[Shielding] Upvote if you want SE2 to have new technologies

Valourant shared this feedback 2 months ago
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"From the perspective of pure science, force fields are fact — and not just fact but familiar. The four basic forces that govern our universe — gravity, electromagnetism, and "strong" and "weak" nuclear forces — are all associated with force fields, some of which provide protective shielding."

Realism Threshold:

Ion Thruster - Low threshold. (exists in a real world context)
Shields - Medium threshold. (semi-theoretical)
Jump drives - High threshold. (science fiction)
Reactive Energy Armor:

You supply energy to the armor blocks to increase its defence against certain weapons.

  • Energy field appears about 1mm from armor blocks.
  • Could also be implemented as infused into the armor blocks themselves.
  • Powered by reactor ultimately.
  • Energy could be distributed across the armor from plasma conduits or manifold blocks that are embedded into the armor itself to provide proper coverage.

Visuals:

  • Visually would appear as a hue on your hull or only appear when hull impacts objects or is shot at.
  • If implemented as infused into the hull itself adding protective properties it may not require a graphic.

Purpose:

  • Would balance light armor blocks in combat, adding more tactical depth to building combat ships.
  • Protect light armor blocks, thus allowing builds to be lighter while still affording them protection.
  • Add in more power consumption mechanics for reactors, and power that is generated would have more uses.

Best Answer
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Shields on ships have a proven history.

training_81370_600

Just asking for a more futuristic shield.

Replies (9)

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Force fields could also be used for doors, and under water containment/airlocks. So the idea of adding shielding to the game expands other applications as well.

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I was just discussing this subject and evolved into a theory of balance if a reactive electrified armor were to discharge too rapidly, say in close quarters conflict it could also have momentary emp results shorting out systems like weapons targeting, ion thrusters and the like making it more useful at longer ranges and hopefully evolving an additional fighting style and tactical distribution of force rather than everyone playing the exact same way with massive brawlers. I would suggest also diminishing returns at higher points and much reduced shield recovery while in combat. Create a type of soft cap as it were to the shields to make it more of a conflict assist rather than an armor replacement. While I am completely behind the idea, there is a matter of balance and tactical utility to continue having other established routes still viable when introduced.

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Is this supposed to be put into the SE2 forum?

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Yeah it's supposed to be in the SE2 forum, I think it got moved now?

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Reactive energy armour sounds great, similar to that of an armour hardness stat? (think stellaris)

where varying hardness-generator-block/type of armor/way of building/designing a ship. Can increase this 'hardening' characteristic to withstand more energy/damage depending on strength of system or amount of power supplied? you feed more energy in, does its job better?).


Each type of projectile/explosion must have to meet a criteria/sufficient level of kinetic energy to actually damage the area/block. You could incorporate different types of projectiles? creates varied Archetypes of combat. Ie: Armour piercing, (railguns/kinetic artillery), Flak/chaff (anti personnel/shreds very-light/un-armoured craft), Explosives (penetrative torpedos/raw explosive power), Ramming?? (extra hardness could work as a battering ram?)


Players could focus/specialize in making nimble but very-costly (maybe very energy dependent?) vessels that have some 'armor hardness generator' (patent pending) granting the toughness of a more medium armoured/heavier craft. Otherwise players being able to spend those valuable components on making stronger, more effective/penetrative weapons/ammunition to counteract?

-otherwise going the complete opposite way, these generators could be cumbersome, and only feasible to be installed on larger combat vessels/warships/haulers


continued: One hardened heavy armour 1x1 might have the same strength as 2-3-4 blocks of depth unhardened (depending on strength of hardening), Maybe absorbing damage would still incur any knockback/force the projectile/explosion carried, so even though your rover survived a landmine, you might be overturned? or atleast a substantial energy penalty to absorb incoming damage. Deapri Sevous' idea for an EMP effect, disabling systems would be super interesting aswell


I think this would allow you to follow that 'rule of cool' which is a concern for many ship designers. more so than traditional shields would, as they kind-of take away from combat in modded SE1.

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Shields have this bad habit of turning defense in to a relatively simple math problem that once solved very quickly results in a rather significant meta. I'm all for modding them in or making them a part of the game that the server's host needs to enable, but they would unbalance the game too much to be part of the default vanilla play.


As for armor-hardening devices... They'd be more balanced than shields (though far from ideal), but would generally only really serve to drag fights out and (if the diminishing returns are implemented) penalize players sitting in the middle-ground between "buffed light" and "don't care heavy". The issue it seems you are attempting to solve is people's propensity for playing brawl-bricks instead of going for more nimble designs, but this stems more from the proverbial "skill-floor" of both strategies. The brick is easier to use, it just has to sit there and generally be bigger to win, and if attempted maneuvers save it from a bit of damage then that's just a bonus. Agility builds on the other hand need to be quick enough to control range and evade fire, and the pilot has to be skilled enough to pull this off without significant mistakes against opponents with a wide range of skills and strategies. It is easier to play and win more reliably with the brick than it is the speedster, and people will play what they do best with.


