Be prepared for a wall of text, but I will provide a short version at the start.
And yes, I spent too much time on the forums and not enough on Pew Pew.
TL;DR Version:
Shield Damage Reduction should work just like hull resistances mathematically, shield resistance should be granted primarily by shield power and only secondary by powers, and base shield capacities should be increased.
How do shield resistances and hull resistances work now?
- Hull Resistance is calculated from all the various damage resistance bonuses you gain. The bonus you gain is not the same as straight damage reduction, instead it makes more sense to see it as a percentage to your effective hull points. The effective damage reduction (e.g. the damage you take is reduced by this before applied to your hull points) is 1 - (100 / (100 + Resistance Modifiers)). The formula itself ensures you can't get 100 % hull resistance, which would make you immune to damage, but there is also a cap at 75 %.
The formula was provided by Cryptic several months ago, and I am assuming it is still up to date.
To reach the cap, you would need to stack resistance for a total of 300. The Ablative Armor Generator of the Intrepid is the only ability to break this cap.
- Shield Resistances are straightforward and additive. They directly describe by how much the damage you take is reduced. They are now also capped at 75 %.
The 75 % cap is relatively easily reached by combining Emergeny Power to Shields 3 and Transfer Shield Strength, for example - at least it is easily reached for Cruisers.
At a damage reduction of 50 %, a shield lasts twice as long as normal, and at a damage reduction of 75 %, it lasts 4 times as normal. Damage Reduction is highly valuable. (If you ever wondered why your shields felt like paper and why other people last so long even against focused fire - here is your answer.)
The Problem
Cruisers (and to some extent Carriers) greatly benefit from shield resistance stacking. It is there way to tank multiple ships. Science Vessels aren't "helpless" and benefit from their high base shield values. Some Bird of Preys, built with similar powers as a Cruiser. can reach fairly good resistances and be very tough, but their lower hull and shield values make them overall more susceptible to damage then Cruisers.
Escorts are the weakest of all in this area. Unfortunately, Escorts don't really get enough compensation from their offensive power to make this seem a fair trade-off anymore - the Cruiser is typically the superior platform if you want to mix "tanking" and "DPS". But even if it were so - playing an Escort would still easily be very frustrating, as you are just too fragile. For that reason, I do not recommend boosting Escort damage.
The Solution
Step 1)
Shield Resistance should work like Hull Resistances.
This creates consistency within the system, but alone it would only serve to nerf everyone's survivability. (That's why it is only the first step.)
Step 2
) Make power level more important for shield resistances.
A simple way to implement this would be to make shield resistance equal to shield power. Barring ay other abilities improving shield resistances, this would mean damage reductions values of 4 % at 5 Shield Power, 20 % at 25, 33 % at 50, 50 % at 100 and 56 % at 125.
Step 3)
Adjust powers to ensure that they remain useful but do not overshadow power alone.
Power Changes:
- Emergency Power to Shields:
Turn the current damage reduction into a resistance value and reduce the duration to 5 seconds (which would mean it mimics the other Emergency Power skills that provide a 30 second power bonus and a 5 second boost. Keep in mind that the bonus to shield power still leads to better resistances.
- Extend Shields:
Extend Shields could grant your ally your shield resistance value as a bonus. The different ranks of ES would affect its duration instead of the size of its bonus. With a setup like this, a Cruiser at 125 Shield Power supporting another ship at 125 shield power would allow to achieve an effective resistance (damage reduction) of 71 %.
- Transfer Shield Strength:
Increase the amount of healing it grants, and have it add to your shield resistance value.
- Tachyon Beam:
Tachyon Beams current effectiveness is particularly good against enemies stacking shield resists. Since the "reasonable" values of shield resistance are lower then they used to be, we might want to raise the shield drain somewhat (say, by 25 to 50 %.)
- Charged Particle Burst:
With the same rationale as for Tachyon Beams, we will have to increase the shield drain somewhat.
- Tetryon Weapons: See CPB and TB.

Step 4)
Adjust shield related items.
