What is Apex Shred?

Apex Shred is a new tech modifier designed to counter the Apex Barrier. When equipped, it reduces or nullifies the damage mitigation effects of an opponent’s Apex Barrier, making heavily defended ships more vulnerable. By providing a direct counter to the Apex Barrier, Apex Shred adds a tactical layer to combat. 

How does Apex Shred work?

While the strength of your Apex Barrier is represented as a flat number, your Apex Shred is represented as a percentage. Just as 10000 points of Apex Barrier effectively doubles your ship's health, 100% Apex Shred will slice the effect of the opposing barrier in half! It does not matter how strong the opposing Apex Barrier is, 1000 points, 10000, or even 50000. 100% Apex Shred will reduce its protection by half.

Should you push beyond 100% Apex Shred, you will be able to get more damage through the opposing barrier, but it will become more and more difficult as you go. 200% Apex Shred will reduce the strength of the enemy barrier to 1/3rd, 300% to 1/4th, and 400% to 1/5th. Further improvements to the Apex Shred stat will result in similar reductions, so if you somehow manage to get 900% Apex Shred, the opposing barrier will be weakened to 1/10th of its normal protection! You can never fully bypass an Apex Barrier in this manner, much like how you can never fully reduce incoming Isolytic Damage to 0 with Isolytic Defense alone, but it can be substantially weakened.