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[TheHengeProphet]

I propose removing all semblance of friction from shields, as I find it odd when a ship runs into my shields, it'll turn my ship as though the ship and shields are a singular entity and shields happen to be covered in adhesive.

Not sure if it would be an easy thing to do, but it would be nice, as it would somewhat help with the above situation, particularly in the case of when I'm lining up a shot and instead spray my allies rather than the intended target.

[Magician]

And I love this mechanic. Because it lets me do cool stuff with shields. As I said in other thread, I won against somewhat imbalanced mod fleet using this trick. I used my shields to turn enemies and so I was able to escape most dangerous weapons when it was needed.

This mechanic isn't exactly bad or good. Its completely neutral. If you suffer from it - it means you don't take it in account. On the other hand if you remeber about it, you will gain advantage. It is the same as if you will ask to remove dead hulls because they block your line of fire. On the one hand it indeed hinders you, on the other hand I use dead hulls to hide and vent. There are many neutral mechanics in Starsector and will you suffer or will you use it to your advantage depends only on you.

I don't think that it's good to remove such interesting physics aspect just because your ally rarely bumps into you and you miss one shot.
What really needs to be fixed is AI which doesn't take into account that bumping may happen.

[TheHengeProphet]

I don't think that it's good to remove such interesting physics aspect just because your ally rarely bumps into you and you miss one shot.
What really needs to be fixed is AI which doesn't take into account that bumping may happen.

Missing one shot is one thing, but unleasing my entire barrage on my own fleet because the nimrod frigate decided to rake his engines against my shields is another.  It's not a failure to take the "feature" into account, but a combination of terrible AI pathing and a strange physics issue that I find immersion breaking.

When you shine a flashlight on a moving car, does the car drag your hand along because the light beams cling to it? No.

[Psycho Society]

The ai pathing in this game is actually pretty damn good, and i've never had a problem with this.

[thebrucolac]

Shields being affected by physics is hardly strange. If they repel enemy weapons fire, that energy has to be absorbed and go somewhere. Friendly ships need a better sense of personal space, that is the real issue.

[Magician]

Light is light.
Shield is shield.

First of all ships have weight. And smaller ships hardly affect bigger ships. Taking this into account, situation you are describing is very rare. I use friction to my advantage every second battle. I saw situations as you described only maybe 2 times for past 2 weeks if not more. So I don't see why it is necessary to remove something which makes combat interesting in every battle, just because in very rare cases you miss one barrage.

Lets be logical with your reasoning. What you essentially say is "ally hurts me in battle - lets remove physical possibility of such interaction". See? You have problem - ally is doing stupid things. And you propose to remove physical law. But this law is not limited to interaction with your fellow frigate. And removing it will affect whole combat, not just your problem with ally.
If there is a possibility of getting into car accident you will not stay forever in your house to prevent it, isnt it.

P.S. And I agree that AI needs improvements. But there is one very important thing to remember. AI controls both your and enemy fleets. So if your ships are doing something stupid AND you suffer from it, same goes to enemy fleet.

[TheHengeProphet]

The ai pathing in this game is actually pretty damn good, and i've never had a problem with this.

I've experienced otherwise.  The enemy AI is easily exploitable, and the ally AI is equally incompetent and ignorant of objects about.

Light is light.
Shield is shield.

Is the shield part of your ship, or is it being emitted by it?

First of all ships have weight. And smaller ships hardly affect bigger ships. Taking this into account, situation you are describing is very rare. I use friction to my advantage every second battle. I saw situations as you described only maybe 2 times for past 2 weeks if not more. So I don't see why it is necessary to remove something which makes combat interesting in every battle, just because in very rare cases you miss one barrage.

I see similar situations that affect both me and my enemies nearly every time I battle a fleet of five destroyer+ ships or more.  The fact that it happens at all IS an issue with the AI and should be dealt with, but that's not specifically what this thread is about.

Lets be logical with your reasoning. What you essentially say is "ally hurts me in battle - lets remove physical possibility of such interaction". See? You have problem - ally is doing stupid things. And you propose to remove physical law. But this law is not limited to interaction with your fellow frigate. And removing it will affect whole combat, not just your problem with ally.
If there is a possibility of getting into car accident you will not stay forever in your house to prevent it, isnt it.

I'm not saying that my ally running into me shouldn't hurt, as it is an impact on the shields and should be treated as such.  The problem I have is that I find it immersion-breaking and bizarre, not to mention exploitable.  Its exploitability is something even you have mentioned, in which you drag your shield on theirs in order to turn them where you want them to point, or evade their weapons.

P.S. And I agree that AI needs improvements. But there is one very important thing to remember. AI controls both your and enemy fleets. So if your ships are doing something stupid AND you suffer from it, same goes to enemy fleet.

Granted, if the AI didn't have these issues, I probably wouldn't have even noticed this mechanics trait.

[gauntelakor]

Is the shield part of your ship, or is it being emitted by it?

Both actually, the ship emits a shield, but the shield is also limited to a small area thus the emitters have to be pointed in a specific direction. And then moving the shield would require the emitters to move as well, and if you don't move the emitters yourself they are locked in place thus dragging the rest of the ship with them.

Shields being adhesive is another thing entirely. As far as I understand "shields" in Starsector are not real shields in the traditional sense of the word. They are localized gravity phenomena that distorts incoming objects and energy, something like a line of tiny, weak black holes wither stopping, compressing or diverting the projectiles in a harmless direction.
But why wont the shields rip apart everything it touches then? Most things are to big to be affected. The shield cant direct its energy in one direction along its entire length, therefore other ships are to massive to be flung in a random direction, not to mention the shield cant apply enough acceleration along such a large area to move a ship in any significant fashion and then reacts as if they ran straight into a wall, the same thing happens with missiles and asteroids. Only reason those collisions usually don't do much damage are the lack of speed.

This also explains why different damage types do different things:
Kinetic are fast and heavy objects that need lots of energy from the emitters to shift.
Explosive is not concentrated enough to do its full damage to a shield.
Fragmentation is sort of like kinetic, but its several small low velocity rounds instead of massive high velocity ones thus need only a fraction of the energy to shift compared.
Energy is energy, projectiles act like kinetic, but don't have the concentrated mass and are therefore more effectively dissipated over a greater area of the shield, beams have no mass and therefore does nothing to the integrity of the shields resulting in to need to calibrate the emitters, but continued input of energy into a shield like that takes energy of its own to compensate.