Shields?

Just... because... they... are... cool!!! (never watched Star Trek or anything? Only about every SciFi series/movie out there has shields.)

Why not indeed, lets do that too!

Only when upgraded (with the exception on experimentals due to their large hp pool and destructiveness)

Why not replace 1/3 of the hp pools with shields? Then I have shields, you don't have to worry because hp is still kinda hp. And it opens doors for anti-shield units / solar flare kinda things or events in the solar system!

I think you are confusing necessary with liking. As said before, like Star Trek, shields are just cool. They don't necessarely have to 'do' anything but be there. It may sounds ridiculous but that's how I seriously feel.

And besides, there is still the thing as diversity in RTS games. Only having guns and the same units is uncool. Why not knock it up a notch - BAM - in different kinda units with shields-shattering shells?

Yes I like build pretty buildings against AI and test my 10th heavy artillery behind hundreds of point defence guns within shields. This is how I find my game fun

How I see to overcome this is to send waves of units not only by front door but back door as well (SupCom didn't do this too well in my opinion) and take down energy generators and shield generators 'en masse'. Then BAM, here come the shells...

Summary of above post:

Awesome > reality

(also that shields give you a bit more room to interact with solar flares or special hardcounter units for stuff that uses more shields than health etc.)

pretty sure it's the other way around.

Indeed, but more text makes people happy. Then they think I've put enough thought in my sentence. So above is the summary, but my explanation makes it more thought-through

I don't agree with boolybooly, but you're wrong (about the second part of his quote)

One more vote for shields. And contrary to the common opinion here I think they should stack, maybe even increase HP/regen rate over time, like in TVg mod for FA. Defensive strategies are surely underpowered in RTS games compared to real world, where offense often planned with 3 times of defense strength to effectively overcome it. Turtling have the right to exist, and forcing players to aggressive (as well as any other specific) play style in large-scale RTS is not really a wise decision. It is able to degenerate strategic planning to tactical command issuing, and a APM-oriented tactical RTS games is a completely different, overfilled market with pretty biased audience.

Someone can say I'm biased towards SupCom, while this game is based on TA, and that's true. I played TA, and while it is a decent game without doubt, SupCom stands much closer to what I consider an ideal RTS. In SupCom, there are very few types of attack that cannot be effectively countered by appropriate defense (defense by offence not counting here), and not a single cheap one. Like SupCom, and unlike most RTS games, PA have a chance to incorporate an extremely rare kind of balance between different strategies, a chance that should not be easily spoiled.

I would prefer Bertha Walls and Dragon's Teeth than to shields. Shields are so 80/90's, so go with a wall that can withstand pratically any weapon shot at it. Also, consumes no energy.

+1

Why not umbrella shields that only defend against fire from above? It would help against long-range artillery (assuming a relatively high trajectory) and air raids, but not against regular attacks.

And does anyone remember the bertha walls from TA? It's been a long time since I played TA, but I remember them at least being present in the TAUCP pack as well as some other packs. They were walls which could catch some bertha shots before being destroyed.

Whatever solution is used, it should be simple. No complex shield systems, por favor.

So far, the only shield I can see working well is the tessellated one described here. It would be effective against imprecise, low-ROF artillery, but not protect much against direct-fire weapons.
Unless I missed some big flaw, it seems to be the solution to SupCom's bubble fortresses.

Basically, it's a bubble shield, but the bubble is divided in many segments. Each segment can be destroyed separately and is individually weak. It means that an artillery, who shoots slowly and imprecisely, will have very few chances to hit twice the same section, letting time to each section to regenerate before a new hit, potentially minutes later. On the other hand, direct-fire weapons would shoot through the same section, thus only the first shot would be stopped. Against, say, laser bots, the few sections on the ground would fall immediately, leaving the building open.
An artillery with fragmenting projectiles and a ROF high enough (or more than one unit) would be particularly effective against those shields, if such anti-shield artillery was needed.

But would it be technically feasible? Determining which portion of the bubble is hit can be done without eating processing power like crazy?

Shields are awesome !
With the shield I can launch a full scale attack without even bothering to left some units to protect my base, I know I have my shields and turrets to slow down the enemy in case of a counter attack. Plus it's great against artillery and air attacks when you forget to put enough AA turrets
But I don't know how the shield will be on a small scale planet, like in the trailer, I don't want the shield to expand out of the planet's atmosphere.

Why don't just let forget about general purpose energy shields and stick with pure kinetic shields? Just drop some metal into a real strong magnetic field and you will see what i mean. It will get stuck, unable to move at high speeds, kinetic energy being transformed into pure heat by eddy current effects.

If it is solid and fast, it won't pass through. Slow (= units) is just fine. This includes artillery shells, bombs and some stronger anti ground weapons. But excludes(!) any type of non-ballistic damage which is plasma guns, lasers, rockets (they are slow compared to shells!).

