Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: Goober5000 on March 25, 2003, 11:19:54 am
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The latest SCP build fixed the old bug where beams always went right through your shields, so now your shields protect you from the beams continuously damaging your hull. However, some people are clamoring to have the old way back. I'm thinking of making it a player choice as to whether to enable shield-piercing on beams or not, but there's a fair bit of argument as to what should be the default choice.
So, post your opinion. Should beams pierce shields by default, or not?
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Mission Designers Choice.
It may have been a bug, but It's accepted as FS Canon (peircing shields that is)
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Mission Designers choice.
What you need is a no-pierce flag that you can apply to some beams to prevent them from going straight through.
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mission designer choice.
Because LM3 was made for the 'fixed' version.
and pie.
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I don't think they should, as it removes all the skill from the game. AAA beams used to be a threat but now you can fly straight at a Deimos, beams all over you, and not even bother to jink. Fine if you're a crap pilot and can't jink anyway, but there's no point in beams being special weapons if they are blocked by sheilds.
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So what's with your signature? :wtf:
But beams should definitely pierce shields by default. Everything should default to the Volition retail FS2 standard unless specified.
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Mission designer's choice, but what is important is that they should go through shields by default.
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on by default. but being hit all the time by friendly beams annoys me.
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Originally posted by kode
on by default. but being hit all the time by friendly beams annoys me.
don't fly into them, and you won't have that problem :p
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Originally posted by Analazon
don't fly into them, and you won't have that problem :p
I tend to ignore everything but the fighter I'm dogfighting those moments. And it's hard not to fly into them when they suddenly pierce the exact space you are in.
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Originally posted by kode
I tend to ignore everything but the fighter I'm dogfighting those moments. And it's hard not to fly into them when they suddenly pierce the exact space you are in.
I try to pay attention on whats happing around me, if i need to protect something and i am dogfighting i frequently disengage and engage the fighters/bombers attaking my objective. And if there is enemy beam/flak fire i try to jink allot, doesn't always work though:D
As for the beams i think they should be the designers choice.
I voted Pie.;7
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So did 40% of the people who voted. :wtf:
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Beams shouldn't peirce sheilds they should ignore them.
If, by "peirce", you meant do damage in spite of sheild, fine, but if you meant damage shields and hull, then no.
Beams should ignore sheilds. Not damage them.
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By pierce we mean completly ignore them and damage the hull
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I think that if your ship is hit by a beam, you should be ****ed. Beams should ignore shields. Plus, playing too many beams-don't-penetrate-shields missions might result in complacence, and Joe Blow who plays those sort of missions regularly might wonder why, in a new mission he's playing, the beams keep blowing him up all the time.:rolleyes:
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Well then Joe Blow can figure it out.:D
Seriously though, attacking capital ships needs to be difficult, a good pilot can avoid 2 of the AAA shots, so that one that hits should count.
Now if capital ships had shields, well then that's another matter. In that case there can be a beam-resist flag for capships.
If beams won't pierce shields than at least up the damage.
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i think beams should have to deplete your shields before your hull takes damage besides that won't take long for it to deplete shields
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Pie
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Beams have to pierce shields by default for [V] campaign balance. No question.
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i think Petrarch is confused. By Peirce, we mean go through, without damaging shields.
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Originally posted by Black Wolf
Beams have to pierce shields by default for [V] campaign balance. No question.
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You think your puny fight shields can withstand the awesome power of our beam weapons? I think not!
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Just a flag in FRED so it can be decided upon by the mission designer :) But default should definitely be shield piercing to preserve balance for all campaigns that have already been released, and which rely to a large degree on AAA beams to keep strike missions challenging.
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I would point out that the problem is not that we don't want beams to damage shields, but that we don't want the hull not to be damaged. Therefore, my proposed solution:
Have the beams both damage the hull directly and take down shields, simultaneously.
We get what we want, shields damaged by beams, without giving up anything we want to keep insofar as hull damage is concerned. And I don't think this will have a major effect on play balance: sure it will make things a bit harder, but not that much, especially if the beam effect on shields is currently so weak as to cause this issue to come into existence in the first place.Why make big problems out of little problems?
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Originally posted by Knight Templar
i think Petrarch is confused. By Peirce, we mean go through, without damaging shields.
You're right. I meant that they should pierce the shields. I was very tired and pissed off last night, and could not think straight. Hence the error in my siggy, which has now been fix0red.
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Is this a multiple choice because of pie?
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Whats the point in beams that cant harm you unless you have no shields left? :wtf: AAA beams should damage shields (and hull), and hence so should their big brothers - cap ship beams.
