I would think around having ship 'size classes'. Ships can engage normally with up to 1 size of difference, but for each point of difference greater than 1, damage effectiveness doubles if you are bigger, or halves if you are smaller.

Given the size class scale:

fighter/bomber

frigate

cruiser

capital

starbase

Fighters, for example, would engage frigates normally, but be 50% effective against cruisers, 25% effective against capital ships, and 12.5% effective against starbases.

Frigates would be 50% effective against capitals, but capitals are 200% effective against frigates, which is one part of what is needed to make them less frail (the other part is to increase their hull/armor).

Well if this should be a valid game mechanic, then what is the purpose of capships?  If you said "colonization," then I could agree with what you say here.  And if someone screams that they lost their cap, I'd ask why it was in the grav well fighting with the fleet instead of being off colonizing somewhere.

This is the bottom line.  If a capship is supposed to support the fleet in battle, then this role does not scale with the number of lrf in the game.  Period.

I like the idea of capships countering capships.  Then your caps would essentially always be there to support the fleet.  If you want to take out someone else's cap, build the appropriate counter-cap, and go into battle and micro it better than your opponent.  But this is probably too radical a change for some folks.  That's why I proposed the "diminishing returns" on the attack of lrm against caps (sort of a "mitigation" system).  I like this because smaller fleets of lrm early game aren't nerfed against caps.  You got some cap bombing your homeworld in a rush situation and you want to chase it away, build yourself 15 or 20 assailants and whack it.  Under my proposed system, there is no change to the damage dealt by those 15 or 20.  It's just that anything above that gets mitigated.

Even with this system, you'd still have to pull caps pretty quick when going up against lrm.  To be honest, I don't know that it really solves the fundamental problem that well (if you have to pull caps, then they aren't supporting your fleet), but it would at least give you time to react to PULL the cap, and at least maybe the cap did SOMETHING for the 10 seconds it was in the grav well, which is better than nothing.

The problem with this is the game mechanic is based on Damage Types and Armor Classes. The system of counters is also based on this approach. I don't really see how ship size fits based on this.

Armor Class: Very Light, Light, Medium, Heavy, Very Heavy and Capital
Damage Type: Anti Very Light, Anti Light, Anti Medium, Anti Heavy, Anti Very Heavy, Composite and Capital

The problem seems to be the caps them selves. One of the main online strategies has been build your one cap ship then scuttle the cap ship factory. Has that changed recently?

LRF do at least 75% damage against all units... they are equally as effective against heavies and support as they are against caps?  They are also more effective against scouts than LF in terms of the % damage they cause, I'm not sure where the concept that LF are a counter to scouts is from?  If there is a seeker nerf and no Illuminator nerf LRF will reappear with a vengeance under the current system- to protect the carriers that are supposed to be their best counter!  Basic frigates should be escort types.

The change that I proposed would allow LF to counter scouts, as it is scouts share the same armour type as LRF so LF are penalised against them.  The specific change I want is for LF to become Anti Medium and LRF to become Anti Heavy- but to retain the heavy and anti-cap %

The v1.041 lines are (unless I've missed a change)

Assault:  (Anti-heavy) Light 75% Medium 100% Heavy 150% Very Heavy 50% Capital 50%

LRF (Anti-medium) Light 100% Medium 133% Heavy 75% Very Heavy 75% Capital 75%

Its always seemed peculiar to me that anti-heavy damage should be less effective against very heavy armour than anti-medium, thats counter-intuitive.  Its also why heavies don't counter LRF as well as they might, as they have too few ships to be taking damage at the 75% level. 

With these changes the new lines would be:

Assault:  (Anti-medium) Light 100% Medium 133% Heavy 75% Very Heavy 50% Capital 50%

LRF (Anti-heavy) Light 75% Medium 100% Heavy 150% Very Heavy 75% Capital 75%

It wouldn't take 6 patches to get right either, the changes aren't huge.. the current system has taken more, and still isn't right, it's a question of whether it can ever be right.  Though these changes could even be interpreted as a slight buff to LRF the effect might be very different, as medium and light types are far more common in play. 

