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Debate 7: Modular Shielding


Wilks Checkov

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Tonight - the debate I thought of bringing up is an idea on Modular Shielding. 

 

Essentially here is the shield idea in a nutshell:

 

 

Modular Shielding:

 

Essentially modular shielding would not use a singular shield generator, instead it will be using shield emitters that are placed on the surface of the hull to provide coverage. 

 

An emitter can be overloaded by sustained fire on that emitter grid. Having a reserve shield emitter grid as a backup would be critical especially for long drawn out confrontations. 

 

Shields are limited by the amount of power that can be dumped into them at a single time. They can be enhanced by various skills of players / engineers / technicians. 

 

Shields can have frequencies that enable it to protect from one type of damage better than others, however the downside of this is you are nearly entirely vulnerable to all other forms of damage. The upside is, if the enemy uses primarily one type of weapon - you can protect yourself very well against it, absorbing nearly all incoming damage. 

 

You must have a player engineer / technician on hand to change frequencies, and their skill effects the damage reduction ratios of the types of incoming damage.

 

Shield generators are effected by the amount of energy that is rolled into them, the more input the more damage they can take. Varied on player skill as well. 

 

 

 

Anyway these are a few of my thoughts on how the shield system could go. What are your ideas on shielding, would you change how it is laid out? Did I miss anything?

 

 

Anyway enjoy debating. . . and have fun.

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do you think these shield emmitters could be made in such a way to have..

 

A lattice of shields for enhanced strength at certain points.

 

I like the idea of power management and managing the emitters, and the maybe overclocking them temporarily.

 

What do you have in mind for shield transfers and or repair. Do you think you could make a network of ships somehow combining their shields for an overall combined shield hp?

 

What do you think of the idea of a special tank shield that consumes more power or module points. Where the shield gains enhanced resistance somehow, in an effort to prevent blobs from shot-calling which targets to try and instant-gib?

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I like the idea of having shield 'hardeners' that change frequencies, however, changing them on the fly may be a little to convenient, what about instead, it takes several minutes or a specific time limit and/or uses up x amount of energy, meaning that you have to really think about what you are changing and how.

As for a lattice system, this makes an interesting tactic in both attack and defense, say you break the latice via overloading a specific join with damage, maybe that would weaken the entire system because you break apart two parts of the entire shield emission system. 

 

As for back up, maybe just an extra energy tank that you can overload your shield emitters with would work. Throwing more energy in, making then more effective until the break. 'Overheating', for the EvE junkies. 

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I was literally just talking about something like this with my buddies earlier.

 

I think it'd be a great idea. It'd make shields less of a "I need more shield blocks to cover that little corner of the base that isn't protected!" and more of a "Make sure you put a module on every side of the base, it'll do the rest." 

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Yes, combine shielding screens with hull positioning. IMO, EM based shields should be the prime defense lline for energy weaponry, while hull is there for ballistic weaponry, so, the devs could make the shield's strength to be proportional to the thickness of the hull the screens are based behind, let's say, 0.5 : 1 ratio on strength, since energy weaponry don't accumulate velocity and damage with a ship's movement, nor do they have mass (last I've checked anyways, electrons had no mass :P), so there's a balancing system contained in it.


As for plasma, well, the EM shield can "negate" the energy aspect of the heat around the projectile, but the molten slug would pretty much punch through a few layers of armor, but it wouldn't  cause the devastation it would without the EM shields on.

As of their recharge timers, yes, there should be a sort of "tensile strength" limit, depending on the shield-screen projectors' tier of tech and an analogous cosumption of power going along with ihem. A battleshp has more reactors, hence, more power to spend on shields, while a battlecruiser has and needs more speed, hence, it goes with a lesser tier of shields.


In my suggestion, the EM shields stop energy projectiles, so the ship engaging the screens can fire ballistic projectile, which include railguns as well.

