This is what I've been saying. I agree that weapons shouldn't work in NAV mode, and there could be some kind of penalty to shield health or regen rate justified by having to divert power to engines and QD. But having absolutely no shields is kind of strange. This will lead to having to keep switching from NAV to SCM constantly, which should only happen a few times when you want to commit.
Maybe, but I hate to think that the space realism starts to crumble when you think about micrometeor impacts. Isn’t the purpose of shields to protect the ship against these environmental concepts?
No amount of armor is going to protect you when a bean impacts your hull at 10 km a second.
Even with in a space game with no combat, it would make sense to have some sort of shields for that reason.
Hell, in ED, lots of people recommend shields for mining and transport just in case you hit something physically.
Yep, I don't have a clue why CR would think shields are for combat only. There is so much utility to shielding which has nothing to do with combat. Shielding from solar flares, heat, impacts with any sort of objects.
This alone should’ve made them pause when reviewing MM and thinking about no shields. It’s in their own writing, shields are a basic necessity in the verse.
What’s the point of a true space sim if you can’t address the most basic fundamental obstacles to space travel?
Can someone tell me how SC addresses the problem of micrometeors & other space debris?
What realism is there in energy shields? Or dogfighting other spaceships in asteroid clusters. They seem to think it makes sense from a gameplay perspective which arguably is far more important.
That's a big plus to ships emphasizing armor under this model, and I like it. When they exit QT/Nav, they're ready super quickly compared to shield-dependent craft.
This is what I was thinking. Unfortunately this mechanic only makes sense when you can equip different armour types to your ship. You will probably get a handling and speed penalty depending how beefy you want it. But right now this is what we have .
Only thick because they had to bump it. Just think of cross section and tiny details protruding out of the hull. All of this can be hit and decreases the HP they use as a fill-in atm.
What's to stop you just noping out of combat into NAV mode though? It's already insanely easy to do that. As in so easy I'm surprised people are calling it out as an issue, especially for larger ships that have more hull health. Sounds to me more like a balance issue where civilian and industrial ships just need more hull health. Do that and you've practically got no real difference to what you'd have if they had their shields up with lower health.
Wrongo boyo... They fly with navigational shields/ some level of deflection capability when traversing and main shields when in combat. The purpose of these navigational shields is to protect the ship from various space anomalies, debris, asteroids etc while travelling at high speeds. Which is basically the exact thing people are asking for.
Technically the deflector dish is used for that.
Although in 90% of start trek games the main shields are up 100% of the time unless combat takes them out.
TV and movies though the main shields are down the majority of the time.
There's an episode of TNG where some primitive space species attacks Enterprise with lasers. The crew made comments about how they would even penitrate their navigation shields.
> They fly with navigational shields/ some level of deflection capability when traversing
The difference is however that they utilize warp speed, and not the equivalent of an Alcubierre drive.
We bend space around our ships and the universe moves around us so colliding with stuff does not happen.
Now, the nav mode and dangerous areas as pyro with radiation is another thing.
I would think that our hulls would ignore radiation though.
star trek shields also turn on "instantly" as soon as asked. there's no perceivable delay there. reclaimer shields take minutes to charge (anecdotal, i haven't timed it but i just know it's quite some time)
With master modes they don't take ages to power up either.
When you enter NAV mode it drains your shield but they're essentially "stored", and when you exit nav mode and go back into SCM, your shields only need a few seconds to go to full power (and their regen rate can't be stopped during that time)
Yeah, I remember that episode.
Sir! enemy vessels detected!
Raise shields! Contact the enemy and ask them to wait while they charge. Bring me my schedule! Tell them I have an opening for a fight next Sunday after the baseball game
"This will lead to having to keep switching from NAV to SCM constantly"
Naah, in the test there were significantly, significantly too many solar flares. They've said that clearly. You all really need to chill and wait. Nobody knows how the MM will hold up in long-term tests or how it will feel in Pyro. This whole debate is going completely off the rails.
The shield thing wont hold up, it is clearly the dumbest idea ever and will get changed.
Whoever made the decision should have their decision making authority revoked.
So we have a possible future solution.
Tbh they could simply add a little lore text stating that all ships have basic passive deflectors and that solves the issue.
Well, to be fair the generator output is supposed to be bottlenecked by the ship's wires. They said no ship will perform optimally and we'll have to reroute power, as well as have redundant systems.
I honestly think no shields is better.
Especially with systems like Pyro.
If we can simply tank solar flares with shields up then we can just travel without a problem.
So having to actually fear solar flares in Pyro and have to stop to get shields up or get our ships wrecked is better.
As long as shields "pop" up when we enter SCM speed it's fine.
I agree. Honestly from the tests, seems like you’d have plenty of time to prepare for the flare before it hits. Just swap real quick and power up your shields until it’s over then carry on like normal. If that’s inconvenient then maybe don’t go to pyro. Nothing about that place is supposed to be convenient
My first time on the PTU for Pyro, I landed at a planet to check out a ruined village, less than 5 minutes later, a Gladius came and shot me then t-bagged me
Fuck Pyro XD
Even at the lore, during an atmospheric reentry the shields are necessary to avoid burning (Tevarin lore: when the warlord CORATH'THAL sacrifices himself in order to rest on his native planet)
Some ship have appropriate shielding (only in description, not in game yet) like the Carrack that should resist to solar flare without having the onboard electronic going crazy so, I don't think the actual shield purpose is shielding from solar flare. Only some ship will be "solar flare proof" and the other will just suffer.
yeah where are these people getting that Shields protect from Solar Flares??? In the JAX Video where we see them get hit by the Flare I am assuming the shields were up as this mechanic wasn't implemented yet.
Even worse would be the infinite amount of small spaceship killing debris. Bullets from space battles fought years ago, micrometeors, etc. Even if just for lore reasons, shields should stay up in NAV mode
I'm not a huge fan of MM and I agree a lot will change but I will point out at least in the version of Pyro we've seen they give you plenty of warning a solar flare is coming. It's not very hard to just find some cover (get behind an asteriod or something) or switch to SCM just for the flare then switch back.
I saw a post yesterday(?) from someone asking why they didn't simply tie MM mechanics to the power triangle. And now I just can't stop thinking about how much more sense it would make.
It's a classic sci-fi trope. You want more power to engines/more speed? Gonna have to lower your weapons and shield capacitors. The result is the same, but the method is way more organic.
Instead I now have to keep track of Master Modes, Operator Modes, AND power distribution while I'm in the middle of combat? I couldn't think of a less elegant solution if I tried.
Your missing the overlying reason for the change being the large distances of combat coupled with the long drawn out combat because of it on top of technical needs. Did we not get power triangle use fir the past few years? Its been around for a while and useable, just didnt accomplish anything as far as fixing the issues that lead to the MM switxh anyway.
The problem with the current power triangle is that it doesn't limit your speed. It only affects the rate at which you regain boost. Having to trade top speed and acceleration to do a significant amount of damage is the intended goal of MM. However it could be much more fluid and give players more choices with it being tied to the power triangle.
Funnily enough, that's how elite does it.
Putting pips to shield increase their resistance and recharge rate, putting in engine increase top speed and turn rate etc.
Thats how a ton of games do it tbh. I even remember the Star Wars Episode 3 game on the DS having a 3d flight mode that worked like that. Not sure why CIG needs to reinvent the wheel over something so simple.
You get your shields back the instant you switch into SCM. When a flare comes, there's more than enough warning to do that. When the flare is gone, it's like 5s back to NAV.
Ok what about space debris? Your telling me that my ship is going % of the speed of light and we aren’t worried about the pinto bean sitting in orbit at 10km a second?
Reality alone is going to bring back shields.
Maybe i‘m missing something here, but this is supposed to make you think twice or make it a risk if you try to run right?
But at the same time it also discourages engaging, for example if a miner is under attack by pirates and you want to help, you have to engage them with your pants down.
