Shield generators

I'm all in for umbrella-like shields, as proposed by others in this thread.

That would limit the effect of long range units/weapons, like tactical missiles and artillery, It will also make an air snipe, for the commander, considerable harder, while not "ruining" a ground assault.

But it all ultimately comes down to what units/building will be available in your arsenal, whether shields would add to the overall gameplay.

I think the most important thing is that we all have different play styles and we shouldn’t limit them. Some find it fun to play an RTS super aggressively, spamming units and fighting big unit battles, while others enjoy to turtle, building indestructible bases. Personally, I’m a “support” player while my brother is an “offensive” player. We’ve played this way ever since Age of Empires . While he builds units to own everything, I’m in our base, building defenses. He finds it fun to play his way; I find it fun to play my way.

When my brother plays supcom, he likes to shut off shields and art because he doesn’t want to deal with the art. On the other hand, when he plays with me, he keeps them on b/c he knows I will protect his base and that I like to turtle. One of the coolest features about supcom was the ability to toggle certain buildings . I say yes to shields and a toggle feature so everyone can play how they want.

BTW: the umbrella shield is a cool idea.

That's why I am suggesting a building to help buffer that.

And considering the stacking number of downsides to using structures already, why not give an advantage.

Unless you have already made your mind up, at which point I am just talking to a brick wall.

Totally agreed, gameplay diversity is a key to the masterpiece game. However, there are people who want game to impose one exact style upon players so they can build a strict hierarchy based on its execution mastery and self-assert through it on everyone who don't conform. That's why I dislike any kind of e-sports, ladders or rankings: an existence of such things in or around the game attracts followers of that single-headed mindset. I hope PA developers is informed enough to know that such people are in absolute minority despite massive noise emitted by them, and therefore should be ignored in favor of common players. BTW that's a reason why forum polls are not representative - for every "pro" player who hang on the forum to propagate his vision there are 20 or more common players who don't bother to do so.

As to shields, I stand for bringing them back from the moment when devs said they'll probably will not include shields in RTM release because of budget limits imposing other priority tasks. Gameplay-wise, even if we have something vs arty, repair patrols are still unavoidably glitchy due to unstable assist priorities, too fragile and therefore cause distraction and irritating micromanagement. Also, shield is a convenient tool that helps counter low-tech spamming and sniping. Voted for shields like in SupCom, since SupCom allowed to disable them in unit manager if someone want to play without them.

I don't care why people think there shouldn't be shields. I want god dam shields!

Then you will have them. You'll just need to download a Mod.

Lolol, yes, I'm an idiot... no one should ever listen to me. I'm horrible at getting points across.

I'm all for point defenses and protection from specific threats.... but an all-around protection from everything seems cheap and lazy to me. Maybe an option for your engineers to augment your building with ONE type of protection would be fair, and require more thought/planning.

Shields do not protect against everything. Read the thread pls. As mentioned, nukes, asteroids and units can easily move through it to shoot the much weaker generator behind. Shield generators are not cheap and having them protect your base is not lazy.

So you're argument is they only protect against 99% of attacks? Moving units under the shield is not a viable option, since you typically place your defences on the very edge of the shield. Shield generators may not be cheap but they massively buff all defences. In order to counter that, damage values for units across the board need to be drastically increased, because otherwise you can fend of attacks without taking any losses. So now shields become mandatory as taking even a few hits without a shield is very damaging, and because they completely negate attrition. And we're back to the same problems as in Sup Com.

No shields.

But I'd like to see a unit like the Advent Iconus Guardian from Sins of a Solar Empire, a unit that would absorb a portion of incoming damage for allies in range.

no shields, but defense systems specialised on only a limited amount of weapons:
-anti missile
-anti artillery (high ballistic arc)
-anti bombs maybe

and useful repair options to repair fire bases

Bro, everytime I see someone in Supcom turtling the outcome differs on the rank of the enemy player (in FAF at least). If the players are lower, they ususally win. If the player is high-ranked, they lose. Basically, 'experienced' players don't know how to handle shields. So if your strategy can be countered by shields, your strategy isn't good enough. And if attacks can be fend off without taking losses, then you've got good defenses. I don't get it, defense is a viable part of any RTS game. Shields are a big part of those defenses. Why give up on the entire defense aspect of the game in favour of rushers and spammers who can't handle proper defenses?

Because an effective defense has nothing to do with shields. All you need is bigger guns than the enemy. What a shield does, is it stops a non critical mass of units from dealing ANY damage. That sort of thing is... well... not good.

You didn't get it either. Shields can run out. It's not 'godmode' or something.

This actually brings me to the Supcom2 system of shields. The shields didn't cost power (horrible) but there were factional differences:
UEF: Your basic shield
Cybran: Shells will bang through the shield but will deal much less damage than normal.
Aeon: Shells bounce off shields and deal less damage than normal.

I think the Aeon version was pretty nicely thought out, because having loads of shields caused a shell bouncing off one shield, then bouncing on another, and another, thus draining shield power from multiple shields at once. The Cybran solution seems quite fine to me as well.

I dunno if the Devs have put their foot down on the idea of shields or not, but If I were to suggest a way to make them work without being OP, I'd want to see shields that cannot overlap.

And if no shields I'd want a fallible point defense system to mitigate SOME of the damage from arty barrages.

If long range artillery is even a thing... which is not confirmed yet.

We have not heard confirmation of anything when it comes to artillery. It's a shame you're all harping-on like the "Duke" or the "Emissary" or even something like the "Big-Bertha" is a confirmed unit already...

Because it's not.

True, but it is a trend in this uh... "spiritual franchise", is it not?

Because you can move buildings. Reclaim it and rebuild. It should remember the image and you should be able to artillery shoot it, but you shouldn't get an updated image if you don't have eyes on servalence (**** spelling) if it is cloaked. You should be left with an afterimage (like from Red Alert 3) after Fog of War recovers an area, that shows what you saw but when you re-visit an area you may discover buildings the map shown were there are no longer there and thus was moved while you were not watching the area.

It becomes a bother to a base that had a scout get in to have to rearrange buildings, but beside that it becomes no more than blindfire on part of the artillery.

That does not mean it's written in stone. The "T3" Artillery mechanics changed drastically from TA to SupCom. Big Bertha's are not like the Duke at all...