So, I'd be against both. If you want people to fly fast instead of heavy, start an SE Top Gun school :)

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So shields largely depend on good implementation in my view. People believe that shields are just another HP buffer. But what happens if you make shields directional? What happens when shields depend on other mechanics like power setups or plasma conduits fitted onto the hull to get coverage? What happens when shields act more like deflectors and don't provide infinite defense even with infinite power but have a total capacity that can be overwhelmed and then the shields stop working and have a cool down before they recharge again? What happens when shields work better against specific weapon types?


All of these things add depth to how shields work, making it more involved than just a new armor type with more HP — and essentially it adds depth to the game. It's actually better than a new armor type with more HP.


With shielding you don't need to heavy armor 90% of your battle ship and gain weight while losing thruster acceleration. Instead you can armor critical parts, and rely on shields to protect light armor areas. Suddenly a whole new world of tactical battle is unlocked when shielding is directional/coverage based, and requires things like plasma conduits to distribute the shielding across the hull.


Remember with shielding you're building a subsystem into your ship to get coverage in a specific weak spot. This is a different build method that requires planning than just slapping a 10x10 layer of heavy armor in that area that would change the look of your ship. So shielding is important for building freedom too.


Shields of course also need the proper aesthetic implementation. This is why I suggested reactive energy armor; since a shield infused into armor blocks would be one aesthetic way to do it. Another aesthetic way is shielding that is 1mm from the hull. I know some people love the bubble shields from star trek, but that doesn't fit directional shielding as well, and it's also a more aesthetically overt way of doing shielding that might not fit with the style of SE. So my suggestion is basically a compromise.


So yeah aesthetic implementation matters too, but if everything is done right, shielding can only add depth and tactics to the game.

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My apologies for not spotting your reply sooner.


"...what happens if you make shields directional..."

-People point one in each cardinal direction and build a "shield box" around their ship.


"...What happens when shields depend on other mechanics..."

-Someone builds a reactor-brick to produce the power then wraps it in a layer of thrusters (assuming grav-drives aren't a thing), guns, and the minimum required amount of hull-emitter-elements to produce their invulnerabuble.


"...What happens when shields...have a total capacity that can be overwhelmed..."

-Someone builds a hideously disjointed thruster brick with the required hardware to achieve that maximum shield capacity and the TWR to evade fire from and outrun anyone else not flying their own hideous thruster brick.


"...What happens when shields work better against specific weapon types?..."

-If that resistance is adjustable, they tune it against the weapon they have the hardest time evading. If it isn't, then they fit whatever weapon loadout mathematically confetti's a pvp target first without significantly hampering their own evasion, and either way they don't waste any weight on armor.


"...gain weight while losing thruster acceleration..."

-That's a balance feature, less skilled players tank with armor, more skilled players tank with speed and skill, giving the aces armor on top of their speed and skill just unbalances fights more. ROFL-stomping an opponent stops being fun faster if it happens alot, and getting repeatedly rofl-stomped discourages continuing to play long enough to get better.


"...building a subsystem into your ship to get coverage in a specific weak spot..."

-Or just all spots, see the "directionally-limited" shield-cube above.

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I used to like the idea of shields, I thought they'd be cool in a game like SE. I could build something epic, say "Scotty! Shields to maximum!", tune them precisely against enemy weapons, use segments and layers and focusing do defend myself while targeting my foe's weak-points. Then other people did the math, exposed every single loophole in those ideas, made use of every meta, and forced everyone to either play like they did or lose repeatedly until they quit. I chose to learn to think and strategize like they did, to learn the math, and when I had managed I realized it was boring. No innovation, no flair, short of the devs nerfing shields in to the dirt the math said there was only ever going to be the one strategy everyone flew in the one build everyone copied. Then someone else said they were going to "do shields right, with interesting depth and strategy" and the math disagreed, and time proved the math was right, and someone else said they'd do it right, and the math disagreed, and the math was right. And again. And again.


I'd like to see that to change, for someone to finally get shields right in something as creative as SE, but nobody has shown me anything that makes me think the math will actually work out any better this time than it ever did.

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The only thing I want to clarify is this suggestion itself is not suggesting directional based on cardinal directions.


The suggestion in this specific thread is saying the shield would be 1mm from the hull and distributed across the hull in a specific range to be determined. So from a plasma conduit, the shield would extend out across armor blocks, in a 5x5 area for example, in a 2d plane, not a bubble. it's literally on top of the hull and stops after a certain amount of blocks.


