Shield Bearers are the bane of my existence

[TechSY730]

I would like to point out I was talking about damage redirection mechanics only. I know there are plenty of the more mechanics that do the more general damage mitigation.

That said, you made a good point about ship "respawn" (scapegoats, regen golem, etc), which is a class of damage redirection I forgot about, but I feel my point still holds about that specific class of mechanics.

[Hearteater]

Armor isn't remotely the same as FF since it can at best reduce damage by 80%. That means no ship in the game can get more than x5 health from armor. Now if Armor could reduce damage to zero, that might be different so long as we also had armor boosting structures that added to nearby units' existing armor.

[Kahuna]

if you first hack them to remove them the ai will never be able to unlock or build them ever in that game

they only when you use them, cover a small potion of your fleet but the ai can send in more than you could ever build at one time.

Yep I know.
But the thing is.. I'm playing against Peacemaker/Raid Engine / Alarmist/Technologist Turtle. I need to destroy the Raid Engines before I get to hack the Design Backup.. and to destroy the Raid Engines I have to trigger them.. which means the AI sends attacks at me.

Mark II-III Bombers and a Mark III Spire Starship covered by at least 100 Mark II-III Shield Bearers..
..when the AI sends hundreds of them with other ships the shields overlap and they protect each other. It's like their health quadruples.

[Kahuna]

I wish we had better shield cracking options. Of course, then the AI gets them, so we need a wider range of defenses to protect our Command Stations besides layers of shields.

I wish Plasma Siege Starships worked against Shield Bearers, Spirecraft Shield Things etc.

[Kahuna]

Is it possible to manually edit AI War files to nerf of remove these things?

Probably.  How familiar are you with machine code?

What exactly do you mean by "machine code"?
I've done some modding with the FinalBigEditor and hex editing a couple of times. And I've written batch scripts.

Basically, if you want to tweak their stats so they're not so OP you're going to have to dig into the game's DLL files with a hex editor and locate their definition.  Which, frankly, would be a nightmare.  As you'd be looking at it as a series of machine code instructions.

I wonder which DLL it is..

[Kahuna]

Shieldbearer is ID 28, so look for |0428, or |04xx:28:yy:zzz

How do you know this btw? Does it say somewhere in the file that 0428=ShieldBearer?

[Fleet Unity]

Shieldbearer is ID 28, so look for |0428, or |04xx:28:yy:zzz

How do you know this btw? Does it say somewhere in the file that 0428=ShieldBearer?

He has all the ship ids listed here http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,14137.msg160720.html

[Fleet Unity]

I see what you mean about the raid engine if alerted they launch powerful waves and if you are not prepared its game over especially if you are playing on difficulty 10 I never tried difficulty level 10 as I am not that skilled but I know this can happen on 7.

[Kahuna]

