6 Dimensional Shields.

Suggestions Balance
1

Included this as a add on to my rant. But after sitting here for the past hour or so, really would believe this could really add in that level of skill the game could use and would allow the invention of new modules to force more power to a certain section. 

 

If you don’t know what I’m referring to, a six dimensional shield that would encompose all around the ship which would be broken up like this.

Front

Rear

Right Side

Left Side

Top 

Bottom

 

The power redistribution could easily be done with a simple gui.

Seen something similar in WoT for communication [Read Below for that use; may add a screen cap]

 

Player rather looks directly at friendly or with the free camera rotation, hits a key to bring up the menu.

A UI appears in the center of the screen along with the player mouse to select on (or uses 1-8 which also are connected to the options) of the around 8 different options that are in a circle pattern. Then the player simply lets go and the command is set.

 

Obviously this is  just a general idea but nothing says it can’t work. Just put in 6 different hit boxes, make the gui 1-6 and throw some modules in there. 

 

 

It’s when you add complexity into a game, and the player devotes time and energy learning the game you will get your greatest reward. A player who knows more about a game because it’s his game, he plays, he’s learnt your weaknesses, he knows how to combat you, and he wins because of skill…not because of some high powered laser with high range and body augmentations which somehow reduce his ships energy costs…

2

I say that this is a great Idea for Frigates, but is weak for Fighters and Interceptors. 

I am a interceptor pilot predominantly and usually I don’t have time to even think about shields when in a serious dogfight.

 

Though for Frigates this will make the game Alot more challenging and would, in theory, force teams of fighters and interceptors to flank the frigate or provide a distraction. 

3

this is a terrible idea. I love the idea of shifting shields, But it just does not work well in space mmos. All games that have 6 sided shield have never gotten it to work right, but it can work if its done well, but its extremely hard to balance this. If you look at the games that have this feature, compared to others, you will find that its often not successful and is a breaking point in games.

 

The entire defense system that needs to be redone.

4

I support this idea as well but I’m also worried about how interceptors would deal with this in a dogfight. I’m thinking that the 6 dimensional shields should just be given to the frigates or each ship class  should have a certain amount of shields like attack ships have 4 (front, back, top, bottom) and interceptors just have 2 (left, right). This idea is actually really good though, it sounds like a ton of fun. It can also invite new modules to the game such as a module which shuts down all your shields except one which is extremely resistant.

5

As i said, its a terrible idea, its not star-trek, you dont have time to modulate a lot, and if you did, you would essentually have a huge balancing issue.

 

 

the current modules are good, they just need a lower cooldown, and a higher energy cost. that will fix all current defense problems

probly with in 10% of being perfect (give or take the resistance mods 10-20 being useless and needing a buff to 100 or so min)

6

…(give or take the resistance mods 10-20 being useless and needing a buff to 100 or so min)

 

From my experience Resistance Units will add a % amount of the max health to your health. E.g. 1000 Shield + 100 Units EMP Resistance, your true health against EMP is 2000. 1 Unit gives ~1% of max health as bonus. Consider that if you increase the bonuses you will get insanely high amounts of max health. Adding repairs and regeneration to it and you wont be able to kill anything anymore. The current Resistances are fine and dont need to be increased at all. Also we still miss the exact resistances the ships have as base so we dont know how much they can take without any resistance mods.

 

I guess you never had an enemy ship that will regenerate more than you can deal dmg on it? Some ppl playing very tanky ships.

 

Little example for the Jericho Fighter T2-2 Techs lvl 5: Passiv from Special (30 Units??) + Adaptive shield 16 Units + Thermal resistance 30 Units + Thermal resistance 30 Units and Aegis 40 Units by 7’193 base health and you get 17’694.78 as max health agains Thermal. Impressive isnt it? Thats more than the Shields of my T2-2 Techs Frig. And you only need to restore the 7’193 to be full again… Sooo improve shield regeneration isnt a option. Only Hull needs imrovement on the cooldowns.

7

These numbers cannot be accurate.

  I have spent millions on testing the various numbers and builds, and pure regeneration provides vastly superior tank to pure resistance builds. A combination of the two is fail.

 

the problem is that the resistance to % ratio is not 1:1 like many believe, or there is some sort of internal nerf or bug that is taking place.

