Alpha - Now

Mighty fine turtling.

Build a dubble layer of walls, put fabbers to auto repair, build umbrellas and antinukes everywhere, and lastly, cover every inch of ground with Gil-Es.

There you have your shield.

This game ain't about turtling - it's about dynamic, large fights on large round maps. If you aren't attacking, you are losing.

My main thought on this is that it isn't really a fair comparison...

FA is the *second* version of supreme commander, and has had many many iterations made on it through patches and updates to balance and everything else. PA is the first version of a new game. Compare PA to SupCom 1 when it was *first released* and you'll find PA is in a very good position imo. Development is set to continue on PA hopefully for a long time to come so I think we really just need to give the game time to mature.

It would be pointless to add shields because the game doesnt need more defence types, with the current balance.

And tier 3 wouldnt add more fun to the game, it would just add another iter of balance that they have to do.

Still Zero-k/Balanced annihilation, have shields all over the place even on units and turrets and the games arent turtle fests, and they are very similar to a fast passed version of TA. I guess if anything you should be looking at these games rather then FA for comparison.

That's 5641634388348 demands for shields and commander upgrades in this f**cked up rhyme!


did I do it right : D ?

I WANT FKING SHIELDS!!!!!!!!!!!!! sue me.........

The one thing I would like in terms of shields would be an orbital super unit (the size of Annhilasers or Halleys that could block two things. The Annhilasors and possibly teleporting in. (I like the idea of it blocking teleporting, but it might not be good for the game overall so I could do without it.)

Small scale shields for blocking every day shots *meh* Just seems like it would lead to more drawn out games and more micromanaging.

A good wall is all a robot really needs. (except maybe in the case of Annhilasors)

Zurginator vs Vackillers
Civil Action # 9001

Court of Uber Law
Uber ST, PA

To the above named defendant: Vackillers

You are hereby summoned and required to file with the clerk of said court and serve on the plaintiff's attorney, in regards to the complaint which is herewith served upon you, within 30 days after this the service of this summons upon you, exclusive of the day of service. If you fail to do so, judgement by default will be taken against you for the relief demanded in the complaint.

This first day of September, 2014.

Shields != Turtle.
(OP shields == Turtle, but they don't have to be OP).

I see more turtling in PA (mostly because of the multi planet system) than FA overall.

Shields are useful in a game that scale because it can buy you brain time.
Something is happening, instead of immediatly dying to it, it gave you some time to save your *** (if you've managed your shield placement correctly).

The biggest the game can be, the more important that kind of "trick" is. On the scale of PA, shields (or something similar) should be mandatory.

Just have shields in PA not talk the other usefull things ,is the same as giving police vests bulletproof.
Honestly no one needs that ,the bullets that come and they will dance like an matrix party.

Just bake in the higher HP to most units and prevent combat from being between insta killer units.

Protoss in Starcraft have shields.

They are not op and no turtle faction.

You see, shield is not shield.

The difference is that shields is local buff. You decide what is important and what's less.
If the shield is static, you can't move around, but the defense should be slightly better.

If the shield is mobile, you can move around but slower, also you probably can't cover everything and they are less resistant.

You have to think at time A (when everything is cool) to have more time to thing at time B (when you are under attack).
That's another kind of interesting (time) micro (and even macro as it can be at a large scale) management.

Buffing every HP on every unit will only make engagements lasting longer, that wouldn't be a bad thing either IMHO.

I'm sure since release is right around the corner someone will mod it in. If it gets popular uber could add it in later. Just like how they didn't want a t2 AA tower in the first place but added it in because of the amount of requests for it.

And when you lose to a turtle I bet you call them a cheater with that logic. Considering it's entirely possible to have each player controlling their own planet, turtling is a viable strategy.

Exactly right, and it is a far better game because of it.

I used to be a long time turtler, (TA, SC,SC2, etc) and PA is the first game that convinced me to change my play style. I haven't looked back.

Balancing the game around defense causes stalemates. And that is boring.

Starcraft and PA are entirely different man. Correct me if i'm wrong because I do not play starcraft. You have a limited supply and can not build an infinite amount of shields. PA's economy is technically not limited so you could make as many shields as you wanted. If they overlapped like they would in Supcom... well you get the idea hopefully.

There is a way to add shiels without making them stack.
Thats what i wanted to say.

Ie. shields are no longer stacking in FAF. Actually, making shields overalapping make them weaker (as all the shields share the damage of a single one).

That alone fixed almost all the issues with shields that the game had, and now they are a viable (and enjoyable) strategic decision.