Shields

[Solarity]

So just to confirm, shields reduce sniper and spider turret fire down to 25% effectivness?  Does that include the damge done by blade spawners / blades?

[keith.lamothe]

Newly minted: http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War_-_Shield_Damage_Reduction

[Solarity]

Thanks, looks like its time to find a nice spirecraft shield bearer

[keith.lamothe]

Thanks, looks like its time to find a nice spirecraft shield bearer

They can be pretty nice, yes.  Do keep in mind what else you're not building with that asteroid, though.

[Wanderer]

Thanks, looks like its time to find a nice spirecraft shield bearer

They can be pretty nice, yes.  Do keep in mind what else you're not building with that asteroid, though.

And that you can never repair the spire shield unit, thus it's a wasted investment.  They're almost lke martyrs, useful one, maybe two times before they're pointless.

[TechSY730]

Thanks, looks like its time to find a nice spirecraft shield bearer

They can be pretty nice, yes.  Do keep in mind what else you're not building with that asteroid, though.

And that you can never repair the spire shield unit, thus it's a wasted investment.  They're almost lke martyrs, useful one, maybe two times before they're pointless.

Not quite wasted. They do have one thing that normal shields do not, EMP immunity. A shield bearer over important stuff may help you in the worst case of an EMP guardian managing to slip through. It should help you stall long enough to take it out and start distracting anything else that came through with it.

But yea, Shield bearers need something to help them out. As mentioned before, merely tweaking HP wouldn't help. What would be enough HP to be useful for offence would be overpowered for defence. Somewhere in the middle would suffer from "reducing usefulness" due to their non-repairibility.

Quick request, can the asteroid requirements for Spirecraft Shield Bearers be knocked down one tier, juts as a quick and easy buff?
Also, could that "min shield radius > 1" idea for these units only also be considered? (There is a Mantis issue suggesting that, just don't know what number though)

[Orelius]

I for one would use spire shield bearers a lot more if I they were able to be made from reptite.  By which I mean I might actually use asteroids for things that aren't rams, penetrators, and scouts.

[Nice Save]

I still put spider turrets under forcefields. The engine damage is not reduced.

[keith.lamothe]

I still put spider turrets under forcefields. The engine damage is not reduced.

Yea, same deal with nearly any secondary (non-damage) effect.  Tractor turrets, grav turrets, and tachyon emitters particularly benefit from ff coverage since they generally have to be fairly close to the enemies.   In some cases it also makes sense to ff zenith paralyzers, riot starships, armor rotters, etc, if their secondary effect is your main reason for using them.

Parasites are still affected because reclamation damage is based on the actual damage done.

And for the spider turrets, bear in mind that their damage is also pretty good (same as sniper turrets), so you will get a lot more dps if you don't ff them.