[BUG] Shield Disruption is giving all weapon types shield bypass chance

Please do not fix this bug, as modders can and have modded weapons besides phase missiles to use shield bypass, and a change to this mechanic would mean only phase missiles would benefit from this ability and not any other weapon type.

If this is true then well found. 

I should probably mention that I haven't tested exhaustively different weapon types yet yet, nor have I run numbers to be sure that  ".2 ChanceToIgnoreShieldsAsDamageTarget" modifier used actually translates into 20% bypass chance(I've just assumes).  This would be a rather odd behavior as we know the negative value of this modifier, phase missile blocking is a multiplicative modifer(IE 20% PMB= "-.2 ChanceToIgnoreShieldsAsDamageTarget"  reduces a fully teched 30% bypass chance down to 30/1.2=25%).  It's very odd if the positive value of this modifier is acting additively for weapons with 0% bypass chance.

What I have done so far is observed that with Shield Disruption Pulse guns are dealing hull damage while shields are still up(in the test I used a bunch of subverters & skirmishers).  So my testing is pretty rudimentary at present.

Regardless though, seems a pretty logical leap after the whole previous bugs with the advent culture techs that this is essentially the same issue and thus would work for all weapons.  But more detailed testing is definitely a good thing.

I'll probably do some more testing tonight or tomorrow, but thought I may as well spread the word now in hopes those who are suave with the dev client would end up running some more efficient tests.

Amazing though that this never got caught in the years Sins has been out.  I suppose with how vasari players traditionally mass phase missile units it's easy to overlook a few non phase missile weapons also bypassing shields.

[EDIT:  Ran a quick additional test.  After beating on an enemy capitalship with 54% shield mitigation & 3 armor I observed roughly 360 damage to hull & 720 to shields(rounded/estimated as I was reading through continued fire & regen).  Since the portion bypassing shields is not reduced by shield mitigation & the portion to hull affected by armor, this means about 360*1.15=414 raw damage went to hull & 720*.46^-1=1565 raw damage. so total raw damage of about 1979 raw damage.  414/1979= about 20.9% of raw damage was dealt directly to hull.

Taking into account error from my estimates & chance(since shield bypass is partially random), I think that's pretty strong evidence for the bypass chance being exactly 20%.  Adding this OP as well]

Well done, bilun, well done...

Be nice if such modifiers could be tied to a weapon of choice, so modders still would be able to use this modifier even if it were fixed...

Just decided to give the thread a bit more of an explanatory title....the old was was rather vague.

I'm pretty sure this isn't a bug, just something that with the Coronata can potentially make the AL battleball that much more powerful.

HUH?

Please explain that in detail....

Looks like Volt really should be on the troll list after all....

It's a debuff to the target that does as suggests: it cripples shields and causes some additional shots to go through.  It says nothing about the effects it has on other weapon types.

Actually in the description it specifically says that it increases phase missile's chances of bypassing shields.

Not to mention the behavior is very unexpected being how that entity modifier usually works.  I believe normaly acts as a multiplicative increase to bypass chance.

Which means with 30% shield bypass chance on phase missiles it only provides 6% extra bypass chance(a 20% multiplicative increase).

By contrast it's adding 20% bypass chance to weapon with 0% bypass chance.

It's definitely a bug.  I could see a few arguments for why it should be left as is- and that is a whole new discussion topic which I don't think it clear cut one way or the other.  But I severely doubt that the ability is working as intended.

That said though as it is now, Shield Disruption makes Designate Target(a very potent skill) look like a joke.  for non-PM weapon types 20% shield bypass and -8% mitigation is a .43/.35*(1+.2 *.43^-1)= an 80% damage increase, 38% of which goes directly to hull.

That's twice the damage boost of designate target, on a shorter cooldown, with a longer duration, with direct-to-hull-damage, and to top is all off is available earlier in the game.  And that's with a measly 65% shield mitigation.  With 70% shield mitigations that increases to a 93% damage increase and against 75% that increases further to a 112% damage increase.

Of course this bug has presumably been in since the inception of the game and been low impact until now.  The real test will be what can be done with it now that people may know about the bug and build fleets around it.  I could very well see it ending up too powerful when combined with Advent Fleets or Vasari Loyals fleets built around their devastating Wave weapon upgrades late game.

Given that this ability has been 'as-is' since the original release, I'm not of a mind to alter it.  I will update the associated string, however.

With this now being public knowledge, the reason to research ANY shield upgrade for the Advent has just gone out of the window. Damm, I like playing them... but against Vasari on a remotly simialr skill level... you may as well surrender.

Or capture Subverters via their abilities.

One would need a very large numbers of those to make any reasonable difference with Advent.

You only need one to target the enemy titan and bring its mitigation down from 65%-75% to 57%-67% while also allowing your ships to have 20% chance to bypass its shields.

The bypass chance for all weapons is not by itself a game breaker, but it should perhaps be lowered compared to when we though it just effected phase missiles.