How to add shields in PA

can we get back to the proposed FAF shield, instead of fouquet's shield idea?

you know the one that's actually underpowered?

and yet a single dox can penetrate a tier 2 shield in 3 hits (dox has 2 projectiles) due to its fast fire rate.

even stacked sprinkling 5-6 doxs or having more than 12 units can break through any amount of stacked shield.

I hope PA never have shields......

What is game-breaking death-ball tactics?
The dominate strategy in the game right now is T1 death-balls, and we don't have shields yet and may not ever get them. I don't understand the problem with zerging as a viable tactic against a static position.

I am pro-shield, but at the current state of the game we don't really need them. Their primary purpose is to defend against artillery and bombers, but artillery has such short ranges in this game and bombers are not very useful outside of the 5 minute mark. T1 tanks are fast enough to neutralize artillery quickly and spinners eat up bombers.

I would expect the implementation of shields would also pair with rapid fire long range artillery. I wouldn't want one without the other.

you are right having the shields does go hand in hand a buff to air and artillery. (in relation to current balance)

I like this idea a lot... We already have shields in game that cost mass.... WALLS

Having some that cost energy instead would be nice... Each Directional shield has 5 layers in it's "Primary direction" which is the direction you are wanting to protect the most.

And all other directions get one shield layer...

each shield layer can take one shot... any shot regardless of damage breaks a shield layer.. then after generator is exposed shoot it and it is gone... very weak generator as well.

This would provide "Shield....shields" a niche specific for defending against high damage low fire-rate units..
While maintaining the niche of Shield Walls as a damage sponge...

I like the layered shields that break instantly but regen at a decent pace. They would be a defense against high burst damage weapons while very weak vs even a single Dox. There are details to work out, such as how to handle overlapping and stacking etc... but even if we permitted bubbles this setup makes them ideal for protecting against a lone artillery cannon or laser sat while not offering much potential to become a stalemate generator. I still have concerns though.

And this leads into my concern... The stalemate generator. If the shield is powerful enough to be effective then it's powerful enough to enhance defensive options stronger than they are now. When defense is flatly stronger than offence you end up with two factions locked in stalemate and that's really not much fun.

Play a little galactic war, or start an interplanetary 1vs1 with two non-pushable planets and matched resources. It sucks when you don't have the tools you need to assault a position, and hours of repetition trying to break onto a patrolled planet without nukes is no fun.

Imagine that same obnoxious entrenchment standoff but add that every building he owns is now shielded? Even with directional shields if an enemy owns a planet he can build a clusters of directional shields filled with long range defenses in the middle... If breaching an interplanetary assault without game enders wasn't hard enough it's nearly impossible with shields added.

Wherever an unbreachable stalemate exists in the game you have to either add a unit to break the stalemate OR you have to remove what was causing the stalemate. If adding shields creates new stalemates then we either have to create new anti-shield units, or we have to remove the shields.




All that said, there are legitimate combat roles that a shield could fulfill, but they are hardly the only answer to any of those roles.

• D-Day assaults are difficult because the teleporter is too frail... A shield could help, but why not just add more health to the teleporter? Or have a T2 "Beach Head" Teleporter with improved health and some built in basic defenses.

• Commanders are too vulnerable... Why not add a new "Command Bunker" that the commander can hide inside for insane health, but he can't shoot out. Commander's would gain nuke resisting super durability without unbalancing any other game element. Commander Stealth has some potential for this as well.

• Long Range artillery is hard to defend against... T3 artillery was a bitch in SupCom, but we don't even have it in PA. The Holkin's is not nearly as scary... even if it were we could just have a dedicated Point Defense that shoots down artillery shells, or an existing structure like the Flak or the Umbrella could gain the ability to target artillery shells in flight. Yet another option is a new "Fire Finder" radar (or an enhancement to existing radar) that detects incoming shells and allows any AA to target them? It works in real life, why not in game? In real life not only does it detect the shell and target it for weapons, it also back traces the flight path and shows where the shot came from for a counter battery fire. Any of these completely replace the need for a shield in this role.

• Laser Satellites can insta-sniper commanders and buildings... Why not put a pre-fire delay on the laser satellite so that it can't fire immediately after entering orbit? A shield is not the answer here.

• Forward Firebases could use more protection... We have walls and units for this and they work well. While a shield would work well for firebases adding those shields to the game creates ample opportunities for some terrible stalemate situations when they are broadly applied at the planetary scale.

