Transporters shouldn't drop shields to 0%.

[TomW1605]

The thing I think I'd like to change is the always-on shields. Shields should be an energy-costly tactical choice. Put my shield system on my tactical menu.

how exactly would u work this? your shields heed to recharge at some point. i have bean thinking (tell me if this is what u had in mind) that capacitors could be seen as both storers and emitters. then you could turn off the emitting part without draining the storage. however when u are attacked it drains the storage without affecting the emitters.

 

[alterintel]

A shield computer that you can control from the hot bar, or from logic to turn it off and on. When "Off", they still maintain their charge. The only thing that can reduce their charge is if they are "On" and somebody shoots you. You could optionally link the transport computer to shield computer so that the transport computer could turn off the shields for you when receiving a transport. Or you could put in a AND gate in-between the transporter computer and the shield computer to prevent transports.

Just a thought

 

[TomW1605]

A shield computer that you can control from the hot bar, or from logic to turn it off and on. When "Off", they still maintain their charge. The only thing that can reduce their charge is if they are "On" and somebody shoots you. You could optionally link the transport computer to shield computer so that the transport computer could turn off the shields for you when receiving a transport. Or you could put in a AND gate in-between the transporter computer and the shield computer to prevent transports.

Just a thought

what would u make the shield module?

 

[alterintel]

what would u make the shield module?

For the short term, You wouldn't really need a shield module per say. Just make a Shield Computer and treat it just like a Radar Jammer or Cloak. When it's "On" shields are up. When it's "Off" shields are down for transport purposes, but the charge doesn't change.

But for the long term, I believe shields should be reworked to only have a Shield Computer and Shield Modules
in the computer you would be able to configure your shield cap, recharge rate, and power consumption via an 'R' menu.

 

[Thalanor]

Transporters basically let you skip an entire lengthy procedure - go to shuttle, undock, fly to other ship, dock, exit shuttle. In addition, this is entirely without risk to the astronaut, so I think a full shield drop is indeed warranted.

This also promotes reasonably sized ships, since a high recharge to capacity ratio is less easy to do on titans.

 

[FatCobra]

If I remember right on "Voyager" they transported through shields all the time. The Borg would also transport through shields.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

If I remember right on "Voyager" they transported through shields all the time. The Borg would also transport through shields.

Yeah we can't really take what shows do and apply it directly to the game. TV will often break their own rules if it convenient. Stargate never had to drop their shields in order to use Asgard transporters until it was needed to be convenient for the plot that they had to.

 

[Valiant70]

I understand that transporters need to be balanced somehow, but something about the way transporters completely flush your shield capacitors just doesn't make much sense to me. If anything, shields should be temporarily brought down (for, say, 5 seconds), then back up to whatever value they were prior to transport. The target ship shouldn't lose any shields at all; that is silly and I find it kind of pointless.

But if your shields are up you'll wind up spreading people's discombobulated atoms all over the sector!
[DOUBLEPOST=1446577822,1446577575][/DOUBLEPOST]Ah, yes. Decoupling the shields manually for a moment to prevent total shield loss is a good idea. It'd be like disconnecting the shield capacitors from the emitters rather than just DRAINING the capacitors, which is not a sensible way to operate your systems!

 

[Ithirahad]

But if your shields are up you'll wind up spreading people's discombobulated atoms all over the sector!
[DOUBLEPOST=1446577822,1446577575][/DOUBLEPOST]Ah, yes. Decoupling the shields manually for a moment to prevent total shield loss is a good idea. It'd be like disconnecting the shield capacitors from the emitters rather than just DRAINING the capacitors, which is not a sensible way to operate your systems!

Precisely. I even will take the 10 second down period like we have when someone drops your shields. Hell, maybe a little longer. It just shouldn't have to recharge the capacitors; as someone said earlier that punishes capacity-based shield setups.

 

[mindlord0013]

In the meantime if people want a work-around, try having your transporter room as a separate docked entity. I haven't tried this myself, but it only drops the shields of the entity itself, not everything in the entity chain?

 

[Valiant70]

In the meantime if people want a work-around, try having your transporter room as a separate docked entity. I haven't tried this myself, but it only drops the shields of the entity itself, not everything in the entity chain?