Otherwise, the problem remains that LRF do too much damage to all types of armour, even to scouts and heavies, thats why LRF spam is so effective.  It is necessary to create a weak spot- and only limiting the effect on scouts would simply promote the survivability of the LRF themselves, as they share the same damage type. 

@Darvin.Truth is tho when carriers were powerful there far less lrf in game.Its already been provin in game.If I could build a carrier and know it will reliably deal with some lrf then the other player wouldnt be getting to 80 ilums.Thing is ilums build faster then carriers.Flak build faster then carriers.Flak kill fighters faster then they can kill lrf.Thats it right now.Lrf have no counter . Uber posted a game awhile back where he was fighting an ilum spammer and was spamming carriers.The ilum spammer got some flak but not enuf and the fighters could kill the lrf.The ilum spammer lost.If the number of flak needed to kill fighters was higher then an ilum spammer would be forced to build more flak or more carriers to protect his lrf.Now if a guy just showed up with 80 ilums you would need a hefty amount of sc to deal with them in a timely matter and some kiting.

Just watched a replay of one of my recent games.

ANATOMY OF AN ILLUM SPAM:

- Illum spammer drops 2 mil labs, builds halcyon, scuttles capship factory, builds 3rd mil lab, researches illums.

- Illum spammer takes roid.  First illum rolls off assembly line. Time: 5 minutes.  Second illum rolls off assembly line.  Time: 6 minutes.  No feed.

How this went down was, the illum spammer clashed with me shortly after, and killed my capship (20 illums).  Meanwhile, my teammate on the other side of him hit his homeworld with 2 caps, so he pulled and went back to his homeworld.  I warned my teammate he was coming, and my teammate started to pull his caps.  The illums rolled in.  My teammate lost both his caps in the next gravwell, fleeing the illums.  3 capships lost from 2 different players to the same 20 illums in a few minutes time.

i agree

yeah, but then we have a problem with what happens when your caps are destroyed? i mean, lets say a lvl 1 battleship is supposed to take out a seige or a colony cap (for example). but what happens if a level 10 colony cap comes up against a lvl 1 battleship, the simple fact that the levels vary so much could cause the battleship to lose even though its supposed to be the counter...

i think cap ships are supposed to be big bad gunboats with battle altering abilities, however finite. however, atm they arent much and do agree they melt too quick... except i cant think how to make them last longer without making them too close to invincible...

the only thing i do know is that LRF are too powerful to put it bluntly... Capitals are very expensive, both in terms of resources and fleet supply, that is why they are hard to spam but that should be the only thing limiting them... you should need a very large fleet to take down caps and the only ships that should be effective are HC's...

i do understand that LRF are supposed to be the long range heavy hitters of a fleet (though why they are brought out so early evades me...) so, in order to preserve that role, perhaps their standard weapons should be nerfed against caps etc, but give them new abilities that are researched later game to increase their effectiveness vs the relevant target... for instance, the TEC LRF would have an ability called "Nuclear Warheads" or whatever that increases its effectiveness vs structures... maybe some sort of system where the LRF has to have an affinity set so that it can only be effective against caps or structures or SB/Defenses but not a combination... that would certainly reduce the incredible effeciency of LRF...

It's because scouts only do 50% damage to LF and 200% damage LRF.

I would have issue with turning the LRM into basically a counter for almost every unit in the game. I would be more for nerfing the LRF's ANTIMEDIUM's Very Heavy and Capital damage to 50%. They would still be affective at taking out a capital and structures over time (similar to LF), just not as affective as bombers or HC. I'm also more in favor of buffing Capital's ship damage modifiers to 125-150% for Very Heavy and below.

