Dev-Thread: New Shielding System in devlopment

[Dire Venom]

As some as you may be awear, there is a new shielding system in devlopment that was discovered on the dev builds.
It has been confirmed by the devs, following is what we have been given so far:

Ah, but that's a feature

as being intentional and a feature in devlopment.

DukeofRealms is correct. That is a feature, which is currently lacking other GUI elements and some other block related systems.
It should be more clear what it is, and how it works in the next few builds.

1. Each shield group has its own radius, its own recharge and its own capacity.
2. Radius is for the local shield group, there's no total shields anymore (unless you use old system).
3. See 1 and 2
4. No touching required, just that 2 groups need to be "close" to auto link up. We're probably going to end up changing some of it though but the auto link system seems to be quite good.
5. Any block that falls within a shield radius, is shielded. As soon as that particular shield is destroyed or emptied, it starts taking damage. It is possible to have multiple local shields overlap, it's just not allow that the center point of 1 shield sphere is part
6. Performance should be just fine although you wouldn't really be allowed to have a huge amount of separate, small/big shields overlapping with each other.

In the current dev build, we re-use the shield cap and shield rechargers for this. 2 new blocks would be a bit cleaner but we aren't going to take away the ability to customize the shield HP vs its Shield regen.
There's also shield radius now, that's most likely just going to scale with the shield group size though.

Big thanks to Ithirahad for doing some testing and coming out with this:
____________________________________________________________________

...Okay, I've managed to figure out what it is, and it is not a bug. Here is how it works.
When you place down a group of shield rechargers and some shield capacitors, then have shield rechargers or capacitors selected in your building hotbar, you should see this (if not, relog/restart the game client):

That bubble is your shield radius. No, it is NOT A BUBBLE SHIELD, but it indicates the maximum radius in which the shields from your generator will fill capacitors and protect blocks. Blocks outside that radius will not be shielded. Larger generator groups have a larger radius.

Those pink line things are two arrows, showing that the shield capacitor groups are associated with that shield generator module.

If you try to put a shield generator group in the radius of another group, what you get is this:

This means that the second shield generator is not active. Note how the arrows for the shield capacitors still point towards the first group of shield generators, and not the second. If two or more generators exist inside each other's effect area, only the largest and most powerful one will be active. If the areas overlap but the generators are only within their own bubble, both shielding areas will work, but the larger group seems to take precedence in the overlap area. (Don't quote me on this, as it may not be correct.)

Again, as apparently this is a common misconception, these are not bubble shields. Projectiles travelling into the bubble will not be stopped by the shields until they hit a block inside the radius.

______________________________________________________________________

 

[Lecic]

Hey guys, remember how terrible and broken docked hull shield tanking is?

Yeah, this is just that but intentional.

Thanks Schine! It's good to know that you not only are capable of numbers balance fuckups but entire inherently flawed systems.

 

[Dire Venom]

Hey guys, remember how terrible and broken docked hull shield tanking is?

Yeah, this is just that but intentional.

Thanks Schine! It's good to know that you not only are capable of numbers balance fuckups but entire inherently flawed systems.

What exploits have you found already btw:? It seems you know more than I do XD

 

[Lecic]

What exploits have you found already btw:? It seems you know more than I do XD

Ok, so do you know how docked hull let you use armor tanking in exchange for keeping your shields up at 25% near indefinitely, because shots would have to annihilate the docked armor plate before they could reliably damage the shields of the main vessel?

Well, instead of fixing this huge hole in the balance that makes both ion and pierce weapons nearly worthless, they decided to codify it as an official game mechanic.

Thanks Schine.

 

[Lecic]

How exactly would this work? One layer of shielding covering 'fluff' blocks/some kind of armor sponge composite and then another main zone behind it covering vitals? Just having armor on top of your shielded area?

Well, what I was thinking was having "bubbles" of shielded systems along the center of the ship, surrounded by huge layers of composite advanced/basic/possibly capsule armor to make it so it would take ages before you even got close to hitting the actual shields, let alone taking them down. A couple advanced for the outermost layer, a few dozen or so layers of sponge (depending on how big the ship is), then another half dozen to dozen advanced around the system bubbles themselves. Maybe have some of the less important bubbles just use standard, you do need to save weight here and there after all.

