SUGGESTION: AEON T2 Shield Generator Fix

[Hyperiox]

My suggestion is to reduce the physical size of the AEON T2 Shield Generator: Shield of Light.

I don't suggest any other changes to the building. Keep the shield radius, cost, lack of T3 upgrade and everything else the same.

WHY:

Currently, the building has two critical issues.

Firstly, the shield radius is simply too small for the current building size. By decreasing the size of the building (I recommend from a 6x6 to a 4x4), but leaving the radius the same, it can now appropriately cover buildings like other factions T2 Shield Generators by moving the center closer. Players could still use it as they always have if they wish, but the reduced size adds options.

Second, The fact that the T2 Shield Generator cannot upgrade to the T3 version is a key limitation of the faction, requiring higher micro and inefficiencies. By making these two buildings have distinct sizes, and thus different potential locations for construction, the overlapping of the bubbles becomes a viable option.

This solution makes in-universe sense. The shield generator is an efficient and cheap building, but lacks the upgrade feature for no apparent reason. Being different sizes is a good reason, and expresses the faction's differences more elegantly.

(If someone else has suggested this before, I apologize. I have not looked through the forums extensively, but most posts are simply asking for the T2->T3 upgrade. I prefer to accent the differences between the factions, not minimize them.)

[Deribus]

This suggestion has been made before but on the Discord I believe. I haven't been able to find that discussion.

In any case, 2x2 is less than half the area of 3x3, which means Aeon would be able to pack in over twice the shield generators of any other faction. Even ignoring whether Aeon T2 shield is good or not that's an insane buff.

[IndexLibrorum]

Not all factions need to be equally strong in everything. If you want to depend on really good shields, play with seraphim.

[Dorset]

Please don't make every faction a reskin of the others. Having units/structures that are different and completely weaker or stronger than their inter-faction counterparts is what makes FAF so great.

[Hyperiox]

@Dorset

That would be exactly my point. The way the AEON T2 generator is now, it IS a reskin of the other factions, but with less features. I want to take the fact that T2 does not upgrade to T3, and differentiate it further to make up for what I see as shortcomings.

@Deribus

That's a good point. I suppose when attempting to defend a singular structure, that would flip the script and make AEON much more micro-able than other factions. Perhaps a reduction in shield strength, or increasing the lag time for startup might mitigate the advantage.

Do you disagree with my premise, that the T2 shield generator is bad? I don't see it used often, except maybe for firebases or limited protection against direct fire threats. (EDIT: My apologies. I just read the guidelines for threads in Balance Discussion, and realize that I'm definitely in the 'low effort' category here.)

Thanks for the feedback. I'd love to make my own mod sometime to play around with the idea, and see if it gets popular.

[Nomander]

As Deribus mentioned, I think reducing the size without changing the stats would make it too powerful in firebases, since you can basically stack 4+ instead of 3 shields to defend a T2 PD and they are high HP and low cost compared to UEF/Cybran.

Shield	HP	Mass	HP/Mass
Cybran ED2	7000	460	15.22
Cybran T2 ED1	4000	160	25.00
Sera T2	13000	700	18.57
UEF T2	9000	600	15.00
Aeon T2	11000	480	22.92

Here's the overlap possible for a PD with the current shields:

I don't think being unable to upgrade the shield is a huge drawback, it just requires you to ctrl-k the shield and reclaim the small wreck before building the very cheap T3 shield. It requires some APM but definitely isn't impossible if you're defending something important that requires your attention with shields.

For the size complaint, I'm not sure what you want to shield. It can shield adjacent structures pretty well. Not entirely but almost everything:

For this pgen specific case I'd rather opt for a tiny increase in shield size instead of making the structure smaller.

I've been testing your size idea with the "Create entities" dialog (its in the hotkeys, you use the hotkey while a unit is selected and you can change its blueprint values. Spawn a new copy of the unit to make sure you get all the changes. Requires cheats):
4x4 size is just way too OP, since you get ~8 overlapping shields instead of 3:

5x5 size is enough to cover a pgen but its still a small shield so its not reaching towards diagonals:

It also still increases the coverage from 3 to 4-6 shields:

Decreasing the size even by 1 seems to bring more problems than solutions.

All in all, I understand why you dislike the shield but I think its strengths in HP and cost make it above average for firebases and protecting most directly adjacent things like T3 shields, pgens, factories, or engineers. The T3 shield is also very strong because it's super cheap and the 2nd most powerful, while giving sufficient radius imo: I've seen Aeon T3 shields easily protect air grids, artillery, or game enders from artillery barrages when a sufficient number are built (and number of shields is the most mass-efficient way of defending, so having a cheap shield helps a huge amount - natural regen is nearly worthless while recharge from 0 is extremely strong).

Shield	Shield HP	Mass	BT	HP/Mass
Sera T3	21000	3600	5841	5.83
UEF T3	17000	3300	4988	5.15
Aeon T3	18000	2400	4097	7.50
Cybran ED5	16500	4260	7100	3.87
Cybran T3 ED4	13000	2460	3515	5.28

[snoog]

I'd go for a smaller footprint & weaker shield. Seems like it'd be fun to play with.

[Deribus]

@Nomander covered my thoughts on the subject better than I could have myself. Stats wise Aeon has a very good shield, especially once you factor in its build time. I could see a buff for another 0.1-0.5 radius, but moreso as a consistency fix than because it's underpowered.

Reworking it to a 2x2 structure with ED1 (or worse) stats would be interesting, but the balance implications of such a huge change are so massive that I don't feel confident theorizing whether it'd be a good idea without testing.