LRF already are a counter for nearly every unit in the game- and I'd nerf them against scouts/LF!  If you make them hard counter flak carriers and support, rather than LF, then they becomes more vulnerable.  Flak just don't do enough damage to LRF to be a proper counter, the effective damage is 50% because of the arcs, so that LRF are still very competitive.  LF work much better, though 100% damage done 100% received may not seem like enough counter, perhaps Assault should be 133% against light as well as each other- then they would also be the hard counter for scouts that they are not at present. 

It makes more sense to me to retain the LRF as the heavy hitters, but your proposal would work too, as it creates the required weak spot.  I'm not sure about your capital buff- though it would be useful to have them 100% vs LRF rather than 75% and I'm not sure why capital vs capital abilities should be 75%.

However, the reason for the LRF countering every unit seems to be that they share the damage line of structures, either set of alterations would have to take this into account.  If you simply nerf anti-medium that might nerf starbases against small fleets.. I'd shift structures to the composite line where they seem happier.

v1.041

Heavy Assault (Composite) Light 150% Medium 100% Heavy 125% Very Heavy 125% Capital 75%

Structure (Anti-medium) Light 100% Medium 133% Heavy 75% Very Heavy 75% Capital 75%

Though I'd also switch the Medium and Very Heavy damage for a more logical progression- why do heavies hit each other harder than they hit LF?  With specialist anti-structure cruisers, heavies no longer have this role, so no need for the bonus vs very heavy.

Heavy Assault (Composite) Light 150% Medium 125% Heavy 125% Very Heavy 100% Capital 75% 

Structure (Composite) Light 150% Medium 125% Heavy 125% Very Heavy 100% Capital 75% 

This is a slight boost to heavies survivability at the expense of a slight nerf against turrets.  It also highlights that turrets got a nerf from the last patch because of the LRF nerf against LF, which LRF did need and turrets did not need at all... so I'd also consider restoring the damage vs Medium to 150%. 

Flak are a decnt counter to lrf.They both do 75% damage and in most cases flak have more total dps and more hp than lrf.You just have to micro flak to work.

I am against this reducing damage from lrf to caps.I am more for caps getting better miti as they level up.Maybe 10% total or something.Lrf are only counter to caps early on.Most people dont have many bombers and a dual sieg cap rush would be really bad if nothing can damage cap without huge numbers.

Hey Eye,I think that you think that I'm proposing that only "huge numbers of something" can damage a cap.  Actually it is the opposite.  I am proposing that huge numbers of lrm get their damage to caps mitigated, while less than huge numbers don't.  And I already answered your concerns about early caps at your homeworld.  Read this quote of myself from several posts up:

You've always seemed like a polite enough chap to me.  And most things you argue, I find reasonably well-reasoned.  So go ahead and give me your argument for why our caps shouldn't be able to go near 30-80 illums in a grav well accompanied by their fleet.

Agreed; this is the problem.

Starbases actually use the CAPITALSHIP attack type. Turrents use the ANTIMEDIUM and would be nerfed against capital ships and heavies. Un-upgraded turrents are really only useful early game anyway so I don't see that as an issue. Actually, my proposal to buff the CAPITALSHIP attack modifier would also make starbases better able to withstand a frontal attack from small frigate fleets.

Well for 1 thats alot of ships compared to 1 ship.Alot of fire to absorb.I dont want to see caps become unstoppable but they need better survivability I agree on that.One thing I would like to see is a good counter to lrf like fighters.This would cut down on the issue.One thing is you can do alot in the way of survivability for caps.You have hoshis and dunov for tec.If dunov gets buffed you will be seeing it more often.750 shield restore is pretty good.Advent have progen which is up to 62.5 dps plus guards is another 33%.Vas have overseers and skirantra.Support abilities can prob completely negate around 15-20 ilums.If you make caps to tough how would you ever kill a level 6 marza?I am in support of a miti buff as they level up to a total of 10.That would put a level 6 with 6% more miti then it has now.It doesnt sound like much but the more ships the more damage/ships can be negated by support abilities.An ilum does about 17 damage.6% of 17 is about 1.Each ilum would do 1dps less.So for 80 ilums thats -80 dps.This is if all ilums are using all sidebeams on the cap which is not likely but you get the idea.

