Should ships be able to fight without shields?

[Mosshadow]

Do you guys think it should be possible for ships to be able to fight other ships without shields and rely only on armor and firepower? While most franchises such as Star wars, Halo and Star Trek have shields as a major component of starship defenses, there are a few like Babylon 5 and Freespace where the ships rely on thick armor that is resistant to fighter weapons.

 

[Zodapop]

It\'s already entirely possible. Just don\'t put shield blocks in ships.

 

[Captain Siscold]

I think the main point of this question is: should ships be able to fight *and not be instantly killed* without shields. I think it\'s a great idea that hasn\'t been discussed enough. Instead of repeating the \"Nerf the AMC\'s!\" cry, why not make hull actually serve a point? At the moment, a single shot by anything larger than a basic fighter will rip through regular hull like tissue paper. Against large ships, even hardened hull is worthless (hence the reason I don\'t bother to use it on my builds. I mean, honestly, marginal increase in protection for a roughly tenfold increase in the price per hull block?). I say that we should make it so that hull actually can protect a ship, not just decorate it. Maybe have the block that\'s hit take 50% of the damage, with the remaining 50% spread to the directly adjacent blocks? I\'m no expert, so I\'ll leave the actual mechanics to someone else



EDIT: I just found another topic dealing with hull absorption that I love. I think that\'s where I got the idea for my scheme, actually: http://star-made.org/content/hull-armor-absorption

 

[PlagueDoctor42]

In my eyes, one of the best cases of Armor/Shields balance was the GSB system; Armor vs fighters, Shields vs cruisers.



To be a bit more specific, Shields in that game are a bit different from starmade, because they\'re \"away\" from the ship, right? So you could get a cute little fighter squadron, and go \"under\" the shield, and then proceed to F*** S*** UP. Unless, of course, the recipient ship of the F***ING had armor, then you couldn\'t really, BUT, this was generally countered by their pretty low speed, and probably crappy weapons (you could either choose; great weapons, great armor, great shields, great speed, or great price, but not all of the above), and their speed would be their downfall (due to enemy cruiser artillery fire)

So basically, The balance would be like; Artillery Counterd by shields, By fighters, By armor, By Artillery.

Fun balance, that game had, fun balance. Starmade should learn from it\'s GSB and SOTS elders, dag-nabbit!

 

[NeonSturm]

Elipsoid shields were a source of lags as far as I heard from old players.

I still think it is faster to calculate an abstract object by

• translating copy-projectiles to the ship\'s coordinate system
• and transforming the copy-projectile\'s & copy-shield\'s x/y/z equally for the shield to be a sphere
• to which the copy-projectiles can do their collision checks (x*x + y*y + z*z >/< r*r*3)

 

[Keptick]

It will combine the hp of all the blocks on the ship, or something like that.

 

[ltmauve]

True, but I got the impression it was not a non-replenishing shield but a way of determining things like overheating, other damage consequences, instead of using just the core.

 

[Saba]

Why not make shields stay (more or less) the same, and make hulls so they have a shared health IF they are touching other hull, so in a sense one could easily have 3-5 layers of thick hull, with 2-3 layer (seperated by something like power tanks or somtin). It would be a bit more realistic, or perhaps wouldn\'t help much, drones and pirates simply core drill while players (try) do the same.

 

[Invadr]

I am enjoying the Tectum Clementia server, for this very reason. Far less shields, and hulls and armor have greater hit points.

 

[lupoCani]

My opinion: No. Loosing shields should be crippling for a non-fighter ship and force it to retreat asap. The usefullness of hull should be implemented in the form of shields leaking small amounts of damage that the hull has to soak up.

 

[Winterhome]

Toss shields and toss AMCs and it works nicely.

Play the Tectum server.

 

[VindeneEvantyr]

Personally i think adding a second weapon type and changing armor mechanics would be decent.



energy weapons > Shields

energy weapons < Armor

Kinetics < Shields

Kinetics > Armor



Granted we already kinda do because of missiles but honestly AMC\'s are superior to Missiles in killing power because they can kill shields AND blocks whereas missiles only really hurt blocks.

When i made my ship on my friends server i layered it with 5 layers of Hardened plates because i thought it would be useful. Now im regretting putting plates on at all because i need like 50k thrusters to move... Armor either needs HP/armor value UP or share hp with adjacent plates of the same type (hardened plates vs plates). OR a chance for armor to ricochette (coding= it would be a chance to take no damage; not that a Anti-matter projectile would bounce but DETAILS!).

 

[NeonSturm]

Basically +1.



My only concern is about less choices in one of the categories kinetics and energy weapons.

 

[gpremier]

Not sure.



In a space environment, with energy weapons, ships without shield aren\'t really logic.

If we think with Earth metal types, resisting to an Anti-Matter cannon, without getting a part of our hull completly melted, would, probably, take alot of titanium and the ship would get alot of mass. Probably too much.



Hull is good against explosion and projectiles. But not really sure about energy weapons.

 

[Mosshadow]

It depends on how you want to create your universe, theres plenty of sci fi with wildly varying shield and hull types, in some such as mass effect shields only protect fully against kinetic weapons but not against energy weapons, and then there are some where shields only work against energy weapons (star wars had multiple shields types, the one cover the deathstars exhuast was only for energy) and then you have shields that block kinetic weapons and do wierd stuff with energy weapons such as dune where lasers cause a massive explosion on either end. And in addition theres sci fi where shields only stop a fraction of damage and the rest relys on hull armor such Warhammer 40k.

 

[Angus and Alexis]

Shields are basically regenerating armor ingame.

Now.
Should a tank fight without armor? I think not.