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[silentstormpt]

Shields from what can be seen and rad on the files, are based on a defined circle that is "projected" in a defined arc (be it 1º to 360º). My question is, if a shield were set per ship with shape coords (same as collision in ths *.ship files) instead of a circle would it require and extensive recode to make it work?

[Alex]

Not sure if this belongs in Modding or here, but: in a word, yes. In a few more words, it would also break the AI in a myriad places and would require entirely different shield graphics (which would be far from trivial; generating a nice-looking curve based on an arbitrary potentially concave polygon...).

So, perhaps to answer your (implied?) question, this isn't something I could add just for mods. As far as the base game, I'm entirely happy with how shields work now, and in fact prefer that to contour shields.

[silentstormpt]

Interesting, ive always though the AI did all its calculations based on a circle making it much less pain to deal when calculating incoming "danger" and projectile/object collision, The idea was to create a second collision from the ships bounds (would need to be set on the *.ship files exactly like how bounds are set with an array of coords) and a shield image file per ship with the right size (this means no shading and whatnot from the engine). The shields would theoretically work exactly like a circle (like how it is right now) where it shows the shield bounds based on the arc.

The main reasoning is ship shapes that cause massive sized shields with the added bonus of being able to customize the shields shape and "looks".

[Gothars]

If I may piggyback on this: quite (quite) some time ago you said you had plans to improve shield graphics, Alex. Was that tried and didn't work out, or is it just too low priority? Any chance it's still on the table?

It would be nice to have some feedback, like if a kinetic weapon hits the shield, display some kind of shield dispersion effect, just a small one...so you know that something realy bad for your shields hit it.

Funny thing - we already have some shield animation graphics for just this purpose. Just haven't had time to add those in

Shields have been on my list of "graphics to improve" for a while now. I wouldn't say they're *bad*, but we've got some ideas.

e/ Probably just found my own answer:

We do manage to sneak in various visual improvements here and there, though, so hopefully shields will be one of them eventually. It's just a bit of a bigger undertaking, so I'm not sure there'll ever be a good time to devote that much time to it. We'll see, though.

[Alex]

I tried a couple of tweaks here and there (somewhat recently, actually) but nothing turned out to be particularly promising.

[King Alfonzo]

Considering how much coding goes into the Templar Shielding, I'm not surprised it'd be difficult to fix the shields to the hull bounds.

[Linnis]

Perhaps generate a point that could move in a circle around the ship like now. Then have an calculation backwards back onto the ship for all "shield edges" that are like say... 70degrees towards the generated point. And all edge layer of the ship. So thus all sprites would need a "shield edge" designation along the edges.

The AI would point the generated point just like shields.


Something like this would work?

[Ranakastrasz]

Considering how much coding goes into the Templar Shielding, I'm not surprised it'd be difficult to fix the shields to the hull bounds.

The Templar don't even have shields. When I tried to read the code a while ago, here's what I found. They just have 99.9% or so damage reduction, and calculate the damage taken, apply the leakthrough as damage manually, and the other part is added as flux.

And the shield animation is pretty much just a display of the current flux level, although I think it might react to damage taken. Can't recall, been a while since I played.

[Serenitis]

Shields are 95% fine as is.
The only thing that bugs me somewhat, is that circular shields don't handle long thin ships at all well.
Take the Odyssey for example; it's shield is huge in order to accomdate the length of the ship, which magnifies it's frontal profile with an active shield to damage-magnet proportions. And there is a lot of empty space inside the shield which just seems, I dunno, wasteful. An ellipse would be much nicer.

This may or may not be as intended, or in some way a hard limitation of Domain shield technology.
But then again long ships are pretty rare, which may be a factor of such a limitation as if you are limited to a sphere as a defensive barrier then you're going to want to take advantage of that as much as possible. Thus most ships are fairly, "squarish" in proportion.

[Megas]

Odyssey could use a Damper Field knockoff to replace the shield.  Odyssey's shield has lots of wasted space.  (Does not help that I use Front Shield Emitter on Odyssey, because I like 360 shields, and I practiced enough to aim and fire all three large mounts at enemies.)

[TaLaR]

I often tend to flicker shield on such ships just to prevent it from deploying fully (too wasteful) and keep it around 15-20 degree size. Having a hot key for partial shield deployment would make such tactics much more convenient to use.

[Sy]

Having a hot key for partial shield deployment would make such tactics much more convenient to use.

a hotkey might be a bit awkward to use, but a hullmod that reduces shield arc by 50% or so could be useful, with low OP cost and some minor bonus.

[Gothars]

Focal shields - Reduces shield arc by half, but increases shield damage resistance by 10% (like hardened shields). I'd like it.

[TaLaR]

Not sure I'd use it as hullmod, too inflexible. Whether I want to deploy full or partial shield depends on what I am facing - partial is good vs single enemy with rapid firing or fast projectile weapons (in more simple cases I'll just block each shot/salvo individually, to spare shield upkeep), but against multiple enemies I want full available coverage.

[Tartiflette]

Focal shields - Reduces shield arc by half, but increases shield damage resistance by 10% (like hardened shields). I'd like it.

Actually, in Scy's big update there will be a "Double layer shield" ship-system that does that. Although I was planning more on 33% damage resistance or more.