- The "new" Mark XI Console from the Emblem shop that grants a bonus to your shield capacity should grant a shield resistance value (similar to Armor Consoles) and stack with itself like all other consoles.
- The consoles boosting shield regeneration needs an improvement.
- Improve the Regeneration of Normal, Resilient and Regenerative shields slightly so that Covariant [CAP]x3 shield are not overshadowing them so much.
- Optional: Considering Adjusting all shield capacities. Even with a fair amount of stacking, the new "maximum" of shield resistance might be closer to 50 % then to 75 %, which means at the "top" level of resistance stacking, we are losing basically half of our effective shield points. This might warrant adjusting all shield point totals upward to cover some of the gap. Keep in mind that raising shield capacity but not significantly changing shield heals, it still takes some time to recover all that damage. This is probably a good thing - this gives people more time to react to taking significant damage, but they do not become indestructible and the overall length of combat would not be much impacted.
Expected Consequences
This changes "nerfs" the typical top amount of shield resistance that's attainable currently, but on the other hand gives everyone a way to reach a fairly good resistance value when under pressure, even if not using powers. This makes it match more closely to weapon power in importance, too. It provides some more consistency within the system. It helps all classes, but particularly Escorts that have a hard time boosting their shield resistances compared to other vessels. It still makes Cruisers the best at gaining shield resistance, but requires more work and specialization then before, leveling the play-field overall.
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Now it's your turn to tell me how awesome and smart I am for coming up with such a genius idea, or why this is a terrible bad idea that should have never seen the light of day.
Comments
I have to admit that on paper that looks like a pretty damned impressive suggestion. It might be nice to see something like this considered when the Devs get to work on solving the "yo yo" hull issue. In another post you made a good point about how if shield power level is the primary source of resistance then having your buffs stripped by sub nuc wouldn't be such a death sentence in most cases.
If there were a way, I'd be interested in seeing this implemented.
(Just thinking about that makes me recognize how much better things are now in this game!)
i have to ask though...
what about bleed?
also, do emergency power to shields still add the shields power, STACKED with added shields resistence, AND reduced Bleed?
if bleed is almost negated, and shield resistance cuts damage by 75%, and hull resist is high...
well you get the idea...
some ships just have more power to throw around!
its much easier for the cruiser to maintain 125 guns AND 125 shields...
and this means FULL damage, Mininum damage to shields, minimum bleed, and minimum damage to hull.
however, smaller craft just wouldnt be able to cope....
it sounds like we are repalcing one stacking problem for another.
although this could lead to TRUE "Torpedo Baots"
where escorts and BoP's have MAX shields and simply come in to a target whose shields are ablout to buckle and unleash high damage projectile weaponry at point blank range!
BUT...
the idea is well concieved, and well thought out.
i STILL think the key is NOT in damage reduction, but in increased SHIELD RECHARGE RATE.
i think sheidl power should reduce bleed.
shield boff abilities should reduce damage.
and SHIELD POWER should DRASTICALLY increase SHEILD RECHARGE RATE (about 3-6 times what they are now)
this would help cruisers with high shield settings to withstand punishing firepower... but with limits...
and encourage escorts to hit and run, but provide a means for them to quickly recover shields once they find a low in the fighting.
even with this suggested system, the ONLY shield anyone is going to use is Covariant Capx3
making all other shields still WORTHLESS.
although well written this system sounds very much like what we have now.
make a HUGE buffer between you and death using Cov capx3 shields.... and use sheild power and boffs to negate damage....
the one with the highest shield power and most shield boff powers wins!!!
so... nothing has really changed.
cruisers still win... escorts still die...
For instance, shields at full power would essentially could allow players (even escorts) survive a cloaked alpha strike. Which is pretty much the most deadly tactic in-game.
At the same time, shield power would drain like weapon power. Emergency Power to Shields would now more or less act as a cushion in softening up that shield power loss instead of adding shield resistance.
Now I like the idea of Shield Consoles adding resistances, but I rather ships have innate shield resistances, and with consoles, modify the Regeneration Consoles into Shield Regeneration and Resistance Consoles. This would add a whole new variety to the game.
