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Shields Mechanics


slopjohnbee

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I did not found any infos about shields so here is an idea how I would like to see it in the game (kind of)

 

I hope it does not have a component that shields the hole ship. The shield should have some kind of radius where it has effect.

If voxels are place to far away from the shield generator it will have no effect. 

The power consumption should be high in a idle state and increase even more if more damage has to be blocked.

 

This would add a lot of depth to the game because the player has to decide which shields to activate or deactivate.

For example if alot more damage is incoming from the rear of the ship to disable the ones on the front to get more power.

Or even shut down weapon systems to get addition energy for the shields...

 

 

what do you think?

=)

 

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Haven't been really keeping up with the game much since I saw it.  Since it's getting close to pre alpha I'm getting ready for it so I don't know anything about shields lol.

 

Anyways,  I would imagine any shields would operate on a capacitor concept.  So it would have a charging cycle and also a maximum amount of discharge "damage".  If it discharges completely then it would need to charge all the way back up to redeploy.

 

This type of shield model would give a lot of flexibility and give pros and cons to having big/small shields.  Having the ability to use multiple shields to make a larger shield would also give more flexibility.  I would like that to be an option as it would allow power to be redistributed as needed.  In addition, if a shield goes down it does not mean the whole ship is compromised.

 

In my opinion there should be a defined radius between the ship and where the shield starts.  Even if a single shield could be used to cover a whole ship,  I would imagine the power input would be proportional to the distance between the shield and ship in addition to the surface area of the shield generated.

 

Also I'm not a huge fan of shields draining a lot of power while idling.  I think a good approach would be that used in the Star Trek Universe.  Basically a really weak shield is applied over the whole ship.  But when there's a disturbance it nearly instantly localizes the shield to the disturbance and gives maximum intensity/protection.  The real power draw comes from this localization as well as a lot of waste heat.  I could see a similar approach being very useful in DU.

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We only know at this point that shields are definitely planned.

 

I'd personally prefer a full 3D layout of shields so you can reroute energy to every side if wanted. An overload mechanic (incl. Emp weapons to disrupt shields) would be neat too

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I agree with Lethys, a system with one major shield system that you can control where power goes from that would be a lot easier to control and maintain. Having multiple sub systems of different shields may just get too confusing. Especially with the implementation of LUA scripting, it would eat up too much processing power.

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One thing I know for sure is that I don't want shields to provide absolute protection. I think it's important that no matter how ballin' your shields are, it should be possible for a little bit of damage to still get through. Think of Star Trek. How boring would it be of they were 100% safe while their shields were up? If shields are absolute, then fights ultimately turn into this: fight with the other person until the shields are about to fail. If you get to that point, you run. If they get to that point, they run. Nobody takes any damage, and nobody dies. Not very exciting.

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1 hour ago, Frenotx said:

One thing I know for sure is that I don't want shields to provide absolute protection. I think it's important that no matter how ballin' your shields are, it should be possible for a little bit of damage to still get through. Think of Star Trek. How boring would it be of they were 100% safe while their shields were up? If shields are absolute, then fights ultimately turn into this: fight with the other person until the shields are about to fail. If you get to that point, you run. If they get to that point, they run. Nobody takes any damage, and nobody dies. Not very exciting.

EVE Online has a good idea on shield mechanics. The lower your shield HP is the more the chance of damage "penetrating" through it and hitting armor. to simulate "sploches" on your shield during battle In DU, it could be that if a shield bubble is weakened, the attacker's shot may actually deal damgge to voxels or the player themselves in Avatar V Avatar.

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39 minutes ago, CaptainTwerkmotor said:

EVE Online has a good idea on shield mechanics. The lower your shield HP is the more the chance of damage "penetrating" through it and hitting armor. to simulate "sploches" on your shield during battle In DU, it could be that if a shield bubble is weakened, the attacker's shot may actually deal damgge to voxels or the player themselves in Avatar V Avatar.

Is that how it works in Eve, now? I remember shields being absolute, at least unless they'd already been depleted enough that the ship's tank had been broken. That's something I really didn't like about Eve: if your ship had below a certain DPS, it was impossible for you to do any damage to the target ship. Felt way too absolute. That's something I think Elite did correctly: your shield only regenerates if it hasn't been been hit for a moment. This makes it technically possible for even the weakest weapons to EVENTUALLY wear down any shield.

 

Edit: I DID like Eve's non-linear shield regeneration, though. Relatively quick to fill up the first good bit, then slowly topping off.

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Just now, Frenotx said:

Is that how it works in Eve, now? I remember shields being absolute, at least unless they'd already been depleted enough that the ship's tank had been broken. That's something I really didn't like about Eve: if your ship had below a certain DPS, it was impossible for you to do any damage to the target ship. Felt way too absolute. That's something I think Elite did correctly: your shield only regenerates if it hasn't been been hit for a moment. This makes it technically possible for even the weakest weapons to EVENTUALLY wear down any shield.