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This is an awesome idea!  I can already see someone writing a script to route power to the shields on the side or the ship closest to an unknown or hostile vessel.  This is in my opinion, exactly the kind of thing that will make the ship designing career valuable.  I think that there should be several different shield types, as well as settings, so I could choose to fit my ship with particle shields that can block or largely mitigate incoming projectile damage, or I could fit EM shields that block or mitigate energy weapon damage.  Frequencies of the particle shield generators would have to be tuned to the velocity of the incoming projectile, so rail guns would need high frequency to defend against and missiles would need lower frequency.  There should be different sizes of shield generators that have different fixed areas of coverage in a simple hexagon shape that stands at a distance from the ship that can be set by the owner by tweaking the settings, but perhaps the farther out you set it the more energy it uses, and the area of coverage wouldn't change.  I also think the power requirements for shield generators be on the higher side,more suited to large ships and bases.  That's not to say that somebody couldn't put shields on a small ship, but they'd have to have a chunky energy source.  This also means that most ships will simply not have the energy to mount both EM and particle shields.  For the skills associated with tuning shield generator frequencies, I envision a skill that allows you to determine the desired frequency for the incoming damage.  The higher the level, the greater the accuracy of the info; for instance if I have only level 1 in shield tuning I am able to detect the desired frequency to within 15%, but the more I train the better I get so at level 5 I might get it down to 5%.  Of course knowing exactly what the enemy has will let you tune it perfectly, but I think there will be a fairly large range of weapons to choose from once we get going.

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so, ignoring the physics talk getting back on topic:

 

to build on the basic premisse of individual shield projector nodes whichs defense ratio depends on the power they get.

 

shield projectors generate a defensive field whichs strenght is dependent on the power they are supplied.

(this could be a damge-per-server-tick value or a damage-per-impact value, it doesnt significantly change the rest of the mechanics)

 

when the incoming damage is higher than the defense value for a single point in time, the shield collapses and needs a certain amount of energy (not power) to reinitiate.

so to reinitiate the shield it has to be supplied with a certain amount of power x  time.

it can take long with low power input, it can go fast with a high power input.

 

 

so, now the interesting part comes when the power allocation to the shield generator gets /changed/.

the ratio of power input to hp generated changes with the rate of change of the power input.

the higher the rate of (upwards) change, the more hp you get out of the power you supply.

 

so a shield which gets 10 power supplied constantly can stand less damage than a shield which gets 0 constant supply but the 10 power for the moment of impact.

 

all we need now in addition is some way to supply large amounts of pulsed power. for example capacitor banks from which the shield generator nodes pull when they need to stop a large shot.

 

 

this creates a continuum of

always-fed-on-full-power shields with low-med ish per-hit stopping power but infinite HP as long as their treshhold isnt exceeded

to

"offline" shields which only activate when a shot arrives which can block very very high damage impacts but get depleted quickly as their capacitors drain with every hit.

depending on the build of the ship and its shield arrays, the energy distribution choices of the crew and the damage state of the ship (for example the buffer caps getting damaged or some power conduits that power the shield array)

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"Splendid. Modular shields will provide a break away from single piece block generators. I have a question however, the dynamics so far are lock and fire, nothing like an accurate first person shooter where you determine what part of the target you shoot. Wouldn't that nullify the essence of modular shields on small to medium sized bodies?"

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that really depends on what you lock on.

 

maybe we'll get some voxel-exact targetting solution similar to Sword of the Stars' polygon exact target designation.

 

with a simple one-click-lock you just target the center of mass of the ship, then you can further specify where you want your shots to hit with a (maybe zoomed in) view of the ship

 

http://i.imgur.com/MRPCjAC.jpg

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that really depends on what you lock on.

 

maybe we'll get some voxel-exact targetting solution similar to Sword of the Stars' polygon exact target designation.

 

with a simple one-click-lock you just target the center of mass of the ship, then you can further specify where you want your shots to hit with a (maybe zoomed in) view of the ship

 

http://i.imgur.com/MRPCjAC.jpg

Well, even if I gave my two cents earlier, I believe the spotlighting system used for the "Digging" tool, will be adapted in weapon type, as the ships and the planets are treated the same, only their editability on the building tools alters. And you know, techically, a laser cannon is just a weapon of editability and redecoration of a perfeclty fine enemy ship into a cluster of scrap metal. This also, would be perfect for their servers, due to many technical aspects. 

 

 

It's also important to remind people, that this follows a tab-target method of aiming, similar to WoW's Area of effect spells. If you were caught in the area of effect during the spell's casting being finished, you were caught in it, but channeled spells, you could walk out of their area of effect.

 

 

So yeah, I'm 99% sure you can spotlight an area on an enemy ship, charge up a lock-on or "cast the spell" in other words, and if the target is in the area when you finish, you send the projectiles homing on them. Of coruse, then it's all about maintaining the lock-on, print of the enemy's ship on your cone of fire, which would determine accuracy in the equation the devs came up with to determine probabilities of hit and velocity vactoring the enemy's "dodge" chance, along with armo, shields and etcetera to mitigate the damage.