Like I was sayin tho fighters need to be able to deal with lrf.This would heavily cut down on lrf in a game.It has been proven to keep lrf at low numbers.

Agent I think your new miti sytem will never make into the game because it would be to much work for devs.Only things that will make it are stat changes that take them 5 sec to do.I would call for new high level tecs for each race to help caps survive but I dont think they would ever do it.

Its fairly common to add turrets to starbases for firepower, but that is an advantage then.. and more of a mystery why capitals and starbases should do only 75% against LRF?  You're probably right that the capital class weapons should be buffed, I'm not at all sure why a weapon mounted on a huge ship with the best fire control would be less effective against the same target than in comparison to the same frigate-mounted weapon.  The standard militia numbers might have to be altered to prevent over-rapid expansion, but the militia is another area where the game could be so much better very simply, if anyone put what seems to be a small amount of work into fixing it.

Turrets do need a buff as well though, preferably to cost, I'd missed that nerf with the latest patch.

If the main purpose is to further restrict vast fleets, then how about accuracy penalties?  If too many ships are engaged against the same target then they should suffer penalties for being unable to get clear enough feedback from their fire.  Strikecraft should also suffer penalties if too many attempt to engage the same target, though I'd have the strikecraft penalties separate.  This would be a different concept from mitigation, which is just based on damage received.  I'd also scale the penalties based on the number of ships engaged.  

With accuracy penalties it just wouldn't be big or clever to focus 30 Illuminators on a single ship. Players might have to improve their fleet skillz though... The Akkan would be useful in combat, as would (an improved?) Animosity. 

Agreed. I wonder if the current game engine supports this in conjuction with it's chance to hit rules. The problem lies in what can be accomplished with simple stat changes and what would require changes in the game engine. If this could be done it not only makes real world sense but is intuitively understood and communicated.

If chance to hit could be reduced based on the number of ships FF'ing, this might satisfy the complaint in this thread.

Found this in the capital ship ability guide in regards to chance to hit (https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/373346/page/2):

Targeting Uplink  **
Level available: 1 / 3 / 5
Affects: friendly frigates, capital ships and structures
Range: self
Area radius: 8000
Duration: permanent (self), until out of range (others)
Effect(s):
Chance to hit increase: 5% / 10% / 15%
Weapon range increase: 6% / 12% / 20%
(Passive Aura) Increase nearby friendlies' weapon range and hit%. In certain situations, all nearby ships gain a small increase to accuracy, and small range increase.
Notes: Most targets have a base chance to hit of 100%, so the increased accuracy is only useful against: the Advent Rapture’s Vertigo ability, or within asteroid fields where hit chances are reduced.  Similarly, the weapon range increase is best used when you're not already engaged, so it most benefits the initial approach in battles and ships with long range.

While this stragety is still viable, there are more online games that are cap heavy which  carrier caps uasually the first built to prevent being rushed by scouts.

Correct.  Whatever solution is created, it must only affect late game fleets.  Perhaps a tier 6-7 researchable for hulls/shields such as:

Capital Hull Construction [TEC]

Tier: VII

Effect: Increase hull points of capital ships by 10/20%

Colossal Construction [TEC]

Tier: VIII

Effect: Increases hull points of capital ships and starbases by 10/20%

Divine Guardian Arrays [Advent]

Tier: VIII

Effect: Increases shield points of capitals by 10/20/30/40%.