That's like saying "I hate how kevlars work irl, if I have a BB Gun I should evenetually penetrate through it".

The "DPS tank" of things in EVE is there to emulate the intensity of the given tanking medium. You could rpelace DPS Tank twith Damage TYhreshold from other RPGs, it's the same thing, DPS tank in EVE just takes energy to do.

There's no actually any reson for your shield to not regenerate while you take damage, it's volts turned to EM-waves, it's like suggesting that phones should not charge while you use Tinder.

Sure, your phone CAN expend more energy that it is fed while charging AND it's beinf used, but that's the point of Active Tanking in EVE. And the best part is, DU has fuel. EVE has not. If you FORCE a person to pump energy into their shields to stay alive (and especially if NQ allows for Entropy Weaponry, AKA Nosferatu / Neutralisers), you could force a person to leave by giving them an ultimatum - you stay, I'll drain your shields, you leave, either case I win - which is what Nosferatu ships do in EVE more or less. 

Also, yeah, EVE's shields work at below 50% with the "penetrating" methods. Howver with a lot of training into Shield Management (or something) yo ucan reduce the penetrating chance to 0%.

Howver, not many have that trained. There are far better skills to spend 12 days of training on that Shield Management V.

Although, on an interview, JC Baillie did say they want to go for directional shielding, i.e. choosing which side to reinforce, so no "ultra sexy bubble shields" like in EVE, which don't take any account of directions of which hits are coming from.

So, that's a compromise for the better part, yes? You can reinforce your front, but have to risk damage from smaller ships on your flanks.

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1 hour ago, CaptainTwerkmotor said:

That's like saying "I hate how kevlars work irl, if I have a BB Gun I should evenetually penetrate through it".

The "DPS tank" of things in EVE is there to emulate the intensity of the given tanking medium. You could rpelace DPS Tank twith Damage TYhreshold from other RPGs, it's the same thing, DPS tank in EVE just takes energy to do.

There's no actually any reson for your shield to not regenerate while you take damage, it's volts turned to EM-waves, it's like suggesting that phones should not charge while you use Tinder.

Sure, your phone CAN expend more energy that it is fed while charging AND it's beinf used, but that's the point of Active Tanking in EVE. And the best part is, DU has fuel. EVE has not. If you FORCE a person to pump energy into their shields to stay alive (and especially if NQ allows for Entropy Weaponry, AKA Nosferatu / Neutralisers), you could force a person to leave by giving them an ultimatum - you stay, I'll drain your shields, you leave, either case I win - which is what Nosferatu ships do in EVE more or less. 

Also, yeah, EVE's shields work at below 50% with the "penetrating" methods. Howver with a lot of training into Shield Management (or something) yo ucan reduce the penetrating chance to 0%.

Howver, not many have that trained. There are far better skills to spend 12 days of training on that Shield Management V.

Although, on an interview, JC Baillie did say they want to go for directional shielding, i.e. choosing which side to reinforce, so no "ultra sexy bubble shields" like in EVE, which don't take any account of directions of which hits are coming from.

So, that's a compromise for the better part, yes? You can reinforce your front, but have to risk damage from smaller ships on your flanks.

Strictly speaking, bullet-proof vests are petty poor at blocking damage in the same spot more than once. Obviously there comes a point at which a an attack is too weak to do any damage at all (nerf gun, for example), but chances are a people won't be fitting a nerf gun on a space ship. A weak gun on a spaceship is still a spaceship-scale gun. It being able to wear down even a tough shield isn't much of a stretch, imo.

 

As far as the, "shields are just [insert sci-fi explanation here], they should be able to recharge while under fire" goes, well, this is a video game dealing with stuff that doesn't exist. Coming up with an in-lore explanation of why shields work a given way is trivial. What's important is GAMEPLAY, and how fun the system is. I'm of the opinion that absolute shields lead to overly-binary combat, and situations where both parties tend to leave unscathed (or one party trounces the other, and leaves unscathed).

 

Damage reduction shields, instead of absolute protection shields, mean every fight will have excitement. Even a lopsided fight will still see the victor with some battle scars. It makes getting into a fight a serious decision no matter what, unless you think you can outright one-shot your opponent. A fight is almost never completely "free". I personally think that's best for gameplay.

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1 minute ago, Frenotx said:

Strictly speaking, bullet-proof vests are petty poor at blocking damage in the same spot more than once. Obviously there comes a point at which a an attack is too weak to do any damage at all (nerf gun, for example), but chances are a people won't be fitting a nerf gun on a space ship. A weak gun on a spaceship is still a spaceship-scale gun. It being able to wear down even a tough shield isn't much of a stretch, imo.