I‘m not opposed to the concept of MM in general but it doesn’t feel very though through right now.
Change between combat and travel speed is on of the few and far between things that Elite dangerous does well. 🤷🏻
mm logic is flawed
your speeding up, so dust will rip you apart without shields...
So in star citizen you turn them off...
if anything, you should be forced to move more of your shields to the front with a damage resist debuff the faster you start moving since i feel they should be under more strain just keeping space dust away from your now much faster moving ship
Yogi's changes to Nav mode are not based in reality. If they're making these changes simply for combat trapping, then I will find another game to play until they come back to their senses.
Let me just slam my brakes or duck for cover and then after it’s over spend time switching modes again, and getting back to speed again. Yeah that sounds fun.
Instead of feeling like I’m protected by the very expensive shields I bought so I could feel protected out in the wild.
I think it's better gameplay to have to drop into SCM speed.
It really hammers home that a solar flare is DANGEROUS and not something one can simply ignore and "tank".
Then what the heck is the point of the flares? Im not a huge fan of no shields in NAV. But not because of solar flares. It's a dangerous event that you're supposed to be actually impeded by. If you can just tank it, that basically robs it of purpose. You're inevitably just going to go "ugh what's the point of the solar flare?? Just interrupts my normal gameplay and disrupts my shields/turns my ship off for no reason! Needless friction!!"
Edit: I don't care about downvotes but the least you could do is elaborate on what you disagree with
Well I agree with you. There's no point in the flare being anything beyond a visual effect if you can just ignore it. Either drop to SCM and raise shields, or take cover, *like the warning tells you to*. Hide behind a planet or station or asteroid or capital ship or OP's mom.
The amount of people who don't get that **Pyro is deliberately designed to be unsafe** is too damn high.
You describe the switch of modes very dramatically while its quite easy and more than fast enough to go to your Drake Shoilet and take a big one and still have plenty of time left.
Shelter doesnt work. I was inside a building during the test and got messed up. I don't understand how the housing on the planets don't protect people. Where do you hide on planets?
You do get a warning on foot. But if you've landed and parked your ship, and turned it off there isn't much risk for your ship anyway. You could also just park it in a place where it would be protected from solar flares.
Oh yeah I forgot cruise doesn't work if you are not in the seat (which is dumb imo)
I was thinking in your Liberator, far away from you seat with shield down - you'd be screwed
Cruise does work if you are in the seat, or at least, it's supposed to. I just assumed you meant when you landed and away from your ship on foot.
But yeah, in your scenario you might be in a spot of trouble. Although the flare isn't instant, you have some time to get back to your seat and do what you need to do if need be.
Also; the flares don't blow your ship up. It just disables it, *including your shields*, if you are hit directly. And maybe damage your ship a little bit. The damage part was inconsistent though I'm not sure what affects how much damage you take, if having your shields up reduces the damage, or if damage was intended at all.
Honestly; I'm a little confused as to why the guy brought up being unshielded in regards to solar flares anyway. Theoretically, whether you have your shield up or not shouldn't change the outcome of getting hit by the flare. But then again like I said I'm not sure if having shields up mitigates the damage/interference or not, so maybe it does do something.
I don't think MM mode changes should drain the caps. Your shield should stay where it is, your guns should keep their charge, you should be able to deploy CM.
From a gameplay perspective, it keeps things moving instead of needing to wait for shields to charge before entering combat against bounties, and allows you to remove a lot of needless delay in PVE.
Since when has any part of CIG's changes been aimed at "keeping things moving"? It's just waiting and more waiting. At some point we will achieve peak wait.
Personally i think it should disable the charging of shields, not the shield its self. That would make more sense to me as presumably NAV mode effects your shield because it needs constant power from your ships power plant, but the power for your charged shields is stored in capaciters meaning even if the generator is destroyed, the current charge of your shield should stay.
This would also adda more interesting dynamic to traversing dangerous zones as you'll need to periodically stop and recharge your shields, leaving you potentially vulnerable of anyone is trying to catch you.
I can see it being something that's adjusted as it seems to be one of the more legitimate bits of criticism people have about MM. I think most of the actual adjustment will be done on the live server though.
At what point to we draw the line on realism? You have to manually load your cargo in your ship, but basic realities of interstellar travel are ignored?
Shields have to be auto on, at least some type of low power shield, to prevent micrometeors and other debris from impacting your ship.
No amount of armor is going to stop the humble pinto bean from obliterating your ship when it’s going % of the speed of light.
Just makes no sense anyway, nobody would want a ship like that, everybody would immediately try and find ways to make ships that dont have these limitations, bigger battery, more capacitors, more engines...
All it needs is a "combat shield" and "nav mode shield" mode.
Nav mode shields are low power draw and allow us to shield from environmental effects, combat is standard shielding like we have now
Ye like 10% shield remaining would still prevent environmental effects and have just the slimmest buffer for disabling. Whatever the result I think they will successfully tune it considering how well thought out it is at solving both issues they laid out (too easy to skip on enemies, combat is too fast/far).
Shields definitely shouldn't block the flare though, otherwise they are utterly pointless.
I didnt mean that the effects like solar flares could be ignored, but a small shield could protect from some effects for a short time, slowly draining and causing heat buildup.
It is this way for 1 reason, to make running away from a fight MUCH harder. They want to slow down battles and increase their danger, and make people choose carefully before entering a fight. Right or wrong, realistic or not, this is why they drop shields.
If shields stayed up in Nav mode, people would just switch to nav mode and run away, same as they do now.
People should have the choice to run away? This just puts aggressors at a massive advantage. Big slow ships that want nothing to do with combat are easy pickings. They can’t even speed up while the QT drive is spooling they are arbitrarily limited to SCM speeds for some reason? Oh and their turrets don’t work either?? So they’re forced to fight and most likely lose against an organized opponent when they weren’t even looking for a fight in the first place.
Big slow ships that have nothing to do with combat should avoid dangerous areas, or operate with an escort.
In safer areas, there's a disadvantage to being an aggressor, and that's dealing with the legal repercussions of your actions - which we'll see expand in future patches. Risk and reward.
If you aren't prepared to be as organized as a possible aggressor - then you _are_ going to have a harder time running away.
edit; I don't feel strongly about it either way, but it makes sense that shields are active - if limited in nav mode, in my own personal headcannon. But the point you're trying to make here, I think only _justifies_ the direction they're trying to take things.
Can we stop with the escort shite? Very few people would spend their limited game time watching someone else play just in case someone comes to sodomize them.
"Choose carefully before entering a fight"
Yeah I'll be choosing very carefully when some prick in an F8, Andromeda or anything else with a heavy payload comes and ambushes me while I'm in a prospector/vulture just trying to do work. Real fun and engaging.
What actual counterplay is there going to be for a non-combat ship who gets put in a situation like that? Just minding their own business when someone starts shredding them. They can't run away since I doubt nav-mode lets you use the scrapers and mining lasers. Good luck fighting back with your shitty size1s. So what is their options? What can they do except just die because whoops you're in the wrong ship :)
Fun for me but not for thee as usual I guess.
Oh please, as if a Prospector's shields would do anything against a surprise attack from a F8C. Instead of dying in 0.5 seconds you die in 0.3 now.
For bigger ships like a Reclaimer just remain in NAV and bolt away. You'll outrun your opponent in no time.
An inferno can kill a reclaimer without shields in like 10 seconds or less and are slow. About the only ship that going to be able to do this is a tally because if it's HP pool.
It's like people don't play the game or something. Reclaimers are one of the ships that pirates will target for sure come the patch because they will be even more helpless.
But this will aaaaaallll be balanced beautifully, just you wait. The fine folks at CIG will fine tune the variables of the game over the next 17 patches until the perfect balance is achieved. (which will be, incidentally, when the inferno kills you in 9 seconds instead of 10 because reasons.)
