Give us Shields! Come on!

What about an anti shield, the inverse of shield tech. Doesn't erect a bubble to keep stuff out, but to keep them in, use these projections to trap units and render them ineffective.

That'd be utterly useless.
"Oh no my units are trapped!"
"Hey, what's that?"
*destroys shield generator*
"Well that was a waste of time..."

I'm not immune to personal prejudice either. While most of my post was just an accurate statement of fact, my comment about turtling is certainly that prejudice shining through. In my three years of working on the Sup Com franchise, shields generally equated to turtling tactics. Doesn't mean that's the only way it is, but for me that's my perception of them, so I generally don't like them. However, this is not something I have generally weighed in on in terms of design goals. I don't personally feel strongly either way, other than we have a lot of work to do, and this isn't currently part of it.

Garat, I'm mighty glad you came onto this thread, wbonx has been a bit harsh in their opinion.

Wbonx, Please try not to call us older forum goers (I lurked for a while) trolls, the ones you insulted are most certainly not. We all care about the game (including you) which is why we give our opinions as objectively as we can. Thanks mate!

On topic: I don't see why shields are so important to this game, wbonx. They do increase a players ability to turtle, and while they do add some strategical depth to the game, they don't fit into the play style of the game. The game is being made to be more aggressive rather than defensive, and shields are entirely defensive. I was one of the better players in mid Beta, and was able to beat most mid level players just fine without shields. In fact, pelters acted somewhat as shields because, at the time, they were so over powered we had Gentlemen's Rules against them. They destroyed all units that came into range almost unfailingly, allowing large areas to be safe from direct attacks. That made the game no fun, shields would do a similar effect (though affecting indirect attacks more than direct ones).

Edit: And I'm somewhat curious as to why you think the devs are lazy for not implementing shields, and you don't believe them when we show proof of them saying they don't think shields belong. (If this belongs in PM, mod/dev, you can remove it!)

uhm i dunno who "this guy" is but tatsu says hello.

He may just be demanding supcom2 shields which I hate. But I happen to be on the side of the argument that defends bubble type shields.

And to the argument of "everyone should be quiet because I decided the debate is over" even if this belief is founded on the fact there will be no such change prior 1.0 ...:
...when it comes to keeping us from debating this for the purposes of post-1.0, and with 1.0 approaching ever faster, that's a valid reason to be keeping a debate alive.

Ok, but in my seven years of supcom gameplay, especially for the latest FAF version which I found my argument upon entirely; they certainly haven't.

And I know that it isn't a 1.0 goal I've known that for over a year. Simply I will do everything in my power to make the opening that UBER left concerning their possibility in the future to run it's course to term.

But this isn't a debate, that's my main problem with this thread.

I'll admit, my "Everyone shut the **** up" moment there was a little over-reactionary but I still hold firm that this thread is little more than a waste of time to everyone involved in it, seeing as how it was clear from the 5th post that OP was going to remain as close-minded as a wall.

Einstein defined insanity as "Trying the same thing multiple times and expecting different results".

By that definition, everyone in this thread is insane because it's the same thing posted every time.

1 - OP: Put shields in
2 - User: Uber doesn't want to
3 - OP: Shut up troll
Repeat steps 1 - 3 x ∞

Iunno, maybe I'm just crazy for thinking that this thread is /v/ levels of stupid, and if I am well then excuuuuse my inane thought process.

But as far as this thread goes, it's pretty much just the Unit Cannon controversy again, only this time there's no controversy because we already know everything Uber's ever said about shields.

that's not insane, you don't have to excuse yourself, it's just pretentious concerning you knowing what's best for this debate and for our time and also wrong; or a mis-evaluation, if you prefer of the worth or our debate.

You believe it to be such but I believe arguments aiming to shut down debate are the least productive on the forum.

Here, I'll level with you, ok? : I haven't read much of this thread. I already have an opinion to express on the matter, but if there were pages of pointless hair-pulling and eye pocking, I don't know about it because I haven't read it.

And you know what? Had I read it I would still have told you this debate has a point...

...For me and the others who aren't being counter productive. Don't just blindly punish the lot with the innocent among them.

So, pet peeve. If you consider a thread a waste of time? Try not posting in it. Easy solution. Generally, the best way to annoy me is start telling people a discussion is over or stupid. It may be over for you. If others want to keep talking (and occasionally kick a dead horse), that's their prerogative. You don't have to participate in the kicking.