 

I know this because when i am in combat for example, with regen up i can take 5-10 hits, to the normal 1-2. With resistance, this it is 2-3 at best. if the damage reduction was from 1:1 ratio, i wouldent get killed faster, it would take more damage, yet the regeneration is providing me with longer survivability. Test it to confirm what i am saying.

 

I think the problem of the game right now rests purely in the fact that regeneration is vastly to superior to other items, and that resistance is not providing enuff protection. And this is not because the resistance mechanics of the game perse, but purely because of the flat out 1-2 shot kills people are throwing out. Nurf tihs and resistance will be worth more in directly. With a small buff from there, the game will be balanced, and equal-across the board attractions will take place in various build times.

 

the only thing however, is that active builds should be slightly better then passive (WHICH IS FAR FROM TRUTH ATM)

8

I wanted to touch on shield/hull regeneration. This is broken record but people are just not getting it

 

Aside the fact that almost all weapons are putting out to much damage, shield regeneration (from things like capacitor relays) is broken. as i have addressed many times however, The issue is universal for the mods. And not amount of changing this or that will truly fix the problem, because its mechanical (Believe me i speak from 2 games and years of experience on this). Chances are however they will not listen and will spend the next 1-2 years trying to balance crap when they can do it with a simple concept change

 

reduce cooldowns of mods, and increase energy cost; Put afterburner on its own energy bar.

 

this will give people micro-management, and will balance out a lot of the problems.

 

situations like

 

you are running kiting around asteroids, and you are still dying, no amount of tank will save you, your best bet, an ally, or enjoy the after life

 

you are fighting, and bam, dead in 2 shots.

 

you are fighting, and no cooldowns are up (Because they are 360 seconds) Your dead.

 

 

These are major problems in the game

 

until they are fixed, the game will not become “awesome”. I however have found the game to be stagnant for the last week or two, this is a very bad sign. This game has potential to wipe eve off the mmo-chart lead, But it needs two major changes

 

  • The above fixes (IE energy increase, CD Nerf)

  • The ships all being reduced in mass (Ie 75mt (ceptor) 150 mt (Atkship) 250mt (Frigate) (armor tanks) and 50, 115, 215 (shield tanks) - 

  • Fix to bugs like slow cursor, and armor tanking not being viable.

 

 

the reason for the energy changes is because it prevents spam of modules, but allows them to be used when needed. If there is energy issues, YOU FIX IT YOU DONT DESTROY THE ENTIRE SYSTEM BECAUSE OF LAZINESS.

 

The ships reduction in mass provides all ships the ability to fight. In effect you are looking at a game like eve where you have interceptors, frigates and assault ships. this provides fast gameplay that this game so excellently excels in.

 

bug/armor fix is a gimme.

9

actually im kinda hope this idea granted. Especialy in opening movie, the jericho frigate switching shield focus, make it can withstand all attack from front, till it flanked from behind

10

before i start, I want to address a fudemental problem with the idea of modulated shielding, that is in comparison to armor tanking, it will be extremely hard to make the two balanced vs each other. for this reason it appears that moving the game to having all races shield tank, seems to be the better option.  However, you could add the idea of Bio-Armor to the game, which can be stimulated to grow. If this take place however the values should be similar if not identical to shielding, and as a result its much better if the armor tanking races losing shielding out right, and in place of that shielding gain regenerative armor which will work on the same principles of influx shield/armor healing

 

 

I like the idea a lot, micromanagement gives skilled players the ability to excel over others, but i have never seen this work correctly.further, a lot of people i have heard say its very hard to dog fight and manage things. It may be interesting to investigate some ideas regarding this.

 

I feel that the idea of 6 shield sides is to much, may want to lower it to 4, so i will work off this concept, but the below can be adapted to it.

 

The first one regarding interceptors, and managing the shields would be to add a sort of AI system to the shielding. a sort of priority system. assigning numbers 1-4 according to value of the shield priority. for example, 1 is the most important shield, and 4 the least. You can set it up so that it will flux the shield every set amount of time (specified by the player).

 

For example

 

Forward - 1

Rear - 2

right - 3

left - 4

 

I want it to modulate every 30 seconds by x % of remaining shields in the less desirable locations.

 

 

I however think that there is a better way to approach this idea of micromanaging a flux increase to shield power, and it will work something like follows

 

Every point of energy = an % of shielding, or a base amount of shield (or armor) value. this will allow the fluxing to be more dependable but will require large amounts of energy to heal significant amounts, the more its spammed the less points per shield/armor it recovers, this acts as a sort of control mechanic.