Shields Question

[toaster]

Hi all.
I brought CBF last week and played a solo game this morning before I introduced the club to it in the afternoon. I like it but one question came up about resolving damage vs shields from all weapons on a single hardpoint.
If the damage exceeds the shields by a full weapons worth do you roll penetration for one weapon or consider it a partial hit from all weapons?

To give an example a 24 point shield is hit by 4 heavy rail guns damage 8, do 3 of them strip the shields leaving one full hit to roll penetration or do 6 points of each hit take the shields down leaving 4 hits of 2 points each to reach the hull and do a single point of damage each, as partial hits don't roll penetration?

Thanks, we had a four player 1500 mass each game at the club, didn't finish it due to time spent choosing fleets (humans vs. scourge) but everyone wants to play more.

Robert

[warchariot]

No, the weapons of a single hard point are resolved together and do damage together. So in your example, the 8 left-over point from the rail gun are non-penetrating hits and therefore are halved and applied to the hull. This is done because hull hits have to beat the AV. For example:

Another hard point or ship fires through that same shield which is now zero. You roll to hit, roll against the AV to penetrate and apply half damage for non-penetrating hits and full damage for the hits which do . Also remember that penetrating hits also cause a critical hit, which in turn cause more damage.

It pays to line up shots at a single shield.

Hope that helps

[TheDreadnought]

Maybe a rules clarification is needed here.

Shots from a single hard point are resolved sequentially.

So yes, in your example:

Rail Gun 1 - 8 points of shield
Rail Gun 2 - 8 points of shield
Rail Gun 3 - 8 points of shield (shields now at zero)
Rail Gun 4 - Roll for penetration and apply damage based on the result

It's actually a fairly minor difference that won't tend to come up all that often. Usually there will be an odd shield point or two left over that will cause Rail Gun 4 to be an auto non-penetrating hit for half hull damage. But it does happen occasionally.

[warchariot]

Dreadnought is just being kind, I was totally wrong. I went back and looked at the rule to see if the a clarification was needed, I don't think so. It clearly says weapon, not weapon system or hard point.

Now in my defense, we have only played a game or two with shields as we have been playing a lot of BSG style games since early spring-no sheilds in those games.

[toaster]

Thanks, Harry, I played it that way but thought clarification would be a good idea.

Robert

[toaster]

Just going over this again and its not clear if the non penetrating hit is at the weapons hull damage rating or at the leftover shield damage, I've always asumed that it would be left over shield damage but upon rereading I think I may be wrong.

Robert

[kashre]

Thats what I thought it was too at first, but if you go back and read the descriptions from Dreadnaught how it actually works is that you get your *full hull damage* as a *non-penetrating hit*, meaning half the value rounded down come off of your hull.

So if you have one point of shield left, and you get hit by a Heavy Turbo Laser (7 shield, 5 hull damage) you loose that one point of shield, six points of shield damage are wasted, and you take 2 hull hits with no chance of a crit.

Another thing that confused me in the beginning is that the amount of damage absorbed by the shield is independent from the amount of hull damage that is done... so, if you had 6 shield left instead of one you'd still take 2 hull damage.

Least that's my take on it

[toaster]

Thanks, thats the way I played it today and it seemed to work.

Robert

[TheDreadnought]

Yes, hull damage never bears any relation to the amount of shield damage a weapon inflicts. Haven't looked at it recently, but a close reading of the armor penetration rules should specifically state that you ignore remaining "shield damage" and apply hull damage values instead.