[Lucika]

I have an idea.

If I am right, then the shielded ships has to use 1/3 of their energy reserves or what ( you know, what you change in-mission with PgDwn and you can change your speed/shield/gun power) to their shields.

Thus I'd say that unshielded ships should be more agile and should be able to hit enemy ships harder, thus "putting them back" into the battles, like using some clever tactics by that...

What are your opinions?

[Snail]

I'd like unshielded combat to return, I always loved those first few missions of FS1 where you actually had to avoid big ships.

[Lucika]

Just made a fast count:

UnSh:
50% energy Gun 50% Engine

Sh:

33% Gun 33% Engine 33% Shield

For instance, an unshielded Herc II (if I remember well, 55 is its top speed) would have a top speed of approx. 70 (+14,85) and would shoot with a strength of somewhere at 127%

Is this a sufficient bonus for losing shields?

[Snail]

Not really, IMO. A slight speed increase is hardly worth sacrificing so many hitpoints. Also, the energy decrease does not take into account the amount of shield points sacrificed. (ie. it's always the same speed boost whether you sacrifice 200 shields, 500 shields or 1600 shields)

[Lucika]

And the greater firepower?

[Snail]

And the greater firepower?

There is no greater firepower, just the opportunity to fire for longer.

[General Battuta]

I think he's suggesting that ships that simply don't have shields -- they're built that way -- should get some kind of special bonus.

Rather than an ETS effect to a ship that simply disables its shields.

[Lucika]

And the greater firepower?

There is no greater firepower, just the opportunity to fire for longer.

But I'd like to give greater firepower...

[Molybdenum]

That would be a cool concept in a campaign. An experimental fighter that trades off shielding for some special gimmicky power(invisibility, stealth, beams, ultra-speed, nanojumping etc.) everything cleverly FREDed into a series of missions. Come to thinking I would like to try something like that in a mini campaign of my. If I ever come by to seriously making it other than just toying with the concept.

Just the bonus to power management isn't enough as all it does is reduce micromanagement. Currently energy is only used to regenerate your shields. None is wasted on keeping them up(at least from the power bars) so you can just reduce shield power when you don't need it.

[Galemp]

This is already implemented--unshielded ships, by default, have more energy allocated to guns and engines than shielded ships. Try Freespace Port, you'll find that the Apollo's and the Valkyrie's top speeds drop a fair amount once you have shielding.

I think he's suggesting that ships that simply don't have shields -- they're built that way -- should get some kind of special bonus.

Rather than an ETS effect to a ship that simply disables its shields.

This is a curious suggestion; I like it. Special ship features could be tabled in, there's lots of possibilities. However it's currently impossible to have the player choose, in loadout, between shielded fighters and unshielded fighters. There's some nasty bugs that were discovered when trying to implement this kind of functionality for the Star Wars mod that interfered with Freespace's default behaviour (shielding set on a per-ship per-mission basis.) Look it up on Mantis if you're interested.

[Ziame]

Oh. I thought Lucika meant that adding energy to Guns should give greater damage/shot for guns.

[Narvi]

There's one problem with having unshielded ships. They'll go fwoosh whenever they go against a bomber. Cyclops missiles tear through unshielded ships like crazy.

[Commander Zane]

Okay, I'm reading through this and first thought is, "Just make those ships..."
Say "It has this feature but it takes up room that could be used for a shield generator yadda-yadda."

[FreeSpaceFreak]

Ancients FTW!