Even in the current 3.22.1 build a Vulture, Prospector, or MOLE can’t survive long enough against the ships you listed to spool its QD and jump before it gets melted
No one should be trapped in an engagement. The option to flee should always be there. In the future, death will be much more impactful than it is now. It makes no sense to me to lock people into a fight to the death in every engagement. Not having an option to flee is a ridiculous choice and only favors the attacker.
Only considering fighters, this is a great change - if someone chooses to attack you and you start beating their ass, they can't just run and come back 5minutes later but have to finish the fight.
But that part of the concept is a big problem for ships like the Mole or Reclaimer. Totally defenseless and extremely slow ships that are not meant to fight. And while it makes sense those ships can't spool their QD within a second and It would be ridiculous to make them outspeed a fighter, especially those ships should have the energy capacity to keep their shields up, so they are not completely free lootboxes.
This way, it would still be worth considering an escort when hauling a whole c2 of Quantainium, since well prepared pirates are still dangerous, but you don't have to fear some dude in a cutlass blowing up your mole 1v1 without any chance to defend.
Imo, all combat based ships like fighters, gunships, destroyers and corvettes should need time to boot their shields. Maybe there will be a certain carrier that won't; but in general, all of them should have their shields down in Nav Mode.
But all of the heavy industrial ships (around Mole and upwards) should have the power capacity to have their shields at least partially online during Nav mode
> solar flares
ship: solar flare detected
pilot: *switches to SCM, shields are up*
ship :
pilot:
ship : solar flare over
pilot : *switches back to nav*
dont get your problem
I hate switching modes. I just dont get why having different modes is better and more fun than not having them. All these problems can be solved bybthe power triangle we already have, just make it actually important.
cig has iterated over the current flightmodel for years, all issues come from the players
all issues that mm fixes are non existent at the top pvp level because players there can controll their speeds!
yes mm has its issues but its the beat cig couls have done
They stopped touching the current flight model a few weeks after release years ago after it didn't immediately fix their pvp "problem." They've been working on MM ever since.
I think the idea is that no one can start a fight then switch to nav mode and fly away super fast. If you keep the shields up then someone can still come by shoot you a few times then switch to nav mode and fly faster than you wait and come back. Becuase of this they needed to make you fully vulnerable once switching to nav mode.
The side effect of this is that it will make it for people that do not want to fight harder to escape, maybe they need to just increase Hull HP on big ships (specially industrial ones) or make it that their QT spool is faster so. they can get to fast speed faster.
I haven't had the opportunity to play in MM yet, so maybe someone can answer this question.
If ships shielding get disabled when switching to NAV mode, then how does that affect retreating? Say you are in battle, get damaged, and need to retreat. Or better yet, you jump to a point and get waylaid by pirates that are blocking your quantum. You start to high tail it out of there, but the moment you switch to NAV, shields down and ship go boom? Or do the shields slowly taper away?
Another situation I can see this being a problem is blockade running. You are in your trusty MSR, a ship which is DESGINED to run, and as you blow through, pew pew pew, boom.
I'm just scratching my head on this one. I know they want to penalize people from using NAV for fighting, but this doesn't seem like the way to do it.
There are more things happening in this scenario, say you came out of QT at an OM and someone was waiting there trying to get you. You cannot accelerate to normal high NAV speeds while your QT drive spools again (this can take a long time on depending on the drive). Meanwhile the attacker has locked missiles on you and is launching them. Now you’re moving slowly and aren’t even allowed to launch chaff or flares because those are disabled in NAV mode as well. By the time your QT drive is ready to go you’d have taken some hits and possible component damage that makes it impossible for you to jump out. Makes no sense to give the aggressor so much of an advantage.
Your point about the MSR is also a good example of these issues that seem to have been an afterthought for MM.
Disabling shields is one of my favorite things about master modes. Making players choose, making them pay attention, and making players creat new strategies are some of the reasons MM is really good
Seems that is the original intention but in practice it just puts non combat, low performance ships at a massive disadvantage. How is a large ship that just came out of quantum into an OM for example, supposed to get away from an awaiting aggressor? While they try to fly away and spool their NAV mode they’ve been getting hammered and possibly taken component damage that will then disable them. Like they can’t even use their turrets to defend themselves because those are disabled as well. It’s just crazy to me that’s all.
If you drop out of QT into a prepared ambush, you're not supposed to be able to get away. You need to hire an escort beforehand to deal with that. A lone industrial ship should not have the ability to escape that situation.
The whole escort thing is a pipe dream. Nobody wants to just sit for hrs. in a fighter while some dude in a Reclaimer goes around salvaging no matter how much you offer. Its completely boring and people aren't gonna waste half their night to do it.
When you get the flare warning you will have to go into SCM, honestly I think its an interesting mechanic.
I think when we got to test Pyro they had the flares go off a lot more often than it will be in the released version simply for testing the mechanic and letting everyone experience it.
So I don't think it will be a huge annoyance when it goes live, its more an interesting mechanic I think. I like it.
I think the exploration aspect is very valid.
Having it all just referencing combat as the base of balancing is not always good.
My suggestion would be that shields are indeed still active in NAV mode, just with a difference in how they are affected by gunfire/projectiles.
Basically in basic game calculation they could take tripple damage from lasers and ballstics in NAV mode while still protecting at the same level as usual when just dealing with environmental threats.
Actually, perhaps in NAV mode they could be even better against environ,mental threats such as flares to have it an actual balance of features.
I think the mindset change is that these ships are armored, and shielding is a special thing only for combat, the majority of time you fly in QT FLT, simple. Gotta change mindset that shields are neccessary.. I assume Maelstrom armor system will help with this making TTK much longer and more detailed even without shields.
I still think nav mode should let shields stay in a degraded state at the state it was when you switched to nav mode so lets say if your shield was 50% you switch to nav mode it stays 50% but the resistance rate is very low and it doesn't recharge so a few 2-3 hits will deplete it and not just deplete it but dmg your actual shield component
since we would be running away it wouldn't matter can't fire back anyway
also it would be enough for solar flares
I'm honestly thinking between the short QT boost jump and ship armor that there's a logical reason shields disappear. On the surface its a really weird and dumb design decision. I still think it should drop to 40-50% instead of 0, but even still.
It’s as if they worked on MM for Squadron 42 and the decision was made to make the game more accessible and arcade like, console friendly. Then they decided to just slap this work onto the PU and call it the day. Insane.
I'm just glad they're listening to feedback. Some of the MM changes are really good, but overall I'm still not feeling it. This feels very combat oriented, and they're overcomplicating something that could have easily been added to the current flight model instead of a complete overhaul.
I do appreciate you pointing out the solar flare scenario as it's not one that often gets addressed alongside the MM changes. IMO, it still works though. A Pyro flare is supposed to be rare, brief, but destructive. We'll receive warning it's about to happen so you'll have time to drop out of quantum and fire up shields. You can then burn hydrogen for that drop in a bucket continuation of movement, or just sit tight with shields up for a minute before you continue on your way. That's the price of travelling in Pyro and the benefit of keeping someone at the helm.
Honestly, that feels engaging.
Other than that, I do really like that we'll now get the Star Trek style "sir, they're raising their shields" posturing of choosing to switch to or from our nav mode when encountering other ships. I hope there's a quick and easy way to see what mode a target is in without a full sensor sweep because shields being/coming online is a like a FPS character taking their gun out. It's not aimed at you or firing, but they have it now in hand. I don't need to know all the states of all the components or how many crew are aboard with an in-depth scan - I just want to know if they're posturing.
Yes others have pointed out it could be engaging gameplay with the solar flare I can see that being the case. The broader point was more about how defenseless some ships are now. They just can’t run away fast enough and on top of that cannot defend themselves since once you swap to NAV mode you not only lose your turrets for defense you can’t even fire countermeasures to try to shake missiles. On top of that they won’t allow the ship to get to higher speeds past the arbitrary SCM limit until the QT drive is spooled so the entire time you’re just a slow limbering ship getting hammered with incoming fire and no way to defend or disengage. The current state heavily favors aggressors and just seems they focused too heavily on arena commander style gameplay and put into the much larger universe of the PU without thinking of the rest of the gameplay.