• "My attention is spread too thin and I need more time to react on defense"... base defenses, units on area patrol orders and radar all give you more time to react. I would like it if interplanetary travel were slower... maybe not as slow as it used to be, but slower than it is now. It would be nice if we had some "enemy invasion launched" alerts that detect large scale astraeus movements, but honestly planetary defense is already massively weighted in the defender's favor. Just setup some infinite production bomber and Avenger patrols around your planet. Anything that lands or orbits will die as soon as it arrives. You'll leave your enemy no choice but to nuke or smash your planet.

I'll agree that shields could fill all of these roles at once, and that's tempting, but it's just as important to acknowledge that a shield is not needed to fill ANY of these roles and everyone of them can be addressed individually without creating any of the potential problems that come with shields.

I'm going to be psychic for a moment and predict the counterargument... ... "But correctly implemented shields won't be imbalanced enough to create a stalemate". We have stalemates right now because under certain conditions (planetary assault without superweapons) the defender has too many advantages. How would a structure that "significantly enhances defense" not make this situation worse? Unless it's so weak that it does not "significantly enhance defense"... then why the hell do you want it?

Now, if the future balance of the game is changed until defense is untenable then I would feel a flat baseline enhancement like shields might be more appropriate, but that's not at all the case right now. We already have interplanetary stalemates today, and adding shields threatens to make them a lot worse.

Why the hate on shields? A lot of guys when they hear shields they think of enormous bubbles protecting your entire base. PA is all about expansion, and shields would be expensive, covering your entire base would set you back so much that your opponent would steamroll you anyway.
A game about technologicly advanced robots would be even more awesome with pure energy defence systems. Stuff I came up with regarding shields.

Build small towers with modest amount of space between, then connect them and a shieldwall appears. It would make fast and relative cheap defence at the cost of a lot of energy, even more when it gets shot at. Get shot too much and your entire base powerstalls.

Another one would be a shield generator. It stores power over time, and when its done you can click a building or unit and have them in a shield buble (just large enough to cover a t2 fact) for a limited amount of time. Energy upkeep and build cost would be high and duration of the shield very limited (also depending on the amount of damage received).

PS: Shields work both ways, you can't shoot through your own shields, maybe over the shield wall, but not the bubble.

Shields are a frequently requested feature because they greatly simplify defenses by providing a universal durability-enhancing option which scales. A lot of players like the idea of covering their base with shields to stop the enemy from damaging it, or covering an army with shields so it can roflstomp small enemy forces with zero losses.

I, and many other people, are opposed to shields which protect other units precisely because they are absolute, universal durability enhancers which scale arbitrarily. Investing more resources allows you to create an arbitrarily tough fortified position. And with enough investment it actually becomes highly efficient to spend exorbitant amounts of resources to prevent all casualties instead of actually making troops.

The only way to defeat many stacked shields is to bring enough firepower to bear to crack the shields. If you haven't got enough oomph to break the shields then your units will die for free and inflict zero damage. This possibility means you have no choice but to wait until you have overwhelming force. The result is that both sides play very passively, and will only attack when they know they have overwhelming force. In order to have a dynamic strategy game, we want constant interaction between armies, not sitting and waiting for most of the game until you have enough forces to just crush the enemy in one attack.

I think that positioning on the map and the distribution of destructible units and structures allows for much more strategic depth than using shielded strongpoints. Destructible units, long range weapons, and high lethality creates an environment where information and defense in depth is vastly more important than just creating an unbreachable defensive line. The Maginot Line approach to warfare is both boring and ineffective.

What we want is large maps filed with scouts, mobile forces, and long-range support. Maneuvering these pieces about on the map creates a lot of options even if you were handed the exact same situation. Like being given the same board in a chess game with many different moves being possible. Different groups can move about attacking important sections of the map and fighting or avoiding various enemy groups, getting hit by support and also calling in their own support, and so on.

Personal shields are just a different type of HP, which could be cool if implemented well. But SupCom style shields or any other units which serve to make other units more durable, whether by bubble shields or some other method, are not a good game mechanic because they tend to create passive, static gameplay.

ledarsi you are not taking into account the multiple possible implementations of shields, only yours.

most certainly not FAF's or the wall shield idea stipulated above you.

I dont see the joke in this one... Me personely like shield, but i also like what PA is as it is.

add in T2 wells no shields needed!

