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What is this? Some new craziness? Disappearing shields?

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
Last night I was playing some Patrol and Defend missions when I noticed a weird glitch. I was doing a defend mission with enemy ships well below my level when suddenly I was flying around with no shields. The shield water-shimmer effect was there but my shields weren't and then my attackers started doing crazy 1000+ damage with every phaser hit. It did it twice in the same instance, killing me both times.

I completed that Defend mission and moved on to a Patrol mission where the exact same thing occurred.

It also happened to one of the Romulan Warbirds I was fighting against which is why I expect this is some type of glitch but I wanted to know if anyone else had experienced it.
Post edited by Unknown User on

Comments

  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Sounds like a phaser attack proc'd the chance to disable a subsystem, and hit the shields dropping them all. But I could be wrong on that, hard to say for certain.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Ya it could be a shield proc with phasers. I’ve started to see them happen every once in a while now. Who were you fighting when your shields went down? I don’t think romulans should be able to do that. you can do it to them if you have phasers though.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    I have seen this many times now. The shields are still there, of course, but are caused to flicker out or completely disappear due to rendering hierarchy. Depending on how "busy" your screen is, the system will begin to denote more important and less important graphical features. In order to sustain stability, the graphical features deemed least important will vanish or flicker.

    The same thing happens in CO. I see it most often with the pistols on my munitions guy. I was concerned at first when they vanished but upon investigation and then dev feedback the above described engine function was revealed. Depending, Cryptic may need to reorder that hierarchy.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Heres the potentials:

    1. Proc chance of disable shields
    2. Area itself. Did you read the npc dialogue at all? Several missions have areas which have nebula etc that disable warp drive, or shields, or sensors...
    3. Graphical bug. Your shields were still there, you just didn't see them.

    etc.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Ya it could be a shield proc with phasers. I’ve started to see them happen every once in a while now. Who were you fighting when your shields went down? I don’t think romulans should be able to do that. you can do it to them if you have phasers though.

    Remans first then Romulans. If you're going to disable a sub-system, that's one thing...but shields isn't a SUB-system...its a PRIMARY system. Whatever it is, I don't like. My science team skill should STILL work and it didn't. No shields, no science team, no reverse shield polarity, no emergency-power to shields - none of it...but the water-shimmer effect stayed.

    If this is intended, then some type of prompt would be nice. If I get a warning when a particular shield goes down, a nice warning about the shields being offline would be useful.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Sounds like the Romulan's disable effect, with perhaps a bug or two thrown in. It doesn't sound "normal", in any case.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Had this happen as well in some missions, all of a sudden all shields go down for a few seconds and reported by the ship's computer as being down. Thought it may have been a bug but next time I'll check the combat logs...
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    nixboox wrote: »
    Remans first then Romulans. If you're going to disable a sub-system, that's one thing...but shields isn't a SUB-system...its a PRIMARY system. Whatever it is, I don't like. My science team skill should STILL work and it didn't. No shields, no science team, no reverse shield polarity, no emergency-power to shields - none of it...but the water-shimmer effect stayed.

    If this is intended, then some type of prompt would be nice. If I get a warning when a particular shield goes down, a nice warning about the shields being offline would be useful.

    Sorry, but you're wrong. The phaser proc will disable one of the four sub-systems being Weapons, Shields, Engines, or Auxiliary. The primary system is the Warp Core essentially :p
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Ayenn wrote:
    I have seen this many times now. The shields are still there, of course, but are caused to flicker out or completely disappear due to rendering hierarchy. Depending on how "busy" your screen is, the system will begin to denote more important and less important graphical features. In order to sustain stability, the graphical features deemed least important will vanish or flicker.

    The same thing happens in CO. I see it most often with the pistols on my munitions guy. I was concerned at first when they vanished but upon investigation and then dev feedback the above described engine function was revealed. Depending, Cryptic may need to reorder that hierarchy.

    Well, if this is the case, then, at some point, the system is forgetting the shields are there are at all.

    I've seen the flickering, particularly when someone uses a tractor beam...but this was like that, only the shields actually WERE gone.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Natsuki wrote:
    Sorry, but you're wrong. The phaser proc will disable one of the four sub-systems being Weapons, Shields, Engines, or Auxiliary. The primary system is the Warp Core essentially :p

    Well then that's just stupid. Those are four primary systems...unless you don't consider the Warp Drive to be an engine. Life Support is the other primary system. Sub-systems are things like, lighting, replicators, transporters, internal fire suppression, etc.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Look for a debuff icon. As other posters said, phasers can sometimes (about 5% of the time I think) disable a subsystem.

    What is really cool is when you can follow the disable up with a high-yeild torpedo. Boom.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Rikaelus wrote: »
    Sounds like the Romulan's disable effect, with perhaps a bug or two thrown in. It doesn't sound "normal", in any case.

