New shield mechanics getting you down? Then GOOD NEWS EVERYONE!

[KuramaFox]

I've determined the way to overcome the new shield issues, is to add shields!

...what are you looking at me like that for?

What kind of shields did you THINK I was talking about? Being small, they have a rapid regen available. Further, they make it harder to hit the main ship, making it easier for that to get its regen started back up again. Also, it just looks cool to put literal shields on your ship. Because shields. Don't question the shields.



The lance underneath didn't work so well, but maybe I just need to figure out how to use it properly. And maybe build a better lance. How effective are those explosive things at destroying unshielded blocks anyway?

Just to note though, you CAN shoot your own shields, so make sure the guns don't aim through them.

 

[Nootau]

For the regeneration of 0.5 or 1 second, how much capacity do these shields have? I ask as I wish to know how quickly I could burst them down and shoot the core with an AMC.

 

[Danzarlo]

This is great for little ships but for bigger ones it wont help at all really not unless you make giant ones but then the regeneration goes back down anyway

 

[Stakhanov]

This has been done before with more rigorous methods. http://star-made.org/content/shield-plates

It would bring a new meaning to ship jousting though !

 

[Danzarlo]

event though these are the same to a degree they are made for different reason

 

[KuramaFox]

Because the shields are actually small flat ships docked the front of a larger one. Because they are small, they have a relatively small timer on how long it takes for their shields to recharge, and additionally due to the size are hard to hit consistantly.

Because each individual ship has a separate shield regen restart-timer when damaged, each individual ship getting hit will not interrupt regeneration of the OTHER ships, including the main ship. If you take a hit to the right shield, it stops regenerating for half a second to a second, but the other shields and the main ship will continue regenerating if they need to. And if the next set of hits lands on a different shield or the main ship, then the right shield will be able to regenerate un-interrupted by this hit.

Due to the diminishing returns of shield blocks, splitting up shields between several ships actually produces more total shielding as well.



The weakness, particularly for the design shown here (which is a prototype of the idea thrown together in barely an hour), is that its only a powerful defensive vessel from the direction the shields are docked on. The main ship out of necessity may have fewer shield generators then normal to make up for the room needed for extra engine power and stuffing it full of weapons (which the shields do not have).



This sort of thing looks to have been tried before at some point from the link you posted, but the new shield mechanics actually make it viable now. After all, if only one ship gets hit now, the ships not hit do not have shield regeneration interrupted.

 

[Shenzo]

I like the idea however, If you have a bunch of ships docked where are you going to put turrets? Will turrets on docked ships fire at the Enemy?

I know that my big ships don\'t turn fast enough to hit most things with main guns. So I depend on turrets for small fighters.

 

[Nootau]

Where will you put the Turrets? Why not just expand the turret\'s base, buff its shields and boom, your shield shoot people while it eats up shots.

 

[Alpha_Squad]

A flaw to this strategy is that it makes your ship very vulnerable to missiles. Granted missiles are really slow, so by keep on moving for several sectors should keep you safe. Also turret docks don\'t actually have to be physically connected to the ship, so a regular turret can be placed farther than the shields and everything will work out.



I am not sure if it is a bug, but if you add/remove a thruster to the mothership after docking a ship the game will forget that it was docked and you can move as if the docked ship had no mass.

 

[Soul Solarflare]

One of my friends was already using a shield ship long before the shield system was changed. He built a litteral flying sword and wanted a matching shield to dock on it, which works decent enough. The major problem is if the main ship\'s shield goes down, a stray shot can blow off the docking module, sending the shield ship flying off into the next frontier.

 

[Dire Badger]

Did you say that turret docks don\'t actually have to be connected to the ship? so I could have \'floating\' turret drones that have a greater field of fire because of their seperation from, say, a space station? do they shoot at the unit that they are \'floating\' attached to?



can you attach a turret TO a turret? does it still work?

 

[Aryl]

Don\'t share advanced player secrets! XP

I\'m building my first large ship using this method. There will be about 10 seperate main shield plates and dozens of other smaller shields. Even if you break through the first layer, the main shields are still not down. Some parts have quadruple redundancy.



The shield plates have to be remade now...I spent a day on them and then realized that the ship would end up being around 1,000 blocks WIDE if I continued.