Can I come with suggestions?(Edit: I came with a suggestion)

And in so case, where can I bust 'em out? I was reading through the Confirmed features and suggestions topic, wondered if it's there I should post suggestions or is there a place more suitable for it? Also hi, first time poster here

Re: Can I come with suggestions?

People generaly just post suggestions in this forum in new threads. Do however be prepeared for people commenting on your suggestion (and pointing out flaws, or saying that its a bad/good idea, etc).

The devs visit and post at these forums all the time so its very likely that they will see your suggestion and to quote sorians blog (one of the devs),

Re: Can I come with suggestions?

Ah cool! ^_^ Well, I don't want to spam the forum with several topics in one day, so I'll just note it down. And I'm not all too worried about people looking weirdly at my suggestion, commenting or picking at it. It's a plain and simple idea, really. Not a big, thought-out experiment filled with number crunching and stuff.

My idea is in regards to the topic of shields. I was reading that it's not wanted because of how abusable it can get, and believe me I know that this is quite possibly the most abusive thing in any game that has it (having earned the moniker of Master Turtle among my friends due to this >_<) But I would -love- to see shields implemented in some form or another. SO, I had an idea for how shields could become more plausible and offer some strategical options for defense.

Firstly, I do not think shields should EVER defend against land units.

Thinking back to good ol' Ground Control, I remember the shields they "had" in that game, storywise, protected the city it was defending against long-distance artillery, orbital bombardments and similar things. Land assaults were still a viable option.

Second, a shield should never protect the shield emitter. The emitter(s) that create a shield "bubble" would have to stand some distance away from each other, linked to one another in order to form a barrier between each other. Anything below this shield is protected, attacks coming from above will be negated until the emitters have been disrupted/taken down/destroyed.

That's the basic gist of it, anyway. It would make shields a viable defense against artillery and orbital attacks, but relatively easy to take down. Shields wouldn't be the turtler's go-to defensive structure.

Also, I don't think a shield would defend against a nuclear strike or a planetary annihilation via asteroids. Well, it's just an idea of mine. Obviously I just really really really want to see shields implemented in some form and having an anti-artillery structure like that would be kind of cool. ^_^

Re: Can I come with suggestions?(Edit: I came with a suggest

Unfortunately, the developers have already confirmed that shields will not be in the game. I would suggest that you might find some useful information to answer some questions and suggestions you have here, on the "Confirmed features and suggestions" thread:
viewtopic.php?f=61&t=34022
(EDIT: this actually suggests that shields will not be implemented as seen in SupCom, at least in the first version of the game. So the suggestion is definitely still worthy of consideration)

If you browse the forums a bit you should find some more information relevant to "What has been decided so far". And if you have thoughts about any one topic in particular, use the search function.

Re: Can I come with suggestions?(Edit: I came with a suggest

Do anyone ever bother to read the links in the so called "Will not be present, confirmed features"?

That dosent sound like a confirmation that sheilds wont be ingame to me. It sounds like they didnt like how they behaved in supcom and they will "most likely" not be ingame unless they can come up with a different spin on them.

His/her idea is a different spin on sheilds. I myself like the idea.

Re: Can I come with suggestions?(Edit: I came with a suggest

Very interesting. I guess I had just seen it highlighted as "will not be present", and heard that fact stated around the forum, and not checked the links. I now realise that was a mistake. Comment retracted.
And I agree, some implementation of shields would be useful (else artillery would be devastating) and this idea is sensible.

Re: Can I come with suggestions?(Edit: I came with a suggest

This sounds exactly like Star Wars: Galaxy at War. Actually, it IS exactly like Star Wars: Galaxy at War.

That's not to say it isn't a good idea In Galaxy at War the shield generated a small bubble centred around a building, which did protect from land units but only if they were outside the bubble. The power generator was separate, generally hidden away. The shield was impervious, so you either had to go underneath and blow up the generator, or find the power supply. Personally I always went in and blew everything ELSE up so I could use the shield.

miesha, if you haven't played Galaxy at War before, great idea. if you have, please give credit where it's due, instead of passing it off as your own.

Re: Can I come with suggestions?(Edit: I came with a suggest

I belive it would be better if it dosent protect against land at all (as miesha mentioned) and only gives protection against high altitude attacks like large artillery, orbital units and maybe air bombers (while, for example, small unit artillery and gunships might be able to fire underneath it). More like a energy umbrella then a bubble. Do note that this is a example, they might easily (after testing) change what units can fire underneath it and what units cant.