The shield would have a maximum capacity, and initial recharge while it's still active, but the recharge would only be enough that while the area is not under direct DPS damage the shield could gain health it lost back up to its total. If under direct DPS damage the shield would eventually collapse despite the recharge. Once collapsed there is a cool-down before it can recharge again. If the plasma conduit is destroyed coverage in that entire area is lost.


What I know this does:

- Improves building, getting power, plasma conduits setup, (perhaps even other block requirements) for a defense system, where you don't need to layer the hull with armor blocks. Layer the hull with armor blocks could potentially change the aesthetic of your design, increase ship weight, and have a negative effect on your thrust and fuel. Now you can defend light armor blocks if you invest in space to do it without needing to change the hull design with heavy armor.

- improves tactical battle, as shields are directional, you can drop the ships shields in certain spots on the hull but not others, this creates opportunities and specific weak spots to target that are priority over still shielded parts of the hull.


- further if a shield is dropped, you could manoeuvre that area out of direct fire, to give the cooldown a chance to wear off and the shield to recharge again. making manoeuvring more valuable.

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"...this suggestion itself is not suggesting directional based on cardinal directions...the shield would extend out across armor blocks, in a 5x5 area for example, in a 2d plane..."

-You got so hung up on the shape that you missed the point. All those 2d planes will form a box (that doesn't have to be a rectangular cube but statistically will be) around the ship leaving no points unshielded.


"...The shield would have a maximum capacity..."

-This is not a new idea, it does not change the math.


"...increase ship weight, and have a negative effect on your thrust and fuel..."

-You missed the part where I explained that this was a balance mechanic.


"...improves tactical battle, as shields are directional, you can drop the ships shields in certain spots on the hull but not others..."

-No significant change in tactics here, armor already does this.


"...you could manoeuvre that area out of direct fire, to give the cooldown a chance to wear off and the shield to recharge again..."

-Or they could use a super-high TWR to dip out of range a bit before the shield goes down and wait to recharge, kind of like how they did in the meta in every other instance of adding shields.


I appreciate the intention, but there isn't a single new thing to this discussion of shields that hasn't been tried in a previous "lets add shields" attempt. They can't be balanced in a game like SE, and we're better off not having them as part of the default vanilla gameplay.

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I can see you're not really interested in good faith conversation on this topic, as you're mostly making vague statements, where I could just reply the exact opposite in one sentence and say you are wrong, and we are at an impasse. So I don't think there is anything further to be gained from talking to each other. People can read your comments and mine and come to their own conclusions from this point onward.


Keep in mind there can be a meta in every game, and currently SE1 is not the epitome of balanced gameplay either. You can always find some loophole or problem with any system, this doesn't mean we shouldn't attempt anything or have these systems or that these systems still don't bring value or fun gameplay.


It's unfortunate you aren't a person who tries to find solutions to make peoples ideas possible, and instead would rather just say its impossible and discount those ideas from being in the vanilla game. We are done here.

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Such is life I suppose, you think shields can be fixed with enough effort, I think they can't and that we should cut our losses. I wish you the best of luck in proving me wrong.

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Been wanting to see shields for awhile now in SE. Give us a base model to work with and let folks adjust the strength up or down to their liking, or turn them off if they wish. I don't care if they're off by default, but give people the option just like they're doing with food and have done with other features. Shields are not hard to balance like the anti-shielders love to say they are. All you need to do is establish a baseline of how much damage you want them to be able to take from a single weapon before they fail then ship it to players and from there it's an arms race. No different than if you made a higher tier armor. Folks who want them could have them, and folks who don't won't have to.

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There is no “arms race” in any game. You can only “invent” what the game allows.

Or find and exploit a bug in the game mechanics.

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When it comes to "creativity" in spacecraft design...

Consider the reality:

All combat aircraft (and naval vessels) in a given historical period look more or less the same. They have the same fuselage design, very similar wing shapes, weapon placement, cockpit, or engine...

Do you think the engineers who designed them lacked creativity? Certainly not...

However, they all had to respect the laws of physics and aerodynamics, which apply equally to everyone.

This is even more evident in the case of helicopters – they are all like two peas in a pod. One main rotor, one tail rotor on a long arm... Of course, there are exceptions – the Chinook helicopter has two main rotors in a row, Kamov helicopters have two rotors one above the other, Kaman helicopters had two intersecting main rotors, and the Osprey helicopter had two rotors side by side. However, even before the Chinook, there were about a dozen similar designs with rotors in a row in the 1950s... In the end, they had no descendants, just like the Chinook – in fact, it is the last surviving dinosaur. (Really the last – it is the youngest design).


Why?


