[Boomer]

If you're looking for a more sensible balance - and believe me, I totally agree we need one - borking shields isn't the way. Jack up AAA beam power, reduce the (ridiculously powerful) shields on heavy bombers, speed up blobfire: fix something broken, don't break something else.

Here, Here!!:D

[psycho_fergo]

w00t, im with you pnakotus.

but i do like it how in the heavy bombers you can just take everything...

and to answer your question from before...i find that the..no sheild peirce option thingo doesnt make too much of a difference to me. i just find in missions while escorting things are harder with it on...but you know, i do play on insane...so that little advantage is a big difference on this difficlty....i was like, normally they die from at most 3..and its changed to 4 sometimes 5 hits...and seraphims..OMG!!! thier shields were annoying enough..they dont get touched by AAA....anyway whatever

[TopAce]

Without reading more than 5 posts:
Shields should be able to be resistant against AAA beams.

[psycho_fergo]

i agree with you topace...but only AAA

[Boomer]

Let me clarify:

When I originally posted the question I meant for "beams" to only refer to fighter beams.  I forgot no one else was a mind reader.

[Charismatic]

Originally posted by Cobra
Zoidberg.

Yes, thus ANTI figher beams.

If it was a Cap shield and beams, then no.

[Pnakotus]

Ahh, but capship beams shouldn't get a 'cheat through shields' flag either.  They're just too strong for shields to block, and already this is the case.  With -nobeampierce, capship beams will kill you instantly if you're in the way or totally strip your shields and damage you if you're nearby, which is good enough for me.

It's the *power* of the capbeams that is dangerous, not anything magical about that one weapon.  Giving just them 'beampierce' is what they do in bad FPSs when they set the sniper rifle to 10,000 damage: they're fudging it.

Thanks, fergo, for sharing your experience.  It's similar to my own, that -nobeampierce makes it HARDER rather than EASIER.

[Taristin]

And Zoidberg takes the lead!


Hooray!

[NGTM-1R]

They should pierce.

Shields are an area defense system effective against relatively slow-moving plasma, kinetic/explosive, and particle weapons of large calibur. (Have you ever tried to figure out how large a Terran Turret blast is? It's at least 12 inches in diameter, probably more like 24. Most GTVA fighter guns seem to be between 3 and 4 inches in diameter. Flak is the size of a Hornet missile, which means it's about 4 inches or more.)

Beams are point-impact very-high-velocity very-high-energy weapons. Shields are designed to defeat weaponry of a much larger calibur and much lesser energy. Most weapons have to batter down an entire shield quadrant. Beams, thanks to their much higher ratio of energy to calibur, achieve a instantanous or near-instantanous very localized burn-through of the shields.

This phenomenon can also be seen when you sometimes take damage from fighter weaponry despite having shields still up. The damage was enough to overwhelm just the portion of shield it hit and have some get through. However, the rest of that section of shield remains functional, and probably seals the breach instantly.

[Mongoose]

I'm with #1.  Not only is it [V]-endorsed, it also makes logical sense, as ngtm1r explained.  We're not talking about a bullet or shard of metal or blob of plasma or missile, we're talking about a high-intensity, concentrated beam of pure light energy that draws on a lot of power.  I don't believe for a second that a little fighter's shield system would be able to form enough of a resistance at any particular point to absorb any significant portion of the beam.  I've never played with -nobeampierce, but I could see how it could easily change gameplay substantially.  Half of the difficulty in going against enemy capital ships is caused by anti-fighter beams; those things can cut you to ribbons in no time, which forces you to employ a much greater deal of strategy and caution.  If they didn't pierce shields, I could just sit right next to an enemy ship in a bomber and pound away.  As was mentioned above, it would also make escort missions much more difficult, since it wouldn't have as devastating an impact on enemy ships.  I think the way things have always been is perfectly balanced.

The Lucifer's case represents somewhat of an enigma, since we don't have any evidence as to how allied beam weapons would have affected it.  Obviously, Command felt as though the Colossus would be able to break through the Lucifer's shields and destroy it.  I'm of the opinion that the Lucifer's shields might be strong enough to partially absorb beam weaponry, but I think that they would soon be broken through.

[Fade Rathnik]

I think they should effact shields but the damage from the beam should be upped so it can rip thru shields. Same overall effect as canon but more intimidating

[Pnakotus]

LOL the 'don't change anything' crowd doesn't want to change anything.  Who'da thunkit?

Even BETTER is when they admit they've never used -nobeampierce, then make a series of sweeping predictions... which have already been shown to be false, by people who actually HAVE used this function.  It's like... they don't even... read our... posts.  Head in sand?  Nah.

I love it every time someone like ngtm1r starts talking about slow moving plasma.  We should all take him seriously since he uses big words!  We should accept his baseless description of shield interactions based on... nothing!  We'll all sleep better with this discussion put to rest.

[Kosh]

-nobeampirce is an obsolete flag isn't it?

[FireCrack]

ngtm1r, your numbers are in my opoinion way too samll, a hornet missile should be atleast 40 inches across.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Mongoose
The Lucifer's case represents somewhat of an enigma, since we don't have any evidence as to how allied beam weapons would have affected it.  Obviously, Command felt as though the Colossus would be able to break through the Lucifer's shields and destroy it.  I'm of the opinion that the Lucifer's shields might be strong enough to partially absorb beam weaponry, but I think that they would soon be broken through.

I'm sure that one of the Volition staff said - back in the days of the VBB - that the Lucifers shields were only impervious with regards to FS1 era weapons (i.e. with regards to their energy output).

