Balancing Shields

The issue with Underground is another layer to work with. Its a lot simpler to throw a shield up on the surface than to design a whole Underground Z level.

One Solution would be Voxel like editing to the Surface, Create Walls, earthworks on the surface. Does this stop Artillery? No, nothing right now other than a missile hitting it can stop a artillery Piece, but it may be the edge you need to help. Low angle shots may have a possibility of hitting the wall, however highangle shots... well start saying GG. Before you say Radiation beams detonate it in mid air. Terrible design for a game.

Personally Shields are your best bet for a defensive structure in a Large scale futuristic RTS.

Another solution is to make Shields nonStackable. Meaning you can't have them inside eachother or touching. Cap their regeneration Rate or make it so you can have an Addon or building next to that has Synergy with it. (Battery for higher Capacity shields)

They shouldn't be the end all defensive structure. I believe they should be there to stop you from instant death but if you don't deal with the problem quickly then your shields will fail and you will lose your structures/units there.

No one likes being killed from artillery that you can't stop, but its no fun to try and break a shield. So the balance should be a quick and dirty Defensive structure (QDDS)

Just my tidbit.

Edit: The more I think... the more I like the idea of creating a Shield Array.... A small building that requires 3 or more Points to cover an area. Based on the area is the strength of the shield. Larger = Weaker +Slower Regeneration rate. Would Punish those who try to cover everything in a shield and Reward players that Place them strategically.

Well not Punish persay, just cause them to panic faster when they start getting hit.

I very much like this idea. I think it solves a lot of the problems that my idea had. Well thought out analysis by the way!

Thank you kind sir. My random thoughts always seem to be the more coherent.

Dear OP:

No. It's messy and fixes nothing. Base design needs to be simple so that
A) Map generation doesn't screw things up and
B) To let players focus on the rest of the game

Basically, if you can't describe it in a dozen words or less it's kind of gross.

But its so bland if its less than a paragraph...

Not sure I understand how this affects base design. Could you elaborate?

Base defence is part of the game. This can't be any more complicated than it already is. In fact I think it makes things simpler. Now you won't need to build and repair your turrets as often.

12 words: Unified shields with asymptotic power for multiple shield generator overlap.

Also, could you describe exactly how it fails to solve the problem?

What purpose does it serve?

Because artillery shouldn't be ranged or powerful enough to require it really.

Are you saying what I think you're saying? Artillery should not have enough range or power to pose a significant enough of a threat to a base that you need to build shields?

Because, unless I've completely misunderstood what it's for, artillery is designed to do severe damage to enemy structures at long range.

As has been mentioned before, shields are not meant to be a complete defence to artillery, merely a short term form of duct tape to buy you enough time to stop the shelling. In SupCom, you could exploit shield stacking to stop artillery. Period. My idea ensures that it cannot be used to make your base unbreakable, just slightly stronger, and more resilient.

Personally, some of my favourite games of SupCom were against turtles. After a while the artillery started to cause serious problems, and the pressure to counter-attack was fantastic.

And if I have incorrectly interpreted your comment, please correct me on this.

I am saying that shields are only needed when artillery can fire from one side of the map to the other.

In supcom you could not hide, and you were never out of range.

In PA, artillery can fire a good distance, but no range enough for you to be worried unless you are on the enemy's door step, so if your enemy's artillery is on the north pole, then they should not be hitting you on the south pole, and possibly not even the equator, but any more north then you would be in trouble.

I find that games that need shields indicate that without them your enemy can very, very easily bombard you, and without the added protection of shields you won't have any time to stop them.

If my enemy want's to shell me, then they should need to build a firing base, or use battleships, otherwise static artillery really should be a defensive weapon, not one that automatically starts cleansing the map, because that just replaces the nuke silo in function and cost.

I have nothing against turtles or defensive strategys, but only ones that really feel kinda lazy, you know? You just sit back, with no player input and win....it just boring, for both players, and is not a fun mechanic when it happens to you, racing to build shields, knowing that if you don't you die, all the while the enemy build more guns from the safety of their base.

