I was choosing shields while designing a ship, and realized I don't quite get exactly how Critical hits work.

Here's what I seem to know so far from reading around:

• Unless otherwise stated, Critical hit chance is 0%

• Certain weapon modules have innate Critical hit chance, listed in their description

• Some Support modules & Hero abilities can also increase Critical hit chance, potentially boosting it all the way to 100%, meaning every hit is a critical

• Critical hits ignore all defenses such as shields or hull plating when doing damage

• Critical hits do not innately deal any more damage than regular hits, unless you are using a specific Battle card which increases it

• There is another Battle card which reduces the Critical hit chance to 0 for both sides

Now, assuming all that info is correct, here is where I am confused. The "Improved Uniform Shielding" module (Hyperium shield module) says it reduces "Critical hit damage inflicted by -50%" Am I reading this correctly, that it simply cuts the damage in half of any critical hit which hits you? If that's the case, then unless your shields / hull plating was blocking more than half of the damage, incoming Critical hits will be doing LESS damage than "regular" hits, which seems odd. Especially if the opponent is working with 100% Critical hit chance.
Additionally, does this -50% Critical hit damage bonus stack? Would 2 of these modules negate Critical hit damage entirely? If facing an opponent with 100% Critical hit chance, would they simply do 0 damage to me?

A thought I just had was this: does that -50% Critical hit damage bonus apply to ONLY hits on the Shield, or also to Hull Plating / regular health?

If I had to make a guess, the basic crit does 50% more damage than a regular hit. -50% would bring it back in line with regular hits (100% dmg instead of 150% dmg).  Perhaps also they put a hard minimum of 100% dmg from a crit and stacking only works with the Get Lucky or anything else that might increase critical hit damage.

Just speculation of course.

Yes, it will just halve any critical hits.

No, critical hits do not have a base critical damage modifier. The only thing in the game that adds one is the Get Lucky tactic with 70% critical hit damage. Critical hits bypass all defenses.

Do they stack, and if so how?

Dragar wrote:

Do they stack, and if so how?

On the subreddit, someone is saying that they do in fact stack additively, meaning having 2 of these shields will cause all critical hits on your ship to do 0 damage.  Seems very wonky :P

Wow, thanks for sharing that great resource!  Will definitely be bookmarking that.

Hmm the wording in that post could also mean the "-50% Critical hit damage" effect only blocks the additional damage that would have happened due to a critical hit.  I.E., having two of those modules just causes critical hits to calculate defenses normally, and having one of those modules just mean that critical hits ignore half of your defenses instead of all of them.  I hadn't considered that method, and it does seem to make a lot more sense and be more balanced.  

Does anyone have any experience with fights between a 100% crit chance fleet and a fleet using lots of these "-50% Critical hit damage" modules to confirm whether it actually blocks all damage?

You can trust Aitarus on this one:

1. Critical hits ignore defenses, but otherwise do not deal additional damage, unless you use Get Lucky.

2. Thus, the -50% reduction from Uniform Shielding applies to the weapon's base damage.

3. THere is no limit set in the files, nor any kind of diminishing return, so 2 modules will make you immune to critical hits.

Yes, it is "very wonky."

Heh, I suppose it would definitely not be the first strange gameplay mechanic of an Endless game!  

I'm curious, in multiplayer has anyone experimented using a "Crit-immune" fleet to combat those "100% Critical Hit Chance" fleets I hear are so popular?  Does it turn into it's own kind of rock-paper-scissors where 100% Crit fleet beats normal fleet, Crit-immune fleet beats 100% Crit fleet, and Regular Shields with no Crit fleet beats Crit-immune fleet?