I think it was Icefire that came up with titbit of info.

So I'd say the Lucifers' shields could be broken through, and maybe not only by beams but also the very heavy weapons like Helios bombs. Unfortunately, it's probably impossible to make a direct comparison between even FS1 and FS2 era weapons, because I'd imagine that (for example) the Prom-S would have been upgraded over its natural lifespan.

[TopAce]

I think it's quite logical that the Lucifer's shields are not only impervious to beams, but to Helioses as well. But I don't think Kaysers could do much damage in it.

[Mongoose]

(Sorry for the slight diversion here...)

Yes, Pnakotus, I don't want to change anything about the campaign.  You know why?  I consider FS2 to be the single greatest singleplayer game I have ever seen.  To me, everything about it is perfect.  I've never had the amazing experience that was playing through it in any other game I've tried.  Does that mean I have my head in the sand for not wanting to fix any supposed "errors"?  No.  It simply means that I think that Volition did everything just about perfectly the first time around, and I don't think that what isn't broken in the first place should attempt to be fixed.

From what I've read of your statements, in both this thread and others, you feel like the entire campaign should be overhauled.  Just earlier, you were complaining about Trebuchets, which happen to be my favorite missile (for obvious reasons).  As I've said in the past, you or anyone else are perfectly free to edit the campaign in whatever way you want.  Just don't try to pass it off as the "real" FS2 experience, or anything like that.

The reason I've never used -nobeampierce is not because I have my "head in the sand," it's because I've always considered the concept of turning off the piercing aspect of beams to be cheap.  As I said above, the fact that beams don't bother with shields is part of what makes the FS2 capships so imposing to me.  You say that using the flag makes escort missions harder, which, as I said above, I can see somewhat.  However, you never mention at all the effect it has on attacking an enemy capship.  If an anti-fighter beam can be mostly stopped by your bomber's shields, how can you say that the difficulty of bombing runs isn't affected at all?

I also think it's rather childish to say that the strength of ngtm1r's description is based on his use of "big words."  I fully agreed with him because I felt that what he said makes sense in the context of the game universe.  As I said, a beam of concentrated light energy is a lot different than shrapnel or a blob of superheated gas.  I'd imagine that the relatively small reactor on a fighter couldn't put out nearly enough energy to power a shield system capable of deflecting the former.

As a final note, I wish you'd stop disparaging those of us who don't want the main FS2 campaign to be fooled around with.  We know what we like, and it isn't what you keep proposing.  Think of us in the same way as you'd think of someone who wants to prevent a forest from being torn down to make way for a strip mall. I would welcome further dialogue about the campaign, as long as we keep things civil.

(Once again, sorry for the interruption.)

[Pnakotus]

Aside from more philosophical matters, I find any description (even , yes, tech room descriptions) of FS weapons as plasma utterly ridiculous.  The problems with plasma being used in this was are so manifold and so obvious to anyone with a scientific background that I simply will not consider it.  I don't particularly care WHAT they are, in fact.

ngtm1rs suggestiong includes many flaws, such as assuming the effective area of a missile impact is the same as it's casings diameter, when in fact HEAT warheads (for instance) have a much smaller area of effect.  I'm in the process of making shots to establish it, but I'm not convinced AAA beams are '12 inches' either.  On external views, they're larger than the pilot.

However, I'd be happy if such a model was implemented.  He is correct insofar as conduction through the shield surface would limit usefulness: if very concentrated or very powerful weapons could exceed the shields input levels and have the excess bypass the shield altogether, that would be quite cool.  His comparison between the 20-40pt regular guns and the much more powerful AAA beam is quite apt in this regard.

I simply object to counterstrike-style fudging like 'zomg it bypasses shields'.  If there is a mechanism, and it works for everything (for instance, I'd want to see direct treb hits bleeding through shields in the same way, making them even MORE powerful) then it's fine.  However, 'beampierce' implies to me that a theoretical, low power beam would ALSO penetrate shields, even at comparable power levels to regular weapons.   This would be silly.

To address your concerns about -nobeampierce, I'm not really sure what to say.  I play on medium, and unless a cap has no cover at all, a straight bombing run is unsafe.  Defensive fire is still effective, and you still can't launch at long range since they'll get shot down.  I don't often find myself the sole target for defensive fire, and beams still mess up your shields - something which becomes a serious danger inside flak range.  I find attacks on cruisers relatively easy, but even a Fenris is better protected than a Cain.

[aldo_14]

If the GTVA understood the phenomena that stopped shields working in subspace, and understood the reasons for it, perhaps they developed beams as a method for bypassing shields (ignoring rather than by sheer power) - for example to tackle the Lucifer class.

[TrashMan]

I think the question here is if capship had shields, would capships beams be able to pierce trough capship shields?

Leave the AAF beams and fghter out of this for a second.


logicly speaking a Orion can generate as much power (and direct it inot the shields)  for offense as well for defense...so it makes sense that beams should chew trough shields...

"beam of concentrated light energy is a lot different than shrapnel or a blob of superheated gas".. .yeah right - in the eand it's all about energy.. energy field trying to stop energy from coming trough..and heat = energy.   Beams may be more powerfull, but if it takes 20 plasma blobs to break trough a capship shield, then it should take 2-3 beam shots to break trough too...

Capship beams (big ones) will incinerate a fighter regardless of his shields anyway (becoause of it's power), and AAAF beams with a little tweaking can still be very dangerous.. why?

first the knockback effect - increase it. Now bombers will have a hard time getting a lock being thrown around constatnly. Second - triple it's damage. Now it's damn dangerous, shields or not.