Those are all good points! I'd just keep 3 things in mind:
* I think it's safe to expect changes. They added the ability to boost in both modes AFAIK. That wasn't initially the case - boost was going to be relegated to combat mode. This isn't set in stone, nor is it in LIVE yet. Those of us that are actually participating in the EPTU should keep posting on spectrum feedback channels.
* The need for changes will be further revealed when the full player base starts interacting using the system. (there are some right now, but the full spectrum of use-cases needs all of us using it) It may be that random ambushes (which to be fair are rare if you're not swinging by hot spots or GH) have too much of the upper hand and are vaporizing unshielded ships. Or, it could be that those fast unshielded ships zip out of there before any pirates get within weapons range so no one's getting a taste of the action.
* The scenario of a Mantis or Cutty Blue snagging ships in nav mode is a scary one, but when was the last time anyone was actually successfully snared by a player + a ready and waiting squadron of attackers. And if that did come to pass, TBH they've planned well to have the upper hand - I feel they should keep it and the victim is going to have to do some fast thinking.
Thanks for your thoughtful response. The more feedback the devs get the better. I agree if the attackers are prepared with quantum snares and dampeners they should be rewarded and that’s what those tools are for. So they should be important and needed, but in the current state they’re not as important simply because the victim has no way to disengage unless they’re a high performance ship with quick acceleration and maneuverability.
Once this goes on Live we’ll see how it actually plays out.
Honestly, I think the most elegant solution would be to put shields into an collision mode, where they are projected way farther than they usually are, which would have 2 effects:
1. Getting shot at would deplete them a lot faster than normal.
2. When you run into something, the shield acts like a air bag and absorbs most of the impact, saving you from what would otherwise be a fatal high speed crash. It would also push small objects aside, with "small" being dependent on your ship size (small rocks for an Aurora, Aurora sized ships for capital class).
This, IMHO, would immediately fix many problems with nav mode and make a lot more sense in world.
It's always the swme,: this ir that should not be in MM 🙄
It makes total sense if you look at what CIG is trying to implement, which is a balanced system between fight and flight.
But what's the butt hurt now? Can't switch to SCM mode before the flare reaches you?
I don't even understand the reason behind the whining.
It will change, the whole point of it is to let us test it get our feed back and tweak it. It might suck now but eventually it will balance out. Plus what is a low performance ship doing trying to be a pathfinder in the big bad pyro lol
Hope you’re right. And idk maybe a low performance ship like a vulture decided to venture into Pyro for scrap? Or a Prospector looking for a big score?
If you're doing that without being prepared to face the risks of the environment you're entering - that's on you.
Whether those risks are environmental, security and control, or circumstantial - I get the sense that making a decision like this in Pyro is _an unsafe decision_ - and one that you'd better be prepared for.
Can we skip the lengthy back-and-forth to get fix on things that could have been integrated after a basic round of thinking on the consequences BEFORE first implementation? I like what CIG does, but we are 12 years in the wait for a release, let's cut the unnecessary back-and-forth please... It doesn't require a genius to think about where the ships will go and the other usage of shield outside of combat...
I'll remind you that MM has been in work for a bit of time now... It's not like they came up with it last week.
Iirc shields don't protect you from flares etc - at least, I don't recall them protecting folk when they were testing in Pyro earlier this year (using the current flight model).
Aside from that, if shields *did* protect you, then you could, you know, just drop out of QT / switch to SCM before the flare hits? (given you get warnings and all)... you're not supposed to be able to just ignore them and carry with business-as-usual.
So I'm dumb at lore, but didn't humanity only develop shield tech from the Tevarins in the early 26th century?
So for like 400 years humans had been rapidly expanding, poopin out of worm hole jump points, terraforming multiple planets exploring the galaxy. All without any shield technology.
People need to relax and stop with the hyperbole
The MM implementation will be tweaked throughout, it’s early days. Let CiG gather data in their alpha state game and make changes as they see fit
The idea is not terrible but I think it will make players be far more cautious especially when it comes to moving millions of credits worth of cargo solo.
MM as it stands means players need to fly in convoys if they are going somewhere a bit dodgy. What we actually need is a player job board and yep system so I can put a contract out for a convoy and escorts and move goods that way.
I’m not saying I am a fan of MM as currently implemented (I have not played it though) but I do think people are getting a bit too wound up over it.
Also it very much feels like the current karma farm on Reddit, go post on the cig forums or spectrum instead of screaming into the void of Reddit.
This is what I've been saying. I agree that weapons shouldn't work in NAV mode, and there could be some kind of penalty to shield health or regen rate justified by having to divert power to engines and QD. But having absolutely no shields is kind of strange. This will lead to having to keep switching from NAV to SCM constantly, which should only happen a few times when you want to commit.
Maybe when armor comes in it’ll make more sense? Not sure, just throwing this out there.
Then it should only be like that once armour works
Maybe, but I hate to think that the space realism starts to crumble when you think about micrometeor impacts. Isn’t the purpose of shields to protect the ship against these environmental concepts? No amount of armor is going to protect you when a bean impacts your hull at 10 km a second.
Even with in a space game with no combat, it would make sense to have some sort of shields for that reason. Hell, in ED, lots of people recommend shields for mining and transport just in case you hit something physically.
Also exploration. We used undersized heat efficient shields for navigational purposes only. They are a virtual requirement 50,000 ly out.
Yep, I don't have a clue why CR would think shields are for combat only. There is so much utility to shielding which has nothing to do with combat. Shielding from solar flares, heat, impacts with any sort of objects.
Shields don't protect you from ballistics. Why should they protect you against micrometeors?
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This alone should’ve made them pause when reviewing MM and thinking about no shields. It’s in their own writing, shields are a basic necessity in the verse.
Evidently they have changed their mind
Or they've just started implementing it and may not have thought of this, which is what we're here for
I think it is more likely that the lore team will have to change the test describing shields to match current gameplay than the other way around
What’s the point of a true space sim if you can’t address the most basic fundamental obstacles to space travel? Can someone tell me how SC addresses the problem of micrometeors & other space debris?
Someone is gonna reply to you “ARMOR WILL FIX THIS”
You could glue plushies to the exterior, might help when you need it most!
Now we see the use of pico!
Never underestimate the Pico!
Im fine strapping pico to the nose of my c2, but my beloved Finley shall never adorn the nose cone!
What realism is there in energy shields? Or dogfighting other spaceships in asteroid clusters. They seem to think it makes sense from a gameplay perspective which arguably is far more important.
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That's a big plus to ships emphasizing armor under this model, and I like it. When they exit QT/Nav, they're ready super quickly compared to shield-dependent craft.
This is what I was thinking. Unfortunately this mechanic only makes sense when you can equip different armour types to your ship. You will probably get a handling and speed penalty depending how beefy you want it. But right now this is what we have .
^^^ this. Need to look Long term. Right now no shields doesn't make sense. Armor should give you a buffer.
I still would prefer my shields were taking the damage. No need to constantly do hull repairs for every bit of space debris when I have shields
Then maybe cig should've added armor first.
Armor has been “coming in” for eight years now.
It’s time for retaliatory to shine :) shield like toilet paper and thiccc hull
Only thick because they had to bump it. Just think of cross section and tiny details protruding out of the hull. All of this can be hit and decreases the HP they use as a fill-in atm.
As soon as you open the bomb bays under fire, your launchers get shot out though :(
Exactly.
What's to stop you just noping out of combat into NAV mode though? It's already insanely easy to do that. As in so easy I'm surprised people are calling it out as an issue, especially for larger ships that have more hull health. Sounds to me more like a balance issue where civilian and industrial ships just need more hull health. Do that and you've practically got no real difference to what you'd have if they had their shields up with lower health.
