Replace surface shields with bubble shields.

[Lecic]

ahahahahahahahahahahahaha, I should count the number of threads that have been created on bubble shields.

Hint: It's over 9000!

I'd add bubble shields to the starmadedock drinking game, but I think people might sue me for alcohol poisoning.

 

[Colt556]

Since this thread came up again, I'd like to make mention of the logic and physics of a bubble shield:

To allow physical objects to pass through, logically you would need to have missles and cannon fire (assuming cannons are projectiles and not energy) to pass through it, making the shield useless. If you did not allow them through, but allowed ships to go through, there would have to be a logical reason for that to happen. You could say that shields limit small objects from getting through by damaging them and taking the damage on the shields, but that would mean ships would need to be damaged when passing through it as well.

One bubble shield that is always mentioned is Star Trek:


According to their logic, ships would still not be able to enter them. Just a mention for the sake of RP or lovers of how the technology would interact. Having shields that bubble out would either have to sacrifice usefulness or logic unless there is another thought process.

Just something to think about. I'd be cool with testing out bubble shields to see if they really are a viable option.

Star Wars had a solution to the problem of what passes and what doesn't and that was velocity. Objects could pass through the shields but only if they moved slowly. The faster something moved, the more resistance it met from the shields until eventually the shields would just stop it outright. They also had another way of handling it which was two types of shields, one type stopped energy while the other stopped matter. So a ship would have the shields that stopped energy up almost all the time however when docking or releasing ships they would lower the matter shield around the hangars to allow ships to pass through while retaining atmosphere and guarding against weapons (energy).

I would like to see more options for defenses rather than just stacking shields. It'd be nice if we could make ships that relied on Halo or Babylon 5 style of just stacking on a ton of armor plating. It'd also be nice if we could get something like star wars with more specialized shields so players had to pick and choose. I'd also like to see directional shields, so rather than beating through the ship's shields in general you could break through it's top shields while it's bottom shields were still full health, and then couple that with the ability to route power to bolster shield facings.

While I see no real merit to bubble shields I do see merit in more defensive options.

 

[Viridis00]

While I see no real merit to bubble shields I do see merit in more defensive options.

Now that would actually be interesting. I'd love to see specialized physical/energy shields alongside our current multipurpose ones. We'd need more physical type weapons though to justify that however. As it stands, we've got Cannons, Lasers, and Damage Pulse (ha) for energy weapons, but just missiles for physical. We'd need something like railguns and machine cannons to justify separate shielding.

 

[Lecic]

Now that would actually be interesting. I'd love to see specialized physical/energy shields alongside our current multipurpose ones. We'd need more physical type weapons though to justify that however. As it stands, we've got Cannons, Lasers, and Damage Pulse (ha) for energy weapons, but just missiles for physical. We'd need something like railguns and machine cannons to justify separate shielding.

I'd count Cannons as physical weapons. Maybe you could count them as an energy weapon when they were AMCs, but now they're just Cs, so they seem to just be firing a cannon round now.
This would put us at a 50/50 split, and since most people use cannons and missiles for weapons, most people would have a majority of their shields dedicated to physical. This would give Beams (and Damage Pulse) a tactical advantage some of the time.

It'd be a careful balancing game when people built their ships. Do I defend against the common damage types and leave myself weak to beams? Or do I go 50/50, weaken my defense against missiles, but then invest in better PD?

But, when minelayers are introduced, we'll have a 3/2 split, so would unbalance it towards physical a bit. So, maybe we could introduce another unique energy weapon type...

 

[jayman38]

Disagreeing with the OP, I prefer the skin shields.

 

[Starlight Walker]

One of the problems with boarding ships is that a lot of them have heat seeking missiles, If you were trying to get from one ship to the other over any type of distance, you would need to be able to project a shield(Perhaps in a tube shape) to allow astronauts to survive in combat space.

I think that what Colt556 mentioned about "star wars shields" is a viable solution to the problem of planetary bases(How they get blown up in one hit) It would also give a reason to have PvP combat that doesn't use spaceships as a key element.
tho I will note that one problem with this is that people will design really long ships with massive cannons on the nose of the ship and move into these shields really slowly, bypassing the shield altogether and destroying whatever it was protecting

Because every single type of shield mentioned has its weaknesses there are limited options, one of which is to implement different types of shields for different things(i.e. Planets, ships, asteroid bases) it is also import to have them not mutually inclusive/exclusive to each situation/type of construct.