Perhaps ship shields could be craftable and we be allowed to choose their strengths?
The idea is that it increases your shield power which naturally icnreases yoru shield resistance. It might also grant an extra bonus to shield resistance, but only last for 5 seconds. All other Emergency Powers have a 5 second duration secondary bonus. (Eninges => Speed Buff; Auxillary => Stealth Sight Buff; Weapons => Damage Buff). The main source of shield resistance is the resulting energy level, not the buffs, though.
That can help to some extent, but not infinitely so. Shield Recharge Rate is yet another "yo-yo" effect in the game, and it doesn't really accurately reflect Startrek usually, either. It doesn't seem as if shields recover all that quickly. The current rates are relatively sensible, and relying on resistance means you last longer, but you are still going down eventually.
But increasing the regeneration value itself might be okay. Too some extent, at least.
A real challenge to me seems to be that Covariant [Cap]x3 shields are typically the best shield to have. It's nice that you're shields regenerate a TRIBBLE-ton of damage after 6 seconds, but if the enemy can destroy you in 5.5 seconds, they won't get to that. Resistances kinda help both sides - it makes your shields last longer, so you get more regeneration cycles in, and shields that already last long still last longer.
as far as little shields defeating a torp stirke... this is true!
however, if you increased bleed while also increasing the shield recharge, more damage would get through the shields, making projectiles much more effective... and also including a kenetic punch.
in all the TV series... even when a ships shields are up, when ships are hit with torpedos, there is often impact damage and parts flying everywhere!
if bleed were increased, it would be easier to batter ships down with concentrated fire, even if the shields are still up.
the porblem with the current system is that shields are brought down so quickly without Boff abilities!
therefore the oens with the most shield boffs win.
also this makes stuns overly powerful.
if you can prevent a ship from using boffs you pretty much have them at your mercy.
if shields maturally resisted more based on shield power... and also recharged more in general, ships would e much more resilient.
however alpha strikes would still pumch right through shields... and an increase in bleed wouldmake projectile strieks much more worth while!
1] I don't see how cruisers don't benefit more from these changes than escorts. They have more ways of boosting shield power as well as resistances. And increased bleed-through makes escorts even more fragile.
2] Too many unintended consequences are likely to pop up, especially when all skills and items are potentially thrown on the table.
I could see Step 1 as reasonable, or a simple cap on shield resistance, but not the others.
Basically, every where you see "reduces damage to shields by n %" in the power description replace that with "grants m shield resistance". (I use "n" and "m" to make clear that the values might not be the same as before. Some values might deserve an increase with the diminishing return system in place. Maybe RSF would grant +60 to +75 resistance)
Quite simple - Cruisers already easily max out shield resistances now. With the change, they won't get really worse at it, but they won't get better. But everyone else is getting better, and particularly so would Escorts. Though Cruisers would lose something - most Cruisers, even using Emergency Power to Shields 3, don't regularly run at 125 shield shield power. So they will be forced to invest more resources into getting there, costing them damage or hull healing capabilities.
The system instills a diminishing return concept - so it tends to be that small bonuses help a little more then really large ones. Cruisers are masters of getting really large resistance modifiers now, and they will stay so. But everyone has access to such boosts now, most importantly by simply switching his energy settings when he comes under heavy fire.
Of course that's always the risk. But everyhting we would try do comes with that, and I suspect something will happen eventually. (But not necessarily soon. The current system is in a pretty good state, but Cruisers are pretty much the strongest ship around now, Science Vessels are strong in a few speciality roles, and Escorts are too fragile and too easily beaten by the other two classes in most scenarios.)
If you are going to mess with the cruisers defensive abilities, than you have to address these major damage spikes. Cruisers are supposed to be able to tank against a single escort. Focus fire, no, but single, yes.
