Forums » Suggestions
The Real Shield idea
People talk about how vendetta should have "Shields" and other people say that they already exist but without the blue glowy bubble. Rather so, they don't exist. The purpse of a shield is to have something that protects the hull and can be recharged. This could be implamented by having, lets say, 5000 hull and 5000 shields on a valk. The 5000 shields would be treated just like the hull but could be recharged using energy similar to turboing. It could likely use more energy though...This would allow people to heal them selves to some degree from pesky busses without having to dock. If someone was in a battle they likely wouldn't have time to recharge their shields anyways. There might even be a seperate battery for shields anyways. I don't have the details but I just wanted to throw out the idea. I would like to see something like this implamented in the future as things become more complex.
im cool with the shield idea, but it cant give health back to a ship, a sheild is meant to protect the ship not fix it. kinda like the time you get when you undock, you cant get killed but you cant kill, you can run or get in position. if it had a seperate battery the battery would have to be a specific battery. people would put fast charge battery on a shield and would be close to invincible the entire battle
*sigh*
It still sounds too high. Giving ships VERY little hull and 100% shields sounds more reasonable. Meaning you'd fly around with only like 5% hull, and once that shield is broken temporary, one hit will mean death. As long as it doesn't take forever to kill someone I'm all for it. Also I think that certain weapons should be able to penetrate the shield. What if you use a weapon that fires at slow rate or takes a long time to charge up? In between shots your enemy's shields would charge up, negating whatever damage you inflicted. They'd practically be invulnerable!
It still sounds too high. Giving ships VERY little hull and 100% shields sounds more reasonable. Meaning you'd fly around with only like 5% hull, and once that shield is broken temporary, one hit will mean death. As long as it doesn't take forever to kill someone I'm all for it. Also I think that certain weapons should be able to penetrate the shield. What if you use a weapon that fires at slow rate or takes a long time to charge up? In between shots your enemy's shields would charge up, negating whatever damage you inflicted. They'd practically be invulnerable!
I'm just saying make it so it takes a while for them to charge up. like maybe a minute or two of solid charging. But i like the idea of having like 95% shields and 5% hull.
What arolte wants is easy kills, what arolte doesn't realize is that space dwelling civilizations are going to try there hardest to make the armor thick and make the shields strong, why? So there ships aren't easily destroyed! Arolte this is NOT an FPS.
The game would be BORING if someone could easily get away, or would take very little damage over a loooong period of time. There would be virtually no consequences to doing stupid things. Can you also imagine recharging your gatling gun five or six times after a continuous stream of fire and not having your target die yet?! Is that your idea of fun? I don't know about you, but dying quicker makes the game more fun and exciting for me. It makes me be more careful about my tactics and actions. I guess that's why I enjoy games like Ghost Recon and America's Army so much.
Oh and btw, your analogy of FPS games seems to contradict what you're trying to get across. Many combat flight sims result in very quick death when you nail a person's fighter with an AIM-9 or Vulcan cannon fire. So if you want realism and non-arcadish FPS crap, you'd also be in favor of quick kills. You should know by now that MOST FPS games have a health meter that takes a while to go down before death. Only a handful of them try to depict real combat by having one or two-shot kills.
But don't get me wrong, I'm NOT trying to advocate one-shot-one-kill weapons here! I believe I already expressed my disinterest in lame weapons like those in the past. The current rate at which it takes someone to kill their enemy with grouped tachyons or gravitons is fine as it is. I don't know how you'd calculate the equivalent of that in terms of balancing the shields versus hull points out, but that's what I'd consider fun personally.
Oh and btw, your analogy of FPS games seems to contradict what you're trying to get across. Many combat flight sims result in very quick death when you nail a person's fighter with an AIM-9 or Vulcan cannon fire. So if you want realism and non-arcadish FPS crap, you'd also be in favor of quick kills. You should know by now that MOST FPS games have a health meter that takes a while to go down before death. Only a handful of them try to depict real combat by having one or two-shot kills.