Shields become great at defending vs. artillery (mobile and stationary) but it won't have a negative impact on straight forward ground attacks. Also shields on unit serve a real purpose instead of just increasing the health, a shielded unit becomes a designated artillery killer but it wont gain any advantage in mech vs mech battle.

Just another side effect: You can't hide your own artillery under a kinetic barrier without breaking the shield which renders the old turtling&artillery strategy finally impossible. But you can still protect your production facilities against long range sniper attacks.

We all (at least most of us) have sad experience with stacks of shields in both Supreme Commanders. So I have idea about shields that allows us enjoy usage of shields, without making them exploitable.

Linked Shield Domes:
Let's say you build two shield generators close enough, so their shields are overlapping. When shields are overlapped they become linked, which means the area covered by shield becomes more seamless, they share Shield HP and total Shield HP is increased only by 10% of second shield generator's Shield HP.

In addition prioirty goes for stronger shields, it means, even if first shield generator had only 10000 Shield HP and second generator is more bigger and gives 100000 Shield HP, the bigger one will become "Primary" so other secondary shield generators will give bonus to total shield quota. In addition secondary shield generators will consume only 25% of required energy, but total regeneration and restoration time for shield network will be same as of Primary shield generator - it means shield network will just have increased regen rate.

Before you will start saying that building of immense shield network will provide it with immense amount of Shield HP (which is true) and will render simple artillery fire and small long range attack useless, it has enough vulnerabilities that can be used with some tactics:
* Units always can move under the shield and start taking out generators.
* When total Shield HP quota will be depleted - entire shield network will fall.
* When there will be not enough energy - entire shield network will fall.
* Deep Strike attacks into enemy territory to take out shield generators and power plants.
* Unit steamroll will just pass though shield no matter what defense line is used.
* Extremely intensive attacks will be able to deplete shields anyway.

http://planetaryannihilation.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Shields
There are some interesting ideas about shields at that page. Most of them allow to avoid shield spam exploit and protect territory. Linked Shield Domes idea is posted by me.

From my experience with shields (in supcom) all they do is delay the inevitable, if you aren't in a position to counter an opponents artillery, the brief interlude a shield offers isn't going to make a difference.

If you can't get a defense structure implemented with simple rules, don't bother at all. Red taping the problem only serves to highlight how broken it was to begin with.

The problem with supcom shields was manifold; from irregular theater scales, to poor counterbalance mechanics, to straight up bad math/balance. But the biggest problem was the most basic one of all. You don't win games with shields!

The fundamental issue with shield is, they give a hp buffer to everything. Even to stuff that is balanced with low hp in mind utterly breaking any balance in that part.

This leads to counter-shield units (artillery, bombers, etc.) to get buffed to deal with shields witch makes them absolutely deadly to anything that isn't shielded.

And thus you get late game supcom's issue with arty and air: Either its shielded and lives or its not shielded and dies instantly. No choice, no fun.

I put this point across in another thread but this one seems more popular..

Is it okay if we pick up from here then?

I would like to take this opportunity to reiterate my preference towards layer shields similar to 'Faster Than Light' on Steam.

here is a rough idea of what i would like to see for ground based shields in PA

Shields generate layers that take -1x energy to keep on and use -2x energy to recharge. Each layer blocks 1 projectile and recharge one at a time every 2 seconds as long as there is energy available.

Tier 1 shield generator
medium radius that could just cover an advanced factory
4 shield layers -250 upkeep -500 recharge
energy cost analysis: -1000 to keep on full, -500 to recharge from empty, -1250 to recharge from 3 layers

Tier 2 shield generator
wide radius one advanced plus one basic factory wide
6 layer shield -500 upkeep -1000 recharge
energy cost analysis: -3000 to keep on full, -1000 to recharge from empty, -3500 to recharge from 5 layers

Tier 2 mobile shield
small radius could just barely cover a basic factory
3 layer shield -100 upkeep -200 recharge
energy cost analysis: -300 to keep on full, -200 to recharge from empty, -400 to recharge from 2 layers



each has a very low health pool each hit deals 1 damage. this means multiple units or fast firing units can easily penetrate shield defenses in a short time. single slow firing units will however be unable to penetrate even the 3 layer mobile shield no matter how long they try (as long as the shield has energy).

in function this works mechanically as a point defense system that hold charges.

with this type of hybrid point defense shielding you could even buff artillery making them cheaper or giving them long more epic ranges. it would also give a more pronounced niche to tier 1 bots due to their fast fire rate giving them very powerful shield busting power.



just putting it into the conversation


(copied from closed shield thread)

good with me

You know, I'm always down for a good conversation. It just needs to stay that way.

But, I feel like this needs to be said again just so we're on the same page: we're not doing shields for the foreseeable future. I know that's kind of a bummer to some of you, but that's what's up on our stance.

It's good to have this from you as well, has more weight then when I try to explain it.

That said, there are some good concepts being thrown around here and there, so the thread might be something useful to look back at in the far future.