shields

[Benofdoom]

how about that if a shields health runs out and no packets are there to restore it it is like a spore exploding there?

[TheBuilder]

I'm not sure u understood what I wrote but ill repeat it simply, u build one "shield" building that would act the same a storage/speed/reactor in relation to connections, it should cost 50 units to build, (same as a drone), and make it possible to activate the shields on 4 other buildings, the "shield" buildings would not have a shield at all, and neither would Odin City, (though it does have its health bar).

Recap:
     It would cost 50 units
     It would allow the activation of shields on 4 other buildings
     Its connections would be the same as any blaster/motor/SAM
     They don't have shields themselves, neither does Odin City
     Only buildings within a certain range of a "Shield" building could have their shield activated
     The range of this kind of "Shield" building would be the same as a SAM
     It can move but when it does any buildings whose shields are unlocked by it would be shut off immediately

@djcian
     The ability to lock a unit's movement would be nice on not only Odin City, (which we already have), but also on any weapon that has it, or on these shields if Virgil were to program them to work as I have described, (that is if he makes them at all).

[Minimike98]

Its an okay idea i guess althoe I donot like the moveing idea also i dont get it how you well you well get the shild in a direction unless you puts up 3 in a row and the middle one becomes strait.

[TheBuilder]

the shield would not project between buildings, it would only project from each building that has theirs turned "on"

the creeper would not be albe to pass through the shield though it would not be destroyed by the shields either, and as long as the building that the shield is projected from is supplied with shield packets, the shield wont be destroyed either

[Minimike98]

So you could just set up a Shild building at the end of a side and the either one and you could do a shield there stupid idea

[TheBuilder]

no no no, u build a shield building, then u can activate teh shield of any building within the "shield building's" area of affect, weapons, other shield buildings, and odin city would not have a shield at all, weapons already have health and so does odin city, a shield building would also be destroyed as soon as creeper touches it, (just like storage/speed/reactor/drone), without any other kind of occurance

[Benofdoom]

so it adds a health bar to collectors and stuff?

[TheBuilder]

in a way yes.  ud see a glow of hopefuly a creator chossen colour when the shield is activated. a health bar would appear just outside the shield, that is for JUST the shield.

[Minimike98]

I dont like it sorry builder but what about the other things thay should have a shield bar insted of a shield unit and if you just keep on building shield units your blastes would be almost imortal.

[TheBuilder]

shield units would be expensive, or did u overlook this fact, and to continue to support the shield(s) of any building whose shield is on and in direct contact with the creeper would be extremely draining of energy if not nigh impossible to sustain once the creeper being held back by a shield reaches higher and higher.  also remember the equation i came up with to detremine how long the shield will last when in contact with creeper:

    one shield packet, once at its location, would keep a shield going for 60 second against a .1 depth, 1 by 1 square piece of creeper, to get how long a shield would last against more than that u simply divide 60 seconds by the amount of creeper pushing against the shield

considering the shield can be pushed up against on 12 edges, (where 2 squares touch), the amount of creeper pushing up against the shield could get rather high rather quickly, meaing very expensive,

Like ive said over and over, these types of shields would be very useful since they simply hold back the creeper, but would be very drainging and require either a vast reserve of energy, or a high energy collection rate

[Aurzel]

i like the principle of your idea builder, essentially if you had the energy to keep it going, you could build a row of buildings and stick a shield generator or 2 behind them and thus have a buffer against the creeper to keep the turrets behind it firing safely if you're dealing with unpredictable waves of creeper or if the creeper's about to overflow or break free from an enclosing that you cant get a weapon in range of, though your idea for the draining is a little off, maybe something like this:  10/(s*(d))  where s is the number of squares touching the shield and d is the combined depth of the squares touching e.g. 2 squares of 0.1 and 0.2 depth would mean 10/2*0.3 = aprox 17 therefore one shield packet would keep the shield up for about 17 seconds assuming the creeper doesnt change, which it will, though maybe the numerator should be a bit higher to give the shield slightly more life against big waves of creeper.

[TheBuilder]

Hmmmmmmmm, funny thing is, all this talk of wat it should will have been for nothing unless virgil actually makes the darn things, but anyway back to subject.

At first i figured 1 generator means u could activate up to 10 shields, but then i relized that people would activate that many thinking that they would be cheap and then their strategy would probably colapse, so i went with just 4 per building built, and then i thought, to be aboe to activate a shield on a building anywhere on the map would mean u could hide them in the back where theyed probably never get destroyed, so i figured that giving them a range would make placemnt of them more realistic.  Alowing them to move is a trade-off since they r so expesive, but then they also cant activate shields while in the air.