But don't get me wrong, I'm NOT trying to advocate one-shot-one-kill weapons here! I believe I already expressed my disinterest in lame weapons like those in the past. The current rate at which it takes someone to kill their enemy with grouped tachyons or gravitons is fine as it is. I don't know how you'd calculate the equivalent of that in terms of balancing the shields versus hull points out, but that's what I'd consider fun personally.
Arolte, this game would be a horrible RPG if a n00b ventures out of there home system and is taken down by greifers, why are they taken down quickly? Because of low hp\ap\sp choose one, it doesn't matter which.
I think there is a misunderstanding here.
I took the shields idea to mean that it takes a long time for your shields to recharge, or you have to hold down some button to do it. It seems Arlote took it to mean shields that constantly recharge.
Personally, I think a shield that showly recharges if you sit still without turboing or shooting (something like in Halo) would be nice. Saves you the trouble of having to go back to the station while not really affecting combat in any way since you will have to move at "impulse power" without using any weapons if you want it to recharge.
I took the shields idea to mean that it takes a long time for your shields to recharge, or you have to hold down some button to do it. It seems Arlote took it to mean shields that constantly recharge.
Personally, I think a shield that showly recharges if you sit still without turboing or shooting (something like in Halo) would be nice. Saves you the trouble of having to go back to the station while not really affecting combat in any way since you will have to move at "impulse power" without using any weapons if you want it to recharge.
Newbies will almost always die, regardless of what type of changes you impose to the game. There's no reason why everyone should have 200% or 500% health all because some dumb bus newbie dies over and over. Eventually there will be a penalty system implemented to prevent newbie killing. The current newbie sectors are also adequately protected from griefers. I've also suggested that buses should have a higher overall speed or overall HP. But anyway, protecting newbies is a totally different issue that is irrelevant to this topic.
their is no reason to change the health of ships, just divide the health between armor and sheilds. I'm all for the 5% / 95% ratio as it indicates how delicate space craft are (1 hull breach, you are so dead). Reacharging when not useing energy, ok as well if you keep it slow (1 second 1-5 sp depending on battery)
Not necessarily slow, just make it so that if you sit there for a while it will come back. If you had to be floating around like a derelict vessel for 5-10 minutes to recharge your ship, it sort of defeats the purpose. Has anybody played Halo here? Something similar to that could work IMO. If you are out of combat for a while you shield will recharge. Simple.
This brings up another question--will repairing still be available in stations?
It better be because i like its description.
Like,
Makes it better.
Like,
Makes it better.
yeah it better be, like SL i like the description. here is an interesting question: in that space where they tell you not to click, is something going to go there or is it going to remain without anything? i am always amussed by clicking it, the comment is just funny.
I forgot about that button.
:)
:)
how could you forget? thats like a broken law or something, lol i still love pushing that button laterz
:P
:P
hm. at the risk of being haughty, i think what most people said about the hull-to-shield ratio sounds to me as if they either
a) misunderstood the concept of shields or
b) mistook hull for shield points.
from my point of view, the ratio of h:s should be something like 75:25 or even more in favor of hull. before you flame me, please read a little further...
my understanding of a shield is that it is an in-flight recharging system, draining energy from the battery you usually require to turbo or shoot energy based weaponry in the game. i do see the problem that poses itself, an unkillable ship. now, this could be easily tweaked.
either the shield could work as it has already been described by other people, i.e. while shooting or boosting it won't recharge (think of this like of a priority override system: first weapons and boosting, then shield. if the weapons or engines require power from the battery, the shield recharging subroutines of your on-board computer are inactive or some technobabble like that).
furthermore, _any_ weapon will drain shields faster than they can recharge, and if the shield's depleted, the "stand still to recharge" rule could apply. also, a shield could only absorb damage caused by energy weapons, not projectile or explosive weapons (think rail, think flare, think avalon)
or it could be as in Maelstrom (by Ambrosia SW), an Asteroid clone if you will.
