Goodbye Open til SCB issue is sorted

[Scharmers]

I would remove all of the current shield buffs, and replace them with a "shield overcharger". There would be only one to a ship, and rated from A to E as usual. When installed, they would appear on your weapon list and would be togged on and off from there. When activated, the overcharger would consume power and provide a shield buff. However, here's the big thing: you are overcharging your shields, which are already running at 100% power. The overcharger, when active, would slowly damage your shield integrity. This means repair costs, and, if run long enough, will destroy the shield module entirely. You're effectively "overclocking" your shields.

Or, if shield damage is too significant for you all, then the overcharger would dump more power to your shields at the cost of heat efficiency. Activate the overcharger, and your heat steadily ticks up until you turn them off.

Right now, it's all reward and no risk for SCBs. This should change.

 

[Sergio Smegolia]

Solution is really simple. Allow NPC to multi stack SCBs. I went into a cz recently and used one for the first time. I nigh on tripled the cash I normally make. I killed everything, even when ganged up on. I docked and and sold it straight away. It felt like cheating. Cheating myself.

Let NPC stack them and watch all the PVE defenders of SCB start threads about how SCB are ruining their game. "It all comes down to who has the most SCB!" They'll yell. Then FD will do something about them.

And I am currently solely PVE. I won't try to get into PVP until these retched things are gone.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

Introduce ECM missiles, that do significant damage to shields and have them cancel the SCB effect. They would do very little damage to the hull.

And make it so you can actually carry a cargo hold of ammunition rather than having to restock all the time at a station (but making it so moving the ammunition from the cargo hold to your weapons take a significant amount of time so as only to be used outside of combat).

Then make it so you can load various types of ammunition from this special cargo hold and then introduce more types of ammunition with various +damage modifiers. For example, multi cannon ammunition with less hull damage but more penetration (module) damage. Incendiary ammunition that causes great amount of heat (and potentially damaging the ship with heat damage).

There are tonnes of ways combat and the game in general could be made more interesting if FD took a bit more time to consider more than basic options for weaponry.

We had AGM-88's for that.

 

[Soliluna]

We had AGM-88's for that.

Aye, our modern warfare is somewhat more advanced than the warfare here lol

 

[mbar]

What would everyone think of a single module that would dump all the energy of the SYS capacitor into the shields with one button press similar to what boost does for ENG? Get rid of the shield cell banks all together. The power distributor would scale well with the size of the ship and its shields.

Or does that make too much sense?

 

[mossfoot]

What would everyone think of a single module that would dump all the energy of the SYS capacitor into the shields with one button press similar to what boost does for ENG? Get rid of the shield cell banks all together. The power distributor would scale well with the size of the ship and its shields.

Or does that make too much sense?

I actually kinda like that.

I'm sure others won't.

 

[Genar-Hofoen]

What would everyone think of a single module that would dump all the energy of the SYS capacitor into the shields with one button press similar to what boost does for ENG? Get rid of the shield cell banks all together. The power distributor would scale well with the size of the ship and its shields.

Or does that make too much sense?

That appeals to my engineer side and actually makes sense - hence, I like that idea a lot.

+repped

 

[Soliluna]

What would everyone think of a single module that would dump all the energy of the SYS capacitor into the shields with one button press similar to what boost does for ENG? Get rid of the shield cell banks all together. The power distributor would scale well with the size of the ship and its shields.

Or does that make too much sense?

Would be a lot better than the current implementation of SCB's for definite.

 

[YinYin]

Or does that make too much sense?

The way shields work (using energy from the sys capacitor when hit), they would be back up but extremely weak (as the capacitor is empty) and probably go down even faster from full to gone.
It could still work as an alternative, but a lot of things may have to be rebalanced with this in mind.

 

[mossfoot]

The way shields work (using energy from the sys capacitor when hit), they would be back up but extremely weak (as the capacitor is empty) and probably go down even faster from full to gone.
It could still work as an alternative, but a lot of things may have to be rebalanced with this in mind.