Has anyone experimented to see if these will protect turrets and docked entities that have blocks within their radius?

 

[Koloss_Meshuggah]

Wouldn't this bring down performance ? The game has to check if each weapon round hit a block, then it has to check if that block is within the shield radius. God forbid we us cannon+cannon or waffle board cannons !

 

[Dire Venom]

Wouldn't this bring down performance ? The game has to check if each weapon round hit a block, then it has to check if that block is within the shield radius. God forbid we us cannon+cannon or waffle board cannons !

As stated in the first post, the devs have already been asked this question and havn't had any issues with performance thus far:

1. Performance should be just fine although you wouldn't really be allowed to have a huge amount of separate, small/big shields overlapping with each other.

 

[Jojomo]

Ok, so do you know how docked hull let you use armor tanking in exchange for keeping your shields up at 25% near indefinitely, because shots would have to annihilate the docked armor plate before they could reliably damage the shields of the main vessel?

Well, instead of fixing this huge hole in the balance that makes both ion and pierce weapons nearly worthless, they decided to codify it as an official game mechanic.

Thanks Schine.

I don't think that's the case here - to shield your hull you will either need a massive shield group that will shield the entire ship (i.e. same as no docked hull) or multiple small shields which will be much easier to take out.

Also, docked hull worked because of the damage hand-off mechanic between entities - the hull got a chance to recharge while inner entities took some hits - have we we seen any evidence that anything like this is happening here? (Not a rhetorical question)

 

[Dire Venom]

I don't think that's the case here - to shield your hull you will either need a massive shield group that will shield the entire ship (i.e. same as no docked hull) or multiple small shields which will be much easier to take out.

Also, docked hull worked because of the damage hand-off mechanic between entities - the hull got a chance to recharge while inner entities took some hits - have we we seen any evidence that anything like this is happening here? (Not a rhetorical question)

It seems like each group will have it's own seperate stats and recharge induvidualy. However they would all get the debuff from recharging in combat I would expect.
Seems like shield numbers would likely be buffed, and that spherical ships would be easiest to build (however they are hopeless at taking fire so no issues).
I'd be intersted in seeing how many shield groups would be optimal, the devs said they do no want multitudes of shield groupings as well. 1 shield to cover it all? 1 large front shield and a weak back shield?
I guess having deteched turrets would be more effective, as you could build their own shielding systems around the base (floating in space)

Just throwing out potiential ideas, main shielding around the ship with seperate spinning shields around it? Probably too much work :/

Also, how would docked entities would work with this. If a turret/ship is docked and within a shield bubble, can it have it's own shield activated or is it deactivated?

I dont have access to SM atm, but if anyone could do a bit of testing that would be much appreciated, and help us give more useful feedback.

 

[Jojomo]

It seems like each group will have it's own seperate stats and recharge induvidualy. However they would all get the debuff from recharging in combat I would expect.
Seems like shield numbers would likely be buffed, and that spherical ships would be easiest to build (however they are hopeless at taking fire so no issues).
I'd be intersted in seeing how many shield groups would be optimal, the devs said they do no want multitudes of shield groupings as well. 1 shield to cover it all? 1 large front shield and a weak back shield?
I guess having deteched turrets would be more effective, as you could build their own shielding systems around the base (floating in space)

Also, how would docked entities would work with this. If a turret/ship is docked and within a shield bubble, can it have it's own shield activated or is it deactivated?

I dont have access to SM atm, but if anyone could do a bit of testing that would be much appreciated, and help us give more useful feedback.

I think this shield update is potentially fantastic. Far, far more interesting than a single entity shield, and no docked entities to bring servers down.

 

[Non]

As I stated on the previous thread, this just weakens cannons and beams and buffs missile alpha. Any block damage system has to be able to effectively exploit the areas opened by taking down any given shield group, missiles, given that they all fly from the same launch platform with the same path, will all hit in a relatively close area. Missiles are already the king of block damage at any halfway large scale, this just makes it harder to pair them with something like beams and more necessary to just use missiles and only missiles.

