v18 impressions of the combat shield

[Max_Caine]

It's been quite a while since I last used a combat shield, and my impressions since they were re-introduced haven't been quite so favourable. When my combat-shielded guy first got hit by a plasma pistol, the shield didn't stop the shot. And this kept on happening. I wondered why, so I boned up on the v13 implementation and I noticed that diagonal shots had a 65% chance of being stopped by the shield, as opposed to straight-on shots which block 80% of the time.

Hmm.

Diagonal shots are far, far more likely to happen than straight-on shots, both outside of a UFO and inside one. Take the scout, for example, whose design practically invites aliens to hide so that shots fired will hit a squaddie storming the doors in a diagonal direction. Could the chance of a diagonal shot being blocked by the shield be cranked up to the same as a straight-on shot? It would probably also help to elminate any bugs.

In fact, given that I'm sacrificing a lot of offensive power for a lot of defensive power, why wouldn't the shield just block shots point blank?

[erutan]

Maybe 95% front, 80% angle? I appreciate the shield doesn't cover the entire body, but it should be noticeably safer due to the decrease in DPS.

[Elrim]

Maybe the first shield should be indeed shitty, after all, the xenopedia says that a good plasma bolt can cut through meters of solid steel...

But once you can fabricate shields with alien alloys? Then they should add some nice defense and mitigation

[thothkins]

if only you could select squads for movement. Then you could have 4 xenonauts with shields shuffle up to the ufo covering all sides (only for a grenade to land in the midde of them probably.)