Drain Infection question

[That Dodogama]

The skill says it's applied once per source. What is considered the source? The player or the drain ability that triggers it?

For example, if I use Energy Siphon and Tachyon Beam, will it apply once or twice?

[cap-boulanger]

Once per activation. So in your example, twice.

But also, say, you and another player both used Tachyon Beam, that would also be twice (even though it's the same ability, it's being used by two different players).

Or if the cooldown times out and you use it again, the infection would be applied again, even though it's the same player with the same ability, it's a separate activation.

[VoodooMike]

Originally posted by That Dodogama:

The skill says it's applied once per source. What is considered the source? The player or the drain ability that triggers it?

For example, if I use Energy Siphon and Tachyon Beam, will it apply once or twice?

Given the way the engine normally works, it'd likely mean once per player rather than once per ability causing the effect. I'm basing this on the code for City of Heroes, which is another MMO that was built on the same base MMO code that STO is based on.

Under the engine, an applied effect can be applied a set number of times and either refresh or overlap, and the source of the effect is the entity that caused it. So an effect that refreshes and stacks to 3, say, could be stacked to 3 from one player, and separately applied and stacked to 3 by another, but further applications would just keep that player's stack at 3.

Effects not built into an ability, meaning they proc on the application of various abilities and are a separate thing, are treated as their own ability that is simply triggered under specific circumstances... rather than a new modifier to an existing ability.

Obviously its possible they customized the engine over the years to behave differently, though from what I've seen it still works very much the same in a lot of areas you'd think they would have wanted to change it.