Aye I understand.  And to be fair my tests did reveal I was partially under a misunderstanding as they revealed what I believd was the case was in fact true for phase missiles- but not for other shield-piercing damage.  Which leads me to believe the whole thing is just a case of "the shield bypass chance is not rolled against enemy ships who's shields are down," which results in no more bypasses which results in no more mitigation bypass.

So in all honesty I kind of glad you prompted me to run the tests as they improved my understanding of the game's mechanics by correcting a partial misunderstanding(That I had previously believe a specific phenomonom to be more general then it is).

That said though, I still find it irritating that phase missiles tend towards killing ships with more shield points faster- a Defensive stat might be ineffective, but it should never actually decrease the ship's lifespan.  Well if you uncover anything else with your own tests keep us updated.

No, I'm certain that I am correct, you either misunderstand my point or are mistaken.  In anycase lets see if we can work out specifically where your stance differs from my own

Agreed

I'll present an example later as to why this is not the case

In general, Agreed.  There is no intrinsic connection between shield points and mitigation. 

My point is there is an interaction between phase missiles and shiled mitigation which is triggered by lack of shields.  more on this later

Again, agreed.  I am completely aware shield mitigation is always present.

This is absolutely not what I'm saying.  Shield mitigation growth has nothing to do with my point.  If shield mitigation were permanently fixed at it's maximum the phenomenon I've observed would still occur.

Yes, but with an y reasonable about of focusfire DPS it will pretty much stay at cap.  And the amount of damage it takes to cap shield mitigation is trivial compared to the amount of total damage it takes to destroy a capitalship.  As such you can basically assume capitalships getting focusfired are at cap mitigation for basically all of the damage it takes to kill them.

Anyway it seems you misunderstand the entire reason that phase missiles deal more damage to ships with shields still up.  I reccomend you forget I ever used the term back-up shield generators- they are not central to this issue and it was my error to introduce the term in the first place as it has  caused needless confusion.  I'm going to give a step by step example of this phenomenon at work:

ASSUMPTION 1:  Phase missiles that bypass shields are not affected by shield mitigation.  it's well documented that this is the case.

ASSUMPTION 2:  a focusfired capitalship can be assumed to be at max shield mitigation for the entire battle as long as it is focused.  The damage it takes to hit shield mitigatio  cap is not particularly significant as compared to the total damage it takes to destroy the ship.  Yes this is a slight estimattion, but the relative error introduced isn't very statistically significant.

ASSUMPTION 3:  Once shields are at 0, phase missile bypass chance nolonger occurs.  This is what my test earlier in the thread confirmed.

So suppose we have a Ship firing 100 damage phase missiles on a capitalship with 75% shield mitigation.  Assume max phase missiles tech(30% bypass)

Case 1, The capitalship has 2000 shields left & 75% shield Mitigation:

-each shot has a 70% of not bypassing shields, which is then reduced by shield mitigation.  In this case the shot deals 25 damage to the capitalship's shields  base damage is 100 and 75% shield mitigation is present

-each shot has a 30% chance of bypassing shields, ignoring shield mitigation.  In this case 100 damage is dealt to hull

result: on average each shot deals .7*25=17.5 damage to shields and .3*100=30 damage to hull

Case 1, The capitalship has 0 shields left& 75% shield Mitigation:

-each shot has a 100% chance of not bypassing shields, and thus is affected by shield mitigation.  In this case 25 damage is dealt to hull since the base damage is 100 and 75% shield mitigation is present

result: on average each shot deals .7*25=17.5 damage to shields and .3*100=30 damage to hull

Overall Result:

On average phase Missile weapon deals 25 hull damage per shot when shields are down, and 30 hull damage per shot when shields are still up.  That is a 20% increase in hull damage per shot.

 As shield mitigation gets higher, this gap grows further.  Higher bypass chance via the Subverter's Shield disruption also increases the gap further.

So here's what it comes down to: against high mitigation targets,  Phase missiles deal more DPS after mitigation to hull when shields are up then they do when shields are down.

That means their damage output gets lower when shields run out.

Ships with low shield totals have their shields run out sooner(from the 70% of phase missiles that don't bypass) and as a result will have longer lifespans against phase missiles.

Now there's certainly a point to be made about how dropping shields unquestionably increases your vulnerability to any incoming non-phase missile weapon, but in a  focus fire scenario where all incoming damage is from phase missiles, lower shield totals do as a result translate into longer survival times.

All that said Riddle, now that I've led my underlying reasoning out sequentially, would you mind telling me which specific assumption or point about how phase missiles & shield mitigation you disagree with?

