Weapon Classes

You can increase the range, damage, rate of fire, or shield bypass chance of any type of weapon. The game really doesn't care what you classify them as, they are just groupings of weapons that get research benefits together and have the same string appear in game. They're all the same to it (except that dart, ion and planet bombardment are unused).

Also invalid doesn't really belong in that list, if you give invalid to a weapon research modifier it will apply to all weapon types (its how the weapons artifact works). I don't think you can give an actual weapon a type invalid.

I assume the unused ones are just as usable as the others--just not utilized, yes?

Thanks for the invalid detail.  Good to know.

From my understanding Ion and Dart can be safely used.  I don't know about planet bombardment though as I've never tried it on a weapon.

However, you cannot make a "Phase Block" ability for other weapon types, unless I am mistaken (and I hope I am).

Yup. You can call them whatever you want in game, and all the ones I've tried work the same.

While I haven't tried the ability affect, the modifier from the shield pact that reduces phase missile bypass chance seems to work for other weapon types. I just assumed it would work for any shield bypass weapons, though you can't have multiple names for it.

Isn't the pact research though? Don't think that would apply for abilities, though I might be mistaken.

Hmmm...not familiar enough with pacts and the like as I have never gotten to modding them.  It would be nice to be able to make an equivalent of a phase pack for a different weapon type "maybe "LaserPsi block" while still retaining "Phase Block" was well.

It is, and it uses the exact same name as a Research modifier as an entity modifier. I just assumed with Diplomacy they copy/pasted the code for the ability and adjusted it slightly to make it a research modifier.

Yeah its for all weapon types, which is good for me but I suppose it could be bad if you wanted to make shield bypass a major mechanic.

Also Sinperium it seems with that last bit of karma you gave me you somehow reduced my total. Could you tell me how you did that, I think there are many people on the forum that could use a dose of that "special" karma.

What modifier would that be? I'm assuming it's not ChanceToIgnoreShieldsAsDamageTarget, as that seems to only work with Phase Missiles, at least in Entrenchment.

"Invalid", "CapitalAbility", and "PlanetBombardment" are the only you won't use for ship/def/starbase weapons.  Probably a lot here you already know.

In the weapon research, there is the researchfloatmodifier group and you can have up to 6 researchModifiers.

modifierTypes:

"WeaponRateOfFireAdjustment"
"WeaponDamageAdjustment"
"WeaponDamageAdjustment"
"WeaponIgnoresShieldsAdjustment"
"WeaponRangeAdjustment"
"WeaponRateOfFireAdjustment"

baseValue -especially useful with WeaponIgnoresShieldsAdjustment.  Setting to 0.300000 gives 30% base shield ignore to  the linkedWeaponClass.  Not so good with others unless you just want beefier stats right off the bat without getting into changing the ship/def/starbase entity file and all that.

perLevelValue 0.000000 : 0.050000 is 5%, 0.10 is 10% bonus, 1.0 is 100%, 2.0 is 200%, etc...

linkedWeaponClass -AUTOCANNON, BEAM, CHAOSBOLT, DART, FLASHBEAM, GAUSS, ION, LASERPSI, LASERTECH, MISSILE, PHASEMISSILE, PLASMA, PULSEGUN, SPIRITBLADE, WAVE.

researchModifier
    modifierType ""
    baseValue 0.000000
    perLevelValue 0.000000
    linkedWeaponClass ""

Any weapon can be given WeaponIgnoresShieldsAdjustment.  Autocannons, plasma, ion, etc... Just put weaponignoresshieldsadjustment in modifierType and then any of the above into linkedweaponclass.  Bingo, AC's and plasma can pierce shields and pass x% of damage to armor.

I don't deal with Diplomacy, but Entrenchment.  In Diplomacy, you might be able to add this (from shield pact unlock) into high tier shield research item to negate any weapon that has WeaponIgnoreShieldsAdjustment regardless of linkedWeaponClass.

researchModifier
    modifierType "ChanceToIgnoreShieldsAsDamageTarget"
    baseValue 0.000000
    perLevelValue 0.100000

You can always modify the player entity file and give them the pact stuff for the shieldignore block.

I wonder if it'd work with entrenchment?    NO, "ChanceToIgnoreShieldsAsDamageTarget" doesn't.  It only works in "BuffAdaptiveShields.entity" or other buffs like it.  We gave empire a shield research that unlocks an ability like AdaptiveShields that give 100% bonus vs any weapon with shield ignore properties because Empire has armor that sucks -a single fighter can destroy one on a kamikaze run into the bridge.  Ability is in the ability4 slot and out of the way.

If I had this power I would be copiously using it right now.