Combat shield too heavy to be useful. Suggest adding one feature too.

[StellarRat]

I can't use armor or carry much when I have one of these. A strong soldier should be able to carry one with armor on and have at least a pistol and a couple grenades. I think it could be lighter and protect from the sides a bit more. Real assault shields wrap around a bit and will protect you for about 120 degrees. I've picked these up at the prison and they're not that heavy. Mostly they just make it impossible to use two handed weapons. Additionally, some of the ones at the prison are electrified thus act like a Taser if someone charges you. That would be very handy against Reapers. Maybe when electro-shock grenades come in the shield could be charged too.

BTW, I'm still have CTD's when using shields, so for now I've given them up.

[GizmoGomez]

I second the opinion that the shields are too heavy, and that their protection should be upped. I mean, with the higher accuracy (love that) the shield's getting bypassed too much.

I don't remember what the numbers are right now, but IMO they should give you 100% protection from the front if you are crouching. If you aren'y crouching, maybe 80% protection from the front, or 85%. The sides should only be maybe 5-10% less effective than the front; as Stellar pointed out, they do cover quite a bit of you.

I'd like to repeat my request for another shield: We have a tier 1 armor shield, and we have another one later game (assault shield, correct?). Because we have three tiers of armor (basic/jackal, buzzard/wolf, sentinel/predator) we should also have three tiers of shields.

[thothkins]

From another thread on this.

I don't think they should be so light that you can use a soldier with a shield as a scout, or protecting a soldier who is acting as one. It looks a bit odd. So, if it has to be lighter, it should be based on just getting armour onto a strong soldier.

just a thought.

[StellarRat]

From another thread on this.

I don't think they should be so light that you can use a soldier with a shield as a scout, or protecting a soldier who is acting as one. It looks a bit odd. So, if it has to be lighter, it should be based on just getting armour onto a strong soldier.

just a thought.

Can you clarfiy a bit? What do you mean by "getting armor onto a strong soldier"?

[StellarRat]

I second the opinion that the shields are too heavy, and that their protection should be upped. I mean, with the higher accuracy (love that) the shield's getting bypassed too much.

I don't remember what the numbers are right now, but IMO they should give you 100% protection from the front if you are crouching. If you aren'y crouching, maybe 80% protection from the front, or 85%. The sides should only be maybe 5-10% less effective than the front; as Stellar pointed out, they do cover quite a bit of you.

I'd like to repeat my request for another shield: We have a tier 1 armor shield, and we have another one later game (assault shield, correct?). Because we have three tiers of armor (basic/jackal, buzzard/wolf, sentinel/predator) we should also have three tiers of shields.

I'm not sure we need to up the armor ratings, but definitely the LOF blocking should be very high from the front and more from the sides, I'd say Front 95% when crouched, 80% standing. Sides 50% - 75% crouched and 40% - 60% standing. Actually, the best method to determine the block % from the sides would be to calculate the exposed percentage with some trigonometry and use that to determine the hit/miss %.

[GizmoGomez]

From another thread on this.

I don't think they should be so light that you can use a soldier with a shield as a scout, or protecting a soldier who is acting as one. It looks a bit odd. So, if it has to be lighter, it should be based on just getting armour onto a strong soldier.

just a thought.

What's wrong with acting as a scout?

I can do whatever I want with my soldiers, they don't care that they look weird.

[thothkins]

when I say "use as a scout", I mean a slow moving encumbered scout that's clearly lugging a big shield across the map. I would never infringe upon your right to call him a scout or anything else you wanted

[SteelSoldier]

I would reduce the weight of the shield by about 10-15%, so at least earlier on I can actually bring 1 or 2 clips for my pistol, this would be sufficient in my opinion.

[cody522]

Combat Shields may need a buff then. Maybe we'll try setting them so they cover all three tiles in front of the soldier (if they don't already?) and weigh a bit less. The fact they fill one hand already makes them a weapon you wouldn't issue to every soldier, so possibly the existing weight is a bit too high as it shouldn't prevent a soldier from wearing armour too.

Sounds like it may all ready be planned. Hopefully in a hotfix.

[StellarRat]

Sounds like it may all ready be planned. Hopefully in a hotfix.

Good. I think that's exactly what we're all hoping for.

[henri5]

Note that although the shields are too heavy for most soldiers at the start, the soldier strength rapidly increases enough to carry the shield, armor, a pistol, a medkit, and sometimes a shotgun, although when laser pistols come online, there is no more need for the shotgun. I find it interesting to have to make the decision whether my shield man should have armor or a shotgun and grenades.

