Ok, so the radiation damage is useless. Cuz it has no effect on shields. LOL.
Dude, i am tired of testing radiation weapons, u cant irradiate a ship with shields, ITS JUST IMPOSSIBLE. But if u think so… go ahead 
Think on it, how the radiation will spread to the hull if the ship has a shield??? .
My understanding of radiation is that it doesn’t effect either armor or shields. Or rather - impact absorbed by armor or shields prevents the radiation damage from even occuring. If the weapon damages the hull, only then does the additional radiation take effect.
This comes from reading old posts about Cliffski’s intentions when he was first proposing the new weapon type.
Facepalm i never said it did damage to shield i was just correcting you when you said it could do damage to armor
Radiation works when a ship takes hull damage.
So for example, a gun with 0 damage will NOT cause radiation.
Conversely, if a radiation weapon has penetration > the shield strength, because damage can pass the shield on some occasions, ships with shield can still receive rads damage.
Armor is the same. Hull damage can be taken before armor completely depletes so long as Armor Penetration > current armor strength.
nop. Even if the ship has full armour but no shields, it will take radiation damage. Almost works that way for me. And i repeat u, shielded ships cant take radiation damage even if u have more shield penetration. I never seen a radiation weapon that makes radiation damage with a shielded ship. I am trying to think on it and its annoying. Maybe we are playing different games -.-
123stw’s explanation seems to match what cliffski originally intended for the weapon, so I see it highly probable that it works this way.
But i don’t know under what conditions a weapon will cause hull damage to a shielded ship. This is new to me. I thought only armor suffered from critical hits, and i thought that was just to allow non-penetrating weapons to damage the armor, as in the case of fighters.
I doubt anyone here actually knows for sure how radiation REALLY works. I mean, unless you have access to the code or somethign.
First of all, you’re all assuming that the graphical response you see matches what is actually happening under the hood. I’ve seen ships LOOK like they’ve taken rad damage, even with shields up. I can post screenshots if you doubt it.
Secondly, ships CAN take hull damage even with armor still up (again, assuming the graphical response is accurate). It probably has something to do with damage exceeding armor resistance or something. So while it’s probably true that rad damage only procs when you take hull damage, it doesn’t follow that you can’t still take rad damage with armor and possibly even shields still up.
Edit: I guess that’s basically what STW said. My bad o_O
Lets see, we have 2 points.
The missile radiation weapons has physical damage and radiation damage. Physical works on shields, armour and hull while radiation damage makes dmg on armour and hull. A radiation weapon will never make radiation damage to a ship that has shields, even if u have better shield penetration, never. Of course, if the physical dmg is set to 0, radiation will not be activated.
I think its possible to damage the hull if you have more than one shield generator. The damage gets divided by four, and this damage is applied to random shield generators. If one of your shield generators are taken out, excess damage gets applied to the hull (or to armor, if there is any). The same thing happens when an armor module receives its full damage… excess damage goes to the hull, not to the other armor modules. This would allow you to inflict radiation damage to a ship that still has shields or armor, but has lost at least one defensive module. (This would be really unlikely if the ship has both shields AND armor.)
That’s the only instance I know of when a shielded ship can take hull damage. Are there any others?
Btw, radiation has no effect on armor unless you actually punch through to the hull:
Radiation damage, on the other hand, works against everything. If you have active armor and/or shield modules and take radiation damage, the radiation damage can take out those modules. But you only take radiation damage in the first place if the hull is hit.
Well, i never saw by now a ship taking rad damage with shields active. And i tested it playing against the ships of my mod “galactic concordium” which almost all the ships have 2 or 3 shield modules. Maybe in some weird circunstances the rad can get trhough shields but as i said, i never saw it.
I’ve been playing with rad effects for my own mod (Order rad beams whoo) and as far as I know:
if shield+armor are penetrated (in the event of a critical hit/lucky shot), rad damage is applied.
if armor or hull is hit for damage, rad damage is applied.
if shield is hit at all, no rad damage is applied.
rad damage only affects modules, weapons, hull and armor health. It does not affect shield strength or stability.
most of the time you see ships with both shields and rad damage, at some point the ship’s shields where destabilized by a disruptor bomb or similar weapon.
this is your armchair codemonkey, who has been monkeying with rad damage since the order came out. Peace out, yo.
ive never seen rad damage effect armor for my weapon