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Are you trying to say that beams should wear away your sheilds, and then damage the hull, or damage them both at once?
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He is saying the same thing as I, Petrarch: simultaneous damage of both hull and shields.
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Are we talking about ShipToShipBeams or AntiFighterBeams`s?
Antifighter beams= they do in FS2 standard and made it hard to engage the big ships. Was an improvement, if they were a little over accurate against you.
Anti Cap ship beams= I always thought that the beam cannons on the GTVA ships were designed to be able to attack the Lucifer, hence they must penetrate THROUGH shields to do so.
So therefore I think yes beams should penetrate all shields.
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Fighter beams, though at the moment I think it applies to both types. And the Sathanas isn't shielded, assume you must be thinking of the Lucifer :) There's an interesting thought though - Lucifer shield was immune to all damage at the time of FS1, but strictly speaking we don't know if that applied to beam weapons as well, as back then noone had any to attack it with. So then the question is, could/should beams (in theory) penetrate or perhaps just damage Lucifer shields?
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ooops I see the error, thanks.
have changed it now.:eek: :eek:
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if they did both, that'd really suck. And they'd be overly powerfull.
Just stick with making it mission designers choice. That way, if you want to ***** about having it the new way, you can just as easily have it.
I don't know why they changed it anyways in the first place. Improving upon the game is good, but changing the actual play should be less avoided, or at least, if it is changed, make it selectable and not forced.
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Well, beams were developed to combat the Lucifer, not necessarily to be able to pass right through its shields. It was never tested whether beams would pass through the Lucifer's shields, so we cannot say. But to my mind, it only makes sense that beams would affect shields: both were, after all, originally Shivan technology, and secondly, if we leave aside the fact that fighter lasers in FS2 have been turned into little floating space-blobs for purposes of gameplay, there is no fundamental difference between fighter lasers and beam lasers. The only difference is the amount of energy involved.
In the case of a fighter, therefore, a beam should be able to overwhelm shields pretty quickly and penetrate to the hull even before the shield itself has fallen, but it will still be battering the shield too. In the Lucifer's case, it is harder to say whether its shields could completely stop beams and therefore have to be taken down first. The Lucy's shields were so extremely powerful compared to fighter shields that they may have been able to absorb all the energy bombarding them even from a beam cannon, but perhaps not. If not, then in that case the situation for the Lucifer would be comparable to that of the fighters, with the shield having to deal with so much energy that it couldn't catch it all and some would get by to the hull.
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Originally posted by Knight Templar
if they did both, that'd really suck. And they'd be overly powerfull.
How would that "suck"? And no, it wouldn't be overly powerful: if the damage to shields were really that significant, this debate wouldn't be here to begin with.
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If aaa beams did damage to shields and hull simultaneously, I'd think that'd make them at least twice as powerfull as they are now. Escepcially when you're flying against, say a Deimos and you're already getting eaten by flak cannons, then instead of getting tossed around and spanked by the aaa guns while they're throwing shards of flak at you, you get thrown around, spanked, and your clothes ripped off?
At least make whatever you decide optional...
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AAA beams used to be a threat but now you can fly straight at a Deimos, beams all over you, and not even bother to jink.
That doesn't sound like a very significant shield damage effect, and certainly not "twice as powerful." If they were twice as powerful as a result of my proposal, that would mean that they are just as powerful when damaging shields as they are when passing through them, and the whole debate would be moot! No, what will happen with my proposal is that they will be a little bit more powerful, and not enough to throw off play balance.
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Okay, since I am quite serious about my proposal, I've done the math for it to see how it would pan out. Here are my results:
All AAA beams apply damage to hull and shields at an equal rate, so the difference in how powerful an AAA is against a fighter with or without shield piercing is dependent on the shields of the fighter. So I took a sample set of ships from the table to see how they would be affected by my proposal.
Seth:
580 shields
280 HP
860 Total
Therefore, the beam is 1.32 times as powerful against a Seth as before.
Myrmidon:
390 shields
290 HP
680 Total
Therefore, the beam is 1.42 times as powerful against the Myrmidon as before.
Boanerges:
850 shields
325 HP
1175 Total
Therefore, the beam is 1.27 times as powerful against the Boanerges as before.
Mara:
620 shields
200 HP
820 Total
Therefore, the beam is 1.24 times as powerful against the Mara as before.
Seraphim:
1600 shields
500 HP
2100 Total
Therefore, the beam is 1.31 times as powerful against the Seraphim as before.
By the above sample set, my proposal will increase the brute effectiveness of AAA beams to an average of 131% of their original level.
