Shields?

Walls no having ceilings just means that walls only work against certain attack vectors, but nothing stops you from constructing a shield with the same properties.

And no, boom bots can't get past wall gaps. Not if you are simply not leaving any. Reduce the default spacing in the unit spec, and your walls become free of gaps.

I would count that as an advantage.
Walls are the better shields. Walls forces you to think out of the box. they prevent tank masses to get past fortifications, but they are open to other attacks. An shield forces you to ultimately go through it, there is no way "around" it.

ahh ok.... I get it! by "counters" you mean : "makes you chip in ten more units of that type". ok!

uhhh.... so what?

Has anyone thought of a 'hard shield' ? As in: yes it stops all damage, but it is completely opaque to damage from either side, as in: you can't shoot from the outside to the inside, but you cannot shoot from the inside to the outside either. Similar to walls perhaps, but easier to direct/project.

Although I guess walls mostly fulfill this function.

I don't think it'd hurt to have a variety of shield-busting effects. If memory serves the supcom games came with a shield disrupter missile, which disabled shields for quite a while. I personally liked the shrinking shields, or shields that pass more and more when they're closer to failure.

For non-hard shields you supposedly can also just drive inside and then blast away unimpeded.

For me in the end it's mostly about having multiple avenues to annihilation. Perhaps I'm being nostalgic, but I really enjoyed building a squad of transport copters (in Total Annihilation), hang various builders and jammers underneath it, and try build up a big bertha at a silly spot. Or just construct forward outposts as per supcom, with shields and some artillery/anti-air. They fell quite fast but you could macro their construction largely. More buildings perhaps, and less RTS-type small unit swarms, although clearly that'd still be viable too.

I think he meant "sniping" as in actualy sniping individual assets with a small number of units - with no steamrolling intended.

That's what the trivial concept of regenerative shields does imply. You always need a critical mass to cause any harm at all, and therefor catering even more towards to the death ball issue.

Not so much for inverse shields, which allow snipes, but build up resistance as soon as someone tries to steamroll you.

You wish. That's not how PA walls work, the are completely opaque to allied projectiles and completely absorb any enemy projectiles. Actually about all units in PA completely ignore friendly fire.

They are just as broken as the shields in SupCom, maybe except for the lack of automatic self regeneration. They have nothing in common with the dragon teeth from TA.

I like that people are actualy behaving and being civil and allowing for the idea of having shields in the game. But i still remind the shitstorm of people saying "NO" to shields.

I still think there are other priorities like custom formations and a tutorial for new players, but lets indulge the idea.

Whats the problem shields are meant to solve? arty rush? pelters? holkins? so far i have yet to see anything that shields could bring to the table that would improve gameplay rather than increasing turtling.

With that said it could be an interesting idea if it was a shield unit that you could bring with your tier 1 and certain projectiles could pass the shields while others could not. Giving us a specialised buff unit.

So i dunno i just wouldnt want another turtling option. What i would enjoy is something to break the Spam versus Spam mentality a bit.

• Formations (actually just an extension of the flocking algorithm)
  
• Kiting (actually just an extension of the flocking algorithm)
• Manipulation of command queues (edit, slice, merge)
• Auto-continue after area attack and patrol commands when no valid targets are found
• Manipulation of unit settings (such as switching from Hold Fire to Fire at Will) inside command queues
  
• Rough edges on radar and vision (such automatically remembering location of icons and radar blips for locations you have seen in the past)
• Better area and formation build support
  
• So much is missing on the API for modding...

Let's see...

Artillery isn't so much of a problem in PA, it's mostly considered not worth the cost. So shields don't really have that anti-artillery role they had e.g. in SupCom 2. Remember, in SupCom 2 there were even shields solely directed against artillery fire.

But we do have a problem of sniping vs. steamrolling, where having a critical mass is the most efficient or sometimes even only feasible way of breaking defenses.

Classic shields, as in "regenerating, unconditional damage sponges" are not going to solve that. On the contrary, they are only making it worse as they are introducing a cut off on the lower range where smaller unit groups are now no longer capable of dealing any damage at all.