That's a very probable exploit.

 

[MacThule]

+1 to the general call for not even being able to transport to a shielded entity unless it "drops shields."

 

[alterintel]

In the meantime if people want a work-around, try having your transporter room as a separate docked entity. I haven't tried this myself, but it only drops the shields of the entity itself, not everything in the entity chain?

I can partially confirm this. I'm working on a ship where the mother ship is inside a much bigger docked entity that has shields to protect the mother ship inside. I installed a transporter in the mother ship, and the docked shields didn't go down

 

[Joe Tuber]

Why should transporters have any relation to shields at all? The only function it serves is to make transporting extremely risky while in combat, which brings up the question - is transporting during combat a problem? There are plenty of ways to properly balance the use of transporters (i.e. energy costs, cooldown, warmup) but I think having them lower shields is arbitrary and has no relevance outside of fluff.

 

[Blaza612]

Doesn't star trek have it so that transporters are modulated to match the shield frequency of the ship they're on so you don't have to drop shields? So if you know the shield frequency of the ship you're trying to transport to then you neither of their shields should need to be down. Correct me if I'm wrong, not much of a star trek guy.

Fucking hell Zaphord, you're a beautiful bastard. :p

This, this is exactly how. Each faction can set it's own shield "Frequency" which will be used by transporters. If transporting to a faction ship, then it will automatically put in the frequency that will allow you to transport without having to lower the shields. And if you can out your enemy's shield frequency, then you can transport to their ships without shutting down the shields.

However, transporters won't bring down the shields automatically, that has to be done manually. I would suggest an ion bomb, which would temporarily disrupt the shields of all (including faction and your own) ships in range of the bomb, shutting them down for a few seconds (maybe 4-5) and providing you with a small window to transport.

But of course if you can find out your enemies frequency, then you have a workaround the bomb. :P

For neutral ships, they will have a randomised frequency, since they're still faction-less.

 

[Ithirahad]

That's a very probable exploit.

Nope. Transporting from a docked entity drops your shields too. I tried this, albeit not for the sake of an exploit.

 

[Zaphord]

Fucking hell Zaphord, you're a beautiful bastard. :p

This, this is exactly how. Each faction can set it's own shield "Frequency" which will be used by transporters. If transporting to a faction ship, then it will automatically put in the frequency that will allow you to transport without having to lower the shields. And if you can out your enemy's shield frequency, then you can transport to their ships without shutting down the shields.

However, transporters won't bring down the shields automatically, that has to be done manually. I would suggest an ion bomb, which would temporarily disrupt the shields of all (including faction and your own) ships in range of the bomb, shutting them down for a few seconds (maybe 4-5) and providing you with a small window to transport.

But of course if you can find out your enemies frequency, then you have a workaround the bomb. :p

For neutral ships, they will have a randomised frequency, since they're still faction-less.

It's basic frequency harmonization, if both the shields and the transporter frequencies match then they don't disrupt each other, if they're different then your boarding party will have its atoms scattered. Naturally, I think transporters should have a failsafe to keep disruptions from occurring, so the beam shouldn't activate if there isn't a way to arive at the destination safely. Of course, losing a boarding party by having their atoms bounce off enemy shields would be a spectacular fail worthy of YouTube :p.

 

[Awdred]

...Actually, come to think of it, if anything, the ability to drop or raise shields from a console could be added, and transporters could be made so that you can't transport unless both ships have lowered their shields...

That's actually a great idea.

 

[Valiant70]

I would suggest an ion bomb, which would temporarily disrupt the shields of all (including faction and your own) ships in range of the bomb, shutting them down for a few seconds (maybe 4-5) and providing you with a small window to transport.

It's called a pulse with ion effect. Not good enough for you? Try suggesting a pulse radius increase to your server operator (I believe that's configurable).

As for being able to transport with shields up, I'd rather not. Transporters need some kind of weakness in exchange for their great convenience.

 

[Wolverines527]

I think its to discourage boarding attempts through warping in an enemy vessel or territory which could be a fatal move otherwise but i wouldnt get to bent out of shape there is going to more then likely be a balancing time to iron everything out