Capital Ship Shields

[Teradyn_pff]

I don't know. We might want to find out if they have heard and/or considered some of the massive evidence against putting the ground shield generator outside of the shields first. If they have heard and are dead set on where they have put it, we shouldn't even waste the question on this since they are going to be going with whatever they want anyway.

 

[rant]

Better to ask questions about bombardment from space by cap ships and what keeps the shield generator from being destroyed by that since it just has to be outside the shields. And might also want to ask why Vader's command ship and its accompanying fleet couldn't muster up the firepower to destroy the shield generator on Hoth in ESB when apparently the thing can be destroyed by a few passes by some tie bombers? GRRRRRRR.

[/rant]

[Makwu]

Ta Da:

http://www.eaw-fr.com/modules/view_screen.php?n=1779

 

Then

 

http://www.eaw-fr.com/modules/view_screen.php?n=1778

 

Ok, first we can see that each hardpoint has its own shield/hp but it looks like the ship's hull has its own shield/hp that is not scratched by the attacking of a hardpoint. (The blue/green bad along the middle of the ship). The green apparently represents hp and blue shields.

 

Then the hardpoints: (They seem to move around abit based on the view angle but:) The sensor domes are not a hardpoint. The bridge appears to be a hardpoint, the engine is a hardpoint and then there is a hardpoint along the middle of the ship below the bridge. I can't tell if that is simply the turbolaser on the other side of the tower or if its the bulge just below the tower on the center of the ship.

 

Judging by these images I would definetly conclude:

 

1) You don't have to target a hardpoint, you can to a general attack

2) Knocking out all the hardpoints disables a ship but doesn't destroy it

3) There are no shield hardpoints

 

I would guess:

 

1) There are engine, bridge, and gunnery hardpoints only

2) The bridge hardpoint, when lost, makes it unavilable to your command. However, the ship continues to function in an automated mode. It still attack ships so that losing it in the middle of a battle wont be of huge consequence.

[Garbageben]

That sucks that there are no additional shield hardpoints. I was thinking of making a ship and using all the hardpoints to put redundant shield generators, just for fun. I wonder if they will have an auxillary bridge control for the ships or if you can't command it anymore after the bridge gets blown away.

[Teradyn_pff]

Beautiful find there, Makwu. I don't think I noticed any of that before. The only thing I am wondering though, is. Why on the second picture is the hardpoint value and shields for it almost at the same value? What are shields supposed to do if not protect the thing they are shielding? Are they like AC in D&D? And is that Canon?

[Makwu]

This is why: (And very very clearly demonstrated in the video where the one star destroyer + ties attacks one calimari cruiser):

 

The shields have a penetration rate and some weapons, likely missiles, have a high concussion damage, thus a missile would do damage to the hull and not much to the shields even though the shield is blocking much of the damage. Enough missiles would result in the damage pattern seen.

 

This is the sequence if you watch the video in slow motion:

 

1) Tie Fighters and bombers are told to attack the ion banks. They head for it.

2) As the tie fighters get near the ship, the user tells them to do a "general attack" rather than a hardpoint attack. Then you see the fighters fire at the hull of the ship.

3) Next the bombers make a pass at the Ion bank. After this, we see the damage of the ion bank and see that it dropped the hull HP more than the Shield HP, though it dropped both.

4) Next we see the HP of the OTHER Ion bank which has at this point been attacked by a few tie fighters as they return for another pass (Why they fired at the ion bank im not sure, but you can see it). However, the ion bank attacked by the fighters has full HP while its shields have been dropped by the energy weapons.

5) As the Star Destroyer attacks with its energy weapons, we see the overall shield of the cruiser falling, while the HP stays intact.

 

NOTE: The Damage Penetration rate for missiles I suspect will be altered from what is shown in this video but it gives us a sense of how damage is handled.

 

ADDITIONAL: The Blue/Red bar above the minimap has been discussed before. Based on the relative power of the fleets, it appears to definetly be an indicator of that. Since they have retreat as an option it makes perfect sense to have a gaudge of how well your army currently matches up.

[Teradyn_pff]

That is all interesting. I wonder how they determine how to show the relative strengths of the fleets. You could take a fleet that has had all of its weapon hardpoints knocked out, for example, with minimal hull damage and would it show up as a viable force?

[Garbageben]

That is all interesting. I wonder how they determine how to show the relative strengths of the fleets. You could take a fleet that has had all of its weapon hardpoints knocked out, for example, with minimal hull damage and would it show up as a viable force?

That also has my interest piqued too Teradyn. I think they may assess fleet strength by number of weapons is x strength, shields and hull damage are y strength, and fighters/bombers is z strength and they add them or something. Ok maybe not exactly like that, but maybe similar.

[Joshinator]

This has also captured my interest. That's some great detective work Makwu!

[JanGaarni]

There has never been visable shield interactions in Star Wars, so I don't see why they need to start to show them now. You don't see shields (except for very few types, Gungan shields come to mind) in any Star Wars movie or game from past, and that's the way it should be.

 

The only game I can think of that shows shields (atleast in space) is SWG, but that one has lost all of it's credence over the past few years for many reasons.

 

A reason why they added that in though could be because it has elements from Wing Commander (which is a good series of games, but it's not Star Wars). And that doesn't surprise me seeing the lead guy working on it also worked on the Wing Commander series.

[Popcorn2008]

Hey I just wanted to post this for people who never played any of the flight sims so they can see how the Designers messed up. Because as its been pointed out the domes are actually supposed to be Radar domes not shield generators.

 

http://tinypic.com/eaha90.jpg

 

You can see in the blue box area, in the lower right it reads, "SHIELD GEN." and the yellow box circles the Radar Dome. Pretty big mess up if you ask me.