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to put out fires?

if it's a frequently requested feature... as we all know it is... then why not try to implement some form of it? that's like if 75% of everyone that plays a game would like to see something ingame... but you decide not to have anything to do with it. not saying everytime "everyone" wants something it's always a good idea to start with... but you could try to appeal to the fans a little. if everyone is seeing something is missing from the game... it probably means something is missing from the game. also: you have to remember, shields would naturally take resources, the same as any other unit. the only difference is it is designed to support the things next to it, not destroy enemy things. if you took zero losses, then that means they didn't have enough to do anything there.

investing more resources into a single position is automatically going to enable it to be more fortified... no matter what you build, whether it be laser towers, aa towers, shields, factories, walls, or anything else. the amount of resources that you are talking about, however, would mean that you are sacrificing a lot of resources from your army, which could be used to control everywhere the shields are not. unless you are talking about mobile shields? in which case mobile shields traditionally are even more cost to function diminished that usually they only block a few hits each, meaning if the shields are breached, losses will be very heavy.

or you could throw in 1-2 shields of your own to negate the first major part of the assault? a lot of shields in a lot of games have 'diminishing returns' which means you don't get as much out of a 4th shield, as you do, say, the 1st or 2nd. so if you stack 10 shields together, but I only build 2, then put the rest into more units to deal damage, I would win. but besides that, how is that any different then someone that plays defensively now? also... you forget that this game enables asteroid smashes. even if that is the case, you would simply move to another world, where you then instantly have the advantage.

the maginot line approach also failed horribly due to germans going around it... so... maybe a bad example? with shields, distribution of units becomes even more important, -because- it allows a force to take less losses if you don't have enough to break the shield. right now, for the most part, you send a unit, you know it can do some damage no matter what it finds. where is the fun in that? also... long range weapons? where? if we had truly long range weapons... I don't think we would be having this discussion. as one could stack truly long range weapons just as easily as shields. besides this, there is no such thing as an invincible defensive line... if there is... that's balance issues, not bad unit concept. also, again, asteroid smashes.

and this would change if shields were implemented... how? you would still have scouts... mobile forces... long range support would become even more important.

while I agree personal shields would be just like different type of hp, again, shields are not going to magically make playing passively or statically any more or less viable. example: what would you do if you ran into a position that the enemy has a literal line of advanced laser towers, and pelters behind it? how would your reaction to this change any, if there were shields at all? probably not all. in either case, you would ignore the heavily defended position in favor of taking control of everything around it.

right now PA is focused on shorter ranged fights on the ground, where bubble shields don't really ultimately make sense, as they are supposed to give the idea of protecting against artillery fire. this has nothing to do with how people play, or how shields work.

it will never make sense to me, why people automatically attribute shields to turtling. turtling is a way of playing, shields are a unit. a good strategy player is going to know what he has available and make the most of what he has available. so he's not going to 'turtle' anymore then necesary. in the truest form of it, the second you build even a single turret, anywhere, you are "turtling" whether you want to call it that or not.

seriously, if I didn't know any better, I would say that the people who are arguing against shields the most, never played a game where they were actually used effectively. it's like someone else was saying about supcom... he played at the top of the game, and he used shields. and when he asked what people thought about that, generally everyone just said 'don't care' this implies you don't want to see shields, simply because of no reason in particular to do with the game, just because you don't like them... they could be the greatest, most unique, most amazing unit in the whole game, but you don't care. there shields, can't have them.

your not going to spam artillery when the opponent has a lot of bots. your not going to spam aircraft when the opponent already has a lot of AA. your not going to spam shields when the opponent has the advantage in ground control.
just getting tired of people using the same excuses for not wanting shields without thinking about what they are really saying. there ARE legitemite reasons for not wanting shields -at the moment- but not to never have them. everyone arguing against shields make it sound like they don't want to see shields in the game ever, which is asinine. if the game can get to a point where it is 100% better with shields... would you not want the game to be better?

I'm not particularly for or against shields. My opinion is simply that while there are legitimate roles for shields they are not the only way to fill these roles. So, I have to ask, if what you really want is an anti-artillery defense why not focus the debate on anti-artillery?

Instead of a pro-shields argument wouldn't it make more sense to say "we have a problem with long range artillery" and then look to fill an anti-artillery role?

A dedicated point defense structure or allowing one of our existing defenses to intercept artillery shells would have nearly the same desired impact or protecting your base from artillery without creating the philosophical divide that drives people mad whenever shields are mentioned.