Ancient Defense Arrays [Vasari]

Tier: VII

Effect: Increases capital hull points by 5/10/15%

Empirical Defense Systems [Vasari]

Tier: VII

Effect: Increases capital and starbase shields by 5/10% and armor by 2.5/5 points

Those were just things I threw out there.  I have no idea what they would do, but they might work.  Really, the problem is late game..  Only then do they drop like flies.  I am thinking a researchable would be the answer, or perhaps a new bracket under the defense tree that specializes in capital upgrades.  Perhaps other upgrades would exist such that they would increase the weapon banks of capitals.  I would love to see a Kortul shred an enemy fleet with PS and a weapons banks upgrade.  2-3 times as many targets would make the Kortul a very very vicious ship to meet.  At that point DS would easily be the best interrupt ability in the game.  Send a single Kortul in and watch the enemy fleet get shredded and have their AM drained from every ship they have.

Basically, more labs=better capitals so that by the end, capitals are immensely powerful and could potentially stand against enemy frigate hordes.  Doubtful the devs would ever do it, but some modder could...

Well like I keep saying, caps would still be plenty killable with this system.  Wouldn't you agree that 20 illums are plenty effective at killing a cap?  I've said a couple of times that anything 20 or under would deal full damage to caps.  I pulled that number 20 out of my ass, and it could be adjusted, but you get the idea.

Don't know if you are into math or not.  But here is a crappy drawing of a graph.  Hopeully you will understand it.  On the y axis going up, that's total damage dealt by lrfs to a cap.  On the x axis going across, that's numbers of lrf.  You'll notice that at the start, it's direct 1 for 1, at what is supposed to be a 45 degree angle.  In other words, each lrf deals full damange.  But after some magic number (say 20), anything after that magic number has it's damage mitigated, so total damage grows slower.  This means that piling on more and more lrf after the magic number (say 20) will not have a directly proportional effect.

|         ______
|     ___
|   +
|  /
| /
|/
+---------------

Yeah I hear ya.  I never figured anything I suggested would ever make it into the game, but it is something that is needed nonetheless.  But actually, being a software engineer, and having a good guess as to what would be needed to code this up, the work would probably be minor.  But yeah I agree.

Perhaps your mitigation idea is the way to go - I grant you it is simpler.  However your mitigation will affect ANYTHING firing at the cap.  I wasn't trying to nerf any and all damage hitting caps, just lrf damage.  But I'd support any system, including yours.

I have a suggestion to make regarding that idea.  Do not make that the total damage dealt to the capital that is affected by said graph.  Use a scan to check how many other targets of the same type are targeting said object.  The more of your ships targeting it the less each does, to a point.  

Let's say that you use a piecewise function (with two square root functions in opposing directions to generate an S-curve).  The maximum damage is the listed DPS of the ship.  It will obviously never go above this (unless accounting for armor bonuses of course).  However, as more ships target the same object, that dealt damage decreases.  That means that eventually by doubling the number of ships you have you will not necessarily increase your DPS.  At low numbers such as 10-15, you will very nearly, but as you start to reach the 40 range, it really starts to kick in.

However, have this calculation on the receiving end rather than the dealing end, you end up with a virtual damage cap.  That is unrealistic.  FF has to realistically work.  Simply put, more ships firing at you means more damage.  However, by putting it on the dealing end, you will suffer no such thing as eventually, you will hit a point where increasing the ship count has no real influence on how much damage you deal as the decrease will only yield a reduction of .1% per ship.  You will however kill illuminator spams because at swarms of say, 100, each Illuminator would only be dealing about 50% of its listed DPS.  That means that it is the equivalent of 50 illuminators which is much more survivable (btw, these numbers are just for proof of concept).  That does however mean that side beams would become the real reason for getting Illuminators and focus firing would not occur simply because you can because it causes instant target vaporization.  Now, unless targeting a high profile target, FFing would be foolish.

Now, I will say this.  I don't like your idea Agent.  The amendment explained above would be for the sole purpose of improving the idea you suggested.  My point is, if that were to be implemented, it would completely destroy FF.  It would be worthless beyond a point.  However, my suggestion does not kill it, but rather reduces its power.  Once again, I don't like it, but I think that the above would be more beneficial.