Pips matter in terms of strength, not how much is in SYS - the SYS bank is drained as the shield recharges (currently 1MJ/second or so IIRC?) so as long as your SYS has more energy coming into it via the power plant, then it wouldn't matter.

 

[YinYin]

Ah okay

In that case it'd be quite much more powerful than SCBs even
No ammo(?) and fixed extra weight for a shield boost button.
Could make it create much more heat than shield cells currently do.

btw has anyone ever tried to use the retributor against shield tanks (overheating them instead of beating them via stealth&ramming or having the better shield tank)?

edit: Also for all I can tell stealth builds can currently beat shield builds - and I really enjoy watching these type of fights. And while I can imagine shield mirror matches with neither fighter managing to break through a shield cell to be quite boring and simply ending with the one that had more shield cells winning the same boring ending will happen with a lot of other mirror matches. Have two fighters only outfitted with limited ammunition? The one who has more will probably win or both may end up depleted. Have two stealth fighters mostly equipped with turrets and heat seeking projectiles? Tough luck they might never even hit each other.

Everyone think outside the box of how to beat shield cells without simply packing more of them yourself. That's the fun part, is it not?

 

[mossfoot]

Ah okay

In that case it'd be quite much more powerful than SCBs even

Unikely given how much a capacitor holds in MJs.

btw has anyone ever tried to use the retributor against shield tanks (overheating them instead of beating them via stealth&ramming or having the better shield tank)?

Retributor does nothing against shields, I heard.

 

[Psycho Romeo]

SCBs burning up the SYS capacitor won't address the issue in a way that would make the people who hate them happy. Ships rarely run without pips in SYS in any kind of meaningful engagement.

All it comes down to is how equipped you are to handle your enemy. You can be equipped with beams, PAs, rails, or frags and punch through SCB laden ships, or you can be without and flee from it. Personally I'd rather this (current) implementation than any suggestion I've seen.

I'd love if NPCs (especially elite combat ships!) started using SCBs more. High level enemies should be very difficult and getting elite in combat should be very meaningful.

 

[Kastor]

I would remove all of the current shield buffs, and replace them with a "shield overcharger". There would be only one to a ship, and rated from A to E as usual. When installed, they would appear on your weapon list and would be togged on and off from there. When activated, the overcharger would consume power and provide a shield buff. However, here's the big thing: you are overcharging your shields, which are already running at 100% power. The overcharger, when active, would slowly damage your shield integrity. This means repair costs, and, if run long enough, will destroy the shield module entirely. You're effectively "overclocking" your shields.

Or, if shield damage is too significant for you all, then the overcharger would dump more power to your shields at the cost of heat efficiency. Activate the overcharger, and your heat steadily ticks up until you turn them off.

Right now, it's all reward and no risk for SCBs. This should change.

This. At the very least SCBs should damage the shield gen when used. Ain't no way the gens are designed to withstand that sheer power spike.

 

[torc]

This thread stars to begin rendundant...we can suggest all the change we think can be good, but the whole point remain basically this:

Look, I ain't no pvp type of guy.. bu I do know one thing.

Regardless of circular arguments and the ever-popular "But you can do it too, so it's fair!", the fact is that.. simply, if there's smoke there's fire.

One module should never be allowed to be SO powerful that an entire game mode ends up depending on it. If Frontier doesn't adjust it I'd be amazed.

And ,as usual, not a word from devs regarding that...very sad thing.

 

[Ism]

I would remove all of the current shield buffs, and replace them with a "shield overcharger". There would be only one to a ship, and rated from A to E as usual. When installed, they would appear on your weapon list and would be togged on and off from there. When activated, the overcharger would consume power and provide a shield buff. However, here's the big thing: you are overcharging your shields, which are already running at 100% power. The overcharger, when active, would slowly damage your shield integrity. This means repair costs, and, if run long enough, will destroy the shield module entirely. You're effectively "overclocking" your shields.