Because, as in nature, there are only a few "good" solutions in technical practice, the rest are worse.

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@Semtex: First off this is a video game and if you wanted absolute realism that ship sailed long ago and there are other games for that. Games are supposed to be fun and heaven forbid folks wanting a more sci-fi esque feel are allowed a feature that gives them some of that fun because the small handful of anti-shielders don't like it. They constantly demand everyone else "consider game balance" and so on but are never willing to practice what they preach. Today we do not know how to put people into cryo sleep for 10k years let alone make ships that will travel to another star system and stay operable for said 10k years. So to be blunt screw reality and physics if they get in the way of fun.


Second, where did I ever say you were inventing things new with said arms race? As many times as you've seen me say it you know good and well I am not talking about pulling things from the ether that don't exist. The arms race has always been did player A bring enough weapons and good enough tactics to get through player B's defenses, and vice versa. It has always been about tactics and build vs tactics and build. Once again you anti-shielders show you'll strawman anything. If you don't like a potential feature then turn it off.

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Hear, hear, 3 cheers for Captainbladej52, spoken from the heart!

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@ captainbladej52 - Sorry, but my post isn't about shields at all. They are not mentioned even on word, not even hinted at. In fact, it's not about shields, gravity generators, or artificial mass...


The point is that not all "possible" solutions are equally good—within the given possibilities, there are better and worse solutions.

There are better and worse designs. And the worse ones are destroyed in battle.


If game developers try to "favor" one group of designs in some "hidden" way, it will very quickly happen that a completely different group of designs will take advantage of this preference... As I wrote elsewhere, create a cockpit with increased durability, and very soon someone will armor their ship with durable cockpits .


Therefore, I think the best solution is to stick to reality and the known laws of physics as much as possible. Simulate the reality of the world as best you can. Every deviation from reality has visible and also invisible consequences and implications that are difficult (for a game designer - they are too "only fallible humans") to predict in advance. But players will gradually find all the holes and logical errors in the reality of the game world – and exploit them in the most surprising ways. Do you remember the "three piston hyperspeed canon" in SE1?


I also believe that the same rules must apply to all players...

The performance of energy sources and the durability of structures must be proportional to their weight and dimensions/volume. One large block of armor should have the same durability and weight as the same volume assembled from dozens of smaller blocks of the same type...

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... And now everyone's lost the point...


@Captainbladej52

-You probably shouldn't try to lecture other people on sticking to my balance argument, especially given the differences between our respective definitions of balance. Trying to hold a 3rd party accountable for not adhering to my argument just comes across as unreasonably arrogant.


@Deon Beauchamp

-I can very much respect your "I personally would find it more fun if X" arguments for more durability even if I disagree with them, but encouraging cap to keep arguing beyond their initial post really isn't worth the negativity the thread will devolve in to if the arguments keep going.


@Semtex

-I appreciate the need for realism but this is a game, if they want to encourage combat in the way it seems they do then they need a level of game balance that allows for a variety of options. Every option shouldn't be equal, not everything has to have a chance of winning a fight, but the more options we can get that have some chance the better (even if the difference between impossible and slim is dependent on possessing significant skill).

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Every single time I've seen shields in SE they always produce a math-problem that either heavily favors one style of play or have such limits and hard counters as to effectively do nothing at all. So until someone can show me some math proving otherwise, I'll say they can't be balanced, and that shields should be a thing a server's host has to turn on (be it via checkbox in a menu somewhere or mod) so that people can have a balanced vanilla game to figure out what they like doing and how they want to play without being pigeon-holed by an unbalanced mechanic.

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@Tael - You have good parenting skills, whereas I have mischievous grand parenting ones.

I am not looking for a shield that has been used before in SE. I would like one that is limited and far from perfect, more of a buckler than a tower shield. I would like to think of shields, as a technology in SE2, as a recent invention and one that has not had its potential evolved, nothing like the OP mods in SE1. I would push for those types of shields to exist in a future far beyond SE2.(Unless they are alien tech :) )

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@Semtex: My original comment regarding an arms race was in the context of shields or "shielding" being added to the game. So yes you did comment on shields even if you didn't realize that's what you were doing.


The point is that not all "possible" solutions are equally good—within the given possibilities, there are better and worse solutions.

Agreed that some proposals have more merit than others far as gameplay solutions go. That said gameplay preferences alone do not make one solution automatically better than the other. There's a thousand and one different ways they could try to address durability concerns with some being simpler than others. While you may have a thousand and one solutions to choose from, certain solutions have been proven more effective than others. Whether folks like it or not shields can be and have been a solution to many of the problems people complain about when it comes to durability. You're not required to like that fact but it doesn't make it any less true.


There are better and worse designs. And the worse ones are destroyed in battle.