As always, you must ask yourself how will this be abused, worked around, backfire, and how it will be used in game-play. It is important to recognize the weaknesses in every plan(Just, don't tell your enemies) as well as making sure that you are designing for a variety of situations and not just one.

 

[NeonSturm]

...
One bubble shield that is always mentioned is Star Trek:

Spoiler: Text from Memory Alpha

Neither matter nor highly-concentrated energy could normally penetrate a shield. When shields were "up," or energized at a high level, most matter or energy that came into contact with the shields was harmlessly deflected away. This was important in starship combat, as shields were essential for hull protection. When the shields were up, only minor hull damage would be expected during combat. In the 23rd and 24th century, without deflector shields weapons were capable of causing catastrophic damage to starship hulls almost immediately. (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan; Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country; Star Trek Generations)

Continuous or extremely powerful energy discharges could progressively dissipate the integrity of a shield to the point of failure. Shield capacities varied according to many variables, from the power available to environmental concerns, making definitive and universal calculations of how much damage they could take difficult to estimate. Therefore, during combat tactical officers would continually report on shield strength, usually as a percentage of total effectiveness, with 100% meaning that the shields were at full capacity, and lower percentage scores indicating weaker shield conditions. Specific sections of the shield grid could take more damage than other sections, and be reinforced with additional power reserves, so tactical officers would report on the health of the shields by section if need be. Shields were said to be "holding" if damage was not sufficient enough to allow a compromise; if the shields were "buckling" or "failing," then a total loss of shield protection was imminent. (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country)

...

If you quote StarTrek ...
According to StarGate some shields can be bypassed by slow objects (The personal shield of some Goa'Uld could be penetrated by arrows and a dagger, but not by assault riffles) or by hyperspace jumps (once a modified Gua'Uld fighter used a Naquadria reactor to jump through the shield and kill the cooling systems of a death-star like super Flag-Pyramid-Ship)

You want to make armor worthwhile for ships? Have the damage done to the shields reduced by the armor of the block hit.

How exactly would the existence or lack thereof of armor increase shield mitigation? Even if there was a logical explanation for it, it still pushes shields when to my knowledge armor tanking is being worked on as being a more viable alternative (then it is now at least)

I like this - actually suggested it before. I would separate between shield-lacking interior and expensive exterior hull.
The explanation would be: "The block is a shield projector armor hybrid block".

I like it because it would add variety to combat tactics (front shield, upward...) and you can choose to have exposed parts outside of the shield protection.

Only issue: A Small ship's shielding would require 1/16 of it's with (2 blocks out of 32 width) and maybe 1/4 on it's tail/nose or wing while big ships only need a layer 1/100 of their width.

To fix this issue: Remember the projectile's impact block and do a check like with punch-through, just instant.
Accumulate armor values of all shield-projection-capable blocks to get the maximum absorbed value.
This would give you a fine tuning choice of differently strong protected areas. 100% absorption @ 2x 10% of ship width (2x for both sides)

Star Wars had a solution to the problem of what passes and what doesn't and that was velocity. Objects could pass through the shields but only if they moved slowly. The faster something moved, the more resistance it met from the shields until eventually the shields would just stop it outright. They also had another way of handling it which was two types of shields, one type stopped energy while the other stopped matter. So a ship would have the shields that stopped energy up almost all the time however when docking or releasing ships they would lower the matter shield around the hangars to allow ships to pass through while retaining atmosphere and guarding against weapons (energy).

I would like to see more options for defenses rather than just stacking shields. It'd be nice if we could make ships that relied on Halo or Babylon 5 style of just stacking on a ton of armor plating. It'd also be nice if we could get something like star wars with more specialized shields so players had to pick and choose. I'd also like to see directional shields, so rather than beating through the ship's shields in general you could break through it's top shields while it's bottom shields were still full health, and then couple that with the ability to route power to bolster shield facings.

While I see no real merit to bubble shields I do see merit in more defensive options.

I agree

 

[Glutton]

If you quote StarTrek ...
According to StarGate some shields can be bypassed by slow objects (The personal shield of some Goa'Uld could be penetrated by arrows and a dagger, but not by assault riffles) or by hyperspace jumps (once a modified Gua'Uld fighter used a Naquadria reactor to jump through the shield and kill the cooling systems of a death-star like super Flag-Pyramid-Ship)

According to that logic, nuke-grade missiles (which are typically slower than most ships) would pass through no problem. That seems like a terrible idea for a shield

 

[NeonSturm]

According to that logic, nuke-grade missiles (which are typically slower than most ships) would pass through no problem.

