Ltmauve's shielding suggestion

[ltmauve]

So, because we don't have enough of these around here, I've got another one. Take a shot if you drink.

BUBBLES =D
First, we add "bubble shields" that only affect a transparent block. Ships will be able to pass through, but not attacks while the shields are up. Their power costs are similar to our current shields. These will be much cheaper than the current shields.

Second, if the above sentence didn't tip you off, the current shields stay. But they get a vastly increased power curve, that makes them fine for smaller ships but utterly impractical as the main shields for larger ships.

So of course everyone is asking why not just coat your titan with the bubble blocks to prevent fighters from taking down the surface shields and killing you.
Because these bubble shields will occasionally pass the buck to the inner shields, and that occasionally depends on how close the bubble is to the hull. If it's super close (like touching the hull) then the chance is very high. (Not sure of the implementation, but I'd imagine that each chunk would get its own penetration chance based on the spacing between the bubble and the hull.)

Another reason to avoid putting the bubble to close to the hull is because if the shields are down, they are vulnerable to being destroyed by explosions from the hull, though they won't set off the explosives themselves.

The bubble blocks will need to come in block, wedge, and penta, simply to indicate outwardness (for turrets or smaller ships hanging out in the shield.)

Shield Computer
Also being added is a shield computer. You can put multiple of these on a ship. Attach any shield blocks (hull or bubble) They allow you to redistribute shields between different facings of the shield. "Facings" refers to bubble blocks above/below/right/left/foe/aft of the computer. Transferring shields requires power. (No, I am not sure of the math needed to evenly distribute shields with asymmetric placing of the computer, but drawing from a smaller facing to a larger one should result in a loss of shields)

Attached Primaries/Effects
The shield computers also allow you to activate resistances to different attack primaries if you have that primary attached. Effects attached to the shield computer will do stuff to ships trying to pass through the bubble blocks when activated. The effectiveness of these is determined by how many effect blocks are used.

• Stop, Push, EMP: Apply the effect to any ships crossing the bubble
• Pull: Tries to turn the crossing ship away from the defending ship.
• Ion: Shield damage
• Piercing: Hull damage (if shields down)
• Explosive: Does both shield and hull damage (Though half as much as ion/piercing)
• Overdrive: Chance of reflecting projectiles back (this is percentage-based)
• Punchthrough: Activates collision damage for objects hitting the shield (shield will not take collision damage)

The attached effects and primaries do cost power, which is why they're activatable and not always on once linked.

 

[Krazykat]

Please no bubble shields, these have been discussed to death and at this point it's beating a dead horse.

We had bubble shields before, and when frames start dropping people get more mad at how they can't even play the game rather than how nice and fancy all the new shield options are

also what about old ships? Do we just throw them into the dirt and call them useless now since their systems are no longer compatible with the new update?

 

[Comr4de]

Yeah bubble shields were dropped for a reason dude

 

[Viridis00]

Come on we just had a bubble shield thread a couple days ago.

 

[Mariux]

So, because we don't have enough of these around here, I've got another one. Take a shot if you drink.

BUBBLES =D
First, we add "bubble shields" that only affect a transparent block. Ships will be able to pass through, but not attacks while the shields are up. Their power costs are similar to our current shields. These will be much cheaper than the current shields.

Second, if the above sentence didn't tip you off, the current shields stay. But they get a vastly increased power curve, that makes them fine for smaller ships but utterly impractical as the main shields for larger ships.

So of course everyone is asking why not just coat your titan with the bubble blocks to prevent fighters from taking down the surface shields and killing you.
Because these bubble shields will occasionally pass the buck to the inner shields, and that occasionally depends on how close the bubble is to the hull. If it's super close (like touching the hull) then the chance is very high. (Not sure of the implementation, but I'd imagine that each chunk would get its own penetration chance based on the spacing between the bubble and the hull.)

Another reason to avoid putting the bubble to close to the hull is because if the shields are down, they are vulnerable to being destroyed by explosions from the hull, though they won't set off the explosives themselves.

The bubble blocks will need to come in block, wedge, and penta, simply to indicate outwardness (for turrets or smaller ships hanging out in the shield.)

Shield Computer
Also being added is a shield computer. You can put multiple of these on a ship. Attach any shield blocks (hull or bubble) They allow you to redistribute shields between different facings of the shield. "Facings" refers to bubble blocks above/below/right/left/foe/aft of the computer. Transferring shields requires power. (No, I am not sure of the math needed to evenly distribute shields with asymmetric placing of the computer, but drawing from a smaller facing to a larger one should result in a loss of shields)

Attached Primaries/Effects
The shield computers also allow you to activate resistances to different attack primaries if you have that primary attached. Effects attached to the shield computer will do stuff to ships trying to pass through the bubble blocks when activated. The effectiveness of these is determined by how many effect blocks are used.

• Stop, Push, EMP: Apply the effect to any ships crossing the bubble
• Pull: Tries to turn the crossing ship away from the defending ship.
• Ion: Shield damage
• Piercing: Hull damage (if shields down)
• Explosive: Does both shield and hull damage (Though half as much as ion/piercing)
• Overdrive: Chance of reflecting projectiles back (this is percentage-based)
• Punchthrough: Activates collision damage for objects hitting the shield (shield will not take collision damage)

The attached effects and primaries do cost power, which is why they're activatable and not always on once linked.

Please no. Too vulnerable to griefing, though I'm fine if the bubble look is only visual, but shields still work the same way as they do currently.

 

[Lord Daro]

(I was thinking of replying in the other shield threat, but it seems kinda pointless now.)

While i am aware that bubble shields were taken out for a reason, i still think it would be nice to have more options on defence, allowing for more role diversity.
And adding a "bubble-Block" (i somewhat like that term) probably won't be as laggy than to have the engine processing a bubble.