Irrelevant to my original post response. That said I'll bite on one thing. Where has anyone said that certain designs aren't better for stated goals than others?


If game developers try to "favor" one group of designs in some "hidden" way, it will very quickly happen that a completely different group of designs will take advantage of this preference... As I wrote elsewhere, create a cockpit with increased durability, and very soon someone will armor their ship with durable cockpits .

Whether you like it or not there are 2 things that are always going to be true. First, any change a game developer makes can have a dramatic change on the game. Second, there will always be players who try to squeeze every last one and zero out of their ships and try to find the best mathematical and practical ways to get there.

Whether it's a mod dev, or a studio dev, any change said dev makes to their content can radically alter the balance of the whole thing. The slightest tweak to component costs can suddenly make one block massively more durable than another or weaker than another. Another thing you need to consider is that simply because something is possible it does not automatically make it practical. People sometimes use fully welded gyros as armor for the outside of their ship due to their durability. Is it possible, yes. Is it practical, absolutely not for most people. It's the outlier and not the rule. Ultimately there will always be a META of some type as you can never truly eliminate all favoritism from a game like SE. And all of this also dances around whether the person in question has the skill to pull off said possibility.


Therefore, I think the best solution is to stick to reality and the known laws of physics as much as possible. Simulate the reality of the world as best you can. Every deviation from reality has visible and also invisible consequences and implications that are difficult (for a game designer - they are too "only fallible humans") to predict in advance. But players will gradually find all the holes and logical errors in the reality of the game world – and exploit them in the most surprising ways. Do you remember the "three piston hyperspeed canon" in SE1?

This is where you and I differ greatly. SE is not now nor has it ever been meant to be this hyper-realistic simulation of reality you think it is, nor has it ever been marketed as such. Also realistic does not have to mean 100% true to reality, simply that it leans more toward the realism side of the scale than fantasy. Games are supposed to be fun and enjoyed first and foremost. If realism gets in the way of fun, then far as I'm concerned realism can take the back seat for once. As for people finding exploits and "holes in the reality of the world" they're going to do this no matter what you try to do, so what exactly is your point here? I get that some people prefer hyper-realism and 100% reality, yet not everyone does. If the vast majority of players hate something and say it's hampering their fun even though said something is realistic, then it's time to consider altering and/or removing said something for the health of the game as a whole. It can be as simple as giving that thing a switch so it can be turned on/off at will for various servers, or outright removed depending on what said thing is.


The performance of energy sources and the durability of structures must be proportional to their weight and dimensions/volume. One large block of armor should have the same durability and weight as the same volume assembled from dozens of smaller blocks of the same type...

Not automatically true. Performance of energy sources depend on how they generate energy. You could have a massive collection of windmills or a massive solar farm in reality that completely dwarfs the size of a modern nuclear reactor. Yet by and large that reactor is going to be more efficient than the windmills or solar power, especially when taking environmental factors into account. As for armor durability, it depends on what the armor is made of as to whether several smaller blocks would have the same weight as a big one or not. Size wise sure you may be able to stack several small blocks up to equal the same volume as a larger one. However if those smaller blocks are made of a denser material or sturdier material the durability can be different. So again what is the issue or point you're trying to make?


I also believe that the same rules must apply to all players...

Define what you mean by "same rules must apply to all players" because that's a very loaded statement in the context of this conversation.

If by "same rules must apply to all players" you mean everyone has the same options as far as the vanilla game is concerned, then that much I would agree with you on. Using a box of crayons as an example, if the game of SE is equivalent to a 64 count box of crayons, then everyone who gets the game should have the same 64 crayons that can pick and choose from. Whether they choose to use all 64 crayons in their respective worlds/creations or not is up to them.

If by "same rules must apply to all players" you mean everyone must be forced to use the same settings and do everything the same way for their worlds, not only would you be wrong but you would be overstepping your bounds big time. Neither you nor anyone else gets to tell me what I can and can't do on my own server. If I want to add another tier of armor and give it 100x the health of regular armor, who are you to tell me I can't? Or to use the crayon analogy, if I want to bring in an outside crayon to get a different color I don't have, that's my right to do so. If I want to only use 60 out of the 64 crayons, that is also my right.


@Tael:

-You probably shouldn't try to lecture other people on sticking to my balance argument, especially given the differences between our respective definitions of balance. Trying to hold a 3rd party accountable for not adhering to my argument just comes across as unreasonably arrogant.

And where did I try to hold someone accountable for "not adhering to your argument"? Please enlighten us. Also idk how many times I have to say this my dude, it's a publicly available thread to comment on. I don't need your permission to be here or speak here.

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I'm not going to argue with you. I have already written my opinion on the matter.

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"...where did I try to hold someone accountable for "not adhering to your argument"?..."

