I'm working on a mod where nearly all ships have some type of torpedo-based physical damage in addition to energy weapons.  The torpedoes are physical damage and generally inflict more damage than the energy weapons.

I'm hoping there is a way to buffer the damage a ship takes from these torpedoes by ~50% while they still have intact shields.  I've explored the ability route and think that something similar to Energy Absorption would work, but I'm not sure exactly what constraints I can use to make sure the ability only takes affect while shields are operational.  If there's a way to specify that a passive ability is used only as long as any ship has around 5% or more of it's shields remaining, then all my problems would be solved.  Unfortunately, I haven't found anything yet that seems like it could do that. 

Alternatively, is there somewhere in the basic constants for the game where I can adjust how much of an effect physical damage has on shields?  I'm betting that's hardcoded in, but it would be a fantastically elegant solution if someone knows how that could be changed.

Any ideas are welcome!

Edit:  Further investigation led me to the Finish Condition "Shield Failure".  This could save the day for my idea, but thoughts are still welcome.