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Time for different shield types?
darakoss
Member Posts: 850 Arc User
I know we have the 4 types but I think it would be neat if we had a choice between the bubble type or the hull hugger type. One could have different advantages over the other like kinetic vs energy.
Thoughts?
Thoughts?
original join date 2010
Member: Team Trekyards. Visit Trekyards today!
Post edited by darakoss on
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Adding more costume / visual choices would be nice, and best of all would be being able to choose any shield "costume" you own separately from the equipped shield. So a Jem'Hadar visual but Iconian shield in the gear slot, etc.
Fourth one is normal, with balanced regen/cap. There's also Paratrinic, which is basically even more cap than covariant but even less regen. But that's a unique episode reward item, so not sure if I'd count it.
Beyond messing around with regen and capacity (which are pretty much covered) I'm not sure what's left that can vary. Actually, maybe these two:
Type 5 would allow 10% less bleedthrough on energy weapons.
Type 6 would allow 10% less bleedthrough on kinetic weapons.
These would be a specialized version of resilient shields which is 5% each.
"Let them eat static!"
original join date 2010
Member: Team Trekyards. Visit Trekyards today!
They stated that it IS possible, but impractical, and bad business investment, for several reasons:
The shields in STO are basically just a 3D sphere that surrounds the ship, and has a texture upon impact. It's a single model.
For the Hull-hugger type to become a reality, they'd have to make shield models for every last ship part out there, and given that most ships have at least 5 elements, and there are what..? 200 ships to chose from, it's an extreme number, and one that will only go up as more ships are added...
That would add significantly do the download size, thats just covering the basics.
Because it's not enough to just take the existing model and upscale it a little and overlay it on the existing models... It has to be written into the code for starters, then it has to be tested for proper placement in-game, and then they need to perfectly match the shield pieces together, and define the shield facings (we really only have 4 shield facings - 4 pieces of a sphere).
And even if all THAT were possible, our ships are really just one hitbox... If they hit your nacelle in game, they also hit your saucer, your secondary hull, your neck (if your ship has that)... So they'd need to rework that too, to make it look realistic.
TL;DR:
To make those shields work, they'd had to:
It's simply not worth the time and effort to change something that is in reality something that was just shown once on-screen.
original join date 2010
Member: Team Trekyards. Visit Trekyards today!
What is TUC?
I don't remember Skin-tight shield in that movie, but of cause, that dosen't exclude it was there, so for arguments sake, I am going to go with that assumption.
But still, if you compare how often bubble-style shields have been used compared to skin-tight shields, the ration will be what? 800:2 ? More perhaps.
I seriously doubt any of you guys would be willing to accept the serious reduction in frame rate that would follow this implementation.
Why would it involve FPS reduction you may ask? Well simple:
Lets say they make shields that only closely resembles the shape, of whatever it is supposed to surround. Lets say a nacelle.
Right now, the sphere that surrounds the whole ship, has maybe 128 verts (the elements that make up 3D models in games, and thats a generous bet btw. 128 is a relatively low number for a smooth sphere)...
You can sense them here: http://images-cdn.perfectworld.com/arc/3d/f5/3df5944d15833ca0743f82df2232eb361454942364.jpg, it's the green lines... Thats deffo more than 128 verts for the saucer alone.
Right now, our computers renders that "skeleton" for every model on-screen, and for the most part it goes pretty well. Even in large scale battles... well as large scale as they get in STO...
But lets have say... a battle inside the breach, in the first room, and the fight is pretty heavy, and everyone is taking a punch. 2/3's of every shield is going off, and has to generate the shield effect along with it.
Even for some of the players on the current model, this is sometimes hard to process... High end PC's would feel serious punishment with the skin-tight shields.
original join date 2010
Member: Team Trekyards. Visit Trekyards today!
Hey, I agree fully...
It would be nice... Awesome in fact... But from a technical and financial standpoint, it's a bad investment.
As for more shield-types, go for it... More variety, means more interesting game-play.
yea... we should have an option to disable effects by type (say for example, I don't want to see if my enemy pops APA, but want to see warp plasma)...
So...
The regeneration gradient needs to be a lot sharper.
Maybe you should change "we" to "I".
original join date 2010
Member: Team Trekyards. Visit Trekyards today!
The bypass stuff is really mucking up pvp.
Sure, if we also reduce the effectiveness of the shields themselves.
Nothing sucked more back in the day with properly supported teams literally having impenetrable shields and the entire match could drag on for over an hour or end in a total stalemate.
I could see a reduction in shield cap to off-set the bonus to reducing the damage taken from shield bypassing damage effects.
True though i don't think we would see them kick out shields that would reduce your resistances though, or just innately take more damage from all damage types, but who knows they very well might do that an would make it kinda interesting maybe too.
And @alexraptorr , you are very correct, capacity means hardly anything when it comes to tanking. The big things are high damage resistance, high regeneration and/or high healing, and you have to know what you're doing.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
But one other hand, there wasn't all that many great tank pilots around.
It was kind of interesting watching them perform.
In any case I wouldn't mind a little buffer from all the phys/kin and Rad bypass damage in pvp.
Maybe 50% mitigation was a bit much.
But maybe not.
Even when Elachi weapons were killing it in pvp (before they got fixed), it was never this bad.
The worst part is you can't even get ANY resistance to Phys damage. Yet we have players using Rez beam like its going out of style in pvp.
But where is it in pve ? Nobody uses it.
Then we have Structural Integrity Collapse, followed by non stop TBR, Torps spread, polaron barrage and kemo3 FaW.
Ugh
Its everywhere and it turns my stomach. But pvp overall has turned my stomach since DR. So yea.
Maybe I'm just blinded by all the ability spam and don't notice people using it.