Shields when docked

posted on June 13th, 2010, 1:43 pm

Is it possible to have a ship when docked (such as at a mining station or repairing) get protected by the station shields? The ships go inside the shields when docking, especially one that's repairing.

It seems strange that weapons pass harmlessly through the shields to hit the ship, but hit normally when attacking the station. It's like they're able to bypass the shields, but can't be bothered.

posted on June 13th, 2010, 2:02 pm

I think this is an engine problem, from what I understand the weapons are assigned to a target and can't hit anything else, thus going right thru anything in their way without harming it. Think of when you have an Intrepid behind an allied Tac Cube, and the enemy fires from the opposite side of the Cube at your ship, the weapons will pass thru the Cube to hit the Intrepid. It helps avoid friendly fire (so you Intrepid won't hit the Tac Cube trying to hit the enemy), but it also is rather stupid. It's just the way the weapon interception is designed. I doubt the devs will be able to change it anytime soon.

posted on June 13th, 2010, 2:04 pm

I doubt the devs will be able to change it anytime soon.

As far as I know, it's on the internal to do list for quite some time. I'm sure we'll all hear about it when they begin work on improving those last frustrating vestiges of the A2 engine. 

posted on June 15th, 2010, 4:19 am

Hmm....extended shields sounds like a great starbase upgrade....  Might make raiding a bit tougher!

posted on June 15th, 2010, 9:36 am

Hmm....extended shields sounds like a great starbase upgrade....  Might make raiding a bit tougher!

make a feature request for it  if u leave it only here as an off topic comment less people will read it, and people cannot reply to the idea.

posted on June 15th, 2010, 1:40 pm

DS9DW really pulled off the idea of Friendly fire well. Not only if someone was between you, but if you were to miss and fly into an ally it would also count.

The only problem in Armada with friendly fire is when you mass ships together. All of the front liners would be pwned by their allies behind them.

posted on June 15th, 2010, 2:49 pm

Hmm....extended shields sounds like a great starbase upgrade....  Might make raiding a bit tougher!

I have noticed a lot when I'm raiding that the miner is inside (or underneath for the Dominion) the mining platform after I wonder for a moment why my ships are attacking the platform and not the miner. Same problem as the ships repairing tho, even to hav it as an upgrade would require a change to the engine I think. The devs might be able to create a workaround by increasing shield value of docked miners to the current shield value of the platform, then any damage done to the miner's shield also done to the platform's shield. I don't know if even that's possible with the Armada II engine.

posted on June 15th, 2010, 3:43 pm

Its probably prohibited by the engine's capabilities.  Another cool feature would be if stray, missed, or extra photons/quantums/etc would be able to hit other ships.

posted on June 15th, 2010, 4:01 pm

which is all ironic, when you consider that one of the Fed's Remore special abilities, the ECM, is touted as reducing friendly fire, even though it doesn't exist in game

posted on June 15th, 2010, 9:21 pm

which is all ironic, when you consider that one of the Fed's Remore special abilities, the ECM, is touted as reducing friendly fire, even though it doesn't exist in game

Nah, ECM is about preventing weapons fire from hitting friendly vessels - i.e. generating a large field over your vessels so your enemies can't hit them