The sheild structure could work in 3 ways:

1. One in the middle of the area you wish to protect.
2. A bunch of structures in a ring at the outskirts of the base (miesha's idea).
3. Or as you mentioned one structure but at a different location (that cant be but into the same area as any sheild).

1* The middle sheild structure (like supcom) might end up being op (Maybe not, if it dosent stop ground units fire it might be easy to suicide some units to destroy it, but on the other hand it might be hard to reach).
2* While the outskirts structures idea may end up being underpowered (May be to easy to bring down).
3* The having to construct it at another location seems even more likely to be underpowered since they could (most likely) just reaim long range artillery at it before they aim it at your base.

In my personal opinion, both 1 and 2 could be doable if they just balance it right, but i have a hard time with 3.

Do however note that if they do 2, the sheild has to protect the structure anyway, otherwise they could just target the sheild structures with artillery. But if they add it so that the sheild just barely defends them too it can still be a good idea, since having them in the outskirts of the base is a much harder defensive position.

Re: Can I come with suggestions?(Edit: I came with a suggest

Shields actually did work in Supcom the way you suggested. Land units could walk under shields, and the emitter was indeed unprotected from direct fire. There were two major issues with this:

1) Those attributes stopped mattering when shields overlap. It is possible to protect a shield by placing it inside the edge of another shield. Even land units couldn't work their way around to destroy a thick enough shield nest.

2) The recharge attribute for shields was borked. Downed shields effectively got 500% regeneration. This made layering extremely powerful as an active shield could protect a downed shield while it worked its regen magic. I played with a mod where shields returned online at 1/3 power(same time), and it made a HUGE difference in how they felt on defense.

There was an idea in another thread where closely knit radar and jammer stations could combine their efforts into a larger, stronger array. That same system could potentially work with shields. What you get is a single larger shield (maybe following the layout somewhat, maybe a single big bubble), where units could still walk under and mutual coverage was denied. Make it too big, and it's basically useless against local threats but incredibly effective against off-world weaponry.

Personally, I like the idea of shields because they make energy sniping a very juicy strategy. The old issues would definitely have to be worked out before they can return to the game.

Re: Can I come with suggestions?(Edit: I came with a suggest

You misunderstand, the sheild wouldent protect at land level (against land units) at all, only higher up (a umbrella not a bubble). There wouldent be a sheild at ground level, So overlapping sheilds wouldent be a issue for land units.

Re: Can I come with suggestions?(Edit: I came with a suggest

Like the bomb bouncer shield from SC2?

Re: Can I come with suggestions?(Edit: I came with a suggest

It's still going to be a problem. The simulation aspect of the game means that any unit which shoots too high is going to be blocked. It will likely happen with artillery. It's going to matter a lot when fighting downhill into a valley or crater. It's still going to happen, except it's much harder to exploit than before.

Re: Can I come with suggestions?(Edit: I came with a suggest

^^ Okey, i see your point.

But there are ways to fix this flaw, if we go with sheild structure solution 2

you would still be able to hit those sheild structures even if your attacking from a hill and your unit has a arc on its attack, unless its a cliff just before the sheild structure or something.

Even if there are a steep cliff just before the sheild structures, there are still solutions, for example:
1. Attack from a different approach, even if one side of his base has a cliff or a wall or something that protects the sheild generator, i doubt all sides do (its very unlikely that there will be a crater that has such step walls that units cant even traverse them without a gap or something).
2. Or balance the sheilds to go down quickly against land units (offcourse this creates something that could be exploited in the other direction instead were players look for locations were they might be able to attack the sheild with land units).
3. Simply put the sheild higher up, either as default or maybe make some smart programming that notices when terrain interfears and then projects the sheild higher.
4. If they want to make it simple (but slightly unlogical) they could simply program the game so that the sheild only works against the things its intended for (so that for example tank rounds just goes straight through). While this would look wierd i belive it wouldent happen much so it should be tolerable.

Either way, even if they didnt add these solutions i still belive it not only becomes "harder to exploit". I belive it becomes allmost impossible to exploit unless you have constructed a map for the very purpose and it would give you something against artillery without given you the ability to turtle like in supcom.

Re: Can I come with suggestions?(Edit: I came with a suggest

Wont everything be based on the curvature of the planet your fighting on?

Re: Can I come with suggestions?(Edit: I came with a suggest

The only issue that makes shielding a problem is mutual coverage. Get rid of that, and stacking stops being an issue.

