Directional shields concept from STO and other ship games

[therimmer96]

Personally, I like the sheilds in starmade as they are. I hate that people are forcing changes to the game that makes it better in the long run to make a fighter over a capital, and I am frequently seeing suggestions to nerf sheilds even more.

As I dont want this, here is my take on a new, directional shields mechanic Star Trek Online has a directional shielding system that I feel would be good in this game. It would not ruin any current designs by replacing the current shield blocks, but will add more tactics to battles.

In STO, ships have 4 individual shields, fore, aft, port and starboard. Each ship has a shield statistic overall that is divided evenly between the 4 shields. The hud then has 5 buttons for directing shield power around the ship. The first 4 are simple, evenly drain power from each shield to the direction you clicked. The 5th is to drain power from the shields and to even out all the shields, so for example, if your forward, port and starboard shields are being drained,but not the aft, you can press the balance button to drain power from the rear shields to re-enforce the other 3. This is not instant, so the shields have to charge at the ships normal recharge rate. This is the hud that controls sheild power;

A system like this would add a new level of tactic to the game, making the battles where 2 ship face each other and shoot with no movement a thing of the past, as pilots will have to think about directing their currently most protected side towards the enemy so the other side can regenerate, while thinking about trying to direct all their fire on the same side of the shields.

 

[Ithirahad]

What\'s with the old screenshot? They completely reskinned their interface and kind of clarified some things...

 

[NeonSturm]

First, shields have to hold longer than just 1-5 seconds.

I don\'t know if the cap at 1 million power regen balances it a bit out, but I don\'t really like that you have exactly 4 sides - why not 6? bottom/top?



1. I would give shield the armor which the hit hull part has. All big ships are made from the basic hull parts, just because 2k hp is not so good as 4 different hull parts. Then you have to use better hull parts too - and armor/hp are not as redundant as now.

Then you could decide which pieces would give you more armor, but are more expensive and which give you less but are cheap.



2. You can already make directional shields - just put shields on some docking ship.

I made a ship with 4 docking units at front, put 1 layer shields on each and 12 layers water (3 each) one after another.

I have to use a cockpid (or I will attack my water) and go with my guns around the docking area, but that gives the main shield (2x as strong) some shots to hold while the others get attacked.

I guess, with my manouver-ability, the small fighters (5:1 thrust) I can dodge and survive most shots from the same weight.

Somebody with enough time should try that on a bigger ship

 

[Syzygy]

I think directional shields would only be good for a very slow paced game, not at the pace of starmade.

 

[therimmer96]

All fair enough, Just an Idea I had, the old screen shot was one from google, I had to google as I didnt have access to the game.