HOWEVER, that number is somewhat misleading. An AAA will kill the fighter no more quickly or slowly than before. It means only that for a short time after being hit by the beam, the fighter will be more open to fighter fire from others. But since all fighters are affected in this way, in exact proportion to their individual number of shield hit points, the overall play balance remains UNCHANGED.
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You know, if you don't like the fact it doesn't pierce shields, you could just increase the shield damage multiplier to 20 or something and have it rip down shields virtually instantly.
Personally, I like the idea of having the shields be affected by the beams. It makes it possible to mod many ships which didn't work quite right before (any ST ships), and also, allows more concepts for modding, such as pure anti-hull beams, and ships designed to take down a capship's shields quickly so bombers can begin their attack runs.
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Originally posted by Sesquipedalian
Well, beams were developed to combat the Lucifer, not necessarily to be able to pass right through its shields. It was never tested whether beams would pass through the Lucifer's shields, so we cannot say. But to my mind, it only makes sense that beams would affect shields: both were, after all, originally Shivan technology, and secondly, if we leave aside the fact that fighter lasers in FS2 have been turned into little floating space-blobs for purposes of gameplay, there is no fundamental difference between fighter lasers and beam lasers. The only difference is the amount of energy involved.
In the case of a fighter, therefore, a beam should be able to overwhelm shields pretty quickly and penetrate to the hull even before the shield itself has fallen, but it will still be battering the shield too. In the Lucifer's case, it is harder to say whether its shields could completely stop beams and therefore have to be taken down first. The Lucy's shields were so extremely powerful compared to fighter shields that they may have been able to absorb all the energy bombarding them even from a beam cannon, but perhaps not. If not, then in that case the situation for the Lucifer would be comparable to that of the fighters, with the shield having to deal with so much energy that it couldn't catch it all and some would get by to the hull.
Very interesting idea. If this was implemented, we could say that the beam was concentrating so much energy over such a small area that the shields couldn't keep up, hence why beams tend to "penetrate" shields. More diffused energy weapons can be stopped, but beams can't.
Originally posted by Razor
Is this a multiple choice because of pie?
:nod: :D
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Originally posted by Goober5000
Very interesting idea. If this was implemented, we could say that the beam was concentrating so much energy over such a small area that the shields couldn't keep up, hence why beams tend to "penetrate" shields. More diffused energy weapons can be stopped, but beams can't.
Exactly! So let us make them damage both simultaneously. Or rather, not so much us (since that would include me) as you people who actually know code. It is matter of great amusement to me every day that I wear an SCP avatar...
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Originally posted by Sesquipedalian
That doesn't sound like a very significant shield damage effect, and certainly not "twice as powerful." If they were twice as powerful as a result of my proposal, that would mean that they are just as powerful when damaging shields as they are when passing through them, and the whole debate would be moot! No, what will happen with my proposal is that they will be a little bit more powerful, and not enough to throw off play balance.
:wtf:
Err.. I was confused before you started up saying that it would make them more powerful but not change game play..
either way, can we please have the option to turn what you say off (or on..) :D ?
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But since all fighters are affected in this way, in exact proportion to their individual number of shield hit points, the overall play balance remains UNCHANGED.
They become much more vulnerable to flak and other stuff from the destroyer though. I think your idea sounds good in general and would work nicely for missions designed for that setting. However, as a default setting it is almost as bad as the other option, since it would significantly alter the gameplay, just in the other direction (make beams better instead of worse). The reason that many of us are pushing for having beams ignore shields is that the main FS2 campaign missions and any other missions released prior to the latest fs2_open release should remain exactly the same as before in terms of gameplay regardless of any modifications that are made by the SCP.
I don't really like the command line idea much either, since the choice of whether or not to upset game balance would then be with the player, so if you are doing this you might as well let the player mess around with entire tables or missions without it considered cheating. :D
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Originally posted by Sesquipedalian
HOWEVER, that number is somewhat misleading. An AAA will kill the fighter no more quickly or slowly than before. It means only that for a short time after being hit by the beam, the fighter will be more open to fighter fire from others. But since all fighters are affected in this way, in exact proportion to their individual number of shield hit points, the overall play balance remains UNCHANGED.
Except in missions where only one side has capships. In every single one of those missions the gameplay balance has now moved in the direction of the side that has capships.
Suppose you have a mission where you have to wipe out an enemy Sobek. Your wingmen will now get wiped out far quicker than before leaving you on your own to finish the mission. Even worse if the mission is to protect bombers you`ve made the mission far harder.
In short put it back the way it was by default. Then code stuff to allow it to work the way you want if the mission designer decides to have beams affect shields.