Re: Can I come with suggestions?(Edit: I came with a suggest

I disagree, there were plenty of other issues with sheilds. But i do agree that overlapping coverage was the number one issue in supcom (but i dont think it would be if they edit the sheilds as suggested in this thread).

But since you feel that mutual coverage is the only issue, a example (that you belive would work ingame) on how to get rid of it would be helpfull.

Re: Can I come with suggestions?(Edit: I came with a suggest

Shields from Supcom just need a bit of tweaking, either make them use more power or as was mentioned make them come back online with 1/3 of their cap, either would make them more balanced.

I used to mainly play a Arty heavy force in both Supcom 1&2. So I understand the annoyance too many shield generators could cause...

Re: Can I come with suggestions?(Edit: I came with a suggest

For starters, make sure that the recovery from shield rebooting isn't obscenely powerful. Simple enough.

Then add any number of:
A) Units/projectiles close enough to a shield generator can shoot through shields. This lets units under shields wreak havoc, but may look strange if units shoot outside shields or between separate ones.

B) Neighboring shields merge into a single health pool. A bit more difficult to do, but everything collapses at once.

C) Neighboring shields merge into a single larger shield. This places practical limits on how many shield generators you want to stack together. An over sized shield bubble becomes useless against an increasing number of threats.

Stationary shields are easy enough to set up like this. It's a bit more difficult to manage with mobile shields. But then again, mobile shields didn't really add that much and wouldn't be missed.

Merging or removing persistent AoE effects in general is a good idea because they represent a lot of game data and processing power. Since shields are a form of persistent AoE(overlapping hit detection, at least), they can quickly build up lag in large numbers unless something is done about it.

Re: Can I come with suggestions?(Edit: I came with a suggest

I am not sure I understand the need for shields, with map crossing artillery out of the way, and with terrain no longer being 90% flat like in SupCom.

Radar jamming devices should cover the need of protection from short range artillery.

Re: Can I come with suggestions?(Edit: I came with a suggest

His, by the way. ^_^ In case anyone wonders.

Never been much fan of the Star Wars saga, other than the movies. If I stepped on any toes, I am sorry. Was not my intention. The general idea of these shields is to block offworld bombardments as seen in the Ground Control games. There was a mission built around getting the shields online and protecting it from incoming ground assaults to prevent the entire city from being bombarded by orbital strikes. My idea was to have emitters that will generate a shield that guards against such base-destructive attacks. They would obviously be a huge drain on resources and not for use in every single base you control (unless you have the resources to back it up with.) It would make them much more a strategical defensive option then a Guard-All.

Nice term for it. Umbrella-shields. I like :3 And you're absolutely right, they function so that land assaults will still be devastatingly powerful if all you have is a measly umbrella-shield.

Not quite. I wasn't aiming for the shield to bounce anything away/back at the attacker. But in the sense that it only guards against overhead strikes, yes. Land units can wreck a Bomb Bouncer in 2 seconds flat (thought it does have that nasty AoE attack) However, the BB also is just one single (moving) structure. In order for an umbrella-shield to work you need several generators linked together. Take out one, the shield is down or (if you have say 5 generators linked in) the shield will disappear from around just the one that gets taken down. Think of the shield as a roof, and the generators as pillars keeping the roof up. If one pillar falls, then the remaining pillars will support the shield between each other, but not over the fallen pillar, opening that part of the base for orbital bombardment.

If the shields were to guard against strikes from an overhead cliff, I would view that as a strategical advantage for the defender. The high ground does not always equal the superior tactical advantage. Then again, the shields could just block against artillery shells, or strikes over a certain amount of strength that hits the shields so that land unit fire from overhead locations wont be blocked because it's too weak for the shield to react. *theorycrafting*

Maybe? I don't really know how it will work, but there's a reason why long-range artillery cant reach around the entire world. Gravity would pull any KEW down to ground before it strikes the target. Only way for artillery to work across such distances would be to launch it out into orbit first. ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile) weaponry. Alternatives include satellite weaponry in orbit and cross-planetary attacks. Although UAV drone strikes could take down shield structures... Potentially. I liked the idea someone mentioned with gunships capable of flying under shields (they could that in SupCom 2 as well, don't remember if they could in SupCom1 or SCFA.)

Radar jamming will only protect against undiscovered locations. After a location has been discovered, all you need to do is set artillery to auto-bombard the area. Dont even need to know where the buildings are, just the general area. Artillery is a foul, ruthless enemy that needs other counters then hidden, mobile forces and guerilla tactics. :3