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I can't say I understand how any of the programing works, but with the voxel system they will have to apply damage to individual voxels, so having a thing that intercepts that damage shouldn't be that hard.  The lock on thing with the skills is probably going to determine the accuracy cone.

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I can't say I understand how any of the programing works, but with the voxel system they will have to apply damage to individual voxels, so having a thing that intercepts that damage shouldn't be that hard.  The lock on thing with the skills is probably going to determine the accuracy cone.

Yes, that's the vague idea so far. And yes, you can add a "dmg" damage and an "HP" on a particular type of voxel. Wood would have "100 HP" but steel would have "1000 HP" and your laser could have "200 DMG" values, which all of them fall in a realyl confusing equation that updates the things you only "lock" at with your spotlighting targeting. Same mechanics used when you edit the world, only in a different formats and tools used to do so. And it's a really brilliant idea, given the physics of the game demonstrated and discussed so far.

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Back to what Corn Flakes was saying earlier about surge loading, I think that's too complicated and punishes people who can't get good scripts.  I think that the damage reduction should be tied directly to the power input.  This means that you will have to have a significant power source to use shields.  Remember, we're trying to have more reasons to have multiple players on each ship.

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Back to what Corn Flakes was saying earlier about surge loading, I think that's too complicated and punishes people who can't get good scripts.  I think that the damage reduction should be tied directly to the power input.  This means that you will have to have a significant power source to use shields.  Remember, we're trying to have more reasons to have multiple players on each ship.

 

honestly, i'd actually make that an automatic function of shield emitters.

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Back to what Corn Flakes was saying earlier about surge loading, I think that's too complicated and punishes people who can't get good scripts.  I think that the damage reduction should be tied directly to the power input.  This means that you will have to have a significant power source to use shields.  Remember, we're trying to have more reasons to have multiple players on each ship.

It sounds to me those players will have to buy said good scripts :V

 

 

Complex and unique stuff are not cheap you know, and even if you gave those people complex scripts, they would say "Derp-herp, deeze skriptz sux, Y its not gib me I-Win Booton".

 

 

And no. More or much powerful reactors doesn't mean more crew. If my power grid can support full automation, I'll do it. I'll fly the ship with 5 or 6 guys on the bridge, just so one person won't get overwhelmed. More people, mean more infiltrators.

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It sounds to me those players will have to buy said good scripts :V

 

 

Complex and unique stuff are not cheap you know, and even if you gave those people complex scripts, they would say "Derp-herp, deeze skriptz sux, Y its not gib me I-Win Booton".

 

 

And no. More or much powerful reactors doesn't mean more crew. If my power grid can support full automation, I'll do it. I'll fly the ship with 5 or 6 guys on the bridge, just so one person won't get overwhelmed. More people, mean more infiltrators.

what in this post is in any way on topic?

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what in this post is in any way on topic?

I like riddles, but this one's beyond me good sir. What's the answer?

 

It was a reply, on what've just said.

 

And it was a pretty clear reply, on topic. If shields' power and the automation units for them can be sustained by a ship's power grid, then it's full automation for me.

 

Shields automatically popping up as soon as they detect enemy turrets firing upon them and are in-range for a hit.

 

GG? GG indeed.

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"Anyway, modular shield will probably be limited to bases, capital ships and stationary structures, don't you think? The power generation required to support a large number of these shields just won't be available even in large ships. Except, of course, you intend to make a flying battery."

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"Anyway, modular shield will probably be limited to bases, capital ships and stationary structures, don't you think? The power generation required to support a large number of these shields just won't be available even in large ships. Except, of course, you intend to make a flying battery."

Generally, slow or immobile constructs, as fast ships will probably use velocity and quick maneuvers to avoid enemy firing upon them.

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Generally, slow or immobile constructs, as fast ships will probably use velocity and quick maneuvers to avoid enemy firing upon them.

"And more advanced units will use stealth. I wonder whether self-repairing armour will be an alternative to modular shields or any shields at all?"

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"And more advanced units will use stealth. I wonder whether self-repairing armour will be an alternative to modular shields or any shields at all?"

Can't tell yet, not much info on that one. But stealth should require a ship to have a certain light weight about it, trading armor for the ability to scout enemies with relative safety, as the stealth mechanic should be linked to the craft's general weight for its power drain on the craf. IMO, that's balanced. No 10  metric kiloton invisible ships, but a craft? Why not. It's a scouting unit after all.

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