Also, to throw a particular idea out, perhaps we need the game mechanic of shield failure addressed. Right now, most PvPers know to keep rebalanced shields constantly going, because a sliver of shield will still greatly protect you against torpedoes. This here may be a major problem.; for example, a shield facing of 500 points left and taking a 4000K torpedo hit translates into (assuming 10% bleedthrough, 75% shield kinetic resistance, no hull resistance) 800 hull damage. The shield takes 900 damage, so 500 - 900 gives you -400. So 400 moves to the hull (plus the 400 bleedthrough). That 400 should have the shield resist undone BEFORE it is applied to the hull (and any hull resist). So it really should be a 2000 hit to the hull (400 bleedthrough + 400/.25 = 2000).
Though you may be missing a few other points: You can still get that 75 % damage resistance, or at least close to it. But your method would be maximizing shield power and getting someone else to help you. Don't see your ship as an isolated element. You fly in a team. You might not need EptS at all, instead load up an Extend Shields, set your shield power to max, and fill the final slot with RSP or a second Extend Shields. If you use Extend Shields on a friendly Escort, that Escort will take care of that shield-eating hostile for you, instead of running away to recover. If you have a friendly Science Vessel, it might hinder that shield eater and help you with extra healing and resistance. And if you have another Cruiser, he might Extend his shields to you. What it takes away is the ability to be the "one-man-hero" that is 100 % self-sufficient. You don't need to be that.
I suppose this is an additional complication to the system that they didn't want to implement. If they did, regeneration cycles shorter then 6 seconds might be possible. But to be frank, I like the way it is now. The idea of raising even a weak shield providing great protectin is appealing to me. The damage is mostly dispersed before it hits the actual hull.
Being able to tank a single escort on your own is not a "one-man-hero" thing. The cruiser is designed to be able to take punishment and maintain a decent damage preasure on enemies nearby while the escort is designed to deliver nice punches, but in exchange not have much defensive abilities. The term escort should be some idea to you that they are not meant to be able to take out larger targets on their own, but rather escorting a large ally or flying in groups to be effective.
My point here is you can't be modifying the shield resists without modifying the damage output.
That is a bit hypicritical of you. You say shield resistances are the problem but then turn around and say you like the shield resistance reducing what should have been a 2k shot to the hull to a 800 shot. It is almost like you want to nerf the cruiser's ability to tank while leaving the other ships tanking ability alone.
Cruisers need to be able to survive some time to Escort firepower.
In my view, the optimal scenario would look like this:
When a Cruiser and an Escort fight each other optimally, the chances to win for each are about 50 %. One of them is going down in the end (and with some luck - or bad luck - both are going down).
Optimal Play in a 1 on 1 might be something like this:
- Cruiser tries to expose different shield facings, distributes shield power, and cycles all his available healing powers as needed, and uses his remaining offensive powers regularly.
- The Escort tries to expose itself to the Cruiser only for the amount of time it can itself inflict the highest damage - e.g. for the various "Alphas" it can do. And of course also cycle all its heals optimally, distributing shield power and maneuvering shield facings.
Over this time, the Cruiser would deal less damage then the Escort, but about the same amount of damage the Escort can take, while the Escort produces significantly more damage, but culminating about to the same damage the Cruiser can take. (Taking into account all the heals and resistances in play.)
This isn't really the case now. The Escort will probably _never_ crack the Cruiser, even optimzing this strategy - particularly because it can't really optimimize it. It takes an Escort longer to recover the damage it took then it takes it to recover for a new Alpha Strike. THis means it doesn't optimally utilize its firepower, or it is dead a lot sooner.
But the Cruiser can indefnitiely cycle his shield heals and it's alot harder to make his power rotation suboptimal. The way to do this is usually to rely on control effects like Subnucleonic Beam or Stuns.
Currently, either the Escort will go down, or no one will go down. And don't underestimate a Cruiser's ability to catch an Escort and spike its remaining defenses. It require specific builds to be that uncatchable runner, and it will reduce your staying power. The margin of error allowed for a Escort is very thin...
I understand your point, but I am saying that shield resistances and healing is too strong. If that is my starting point, adjusting the damage output down would be pointless. And if I thougt things are perfect the way they are, I wouldn't even propose any changes at all.