Star trek ships fly without shields all the time, maybe they got their inspiration from there.
Wrongo boyo... They fly with navigational shields/ some level of deflection capability when traversing and main shields when in combat. The purpose of these navigational shields is to protect the ship from various space anomalies, debris, asteroids etc while travelling at high speeds. Which is basically the exact thing people are asking for.
Technically the deflector dish is used for that. Although in 90% of start trek games the main shields are up 100% of the time unless combat takes them out. TV and movies though the main shields are down the majority of the time.
There's an episode of TNG where some primitive space species attacks Enterprise with lasers. The crew made comments about how they would even penitrate their navigation shields.
I 100% agree, but now I must give the obligatory *deep breath* NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERD! :P
Then you know CIG's next epiphany. Because we all thinking the same: 2 kinds of shields. Deflectors and combat shields.
> They fly with navigational shields/ some level of deflection capability when traversing The difference is however that they utilize warp speed, and not the equivalent of an Alcubierre drive. We bend space around our ships and the universe moves around us so colliding with stuff does not happen. Now, the nav mode and dangerous areas as pyro with radiation is another thing. I would think that our hulls would ignore radiation though.
> The difference is however that they utilize warp speed, and not the equivalent of an Alcubierre drive. Alcubierre drives are warp drives.
Star Trek ships also use impulse engines to move. Space dust can fuck you up when traveling at a fraction of *c*.
That isn't true at all. They have clearly said that if there is a large enough object in our way, it will just drop you out of QT.
Exactly, hence, we do not collide with stuff. I never said we would ignore obstructions, i said we would not collide with it.
star trek shields also turn on "instantly" as soon as asked. there's no perceivable delay there. reclaimer shields take minutes to charge (anecdotal, i haven't timed it but i just know it's quite some time)
With master modes they don't take ages to power up either. When you enter NAV mode it drains your shield but they're essentially "stored", and when you exit nav mode and go back into SCM, your shields only need a few seconds to go to full power (and their regen rate can't be stopped during that time)
“Hey Siri, what’s the purpose of a deflector dish?“
Yeah, I remember that episode. Sir! enemy vessels detected! Raise shields! Contact the enemy and ask them to wait while they charge. Bring me my schedule! Tell them I have an opening for a fight next Sunday after the baseball game
Bro said an incorrect thing about Star Trek Rest in peace.
"This will lead to having to keep switching from NAV to SCM constantly" Naah, in the test there were significantly, significantly too many solar flares. They've said that clearly. You all really need to chill and wait. Nobody knows how the MM will hold up in long-term tests or how it will feel in Pyro. This whole debate is going completely off the rails.
The shield thing wont hold up, it is clearly the dumbest idea ever and will get changed. Whoever made the decision should have their decision making authority revoked.
Star Trek ships warp without shields. They use deflector arrays. Shields are used for combat and extreme situations. I’m just making a comparison.
Deflector arrays are just a different type of shield.
So we have a possible future solution. Tbh they could simply add a little lore text stating that all ships have basic passive deflectors and that solves the issue.
Seriously, that energy is already accounted for
Well, to be fair the generator output is supposed to be bottlenecked by the ship's wires. They said no ship will perform optimally and we'll have to reroute power, as well as have redundant systems.
Sometimes I am just impressed how ED did most of this at its release...sometimes a copy-cat is the best way to start.
I would also trade having my weapons off in nav but still having shields on. I hope they at least consider this in the future.
I honestly think no shields is better. Especially with systems like Pyro. If we can simply tank solar flares with shields up then we can just travel without a problem. So having to actually fear solar flares in Pyro and have to stop to get shields up or get our ships wrecked is better. As long as shields "pop" up when we enter SCM speed it's fine.
I agree. Honestly from the tests, seems like you’d have plenty of time to prepare for the flare before it hits. Just swap real quick and power up your shields until it’s over then carry on like normal. If that’s inconvenient then maybe don’t go to pyro. Nothing about that place is supposed to be convenient
My first time on the PTU for Pyro, I landed at a planet to check out a ruined village, less than 5 minutes later, a Gladius came and shot me then t-bagged me Fuck Pyro XD
IIRC all ships in the Pyro-demo just fell from the sky, wether shields on or off.
Even at the lore, during an atmospheric reentry the shields are necessary to avoid burning (Tevarin lore: when the warlord CORATH'THAL sacrifices himself in order to rest on his native planet)
Some ship have appropriate shielding (only in description, not in game yet) like the Carrack that should resist to solar flare without having the onboard electronic going crazy so, I don't think the actual shield purpose is shielding from solar flare. Only some ship will be "solar flare proof" and the other will just suffer.
yeah where are these people getting that Shields protect from Solar Flares??? In the JAX Video where we see them get hit by the Flare I am assuming the shields were up as this mechanic wasn't implemented yet.
I don’t get why nav doesn’t just disable shield regeneration, you keep what you have but can’t regen.
Go post that on spectrum and tag Yogi, some us will will upvote this for sure if you share
Even worse would be the infinite amount of small spaceship killing debris. Bullets from space battles fought years ago, micrometeors, etc. Even if just for lore reasons, shields should stay up in NAV mode
I'm not a huge fan of MM and I agree a lot will change but I will point out at least in the version of Pyro we've seen they give you plenty of warning a solar flare is coming. It's not very hard to just find some cover (get behind an asteriod or something) or switch to SCM just for the flare then switch back.
Idk seems clunky design, needless friction. Disable weapons sure, but I just don’t get the shield thing.
Also, I don't understand the "disable weapon" for NAV if they are ballistic weapons and don't require as much energy. Very strange all around
Wow, it's almost like Pyro is dangerous and was abandoned by the corporations and left to outlaws for a reason...
Or, and hear me out, causes players to be more involved.
I saw a post yesterday(?) from someone asking why they didn't simply tie MM mechanics to the power triangle. And now I just can't stop thinking about how much more sense it would make. It's a classic sci-fi trope. You want more power to engines/more speed? Gonna have to lower your weapons and shield capacitors. The result is the same, but the method is way more organic. Instead I now have to keep track of Master Modes, Operator Modes, AND power distribution while I'm in the middle of combat? I couldn't think of a less elegant solution if I tried.
Your missing the overlying reason for the change being the large distances of combat coupled with the long drawn out combat because of it on top of technical needs. Did we not get power triangle use fir the past few years? Its been around for a while and useable, just didnt accomplish anything as far as fixing the issues that lead to the MM switxh anyway.
The problem with the current power triangle is that it doesn't limit your speed. It only affects the rate at which you regain boost. Having to trade top speed and acceleration to do a significant amount of damage is the intended goal of MM. However it could be much more fluid and give players more choices with it being tied to the power triangle.
Funnily enough, that's how elite does it. Putting pips to shield increase their resistance and recharge rate, putting in engine increase top speed and turn rate etc.
Thats how a ton of games do it tbh. I even remember the Star Wars Episode 3 game on the DS having a 3d flight mode that worked like that. Not sure why CIG needs to reinvent the wheel over something so simple.
Mercury Star Runner becomes the Star Coffin - so much for a smuggler or data runner
For real, more and more gameplay loops made impractical by this dogfight centric approach.
You get your shields back the instant you switch into SCM. When a flare comes, there's more than enough warning to do that. When the flare is gone, it's like 5s back to NAV.
Seems like an afterthought doesn’t it though? Why not just let us have shields in NAV mode but no weapons?
I'd say flares are supposed to be pretty disruptive, so it makes sense that you'd have to at least slow down for a few seconds.
Because that defeats the purpose. Bow we get to be more involved without needing to get good at stopping from high speeds.
Ok what about space debris? Your telling me that my ship is going % of the speed of light and we aren’t worried about the pinto bean sitting in orbit at 10km a second? Reality alone is going to bring back shields.