 

[GnomeKing]

This looks very interesting (potential exploits aside) > the old shield system is quite simple/crude/linear...the problem of 'larger' ship shields being virtually impermeable sets in motion a number of other mechanics, generally trending towards gigantism/block spam/alpha-only weaponry ect. Several times suggestion have been made about altering shields to improve dynamics of combat (and consequently, less reliance on block count), for example so that shields only reduce damage at certain sizes, or progressively let through some damage as they are reduced, rather than being 100% protective... and so on.

Distributed shield generators could address this general issue well, and make ship combat, especially involving 'larger' ships much more interesting. It also opens up design variation and complexity, while being simple to implement in basic form ; Fantastic! Excellent! Exactly the kind of direction I hope StarMade takes ! Thank you.

Clearly some thought needs to go into final implementation - frankly I am very surprised it is computationally viable, especially for Servers, and particularly during combat when multiple shield groups on different entities are being near simultaneously calculated, and attributes altered as they and other docks are destroyed in multiple locations, as-well-as as all the many other calculation spikes that will get stacked during combat, eg with complex ships and sectors with multiple entities all receiving damage and recalculating shields at the same time .

If it is possible, and does not eat all spare CPU that might be needed for other 'future mechanics', Fantastic. Great. Lets iron out potential pitfalls and exploits.

 

[Non]

the problem of 'larger' ship shields being virtually impermeable sets in motion a number of other mechanics, generally trending towards gigantism/block spam/alpha-only weaponry ect

I want to ask what you mean by this before making a reply, so what do you mean by this?

 

[GnomeKing]

just exactly that > i am happy for Tiny and Titan to coexist
but faction/sever dynamics are affected when a player knows they are essentially invulnerable - or must fend off near invulnerable opponents...
[doublepost=1509007802,1509007269][/doublepost]DireVenom "Just throwing out potential ideas, main shielding around the ship with separate spinning shields around it? Probably too much work :/"

....probably not.

[blah uploaded 4 times instead of once, lol :/]

 

[Non]

but faction/sever dynamics are affected when a player knows they are essentially invulnerable - or must fend off near invulnerable opponents...

Unless you are actually breaking the game, no ship is anywhere near invulnerable, offense beats defense by such a wide margin that it is ridiculous. In many cases big ships only suffer for their size.

This shield change doesn't really improve anything or address any problems the way it is done. I like the idea but the implementation is awful.

 

[GnomeKing]

Offense beats defense because huge weapons get built...yes, ships are "egg-shells-with-hammers", which is meant to imply that even the largest Naval vessel was potentially breakable by cannonades from small frigates (everybody has hammers). Starmade systems should, i feel, fall somewhere within that general concept...However, currently when a small ship meets a big egg it often poses no threat (in terms in shield penetration) at all :/

[This system could improve design and combat in various ways;]

Currently, 'Huge' overpowered (+/- ion) weapons drop a ships shields fast - but over-penetrate/waste potential damage after that.
That waste/over-penetration of 'huge' weapons is increased with the new system, as on a 'larger' ship there is no possibility of knocking out all/most shields with a single shot - instead many such 'huge' weapons would be needed, and would need to be targeted at different shield groups, to achieve the same 'instant-shield-death' effect. Consequently a)'meta-glass-cannons' become a bit less effective in general, b) less incentive for 'over-powered' single weapons, c)'medium' and 'large' ships with several shield groups become more resistant to alpha-strikes

At the same time, for 'smaller' ships there is some possibility of over-whelming limited shield groups and causing attrition (even tactically catastrophic) damage to much more powerful opponents who fail to neutralize and destroy the threat. This means that there is less push to simply block-spam and build bigger to compete/engage an opponent.


This is good direction to go in as it address issues at different scales and perspectives. Personally I feel the idea achieves this because to relies on thought about 3-d block placement and positioning, creating a tangible outcome for creative choices made during building (rather than 'magic buffs'/'arbitrary nerfs' for example).

 

[Jojomo]

Unless you are actually breaking the game, no ship is anywhere near invulnerable, offense beats defense by such a wide margin that it is ridiculous. In many cases big ships only suffer for their size.

This shield change doesn't really improve anything or address any problems the way it is done. I like the idea but the implementation is awful.

Well you and Lecic seem to have different takes on the new shields as far as I can tell. You think offence beats defence and this update doesn't change that, he thinks this will overpower defence (if I'm reading things correctly). I hope the two of you will figure out who's correct, I'd really like to know for sure.