I thought about this last night and today.  Like MindsEye says, why make it complicated?

What about a plain, simple DAMAGE CAP (dps) for capital ships?  This will have the same effect as my previous system or other systems proposed.  Anything under the capped dps to capships get's through unmitigated.  Anything over gets pinched.  There could be some exceptions made, like TEC boombases, vasari superweapons, missle barrage, mines, maybe celeio designate target or whatever.

The good things about this idea are: 1) It is SIMPLE and easily implemented by the devs.  If we ignore exceptions like TEC boombases, I could show you a single line of code that should do it, more or less.  2) Say balance changes in the future due to a patch (has that ever happened before?).  And let's say bomber spam or heavy cruiser spam rules.  No need for another solution - caps are still protected.  And if some magic balance is ever reached, and everyone builds nothing but balanced fleets, then this simple change will have no effect whatsoever.  A win all the way around.

There is no worry about early cap rushes bombing your homeworld - whatever early fleet you have will deal the same dps as now.  Just figure out how many illums you think is reasonable to kill a capship in a reasonable amount of time (20?), figure out that dps, and cap it at that.

// Sample line of code, (C style), ignoring any exceptions to dps like boombases, etc:

if (target_dps > MAX_DPS) target_dps = MAX_DPS ;

I enjoy reading your thoughts on this and other things, Volt_Cruelerz.

So why do you think this would "completely destroy" FF?  Focus fire is still good until you hit outrageous amounts of dps on a cap.  Say you got 100 illums and you FF a cap with this system.  Will you really be that upset if it takes you 10 seconds to destroy it instead of 1 second?  How many seconds to you think are reasonable?

We wouldn't be having this converstation if capships were light frigates.  But they aren't.

My two cents is that the accuracy restriction seems the most interesting and best of the bunch.  It's not DPS rate that we really care about, it's the massive horde of medium tech ships all shooting at a high-tech/high-level ship.

An optimal and elegant way to do this is that (as I see it) every attack hits one of a set of nodes on a ship.  (This is particularly noticeable on TEC capship shields, when they glow after Advent bomber runs.  I'm sure a modder could explain this fully.)  Shots that are aimed at a nodes recently shot have accuracy reduced.  Thus it scales from FF on small ships to FF on big ships, and even cares whether a ship is surrounded, or whether all attacks come from one side.

Less elegant way just counts how many ships have recently shot, and reduces it based on that number.

I like this because it doesn't tamper with Vasari missiles, or mess with Advent shield mitigation bonuses, or anything in that can of worms.  It does mess with accuracy modifying abilities (plural?), which isn't exactly bad, as right now they just confuse new players with false bonuses.  (My friend Z was very excited about hitting more thanks to his Akkan, then got very deflated when he found out that it mostly doesn't exist.)

Downside includes confusing current players (It seems pretty grokkable in the abstract - if you aim everything at something, some people will miss in the confusion, and with enough fire, even capships will start to be missed).  Other downside is that it requires more programming, and more balancing.

A flat DPS cap seems problematic in that it violates the gut feeling that more ships shooting should result in more damage (You can see my Wesnothian roots here).

Modifying Shield mitigation would turn a fairly arcane equation into a very arcane equation.  It would also modify balance of everything phase missile, etc.

Changing the counter roles of LF and LRFs and fighters is going to cause re-balancing headaches, along with being the most substantial patch thus far.  Rebalancing them again is tamer, and what will be done, but is highly problematic due to attack types and defense types being categories, and effectivity not being a set of variables for each unit.

If the anti-FF mechanisms get strong enough, there should be a command added to shoot if there is a clear shot, and fire at something else (that does not require turning, etc) if there would not be a clear shot (probably coded to hit something else once the currently chosen node is detected as filled).  "Pick optimum distribution" or something, but with a better name.  For new players they shouldn't need to micro some troops away - the troops should know.  For more advanced players, direct control is important.

