list of cool ideas for units and abilities

At that point you're just making a noob trap that serves no purpose in a serious game. Better off not bothering at all.

Extra HP is one of the least effective ways of defending the Comm, it creates more issues and it drags the game on. The best defensive option for the Comm is to not be targeted at all.

So it's either an army of tanks between you and the enemy,

or an army of tanks and a cloud of shield between you and the enemy.

Any plan could be a noob trap if it involved a slight risk of being spammed from the start by your enemy.

If it was properly balanced as I said you would have the upper hand over the turtle, but if you didn't scout properly then it's tough luck, just like if he was building a few catapults or a nuke, you would need to know about it and stop it.

I don't think it's possible to properly balance them. At all.

I disagree, I think by making them resource dependant it could work, if the player takes the risk to build them then it's fair game, the other player should of scouted and seen it coming.

Even if we started on different planets, the player has to choose if he wants to take a risk by going for shields, if he does and the other player knows this, then he knows he can overpower him if he used his resources correctly.

They were resource dependent in Sup1/FA.

They still sucked back then.

[EDIT:]

That implies the only rational move is to not build shields, and invest everything into an army;

• 1. Find an opponent with shields: good, you're prepared.
  2. FInd an opponent without shields: he spent all his resources on an army, better fight that army with yours.

Now suppose you built shields.

• 1. Find an opponent with shields: your army is too small kill him, at least he can't kill you either. Stalemate.
  2. FInd an opponent without shields: he spent all his resources on an army, he'll beat your shield and you don't have a big army to fight him.

Your first point is a matter of opinion, we could argue all night I guess

What you have pointed out bears no real meaning to the fight though, you could say the same against TML, Nukes, a big navy it could go on and it could all end with; if he didn't build the exact same someone will have the advantage.

I prefer to have many options instead of a more linear few.

This could have been a nice thread about unit abilities and now it got derailed and made useless thanks to another pointless shield discussion.

Well done everybody. :cry:

I will officially shut up now

Okay, instead of talking about shields, let's talk about armor.

What if the Commander wore pillows all over himself? He would be an INVULNERABLE DEATH MACHINE.

I see it now..

Replace shield with ability n.
Think ability n from imba/useless point of view.
As nobody want imba feature, remove ability n.

Rince, repeat.

It's hillarious to me you all think shields made stalemates in supcom :lol:

Not stalemates, just boring gameplay.

idem :lol:

if anything you'd gain a split second on your iminent death.

How is that a good thing?

:| it's not, you can't save your butt with shields, that's for sure.

You wanna win, you had to have more units or know how to use them better

Metal cost of a UEF T3 Shield - 3000
Metal cost of an Aeon T3 Strat Bomber - 2100

Amount of Aeon Strat Bombers needed to break a UEF T3 shield == 15000/3500=~5.

5*2100=10500 metal to break one UEF T3 Shield, in order to (presumably) kill a Commander. And that doesn't even account for the Commander's health, which could be even more than that of the Shield's. Give me one second here, I need to prepare this one...

BWAHAHAHAHAHA. If that isn't stagnant gameplay I don't know what is. Simple fact is that aggressive gameplay is discouraged in SupCom maps larger than 20x20km.

Do we really have to have yet another shield vs no shield discussion? Neutrino has already stated that he is against implementing shields in the form seen in SupCom. He has stated that at some point they may experiment with shields in a different form (possibly directional, watch this space), but whether or not they make it into the final game depends on whether they are fun and make sense in this game.

If the devs do add some sort of shield to the game, then yeah let's discuss its pros and cons - that's useful. This constant back and forth is futile and boring, they're not implementing SupCom shields so let's just drop it. Nobody is going to change their opinion on this matter.

If you really want bubble shields by all means mod them in, but they won't ever be in the vanilla game.

You first need to invent a shield that isn't a Supcom shield.

Unfortunately, most ideas revolve around arbitrary rules and obscure nerfs that only emphasize the fact that a simple shield bubble won't work.