Single directional shields

Shields are cool, but I don't want to waste our resources on tuning or developing them at this time.

I generally felt that shields were not good counters to artillery and a little too good versus ground units. Part of the issue with artillery is that it does AOE, so stacking shields in FA isn't that good. A great example of shields versus land units is the first Cybran mission in Supreme Commander 2. If you try doing the mission without shields it is extremely hard.

Supreme Commander 2 really did some interesting stuff with shield mechanics.

You can read a strategy guide about different shields and their affect on strategy in Supreme Commander 2 on GameReplays.org

I don't mind shields, though not overly keen on them in an RTS game. I prefer Big chunky walls myself.

Also the difference with TA artillery, if anyone remembers, is that it didnt actually lob the shells, it shot in a straight line. This meant you could build your base behind a wall or ridge to obstruct Artillery fire directly into your base.

So, why not have a nice big chunky wall, and let artillery damage the wall before it can damage whats behind it.

Below is some sample walls which you may or may not recognise:

The main difference in TA was that artillery only required energy per shot, whereas nukes required metal and energy per shot. Nukes also had a longer range and a hard counter (anti-nuke), artillery had only terrain as a counter.

I shall second big walls as a replacement for directional shields; it means you don't get shield mechanics, however it does allow you to artificially create a terrain "counter" to incoming artillery, and it blocks your units and outgoing fire the same way it blocks your opponents units and incoming fire. It's also completely intuitive; everyone understands the defensive properties and drawbacks of a massive slab of metal :mrgreen:

Part of the force multiplication effect of SupCom style shields is that it only inconveniences your enemy. Making it a 2-way physical obstruction is arguably more "fair" (and therefore balanced) than something that can somehow allow your shots to pass through, but not the enemies.

I'm now considering a building which is a massive metal slab on a gimbal-and-rod arrangement, so you can re-orient it after deployment. Maybe something with telescopic rods, so you can effectively create a massive dome or testudo formation? Comes with it's own built-in drawback; you can't fire anti-nukes out through a massive metal slab

Dammit that's another unit to add to the list of ones I'm never going to finish :roll:

I'd like a damage soaking unit as was suggested in the first page of this thread. It could be an absurdly large electromagnet to pull ballistic weapons. That might make it focused enough to not be gamebreaking. Also it should be very difficult to repair so you couldn't make your army invincible with this plus an engineer.

Another possibility would be the electromagnet not taking damage but affecting ballistics' trajectories, so that a few bullets would miss the mark or do less damage.

Also, has anyone suggested shield as damage dampeners rather than negators? If not this is that suggestion. If you could just reduce damage instead of destroying the projectile then you wouldn't need a big enough upfront damage, just enough time to shoot or enough dakka. I'm imagining like a spout that sprays hard foam on stuff nearby to make them 'spongier'. Maybe have an equivalent for lasers? A sort of highly reflective sheet that could be sprayed from the same kind of spout. It would probably take a while to achieve an appropriate density, and also lose its effectiveness really fast in any case.

Rage quiters invariably don't like shields.

Cant help but think that air will be far too powerfull if you don't have a shield of some kind. Big games eventually end in a com snipe.... Which would suck imo. I hated com sniping in supcom, but i could build shields to help protect him (or water if it was there)

Better air balance that prevent them from being flying tanks.

I main reason that I love shields in really any game is that they repair themselves without me having to micro manage them. Whether or not it costs resources to do so isn't really the issue to me. I'd be perfectly happy with a wall and some other building that auto rebuilds/repairs them, emphasis on rebuild, thus taking the micro manage off of me allowing me to focus on other things.

I think we should wait for the alpha to be released and ask Uber to insert different shield units/buildings for us to try out. If non of these units are fun, we can remove them from the game when the game is released. That is why there is an Alpha phase, you try things