We need shields, with like, 30% of the hitpoints your ship can have.

Why hasn't anyone else thought of this?

they have. the threads are just in the Archives forum

"Shields" are already implemented in the game, they just don't have a cool blue glowing effect when you're hit. If you're thinking about adding more shields, the game would be very boring if everyone flew around a ship at 200% hull and battles would last hours instead of seconds/minutes.

hmmm more like nanoseconds in my case

Minimus

We need sheilds for big ships, we don't have big ships yet.

Again, the Frigate already has a shield. That's why it takes 90 trillion avalons to bring one down. The absence of the blue glowing flashes of shield impacts gives it the illusion that shields don't exist. So in a way I think some of you are actually asking to implement a graphical indicator to show that the ships in fact have shields. Otherwise if you want ships to have 200% hull instead of 100% hull, just say it.

If the ships didn't have shields, how do you think that massive explosion from a sunflare or screamer doesn't blow your ship to bits in one shot. Your hull strength is your sheild. When you are down to 0%, your sheilds are gone and one shot to your hull kills you.

That is, unless you are asking for shields that slowly recharge, which might or might not be nice.

Ok, tell me this, what type of sheild wraps itself around the ship perfectly? Ever single sheild i have seen in sci-fi's are round, why? Ever blow bubbles? they become as round as possible because it has the a high volume for it's low surface area.

Man, it must take some complicated technology to make that complex of a sheild.

Not necessarily. A bunch of small sheild generaters scattered throughout the ship make very small tiny shield bubble on a very small, tiny part of the ship. And it is spread through the whole ship.

Having a bounding box or spherical collision detector for each ship, all for the sake of shields, would be a step backwards in development. The first problem would be the fact that you'd crash into all kinds of spaces that you'd normally be able to clear (superball anyone?). The second problem would nerf most, if not all, proximity weapons by a lot. While there aren't too many examples of shields that perfectly wrap around ships, it doesn't mean that the author of a book/movie/game can't use that idea. Take a look again at what happens to a person who captures the flag. What is that blue coating on the player's ship? It sure a hell isn't a huge bubble.

It's glass, with plasma running between the ship and the glass, like a plasma globe.

And pavan, wouldn't that just mean you could harm 1 generator and destroy the entire ship? And that would take up a lot of space to have those generators...

Then why don't our shields recharge? Shields just need energy to be kept running, when damaged they slowly regain health, unless these are special nerfed shields.



Besides, i want the funny flickering shield bubble! ;-)

Soooo...... if we already have "shields" then why is our ship's health described as "armor points"?

I actually think it's kinda cool that this game doesn't have a specific "shield" system so far. Shields have become so cliche in the space fps genre. And I have yet to hear one physically sound explanation of how "shields" actually work ;D. (plz don't say "magic")

Phaserlight:
"And I have yet to hear one physically sound explanation of how "shields" actually work ;D."


Hehe, antimatter shields...if any matter comes into contact with the shields, there is a violent (but carefully controlled) reaction that causes the offending object to be destroyed.

" And I have yet to hear one physically sound explanation of how "shields" actually work"
-An energy field that delivers a force exactly opposite to the force being applied to it, thereby canceling it out.


"And pavan, wouldn't that just mean you could harm 1 generator and destroy the entire ship? And that would take up a lot of space to have those generators..."
-Not if the generators themselves are covered by the sheilds. Then you would have to take out the shields to hit the generators.


"Then why don't our shields recharge? Shields just need energy to be kept running, when damaged they slowly regain health, unless these are special nerfed shields."
-Maybe the sheild generators all run off a seperate shield battery that works as an actual battery, stores energy and can't be recharged until you dock.

Suicidal Lemming: Star Wars shields are conformal too. That's why rabid Trekkies keep saying that SW ships don't have shields :-)

And seeing as we never get systems damage from losing health, I'd say that your health % IS your shield %.

It'd be nice for the % to go back up by itself though *grin*

Depending on how crazy you want to go on shields, and I don't think complexity sits with Vendetta well in this regard, you could get all these gameplay matters to deal with.

How will shields work in the game?
Will they block 100% of the damage until they go down, or block a percentage of damage delt, will the shield system be a system which can be knocked down depending on hull damage.

Will they charge off a ships battery?
And will players have to manage their ships power to get peak performance ala X-Wing. Will those who want to run have the option to reduce the power allocated to their shields to attain a higher speed (through boosting or otherwise).

Will the effects of weapons on shields differ from one to another?
Guns which wear down shields quicky, guns made to do great damage against hulls, guns which are made to penetrate shields and do damage directly to the hull. Missiles or rockets with small proxy settings which detonate inside shields doing massive damage. How will the once familiar weapons be effected?

Will they be limited to particular ship classes?
Capital ship level shields making fighter sized weapons ineffective (WC2 Phase Shields anyone?) or will any ship from the smallest fighter with the suitable provisions be able to mount one? Will there be a reward to those who choose not to have a shield generator?

Loads of questions on how the inclusion of shields, or at least a different take on the conventional approach would effect gameplay. I quite like things the way they are though, or at least limiting the shields to extremely large craft where it will benefit most and cause the least issues.

Bleh!

- and, and_but_red!, and_only_gold!

another old thread bump