How exactly do shields work?

[LintMan]

I've realized that I always assumed how shields work, but I don't think I ever read anything that actually explains that.  I looked on the wiki and didn't see anything.

Do shields reduce the damage of every hit (except for those that penetrate shields)?  What happens if a ship fires a shot that does 100 damage hits a ship with 1000 shield?

And while I'm asking basic questions anyway: if a ship has something like a 1500x6 multishot attack, and there is only a single target in range, do all 6 shots go to the one target, or is only one shot fired in that case?

Thanks!

[Spikey00]

I believe it's a "chance to hit" when X unit is at Y distance, which means it is all or nothing damage, though units tend to engage at optimal distances when they are set as such.  This means that a highly shielded ship, such as a bomber or tank has greater chance to negate enemy fire from a distance.  If an enemy unit closes in, such as a fighter, more shots will bypass the shield and deal full damage.

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Not sure if ships overkill by themselves, but if you manually target a unit, it will attack with all of its shots, but I would assume the unit would attack with a complete volley because it would have to still reload.

[Fleet]

http://www.arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War_-_Do_Shots_Miss

[LintMan]

Thanks, guys.  Now that I see it, I'm pretty sure I've read that before but then completely forgot it.

[Lancefighter]

really easy way to think about it is a range-decrease for anything shooting it.. For instance, tanks have a shield of 20,000, so pretty much nothing has a good chance to hit them (5% is minimum chance i think). Keep in mind most starships ignore shields...

For random note, the original game design was one of no special damages... that got thrown out the window pretty quick though.

[Spikey00]

(Ugh, why do I keep forgetting starships have shield-penetration!?)