Shields

[Chimaera717]

One thing I have noticed since I started playing was the DISTINCT lack of visible shields on warships during combat. This has bothered me immensely.

 

However, I recently realized that each ship DOES indeed have a shield mesh completed and mapped to it - all you need to do is go into each ship in GameInfo and switch "Render Shields" to TRUE and they will appear during combat.

 

This has increased my immersion in the SW experience DRAMATICALLY and I wouldn't recommend anyone play without shield visibility on. However, this begs two questions:

 

1) Why were they turned off in the first place?

 

2) Is it possible to alter the shield mesh for the Yuuzhan Vong to create smaller, circular voids that the dovin basals created to serve as shields?

 

Thanks!

[Evaders99]

Pretty sure they were turned off for performance issues. With the game trying to calculate all the shield collisions, it just would slow down too much

[EvilleJedi]

turning off shields was a fix I asked for in a patch, it was a gigantic performance hit even with heavily optimized shields (I'm talking about shields with very few polygons, like 20 or so) The shield rendering actually bothers me a lot because of the fall off of the effect. I wouldn't have a problem if it was pretty localized, but with the volume of fire the shield become almost completely opaque within seconds and all you see is that and it looks BAD

[Chimaera717]

That's strange - I haven't seen any performance hit at all, and I don't exactly have the greatest PC in the world. And yeah, some of the shields aren't rendered great yet (if they're going to exist, it needs to be an actual bubble around the ship, not a form-fitting polygon; for example, Star Destroyer shields look terrible), but I still prefer them on, even with the opacity issue.

 

But yeah, as to my second question about Vong shields - is that possible?

[EvilleJedi]

I haven't seen any way to do that with the vong shields, the hit effects are determined by the weapon but can't be modified by the target. In Homeworld 2 the easy hack was to make it so that the anti missile weapons did the void effect, so it looked almost right, some shots getting through and voids all around the ships. I guess we could look into some sort of generic void effect triggered by an ability when the ship is under attack, but it definitly won't match the income fire, just be a random effect

[Chimaera717]

Random effect will be fine, I believe.

 

On another note, because of all the modifications I've made to damage counts and the like on those factions, I haven't been using svn to update - has there been any significant improvements in the last month or two (like a new skin or two being completed)? If so, I'll have to backup my changes and get the newest version.

[sloosecannon]

Actually, about the shields, they would be a mostly form-fitting bubble array from mulitple projectors around the ship...

but as I recall, the shields were removed for performance and because in real star wars, you don't really have a visible shield...

[soul0reaper]

maybe you can have an option in the effects section to toggle visible shields or not?

[SplaJTt]

@Chimaera717

Great thanks dude, for giving the info (and I was wondering, where the hell shields are gone )

 

About shields them selfs - yes, in star wars there wasn't visible shields. But it really makes game more realistic (especially with SOGE, where we have like 20 000 points of shield with some ships) - when you see shield with sihields up is shooted, you actually feel, like this ship is untouched, invicible.

When shields goes down, you can see how fast ships armor gets crushed by green plasma <3 pure beauty beauty.

 

And I have noticeable preformance changes only in great battles (I mean, really great battles, like 2 full fleets vs 2 full fleets).

Anyway, if someones hardware can't handle it, I'd advice to turn shield rendering at least for capital ships + ships as big as excutor (eventually also for big cruisiers), because on small ships like frigates, it's hard to see those shields in great battle, and they slow down preformance mostly.

 

maybe you can have an option in the effects section to toggle visible shields or not?

Yeah, that would be great.

[Chimaera717]

I am fairly certain that we can recode shields as a whole - instead of showing up in increasing opacity due to increased fire, just show up AT ALL when fire is being taken - make them a golden bubble around the ship (not directly tied to the ships perimeters - this is SW canon from the books) and, instead of increasing opacity under heavy fire, DECREASING opacity under fire as the shields fail.

 

That would increase the immersive quality of the game AND make the shields look better.

[SplaJTt]

Hmmm...

You know, basicly those shields are not suposed to be seen untill ship gets heavy fire (I'm not sure as it is in SW, but thats what happens with shields in most sci-fi universes). Also, maybe those shields in main SW were just not advanced enought, to be seen around ships? Here in SOGE we actually advance in tech during game.

[Chimaera717]

Hmmm...

You know, basicly those shields are not suposed to be seen untill ship gets heavy fire (I'm not sure as it is in SW, but thats what happens with shields in most sci-fi universes). Also, maybe those shields in main SW were just not advanced enought, to be seen around ships? Here in SOGE we actually advance in tech during game.

 

Actually, George Lucas is on record saying he wished the technology was there at the time to portray shields around warships - instead, the closest we get is that lasers rarely actually impact on ships (note the close-quarters fight between the ISD1 and the Tantive IV at the beginning of ANH), and then he didn't include visible shield projection in the new series because it would have been too much of a switch from the old movies.

 

HOWEVER, in the written expanded universe shields are described as a non-form fitting (AKA, symmetrical) golden bubble around the warship that is clearly visible when fired upon.

[SplaJTt]

Yea, that was my point. Honestly IMO (well, just my opinion) it shouldn't be changed - it's cool as it is. Only thing which would really be cool, is letting players activate / deactivate their visibility at all, because on beta test, with each update we download, we'd have to manually change "false" to "true" once again

[soul0reaper]

Theres a new version out? xD

 

In the movies you only see shields when a ship is under a hailstorm of fire. there are little opaque flashes.

Regarding cannon, Isn't movie cannon a tier higher than EU? So if your wanting to be cannonically (that a word?) correct, go faint/no shields.

 

btw how does formfitting indicate less technologically advanced shields?

[Chimaera717]

Theres a new version out? xD

 

In the movies you only see shields when a ship is under a hailstorm of fire. there are little opaque flashes.

Regarding cannon, Isn't movie cannon a tier higher than EU? So if your wanting to be cannonically (that a word?) correct, go faint/no shields.

 

btw how does formfitting indicate less technologically advanced shields?

I never said formfitting indicates less technology - it just looks worse all around.

 

As for canon, when the movies don't address an issue but the books do, it's still canon.

[soul0reaper]

Theres a new version out? xD

 

In the movies you only see shields when a ship is under a hailstorm of fire. there are little opaque flashes.

Regarding cannon, Isn't movie cannon a tier higher than EU? So if your wanting to be cannonically (that a word?) correct, go faint/no shields.

 

btw how does formfitting indicate less technologically advanced shields?

I never said formfitting indicates less technology - it just looks worse all around.

 

As for canon, when the movies don't address an issue but the books do, it's still canon.

But it wouldn't be wrong for them to not have them either I personally like an unobtrusive shield, like the faint kind or reactionary .

[SplaJTt]

Atm shields are turned off, so why are you saying "it would be good to not have them" ^^.

I'm just saying, it'd be good idea, to make them turnable in options, so anyone can decide how they want to have shields - visible or not.