If the shield is made too light, the soldiers carrying them could be practically invulnerable and two shield soldiers could take out the early aliens all by themselves, not to mention a sweep by 3 or 4 shielded soldiers. As for invading alien ships in the early game, I find that having two shield men opening the door and shooting with their pistols take little or no damage most of the time.

Edited August 21, 2013 by henri5

[cody522]

Note that although the shields are too heavy for most soldiers at the start, the soldier strength rapidly increases enough to carry the shield, armor, a pistol, a medkit, and sometimes a shotgun, although when laser pistols come online, there is no more need for the shotgun. I find it interesting to have to make the decision whether my shield man should have armor or a shotgun and grenades.

If the shield is made too light, the soldiers carrying them could be practically invulnerable and two shield soldiers could take out the early aliens all by themselves, not to mention a sweep by 3 or 4 shielded soldiers. As for invading alien ships in the early game, I find that having two shield men opening the door and shooting with their pistols take little or no damage most of the time.

I don't know about that, when under fire my shields shatter pretty fast. Usually a plasma pistol burst or a single plasma rifle shot will lower the shield's health to around 20 HP or break. I believe they're underpowered as it is.

[GizmoGomez]

Yeah, they can take maybe two to four hits on a good day. That benefit is balanced out by having no second hand for a larger weapon.

[EchoFourDelta]

Maybe... the aliens should be designed a bit more cleverly, or dangerously. If depicting such a basic piece of human technology as a ballistic shield in anything remotely approaching the near vicinity of a possible location of an accurate fashion craps all over the aliens... well.

It might be informative for people to take some time modding some of the human soldiers, tech, and capabilities in a more accurate fashion, perhaps as a private test, and then start building the aliens as more fearsome combatants, with truly brutal tech, and see if it makes things "feel" better.

I understand the need for balance and playability as much as the next guy, and I'm not saying build XCOM: ARMA Edition. But when you go so far off base on little things that all it does is make people raise their eyebrows, one has to wonder if it's going in the wrong direction.

Edited August 21, 2013 by EchoFourDelta

[StellarRat]

Maybe... the aliens should be designed a bit more cleverly, or dangerously. If depicting such a basic piece of human technology as a ballistic shield in anything remotely approaching the near vicinity of a possible location of an accurate fashion craps all over the aliens... well.

It might be informative for people to take some time modding some of the human soldiers, tech, and capabilities in a more accurate fashion, perhaps as a private test, and then start building the aliens as more fearsome combatants, with truly brutal tech, and see if it makes things "feel" better.

I understand the need for balance and playability as much as the next guy, and I'm not saying build XCOM: ARMA Edition. But when you go so far off base on little things that all it does is make people raise their eyebrows, one has to wonder if it's going in the wrong direction.

I tried that a long time ago, but the biggest problem is coming up with a good baseline for everything. What I found was that currently human weapon technology is so spreadout on the amount of damage that it can do that either the aliens are invincible to everything a human can carry or they can be slaughtered by just by selecting the right weapon. For example: I modded up an M60 (instead of a SAW) for the LMG using the in game AR cartridge as my baseline (5.56 mm) for power and accuracy and taking the accuracy as judged by the US Army qualifying standards for both weapons. What I ended up with was an LMG that absolutely slaughtered any alien that was spotted. Now, I know that IRL a properly setup LMG is probably as good as a death ray against any humanoid creature, but it totally unbalanced the game. However, if you make aliens able to stand up to LMG fire, then they are pretty much invulnerable to any light arms and you'd have to have all your soldiers carrying RPGs, AT-4s, Dragons and the like. It's very difficult to achieve any type of balance when you inject even a moderate amount of "realism" into mix. Edited August 21, 2013 by StellarRat

[Gazz]

Trying to add realism in a game where you have all kind of weirdness like an assault rifle with an effective range of maybe 50m (just one example), adding realism by translating RL stats into the game can only result in mirth. =)

If you can balance the role of a weapon to be useful in "realistic" situations then you're doing good.

Sure, if you create your own game and put everything on the correct scale, maybe with tactical combat maps of at least 1 km², then you can use realistic sight (borderline) and weapon ranges, projectile properties... and all the gun porn you want. =)

[StellarRat]

Trying to add realism in a game where you have all kind of weirdness like an assault rifle with an effective range of maybe 50m (just one example), adding realism by translating RL stats into the game can only result in mirth. =)

If you can balance the role of a weapon to be useful in "realistic" situations then you're doing good.

Sure, if you create your own game and put everything on the correct scale, maybe with tactical combat maps of at least 1 km², then you can use realistic sight (borderline) and weapon ranges, projectile properties... and all the gun porn you want. =)

Yeah, that's pretty much my line of thinking on it too.