[BUG] Negative shield damage also affects base damage - Explained.

[Kajar]

Morning.

I happen to run into a bug with the weapon damage types. For now this is mostly a problem for modding, but it could be a problem for vanilla if a weapon with similar characteristics should be introduced.

The problem is pretty straightforward as well.
If a weapon has a negative shield damage value, to make it weaker against shields, that negative damage is also applied to the base damage and so affects unshielded targets as well.

So, if a weapon has 100 damage, it will deal 100 damage against shield and hull, as you would expect.
A weapon with an extra 100 shield damage, will do 100 damage against hull but 200 against shield, like the Argon Ion Blaster. Like you would expect.
However, if you would give it a -50 shield damage, suddenly it deals not only the 50 damage against shields, but also only 50 damage against unshielded targets.

I know it doesn't affect any vanilla weapons, yet, but might be something to be aware of.

[CBJ]

That's not a bug; you're just trying to do something the game doesn't support. You can't give negative damage values to "weaken" a weapon against shields, but you also don't need to.

As you are probably aware, there are four types of damage:

• Hull/Shield: Damage that is applied to the shield first, then the hull.
• Hull Only: Damage that is applied to the hull directly, regardless of whether there is a shield.
• Shield Only: Damage that is applied only to the shield.
• Hull No Shield: Damage that is applied to the hull directly, but only if there is no shield or the shield is down.

None of these are designed to work with negative values.

If you want to "weaken" a weapon against shields, then there are two ways to achieve that:

1. Give it zero Hull/Shield damage, a low Shield Only value, and a higher Hull No Shield value.
2. Give it low Hull/Shield damage, zero Shield Only, and some additional Hull No Shield.

[Kajar]

Interesting. Once again X4 defies expectations.

I was only aware of:
Base Damage
Hull Only
Shield Only
Area/explosion damage

Thanks a bunch.