Ah, thought the power cost went away, but the resource cost didn't. Retested and you are right, but the text still says -2 crystal/metal.
If you don't micro them though, its still better to not use them if your stuff survives for 21 mins.
Very true, though the main reason this concerns me is that it actually encourages micromanagement. Players that take the time to constantly make sure that their exo-shields aren't running unnecessarily will have more resources available and therefore perform better.
I'm not inherently against players having to ensure that their operation is efficient, but this particular type of micromanagement is incredibly tedious. I dislike the concept of the player being rewarded for completing a task that wasn't fun to perform.
but small stuff like that is some what change playing styles as an person hate micro but exo-shields turn off when you dont need them then they decide to use them then as it doenst need it micro. but it then changes what players do some might not defende them at all or ecter. but with shuttles and AOE well against AOE & ES you might select 1 unit to be the ultimate sacrifice and get killed for setting off the massive payload of ES
ES is damage * units thiere so electric shuttles effective ness increase in larger groups they are delivering there payload. thus meaning you can advoid what happen above with the ai by simple low powering the electric shuttles but at this moment make sure u are able to put them online agian. electric shuttles are my favorite ships as the Ai does some interesting stuff against my electric shuttles but it doenst work as i wont let it well you need to manage the ships alot as low power and ecter moving placinging to maximize damage. but the ai does this they send the 1 unit mostly space tank then send in there weak fighters, then kill the shuttles, i would have reason to beliave that people whould hate shuttles yust because they wont manage the ships well when facing this type of tatic from the AI>?
To me this sort of micro is exactly what Revenatus is talking about ... microing your shuttles to/from low power mode to direct when they fire? Shuttles already don't ALL fire at once, supposedly they "batch fire" over time, which should dilute the single sacrificial bomber tactic, but if thats still an issue, perhaps it needs revisiting. Perhaps shuttles hold their fire for a period of X seconds unless the number of enemy ships in range exceeds some threshold. Only hold for so long, otherwise you'd get a single Vampire ship killing an entire group of shuttles, but you get the idea.
Of course now you would get the additional micro tactic of running a single ship in and out of range to repeatedly re-trigger the timer. How tedious would that be! *shudders*
