[T:V] Controlable Shield Packs

We all know the basic uses for a shield pack: See incoming fire? Slap your pack key and hope you live. :] Now an expert base raper will tell you that timing and using the shield pack requires a degree of skill, but I've had this idea, which could really bring a new level of depth to the shield pack.

The shiled button is now a press-and-hold button. If you just tap the shield pack, it wil arm then disarm immediatly. Now the shield pack only covers a part of your body, probably one forth. So your front, back, or one of your two sides. The shield pack is controlable, lasts around 10 times longer, but will not protect you if you're hit from an area not being covered by the shield pack. Also, the shield pack no longer draws energy from your main supply. It has it's own supply, similar to the firing energy on Tanks and Bombers in T2.

But there are new aspects of the shield pack, such as if a person if touching your front, where the shield ray appers, they are thrown off you with great force. Think of Snowblind, where a person is body blocking the front door. A capper comes in, he is body blocked and in that split second, he goes flying away before he can do any significant damage to the LD. If a mortar hits you but it's too close to detonate, and you tap your shield pack key, the mortar is pushed off away from you at alarmingly fast speeds.

Now the shield pack dosn't just absorb, it refelcts. But a negative aspect to the shield pack, is while you have the pack armed, you are not able to shoot. By being able to control where the pack is protecting, you can change the angle to which the projectiles go. Think of two medium/heavy base rapers fighting, using a mix of disc launchers, and shield packs. One shoots a disc, then richochets the disc from the enemy. Now the other player has the option to shoot a disc, or richochet the two discs coming at him. Of course, each richochet would take some energy from the pack, but not to significant, so the player can still deflect a good amount of projectiles. Much more than if you were comparing a shield pack in Tribes 1 or 2 to absorb.

Use your imagination, somthing like this could be amazingly fun and cool.

1) sup kirk u sexy thang

2) some nice ideas in thar

3) reflecting idea might be kinda gay (capper could use it and send a HoF flying 500 m off the stand - would be too easy to clear flag)

No.

If you enjoy wearing a shield pack without being able to return fire while the pack is enabled go play planetside as a NC Max and observe how utterly gay it is.

Did you just skim the post and look for the first thing you thought was dumb. The difference is that you richochet fire.

Also, projectiles in Tribes are so amazingly different than in Planetside and other games there is absolutely no comparison there.

No.
Dumb idea.
If you enjoy wearing a shield pack without being able to return fire while the pack is enabled go play planetside as a NC Max and observe how utterly gay it is.

Wah. If you'd read, there was more to it than just the reflecting idea.

I read the entire post.
That was merely the staple remark which struck me as being the brightest :).

The only concept in your post which I just slightly agree upon is that it'd be nice to have two energy reserves if you're wearing a spack.

Holding down an activation key to maintain the spacks on status would be extremely annnoying.

If you made the spack 10x stronger just in particular areas where you were prepared to receive enemy fire, you'd be essentially invincible in a tight space, spammning an entry point....etc.

The bouncing aspect, meh.

Wah. If you'd read, there was more to it than just the reflecting idea.

*SLURP*

I pay him well for his services.

Again I can see about the restrction of movement with the key held down. Toggable prefernce?

I use my arrow keys to move, and enter as my "Use Pack" key, so holding Enter would be pretty easy while jetting and moving, unless I was trying to ski, which I use Rcontrol.

The idea is basically not bad, it rather has technical obstacles. Holding down a key to use shield can not only be annoying, but some keyboards can't handle it when more then 2-3 keys are pressed at the same time, so even going forward, strafing and using the shield would not work. Controlling where you want the shield to be would also add an unneeded amount of complexity. As for the knockback, it could be done by adding a line or two to your player.cs :)

I had always wanted a script to make the shield pack toggle as you describe for t2. Never found one.

I think we need new pack ideas to make packs other than energy a little more viable. The e-pack is used sooo much more than of the others because they were all worth less execpt for repair and sheild. It would have been cool to be able to go out and fight with a repair pack or a ammo pack or something. But energy pack gave way too much an advantage over the others.

You idea for a shield pack is way too complex and overpowerd, in my opion anyway. I could list the reason, but aren't they obvious?