On to wat u mentioned, mabye the timing should be set to 1 packet can hold back 1. depth of creeper for 60 seconds, the equation for how long a shield will last might look like this if Virgil were to make one as defined by my description:

    60sec/(total depth of all creeper touching the shields/total number of edges at which the creeper touches the shields)

Though there would be some extra part of the equation that would deal with the timing as more packets arrive , but im not sure how that would look.

If the creeper were to exceed the maximum amount that the shield could hold back, then the shield would drain instanly, and any shield packets en route to the building where this happened would disappear, the shield would not reactive until the creeper near it was thinned back below the shield's limit.  But if this were to happen, the building that was protected by the shield would most likely have been destroyed after the shield turned off, so it wouldn't really matter.

This would be to keep a person from using the shields from being able to hold back the creeper indefinitly.

[knucracker]

Shields are indeed very interesting....
They are something I'd like to feature in the expansion.  There are different models for shields that have been discussed here, and perhaps some other ideas as well.  The cornerstones of whatever I add will be centered on modest flexibility without lots of micromanagement.   The shields operation also needs to be obvious.

For instance, the idea of a shield structure that enables the shield ability on nearby structures.  This is an interesting idea, and kudos for thinking of it.  I'd not thought about enabling an intrinsic shield ability in established structures in this way.  That said, there are a couple of issues with it.  First, when a player selects a structure he either can, or can not  turn on the shield.  This capability depends on the proximity to a shield enabling structure.  So right off the bat, there is a problem with consistency on a structures control interface.  A new player will wonder why the "shield" button is disabled.  So you might imagine that a tooltip or some other text might tell them why.  This helps, and makes it 'workable' but not optimal.  If you add the complexity that only 4 total structures can have their shields enabled per shield enabling structure that is also nearby, you have what I call a hidden, restrictive rule.  Hidden, restrictive rules are things that constrain functionality or capabilities based on a rule that isn't intuitive or obvious. 

Now I don't say any this because I don't like this specific idea, or the shield idea in general.  Hidden, restrictive rules can often be solved...  I say all of this just to let you know that for every good general idea, there are 100 little potential gremlins that have to be carefully considered.  Shields could be a killer idea... in that they could really enhance the game, or destroy it if not done properly.

[TheBuilder]

 :) like i've said before on many different ideas, it all comes down to, will Virgil actually put this into the game, otherwise it just becomes an entertaing disscusion of ifs and such.  But since u, Virgil, have said that u hope to add one in the future, im pretty much satisfied.

Though i will add my thoughts on how to fix some of the problems u've mentioned.  First, would it be possible to make the option to turn on/off a structure's shield only appear once one of my ideal SBs is built or moved within range.  Second, could the fact that the SB has a limit to the amount of shields it can unlock be shown in its description, and also if one is built, make it so the number of unlocked shields in use be shown as a red number, and the number of unlocked shields not in use be shown as a green number.

SB=shield building
For those other 98 little gremlins that would need to be looked at i know that one of them would be the strength of the shield, Ie how long it lasts per packet/amount of creeper against the shield, or somethin like that.

Oh and Virgil, remember, if u ever have a problem with something in the game, try explaining the problem on the forums, one of ur loyal fans might figure out the answer, if not they might come up with something that will help u relize the answer.

CREEPER WORLD RULES!!!

[corgano]

another idea...

You place the shield, in its area of effect it lets no creeper enter, it holds 20 ammo, and the amount subtracted from its ammo every second is the number of creeper it has built up on its perimeter

counting the amount of creeper on the perimeter may be a challenge (i could help with the algorithm)
shield would have little health or small ammo storage to prevent cheep tactics
Shield could act to the creeper as "infinity height terrain" to the creeper (this could also be useful for having 2 creepers that collide, as a multilayer setting for later on)

as for the previous shieald idea

The shield could act like a generator, it will produce enough shield for n buildings every second, and for simplicity, i suggest this effect as global (could be done in a similar way to how a user picking up building tech unlocks a building)
oden city could provide the shield generator with ammo, it would hold this, or send it out to any buildings that have shield on (as shield packets, maby a nice light blue). if there are more buildings with shield toggles, it would disperse the energy evenly (like how oden city disperses build packets evenly even when it is overloaded with building buildings