The horse is not dead, it can just see time from both ends as one; and as such is placed in a state of trance of awe at the beauty of infinity and all of space.


common misinterpretation, I forgive you.

Indeed

How would they manage that being trapped within the shield.

I certainly wouldn't hire you to design any future weaponry for me, honestly who would put the shield generator for a shield designed to contain military units inside the area of effect.

The shield would be projected from a source and onto the target area, designed to contain and imprison mobile units and I suppose structures as well, indefinitely.

Imagine trapping an enemy death ball inside a bubble generated by such a device and skirting your own units round the outside and into the now defenseless enemy base.
Or slapping one down around a group of point defense, and letting your army stream past unchallenged.
Base defense can involve a humorous matter of locking down approaching units, sending engineers out to build walls and turrets encircling the imprisoned units, then release the shield and watch hilarity ensue.

You're saying the shield would be generated by an outer structure?
That'd just be weird.
How would you build it? Just place a bunch of fabbers in front of an army and hope for the best?

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Deflector_shield?file=Shield_must_be_deactivated.png

Fixed

(I love Firefox's Inspector mode)

Maybe the metal planet future is not destructive weapon.(planet shield generator)

Looks like we are gonna have shields in the first official patch!

.... PA 1.1 ..... I'm looking forward!

Allright seems like the opposition has left. Lets figure out what good shields would do to the game, in an effort to persuade Uber to put shields in before 1.0. In my opinion the battlefield in Planetary Annihilation has a scale never seen before in any other RTS, thus you need some tools to have time to react to an attack.

My idea of a shield would be the traditional bubble generator, but it needs metal to build up its shield. The reason for that could be that magnetic forces hold up a thin layer of metal fragments / nanites in the air and when an incoming shot lands some of those fragments / nanites are destroyed and need to be rebuild.

A shield of that kind could not withhold an attack indefinitly. You could not hide under it forever since an incoming attack would put pressure on your economy. This would also mean that when you attack and didnt break the defenders shield you still succeeded in pulling his economy down a little. Spamming shields would be ill advised since the more shields you have the more metal you need them to actually function, and once you have no metal left they wont regenerate.

Shields should not overlap, when two shields are overlapping they simply merge together to one shield with a little more hp. Once one shield fails, both generators go offline.

• Give the Defending side more time to react to an incoming attack.
• Slowing down (without completly negating it, you can still drop units inside the shield) ComSniping
• Give you a chance to react to incoming artillery fire
  
• You now have a choice to either build more units but be easier to attack yourself, or build less units but be more protected
• Shields dont negate attacking now, they just slow it down where they are placed.
• You cant spam shields and hope to win. When you plaster your whole base with shields an attack can simply crash your economy wich in turn means your shields go down very fast.
• You can still harass your enemy since he wont be able to put every single one of his expansions under a shield.
  
• You now have to scout your enemies base in order to find some weakspot instead of just rightclicking with your deathblob selected(still viable, but less effective).

I can't think of a single situation where having a shield would make my game more enjoyable/deeper/more strategic and their function of letting the defender a longer time to react can be simulated by simply raising the hp of structures. If you want defense turrets to be more effective then explain to me why a structure that costs 200 metal should be able to destroy an army of 10 000 metal alone( I exaggerated I know ).

If you get commsniped a lot put 10-100 fighters patrolling over your commander and build anti nuke + umbrella.

I like this idea, but I don't think it's expandable for the very late game.

My suggestions:
#1 Kinda inspired by @nehekaras . Use shield emitters to shape shield and other buildings to provide other bonuses. You could build something to increase the shields' HP or recharge rate. These upgrades shouldn't be infinite though. The bonus they provide should get lower the more you build and they should increase the energy cost more and more.
For example, If a shield cost 100 energy/second and had 100 HP you could build build a building that would increase its HP to 150 and energy cost to 120. Another building like that could make it have 190 HP and cost 170 energy/second.

#2 Instead of shields have a resistance bonus. A building could give all units/structures (or just structures) a 30% resistance to damage. It would ofc. be expensive and mostly for the mid-late game. The main thing I like about this is that you'd still need walls and a good design like you do now and weak units would still be proportionally weak.

what about only 1 mobile unit, nothing more, that have small shield and it takes about 20-40% of bullet damage. This will work more like support unit than supcom's block-everything-when-i-have-energy shield. This will not broke game dynamics, will work similar to combat-enginier that repairs units.