Just my few cents.

@Agent: No damage cap please...

@Nil:Interesting idea...  I believe though that currently, weapons target the things that look like critical systems to the computer.  This is where your nulls are.  These are going to be weapons, engines, hangars and abilities.

Now, that said, it is an interesting concept.  However, There is another issue...  If you have something like say a cloud of 80 bombers sitting on top of each other, why on earth would they bother shooting at critical systems?  Just fire at the center of mass!  That much DPS focused at one spot is going to blow anything out of the water.

And since we aren't playing where shooting at critical systems damages said parts, I don't think there is any reason to bother really.

While your idea would appear to solve the problem, there is no way on earth you could possibly explain it to the community through lore, and it would not fit with the current setup of the game engine.

@Everyone: Maybe its just me, but I don't want to rock the boat that much.  I don't want to take the system we have had for three years and throw it out the window in favor of something else, or add something so dramatic that it fundamentally alters gameplay.  If I had my way, shield mitigation would be different.  Very different indeed, but I don't want it.  Sure, I believe the idea (explained below) would be beneficial, it is far too big of a change to the current system to work.  If my the book I'm writing gets turned into a video game, its using my mitigation system.  But Sins is not.  Sins has its own, and any deviation from it could be catastrophic.

Basically, this consists of some major changes to the current system.

1. All damage types are spread across multiple levels of mitigation.  In this way, 50 missiles will not increase your resistance to beams.
2. Mitgation adjustment rates are not based solely on damage input rates, but also on the target receiving the damage.  For instance, something with powerful computers but low shields would be able to increase its mitigation nearly instantly.
3. Mitigation caps are not standards.  Each damage type's mitigation level would have independent mitigation caps to reflect the techological capacity to block those types of weapons.
4. Mitigation types are linked to those that are related to them.  For instance, AM rounds are linked both to beams and to kinetic rounds or explosives (depending on fashion of dilvery). 
5. Mitigation does need to fully restart after leaving a battle and entering another.
6. Mitigation Memory exists to fill the above which is an overlying damage reduction based on the total amount of damage inflicted per type upon a ship.  In this way, the nanites which construct many things remember the way damage is inflicted for later.
7. No two ships inflict damage that is identical.
8. To fulfill the above, the shown mitigation level on the displayed graph (which would come up on the infocard) is the average of all incoming damage mitigation.
9. Focused fire causes ships to target a single spot on a ship, dealing immense damage to that one spot which punches through the shield cells.
10. Shield cells are individual cells on the shield that each have set amounts of damage they can take before breaking.  The computer will attempt to balance the shield cell amount by transfering energy from other shield cells to the targeted one.  This results in a total reduction of health of the shield over time, but allows extremely focussed fire to nearly ignore shields.

Now, if the above makes sense, you ought to understand that while it is just about as realistic a representation of the world as you could get, its not going to work in Sins.  The problem is that while LRF numbers scale easily, capital numbers do not.  Also, I don't think its too hard for targeting computers (which would be using gravitometers to aim anyways) to aim at the center of mass of an object.  Any lore explanations for the things you guys are suggesting are null and void.  You guys are saying that wouldn't be getting data back from your target.  Well, wild guess says you'll know when it goes boom, so keep shooting.  Also, if every ship around you is shooting at the same spot, where do you think you should shoot?

What we need is something that scales for capitals.  You could pick standard upgrades per level, but that means that you will have a breaking point where ships below it die and those above it live.  Sure, end-game, you'll be able to train up to level 4, but that won't be high enough or else capital rushes early game would be far too powerful.  The other suggested item was researchables.  They would allow new capitals to at least somewhat match those from earlier in the game while not making capitals OP early game.  The problem here is that you just made capitals more expensive.  For this reason, people may not buy them.