Cool. From the kickstarter thread, here's something:
Okay, so based on what people are saying, here's what I'm thinking at the moment:
1. We keep the big bubble shields as-is but JUST for a few enemy planets, maybe 3 at most, because beating them down is fun. One per planet, max, and they are immobile. You can't get them, and the AI can't build more. They're just a "hey, that's neat" thing for rare occasions.
2. For ships that have "personal shields," that would work like in TLF: a shield health bar exists, and goes down when shot. It prevents hull damage while existing. When not shot for a while, it automatically regenerates, for free.
3. Shield starships and shield guardians would give personal shields to, say, the nearest 30 allied ships, regardless of distance, on the same planet. So you can still adjust the battlefield substantially with them, but it's not a black and white on/off scenario anymore, and there's no real micro with it. Any ship being granted personal shields from a shield starship/guardian in this manner would simply work like a ship that had personal shields from its own default nature.
4. We'll add "woirmhole blockers," which you or the AI can place near a wormhole in order to prevent exit through that wormhole. It only prevents movement of enemies through the wormhole (not allies or neutrals), and it only prevents it one-directionally (the side the blocker ship is on, so it can be shot at).
5. And beyond that, we need to make sure that the battlefield has appropriate terrain simply in the form of enemy fleet composition variance.
Fin.
Thoughts?
This is also worth posting:
The terrain issue definitely exists with or without shields at the moment, and there are some changes in the near future which should help with those. Specifically regarding the way power generators work and how that affects turrets if a power generator goes out. So that should help.
But one of the very biggest things, to me, is that we need to get away from the fleet-ball mentality. It should be absolutely moronic to bring your bombers into a ball against a ball that has fighters in it, because those fighters just absolutely wreck your bombers. We recently upped the bonus against unlike-types from 300% to 900%, but it may need to go even higher, we'll see.
Part of this boils down to enemy composition needing to be more nuanced than it was in the first game (and -- sidebar -- at one point the first game worked like this, and fleet balls were less of a thing). You send in your fighters and your missile corvettes first, clear out certain forces there, and then send the bombers in, etc.
That sort of thing used to exist, and that doesn't require any sort of terrain. It just requires a clear and effective rock paper scissors mechanic. This is one of those things that I think we can focus on better with shields removed, to be honest. Right now there are some things that are "paper actually beats scissors and rock if it's under a shield, but otherwise it loses to rock a little and scissors a lot." Whut?
We had this at one point, and lost it. At one point I'd never have thought of approaching a variety of positions with my bombers along because I'd just be out bombers without them accomplishing anything. Other places it was a matter of keeping my fighters away from the enemy missile frigates, and letting my bombers and missile frigates close in and wreck the enemy before I resumed chasing.
It's only when the enemy gets so homogeneous and swirled-together that the players have to resort to the same. We have to stop that, and then I think the shields piece is moot.
The nice part about what I'm describing above is that it's only the loosest form of micro, and it's not on/off. Keep your bombers generally back, but if the enemy gets off a couple of pot shots then it's not like the bombers are insta-toast. You're not trying to get bombers or any other ship type to within a few pixels of a certain position, in other words. You're working in broad strokes as to what you put where.