 

[Non]

However, currently when a small ship meets a big egg it often poses no threat (in terms in shield penetration) at all :/

[This system could improve design and combat in various ways;]

Currently, 'Huge' overpowered (+/- ion) weapons drop a ships shields fast - but over-penetrate/waste potential damage after that.
That waste/over-penetration of 'huge' weapons is increased with the new system, as on a 'larger' ship there is no possibility of knocking out all/most shields with a single shot - instead many such 'huge' weapons would be needed, and would need to be targeted at different shield groups, to achieve the same 'instant-shield-death' effect.

At the same time, for 'smaller' ships there is some possibility of over-whelming limited shield groups and causing attrition (even tactically catastrophic) damage to much more powerful opponents who fail to neutralize and destroy the threat.

Excluding ridiculous match ups like a 5k vs a 100k, this is completely false, a well designed ship can easily beat something much larger than itself, depending on the builders skill, killing 2x mass is no problem, if you are a good pilot with a great ship, 5-10x can be done. This also doesn't necessarily allow small ships to do any better, because if they are poorly built to where they have to depend on their enemy having shields that are broken up into areas weak enough to break, then they probably don't have the block damage to do anything meaningful to that area. If shield strength determines bubble size, then the window opened for block damage will also scale according to how powerful the shields in that area are.
[doublepost=1509010417,1509009890][/doublepost]

Well you and Lecic seem to have different takes on the new shields as far as I can tell. You think offence beats defence and this update doesn't change that, he thinks this will overpower defence (if I'm reading things correctly).

Not quite what I'm saying, though i see where you got it, this weakens cannon and beam offence rather than buffing defence. It weakens any block damage system not capable of dealing damage consistently to the area that was deshielded, cannons and beams will not be able to reliably hit small areas that are opened to deal block damage (and if you are tempted to respond that the area won't necessarily be small, and could be large, then very little actually changes and all weapons are essentially the same as beforehand). Which leaves missiles, that fly in the same path that will both deshield and deal block damage nearly simultaneously, to dominate pvp.

 

[GnomeKing]

"...depending on the builders skill", "if you are a good pilot" / "if they are poorly built"

it is not false that that currently when a 'small' ship (excluding a small glass cannon) fights a 'large' ship (assuming it is competently built and well shielded) it often can utterly fail to penetrate the shields at all. Of course it is possible (see above), but the mechanics (all or nothing shields) encourage players to build weapons which are hugely excessive in terms of block damage, and this can affect overall design of ships.

There would have to be tweaking so that 'small' ships can have chance of attrition damage etc when focusing fire on single shield groups of' large' ships.
[doublepost=1509010683,1509010519][/doublepost][ PS: the missile meta has also been discussed elsewhere - clearly players have counter measures]
[doublepost=1509011737][/doublepost] Proposed Shield-group system is clearly more interesting than current 'plonk-it-anywhere-and-forget' system, which also allowed massive stacks of shield-spam. Other issues with function of shields (as Non raises) might be addressed through changing the '[all-or-nothing' mechanic of shields, such as shields are reduced, they start to progressively let in some damage to armor and blocks. This single change, even applied to the current system, could make a great impact on game-play as it currently stands.

Area based shielding is even better - i just hope servers can handle it.

 

[Non]

Any small ship is a glass cannon, some people just don't like making the cannon part. Any ship that really has shields that are that difficult to penetrate is going to be weak in damage, which allows you the extra time to deshield them. Current shields promote excessively large ion arrays not block damage setups. Well built ships don't rely on attrition damage in the sense that i think you are using the phrase, that is not to say they aren't set up for long fights, but rather that they have the damage to where a fight against an equal mass ship should be short. If a well built ship comes up against something larger than itself, even if that ship is also incredibly well built, the smaller ship should have the capacity to kill it, not that it always will. The problem is that most starmade players aren't competent ship builders, because they build something, insist its the greatest, and never listen to advice, and people are willing to give advice. Its honestly the same problem the developers of this game have. Lastly, missiles when properly setup, with anti-missile-turret distractors, provide reliable hits unless you shoot them down manually like some players do, or you leave the sector.