Deflector and FAKE (visual effect) bubble shields

[Valiant70]

People have been suggesting bubble shields forever, and we all know by now why they won't work. Some might still prefer the visual effect of such shields, though, so why not just make it look that way?

When a ship gets hit, just draw a circle or oval with shading over it in the color of the weapon that hit it. It *might* look a little funny if a small fighter is inside the shield firing and making the bubble appear, but if one thinks of the shield as more of a sphere of influence rather than a hollow bubble, it makes more sense. If personal shields for astronauts are ever implemented, a similar effect could be used to give an intuitive visual cue that the astronaut didn't get damaged when shot.

Another mechanic that could go along well with this is a device called a deflector. When a ship with shields up comes in close proximity to another ship, a force is applied pushing the two ships away from one another. This system could:

• Fling a small fighter off into space, effectively preventing the above visual oddity.
• Reduce the incidence and duration of actual collisions between blocks, improving performance under some circumstances.
• Increase the viability of collision damage by offering shielded ships some protection from random bumps and bangs.

Deflectors could be made into a separate system, but I don't think this is necessary. It would be simpler and just as sensible to base deflector performance on max or current shield capacity.

 

[Madman198237]

This would likely work best if it could be entirely client-side, obviously. That way, if your GPU can handle it, you can have spherical/bubble/whatever-have-thou shields, but if you're on a potato (Or your GPU's a potato pumpkin pie slice [Thanksgiving spirit, after all]) then you do not have to suffer the performance hit.

 

[Lukwan]

I like the fake bubble-shield idea. It seems plausible and I would consider it useful, tactically.

Not too sure about the deflector thing though. Wouldn't it need to do a bunch of collision checks...just to avoid...those...collision checks?

 

[alterintel]

Fake bubble shield: YES
Deflector: NO

a deflector would totally negate torpedoes.

 

[nogg]

Fake bubble shield: YES
Deflector: NO

a deflector would totally negate torpedoes.

torpedoes are extremely weak at present. it would not be a huge loss.

All mine designs would be trash though!

 

[Valiant70]

Fake bubble shield: YES
Deflector: NO

a deflector would totally negate torpedoes.

If shields are down or the torpedo's heavy enough and fast enough, still kablooey.

 

[Madman198237]

The LAG, though.

No "deflectors" necessary. That'd be unnecessarily laggy.

 

[Valiant70]

The LAG, though.

No "deflectors" necessary. That'd be unnecessarily laggy.

It would be less laggy than a collision as only one physics calculation is needed - check distance, and if within range apply a force to the ship. Block collisions are far more CPU intensive or "laggy." This feature would reduce CPU usage, not increase it.

 

[kiddan]

We could use some of the new fancy bloom mechanics for a fake bubble shield effect, no? From what I've tested, it looks like the blooms from thrusters and beacons have physical shapes up to some extent.

 

[Madman198237]

Good idea, Valiant, but that still doesn't account for the shape of a ship, except that, in order to really reduce calculations, you have to make a circle or sphere with radius x (Where x is the longest dimension of the ship in question) and repel the circle/sphere of radius y (Where y is the longest dimension of the approaching object). Otherwise we're back to our crappy, unoptimized bounding-box lunacy.

The circle/sphere thing is fine, but will produce some really freaky and not really cool effects.

 

[Lockerd]

I actually saw someone manage to make a passable bubble shield.

essentially, he put six points on his ship, which are the diameter nodes, they are at least high and wide enough to encompass the entire ship, and all it does, is place an invisible sphere of blocks with slants, corners and edges along with a layer of standard blocks. any time something hit those invisible blocks, the standard shield effect would play out.

one node on the ventral, dorsal, port, starboard, fore and aft of the ship, and each aligned directly with the ship center (you have to make odd numbered ship dimensions for it to work).

I don't know if he ever got it to work properly, but he did manage to make it deployable, and retractable. and once he managed to make the entire shield go down once the total standard shields did.

it was a performance muncher.

Also note, this was a mod (or some form of script, I don't remember, but it was cool to see), which he still will not release...greedy p'taq

 

[philthy mcnasty]

I like the fake bubble-shield idea. It seems plausible and I would consider it useful, tactically.

Not too sure about the deflector thing though. Wouldn't it need to do a bunch of collision checks...just to avoid...those...collision checks?

You can do this in a way with force fields and build helper. Just put your ship in the middle, and make a giant ellipse/sphere and fill that up with forcefield blocks. hot bar a switch to it, and you have a nice set of disposable armor that you can make 4 or 5 blocks deep to screw with the punch through weapons.

 

[Edymnion]

The main problem I've seen stated with bubble shields is that rendering and calculating all the surfaces needed to make it would be too intensive.

Not sure why we can't just have beehive barriers though.

 

[Madman198237]

Because we are not as awesome as the Master Chief. Sorry, dude, but it's true.

 

[Lockerd]

Because we are not as awesome as the Master Chief. Sorry, dude, but it's true.

well those are entirely more possible than nothing, just simply having some nodes, exposed to space with no ship based obstruction can project a shield of the shape you dictate for it. that would be pretty good, and people could easily make such a thing. it's not impossible to make a bubble shield, as long as you build it by hand.