1b6b4c34e68c6f4329ef52405b0b2c5d

Somewhere about there ^

Semtex's argument is realism, mine is balance. I know you'd probably like to think of everyone who doesn't want shields as part of some absurd organized (or disorganized) group of people trying to force everyone to only play a sandbox game in one specific way because of some inexplicable hatred of generic energy-barriers, but we're not. People who don't want shields in SE2 are just random folk that happen to share one opinion, each for their own reasons, with no more in common than any other two random people who when asked about their favorite food respond with "pie" because one likes the texture and the other the flavor. Getting after other people for not adhering to my argument when they don't want shields for plainly different reasons only serves to make people think less of you.


"...it's a publicly available thread to comment on..."

*writing noises*

"Its a publicly available thread to comment on, so I can call out/annoy Cap for their poor behavior whenever the mood strikes me."

Got it. Glad we're on the same page.

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Some people against shields don't actually have a point as to why sometimes. It's more of a preference and they ignore the truth of some points, and don't really rebuttal shielding based on points you make showing why shields can be good. In other words they just dislike star trek, or prefer a certain type of science fiction — and that is their point.


One can't argue shields wouldn't make building ships, and battles more tactical and add depth. Because under the best implementation of shielding, one where the devs take their time and make sure it's done right, this would actually be a false claim because shields would add depth to the game in that context.


So the question is to the people who don't want shields, is it based on implementation, are you imagining horror scenarios in your head? or some aesthetic you really dislike? And therefore you are actually for shielding, but care deeply about the implementation being done well? or are you against shielding based on preference? As in you just don't want it no matter what and think it can never be done right? (which IMO is a harder case to prove/stand by).


I should also add that people who bring up not wanting shields often also bring up point defense, or drones, or something else as an alternative. But shields and point defense are not mutually exclusive, and can work well together. In fact I would really love better point defense in the game and i think it would be amazing if we were given that at some point. Drones as well sound like a great idea.

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@Semtex: Then I suggest you move on because you're not going to convince me either. Also thanks for proving me right that you do subscribe to the notion everyone should have to play like you instead of defining your "everyone should have to play by the same rules" statement. You told me all I needed to know.


@Tael: A few things. First: you're not a moderator so quit trying to act like one. If you feel I have said or done something that violates the Keen rules then report the post and the chips will fall where they fall. You sit here trying to bash me for "lecturing people on balance" yet here you are trying to lecture me yourself. Pot meet kettle. Second: I told you to quote the line where I called you out specifically, and instead you pull out one generalized line that doesn't name you at all, thus proving my point that anti-shielders will jump to any mental gymnastics to justify themselves. Nowhere in that highlighted section did I name you or anyone specific, but if you want to put those shoes on and run with them and get offended, that's a you problem. If you want to lump yourself in with that bunch and prove me right, I certainly won't try to stop you. You're far from the first anti-shielder I've ever ran into that's tried to cite "but balance" or "it can't be balanced" or whatever variation you're rolling with this week, and I highly doubt you'll be the last.

As I've said a thousand times, if you don't to use them should they become vanilla then don't use them. You can tick a box to turn them off, or for that matter I can tick the box to turn them on. It's already been explained to you a thousand times why your arguments don't work but time and again you default back to "but what about (thing)" or resort to the classic "you're just being a bad sport" gaslight because you know you've got nothing. I know it's difficult for you to grasp but just because you personally subscribe to a particular train of thought does not mean you own said train of thought exclusively. Heaven forbid the game actually gives something to the sci-fi people for once and remembers it's a game first vs bowing the knee to the "muh realism" crowd every single time and screwing everyone else.


@Valourant: Alot of the anti-shielders love to scream "muh realism" as an argument, yet if they want 100% realism there's several things that need to come out of the game that already exist. They say they want 100% realism, but what they actually want is realism when it suits them, and only when it's something they like. If they just don't like shields, cool they're allowed to dislike the idea of shields. That said the reasons for why they shouldn't be added almost always boil down to "well I don't like it so you shouldn't be allowed to have it". They act like they can't just tick a box and turn the shields off if they don't like them, just as they can with things like food when it releases, oxygen system, weather, and a host of other features.

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"...In other words they just dislike star trek, or prefer a certain type of science fiction — and that is their point..."

-That would be a perfectly valid argument, though probably never a particularly convincing one.


"...One can't argue shields wouldn't make building ships, and battles more tactical and add depth..."

-I can, because everyone says they'll put time in to it and make it the best, and I've yet to see it work out.


"...is it based on implementation..."

-More or less. I'd like them to be good but I've seen every instance of "this is how you do them right" go horribly wrong when mixed with SE creativity. I'd like them, but only if they're good and balanced, and I don't think that will happen.

