A new Engie Tool: The Shield

[Laldy]

I'd rather the engy got a *****. It would be fun to dig trench lines and foxholes

Erk. Edit for profanity? Really? How about "manually operated and portable earth moving equipment", sometimes incorrectly referred to a shovel.

[Sifer2]

Guy above mentioned the problem already. If the ScatMAX remains like it is just put some of those behind the shield, and nothing is getting through there ever. One Engineer, and a ScatMAX can pretty much stall a whole attack group lol.

That shield generator cert in the pic might have been a deployable that speeds up shield regeneration for soldiers around it. In any case if they ever do add a deployable shield wall it should probably function the same as the turrets. Something that absorbs damage but can be destroyed. Honestly I love the idea of one of those for outdoors combat but it sounds too powerful for indoors.

[Mietz]

Originally Posted by Electrofreak

Right, so why wouldn't it just work like base entrance shields, where it blocks weapons fire but can still be walked through? Just give them a use radius like deploying a Sunderer so they can't be used to an outrageous degree.

Personally for me, there isn't any problem with the suggestion of impassable cover or deployable dome shields.

The problem still persists that with the current philosophy of PS2 those deployable shields, if indestructible from the outside, would make points too defensible according to the devs.
You could use them for example to close off holes in the base-design that the devs are unwilling to close, i.e. fuck around with the base defensibility which is supposed to remain static in the eyes of the dev (example: unshielded Amp-station entrances, Tower-holes, etc.).

Another consequence would be that these shields could be deployed to protect AMS Sunderers making any sort of long-range assault against them impossible.
Imagine if the Engi really got this tool.
I'd immediately start deploying these shields to protect my deployed Prowler from the rear for example.

The developers don't want this kind of defensibility because their game isn't balanced around this.

[Electrofreak]

Originally Posted by Sifer2

Guy above mentioned the problem already. If the ScatMAX remains like it is just put some of those behind the shield, and nothing is getting through there ever. One Engineer, and a ScatMAX can pretty much stall a whole attack group lol.

That shield generator cert in the pic might have been a deployable that speeds up shield regeneration for soldiers around it. In any case if they ever do add a deployable shield wall it should probably function the same as the turrets. Something that absorbs damage but can be destroyed. Honestly I love the idea of one of those for outdoors combat but it sounds too powerful for indoors.

That's why you don't give the shield infinite health? It should only survive a clip or two of small arms fire or a rocket... put a reasonable cooldown on it and prevent them from being deployed too close to one another and the situation you described becomes a non-issue.

[thegreekboy]

Originally Posted by Ghoest9

This is a bad idea.

There are tactics to deal with grenades.
This would just promote lazy dumb play even more.

Please extrapolate on your point

[thegreekboy]

Originally Posted by Electrofreak

Right, so why wouldn't it just work like base entrance shields, where it blocks weapons fire but can still be walked through? Just give them a use radius like deploying a Sunderer so they can't be used to an outrageous degree.

I think that this shield should work, basically, as a "wall" to explosives. Rockets, grenades, thrown C4, etc, but gunfire and people can penetrate it.

EMP grenades would shut it down (that would actually be a pretty cool feature), and they can be destroyed, but they have a pretty high health and can be repaired by engineers.

Basically, think deployable SCU shields, minus the fact that you can't walk through it.

I'm opposed to the use radius because it severely limits the effectiveness of the shield as a defensive tool.