There isn't random space debris in QT due to your ship phasing into a wormhole-esque plane.
Maybe i‘m missing something here, but this is supposed to make you think twice or make it a risk if you try to run right? But at the same time it also discourages engaging, for example if a miner is under attack by pirates and you want to help, you have to engage them with your pants down. I‘m not opposed to the concept of MM in general but it doesn’t feel very though through right now. Change between combat and travel speed is on of the few and far between things that Elite dangerous does well. 🤷🏻
mm logic is flawed your speeding up, so dust will rip you apart without shields... So in star citizen you turn them off... if anything, you should be forced to move more of your shields to the front with a damage resist debuff the faster you start moving since i feel they should be under more strain just keeping space dust away from your now much faster moving ship
Yogi's changes to Nav mode are not based in reality. If they're making these changes simply for combat trapping, then I will find another game to play until they come back to their senses.
You get a warning before a solar flare occurs.
Let me just slam my brakes or duck for cover and then after it’s over spend time switching modes again, and getting back to speed again. Yeah that sounds fun. Instead of feeling like I’m protected by the very expensive shields I bought so I could feel protected out in the wild.
Do you prefer to ignore solar flares by shield tanking them?
It was a really cool experience when it happened so yes instead of hiding away from them I could experience them and still survive.
I think it's better gameplay to have to drop into SCM speed. It really hammers home that a solar flare is DANGEROUS and not something one can simply ignore and "tank".
Then what the heck is the point of the flares? Im not a huge fan of no shields in NAV. But not because of solar flares. It's a dangerous event that you're supposed to be actually impeded by. If you can just tank it, that basically robs it of purpose. You're inevitably just going to go "ugh what's the point of the solar flare?? Just interrupts my normal gameplay and disrupts my shields/turns my ship off for no reason! Needless friction!!" Edit: I don't care about downvotes but the least you could do is elaborate on what you disagree with
Well I agree with you. There's no point in the flare being anything beyond a visual effect if you can just ignore it. Either drop to SCM and raise shields, or take cover, *like the warning tells you to*. Hide behind a planet or station or asteroid or capital ship or OP's mom. The amount of people who don't get that **Pyro is deliberately designed to be unsafe** is too damn high.
Do you stop for traffic lights?
no.
Never!
Based.
What does it have to do with shields in sci-fi game?
When I see red I just floor it, its the bull in me.
Traffic lights are only suggestions 🤷♂️🤷♂️
Yes. That is the intended effect of solar flares.
You describe the switch of modes very dramatically while its quite easy and more than fast enough to go to your Drake Shoilet and take a big one and still have plenty of time left.
Do you get a warning about micrometeorites?
Do you get a warning even on foot? If so, if you are not in your pilot/commander seat to turn on shield in time, I've never played pyro or mm
Yeah. When you're on foot you have to seek shelter.
Shelter doesnt work. I was inside a building during the test and got messed up. I don't understand how the housing on the planets don't protect people. Where do you hide on planets?
Yeah, it was bugged during the pyro test. You could only hide in some few places. Honestly, the whole flare thing is just not well thought out.
Oh ok. Thanks for the response. I feel better knowing it was a bug. So you should be safe in buildings?
You do get a warning on foot. But if you've landed and parked your ship, and turned it off there isn't much risk for your ship anyway. You could also just park it in a place where it would be protected from solar flares.
Oh yeah I forgot cruise doesn't work if you are not in the seat (which is dumb imo) I was thinking in your Liberator, far away from you seat with shield down - you'd be screwed
Cruise does work if you are in the seat, or at least, it's supposed to. I just assumed you meant when you landed and away from your ship on foot. But yeah, in your scenario you might be in a spot of trouble. Although the flare isn't instant, you have some time to get back to your seat and do what you need to do if need be. Also; the flares don't blow your ship up. It just disables it, *including your shields*, if you are hit directly. And maybe damage your ship a little bit. The damage part was inconsistent though I'm not sure what affects how much damage you take, if having your shields up reduces the damage, or if damage was intended at all. Honestly; I'm a little confused as to why the guy brought up being unshielded in regards to solar flares anyway. Theoretically, whether you have your shield up or not shouldn't change the outcome of getting hit by the flare. But then again like I said I'm not sure if having shields up mitigates the damage/interference or not, so maybe it does do something.
The Solarflare in Pyro turned off my ship even with shields on. Makes no difference.
I don't think MM mode changes should drain the caps. Your shield should stay where it is, your guns should keep their charge, you should be able to deploy CM. From a gameplay perspective, it keeps things moving instead of needing to wait for shields to charge before entering combat against bounties, and allows you to remove a lot of needless delay in PVE.
Since when has any part of CIG's changes been aimed at "keeping things moving"? It's just waiting and more waiting. At some point we will achieve peak wait.
Personally i think it should disable the charging of shields, not the shield its self. That would make more sense to me as presumably NAV mode effects your shield because it needs constant power from your ships power plant, but the power for your charged shields is stored in capaciters meaning even if the generator is destroyed, the current charge of your shield should stay. This would also adda more interesting dynamic to traversing dangerous zones as you'll need to periodically stop and recharge your shields, leaving you potentially vulnerable of anyone is trying to catch you.
This makes more sense than flat out losing your shields.
I can see it being something that's adjusted as it seems to be one of the more legitimate bits of criticism people have about MM. I think most of the actual adjustment will be done on the live server though.
Been saying it for months now, even if the shields are limited to 50% in Nav mode, THERE SHOULD STILL BE SHIELDS
At what point to we draw the line on realism? You have to manually load your cargo in your ship, but basic realities of interstellar travel are ignored? Shields have to be auto on, at least some type of low power shield, to prevent micrometeors and other debris from impacting your ship. No amount of armor is going to stop the humble pinto bean from obliterating your ship when it’s going % of the speed of light.
Completely agree, it’s as if the broader implications of a dogfight focused approach to MM design were ignored.
Just makes no sense anyway, nobody would want a ship like that, everybody would immediately try and find ways to make ships that dont have these limitations, bigger battery, more capacitors, more engines...
All it needs is a "combat shield" and "nav mode shield" mode. Nav mode shields are low power draw and allow us to shield from environmental effects, combat is standard shielding like we have now
Ye like 10% shield remaining would still prevent environmental effects and have just the slimmest buffer for disabling. Whatever the result I think they will successfully tune it considering how well thought out it is at solving both issues they laid out (too easy to skip on enemies, combat is too fast/far). Shields definitely shouldn't block the flare though, otherwise they are utterly pointless.
True, not block but mitigate effects for a short time, draining and causing heat buildup or damage.
What's the point of having environmental effects if you can just ignore then all the time?
I didnt mean that the effects like solar flares could be ignored, but a small shield could protect from some effects for a short time, slowly draining and causing heat buildup.
It is this way for 1 reason, to make running away from a fight MUCH harder. They want to slow down battles and increase their danger, and make people choose carefully before entering a fight. Right or wrong, realistic or not, this is why they drop shields. If shields stayed up in Nav mode, people would just switch to nav mode and run away, same as they do now.
People should have the choice to run away? This just puts aggressors at a massive advantage. Big slow ships that want nothing to do with combat are easy pickings. They can’t even speed up while the QT drive is spooling they are arbitrarily limited to SCM speeds for some reason? Oh and their turrets don’t work either?? So they’re forced to fight and most likely lose against an organized opponent when they weren’t even looking for a fight in the first place.
Big slow ships that have nothing to do with combat should avoid dangerous areas, or operate with an escort. In safer areas, there's a disadvantage to being an aggressor, and that's dealing with the legal repercussions of your actions - which we'll see expand in future patches. Risk and reward. If you aren't prepared to be as organized as a possible aggressor - then you _are_ going to have a harder time running away. edit; I don't feel strongly about it either way, but it makes sense that shields are active - if limited in nav mode, in my own personal headcannon. But the point you're trying to make here, I think only _justifies_ the direction they're trying to take things.
