Subset Games Forum

I have two questions:

1: Why do I almost always take hits when going into stealth when there`s a specific in game tip telling me that all attacks incoming when you enter stealth will miss. They don`t.

2: What is the special attack the rebel fleet does in advanced mode and how does it work. I now seem to get killed by it every time I get caught and can`t work out a way to survive it. I`m playing on hard mode, just in case there`s something extra with that.

Thanks in advance.

Skull wrote:I have two questions:

1: Why do I almost always take hits when going into stealth when there`s a specific in game tip telling me that all attacks incoming when you enter stealth will miss. They don`t.

Once a projectile passes your shield boundary (even if you have no shields up, just where the boundary would be) it's "locked on" and cloak won't cause it to miss. Cloak BEFORE the projectile passes that boundary to get the benefit.

Also, cloak isn't "everything misses" mode. It adds 60% to your dodge. If your dodge is 0% to start, 2 out of every 5 things will still hit you. If it's 40% or more to start, everything will miss.

Skull wrote:2: What is the special attack the rebel fleet does in advanced mode and how does it work. I now seem to get killed by it every time I get caught and can`t work out a way to survive it. I`m playing on hard mode, just in case there`s something extra with that.

It's like a solar flare. You get a warning, and a little bit later it happens. It's a shot fired from the planet and it can miss just like any other shot, but if it hits it causes a hull breach and 3 damage.

The best way to avoid it is to not fight the rebels. They are MUCH harder now so you should rework your strategies accordingly.

If you have 5 or more engines and a cloak, you can get through one encounter unscathed (from that gun) by cloaking. If you wait for the ship you're fighting to fire, you can cloak then and almost guarantee not taking any damage. Note this only works once because when you jump away, your cloak will still be recharging. However, this allows you the ability to do a lot of the "let the rebels take the exit" farming we could do in the old version.

Finally, the big gun isn't in nebulas, and the exit beacon of a nebula is never an ion storm, so you can still treat those like you did in the past.

1: Activating stealth only adds 60% to your evasion. It certainly does seem that when you fail to reach 100%, the enemy still seems to land a lot of shots for having such a low hit percentage. That's just bad luck.

2: It's just a shot that pierces 5 layers of shields, does 3 damage, and causes a breach. It can be evaded like any normal projectile. You only have to worry about it when the warning flashes.

I don't like that shields do nothing against it. I get that it is devastating because it is heavy artillery, but I think shields should provide some kind of protection. While the game currently can't do this, here is how I would like to change it. Increase the damage to 4, then reduce the damage by 1 for every two layers of shields that it pierces. Okay, my idea basically only benefits the player in the late game if they get maximum shields and is more punishing at the start since it does more damage, but for some reason, I like my idea because it would feel like the shields were doing something.

Ninja'd, but I'll still post.

5thHorseman wrote:Once a projectile passes your shield boundary (even if you have no shields up, just where the boundary would be) it's "locked on" and cloak won't cause it to miss.

I guess I can't prove this right now, but I think when the shields are completely down, it no longer uses the boundary, but the room that is targeted. My only evidence for this is the MISS indicator. Someone could test this by completely shutting off their engines, drop their shields, wait for a shot to pass the shield boundary, then up the engines and cloak to see if it misses.

edit: I tested by turning engines off, then turning them back on once the projectile reached the ship's hull graphic. I had a shot miss me when I increased my dodge from 0% after it passed the missing shield boundary, so I guess I am right.

RAD-82 wrote:

5thHorseman wrote:Once a projectile passes your shield boundary (even if you have no shields up, just where the boundary would be) it's "locked on" and cloak won't cause it to miss.

I guess I can't prove this right now, but I think when the shields are completely down, it no longer uses the boundary, but the room that is targeted. My only evidence for this is the MISS indicator. Someone could test this by completely shutting off their engines, drop their shields, wait for a shot to pass the shield boundary, then up the engines and cloak to see if it misses.

edit: I tested by turning engines off, then turning them back on once the projectile reached the ship's hull graphic. I had a shot miss me when I increased my dodge from 0% after it passed the missing shield boundary, so I guess I am right.

I can confirm this is how it worked before AE, but haven't re-tested since the update. It doesn't seem like there's any reason to have changed that, and I can confirm I haven't been hit when my shields were down and I let shots ALMOST reach my ship before turning a cloak on with base evade of >40% (meaning 100% after the cloak is activated).

I can also confirm that the cloak doesn't activate in the exact instant you turn it on - there's a frame or two before it kicks in, so it's possible that you activated it JUST A MOMENT too late as well.

RAD-82 wrote:I guess I can't prove this right now, but I think when the shields are completely down, it no longer uses the boundary, but the room that is targeted. My only evidence for this is the MISS indicator. Someone could test this by completely shutting off their engines, drop their shields, wait for a shot to pass the shield boundary, then up the engines and cloak to see if it misses.

Since you posted this I've paid attention to it in several games and I think you're right. Shields up, it decides at the shield boundary. Shields down, it decides at the room. The "Miss" text even shows at the room, not the shield boundary.