 

As far as the, "shields are just [insert sci-fi explanation here], they should be able to recharge while under fire" goes, well, this is a video game dealing with stuff that doesn't exist. Coming up with an in-lore explanation of why shields work a given way is trivial. What's important is GAMEPLAY, and how fun the system is. I'm of the opinion that absolute shields lead to overly-binary combat, and situations where both parties tend to leave unscathed (or one party trounces the other, and leaves unscathed).

 

Damage reduction shields, instead of absolute protection shields, mean every fight will have excitement. Even a lopsided fight will still see the victor with some battle scars. It makes getting into a fight a serious decision no matter what, unless you think you can outright one-shot your opponent. A fight is almost never completely "free". I personally think that's best for gameplay.



Weapon scale is irrelevant. If my shield can excert MORE force away than your projectile brings in, your projectile won't even damage my shield enough to cause any signficant losss in energy./

One-shotting - which won't happen unless people build stupid Star Wars or Star Trek ship with the bridge exposed, BEGGING for a headshot on the netire shjip - won't be happening. Damage reduction shields is how EVE does this whole "mitigation tanking" thing, sure, but in DU, thoe shield modules are PART fo your ship. Also, your idea of "non regenerating shields" means that lgositics ships are impossible to work. 

Think of EVE, being paiinted as primary by the enemy FC and then "oh our shields can't recharge". That's just lame. EVE even has mechanics about wHEN to activate your shield boosters, just so you have skill on activating them.

If you are not aware, if you engage a shield booster at 33% or lower in EVE, the booster provides MUCH more shield HP. Good pilots DO use that, bad pilots just eat sandwiches and spam killmails after ganking 10vs1, and just leave their Shield Boosters on - then blame lag when losing.

Here's a video of a chinese player, using a tangu's shield boosters tactically to take on 28 man wolf pack of ceptors.

 

Now tell me how much this shield system EVE has is "bad".

And you kinda ignored the directional shielding thing I mentioned but w/e :P

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For every measure there is a counter measure : sure they will probably have shield which mean you will also see : Jamming , EMP's and Disruptor type weapons to counter shields but I think the big question is how much damage will these shields be able to soak up be for they fail ?

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22 minutes ago, GunDeva said:

For every measure there is a counter measure : sure they will probably have shield which mean you will also see : Jamming , EMP's and Disruptor type weapons to counter shields but I think the big question is how much damage will these shields be able to soak up be for they fail ?

See, you kinda miss the point of how and why people use shields to tank.

Using shields for your main defense, means you can give up armor, thus being more agile in combat and have better acceleration. That means shields HAVE to be strong (depending on how much wttage they take).

EVE Online has a very good balance between shield and armor tanking. Shields are innately vulnerable to EM + thermal damage, while being extra defensivev against Kneitc + Explosive damge. Armor on the other hand is strogn against EM and Thermal, but weak against kientic and explosive damage. 

So, the resiistances of a shield make the shield's HP to vary depending on the incoming damage.

If I have 99% Kinetic damage resistance and the shield has 1000 HP , that shield is actually more like 100000 HP against a Kinetic weapon. But if that shield is - let's say _ not reinforced agaisnt Themral, and you only got 25% thermal mitigation, that 1000 HP shield is actually  1250 HP - which is why in EVE Online, you have to spread your resistances across the board, or risk being rekt easily.

Of course, if you know the enemy is using, let's say, Lasers, you will build your ships shield for maximum EM + Thermal resistances, which is what really makes Shields more of a desirable option, since shields also can passively recharges, unlike armor, that needs actrve repairs.

That being said, the question should not be "how much damage the shields should be able to tank" but "how should they consume energy".

Do shields burn energy depending on the damge they block, ala Mana Shield mechanics from games like DOTA or the Vanilla WOW Mage ability of the same name? Or do they work like a heal per second like EVE Online?


I am in for the Mana Shield mechanic. Your shield stays on as long as your energy reserves can hold. Using shields should hafve the con that your energy burns the longer the shields are active AND that you can't fire you guns during them being online - so said ships don't run Wood as their hull. And if NQ puts in Entropy Weaponry ( Entropy the opposite of Energy in greek ;) ) you can BURN enemy shields for 100% of the damage you dish out (positrons obiliterating electrons on the shield or w/e) but deal very weak damage to armor voxels, so ships can be specialised as "Shield breakers", or "energy drainers".


I mean, if there's a mana shield type of shield for ships, there SHOULD be a mana burn type of weapon ;)

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I was just speaking on shields in a general way not any specific game or mechanism and you make some valid points. Most people automatically think of shields in a defensive way but once in a while you come across a player that thinks out of the box and instead of using the shields for defensive they make a ship that uses them for offence by doing something like putting a lot of shields in front of there wedge shaped ship and using them to ram and cut the other ships in two! This is what I love and some time hate about playing other people and not AI's : once in a while some player may do something tactically crazy that no one has thought of and it turns out to be effective!