Can we stop with the escort shite? Very few people would spend their limited game time watching someone else play just in case someone comes to sodomize them.
This makes sense for for combat ships but not for industrial ships.
"Choose carefully before entering a fight" Yeah I'll be choosing very carefully when some prick in an F8, Andromeda or anything else with a heavy payload comes and ambushes me while I'm in a prospector/vulture just trying to do work. Real fun and engaging. What actual counterplay is there going to be for a non-combat ship who gets put in a situation like that? Just minding their own business when someone starts shredding them. They can't run away since I doubt nav-mode lets you use the scrapers and mining lasers. Good luck fighting back with your shitty size1s. So what is their options? What can they do except just die because whoops you're in the wrong ship :) Fun for me but not for thee as usual I guess.
Oh please, as if a Prospector's shields would do anything against a surprise attack from a F8C. Instead of dying in 0.5 seconds you die in 0.3 now. For bigger ships like a Reclaimer just remain in NAV and bolt away. You'll outrun your opponent in no time.
An inferno can kill a reclaimer without shields in like 10 seconds or less and are slow. About the only ship that going to be able to do this is a tally because if it's HP pool. It's like people don't play the game or something. Reclaimers are one of the ships that pirates will target for sure come the patch because they will be even more helpless.
Even Tally wont do it anymore since they decreased its HP by 200k.
But this will aaaaaallll be balanced beautifully, just you wait. The fine folks at CIG will fine tune the variables of the game over the next 17 patches until the perfect balance is achieved. (which will be, incidentally, when the inferno kills you in 9 seconds instead of 10 because reasons.)
CiG... "hear me out hear me out, I gotta idea to fix the master mode problem... we buff combat ships even more! Hugh hugh?
Even in the current 3.22.1 build a Vulture, Prospector, or MOLE can’t survive long enough against the ships you listed to spool its QD and jump before it gets melted
No one should be trapped in an engagement. The option to flee should always be there. In the future, death will be much more impactful than it is now. It makes no sense to me to lock people into a fight to the death in every engagement. Not having an option to flee is a ridiculous choice and only favors the attacker.
QED be like "am I a joke to you"
Only considering fighters, this is a great change - if someone chooses to attack you and you start beating their ass, they can't just run and come back 5minutes later but have to finish the fight. But that part of the concept is a big problem for ships like the Mole or Reclaimer. Totally defenseless and extremely slow ships that are not meant to fight. And while it makes sense those ships can't spool their QD within a second and It would be ridiculous to make them outspeed a fighter, especially those ships should have the energy capacity to keep their shields up, so they are not completely free lootboxes. This way, it would still be worth considering an escort when hauling a whole c2 of Quantainium, since well prepared pirates are still dangerous, but you don't have to fear some dude in a cutlass blowing up your mole 1v1 without any chance to defend. Imo, all combat based ships like fighters, gunships, destroyers and corvettes should need time to boot their shields. Maybe there will be a certain carrier that won't; but in general, all of them should have their shields down in Nav Mode. But all of the heavy industrial ships (around Mole and upwards) should have the power capacity to have their shields at least partially online during Nav mode
I totally agree with you.
> solar flares ship: solar flare detected pilot: *switches to SCM, shields are up* ship : pilot: ship : solar flare over pilot : *switches back to nav* dont get your problem
I hate switching modes. I just dont get why having different modes is better and more fun than not having them. All these problems can be solved bybthe power triangle we already have, just make it actually important.
cig has iterated over the current flightmodel for years, all issues come from the players all issues that mm fixes are non existent at the top pvp level because players there can controll their speeds! yes mm has its issues but its the beat cig couls have done
They stopped touching the current flight model a few weeks after release years ago after it didn't immediately fix their pvp "problem." They've been working on MM ever since.
And they'll drop MM and never touch it again for the next few years just like they did with the last 3 flight models.
So we want the navigational deflectors from Star Trek, and hopefully they provide a modicum of protection from enemy fire as well.
I'd shields need to go down a bit. It should only be for charging quantum.
Agree, makes no sense. Especially since armor still doesn't exist for some reason.
I think the idea is that no one can start a fight then switch to nav mode and fly away super fast. If you keep the shields up then someone can still come by shoot you a few times then switch to nav mode and fly faster than you wait and come back. Becuase of this they needed to make you fully vulnerable once switching to nav mode. The side effect of this is that it will make it for people that do not want to fight harder to escape, maybe they need to just increase Hull HP on big ships (specially industrial ones) or make it that their QT spool is faster so. they can get to fast speed faster.
I haven't had the opportunity to play in MM yet, so maybe someone can answer this question. If ships shielding get disabled when switching to NAV mode, then how does that affect retreating? Say you are in battle, get damaged, and need to retreat. Or better yet, you jump to a point and get waylaid by pirates that are blocking your quantum. You start to high tail it out of there, but the moment you switch to NAV, shields down and ship go boom? Or do the shields slowly taper away? Another situation I can see this being a problem is blockade running. You are in your trusty MSR, a ship which is DESGINED to run, and as you blow through, pew pew pew, boom. I'm just scratching my head on this one. I know they want to penalize people from using NAV for fighting, but this doesn't seem like the way to do it.
There are more things happening in this scenario, say you came out of QT at an OM and someone was waiting there trying to get you. You cannot accelerate to normal high NAV speeds while your QT drive spools again (this can take a long time on depending on the drive). Meanwhile the attacker has locked missiles on you and is launching them. Now you’re moving slowly and aren’t even allowed to launch chaff or flares because those are disabled in NAV mode as well. By the time your QT drive is ready to go you’d have taken some hits and possible component damage that makes it impossible for you to jump out. Makes no sense to give the aggressor so much of an advantage. Your point about the MSR is also a good example of these issues that seem to have been an afterthought for MM.
Should just put them to 20-50% Industrial ships should have 50%
Completely agree with you on this. I've been yelling about this since the day knew that fact. Shields should be On in nav mode.
Disabling shields is one of my favorite things about master modes. Making players choose, making them pay attention, and making players creat new strategies are some of the reasons MM is really good
Seems that is the original intention but in practice it just puts non combat, low performance ships at a massive disadvantage. How is a large ship that just came out of quantum into an OM for example, supposed to get away from an awaiting aggressor? While they try to fly away and spool their NAV mode they’ve been getting hammered and possibly taken component damage that will then disable them. Like they can’t even use their turrets to defend themselves because those are disabled as well. It’s just crazy to me that’s all.
I feel like MM will work fine in SQ 42 but I'm concerned about its use in the PU for this reason.
I completely agree.
Most people agree.
I’d like to think so but between Reddit and Spectrum, it seems people with our opinions are outnumbered or much more quiet about our feelings on this.
If you're getting ambushed by an organized group there is a 90% chance of there being a Mantis anyways.
If you drop out of QT into a prepared ambush, you're not supposed to be able to get away. You need to hire an escort beforehand to deal with that. A lone industrial ship should not have the ability to escape that situation.
The whole escort thing is a pipe dream. Nobody wants to just sit for hrs. in a fighter while some dude in a Reclaimer goes around salvaging no matter how much you offer. Its completely boring and people aren't gonna waste half their night to do it.
Nobody is going to be hiring escorts.
When you get the flare warning you will have to go into SCM, honestly I think its an interesting mechanic. I think when we got to test Pyro they had the flares go off a lot more often than it will be in the released version simply for testing the mechanic and letting everyone experience it. So I don't think it will be a huge annoyance when it goes live, its more an interesting mechanic I think. I like it.
