Shield revamp

[WhyteDragon]

The Hardened Shields upgrade does not appear to grant any base shields to the Battlecruiser.

[Siretu]

No, the hardened shield upgrade still works basically the same as before, but with the shield boost effects as well.

[WhyteDragon]

Ah, I see -- originally I was under the impression we were taking a similar route to the Enhanced Stabalisers, where it would give a 'base' to work with. If that's not the case, then does Hardened Shields only offered Shield Boost and the additional Base Regeneration? (Or not even the base regeneration?)

[DinoChicken]

What about doing increments of power by 10GW instead of the normal 5GW, that way you can get what you want with power settings twice as fast and 10 is a nice number to work with
because usually when your under attack, and your trying to raise shields or engines it takes to long and the enemy tends to blow you up before you get to a nice number like 300-500GW in shields then use emergency sheilds and boost like normal to keep the sheilds up.

That, in part, is by design. It promotes foresight.

We'll yes but even then, this gives you time to react, even when you see a rush coming (them moving and raising shields) it takes a while to raise engines or shields (from what a player know as dreadnought has told me, 300 engines to run or 300-500 shields to fight) it still usually is barely enough time with engines to run away and there isn't enough time to raise sheilds if you don't have shield boost, and this reacting to seeing the enemy coming, let alone being suprised.

[WhyteDragon]

What about doing increments of power by 10GW instead of the normal 5GW, that way you can get what you want with power settings twice as fast and 10 is a nice number to work with
because usually when your under attack, and your trying to raise shields or engines it takes to long and the enemy tends to blow you up before you get to a nice number like 300-500GW in shields then use emergency sheilds and boost like normal to keep the sheilds up.

That, in part, is by design. It promotes foresight.

We'll yes but even then, this gives you time to react, even when you see a rush coming (them moving and raising shields) it takes a while to raise engines or shields (from what a player know as dreadnought has told me, 300 engines to run or 300-500 shields to fight) it still usually is barely enough time with engines to run away and there isn't enough time to raise sheilds if you don't have shield boost, and this reacting to seeing the enemy coming, let alone being suprised.

That would depend upon what method you're using in order to keep tabs on the enemy battlecruiser.

If you think it about, it typically takes about 30-50 seconds for a battlecruiser to come from its starting position to your own BC's position. During that time, their engines are burning, what, an average of 300 power per second? Not to mention the pre-charging of shields to, lets say 100 for now...

That's going to be approximately 15k energy. That's a significant energy loss. One that could easily turn the favor to the defender.

Rushing is a powerful strategy, but it's very easy to destroy your own team through it. Yes, it takes time to raise shields or engines, but if you manage to do so you have severely crippled the enemy and will usually win the fight. Rather than saying change the cooldown on power, I would suggest looking into using small ships to scout or getting Dielectric. Knowledge is power.

In short, I don't think it's necessary as a base. However, I did push the idea as an upgrade in another thread -- credit to you on that one.

[Siretu]

Ah, I see -- originally I was under the impression we were taking a similar route to the Enhanced Stabalisers, where it would give a 'base' to work with. If that's not the case, then does Hardened Shields only offered Shield Boost and the additional Base Regeneration? (Or not even the base regeneration?)

It works the same as it originally did. It provides damage reduction by X% per level.

The reason I haven't modified the hardened shield is mostly because it surprised me when I saw it and I didn't know if I liked it or not. I still don't know, but I'm not saying it's a bad idea. I did leave it out for now, and decided to do it a bit gradually and see what people think of the initial rebalancing of shields.