Directional Shielding!

posted on April 20th, 2009, 10:09 pm

That sounds good, it would make base assualts much more tactical. You wouldn't be able just to send all of your ships next to the enemy starbase and shoot the **** out of it, you have to worry about what's hitting you in the back as well. I love the idea 

[Anonymous]

posted on April 20th, 2009, 10:13 pm

Last edited by Anonymous on April 20th, 2009, 11:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

yup sounds good.

but what do we do for the rommies and dom. do we assume the rommies are going to hve stronger aft sheidsl than front?
or the dom are going to be .....

feds ok. klings ok.... cos the feds are well rounded and the klings are aggressive.

Rommies? i dont want rommies to have weak front shields and strong aft sheilds simply cos they are cowards lol

and the dominion? why should the feds have the best ratio?

posted on April 20th, 2009, 10:58 pm

Dominion don't retreat. For the Founders!

At the moment most of their ships have forward firing weapons anyways, so they can't retreat. Why not liven it up with similar shielding doctrine as well 

posted on April 21st, 2009, 2:54 am

By best I meant most rounded, side shields could also be factored in, so perhaps the following could be used. The numbers indicate the damage multiplier

Race----Fore----Side----Aft

Fed-----1.0------1.0-----1.0
Rom----1.0------1.25---0.75
Kling----0.5------1.0-----1.5
Borg----1.0------1.0-----1.0
Dom----0.75-----1.0----1.25

I don't know what you think but that's basically how I see each races strategies, of course I'm sure the Devs have a better idea of how the shields would fit to the race.

posted on April 21st, 2009, 3:29 am

I do think it sounds very nice, and a few RTSs have adopted this, (RoN, from what I remember) to encourage players to strike them at the back.

However, like DocaCola said, I do not think it is possible for the old A2 engine to make this feat possible.

Even Star Trek Legacy, a game fundamentally based upon the A2 Engine, does not have directional shielding.

Great idea, but I think the A2 Engine is stretched out to its limits already.

posted on April 21st, 2009, 3:31 am

well how about just making it like the weapon systems already are, where the kigons firing ark is in the front and theyre brutal where as feds can fire phasers all around and aft torpedoes

so just apply that to sheilds, klingons dont care alot about sheilds so they wont be high, but almost all they have will be in the front, wereas feds will be all around

posted on April 21st, 2009, 6:55 am

Yeah a lot of people seem to be ignoring what DocaCola said about it not really being possible.

It's too much micromanagement anyway. Perfect for games with small numbers of ships (SFC, BC), but not fleet games like Armada.

posted on April 21st, 2009, 9:05 am

I know it is not possible, but I feel like saying this; The Dominion's aft shields are pitiful. An attack ship can be destroyed by one well-aimed Phaser blast from a Runabout if hit from behind. Hit from the front and it wouldn't even dent the shields.

posted on April 21st, 2009, 6:51 pm

Yeah a lot of people seem to be ignoring what DocaCola said about it not really being possible.

It's too much micromanagement anyway. Perfect for games with small numbers of ships (SFC, BC), but not fleet games like Armada.

Here's what Doca said:

instead of more sods attached to each vessel i more thought just of calculating the damage through the impact angle of the shot. damage allocation is done through the ordnances that are fired. the same function can of course access the position of the fired ordnance and the target's, so it would just be some math to know from which angle the target was hit, but i am not convinced that this system in general would fit for armada

edit: ah, ok, got that wrong. you mean just like star fleet command where you have 4 shield sectors that each can have independent damage. nah, i think that would be a lot more tricky to do

So as you see the system I suggested is possible, I think a damage increase for hitting the side or rear does fit in with Armada 2
For example a damage increase for hitting the rear of a Klingon ship, it's more of an encouragement to play as you should ie not running away if your a Klingon than an increase in micromanagement. I see it as a way to reinforce the styles of the races rather than having every battle be about flanking the enemy, of course if you take the time to plan an attack on a Klingon fleet so you have half your ships behind and half infront I think you deserve a slight bonus anyway.

posted on April 21st, 2009, 7:25 pm

Exactly what I though Crazy Moose 

Plus, micromanagement is an integral part of all RTS really... and like I said, CnC 3 and RA3 usually had battles of dozens of units, yet they still had the "tactical" armor deal... which worked amazingly (reverse move anyone?)