Rare enemy shields

[gambit]

So, I calculated to have between 6500-7500 fights per sector in AE hard.
I have never installed mods, not even one where you see fleet progress.
Yesterday in sector 2, there was a ship with 2 full shield bubbles. Event was Mantis taking over Engi ship.
And 5 years ago it was friendly ASB event in sector 3 with 3 shield bubbles enemy ship. Probably Lanius.
Extremly rare, but still possible.

Exit: spellchecked the title.

[Mike]

Interesting, I've seen them a lot more than that, and you probably have over 10 times the number of fights I do.

I had one shieldless run recently where the first two fights in sector 2 were 2-shield Pirate Slug Light Cruisers. I think one of them even had cloaking and nasty weapons. That was annoying.

There are specific enemy ships that have a maximum of level 10 shields. These can very rarely get 5 shield bubbles, or quite often get higher-than-usual shields in a given sector.

Off the top of my head, I think it's the biggest Engi and Mantis ships, as well as the two biggest Slug ships. I think some of those variants are only level 9 max though.

[gambit]

Well, that is unlucky.
Yeah, pre AE slug ships had 5 bubbles much more frequent.
Going by memory, Id guess between 0.5-1 Slug ships in sector 7 on average had 5 bubbles. Also, auto ships had them more frequent.
I guess, the reason is same reactor power, but more systems to spread it to.
Edit: spellcheck.

[Mike]

Just for clarity, I've almost never seen any 5-shield ships, but 2-shield ships in sector 2 don't seem super-rare for me.

[Empiro]

It'd be interesting to see exactly how the game generates ships for each sector. That'd tell you how likely or not getting things like 2 shield bubbles in sector 2 are.

[Mike]

Here's the best info we have so far: https://www.reddit.com/r/ftlgame/comments/ce5lxn/enemy_system_levels_spreadsheet/

[Empiro]

Ah thanks, but is the spreadsheet based on experience and observation or is it directly from the game files? It looks like very rare cases aren't accounted for (e.g. 2 shield bubbles in sector 2).

[Ray Robertson]

Those with the 2 Shields are from specific events. The spreadsheet, I think, is only the normal ships per sector.

[tiberiansun371alexw]

I've seen shields-10 foes before. It's those Slug ships. They usually have cloaking and are a nightmare to deal without hacking even with 4 shields.

If the devs made Slug ship with drones, I'd bet it be the only ship with drones to have weapons-10. Just imagine a ship with a Burst Laser III, Chain Laser, Basic Laser, Leto, Pike Beam, Combat drone, Boarding Drone, AP Drone, Cloaking, upgraded Medbay, upgraded doors, and upgraded oxygen. Even if it was shields-7 instead of Shields 8 or 10, it'd be a huge pain.

Slug ships can be surpsingly armed. Even those Slug Interceptors (which possesses a somewhat critical flaw in having separated oxygen room...) can be well armed enough to cause headaches for a ship without cloaking. Ships with cloaking can do an alpha strike on oxygen, shields, and weapons, and just wait for them to suffocate while repairing, but Ships without cloaking often will take damage from them Sector 5 and on and even hacking weapons won't let you just wait for them to suffocate if you want to avoid signficant damage. It depends on the exact weapons of course, but I find that often the case with the Slug ships The ones with cloaking are even worse. I bet the Slug ships have a bigger budget to get nicer ships

[Mike]

Originally posted by Empiro:

Ah thanks, but is the spreadsheet based on experience and observation or is it directly from the game files? It looks like very rare cases aren't accounted for (e.g. 2 shield bubbles in sector 2).

You can't get this information directly from the game files.

Mekloz used the dev console to load a large number of ships and observed their system budget.

2 shield bubbles in sector 2 are accounted for. For example, look at the CIRCLE_BOMBER ship.

[gambit]

Well, I just got 2 enemy shield bubbles in sector 2 again. I guess they are not that rare after all. Pirate at pulsar event.