Shield supply beam revamp - support ship viability

[Matt_Bradock]

Since docked power/shield supply modules are out of the question, these systems are out of use completely.

Why not revamp them to require only power to operate? That'd open up some options for players to fly support ships in battles.
To make it more interesting, I'd also allow effect systems to connect to the shield supply beam, to transfer the defensive equivalent of that effect to the targeted ship as long as the beam is active (instead of transferring shields). The efficiency of effects would be calculated for the target ship as it was using a defensive effect, but instead of only the effect, the entire size of the support ship's shield supply/secondary/effect system would be the base of the calculation.

Some suggestions for potentially useful effects (as per their current defensive property):
- Ion: shield damage reduction
- Explosive: momentum weapon (stop, pull etc.) resistance
- Overdrive: Overdrive effect to max speed
- Stop: gravitational force resistance
- Punch-through: multi-block damage reduction
- Piercing: block damage reduction

 

[Lecic]

Logispam/Medic circle jerks are almost always complete and utter cancer in PvP. I hate them. Every single game they exist in, it is, bar none, the most OBNOXIOUS ""tactic"" in the game. Dreadnought, Fractured Space, Robocraft, the list goes on and on. I hate this shit. There is nothing more annoying than trying to fight a group only to discover it will be literally impossible to kill them because all three have a healing weapon. You need overwhelming firepower to even attempt to kill an opponent that is outnumbered and outgunned. That should never happen.

Shield supply should be removed from the game.

 

[Sachys]

Shield supply should be removed from the game.

except maybe for stations. stations have no in game love. they need the love. do you not love stations? you should love stations more!

Edit: you hate stations, dont you?!

 

[Lecic]

except maybe for stations. stations have no in game love. they need the love. do you not love stations? you should love stations more!

What purpose would a stationary, fixed beam that provides a function that ships can already do for themselves (regenerate shields) possibly serve?

 

[Sachys]

What purpose would a stationary, fixed beam that provides a function that ships can already do for themselves (regenerate shields) possibly serve?

Yeah, you are a station hater without imagination. Also, remove that broomstick.

 

[Lecic]

Yeah, you are a station hater without imagination. Also, remove that broomstick.

I'm a station hater because I don't think we should preserve a mechanic that would be useless for them? Please, provide an example of what a fixed shield regen beam could do. Regenerate shields to a ship in the middle of combat defending the station, I guess? It sounds incredibly niche and impractical, and if you're just going to constantly send the ship back to be recharged while defending the station, wouldn't it be better off as just a turret docked to the station?

 

[Sachys]

I'm a station hater because I don't think we should preserve a mechanic that would be useless for them? Please, provide an example of what a fixed shield regen beam could do. Regenerate shields to a ship in the middle of combat defending the station, I guess? It sounds incredibly niche and impractical, and if you're just going to constantly send the ship back to be recharged while defending the station, wouldn't it be better off as just a turret docked to the station?

you are reading more deep than the joke was meant just as always. instead, use your imagination, and just consider a place, where stations (that get zero buffs), get a buff, you buffoon!
also, try stop being a git in all your replies on here. you always are a git to people. please stop it.

 

[Lecic]

you are reading more deep than the joke was meant just as always. instead, use your imagination, and just consider a place, where stations (that get zero buffs), get a buff, you buffoon!

Is it a joke or not? Make up your mind. It's a joke but you still want it in the game? There's no practical use for shield beams on a station. That's a fact. I listed every potential use I could think of but there's really not much it'd be good for. It's a pointless buff to appease the people who want them. Why should the devs waste their time on that when they could implement actually useful station buffs? Just remove the shield supplies and be done with it.

 

[Calhoun]

Is it a joke or not? Make up your mind. It's a joke but you still want it in the game? There's no practical use for shield beams on a station. That's a fact. I listed every potential use I could think of but there's really not much it'd be good for. It's a pointless buff to appease the people who want them. Why should the devs waste their time on that when they could implement actually useful station buffs? Just remove the shield supplies and be done with it.

Ha, you're a git Lekek

 

[NaStral]

I would really like to see more diversity in vessel roles, including support ships, though perhaps to avoid the aforementioned "circle jerking" the effects could be reduced,delayed or even nullified if said support vessel used it on another ship carrying the same systems. Any kind of Heal over times would have to have some kind of cap to prevent them from being too powerful and long lasting. Spike healing would need the same thing, though that wouldn't be quite so bad and could be easily mitigated by long cooldowns. Lock on buffs for one intended recipient only could be cool too, not too strong but enough to justify the use of a support for a combat team.

Support tools for use outside of combat would be nice, something to quickly get a ship back to at least minimal fighting shape. I could see astrotech, instead of just repairing damaged blocks would repair SHP and AHP up to maybe 25% AHP and 75% SHP but would be slow enough so you couldn't effectively use it in a fight.

 

[Matt_Bradock]

From a certain PoV I can understand where Lecic is coming from. A support ship, in order to be viable, would have to dedicate most of its system space to the support tools especially with how the bonuses on the effects would work. Especially if it also wanted to be able to actually recharge shields on another vessel - unless the pilot wants to hit the weapons menu to manually disconnect the effect system from the supply beam, it would need a separate array for the effect bonus (which wouldn't recharge shields at all) and for the actual shield replenishment.

Alternatively, the bonus effect part could be moved to the power supply or astrotech beam to make sure 2 separate systems are required to have both. This would ensure that support ships wouldn't really have much combat effectiveness and their own survival would be dependent on how well their friendlies can stand the fire AND protect them... because let's face it, since you mentioned Fracture Space and Dreadnought - which ships do the artillery cruisers (a.k.a snipers) and the corvettes (a.k.a. fast light burst-fire assassin ships) go for first?

Oh, right. The healers.

 

[Lone_Puppy]

I could see it useful for structures with no shields like planets, asteroids and potential moons.
Logically, if this were a real technology, I would expect military organisations to use it. This would include the old frowned upon docked reactors.

 

[taisong]

Do we want them to join in combat? Or, do we want them to work AFTER a fight?

 

[Matt_Bradock]

Do we want them to join in combat? Or, do we want them to work AFTER a fight?

Since the current state of the game doesn't make it possible to replenish lost armor hp or lost blocks in the field, and even the shipyard's repair function works in a way that it completely reconstructs the ship from scratch, without a TON of new code written to enable field repairs by astrotech beam, it can only make sense in combat - especially that the original proposal only affects combat stats such as shield recharge, shield damage reduction, armor/system block damage reduction etc.

So, in combat. Definitely in combat.

 

[Ithirahad]

If we're talking about stations, I'd rather a sector-wide buff to allies. If we're talking about ships, balancing is certainly a concern. Logi in EvE is nice, if a bit frustrating at times, but things like the old Robocraft nano circles are kinda... cancer.