I don't think though it has to be as complex as ltmauve has suggested.

 

[Blakpik]

Bubble shields again, just did a shot.

 

[ltmauve]

also what about old ships? Do we just throw them into the dirt and call them useless now since their systems are no longer compatible with the new update?

Yeah, I know. But the weapons system made all the ships require a new update. And smaller ships will barely notice any difference.

Yeah bubble shields were dropped for a reason dude

Let me see, because trying to have a non-block based surface with a large number of collisions really drops performance? hence the "bubble blocks" Because defining the surface of the shield in such a way that- oh wait, blocks. Because one of the problems with bubble shields is "why put them away from the hull? Hence the bubble shields sometimes letting the shots go through. Because it doesn't add any options to combat? The entire effect section didn't count?

Too vulnerable to griefing

Huh? We keep the current shields, though the power cost of maintaining large amounts of them will increase so that larger ships cannot use them as their primary shields. Would that honestly make griefing that much easier?

 

[Blakpik]

also what about old ships? Do we just throw them into the dirt and call them useless now since their systems are no longer compatible with the new update?

I don't agree with bubble shields, but the game is in alpha, there have been a lot of times that ships become useless, and there will be many more.

 

[Tobie]

Wouldn't it be orders of magnitude more practical to just use a 3d model of a sphere to handle collision detection? I image it would be relatively simple to scale and warp it so it encompasses all of a ship's blocks. Sure you wouldn't get to shape the shields to some kind of design, but the gains in performance compared to what you are suggesting would be enormous.

 

[ltmauve]

I don't know about the exact reason for why the bubble shields were originally taken out of the game, but I believe that the shields were not blocks. If someone from around that time wants to tell us, please do. Anyway, using a sphere/ellipsoid wouldn't allow for customizability at all. Bubble shields are a vulnerablitity because they allow small craft in, but if they are too close they aren't effective. The balance between the two is important. It also means that having a ship that isn't a straight-up sphere or ellipsoid itself would have huge openings in the shield to fly larger craft in than the default gap.

 

[Lecic]

I'm against bubble shields, because it essentially gives turrets and the main ship a shared shield pool. Lack of a shared pool is a purposeful design choice by the devs.

 

[Krazykat]

This is not a viable option, because if any sized ship can stick a projection with a weapon output into the radius of a bubble shield, well you might as well not even have the shield as they'll rip apart your core faster than your turrets can turn to face them.

Also simply saying "screw old ships" is not an effective argument, even with the weapons update it wasn't too hard since they including they remove/build helper filter, and most old weapons were still usable, they just changed what they did, so one could simply rip them out since they were almost always grouped closely together. This kind of update will require entire changes to ship layout and design, since shield blocks tend to be dispersed everywhere throughout a ship, and it would honestly ruin most of the beautiful ships already made.

Another point, bubble shields are very biased against unique ship shape, basically forcing you to build doom cubes even more or even spherical ships so there is zero area to get under, this is already a problem and creating a limiting defense system does not help builders who want to be creative in their shape, who are already suffering due to turning rate penalties and power lines efficiencies

 

[Viridis00]

Another point, bubble shields are very biased against unique ship shape

Now, I'm not defending bubble shields or anything, but bubble shields aren't always perfect circles. The USS Voyager for instance had an ellipsoid shaped shield, and I'm sure I've seen other sci-fi media where the bubble contours to the ship but isn't a laminate. If somehow a more sophisticated bubble system got implemented it need not restrict ship shapes.

Of course, that's all a moot point since we never will get them and the disadvantages of implementing them heavily outweigh the advantages (if there are any) of bubble shields. I'll cease beating the dead horse now.

 

[CyberTao]

Spoiler: Extremely Off-Topic

Now, I'm not defending bubble shields or anything, but bubble shields aren't always perfect circles. The USS Voyager for instance had an ellipsoid shaped shield, and I'm sure I've seen other sci-fi media where the bubble contours to the ship but isn't a laminate. If somehow a more sophisticated bubble system got implemented it need not restrict ship shapes.

Of course, that's all a moot point since we never will get them and the disadvantages of implementing them heavily outweigh the advantages (if there are any) of bubble shields. I'll cease beating the dead horse now.

Might I just say it's a joy reading your posts coupled with that avatar. It always feels so high class. Just wanted to say that.

 

[ltmauve]

any sized ship can stick a projection with a weapon output into the radius of a bubble shield

I'm against bubble shields, because it essentially gives turrets and the main ship a shared shield pool. Lack of a shared pool is a purposeful design choice by the devs.

Those are valid points against this. Leric's point, I think I know how to fix it. Not so with Krazy's point. That's probably a sinker.

This kind of update will require entire changes to ship layout and design, since shield blocks tend to be dispersed everywhere throughout a ship, and it would honestly ruin most of the beautiful ships already made.

I'm sorry, how is replacing "shield capacitor" with "bubble capacitor" a majorly difficult change that requires rebuilding an entire ship?

Another point, bubble shields are very biased against unique ship shape, basically forcing you to build doom cubes even more or even spherical ships so there is zero area to get under, this is already a problem and creating a limiting defense system does not help builders who want to be creative in their shape, who are already suffering due to turning rate penalties and power lines efficiencies

I suppose I shouldn't have used the term "bubble shields" because everyone immediately sees it, scrolls past without reading it, and puts down the arguments against bubble shields. Maybe "Invisible hull shields" might have been better, because you might have actually read the part about making the "bubble" out of blocks.

 

[Lecic]

Leric

Nobody ever spells my name right -_-

 

[ltmauve]

Sorry, Lecic.