The way I see it, a major concern is that Escorts don't last long enough. A secondary concern is that Cruisers simply have too much self-sufficiency and survivability. This solution adresses both, though it helps the Escorts more then it nerfs the Cruiser itself.
I don't see this as hypocritical. My point here is that it creates a more interesting gameplay where a sliver of shield can sometimes save you. This makes it more complicated to find the optimal shield heal rotation basically. Say, you cycle two Science Teams - you might think the optimal rotation is to always use them once the cooldow is up. But when you know there will be massive kinetic damage coming in at some point, it can be better to delay using the Science Team for the moment where you actually see that damage incoming. That's an interesting game element, it makes the decision process more complex.
I like such things.
Just to add more to my previous example lets take one of my ships with shields up and 100 points left on the facing, buffed to the cap shield resistance of 75%. Now lets look at an anti-proton beam overload that will hit for 10K.
There are three components to the damage. Bleedthrough, Shield Hit, and Post-shield hit.
For the bleedthrough:
10% bleedthrough is subtracted from the hit:
10,000 * 0.1 = 1,000 Bleedthrough damage
9,000 points of damage left for the next stage
NOTE: Resiliant shields discard 50% of bleedthrough, basically:
1,000 * 0.5 = 500 (Resiliant only)
For the Shield Hit at 75% resistance:
1.0 (100%) - 0.75 (75%) = 0.25 (25%) damage left after resistance.
9,000 * 0.25 = 2,250 points of damage to the shields.
2,250 - 100 points of shield facing = 2,150 damage and no more shield facing.
CURRENTLY that 2,150 is left untouched. If it were restored to pre-resistance values:
2,250/0.25 = 8,600 (Not currently done in game)
And the Hull Hit:
1,000 (Bleedthrough) + 2,150 (Post-Shields) = 3,150
31.5% of the original hit, a reduction of 68.5%
Or:
500 (Bleedthrough) + 2,150 (Post-Shields) = 2,650 (Resiliant Only)
26.5% of the original hit, a reduction of 73.5%
IF we reverse the shield resistance before applying to the hull:
1,000 (Bleedthrough) + 8,600 (Post-Shields) = 9,600
96.0% of the original hit, a reduction of 4.0%
Or:
500 (Bleedthrough) + 8,600 (Post-Shields) = 9,100 (Resiliant Only)
91.0% of the original hit, a reduction of 9.0%
The damage values would then be reduced by the hull resistance value. Regardless of the hull resistance value, however, restoring the damage from the shield resistance reduction will greatly reduce tanking abilities with only a sliver of shield remaining.
However, your perception of a 50/50 of a cruiser vs an escort is just wrong. The ship types are not the same and have enthesis on different things. The cruiser is already granted large amounts of hull and the engineer abilities are designed to allow it to soak up allot of damage. A single escort should have a very small chance of ever severely damaging a cruiser, let along destroying it, on its own. This is the role of a cruiser, to be able to soak up damage from multiple attackers before it finally gives way, relieving its allies of enemy fire for that period of when focus fire is done on the cruiser.
On your point of cruisers running away, I would agree, they should not be able to run effectively away or catch up to an escort to finish it off.
Overall, it is not the cruisers that are the problem, it is the whole damage resistance vs damage buff mechanic of the game. I have seen BoP and Escorts tank unbelievably well against focus fire from 4 ships. There has already been comments from some developers on increasing weapon bleed through and putting some form of depleatable resources on ships that will eventually make them unable to tank damage. I think adding in my idea of preventing weapon fire that is strong enough to breach the shields from getting penalized not only from the shield resist but the HULL resist is also a decent approuch.
But don't come to me when people blow you up with Tri-Cobalts and Heavy Plasma Torps.
The "state of the art" is that you do not need an Escort to destroy a Cruiser. Cruisers and Science Vessels can achieve it better. They might take longer, but neither of them is as a fragile as an Escort, so if you want to take the safe bet, you minimize the amount of Escorts you use
Again, I don't think it's a major change. I know who it will hit most, though. Escorts and Bird of Preys. Currently, you have at least to bring their shields down if your HYT or Tri-Cobalt is to destroy them. With your change, it seems that even that might not help anymore.