My test confirmed this result.  Frankly being that I have presented evidence, the burden of proof now lies with you.  Once tangible evidence is on the table, the way you think the game works does not really constitute a valid counterargument.  

That's not to say you have to agree with me- but if you want to really present a valid counterargument you need to either run some tests yourself or point out a flaw in my tests that could account for the results.

Of course that said, Whether the phenomena I have described is a problem for game balance is entirely open to discussion- I'm merely argueing at this point that this situation is occurring.  The impact on game balance is another issue entirely.

To summarize if you've forgotten the results of my test in game were the following:

I modified a ship to fire a 10000 damage phase missile with 100% bypass chance.  I then fired on two high-hull dummy ships(after using other weapons to build up shield mitigation).

The first ship had 0 armor, 3000-5000 shield points at the time of firing the phase missile.  This ship took 9,999-10,000 every time it got hit with a phase missile as long as it's shields lasted.(this proves ASSUMPTION 1)

The second ship had 0 armor and 0 shield points left(it only had 10 mas shield points so dropping it to 0 shield points was simple).  This ship was observed to take 4000-8000 damage from the phase missile dependign on it's current level of shield mitigation.  (This proves ASSUMPTION 3 as even with 100% bypass chance the missile was affected by shield mitigation)

There you have it: as per my tests The phase missile was shown tod eal more damage per shot to a target that has shield poitns left then one that doesn't.  If you want to test it yourself my original test post had a link to the modified reference files to run the test.

You are correct that shield points don'[t affect shield mitigation.  I never said they did.  However shield points DO affect whether phase missile bypass chance allow the missiles to ignore mitigation.

You have a complete fundamental misunderstanding of how phase missiles work.

They do not reduce mitigation percentage directly.  They provide a % chance on each attack to ignore both shield and shield mitigation entirely.

 30% phase missile bypass does not reduce shield mitigation by 30%.  30% phase missile Bypass gives phase missiles a 30% chance on each attack of ignoring shield mitigation entirely and being dealt directly to hull.  The other 70% of the time phase missiles behave as completely unteched weapons.

As my tests shows phase missile bypass does absolutely nothing once shields go down.  the result is that phase missiles deal more DPS to hull when shields are up then down.

I find it extremely amusing that you call me stubborn when I have submitted actual test data and your refuse to admit there's a chance that you are wrong- believing your qualitative understanding is unequivocally superior to any test result or calculation without having to run any tests of your own is a hallmark example of stubbornness.  And incidentally you are also entirely wrong.

It can certainly be considered a raw % boost in damage.  But the mechanism IS a percent chance per hit.

 The thing is that statistically speaking when you are seeing as many attacks as you do with a fleet of PM-bearing weapons, the effect normalizes to the average very quickly(for example each squadron of bombers attacks 3 times in every 13 second period).  With 20-30 squads of bombers that's 60-90 attacks per bombing run to normalize.

This is the reason that despite being a % chance it's not very rangery.

If you knew anything about statistics you'd know the more "rolls" are made the less random the average roll becomes.  With a large number of rolls random chances become entirely reliable in their effects.

Phase missiles block techs lower the bypass chance, plain and simple.  They don't introduce a second roll, but they do lower the initial phase missile roll's chance of bypassing.  At least as far as I've been able to tell that's how it works.

It baffles me that you don't understand how PMs work.  This is utterly common knowledge.

And yes 30% sounds low until you remember that phase mssiles that bypass ignore shield mitigation entirely.

Remember most weapon will have 70-75% of their damage removed by mitigation against capitalship targets.   This means most weapons only deal about 25-30% of their listed value.

30% bypass chance means phase missiles right off the bat deal 30% of their listed value directly to hull.  And their other 70% is affected by shield mitigation, not removed entirely.   after a 70-75% reduction that other segment is 21-24.5%.  SO with only 30% bypass chance Phase missiles actually end up dealing 51-54% of their listed damage on average where other weapons only deal 25-30%.  That's not remotely weak.  Yes 30% looks low, but the effect is so strong it's very powerful regardless.

If anything what should be a hint that you're dead wrong is the Subverter's Shield Disruption ability.  Why should it give both weapon bypass chance and reduce shield mitigation if they were the same exact same effect(avoided shield mitigation)?

Also how do you think the phase missile % of damage to hull works if you don't believe in a bypass chance?  You'll notice phase missiles deal damage to both hull and shields.  And each individual phase mmissile only damages one(if you have only a single ship this can be observed fairly easily).

Again it simply boggles my mind that you can not have realized this- this is common knowledge.  Heck, read the dang in game description of the first phase missile tech:

"Phase technology is made small enough to fit into missiles, giving them a chance to bypass shields and directly impact hulls."

