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Energy Shields


RotGtIE

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What's the likelihood we'll see suits of armor that project rechargeable energy shields on soldiers or armored cars in xenonauts?

Alternatively, what about energy shield generators as special equipment, like a handheld device your soldiers could drop somewhere to project directional cover in a small area around it?

Or perhaps a researchable landing craft that, as part of its design, projects a small energy field around itself that acts like directional cover in a small perimeter around the landing site?

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Really, really unlikely. It doesn't quite fit the theme (I'd know, I brought this up on the old forums).

That said, Chris was receptive (I think) to the idea of some kind of deployable cover item that creates a directional shield. Might be a physical shield rather than a force field. Single use, heavy, can't be collapsed and re-used that mission (might be able to get it back at the end of mission if it hasn't been destroyed).

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They were stupidly overpowered in Apoc. And only your troops could get around them.

Having a soldier come out of a Dimension missile blast unscathed while the rest of the building collapses looks odd. Funny, but odd.

Then the building falls on him and he dies.

Or Disruptor armour + 2 shields. You have to stand on a corpse pile of at least a dozen D-missiles and Vortex mines, on a spawn pad, and get hit with a vortex mine to even get injured!

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Huh, well that's too bad. I was thinking personal energy shields would provide an alternative to the usual physical armor plates, where the latter is a very "you might die instantly, or you might not get scratched" sort of deal but the former is more like "well you don't get the chance to completely shrug off shots like plates can, but these shields will soak maybe one or two shots before going down." So a player would be making the choice between the all-or-nothing philosophy of plates and the less-chancy-but-less-potent energy shields when choosing what to equip his soldiers with.

Hm, what kind of energy based equipment are we looking at, besides the usual las/plas guns? We gonna see some weird goofy cloaking fields or chain lightning guns? Portal guns, teleporters, a shake-an-egg-grenade?

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Not need for it to be energy though. Could have it as an self-deploying barricade thing. Set it, chuck it, and it unfolds into a metal wall 1-3 tiles long or something.

Or just put a huge bag of sand in your backpack, then deploy it and leave it be (or move 4 steps per turn because of the weight).

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Hm, what kind of energy based equipment are we looking at, besides the usual las/plas guns? We gonna see some weird goofy cloaking fields or chain lightning guns? Portal guns, teleporters, a shake-an-egg-grenade?

Have mercy on the poor aliens:)) they're supposed to be technologically overpowering, not the soldiers.

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I got it. Energy weapon idea number next: Laser Grenades!

It's a dodecahedron you arm and throw, and when it hits the ground, instead of exploding, it sprays laser shots all over the place, then takes time to recharge. You can pick it up to throw it again or let it lay where it is and it'll discharge lasers periodically until it's destroyed or picked up. Or it could just be a single discharge only when it's thrown. Either way, it doesn't destroy itself through normal use.

Nifty, eh?

Oh, and also: Sonic Pulse Discharger.

Another grenade-like device that doesn't destroy itself when it discharges. It throws out a sonic pulse which is nonlethal to humans and aliens, but causes a lot of structural damage to the area in its blast radius. Terrain features are reduced to rubble, unmanned vehicles are wrecked, and live combatants take a lot of stun damage if caught near one of these things when it goes off. Path-clearing and live capture of enemy combatants made less hazardous a task for your poor bloody infantry.

Edited by RotGtIE
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It sounds like missile loads have been reduced to armor penetrating and frag, for simplicity's sake, with the frag load doubling as the anti-material munition and the HEAT warhead being specifically for anti-armor duty (though it'd be hard to imagine any explosion, even a HEAT, not affecting the stuff around its target in a similarly spectacular fashion).

I'm thinking thermobaric was probably redundant given that HEAT and Frag warheads will probably be sufficiently destructive in addition to their primary purposes.

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I'd suggest something biological. They're humanoid, after all. Must be vulnerable to lots of earthbound viruses.

But the devs idea, as I see it, is not to make Xenonauts superhuman via alien technology. Their vision is a bunch of tired riffraff soldiers armed with whatever they can salvage.

In general (and considering Apoc experience) I rather like it. But I'm going to miss brainwashing aliens anyway. I NEVER killed the brain with a soldier, always with an Ethereal or some other pet of my psi experts.

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