22|003:8:220300:3:AI 1 - Peacemaker / Raid Engine (10 Diff):-11513776:1|03174:158:812:194:170:1896:173:69:135:740:741:742:900:86:626:144:297:275:873:893:433:460:466:1988:477:1263:274:366:478:561:567:568:640:681:759:1080:1151:1730:2130:2209:498:268:1320:493:503:499:80:453:280:368:502:495:494:264:500:367:491:2207:489:269:490:496:501:497|0428:240|05925:179:22:1620|0640960:42,32:0|090:75:10:0:0|121:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:7650|130,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,False,0,0,0,0,0,,0,0,0,0,0,400,False,False,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0|1438:0,0,0,0,,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,False|150|160:1|170:0:0|180|190|201365|22100|230,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0;0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0;0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0;0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0;0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0;0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0;0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0;0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0;0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0;0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0|24878:911:1257:2122:2129:2125|260:0:0|280:3276720:0:4096:0:0:0|100,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,10,0,0,0,,,127^4@95^5@155^1,0,,,0%0%0%0%0%0%100000000%5260%190%1030%1741%1233%0%0%0%1%0%219488%38%538%10%1@0%0%0%0%0%0%100000000%5262%190%1030%1741%1233%0%0%0%2%0%220300%38%538%10%1@0%0%0%0%0%0%100000000%5257%190%1025%1741%1233%0%0%5%3%0%220300%38%538%10%1@0%0%0%0%0%0%100000000%5257%190%1025%1741%1233%0%0%5%4%0%220300%38%538%10%1@0%0%0%0%0%0%100000000%5252%190%1020%1741%1233%0%0%10%4%0%220300%38%538%10%1@0%0%0%0%0%0%100000000%5252%190%1020%1741%1233%0%0%10%5%0%220300%38%538%10%1
22|003:9:249039:3:AI 2 - Alarmist / Technologist Turtle (10 Diff):-11468800:1|03174:158:812:194:170:1896:173:69:135:740:741:742:900:86:626:144:297:275:873:893:433:460:466:477:1263:274:367:561:567:568:640:681:759:1080:1151:1730:2130:489:366:493:478:496:494:1320:491:2207:500:497:264:499:501:495:498:490:453:503:368:280:268:502:269:80|04240:217|05925:179:22:24|0640960:33,29:0|090:74:10:0:0|120:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0|130,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,False,0,0,0,0,0,,0,0,0,0,0,400,False,False,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0|150|160:1|170:0:0|180|190|201365|22100|230,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0;0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0;0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0;0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0;0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0;0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0;0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0;0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0;0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0;0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0|241247:878:981:2126:2129:2124|260:0:0|280:6553440:0:4096:0:0:0|100,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,,,,0,,,0%0%0%0%0%0%100000000%6881%121%394%3587%1696%0%0%0%1%0%248227%41%473%10%1@0%0%0%0%0%0%100000000%6883%121%394%3587%1696%0%0%0%2%0%249039%41%473%10%1@0%0%0%0%0%0%100000000%6883%121%394%3587%1696%0%0%0%3%0%249039%41%473%10%1@0%0%0%0%0%0%100000000%6883%121%394%3587%1696%0%0%0%4%0%249039%41%473%10%1@0%0%0%0%0%0%100000000%6883%121%394%3587%1696%0%0%0%4%0%249039%41%473%10%1@0%0%0%0%0%0%100000000%6883%121%394%3587%1696%0%0%0%5%0%249039%41%473%10%1

So how should I change the "|0428:240|"?
|04:240| or..
..|04240| or..
..|04240:|
If I've understood correctly the "240" is another ship so my guess is "|04240|".

Also does "240" happen to be the Lightning Guardian? AI 1 has Shield Bearers and AI 2 has Zenith Siege Engines and they both have Lightning Guardians.. and they both have this "240".

I guess "217" is Zenith Siege Engine.

[Fleet Unity]

no 240 is a Zenith Devastator a star ship so you just want to either remove 28 and just leave the |04240| with out the : or add a new ship to it like |043:240| also do not leave it like this |04:240| or you will have a client receiving error.

Edit also i am not sure if you can remove guardians this way as they would appear in another line of code.

[Fleet Unity]

no 240 is a Zenith Devastator a star ship so you just want to either remove 28 and just leave the |04240| with out the : or add a new ship to it like |043:240| also do not leave it like this |04:240| or you will have a client receiving error.

Edit also i am not sure if you can remove guardians this way as they would appear in another line of code.

Sorry that I keep editing my post but I noticed I forgot to put in the || so you could see it easier.

Edit: for the AI I am not sure you would get a client receiving error or not I only tried giving myself ships and have not tried removing them from the ai but it you left the code like |04:240| it breaks a code line and some error would happen.

[Kahuna]

240 is a Zenith Devastator

How do you know which ship is which number?

Anyway thanks.

[Fleet Unity]

240 is a Zenith Devastator

How do you know which ship is which number?

Anyway thanks.

Easy when you start the game you get a bonus ship so I open the uncompressed file in note pad and do a search for my player name then type in 04 and hit find, like if I got a shield bearer at the start as my first ship that is how you know as it would start with |0428|. This is how you know what ship it is.

Edit: I do not always edit the save file only when I want to test out ships or just want play the way I want , I usually also use codes then.

[Fleet Unity]

Also it was because of Toranth that I learned how to edit the save file Toranth is better at explaining it than me, also to see the ship ids look at this post for more information on how to do it.

http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,14137.msg160720.html

[Kahuna]

Ohh that thread.. I forgot to bookmark it back then.
*bookmarks the thread*