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So you're actually in the shield camp, but it depends heavily on implementation? In that case it would be good to hear your ideas on good implementation.

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My idea is don't implement them as part of vanilla because they can't be balanced.


Leave shields as a checkbox in a menu somewhere that a host has to enable, or as a mod so that the people that want them can have them. Don't push them on all the people that don't want something horribly imbalanced, or that doesn't meet their expectations of realism/aesthetic/whatever, or on the new players that haven't had the opportunity to figure out their favorite play-style without being pigeon-holed by a bad mechanic.

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@Tael: You say something such as "I'd like them to be good" and "but only if they're good and balanced" when it comes to shields, yet never once have you actually sat down and tried to describe what you consider to be balanced. Never once have you sat down and described "here is how I would handle them and make them function in game". You say to Valourant you would be for shields depending on implementation, but have refused to elaborate beyond that to him, me or anyone else. You've never sat down and described "here is how they would determine health values, regeneration rate, weapons that are stronger/weaker against shields (if applicable)" or any of that. Instead what we've gotten is "My idea is don't implement them as part of vanilla because they can't be balanced" and vague generalizations. You say all the implementations you've seen haven't worked out. Okay then put something on the table and describe something you think WOULD work. Even if it's the most convoluted system in the multiverse, you're at least defining a start point we can go from.

I will say though I'm glad to see you've finally conceded the make it a checkbox thing and that people do/would have a choice of whether to use them or not. Just like lightning damage in SE1 they can choose to play with it or without it just like a host of other features. I dare say most have always assumed they would be optional since folks have to go over settings before starting a world/server anyways.


"Don't push them on all the people that don't want something horribly imbalanced, or that doesn't meet their expectations of realism/aesthetic/whatever, or on the new players that haven't had the opportunity to figure out their favorite play-style without being pigeon-holed by a bad mechanic."

No one with a brain has ever suggested forcing people to play with shields who may not like them anymore than anyone has said people should be forced to play the Saberoids/wolves, or even the oxygen system. No matter what a game dev does be it studio level like something at Ubisoft, a smaller studio like Keen, or one man modder teams like myself or one of the other modders, they will NEVER please everyone. It would be foolish to think one can please all people all of the time. Just like some people for SE1 may prefer stronger armors and such like the mods I've produced, others do not and may think they're too strong or even too weak, or others prefer to roll with just base game options. All are valid playstyle choices that can and do exist simultaneously without having to be forced on the other. Even for blocks that don't have a dedicated on/off switch in game such as something like pistons or rotors do NOT have to be utilized just because they exist. Some people will choose to use them, some people won't. I've played since 2015-2016 time and I've yet to use pistons or rotors in a serious build as I've just never needed them. Again I'm assuming shields would have a switch just like weather does.

Ultimately outside of certain egregious and dramatic examples, what is considered considered balanced, a bad mechanic, or aesthetically pleasing is in the eye of the beholder. I also don't believe most people who have put more than 5 minutes into SE expect people to figure out everything they like in the first few minutes they've started playing. Simultaneously in 2025 people are only as helpless as they choose to be when it comes to trying to figure out what different things do in a video game, especially one as old and well documented as SE is now. Folks can visit different pages, different videos, or even... ask for help in something like discord. What they do with said information is then on them.

Not every update is going to be made with every person in mind, just like not every feature is going to be made with every person in mind. Case and point, I'm not the primary target audience for a pvp centric update like they've talked about by any means. However I still have the ability to partake in said update and its features if I choose. The entire point of a sandbox game is to give people a sandbox to play in, some sand and tools to do stuff with, and let people have fun. Simply because the toolkit they give you comes with something someone may not like does not obligate them to use it.

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"...yet never once have you actually sat down and tried to describe what you consider to be balanced. Never once have you sat down and described "here is how I would handle them and make them function in game"..."

-I have in fact clearly explained my idea of balance several times and on several threads, you typically just ignore it. Also, would you mind explaining to me why so many people seem to think that someone who doesn't think something can ever be made to work would subsequently have an idea as to how to make said something work? I keep saying "shields can't be balanced" and keep getting the response "then how would you balance them?" and it makes about as much sense as being asked how I would breathe solid steel right after after I try to explain that humans can't breathe solid steel.


"...will say though I'm glad to see you've finally conceded the make it a checkbox thing and that people do/would have a choice of whether to use them or not...."

-You should get your memory checked. My argument has never at any point been that people shouldn't have the option to enable such features, and I have on several occasions said that I'd support attempts to get them in to the game on the condition that they were not part of the default vanilla gameplay (I even started a thread for getting a bunch of non-vanilla options so people can enable all the unbalanced extras they want, including shields).