At the same time, they are also entirely futile against your average steam roll attack, they are only shifting the balance slightly more towards the fortified position.

And then there is also the issue of layered shields which allow the defender to shift the base line for successful attacks even higher, and yet still with the limitation that an army which is sufficient to even scratch the shield will inevitably also smash the entire base hidden behind the shield.


So it's rather clear that the classic shield concept is not going to solve any of the problems we already have right now, it's going to amplify them.

All it would probably cause on the positive side is a shift towards the use of Boombots to bypass the shields. Which, however, is quite easy to stop with the use of walls and T1 laser towers.



If you want shields, then it is not to protect yourself against peashooters. You want to be able to defend yourself against massive attacks, in order to reduce the gains an attacker can get from sending a massive army, rather than properly maneuvering with small squads.

To prolong the battle in later stages, to delay the almost instant mutual elimination of two deathballs.

All that, while not having to much impact on smaller encounters.


So whatever shields do, their mechanic must not be applicable until there is a significant threat level. Foremost, it must not affect the threat level smaller platoons present.

I agree with all of that.

Especially this

Essentialy what your saying is something to break the blob versus blob warfare where only numbers count and theres very little thinking involved in what kind of composition to go for.

Again i dont want to sound like a TA fanboy, but TA had units like janus, levelers, AA that shot ground, kbot arty such as thuds and hammers, or even ranged Kbot units like rockos. Unit and role variety was there and fun, and i dont think shields would be enough, but it would be a good start.

I know we have air and tier2 to break things up from tier 1 spam versus tier 1 spam but its not enough.

sounds to me like adding just more of the same ...
you have a fair number of long range units and structures already
aa that was able to shoot at ground was in alpha but was removed as it simply was to powerfull and made other units redundant ... i can remember well how people just spammed stingers and ants/bolos were just metalwaste it turned even air into a total joke ...
still you have dox ( though being bad at AA) and ancors being able to attack multiple plains as well as narwals and tacmissileunits ...

i feel that TA and SupCom indeed spoiled its playerbase with that many units ..
a unitpool needs to be well structured you can´t just throw unittypes in just cause ..
and i feel while PA lacks some critical units it is still the most well stuctured of the 3 imho ..

yeah but that's not what they were doing... they weren't "throwing in units nilly-willy" there was careful manuvering to adding the units and the base for unit interaction was already well thought out and experimented with. trust me it didn't happen over a fortnight.

they work. And they do for a reason. Let's not suppose that because we're having trouble implementing units to PA in a balanced senario that this difficulty applies by default and by extension to every other game.

i still stick to my opinion that both TA and supcom have a number of unnessery units were just buffing other units
would have done more than putting in new units ...
just an example instead of the loyalist they could have given emp to firebeatles, or should have buffed the wagner or leave it for the brick and give that an arcing fire instead ...
i am simply not a fan of the powergap thing SupCom has going for it ... among other things ...

Ok I see what's going on now.

What you just suggested is severly imba but you're under the impression that it's not.

it takes deep knowledge and understanding of balance to be able to propose balance suggestions.

As it stands what you said is a terrible example of a possible unit redundancy in supcom.

brick and loyalist are a very well balanced equation. You see as many of one be used as the other by the top players in FAF today.

Giving arc-ed fire plus emp to the brick would just have made it insanely OP regardless of the arc-ed fire. It's already a really good unit. One of the best t3, I'm not sure you realize this.

as for the loyalist it's a redonculously good unit as well. wimpy (in a sense) at 1 on 1 combat but jam-packed with extra abilities. I'm not sure if you knew this but it's the one unit in the game capable of sending back tactical missiles to their sender.

Great strategical asset to place and move around the map.

you mentioned giving the emp to firebeetle but that on the other hand sounds like a wasted opportunity that would have never gotten to show it's worth. You do know the firebeetle is a suicide unit with as much mass cost as the loyalist, a unit in the tier above and more DPS than what the loyalist has for hitpoints.

