@comradestryker said in The Problems With The UEF - Part 2 (ACU Billy Nuke Upgrade):
If I may answer...
Of course, and thankyou for explaining further!
Artillery shells that would've otherwise missed would either collide with the Shield - damaging all other shields too, directly or indirectly due to spillover damage - or it would hit the Fatboy, and since it's so large, the unit would take damage.
Even if the shields could cover the Fatboy - which they only partially do - the Fatboy's shield is far too big, meaning it's almost always exposed somewhere which means it will likely still take damage even if a Parashield blocks it.
So, if the Fatboy still takes damage when shielded with mobile shields and when not shielded, then what's the point?
It's a waste of mass.
This is what I'm getting at - the fact that shots that hit a mobile shield also do 50% of that damage to overlapping mobile shields (a FaF change) feels like it just ruins the ability to use shields to defend against artillery, and since fatboys ALWAYS feature mobile shield combat (ie. they have a huge shield, and less significantly should always build more when stationary), it seems to affect them particularly.
Artillery obviously tends not to miss against the huge target of a shield bubble, and this 50% extra damage bonus per shield (even without the artillery AOE hitting more than 1 bubble at a time, which makes the effect much worse) just feels like it makes approaching artillery with moving shields - including the fatboy, a bit too poor.
From reading old threads, I get the impression that these nerfs to shields, and MASSIVE nerfs to mobile shields, were made to stop players from turtling using shields packed really densely. In that case, it makes sense that the penalty wasn't so large on shield buildings (where they only take 10%, rather than 50%, IIRC) since it's hard to 'mass' static shields - there's not enough space etc...
But I feel like this FaF change just makes mobile shields absolutely junk against long-range defensive positions.
ie. The intended effect of that shield nerf - weakening static emplacements, actually seems to work the other way... Overlapping shield building bubbles can still be somewhat strong (only 10% damage spread), but mobile shields (50% damage spread) are now unable to approach them.
I quite liked the suggestions for fatboys having anti-artillery weaponry. I understand why players don't want 'special cases' (quick aside - Was there a similar anti-artillery weapon in the Xbox-exclusive units, somewhere?).
But, I wonder whether the problem is only so significant, and solutions being suggested, because of how backbreaking FaF's massive 50% penalty for overlapping mobile shields actually is?
If only there were a way of keeping mobile shields strong, but stopping them from helping turtles?
Is there a possibility of making 'popped' shield bubbles destroy power generators in a sort of 'chain reaction' effect? That might be a better way of limiting overlapping shields (particularly given how mobiles shields were at their worst when defending power/air grids or artillery (artillery needing power gen adjacency to maximise firerate etc).
Just some thoughts, related to how mobile shields feel 'too weak' when used to approach enemy static positions, which seems to be their intended niche.
Apologies for the long replies.
Sometimes, there's too much to say about something, and to save you some time, I'll stop here.
Otherwise, I'd go on for another 3000 words.
I'm unsure about others, but I appreciate the info you're feeding me. I always figure that discussing the game is the reason people come to gaming forums, so what the hell, I write word after word after word!