Or, if shield damage is too significant for you all, then the overcharger would dump more power to your shields at the cost of heat efficiency. Activate the overcharger, and your heat steadily ticks up until you turn them off.

Right now, it's all reward and no risk for SCBs. This should change.

SCBs burning up the SYS capacitor won't address the issue in a way that would make the people who hate them happy. Ships rarely run without pips in SYS in any kind of meaningful engagement.

All it comes down to is how equipped you are to handle your enemy. You can be equipped with beams, PAs, rails, or frags and punch through SCB laden ships, or you can be without and flee from it. Personally I'd rather this (current) implementation than any suggestion I've seen.

I'd love if NPCs (especially elite combat ships!) started using SCBs more. High level enemies should be very difficult and getting elite in combat should be very meaningful.

I agree with NPC using SCB's more often, but they need to be programmed to discharge them sooner if it's to work. In most cases I can drop their shields of any NPC within the 5sec delay time before they recharge. The only time I can't is when they discharge a bank while I am swinging around to line up my weapons or they actually use chaff while discharging an SCB (a smart move for NPC). I usually don't want to unlock the power plant targeting on the larger ships and I don't think I would get enough hits to bring shields down by unlocking my gimballed weapons.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Solution is really simple. Allow NPC to multi stack SCBs. .

right... so because PvP is boring and dull with 1 size fits all (aparently) ... Your solution is to break PvE as well.

No thanks!.

For the record aI DO agree the SCB stacking is lame, I also agree ideally they should be altered...... but the answer is not to ruin it for everyone!. Right now i can choose to PvE which means i can drop SCBs entirely if i choose, and if i DO use them, then 1 is plenty........ Sure if i wanted to i could make myself a flying fortress of almost invincibility, but thankfully i do not have to, and i have the self control not to.

sure let the elite ships use the module, but no need to give them lame load outs like some of the PvPers.

 

[CYB34]

right... so because PvP is boring and dull with 1 size fits all (aparently) ... Your solution is to break PvE as well.

Actually, I believe PvE is more broken and unchallenging than PvP.
Do you want to unify the experience?

 

[Kastor]

Actually, I believe PvE is more broken and unchallenging than PvP.
Do you want to unify the experience?

Yes I do want to unify the experience. While trivial when in a souped up python or vulture loaded with SCBs and Beam Lasers. PvE is still a lot of fun in a eagle or viper. Still some solid nerve wraking, fast paced, dogfighting to be had. I want to unify that across to pvp were the last decent dogfight I had was against someone that brought the game two days prior. Everyone else just strafes around with guns pointed at the enemy not caring about fire received because of SCBs.

Do you really want to unify the game into fifteen minute slugfests or do you want to unify it into solid WW2 style dogfights as originally planned.

And before you bring up C3 Beam and PAs again. Some of us like to fly the smaller ships and some of us like to use cannons. Unifying the game into something where half of all content isn't viable isn't a great idea.

 

[Psycho Romeo]

Everyone else just strafes around with guns pointed at the enemy not caring about fire received because of SCBs.

'Everyone' is going to get slaughtered without contest by any real threat. This issue is not a symptom of SCBs, it's a problem with the AI. Petition to bring SJA back, not reduce/remove SCBs.

And before you bring up C3 Beam and PAs again. Some of us like to fly the smaller ships and some of us like to use cannons. Unifying the game into something where half of all content isn't viable isn't a great idea.

What obscure logic brought you to this conclusion? If I bring a squirt gun to a knife fight should I complain that my weapon isn't on par with everyone else's?

You want to fly a smaller ship? Go for it. But if you want to do anything meaningful against another player, you're going to need the skill to bring that smaller ship up to par with a heavier one. In what reality should a smaller, weaker ship be taking on a larger more powerful one at equal skill?

You know what this sounds like? Complaining that you can't take on a farragut in a sidewinder with mines and pinning SCBs with the blame.

Half of skill is being well prepared. The most able man in the world armed with a rock is not going to best an average Joe with a rocket launcher. Your choice to bring something less effective is your own. You're going to have to deal with the consequences.