These stats (I hope you realize) necessarily turn it into something you only start pouring your economy into with the intention of a hard-hitting mission, possibly (if not to say almost exclusively) : killing the commander.

as such blasting an emp in the face of a commander you're one-second sniping is pretty much equivalent to farting in the direction of someone you're also emptying a tommy gun on.

does that make some sense?

it's ridiculous and considering this is also the one unit with that capacity, throwing it over to the firebeetle is something so wasteful that I can't think of any other way to make the ability more wasted.


look you just picked the worst possible example, lemme help you out: emissary and salvation.

wagner is indeed a bit UP but it's a rule that at t2 every race gets at least one water capable tank (either submersible or hover) and one that's not. the one that's not is cheaper so as to allow reasonable choice. "oh you felt like just paying less and dominating land? well counterpart is you opponent went around through the water to harass"

Really tempted to use my good ol' "Indy punches a Nazi out the window of a blimp and says something hilarious" gif here. But people will get mad at how anti-discussion it is.

emp to the firebeatle not brick ...
the brick makes the wagner totaly redundant as except for the firearc they are working the same with the brick simply outperforming it ...
on water heavy maps you may just go hard naval harrass anyway as cybran navy is best for spamming

yea it may keep that ... or make a pure mobile tacmisille defence unit to be used along with your army ...
because god knows people spamming loyalists instead of mixing units ...

so yea reduce its cost maybe its dps aswell but make it a more viable/versatile unit .. to me it is THE most fununit
and yet you see them sooo rarely used at all for .. well anything
heck even booms get used more than it ..

and yet PA shows so many ways how to kill a commander still being viable throughout the game
also did i mention that you can use booms for more than just commsniping?

coms are emp invulnerable even then beetles are used for lowlevelcomms, but what about any other unit say percies experimentals etc. ... you may aswell ballance them to be usefull against those ...
again look at booms they get used against tanks ... even though you might actualy build tanks instead ..
but they work ... they also work on busting walls or even quickly busting high value structures in rare occasions ... and unlike mantis, rhinos, inties and other lowtier units in supcom they are still viable in PA throught out a match ...

Well i think we can agree that PA needs a few more specialised units no? even if just one or two to spice the current blob war.

Or just make tier 2 better or easy to get on a supportish role to tier 1.

@MrTBSC the firebeetles are used quite a bit. that's why their cost was boosted up. with their DPS they're a phenomenally good unit. I've seen it being used for things other than sniping coms such as sniping exps and SMDs. they are more used by the pros simply because the pros have waken up to the fact that : "hey they're there" and "hey, they're awesome!"

making loyalist simply tac def would have removed an otherwise interesting mechanic from the game entirely. that would have been a shame.

As i said to counter this, they are quite weak as t3 goes.

but all around people consider them a good bang for the buck which is why you see them alot.

I'd like to highlight that pitching them against the brick, the brick still comes out my favorite unit.

why? drop 5-6 vs a commander and you've got a guaranteed kill.

9000 hp to their name a range that surpases by far the com's default range and 375dps

@exterminans

How about some kind of movable 'virtual' wall-deployer that becomes immobilized and projects a section of wall?

What about a shield generator like in Return of the Jedi? A structure that generates a shield around a selectable area but is not contained within the shield itself? So the shield generator could still be attacked. The edge of the shield would have a minimum distance from the generator so you couldn't cover the generator in the shield bubble, without overlapping shields, that is.

Also...... Let's say you can select the size of the shield bubble but the larger you make it the weaker it gets? So if you select the minimum size circle, say around a single structure, those attacks do 0 damage. If you select a large bubble, the maximum size, around the whole base, those attacks do 90% damage. The percent of damage depends on how stretched out the shield is.

I added a very crude picture.

i have a different idea for shields .. so instead of blocking shots entirely they simply reduce the damage units inside the shields get ... so instead of a unit geting 10 damage it gets 5 or 7 ... this would still allow to attack units like aa or fabbers or the shieldgen itself but they are individualy tougher to kill ...

That's what I just suggested! Great minds think alike. Small minds seldom differ...