Plasma shielding

So umm here's the thing... Radar and planes both can spot these things before they are built or to much of a threat... and unless you turtle hard you should have an army or some bombers to take these out before they become too deadly not only that but if you turtle hard then you should have some arty and radar mix for defense it stops others from well artying you quite well... but its always more effective to expand and have an army not only does it mean you can raid the other person well but you won't get wiped out or lose because of one nuke aswell as you aren't just giving the rest of the planets metal to your opponent xD

What we are forgetting is that if there are shields in the game say to defend against artillery, they will be used to defend artillery. Shields will just make turtling harder to over come. In the end the primary effect would be longer more drawn out games.

Well sort of.. really only if you are only using arty to over come defenses sure... but when you have 9/10 metal points under your control it really isn't hard to overwhelm nuke defense or go orbital and snipe or even make huge armies and overwhelm defenses...

In my opinion shields just have no good reason to be in this game all they are is another form of HP layered on top of the normal hp that takes energy to run and has some regen capability everyone seems to agree and understand why bubble shields would break the game and in the case of personal shields even for buildings if there is a balance problem then just add more hp to the unit/building if there is not a balance problem then asking for shields is just someone who wants to destabilize part of the game to give that sector of a battle to be automatically in their favor...

but you're wrong.

Shields and armor add an extra element to the game - that of damage mitigation. It means you can have weapons like chainguns and rockets and so on that do high damage to targets with light armour, and low damage to targets with high armour, without a "good vs x type" rock paper scissors.

In essence, you can make a unit that does a high amount of damage against armoured targets (like buildings) but very weak damage against armoured targets (like units).

So shielding adds another layer again, presumably with energy weapons vs non-energy weapons.




(edit - I'm sorry. Firefox on android phones does not agree with this forum at all)

You guys are in the wrong topic. This is focusing ONLY on shields for buildings not units. Units would have to be more complex or at least take a lot more thought on how it balances with game play since there a key factor to the game.

How ever, this could have a positive effect onto the game. See the bold updated for more information that's newer. if you want to talk about units go ahead, but I needed to say the original topic was buildings not units.

ok so shields for building then so the question is why do you need them? are units,nukes,arty,tac missiles or bombers doing to much dmg to your buildings that they don't last long enough to them for you to repair or build walls or counter arty? if so then its about the balance of dmg of certain thing vs the health of certain building if the health of a building is to low then increase it don't add in a new health system(shields) to try to fix it instead give it more health and that way you don't harm your energy supply while wanting your buildings to be abit tougher...

however this should not be an upgrade or anything it is completely around balancing also walls are amazing they are made of pure hp build them for any direct fire protection and put long range arty or missiles behind it and make sure to have radar and you are fine... you will stop any arty base they try to set up... so there is really no need for shields... at all... if you really want it mod it but they would just add another hp system onto the core game and make balancing harder... but all in all that's all shields are is abit more hp that cost constant energy that also can regen a bit... that's it that's all and there is no reason to add them into the game when you can have balance hp instead also really I have yet to be in a game where my main base ever goes down to arty and I've played alot of games... though that could be because I expand when i can make sure to build an army and scout constantly and even if I do have to turtle abit I get a nuke, push out with my army when I can and ya...

there just isn't a need for shields... I'm sorry I know they look cool and people love them in fps's and supreme commander... but they just have no use here and would only make the game more complex and abit more annoying...

Your shield grid was wrong if your shields didn't hold. Have secondaries and mobile generators assisting the heavy shields. If you get it right you should be able to hold out 2 rapid fires but it is tricky

Please just implement C-RAMS for Arty and catapults nothing else, this would only protect against Arty / missiles and it is still a turrent so if you have 100 cannons vs 1 C-RAM it would not be able to shoot everything fast enough. And it wouldn't be a shield in the same sense
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter_Rocket,_Artillery,_and_Mortar

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS

plus they look ******* awesome.

I don't see why artillery should have the range to fire from base (Spawn Point) to another?

Why do we need a 'counter' at all? Its only on the small maps that people building artillery on their spawn points is a problem.

Hah! For sure it was. And like zoliru suggested, shielding of that magnitude is probably too much.

regenerative health and repair commands are quite different. The whole idea behind regenerative armor/health/shields whatever is that so you don't have to issue repair commands.

but it must be possible to play on small maps as well.

You can, but don't expect people to use the same gameplay on a smaller map then a larger one.

Just like in supcom, each map size will have a different meta.

So which one will we be balancing the game for?

I understand what you are saying but the C-Ram example i gave will be more cost effective on a small planet than a big one.
Adding the unit will help small planet fighting and almost have no effect on big planet fighting(not entirely true but smaller impact).

You need to give the tools for every size (to a degree)

Small planet artillery solutions already exist. It's called "attack with anything. Just... anything".

There is a very significant difference between costly repair and free repair. Self regen is almost always free, while targeted repair usually costs a bit.

yes self regen is always free... hmmm I tend to remember that sheilds take up power and power takes metal and power to build sooo in that way it is not free

Not only that but shields are usually always on which is different to the repair when needed which happens when you get fabbers to repair stuff after all they don't repair a full health building in anticipation of it getting attacked... not only that but in a fight unless you have a mechanic where shields take more/less dmg from certain sources and unless shield have a regen on them while they take dmg then shields act exactly the same way the current health system works until its destroyed however it does change when you have the building (or unit) live because then it regens its shields however the shields are still using energy

I'd much rather use fabbers to repair everything I had live at the cost of on time energy then to have a constant power drain just for a different type of health system, after all when area commands come in it will be as simple as doing an area repair (I hope) and hopefully it only repairs and does not assist factories and stuff automatically

Etherway I've yet to see a good reason in which any type of shielding needs to be put into this game, If a unit or building as to low heath for what it does and is getting one shoted by an ant the give it more health not some new fancy shielding... If anyone can come up with a situation where shields are needed then I'm all ears, but this is not like Sup Com here the arty has a good range cap its no longer i built an heavy arty in my base and now i can destroy your base with ease unless you have bubble shields...

Make the Holkins and Catapults drain much more energy than they currently use when they fire so a artillery spammer would be unable to spam as many tanks as the non artillery spammer making artillery a more risky investement and require more dedication/planning to the player strategy.

... are you just playing on a tiny map or are they just slowy creeping towards the other you or do you just never scout to see the heavy arty and missle bases before they are done... Catapults and holkins have never made it far enough to hit my main base except on a scale one planet that was just made for fun...

I mean bombers take out both quite well so do counter missiles and arty and so do nukes and orbital as well as a decent army which you should have if the other person is just turtle creeping you xD

It depends on the amount of players as well as scale, with 10 players on Scale 4 most starting positions allows a perimiter Holkins to fire into the perimiter defence of the enemy. I don't think making heavy bombardment buildings more energy dependent is that unreasonable, this thread is about shield suggestions to counter a supposed artillery/long range bombardment edge and in my opinion I think sields would just render the game another supcom experince and suggest an increased energy cost instead.

Holkins and even several catapults are unable to withstand tank swarms in any case and I'm not calling for a artillery nerf

^^ fair enough then and of course there is a lot of balancing (power use included) and more units to come in the future but ya as i see it there is no need for shields