Shields have been around for a long time, but there is something great about the shields in the star wars universe and that they are only effective defense against beam weapons (ex. makes tanks resilient to laser turrets etc.) But good old fashion gun and powder completely negate the defenses of shields so they are not really that OP (it explains why the Ewoks easily defeated the empire because shields don't defend against brute force)

I am terrible sorry about the Star Wars lore, but shields should only be effective against lasers and things like they were originally intended to be,

Must suck to be Brad, having people ask repetitive questions and making suggestions that just won't work. Not this thread, but alot of threads have been about saying what they want in the game. It's not a build-your-own game people.

Personally I think the way to go is the laser fence approach, a la tiberian sun. The advantage over t1 walls is convenience as well as superior damage resistance, set up 4 pylons in a square, instant defences! Then if you have the time and inclination, you can set up intermediary (read: additional) pylon's along the same line of operation to reinforce them. The greater the distance between 2 pylons, the more energy they consume, meaning those tactical energy plant bombing runs are that little bit scarier. But ground forces aren't going to overrun you as readily, and in a pinch, or when trying to set up w beachhead the convenience factor would offer realistic situational advantages over the basic walls. That said, they won't be a straight antithesis to any and all offensive capabilities of your opponent, which seems to be the main worry amongst shield naysayers, they still need to be used in conjunction with other defences.

$0.02

All-in-all, I still have to say that I feel perfectly happy without having shields. The commander is a unit who is powerful (early-game-wise) but not penultimate. He is also crucial to our survival and success. I feel that having a strong, well-balanced army and base along with specific strategic/tactical planning is essential to a complex and satisfying gameplay, and I also feel that this is also the direction which Uber is taking the game. Part of the intrigue and love for many games (not just RTS') and activities is strategic planning, and along with that, attempting to forsee your opponents future actions and to try to counter them and stay at least one step ahead of him at all times so that you have the upper hand and can achieve victory. Guessing what he will do next and keeping your tactics ever-changing and readily-adapting so that he can't guess what you'll do next, and reacting quickly to his changes are the key to victory. In this, we find ourselves coming to a real simulation of strategic thinking.

I feel whole-heartedly that in finding blanket solutions to protect our commander, a unit that we already know is essential to our survival, we are taking away from the game something that is completely essential to the strategy of the game entirely. We already know that we must protect him, and to do so, we need to plan what units we shall deploy (and where), but also what we build in our bases (and where). Giving him a shield is giving him additional protection above and beyond that which we already know he deserves, and makes the game that much simpler and that much easier. It takes away from the strategy of the game.

I definitely feel that the goal is to have a strategy game, and we must therefore take into account protecting our most vital unit: the Commander. If we have trouble doing so, then perhaps it is not necessarily a flaw of the system, perhaps we do not need to pad up the Commander more by giving him shields: perhaps it is our tactical thinking, strategies, and skills should evolve and improve.

I'm still of the opinion that bubble shields are the way to go.

All the arguments against are weak.

1- Balancing: They can be balanced as any other unit, it is not a big deal and at the beginning they could just be weak to avoid altering too much the game dynamics.
2- Turtling has never been a problem, no one wins by turtling, game can have weak points that would make turtling impossible.
3- It would make much more sense to delete holkins since is much more easy to turtle with them.
4- Shields could easily go down by doing a raid over a generator or by having one weapon that would disable them (although this is not necessary).

Thus in my opinion there is not a single reason why bubble shields should be not implemented.

Instead they would contribute:

1- Improving the strategy.
2- Holding strategic point.
3- Helping reactivity when managing multiple planets.
4- Prevent snipering.
5- Help shaping the base in a consistent way (now everything is random).
6- Giving the chance to react even when low in metal providing large amount of energy to shields that could help defending and achieving an attack strategy based on the optima usage of metal (i.e: not random troops bubble).
7- They would make super happy a large number of PA players!
8- They would rebalance the issue of bubbles of troops, so increasing the strategy against only spawning large troops.
9- Killing random bubbles of troops would help with the actual lag/crash problems, 40% of games are crashing late in game.
10- The game barely uses differences in territory, this are mainly limited by water or lava. There are no mountains or holes in the terrain that people could use to increase the variety in their strategy. At least shields would help in that sense.

I'm strongly thinking that there are big technical issue and this is the reason why they are pushing for not introducing shields. My guess is the physics engine (maybe the part involved in bullets trajectory).

That's my modest opinion, let's try to keep calm and please don't repeat yourself, otherwise they will democrately lock also this thread