Somebody came up with a good point during FNO about how dome shield would stop snipers from shooting in. I could see why they would not want bullets going up through the shields to hit ESF unable to even retaliate. The idea the dev had at the time was giving snipers a special ammo, but what would all the rest of classes do? Say I just took a good high ground position over looking the base as a heavy but, dome shields get in the way making getting to that position kinda useless. Here's my opinion as we were actually ask to discuss this matter: Allow "Bullets" to go through shields. This means both small arms AND ESF rotary + default nose cannon. This would allow air a form of retaliation against infantry shooting at them through the shield. Unlike rocketpods its actually... i would like to say, somewhat hard to aim at infantry with rotary, rewards some form of skill and is still dangerous to actually pull off as you would have to be close and rather still. Those of you who saw FNO, what do you guys think?
Personally I would allow small arms fire through But I would nerf or remove it's damage to ESF's .. It's seems a small price to pay and a fair compromise to get bases more protected. The added bonus being it would give ESF's one less thing to worry about even in open field battles.
That would let shredders and tank busters through as well. I'd rather see them "just" add a damage type to which goes through shields. For say, sniper rifles, battle rifles and... the commissioner?
Hades has it right. Remove small arms damage against ESFs. Allow infantry to shoot through the shield. Don't allow vehicles to shoot through the shield. Done, simple, no complicated additional ammunition that only certain classes can get or certain ESF weapons can or cannot shoot through. No need for all of that.
Does the game class those as small arms fire ? If it does then maybe they could be tweaked to not allow them to pass through. While all Rifles, LMG's, Carbines etc etc etc can.
How about just making the bases larger and remove the fact that 75% of the fighting in a tower is done outside on the landing pads and balconies... Instead of cutting off a massive part of the game?
True. I suppose the easy fix would just be to not allow Bursters/Lock Ons to work through the shield. I myself am okay with that, because I'd be far more interested in the infantry combat going on within the base than shooting up at random aircraft that already can't fire back. Although others might not like such change. Or the really easy fix: Let nothing shoot through the shield period. I understand snipers need to be able to engage from a long distance, but some of these bases have massive interiors as it is. Plus, there's still that sliver of open view between the shield and the top of the walls if you can find the proper perch. Just having a separate ammo solely for penetrating a shield you might shoot through 5% of your playtime seems silly.
I dont think the impromptu dome over a base looks good at all. Biolabs look like they need a dome over them, not so much a small base but I expect this quick fix is going to be implemented on a large scale, cheered on as if its the second coming by anyone whos been killed by a lolpod. From an air perspective the message is ok you had a bit of fun at first, thanks for letting us use you as targets to offload boatloads of AA in many forms and now AA is so saturated with ESF DPS is at an all time low we're now excluding you from several major bases, clear off and fight amongst yourself or scrape out a few kills picking off what stragglers they can between the few 'officially sanctioned' battles of that moment.
How about making the shield collapsable (multigen) and nothing gets through when it's on? That gives incentive to take it down and keep it up.
Two gens, and like this: 2 gens online: blocks all projectiles 1 gen online: blocks all projectiles but small-arms fire 0 gens online - shield down
I'm not a fan of the dome concept unless it's added to the Amp Stations. Most of the other bases, it doesn't make sense. - Any shield should be sectioned, with each section hooked up to a generator. The attackers should have the option to send in infantry to blow a generator, which lets air / armor on high ground be a factor in the courtyard fight. - I'm torn on whether the shield should function like the warp gate (friendly vehicles can pass through, friendly can fire out), or like the gate shields (small arms can fire out, blocks enemy vehicles) or something that blocks all fire and vehicles. Personally, I think the last approach will be best (block everything) because then those shield sections function like virtual wall sections that can be removed. - Shield design should be such that you can't walk on it, like the bio-lab roof. - Shields should be at as low-altitude as possible. So you might add wings off of the Amp Station. Each section offers protection to one fifth of the courtyard below and extends from the roof of the Amp station out to the walls. For a Tech Plant, they might extend down off the flight deck at a 20-30 degree angle on each side, out to a distance of 50-75m.
These new features can turn out right, if certain conditions are met: The infantry-only areas are small and separated from each other. The attackers cannot spawn inside them or drop into them via drop pods - all their spawn points have to be outside and vulnerable to defenders' vehicles. Infantry-based AA assets get nerfed, so that air can once again meaningfully participate in battles and so that air can systematically take out the attackers' spawn points (or defend them from enemy air). To a somewhat lesser extent this applies to infantry-based anti-armor assets. This way proper combined arms balance would be restored and at the same time infantry would be protected from being farmed by infantry-only areas, while still being vulnerable in between those areas.
Add bullet certs to weapons for snipers and and other specific weapons that lets them pass through shields but adds traces too them as they're charged with a special energy or something. Maybe make it so that it does no damage to vehicles if it's possible to add in a code for it.
That whole shield thing is ridiculous. Aircraft will just briefly fly below the shield area, unload their weapons and fly back outside the dome while flak, G2A and all other ground based weapons can't do anything to retaliate. Especially abuseable with Liberators since they can still take a fair deal of hits from flak so that brief moment of exposure below the shield doesn't mean instadeath if there's a MAX or two firing at it. Fly-by Zephers everywhere, calling it now...
Suggestion: Shield Dome works in such way that it will detect any projectile or large object that tries crossing it and will instantly disintegrate or blow it up. (Possibly including drop pods and vehicles?) Consider it is NS tech, the three factions have learned to adapt their weapons. Infantry: Special Ammo type for specialized guns that is coated against this effect, at the cost of not being able to deal damage to lightly-armored vehicles (ESF, Harasser, Flash) and the bullets glowing brightly. Vehicles: It could be possible to specialize vehicle weapons in similar fashion; Bullet-type vehicle weapons could be modded similarly, but considering the tech is pretty unstable, the guns' accuracy drops, causing bullets to stray further from their target. For explosive-type vehicle weapons, I think of a possible payload-system. A special type of shell that is filled with another shell. Upon impact on a shield, it will ignite a small diffuser charge that opens a small hole into the shield and launch the smaller shell through. The drawback are reduced damage and smaller blasts, considering the lowered amount of explosive payload, plus the core shell deviates slightly as it is launched out from the larger shell. These are not to make the shield completely void, but to give people some possibilities to specialize against them, albeit at a loss in efficiency against enemies outside of these shielded places. Another idea could be a special gadget that works like a shield-diffuser, creating a gap inside the shield for a small duration, during which you can fire through said gap (but so can the enemy on the other side).
I imagine low hanging libs will be easily within dumb-fire rocket range, and those put the hurt on libs. How's this for an idea? Amp stations deploy shields over every friendly facility with a path link to them. If it's going to take an ammo cert to shoot through the shields, it should reduce bullet damage. Snipers aren't going to be shooting at light vehicles anyway. It needs to be a universal trade off everyone will feel.
I'd be in favour of a special ammo that greatly reduces damage for bypassing the shield, or no bypassing the shield. The only thing more annoying than getting bombarded by air is getting OHKOed by snipers.
