis77c

Bump - need some eyes on this one as it's a pretty major problem.

Take a look at this parse of a torpedo build I was testing. Almost all damage direct to hull, completely ignores shields as if they aren't even there and it only required me to slot one trait. If I'd also slotted inelastic or weapons hot, I also would've had infinite secondary shields with 99% hardness the entire time too.

anubis77c

Bump - just want to confirm that *someone* saw this since it's such a glaring issue

mercenary4hire

(Trolling comments moderated out. - BMR)

vesh20

anubis77c wrote: »

I've been holding off posting this, but since it was discussed on the ten-forward stream last night, it's time to put down an official post about it.

The pilot revamp modified the way that Emergency Power to Shields works, where it provides a drain immunity. Patch notes:

Now also grants Immunity to Shield Drain when your Shields are reduced to 20/35/50% total Capacity

The way this seems to work is that it checks every second to see if your shield capacity is below the amount listed. The problem is that this check every second is being counted as a NEW shield heal activation.

Therefore, anything that activates based on this results in unintended results. For example:

• Starship Trait: Trauma Response - this now grants 75% shield pen within 10 seconds of using emergency power to shields. Since shields have an innate bleedthrough of 5% or 10%, plus the skill tree shield pen, you can build a ship with 100% shield pen all of the time quite easily.
• Starship Trait: Weapons Hot Deflectors to Full - the secondary shielding from this trait is reapplied every second. I do not have this trait to show an example, so I'm not sure if the weapon haste is stacking too, but it could be.
• Personal Trait: Inelastic Collisions - somewhat negated by the shield bleedthrough from Trauma Response above, but now this trait activates every second, resulting in 99% reduction in damage to shields.... all the time.

There could be more issues but those are the main 3 causing problems right now. Obviously it's been a hot topic in PvP lately but it's going to start affecting PvE as well.

The same thing with Shield Overload and EptS

anubis77c

I know things were rough with the servers down the end of last week, but bumping this thread again. Still no acknowledgement of the bug and it's easily one of the worst we've had in a long time. I mean, infinite secondary shields with 75% hardness and also 100% shield pen when attacking. Come on...

vesh20

BUMP!

anubis77c

Bump... still a huge problem

anubis77c

Bump

anubis77c

Thank you for your efforts in resolving this bug. It is no longer taking effect.

There is a side effect bug caused by the fix however. Trauma Response still gives the user shield pen when healing yourself - it's only supposed to give shield pen when healing an ally. In addition, it is no longer possible to get the other part of the buff (increased shield restoration and capacity), regardless of whether you heal yourself or an ally, so the trait is half-dead.