If I was to tweek the shield pack, I would change it to let a little damage leak in. So that with a shield you are not totally protected. But maybe it could be a little stronger to compensate or not. I mostly play arena so maybe my thoughts on shield pack doesn't translate well into ctf or other game types.

We all know the basic uses for a shield pack: See incoming fire? Slap your pack key and hope you live. :] Now an expert base raper will tell you that timing and using the shield pack requires a degree of skill, but I've had this idea, which could really bring a new level of depth to the shield pack.

The shiled button is now a press-and-hold button. If you just tap the shield pack, it wil arm then disarm immediatly. Now the shield pack only covers a part of your body, probably one forth. So your front, back, or one of your two sides. The shield pack is controlable, lasts around 10 times longer, but will not protect you if you're hit from an area not being covered by the shield pack. Also, the shield pack no longer draws energy from your main supply. It has it's own supply, similar to the firing energy on Tanks and Bombers in T2.

Tap-and-direct shield pack: yes.
Separate power supply: no.

But there are new aspects of the shield pack, such as if a person if touching your front, where the shield ray appers, they are thrown off you with great force. Think of Snowblind, where a person is body blocking the front door. A capper comes in, he is body blocked and in that split second, he goes flying away before he can do any significant damage to the LD. If a mortar hits you but it's too close to detonate, and you tap your shield pack key, the mortar is pushed off away from you at alarmingly fast speeds.

deflecting players: no.

Now the shield pack dosn't just absorb, it refelcts. But a negative aspect to the shield pack, is while you have the pack armed, you are not able to shoot. By being able to control where the pack is protecting, you can change the angle to which the projectiles go. Think of two medium/heavy base rapers fighting, using a mix of disc launchers, and shield packs. One shoots a disc, then richochets the disc from the enemy. Now the other player has the option to shoot a disc, or richochet the two discs coming at him. Of course, each richochet would take some energy from the pack, but not to significant, so the player can still deflect a good amount of projectiles. Much more than if you were comparing a shield pack in Tribes 1 or 2 to absorb.

not being able to shoot while using pack: NO.
reflecting shots at close range: maybe, probably no.

I really like the idea of a controlable shield pack that only covers part of the body. It would require alot more skill. Another thing that might help balance this is to make it an option of the regular shield pack. You can either use it at regular energy usage as a full body shield, or at reduced energy useage for location blocking.

As for deflecting objects, it should only deflect objects at the same rate as hitting the player normally would, no extra boost. If you get naded before the fuse goes off, it should deflect but only at the same force that it would if it hit a non-shielded player. Added boosts bring up all kinds of exploit possibilities in a game that is all about movement (team player discs off the shield for huge boost).

This is one of the best creative ideas I've heard yet though, very creative but still keeping in the line of tribes equipment.

Well said Sniper, and I guess I should have made it more clear that the ideas were stand alone. I was just throwing out every idea that came into my head. I heard a lot of people saying they'd like a melee aspect to the game, and I think that something along these lines could fill that void.

i like the directional shield idea, but all the reflecting crap is a gumming up the game too much. just make it shield most of the front of you, and have a small energy draw. makes it more useful for actual fighting and jetting if it's not sucking 50% of your power.

I'd like to see the "decoy" pack --- turn it on and every projectile that comes within a small distance of you hits you. With skill you might even perhaps draw the fire, turn it off, and then dodge.

Just an idea - maybe it sucks, i dunno.

if they have shield packs in t:v, then they should make them look like the shields did in DUNE (the movie).

Archaic

The characteristics your portray for this shield pack, fit more into the range of a gun that can be pointed, much like the shield gun in UT2k3.

TseTse and V5Planet once tried this on the torque engine with no success, but the idea might be cool for a mod. Shield guns can be fired or activated for a number of seconds and protect the player from a mortar blast or for bodyblocking an incomming capper on the flag stand.

It would change way too many things of gameply, so perhaps its best suited for a mod than for what should be the "base" ruleset.

Regards
BinderAJ
[KY] Kentucky Rogues

Isn't T:V being coded in the Unreal Engine?

K.i.s.s.

Isn't T:V being coded in the Unreal Engine?

Yes.
That would be pretty cool if the graphic effects for the T:V shield pack looked similar in appearance to the shield gun in UT2k3. Except instead of covering just one angle, it would be a circular bubble surrounding the player.