 

Just saying =)

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Soo Idk about you but I would like DU to follow a kinda sci-fi path ( which means 'science'-fiction, folowing realistic mecanics) and i would like the to follow a bit the laws of physics... so what do we have to use as a shield?

 

Also lasers can ´logicaly' pass through any shield, ( if we don't have white hole tech)

 

-magnetic fields, really good at repelling or deviating shells/plasma projectiles

 

-particle field, might be able to do something about shells if dense enough but not really effective, however plasma could be dispersed , also lasers might get affected by these depending on the wavelength of the laser and the size of the particles... 

Also the particles could be heated to a plasma that would kinda affect shells a bit more, might deronate explosive shells...

 

...

 

But a point defense is actually better at shielding than a shield, point defense can be made of 

 

-projectiles ( lot of cons with tyem at point defense since you have to turn a turret which has to deal with recoil really fast )

 

-lasers ( problem is lasers unless really powerful have trouble heating large objects fast )

 

-particles ( particle cannon could be really powerfull at point defense if we can manage to spin up not one but a stream of particles in a particule accelerater)

 

-maybe antimatter cannon? (To create an explosion on the shell itself which would at least deviate the shell if not obliterating it in the process...) 

 

lot of things to think about... a huge playground :P

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Slopjohnbee this was on Dual Universe wiki but I guess it could always change so this is probably the most accurate info for now ?

 

Directional Shielding

Are we going to have working shields systems? Will they be modular-based or a single construct?

(Interviewer) Something where you have multiple different elements that project the shields at varying degrees.

The idea for the moment is that you have the shield unit that is going to create the shield around your ship.  We don’t have more thought at the moment than that.  What you mean is that you would need to have multiple shields units to certain different areas before it becomes active?

(Interviewer) I think what this question is about, like in star trek when they can say things like power to the forward shields or?

Ah, I see, well, we have not thought on that.  I think the first iteration of this feature will be global shield but that’s interesting, we could think about… I don’t know.  We… okay this is a typical example of a feature we did not think about, but its interesting. {?}

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@Celivalg technically speaking, the laser would have to be of higher frequency to pass through a shield. In EVE Online ,this is emulated by "higher frequency "lasers doing far mroe damage (at the expense of range). It's a compromise, one that NQ has to make due to their math-based hit chance system, that demadnscertain aspects (like recoil or "leading the target" ) to be expressed as raw math values (tracking spoed / radians, angular velocity vs tracking speeds witth radians and transversal speeds fighting wtih optimal ranges on weaponry, etc.)

The problem with point defenses is that they don't really work with what NQ goes for. The game is also NOT a simulation, so you can't hit buillets off the air with your flak cannons. Missile point defense, sure, it CAN be emulated in DU, as missiles are just a "DOT" that ticks after X seconds if your transversal is not more than the possible tranvertsal of the missile. If you can "dispell" the DOT behidn the scens (ala 1 point defense turretn bveing able to desetory 1 missile every 2 seconds) then you CAN emulate point defense in that sense. And yes, I may sound like broken record, but that's how EVE Online handles the missile point defenses. I.E. if I fire off my Anti-missile...err, missile, the enemy missile won't hit me anymore, BUT the animations will show a missile launching from me and tracin back the enemy missiles' path until both meet and explode. Smoke and mirrons, what game developement is all about :P. And no, this system can't be emulated with turrets, cause that would be a REALLY big load on the serve,r it would be stupid to ddo it that way, as the syemte would have to calculate 5000000 projectiles fired off from both sides and if they were flakked off the battle or not. Everything is nice, until you come down to brass tax and how heavy that load would be on the servers. Bummer, I know, but hey, what can a man do.


There is a reason I did suggest the mana shield mechanic of "the more damage the shield takes the more energy the ship has to burn to restore the shield's strength". IT's easily emulated wityth this model. It also combines things like "remote energy transmissions" with the shield mechanic , AKA, "healer ships" - or as we call them in eVE, Logistics ships, i.e. having one ship standing  behind anoter ship, feeding them energy due to its large array of capacitors, while those ships keep pumping out damage and shields.. Think Planetside 2 Medc + Heavy Assault Trooper logic, or Engineeer and a player in a mechanised MAX power armor. 

As for the different shield types, sure, they can be the "different types of resistances" that the type of field determines. EVE Online has a lore expanaltion of how they reinforce a  ashield bubble agaisnt Themral or Kinetic or EM.

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Of course I know that the game won't properly simulate projectiles and stuff, but the point is you first think about a model, then you translate it to RNG and probabilities, and you get a game...

It's true that it could be harder to get a system that allow not to simulate projectiles and follow a correct physical interpretation...

 

I hope you understand what I just said, I didn't know how to put it...

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