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me vote pie ;)
tries to resist putting up a W&B link
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Stop trying and I will hurt you :)
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Originally posted by CP5670
flak
Originally posted by karajorma
only one side has capships
Hmm. Indeed. I now see the lacuna in my argument. Therefore, I do suggest this be an optional situation, but still think my proposal should be what the option is changed to.
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Originally posted by Sesquipedalian
Hmm. Indeed. I now see the lacuna in my argument. Therefore, I do suggest this be an optional situation, but still think my proposal should be what the option is changed to.
I have no problem with that :)
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Originally posted by Goober5000
:nod: :D
Well then maybe we should vote all three. We wouldn't get anywhere with this. ;7 :drevil:
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Any ship (fighter or capship) that has shields are protected until the shield is taken down to 0% (captain shields at 60% but holding)...
Now if you are in a fighter then tough luck! your shield may help you if you take a glancing blow but realisticly if you get hit dead on your toast (reload and try again ace).
I voted this way cause I'm keeping ST in mind. All ships will have some sort of shielding and relative strengths. Now I'll say this. FS2 ships may have more powerful beams than phasers, but they STILL are gonna have to take down the shields BEFORE they can scratch the hulls. Otherwise what's the freaking point of having a shield? Get rid of all shields and just double the hit points of EVERY ship in the game then and be done with it!
Now I never got the borg shield depleter to work right against capships, but if I do then that will be a perfect example of a weapon that is specifically designed to take down a shield of a ship/station in ONE SHOT so the real damage can begin...
Of course this should always be optional. Make a tag for (Piercing Beams Off) in the mission editor. That way those of us that like realistic combat can have our protections that need to be depleted first...
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Point the first: I was always under the impression that AA Beams and Flak would work together - the flak knocking down shields (which they do brilliantly) and the beam dicing the fighter.
Point the second: AA Beams aren't that powerful, and many is the time where they demolish a fighter with a single shot whilst the shields are still at full! If they do THAT much damage, they should do more damage against warships.
Point the third: If you lot insist on having a default, I say it should be beams NOT penetrating shields.
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Very good points, and those were some of the reasons I fought for that way. But I was outvoted. :sigh:
I build in a -nobeampierce command line option that overrides that, however. See the SCP thread.
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Wait, so what is the default setting now? Do the beams go through shields or damage shields? Also, the table flag for shield piercing is "pierce" right?
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Default: beams go through shields like before.
Table flag: "pierce shields" for conventional weapons to pierce shields; "no pierce shields" for beams to not pierce shields.
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okay, that looks good; thanks.
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Does that mean teh final result is an all or nothing thing? They either pierce shileds (not afeecting it at all, shield remains 100% but beam damages hull). Or beam is stopped by shield (still does not damage beam)?
There should be an option for a beam to damage a shield and if the shield is taken down in the blast the rest of the enegy hits the hull.
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Originally posted by Star Dragon
There should be an option for a beam to damage a shield and if the shield is taken down in the blast the rest of the enegy hits the hull.
I`m sure that's what happens for beams which don`t pierce shields. Once they`ve taken down the shield whatever is left of the beam starts on the hull. Otherwise non-piercing beams would never damage the hull cause the shield rarely stays at zero (since it continuously recharges unless you`ve reduced your shield recharge bar).
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Whoops, I misvoted. I think beams should pierce shields by default. AAAfs are no good against fighters if this isn't the case.
You could say the GTVA developed beam cannons (from a technical point of view) because they pierced shields - thus negating any future threat of a Lucifer or something else with an impenetrable shield in normal space.
Sid.
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I think it should pierce by default, but also be up to the mission designer whether to have them pierce or not.
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Do you people even read these threads? The issue has already been resolved. Stop voting and let the thread die.
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NEVER!
Or at least, NOT SOON!
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:doubt: Well tghe problem could be fixed easely..... .
You guis sai that a beam that does direct damage to the hull provides for better ingame action...but that is quite silly...
I mean why cant a sistem that was designed to protect the hull of a ship from the energi that could damage it not protect the same ship from a pure energi weapon....:confused:
I mean sure the damage done by a beam should be important but only if its in the folowing order....I think:confused: time/place/shield sthrenght/tipe of ship......i mean you cant expect the beam to de the same damage for the same duration of time/place...etc on a interceptor as it would on a heavyfighter....I think....
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Originally posted by Sesquipedalian
Do you people even read these threads? The issue has already been resolved. Stop voting and let the thread die.
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Well then stop telling people to let the thread die, and let the thread die!
Well then stop telling people to stop telling people to let the thread die, and let the thread die!
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Grow up a little.