If it's okay with you, we can let our points stand here and let others make the decisions. In the end, I don't have to convince you, and you don't have to convince me. (Though feel bring up counterpoints to this post - it would be unfair not to let you do that or force you to accept that I have the last word. As much as I, of course, want to have it.
1,000 (Bleedthrough) + 2,249 (Post-Shields) = 3,249
32.49% of the original hit, a reduction of 67.51%
Or:
500 (Bleedthrough) + 2,249 (Post-Shields) = 2,749 (Resiliant Only)
27.49% of the original hit, a reduction of 72.51%
1 Shield point is blocking over half the damage, and that is even before we get to hull resistance. And why would I be complaining if someone was able to score a direct hit with a tri-cobalt/plasma on a weak shield facing and take a nice chunk of my hull (if not destroy me)? As it stands now, escorts do that with cannons, something that I cannot shoot down.
And do remember, the 6 second shield tick only applies if you do NOT redistribute your shields. In theory, while you are moving your shield energy around, you could keep atleast 1 point of shields up on each torpedo from a photon high yield III.
You are right, you don't need an escort, but you should need more than one vessel firing at a cruiser to take it down reasonably. An escort by itself shouldn't be able to do so in any reasonable length of time because the cruiser can continue to out heal it while damaging the escort. Science is more of a wild card; especially giving it has several abilities that can actually bypass the shields and do decent hull damage.
Shields are already at the cap for kinetic damage (75%) last I checked. A HYT Quantum III would be dealing about 18,000 (assuming 4.5k per torpedo) raw damage, but would only do 4,050 or so to the shields. A tri-cobalt is somewhat random on damage, but lets say you have a 24k raw hit would still damage the shields by 5,400. If you hit a BoP on a shield facing say at 1,000, the shield would still mitigate some of that damage (see equations above) and thus not be one hitters. Of course, if I recall, don't most PvPers say Birds of Prey are supposed to be paper anyways? So what is wrong if you didn't knock down a tricobalt before it smashed into your damaged shields and caused major if not lealthal damage?
I have no problem exchanging logic with you.
Torpedoes should have a similiar mechanic in combat against shields.
It would make power adjustments and EPS management more important...definitly a win in my book.
Is this the same defense cap as the flying at (26 or 27 impulse) speed (75% too)....that being the case is the armor consoles I have equipped totally useless?
I think, but have never tested, that shield damage resistance and the reduced kinetic damage "stack", e.g. torpedoes generally deal only 1/4 damage against shields, and if the shield has resists, this is applied to the remaining damage. If this wasn't the case, then torpedoes might actually be more effective against hardened shields then I knew, which could make Photon Torpedoes a more viable weapon against cruisers. (Don't Torps normally have higher DPS then energy weapons?)
They might allow the stacking on Kinetic damage with the inherit 75% resistance, but I know it is done to where it will never equal a total of 100%. Next time I run into an NPC that throws quants at me, I'll log the battle damage and figure that out.
I looked up the weapon stats in-game: The base damage for energy weapons is indeed lower then for torps, but energy weapons damage is increased based on energy levels, leading to a higher damage output. At least that's the math for quantums. Photon Torpedo DPS is higher then Quantums, but I don't think the difference is big enough to make a difference to most energy weapons.
My own "testing" (e.g. playing with the power levels) indicate that at the energy values typically reached at end-game, energy weapons beat torpedoes in raw DPS numbers. Which would suggest, no, there is nothing to re-evaluate. Only in the worst case scenario - 75 % shield resistance - torpepdoes can catch up to beams in damage. Torpedoes remain only useful for special procs (Chroniton) or for their burst damage potential against unshielded enemies (Tri-Cobalts and Quantum Torpedoes mostly.)
I think "fixing torpedoes" might be a topic for its own thread.
I used this opportunity to also clean up the original post in formatting and excessive use of parantheses (something which I really like to use (see?) ).