Aquilaeians - and shield-skipping weapons (Master Belisarious, thx!)

[jim]

The AI of these guys is wonderful in combat!!

What a neat hedgehog! Reminds me of Royal Marines forming square in the Hornblower and Sharpe stories - though the Aq's do not use a square.

I had no idea that engine killers were shield skipping weapons!

These guys would kill the engines of a ship and, if they did not destroy the ship in that round, they'd engage it again and now .... no shields! I had not placed a supply unit on each one! No engines - no supplies - no shields - no defense!!!

Are any of the other specialty weapons shield skippers like these? (jim off to investigate! ;-) )

Anyway, nicely done Master Belisarius! Nicely done!

[PvK]

Yes. Weapon-damaging and shield-damaging weapons also skip shields.

Oh nooooo....

[jim]

Yes, and I confirmed it, just to prove it to myself. I did it in the Simulator and then I went to a saved game, built the test ships, then gifted them to the AI and proceeded to beat on them.

This looks like it will make me do a major rethink on how to design ships!

This seems odd, btw, but very interesting.

Every time I think I've got it figured out ...

Wait!

If I had a quantum reactor aboard, would the loss of all engines still bring down shields if I did not have a supply gizmo? That is, the q reactor makes unlimited supply, but I'm not sure it STORES it!

What about if I had a solar panel but lost all engines (and had no supply unit)?

I did not test those.

[TerranC]

The supplies are still endless.

At least in the original.

[Urendi Maleldil]

Any weapon that targets a specific type of component skips shields, even phased shields.

[Phoenix-D]

In umodded SE4, that's correct. However, two damage types- boarding party and security station killers- do NOT skip shields. So if a mod uses those two damage types, they won't skip shields.

Haven't tried only planet killers, not sure if it even works.

Phoenix-D