"...Even for blocks that don't have a dedicated on/off switch in game such as something like pistons or rotors do NOT have to be utilized just because they exist..."

-Pistons and rotors are not integrally tied to a large section of the game's mechanics. Including shields as part of the default vanilla play means balancing most of the rest of the combat mechanics (the damage output of weapons, the durability of blocks, the size of ammo in the inventory, ect...) around the expected additional durability the shields would provide. If the game is balanced around having shields and shields are disabled then it will be like running one of those OP weapon-core mods without shields, weapons would chew through things so fast there'd be little point in large ships or heavy armor. Given that shields can't be properly balanced in the first place we're better off not having them in vanilla and balancing things appropriately, and then letting people that have decided they want them in their server enable them.

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Shields on ships have a proven history.

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Just asking for a more futuristic shield.

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Let's assume that the "shield" exists.

How will it work on a physical level?

Let it be some kind of magical "braking field" that deprives an incoming enemy projectile of its kinetic energy. This represents about 50-100 kJ for a Gatling projectile and several MJ for higher calibers or missiles. The shield must contain at least this amount of energy in its volume. And the ship's energy sources (batteries, reactors, solar panels) must supply at least this energy to the shield generators (we will ignore energy losses and the efficiency of converting electrical energy into shield energy). Generators must "put" this energy into creating and maintaining the shield that is supposed to intercept each individual projectile. And it must be replenished after each projectile is intercepted, or the shield will be weakened by each neutralized projectile and the interception of the next projectile will be less effective.

Side issue: The shield is significantly larger than the protected ship, so it will be damaged and weakened also by projectiles that are directed not directly to the ship's hull or .

So: What energy sources will the spacecraft need to create and maintain the shield?

How much energy will the shield need to contain? Or in other words, how many projectiles and how much energy should it be able to stop?


With classic armor, it's simple — we can calculate and experimentally verify how many projectiles and what type of projectiles one block of armor can intercept before it disintegrates. So we can express numerically how much energy one block of armor is capable of intercepting and absorbing. The same must be possible with a shield – and from this we can deduce how much energy the shield must contain in its volume.

How will the shield react to its own projectiles?

If the shield represents some kind of magical “braking field,” it will also capture its own projectiles, because on a physical level there is no way to distinguish between moving projectiles that are its own and those that are foreign. The only option is to increase and multiply the number of game rules —but even theolog William Occam protested against that procedure even in the early 13th century...


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A ship shield need not be a full coverage device, but could be a directionally applied device to cover a vulnerable area. Multiple directional shields could be used together to form a full shield, but once again this could be OP and should require a significant resource/power/run time cost to balance usage.

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No, it cannot be sectoral....

From the point of view of the logic of physical fields, the repulsive force field must be spherical, similar to gravity (literally, it must be something like "repulsive gravity").

In order to create a sectoral field, the force field would have to be bipolar, similar to a magnetic or electric field. In that case, you would have a repulsive field on one side, butit would create an attractive field on the other side.

And if the repulsive field were bipolar in nature, it would be possible to "reverse" the properties of the projectile so that it would be attracted by the force field rather than repelled.

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Another problem with the design:

The repulsive field will also exert "internal pressure" on the generator that creates it. And since the inverse square law apparently applies to all force fields (gravitational, magnetic, electric...), the generator's structure will be subjected to enormous internal "pressure."

But almost all construction materials have tensile strength significantly lower than their compressive strength...

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We aren't advocating for shielding based on magnetic or gravity — as this sounds more like a repulsor than a shield. And even if we were you can't claim to be an expert of how these would realistically function, since they don't exist and are theoretical. For all we know the problem of having directional shields could be solved, without requiring the other side to have a "pull" effect. Think of force fields in star trek hallways, they aren't bubbles, they are just a wall of energy that blocks people from going through.


The shield will be directional. (though i guess it's not required but it changes a lot of good things that come with direction shielding imo).

The shield would either absorb energy or kinetic force, or otherwise counter-act it by applying an equal amount of energy back, perhaps arranging atoms in a specific way where whatever hits the shield doesn't penetrate.


I'm less interested in real world explanations, than in the gameplay and the depth in building and tactics the shield would add to the game.

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Passing this one on for friend, :)


I know that a logical and scientific explanation would help satisfy the possibility of shields existing. Unfortunately I am not allowed to tell you how they work, though it is not above my pay grade, but I feel that the consequences of divulging such knowledge to a civilization that still has some way to go in its collective maturity would be devastating for the delicate balance and harmony of this Earth, as if this world is not fragile enough already. I ask for a little patients, and to accept this shield proposal as a useful fiction for now, and if things go well, I am sure that, in time, the knowledge will be revelled to all that can play sensibly with such tech.

End of message.

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