Assisting shields
One new feature added in the recent patch that we haven’t yet mentioned is the ability of engineers to assist shields. Essentially, engineers can now assist shields in a manner similar to how they could already assist factories.
At first glance, this may seem like a poorly balanced feature. After all, what is to prevent players from just assisting their shields with hordes of engineers, thus creating impenetrable defenses? The answer is simple: the cost. Engineers assisting a shield are using resources at a high rate. This costs both energy and, more importantly, mass. The mass thus used to sustain shields should instead in most situations be used to build offensive capability, or reinvested into growing an economy. In addition, even with infinite resources there is a small reaction time for your engineers to start their work after the shield is first hit. This means that powerful weapons like the Monkeylord laser or heavy enough artillery bombardment are still able to knock out shields.
Because of these factors, I don’t anticipate this new feature being used all that much. Still, it could definitely come in handy in some specialized situations, such as protecting a vital forward installation from artillery, or holding off some Scathi long enough to scramble strategic bombers. My one concern is that this tactic is rather susceptible to micromanagement. Telling your engineers to start assisting at just the right moment can be much more effective than just telling them to assist a shield and forget about it. For example, with the right timing, it is actually possible to make a shield withstand the aforementioned Monkeylord laser. Still, I don’t think these are major concerns, and so I think this new feature is a good one.
May 25th, 2007 at 12:37 am
I was just messing around in sandbox, and I actually got a shield to withstand a monkey lords laser… tech 2 UEF pulse shield+a buttload of ACU’s(Yes, cheats) with engineering upgrade+alot of resource buildings(go copy and paste)+ a bit of micro. I think I may have gone a bit overboard… but oh well
May 25th, 2007 at 1:00 am
i dont understand
May 25th, 2007 at 1:26 am
This feature really annoys me, because I like using SCUs to rebuild heavy shields after they’ve been demolished. How do you do this? You assist the shield. So now the SCU will pump all my mass into the shield instead of rebuilding it / repairing it when it’s damaged.
May 25th, 2007 at 2:30 am
This feature actually saved my base earlier today (yesterday now). There I was being assaulted by Broadswords and he had snuck a few SABs into my base and damaged a shield. I was repairing the shield generator so that if the shield went down I wouldn’t instantly lose the gen, and behold! It repaired the shield. This also allowed me to finish my tech 3 anti air and fend off his attack.
In cases such as this, it’s a very useful feature.
Also: I don’t know if anyone else noticed, but Revenents’ bombs go through shields. I don’t remember if they did before, but I think they didn’t. This just goes to show that even if you do have the most amazing shield system you’re still screwed if they assault your base with Revs and three get through the outer defenses. I tested this with Shockers and they still get stopped by the shields (if there’s only one because one knocks level 2 UEF shields out)
May 25th, 2007 at 4:34 am
UEFs T3 strat bomber also ignores shields. I killed a fatboy with them without actually taking down it’s shield first. Was kinda strange.
May 25th, 2007 at 8:13 am
It is also possible to repair shields by pressing e (for repair) and clicking on it. I haven’t tested this, but it shouldn’t rebuild the shield; if it does, GPG has really dropped the ball.
May 25th, 2007 at 8:52 am
Unconq: do you mean how it is possible to stop a Monkeylord laser? Essentially, you need to time your assist command just right so that the engineers start assisting the shield as soon as it starts taking damage, but before it falls. If you just order then to assist at any old time, the shield will fall before they start doing anything. However, if you time it just right and have enough resources, you can continuously rebuild the shield while it is taking damage. This is kind of a pathological case, however, as there is no way it is worth the tremendous cost just to have the shield destroyed anyway as soon as the Monkeylord gets inside of it.
May 25th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
It is kinda funny to me that this was just implemented in the patch, because a few days before the patch, when playing a comp-stomp with some friends I became the target of an artillery bombardment. I asked a group of engineers to go assist a shield gen, expecing them to help keep it activated, only to have them do nothing. If only we had been playing after the patch.
Here’s a stupid idea for an experimental unit: The UEF Shield bomber. This unit specializes in reducing the effectiveness of other T4 units, or small groups of lesser units, by dropping bombs that activate a small shield around the target area. The quirk is that this shield reflects energy from within the shield radius, instead of from without.
May 25th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
So you are saying you can rebuild the shield’s shield’s HP?
May 25th, 2007 at 2:30 pm
Yes, shields can be recharged faster by assisting them with engineers.
It’s not that hard dude.
duuhhh… mee no get it, daawwwwwwwwhhhhhh……..
May 25th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
Lay off RDon. It can be confusing because the terminology can be ambiguous: it’s hard to know if “assisting” shield gens mean repairing the physical building or speeding up the shield regeneration. Just be nice.
May 25th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
Shield assisting works really well vs light to medium assaults that would ordinarily drain the shield over the course of a minute or two - like shore bombardments and t2 artillery. Versus anything that will beat out the light repair work done by engineers, mantises, harbingers and so on, the shield will fall, be down while it recharges (and it doesn’t seem to be sped up by assisting when they’re down), and then get taken out.
I’ve watched a replay of a few friends of mine playing and using that tactic against t2 artillery and destroyers. The shield repairs did really well until the enemy player started concentrating his fire on the shield and moved in more units.
May 25th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
Baddox:
I have trisomy-21 and I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t just immediately assume that I was being mean in the first place. I am truely kind at heart, as are most of us Downies, and I’m just struggling to find my place in this world as the rest of you. I’m special, and try my best to be nice.
May 25th, 2007 at 5:18 pm
The shield assist is also very useful in the epic FFA matches that occur on Roanoke Abyss. I just played one, and near the end of it, I have so many resources, that you can have 10 SCU’s recharging the shield and it won’t kill your economy, and it was literally invincible with 3 battleships shooting at it.
May 25th, 2007 at 7:16 pm
RDon: As long as you’re trying.