PlanetSide Universe - View Single Post - Vehicles: Shields
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Old 2011-07-30, 04:48 AM   [Ignore Me] #8
Mezorin
Corporal
 
Re: Vehicles: Shields


Food for thought, Battlefield 2142 had a great shield system: it was a 5 second invincibility field with cool down that was your get out-of-jail-free-card on tanks, APCs and the mechs. This was needed, as one good rocket or tank shot to the ass and your tank was done. Even one good rocket salvo from one of the mechs and you were just about toast. Note that C4 explosives, remote mines and any sort of EMP hard countered these shields, and smart enemies would co ordinate their AV rockets with EMP mines or grenades.

There was an entire vehicle fighting meta game where you try and get your enemy to blow his shield when he does not need to, THEN you unload your tank cannon on him if you can help it.


The PS1 shields themselves are not a bad gameplay idea, in fact the shields could encourage vehicles to have some staying power in the field. The only problem with them was how you got those said shields: through sitting around in a SOI waiting for the recharge. Vehicles could have old school style planetside shields as a specialization path that would have fairly low health, but fairly fast regeneration rate to give vehicles some protection from light wear and tear, but would fall apart when the big guns get brought out and focused on the target.


One idea I think would work for shields is you would have two paths: the long term weak but regenerating shield, and a short acting but powerful get out of jail free card shield. Both would be mutually exclusive, and would give different play styles to the vehicles: one allows you to have 5 seconds of indestructableness for crashing the front line but doesn't allow for as much long term staying power, and the other allows you to (carefully) absorb lots of little hits over time. The main difference is these shields would come from a unit onboard the vehicle, rather than an AMP station SOI.

This would also allow vehicles to setup their defenses according to what they figure the main threats will be. If they expect to be pelted non stop by pesky DOT infantry/MAX suit fire, but can easily retreat and recharge at will, they could slot for the regerating HP shields. If they expect to have random aerial reaver flybys, bombing runs, burst damage ambushes, or even Alpha Strike happy Vanguard zergs, they could go with the 'invincibility for 5 seconds' shields.

Last edited by Mezorin; 2011-07-30 at 04:51 AM.
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