Fires Through Shields

[Draxis]

Am I right in thinking this ability is nothing to do with shields, it actually allows the unit to fire out from underneath blue Force Fields without the 75% damage penalty?

[Rod Serling]

I always thought it allowed shooting an enemy that is under a forcefield, without damaging the forcefield. Additionally it ignores the shields on the target, allowing every hit to hit. Never thought it affected the 75% penalty of being under a forcefield. Basically, I thought it is the polar opposite of what you think. Not really sure though tbh.

[x4000]

No, none of the above are correct, actually -- but good guesses. Shields and forcefields are two very different things, and are never used interchangeably. Normally ships with very high shields -- bombers, for example -- are extremely hard for shorter or midrange ships to hit from any real distance. Shields reduce the effective firing range of any non-sniper-ranged attacker, in essence.

What this ability does is remove that penalty, so that highly shielded targets are not any harder for the attacker to hit, which can be a significant advantage against shielded targets (having a very high attack range provides a similar benefit, but for those ships with a high attack range and this ability, it makes the ships able to fire effectively from further away, which has other advantages).

[Draxis]

At first, I thought it was as X said, as thats how it reads.  But I had a beam cannon selected (which has Fires Through Shields) that was under a Force Field, and hovered over a raid starship, and the tooltip said 100% chance to deal <some amout I cant remember> damage.  When I turned the Force Field off and hovered over the starship again, the tooltip read the same amount of damage.  Unless turrets are unaffected by the FF damage reduction, I would have expected the second tooltip to read differently.

[keith.lamothe]

No, actually beam weapons are unaffected by most of the normal damage modifiers, as the damage is applied in a very different way.

[keith.lamothe]

Oh, and I probably need to change the name of the Riot Shield and Avenger Shield modules since they're really forcefields... I just love saying "shields" when I mean "projected area of force around a starship that stops incoming weapons".

[Draxis]

That would explain it then 

We have got used to calling 'shields' 'deflectors' and 'force fields' 'shields', it seems to reduce confusion, and is far more intuitive for newbies we bring into the group who know nothing about AI war but are familiar with sci-fi terminology (like the bomber > frigates > fighters change not so long ago).

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, I think of shields as deflectors too.

[MaxAstro]

Somewhat related question: Does the "fires through force fields" tag allow a unit to fire ~out~ of a force field without penalty?  i.e. can Infiltrators that are sitting under a friendly force field fire out for full damage?

[x4000]

Somewhat related question: Does the "fires through force fields" tag allow a unit to fire ~out~ of a force field without penalty?  i.e. can Infiltrators that are sitting under a friendly force field fire out for full damage?

That is a good question, and honestly I don't remember for sure.  Keith may have to check.  Your ships never get a penalty for firing while under enemy force fields, but I am pretty sure they will still incur the usual penalty while sitting under your force fields even if they have this ability.

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, I think the penalty doesn't care about whether ignores enemy fields.  Should it ignore the penalty in that case?

[x4000]

I don't think so, that would be too exploitative.

[WinterBorn]

I woulld vote for a name change to "deflectors"  and "shields" from the current naming convention

We have got used to calling 'shields' 'deflectors' and 'force fields' 'shields', it seems to reduce confusion, and is far more intuitive for newbies we bring into the group who know nothing about AI war but are familiar with sci-fi terminology (like the bomber > frigates > fighters change not so long ago).

[RCIX]

I would prefer ECM. Why? Shots don't lose their potency when traveling through space (usually, certainly not missiles, shells, lasers, or most of the weaponry that AI war uses), so it would make no sense for shots to be decflected worse from close as from far. ECM makes sense: the farther you are away, the more ECM systems can jam your targeting sensors, making ships harder to hit successfully. it also fits in with "targeting systems" better Moreover, certain special buildings make more sense with ECM over deflectors (radar jammers).

[Velox]

I would prefer ECM. Why? Shots don't lose their potency when traveling through space (usually, certainly not missiles, shells, lasers, or most of the weaponry that AI war uses), so it would make no sense for shots to be decflected worse from close as from far. ECM makes sense: the farther you are away, the more ECM systems can jam your targeting sensors, making ships harder to hit successfully. it also fits in with "targeting systems" better Moreover, certain special buildings make more sense with ECM over deflectors (radar jammers).

     On the other hand, a broader audience with no military or wargames background won't know what the heck "ECM" is.  "Deflector" is descriptive in and of itself, as well as being a term with much wider cultural exposure.

     I think the change of shields->deflectors is a great idea; if that's done, I don't know that "force field" and "shield" really need to be differentiated, unless it would be desirable to reserve one for future use.