I have always found that shell based artillery should be used for attacking units, and that missile based artillery should be used for attacking buildings, as shells move quickly and do large aoe, and missiles like tac missiles do lots of damage, but are slow and have little aoe.

While the nuke has a large aoe, cant we leave the base razing ability to them?

What shields?

That too, but I guess I have kinda derailed the discussion into how to balance artillery with lack of shields.

Defending against artillery works like defending against a sniper in SMNC: Don't stand in his line of sight!

Then send some T2 bombers to destroy the arty. It will be way easier because - it's not behind 9001 shields...

Two things here:
1) if you've got artillery, you should be able to fire the shell in a curved trajectory around the surface of the planet such that it will be arrive on the other side. It's also possible to fire from one side all the way around and hit your own base from the other side if the trajectory is too steep.
2) An artillery player can go onto a moon and shell you from the 'high ground'.
In this game, nowhere is out of range. It is actually very hard to hide. This is part of the reason I think it is all the more important to include shields in the game.

I don't think this is the case. On a large map (say 40k x 40k) in SupCom, T2 artillery would be your 'defensive' artillery. T3 Artillery, which takes about 40 minutes and a heck of a lot of resources, is your offensive artillery and even that wouldn't always reach the enemy's base. Also, artillery doesn't generally cleanse the map. I've always found that it is suppressing fire to whittle down the enemy's defences and force them to waste resources repairing their base when they should be attacking you.

Totally agree with the first part. As for the second part, Which would you rather? build shields or die. I'd rather build shields to buy me time to attack. Without shields you cannot balance effective offensive artillery, a major gameplay element in such a large scale game.

Therefore, building offensive artillery should be costly enough that the enemy has a chance to build an attacking force capable of breaking through your defences and destroying your artillery. Even after they build the artillery, your shields should hold long enough to attack.

I'm really not sure what to think of this. I guess it makes sense, though there will probably be mixes of this anyway. Simply separating shells and missiles into common ranges doesn't really add much to this conversation.

This is a good point, especially if nukes become less like super weapons and more like, well, artillery (as per this thread http://forums.uberent.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=43142&hilit) [sorry if the link doesn't work, I just realized I've never done that before. ]

The easiest way to counter and balance artillery is to scout it while it's building.

Good point. Though you still have the challenge of destroying it while it's still constructing.

If the other guy has built a mess of bertha's in range of your base and you don't either have a bunch of your own or a massive army that can charge in and kill them then you did something wrong and should loose. That's how end game artillery is supposed to work.

Defense is a waste of time. Nobody every defended anything successfully. There is only attack and attack and attack some more.

you obviously have not been playing the alpha.

1) What? Why? It's not nukes, it's artillery with limited range.
2) He still will be able to bombard only surface beneath the moon. It means that poles are safe and even if moon is over your base, it won't last for long.

You're right, I didn't. 90$ is almost 10% of my monthly income here and I'm not going to waste it on barely workig scribble of a game. Kinda hope on regional pricing in Steam, but chances are not particulary good. Probably will wait for beta.
But anyway, alpha is alpha, nothing is finished. Current air balance is an invalid argument in this debate.

Here, instead of an apple, why don't you have an orange? It does the same thing in the end!

I believe the point of removing shields is to limit the ability of a player to turtle and never commit to a full attack, but rather force the enemy to try and attack a well defended base.

With shields, not only are you using them to defend against artillery, but the player using artillery is using shields to defend his artillery...

If you're getting wrecked because someone built 1, 2, or 30 artillery buildings and is pounding your base, why didn't you do the same? or attack him before they were built? or move your base further away?

Shields don't change anything... they just slow down a game that already takes hours and hours to finish. There's no reason to make a game spanning multiple planets and asteroids take longer to complete, just for the sake of being able to create an entrenched position, when you should instead be attacking your opponent.