On a side note, man have we hijacked this thread hard.

Thris read has become "Riddled"...

I love it when someone shoots themselves in the foot. Bilum gives "Phase technology is made small enough to fit into missiles, giving them a chance to bypass shields and directly impact hulls." as the research description. 

no where in that description (nor that I have found on the rare occasion I played Vasari) dose it say that Phase missiles ignore mitigation. I always thought that the shield mitigation thingy was like the hull polerisation on Enterprise or force fields that reinforce a ships hull plating. 

The MP crowd is going to hate me for this, but have any modders delved into how shield bypassing works as part of their ongoing edits of Sins of a Solar Empire?

No offense to you MP players, but knowing how the nuts and bolts work is something we modders excel at since we regularly pull apart the game and put it back together in a completely different manner.  RiddleKing and bilun may be better equipped to argue balance, but if you want to know how something actually works, ask a modder.

That's pretty much what I'm saying.  They know how to beat the system, but they don't know how it really works.

...Or GTFO of course if you don't know if what they do either.

1 in 20 shots might not be much, especially in the early game but at rank 6, it's nearly 1 in 3 shots doing direct, unmitigated damage to the target's hull.  Those odds add up to a pretty sizable chunk of extra damage when there's a horde of bombers or assailants involved.

Assuming that theory is true, anyway. 

First off, I'd like to say I'm thrilled to see this influx of new voices.  I was about to lose my sanity arguing with Riddle. 

I'm fairly confident in my understanding of the game's nuts and bolts.  Is there anything I said that was wrong?  As you may have noticed I'm been using calculations and tests using modded game files(to make data easy to collect in an accurate manner) to substantiate everything I've said- not the qualitative assumptions pro players seem given to.

And frankly every test I have run has produced the expected results from my understanding of how things work.

I fully appreciate the level of understanding that comes from modifying and working with game system- in general I'm a very formal learner for games in general- I spend as much time picking apart the systems, running tests, draft and testing theories, and researching in general when I'm obsessed with a game as I do playing it.  More over I agree that most competitive players don't really bother to learn the game mechanics formally and quantitatively.  So understand me when I say I appreciate the depth of knowledge long time modders must have of the game in general- But that alone isn't enough to summarily dismiss the arguments of non-recognized modders without explanation. 

So tell me, what exactly have I misunderstood?

Did you see my post earlier on?  I ran a test.  a 10,000 damage phase missile was given 100% shield bypass chance and fired on a ship with 0 armor and 30-40% shield mitigation.  The phase missile was fired from a capitalship to a ship with light armor, so there was no greater then 100% dmg:armor conversion.  No other techs or abilities were researched or used(besides the tech used to give the shot 100% bypass chance).

The ship took 9999 hull damage.  Shield mitigation is not applied to phase missiles that bypass.  If it were, the ship wouldn't have taken more then 8300 damage under any circumstances(since minimum shield mitigation is 17%).

That's why phase missiles are so superior to any other weapon type. After shield mitigation most weapon types deal 25-30% of their base raw damage to shield, then hull.  Phase missiles deal 30% of their base raw damage directly to hull and another 17.5-21% to shields then hull(the latter ebing the portion that doesn't bypass).

As you can see with 30% bypass chance, phase missiles actually are dealing more hull damage per second then shield damage per second.

Put another way, ignoring 65-75% shield mitigation is a 200-300%(x3-x4) damage increase on attacks that bypass.  So a 30% bypass chance in on average a 100*(1+.3 *(2)) to 100*(1+.3 *(3))= 60-90% damage increase(whereas most other weapons on average are a 30% damage increase).  Factor in the final +10% damage phase missile tech and that raises to a 176-209% damage increase- easily 3x a much as other weapon techs.  And a large portion of the damage is dealt directly to hull.

Again, if you distrust my results, my post on the previous page has the uploaded modded reference files and testing procedure, so feel free to test it yourself.

Ahh, glad to hear it.

Also, thanks for the heads up o nthe quote- you are correct, that was meant for Teun(quote is fixed now).

I habitually highlight text as I read it somethings, and the fact that when you hit any quote button it automatically quotes and *still* highlighted text gets quoted(regardless of whether the text was written by the guy you hit quote for), causes me to screw up quotes every one in awhile on these forums.

Glad to do do so- heck I'm always thrilled to talk numbers with anyone who is willing to put up with my tendency towards rather long posts. 

Aye, I agree entirely.  I've long thougth phase missiles could do with a reduction from  5% bypass chance per rank to maybe 3.5-3.5% per ranks(which would of course result in 18-21% bypass after all 6 ranks).