there, the shield could be activated (just like the weapon), but it would drain power from some battery.
now let's transmogrify this idea for vendetta:
you can equip a shield generator as well as a shield battery (this time a _real_ battery, once depleted, it needs to be replaced).
you can activate the shield just as you would activate a weapon, it will build up around the ship (might be interesting to give this issue prioritized behaviour: first the rear shields, then flanks, then front, or vice-versa or user-determined). activating the shield would drain an initial amount from the battery, and for each time unit the shield stays active, it would drain another given amount.
if you are hit with having the shield activated, a certain percentage of the damage the shot would cause is calculated into energy drain (this word again... luckily, in a "scientific" text this doesn't matter), further depleting the shield battery.
if you are hit without having the shield activated, the damage would be subtracted from your hull points, just like today.
it could also serve for ramming purposes (actual ramming as in Escape Velocity:Override: The Frozen Heart and Femme Fatale).
a) misunderstood the concept of shields or
b) mistook hull for shield points.
from my point of view, the ratio of h:s should be something like 75:25 or even more in favor of hull. before you flame me, please read a little further...
my understanding of a shield is that it is an in-flight recharging system, draining energy from the battery you usually require to turbo or shoot energy based weaponry in the game. i do see the problem that poses itself, an unkillable ship. now, this could be easily tweaked.
either the shield could work as it has already been described by other people, i.e. while shooting or boosting it won't recharge (think of this like of a priority override system: first weapons and boosting, then shield. if the weapons or engines require power from the battery, the shield recharging subroutines of your on-board computer are inactive or some technobabble like that).
furthermore, _any_ weapon will drain shields faster than they can recharge, and if the shield's depleted, the "stand still to recharge" rule could apply. also, a shield could only absorb damage caused by energy weapons, not projectile or explosive weapons (think rail, think flare, think avalon)
or it could be as in Maelstrom (by Ambrosia SW), an Asteroid clone if you will.
there, the shield could be activated (just like the weapon), but it would drain power from some battery.
now let's transmogrify this idea for vendetta:
you can equip a shield generator as well as a shield battery (this time a _real_ battery, once depleted, it needs to be replaced).
you can activate the shield just as you would activate a weapon, it will build up around the ship (might be interesting to give this issue prioritized behaviour: first the rear shields, then flanks, then front, or vice-versa or user-determined). activating the shield would drain an initial amount from the battery, and for each time unit the shield stays active, it would drain another given amount.
if you are hit with having the shield activated, a certain percentage of the damage the shot would cause is calculated into energy drain (this word again... luckily, in a "scientific" text this doesn't matter), further depleting the shield battery.
if you are hit without having the shield activated, the damage would be subtracted from your hull points, just like today.
it could also serve for ramming purposes (actual ramming as in Escape Velocity:Override: The Frozen Heart and Femme Fatale).
Rechargeable shields sound like a great idea, from a trader's point of view.
Once big bulky, slow moving, low weapon outfit cargo ships come online, this seems perfect. These beasts could easily have huge shield generators, but few weapons to protect it. This would help promote the escort idea beacuse the trade vessels would be able to take a lot of damage if under a pirating attack, but life long enough that their buddy protecting them can pick off the pirate.
~The Penguin
Once big bulky, slow moving, low weapon outfit cargo ships come online, this seems perfect. These beasts could easily have huge shield generators, but few weapons to protect it. This would help promote the escort idea beacuse the trade vessels would be able to take a lot of damage if under a pirating attack, but life long enough that their buddy protecting them can pick off the pirate.
~The Penguin
As have a completely different idea in mind regarding shields but I'm tired of trying to explain to people why I think my idea is so much more interesting than simply having shields as a big battery of hull points, so if anyone cares, please go search for the old threads.