That's why there is a shield TYPE 2, called HP-System :P

No, that is not the ideal solution in SM.
Look at the other parts of my post Glutton

 

[Glutton]

That's why there is a shield TYPE 2, called HP-System :p

No, that is not the ideal solution in SM.
Look at the other parts of my post Glutton

If you mentioned a bad solution and you knew it was a bad solution, then it was pointless. Thanks for that

 

[CaptainTaz]

Star trek stuff -snip-

Just wanted to point out that on several occassions they have used shuttles to bypass shields. The one that comes to mind most is the one in Next generation where they slipped a shuttle though shields, past the Borg no less, in an attempt to save Picard.

 

[Snk]

Just wanted to point out that on several occassions they have used shuttles to bypass shields. The one that comes to mind most is the one in Next generation where they slipped a shuttle though shields, past the Borg no less, in an attempt to save Picard.

Never understood why they didn't just beam aboard a couple of torpedos.

 

[CaptainTaz]

Never understood why they didn't just beam aboard a couple of torpedos.

That would be too easy and boring. TV shows are about action and suspense, not cheap tactics.

besides, I'm sure the Borg, the most technologically advanced and efficient civilization, would have superior sensory and scramble the signals anyway.

 

[Viridis00]

Never understood why they didn't just beam aboard a couple of torpedos.

Maybe not Star Trek, but his has actually happened before in other sci-fi media surprisingly. Best example I can think of is Mobile Battleship (or Martian Successor depending on which subtitle you're reading) Nadesico. They had bubble shields like Star Trek called the Distortion Field, so later in the show the enemy actually used Boson Jumps (produces results like warp tech, except it works fundamentally different) to warp their torpedoes into the Nadesico past the Distortion Field.

I'm sure other shows or books have done this too. Very cheap and sneaky tactics.

 

[NeonSturm]

StarGate once transported a bomb onto a wraith mother-ship too.

But then the wraith adapted very quickly. I guess because it would have been boring else.​

If you mentioned a bad solution and you knew it was a bad solution, then it was pointless. Thanks for that

You got me wrong.
Missiles passing through shields very slowly would only be a problem if you have not enough point defense which can shoot down missiles.

Because of this the missiles would have some kind of separate shield (PD bullet shield) -> that renders the logic leading to your argument invalid ​

___

Perhaps weapons should not just be weaker, but ships also be incapacitated earlier.
Imagine your reactor gets hit by a torpedo.

Hull could be important to stop the chain-explosion.

Once in StarGate the Wraith's Darts (Fighters) chain-exploded inside the hangar, which did serious damage to the ship's internal systems.

Because the hangar was build too greedy for efficiency

 

[Sir_jackq]

hello i would like to add something constructive (i hope - sorry for wall of text)

"diversity fuels evolution" - atm we have only one type of shields that "do the job" but some of us lack something in the way they works.

No other choice leads to one "optimal" loadout (hated borg cubes or not so preety pvp Ships).
Rather than rebuilding working conception better think about modyfing it to compete with newly added alternative solution.​

->[add other shielding system of blocks, and balance it with old one so the choice would not be so easy]

After long lecture of post complaining about only "estetical usage" of armour blocks and "optimal layout", shield active armour,
ive came up with idea (surely not first, but it might be usefull reminder) that my increase value of armour leyers on your ships and turn people form Cube Ships.​

Adding secound type of shields and reworking rules of shields generation.

IMO shield DENSITY, and abillity to rapidly replenish them in requirerd spots it is vital for that change. in other words
placment of shield generators/emiteers and their number must be considered.
​

->[burst of damage in certain spot can pirce shields and damage ship if shield emiters cannot soak incomming damge - now your armor matters]

shields type 1. "skin shielding" -already implemented system - changes:

Block changes:

shield emiter - from now on, placement of that block counts, as each one of them will have hes own

field of range that will determine how well they replenish shield area.
get me right - it will not change place of generation of the sield (still skin), but how hard is to burst trough it in certain spots of lower cover of regenration -density toughtnes of the shields
each reduction of incoming damage decrese total shield charge- at 0 shields brake (time of brake must be considered by balancing)​