    Indeed, it hasn't happened until just now...so I'd vote for feature of the latest patch.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Thats nothing, wait until you fight the Borg who can totally disable all of your shields instantly and you're not getting them back without you using buffs or batteries..
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Moonphase wrote: »
    Thats nothing, wait until you fight the Borg who can totally disable all of your shields instantly and you're not getting them back without you using buffs or batteries..

    Well...that I could deal with...its the part about USING the special abilities and not having them DO anything. Science team, power to shields, reverse shield polarity - none of it does anything when the shields disappear...
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    nixboox wrote: »
    Last night I was playing some Patrol and Defend missions when I noticed a weird glitch. I was doing a defend mission with enemy ships well below my level when suddenly I was flying around with no shields. The shield water-shimmer effect was there but my shields weren't and then my attackers started doing crazy 1000+ damage with every phaser hit. It did it twice in the same instance, killing me both times.

    I completed that Defend mission and moved on to a Patrol mission where the exact same thing occurred.

    It also happened to one of the Romulan Warbirds I was fighting against which is why I expect this is some type of glitch but I wanted to know if anyone else had experienced it.

    Simple, you got into an instance with an admiral, and the ships were really 30 levels higher than you, but you didn't notice.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    nixboox wrote: »
    Well...that I could deal with...its the part about USING the special abilities and not having them DO anything. Science team, power to shields, reverse shield polarity - none of it does anything when the shields disappear...

    I have this ability "Target Shields" that specifically will shut down a shield. 95% of the time it's just the one single side, but sometimes their whole entire shield will go down (tho I don't know if it's the Target Shields getting a critical that does that, or if it's just that my beam weapon happened to knock out the Shield sub system at that time).

    Also if this was just a graphical glitch, they may only be shooting down one side of your shield but you can't tell which side is gone, and that's why you're getting blasted so hard (when they hit the unshielded side).
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Simple, you got into an instance with an admiral, and the ships were really 30 levels higher than you, but you didn't notice.

    Probably, because that's what "-4" means...:rolleyes:
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    MewmewGirl wrote:
    I have this ability "Target Shields" that specifically will shut down a shield. 95% of the time it's just the one single side, but sometimes their whole entire shield will go down (tho I don't know if it's the Target Shields getting a critical that does that, or if it's just that my beam weapon happened to knock out the Shield sub system at that time).

    Also if this was just a graphical glitch, they may only be shooting down one side of your shield but you can't tell which side is gone, and that's why you're getting blasted so hard (when they hit the unshielded side).

    But my special abilities should still work and none of them did, which is why there has to be something else going on. And when I mean "work" I mean, I clicked them, they activated and went into their respective cool downs, but the shields were still missing.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    I've been doing that to the enemies a lot. It's a phaser proc. Your shield buff powers won't work because your shields are completely offline, not just 'down.' It makes perfect sense.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    This happened to me against Orion marauders. The computer came on and started listed shield vectors being down (front, left, etc.). I started to take hull damage, then the shields magically came back. I thought it was a bug, too. I'll definitely check the combat log next time.

    Z
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Were you in Romulan territory, fighting Romulans, and you noticed a purple field around your ship just before your shields dropped?

    Sounds like you got hit with a Viral Matrix probe. I hate those with a passion. You see the purple fuzzies, then your shields just rapidly vanish, and you watch your hull value drop insanely fast.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    nixboox wrote: »
    But my special abilities should still work and none of them did, which is why there has to be something else going on. And when I mean "work" I mean, I clicked them, they activated and went into their respective cool downs, but the shields were still missing.

    Did you watch your power levels at this time? I believe if the phaser "turn off shields" proc happens (or the science ship "target shield subsystems" happens) what it does is sets you shields power setting to zero. At that time no power will help your shields because they have been switched off for the dration of the debuff.

    As to them being subsystems, the primary system is the ship itself, made up of subsystem of varying importance: shields, engine, holodecks, life support, little light that goes "beep" on the helmsman's console, etc.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    The problem is that everyone is getting confused. Shields, Engine, Weapons, and Auxiliary (which includes life support) are PRIMARY SUBSYSTEMS, ie the most important parts of the entire system (the ship). There are also SECONDARY subsystems for things like toilets, lights, climate control, holodecks, etc.

    It's simple - everything that is just a PART of the ship is a subsystem.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Sounds to me like a phaser proc as he described it happening to him and him doing it to others.

    Taking a system offline is the special thing that phasers do. Quite handy when that happens. To others. Time for panic when it happens to you. Engineering Team and can bring that back up I think if you don't want to wait the full 5 seconds it will be down.
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