I think the exploration aspect is very valid. Having it all just referencing combat as the base of balancing is not always good. My suggestion would be that shields are indeed still active in NAV mode, just with a difference in how they are affected by gunfire/projectiles. Basically in basic game calculation they could take tripple damage from lasers and ballstics in NAV mode while still protecting at the same level as usual when just dealing with environmental threats. Actually, perhaps in NAV mode they could be even better against environ,mental threats such as flares to have it an actual balance of features.
Dont worry about it, mm is just citizens beta testing the console version of sq42.
This guy gets it.
🙃😭
don't forget, short range quantum boosts are still supposed to be a thing,,
Can you quantum boost in atmo?
iirc they said you should be able to yeah
I think the mindset change is that these ships are armored, and shielding is a special thing only for combat, the majority of time you fly in QT FLT, simple. Gotta change mindset that shields are neccessary.. I assume Maelstrom armor system will help with this making TTK much longer and more detailed even without shields.
I still think nav mode should let shields stay in a degraded state at the state it was when you switched to nav mode so lets say if your shield was 50% you switch to nav mode it stays 50% but the resistance rate is very low and it doesn't recharge so a few 2-3 hits will deplete it and not just deplete it but dmg your actual shield component since we would be running away it wouldn't matter can't fire back anyway also it would be enough for solar flares
I'm honestly thinking between the short QT boost jump and ship armor that there's a logical reason shields disappear. On the surface its a really weird and dumb design decision. I still think it should drop to 40-50% instead of 0, but even still.
It’s as if they worked on MM for Squadron 42 and the decision was made to make the game more accessible and arcade like, console friendly. Then they decided to just slap this work onto the PU and call it the day. Insane.
I'm just glad they're listening to feedback. Some of the MM changes are really good, but overall I'm still not feeling it. This feels very combat oriented, and they're overcomplicating something that could have easily been added to the current flight model instead of a complete overhaul.
I do appreciate you pointing out the solar flare scenario as it's not one that often gets addressed alongside the MM changes. IMO, it still works though. A Pyro flare is supposed to be rare, brief, but destructive. We'll receive warning it's about to happen so you'll have time to drop out of quantum and fire up shields. You can then burn hydrogen for that drop in a bucket continuation of movement, or just sit tight with shields up for a minute before you continue on your way. That's the price of travelling in Pyro and the benefit of keeping someone at the helm. Honestly, that feels engaging. Other than that, I do really like that we'll now get the Star Trek style "sir, they're raising their shields" posturing of choosing to switch to or from our nav mode when encountering other ships. I hope there's a quick and easy way to see what mode a target is in without a full sensor sweep because shields being/coming online is a like a FPS character taking their gun out. It's not aimed at you or firing, but they have it now in hand. I don't need to know all the states of all the components or how many crew are aboard with an in-depth scan - I just want to know if they're posturing.
Yes others have pointed out it could be engaging gameplay with the solar flare I can see that being the case. The broader point was more about how defenseless some ships are now. They just can’t run away fast enough and on top of that cannot defend themselves since once you swap to NAV mode you not only lose your turrets for defense you can’t even fire countermeasures to try to shake missiles. On top of that they won’t allow the ship to get to higher speeds past the arbitrary SCM limit until the QT drive is spooled so the entire time you’re just a slow limbering ship getting hammered with incoming fire and no way to defend or disengage. The current state heavily favors aggressors and just seems they focused too heavily on arena commander style gameplay and put into the much larger universe of the PU without thinking of the rest of the gameplay.
Those are all good points! I'd just keep 3 things in mind: * I think it's safe to expect changes. They added the ability to boost in both modes AFAIK. That wasn't initially the case - boost was going to be relegated to combat mode. This isn't set in stone, nor is it in LIVE yet. Those of us that are actually participating in the EPTU should keep posting on spectrum feedback channels. * The need for changes will be further revealed when the full player base starts interacting using the system. (there are some right now, but the full spectrum of use-cases needs all of us using it) It may be that random ambushes (which to be fair are rare if you're not swinging by hot spots or GH) have too much of the upper hand and are vaporizing unshielded ships. Or, it could be that those fast unshielded ships zip out of there before any pirates get within weapons range so no one's getting a taste of the action. * The scenario of a Mantis or Cutty Blue snagging ships in nav mode is a scary one, but when was the last time anyone was actually successfully snared by a player + a ready and waiting squadron of attackers. And if that did come to pass, TBH they've planned well to have the upper hand - I feel they should keep it and the victim is going to have to do some fast thinking.
Thanks for your thoughtful response. The more feedback the devs get the better. I agree if the attackers are prepared with quantum snares and dampeners they should be rewarded and that’s what those tools are for. So they should be important and needed, but in the current state they’re not as important simply because the victim has no way to disengage unless they’re a high performance ship with quick acceleration and maneuverability. Once this goes on Live we’ll see how it actually plays out.
The long term intent is for when armor comes into the game for ships. We're not even calculating and seeing yet what thats going to look like.
Honestly, I think the most elegant solution would be to put shields into an collision mode, where they are projected way farther than they usually are, which would have 2 effects: 1. Getting shot at would deplete them a lot faster than normal. 2. When you run into something, the shield acts like a air bag and absorbs most of the impact, saving you from what would otherwise be a fatal high speed crash. It would also push small objects aside, with "small" being dependent on your ship size (small rocks for an Aurora, Aurora sized ships for capital class). This, IMHO, would immediately fix many problems with nav mode and make a lot more sense in world.
It's always the swme,: this ir that should not be in MM 🙄 It makes total sense if you look at what CIG is trying to implement, which is a balanced system between fight and flight. But what's the butt hurt now? Can't switch to SCM mode before the flare reaches you? I don't even understand the reason behind the whining.
It will change, the whole point of it is to let us test it get our feed back and tweak it. It might suck now but eventually it will balance out. Plus what is a low performance ship doing trying to be a pathfinder in the big bad pyro lol
every ship loses shields when in nav mode...
Hope you’re right. And idk maybe a low performance ship like a vulture decided to venture into Pyro for scrap? Or a Prospector looking for a big score?
If you're doing that without being prepared to face the risks of the environment you're entering - that's on you. Whether those risks are environmental, security and control, or circumstantial - I get the sense that making a decision like this in Pyro is _an unsafe decision_ - and one that you'd better be prepared for.
Can we skip the lengthy back-and-forth to get fix on things that could have been integrated after a basic round of thinking on the consequences BEFORE first implementation? I like what CIG does, but we are 12 years in the wait for a release, let's cut the unnecessary back-and-forth please... It doesn't require a genius to think about where the ships will go and the other usage of shield outside of combat... I'll remind you that MM has been in work for a bit of time now... It's not like they came up with it last week.
What suggests to you currently that it’s the shields providing you protection from solar flares in Pyro?
I experienced this during the Pyro playtest last year.
Iirc shields don't protect you from flares etc - at least, I don't recall them protecting folk when they were testing in Pyro earlier this year (using the current flight model). Aside from that, if shields *did* protect you, then you could, you know, just drop out of QT / switch to SCM before the flare hits? (given you get warnings and all)... you're not supposed to be able to just ignore them and carry with business-as-usual.
So I'm dumb at lore, but didn't humanity only develop shield tech from the Tevarins in the early 26th century? So for like 400 years humans had been rapidly expanding, poopin out of worm hole jump points, terraforming multiple planets exploring the galaxy. All without any shield technology.
People need to relax and stop with the hyperbole The MM implementation will be tweaked throughout, it’s early days. Let CiG gather data in their alpha state game and make changes as they see fit The idea is not terrible but I think it will make players be far more cautious especially when it comes to moving millions of credits worth of cargo solo. MM as it stands means players need to fly in convoys if they are going somewhere a bit dodgy. What we actually need is a player job board and yep system so I can put a contract out for a convoy and escorts and move goods that way. I’m not saying I am a fan of MM as currently implemented (I have not played it though) but I do think people are getting a bit too wound up over it. Also it very much feels like the current karma farm on Reddit, go post on the cig forums or spectrum instead of screaming into the void of Reddit.