Shield capacitators - placement not important, inceresin capicity of shield,

power usege and capicity parametr now coresponds with build structure and number of blocks in it.
ratio of recharge have to be worked out.
​

Shields 1 master computer - toggles ON/OFF recharge
​

->[interia of the ship would be less protected by shields if they wernt implemented inside - give oportunity to infiltrate ship and sabotage it]

​

Shields type2. "buble" - "pasive shielding" , "phisical shielding", "newton fluid", "plasma shield" , (lets stay with "plasma shield")

in thought proces i would consider it as a plane of inpenetrable (by any object or energy lower than its power OFC) dense shield that after activation could be maitain for some time, traffic both sides would be blocked - resoult in colision.

Plane wold be prefered scaled "skinn" surface, for example 1.25x bigger so it shold give sobe spacing, it allso could be smooth eged scaled "skinn shiled" plane (closer to elipse or sphare)

System would require 4 new blocks:

Plasma Shield computer - works similar to hyperjump - left click charge capacitators - right activates shields which

will work till energy runs ot from capacitators (1. intention how it should work as escape plan) or till its turned off (2. toggle when you pleased).
computer controls all linked emiters
​

->[multiple computers will allow to decide which emiteras are active side of the ship will be currently active]

Plasma Shield emiter - DIRECTION OF PLACMENT MATERS -for 6 sides of your ship (full coverage)

you will need at least 6 emiters, placment in ship dosnt matter, additional blocks in one direction will improve shield parameters in cost of energy drain
​

Plasma Shield capacitator - storage for energy used to fuel shield when turned on (to consideration is option that the

can or cannot be recharged while used), placement in ship should not be importhnt, eficient sructure should be similar to "skin shield" capacitaors.
​

->[plasma shield capacitators are shered between Plasma shield computers and emiters]

Plasma Shield booster -block or module directly linked with shield emiter, it boost hardness of the directional shield

by cost of energy usage of that emiter.​

​

Thans for reading my first post on StarMade foum

 

[NeonSturm]

Imagine (easiest solution with issue):

rx = ratio : x distance to box center / (1/2 width)
ry = ratio : y distance to box center / (1/2 height)
rz = ratio : z distance to box center / (1/2 length)
Highest ratio and positive or negative define which side is hit.

Issue: A ship purposely built with a stick on top/left/back to move shielded side areas and only have to reinforce 3 of them.
Solution: Count blocks per xy, xz, yz planes and set mid = value{below < value < above; below (as much as possible) equals above}
Solution-Issue: More complex x/y/z center math. When should it be updated? Maybe when you build something in build mode (only dry docks?)​

I like above concept.​

But also a per-chunk solution would be good to balance big ships (which then are just more detailed).

x% of (min emitters needed for 100% absorption) per chunk.
max absorption = x*x *shield

maybe x > 100% boosts efficiency.

efficiency bonus = (x -100%) *balancingFactor; x <0 -> x =0​

 

[philthy mcnasty]

The thing about bubble shields, is if they were a performance hit, what does that mean for atmosphere? Or force fields?

I would rather have to pressurize my ships with atmosphere, then have bubble shields.

This also makes for some fun logic programing, like pressure or temp blocks, so that if there is a hull breech, i can automate blast doors to slam down and isolate it.

So, to make my point: What would we give up with bubble shields?

 

[CyberTao]

The thing about bubble shields, is if they were a performance hit, what does that mean for atmosphere? Or force fields?

I would rather have to pressurize my ships with atmosphere, then have bubble shields.

This also makes for some fun logic programing, like pressure or temp blocks, so that if there is a hull breech, i can automate blast doors to slam down and isolate it.

So, to make my point: What would we give up with bubble shields?

Pressurized atmospheres are also on the "Probably not" side of things. Starmade can't handle fluids (yet, it might) and the calculations would be too intensive (said people who know about the code and calculations needed). When we finally get atmosphere, it's probably be a set block distance from a special block (Lame I know).

Also, force fields? I know someone made a custom block once that denied bullets/beams. but let players through, is that what you mean?

 

[philthy mcnasty]

Yeah, i figured that atmosphere would be an issue,as this game does not have fluid mechanics like the ones in minecraft. Though calling those fluid mechanics is kind of a stretch.

Though this is still early alpha, and i assumed that the bigger priorities would be ships and space, over things on planets.

As for forcefields: i wanted to see light bridges, or blocks that when turned on, drained power.