People have been asking about shields propably since the game was announced (simply because SupCom had them). According to the wiki, the Dev's decided that there won't be any in the core game (or at least not in the classical sense or anytime soon): http://pamatches.com/wiki/not-in-the-game/shields/ I am not arguing agaisnt the clear assault focus and abilit to get around them, but I do have a potential solution for the Energy = HP problem: Everytime the shield bubble blocks damage, the shield emitter building takes the damage (or a fraction of it). That way shield don't just regenerate, they have to be rebuild for metal cost. Idelly it also has some limited self-repair abilities. Maybe it is not possible to assist it's repairs from the units in return. That metal cost for repair is in addition to the power cost of maintaining the shield. Reasoning: Keeping the field up that detects incomming fire in time is not an issue. Actually focussing enough power to block a shoot (easily 10 times the power of the attack) is. Everytime the shield "blocks" an attack, the "emitters" take damage from needing to focus that much energy. So they cannot keep blocking ad infinitum without getting damages and maybe colapsing. Basically it works like a AoE version of the "Shield Others" spell of D&D: http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Shield_Other Variations: AoE personal shield: One intersting variation comes from the Star Wars adaption of AoE. There shields grant units/building a personal shield equal to total HP while they stay in radius and have power. That granted personal shield is not cummulative to existing personal shields and has to "charge up" first upon a unit entering the area (starts at 0 Shield Power). Somethign similar was used for the ED building shields in Earth 2160. A kind of factory: Nuke and Anti-Nuke launchers are basically miniature factories/unit storages. This concept could be adapted for this shield too: Basically the shield factory produces the emitter (like a Nuke Launcher produces nukes) and deploys them when ready. The emitter is what takes the damage and what is being repaired. This way existing mechanics could be used for this effect and the emitter and factory HP can be kept seperate. Orbital Shield: This variant has the shield "emitter" be something that is in orbital space to project it's field down. The emitter is a satelite that has to stay over it's "host" building (the shield factory) in order to work. That would make it potentially attackable on the orbital layer (once we get something mobile orbit to orbit that outranges the umbrellas).
They never officially said shields won't be in, the devs were quite indifferent to it, actually. However, shields would take out dev time in both creation and balance, and might even be dropped if it didn't work out for long enough... Like the paragrine.
Wich is why I proposed the shield should not be healable by units (only be able to self-heal). That way we keep at a Metal=HP without having issues with "10 comabt fabbers healing 1 shield". Healing and Shielding do overlap a bit. Shield applies HP before the attack hits. Also the shield HP generally regenrate faster. In turn there will be weapons that are either very good vs shields or just ignore them (or both). Healing works after you too damage. It also usually has a shorter range. In MMO's short lived shields are often used as "emergency burst heals". The Sorc/Sage from SWTOR and the healing staff from ESO both have this variant. You could cover it with something like a AoE combat fabber building. The healing per building would be slow (so it can still be overrun). At the same time you would not need to give the area quite as much attention (as minor bumps are healed).
Because it's impossible to visually determine that the structure cannot be repaired because of magic metareasons.
If in the description is writen that it cant be repaired, you know that it cant be repaired. (cou can see it in the description)
Bah, I thought the devs had stated that shields were not going to be in the game? *does a quick search* General Discussion forum, stickied post ('the useful thread sticky compilation'), 'confirmed features list': https://forums.uberent.com/threads/confirmed-features-list-2-0.44950/#post-698171 "[WILL NOT BE PRESENT] Shields: #1#2#3" So there you go. Close the thread?! But don't despair, people who want shields in the game. Uber have designed the game to be easily moddable. I don't know if the necessary hooks and access are there to create such a thing, but if you really want shields, make a mod?! Probably not possible right now, but as development continues it might be.
Not true in the slightest. WYSIWYG gets us an intuitive game that isn't unessecarily complex. When I look at a unit or building, I know exactly how it'll behave and I know that it behaves exactly like all other buildings. When we start adding arbitrary rules then nothing is consistent. That is unnessecarily complex and un intuitive. We already have a ton to be paying attention to. There's a difference between deep and immersive gameplay and complex gameplay. We want as immersive as possible and as uncomplex as possible.
Why dont you want complex gameplay? If the gameplay isnt complex, its only about seeing and clicking and not thinking.
I'd be alright with wall shield emitters that take power, as in LOTS of power. that's about as far as I'd go for the vanilla game though.
I don't think this really accounts for wysiwyg. This is simply meta knowledge. You don't see on fabbers why they can or can't build a certain building either (see GW). There are certainly more examples like that in the game.
Not being able to repair something is completely different than something not showing up in the build menu. Not showing up in the build menu is WYSIWYG. It's not in the build menu. You don't see it, you don't get it. Not being able to repair one building but being able to repair all other buildings is not WYSIWYG. There is no visual indicator or obvious reasoning for why you can't do something.
