Alternative to personal energy shields

[b0rsuk]

If the idea is to make Melee combat possible, how about smoke grenades ? Reducing vision and ranged accuracy. Smoke grenades (or EMP) would also temporarily disable turrets. Less emphasis on kill boxes, less Tower Defence.

[Mckee]

The arguments about the current shields aside, I think a series of producable shields would be great.
A range from tribal shields (wood+leather), traditional shields (wood+steel), tactical/SWAT shields (steel/plasteel) could be useful, the heavier the shield, the more it slows a character.
Especially if shields work in a particular direction (with partial protection on the flanks, none to the rear) and can be combined with one handed ranged weapons (pilla, pistol, PDW), with a penalty to accuracy, but a bonus to melee attacks, as well as melee protection.
If you wanted to, you could wear an energy weapon over the top too, which might make for interesting scenarios with melee only characters.

[Sorenzo]

Science fiction, as a genre, is a genre of fiction where imaginary technologies, usually posited as being future technologies, allow for the creation of a setting to tell a story that one couldn't tell the same way in a historical or realistic setting.

Realism in science fiction is practically defined by how few made-up premises the setting includes. The reason Dune and Firefly are considered great works of science fiction is partly because of this realism. If Dune or Firefly were said to be inspired in part by Star Wars, we would still take it less serious if suddenly Jedis show up, making both lasguns and shields useless because magic.

There's a difference between being inspired by a great work of fiction and merging the setting of one's own fiction with the fiction of that great work. The universe is ideally supposed to be self-contained, or it simply isn't a credible universe. As far as the Rimworld universe is concerned, the Dune universe is a 3500-year-old fiction. If the Holtzman effect exists in Rimworld, then Dune is not a 3500-year-old fiction, but a work of prophecy, presumably with its own cult claiming that Dune is 100% historically accurate.

That's the difference between inspiration and ... whatever the heck some people are doing.

That said, games don't have to make sense in order to be fun. Tynan could well implement orcish raiding parties, as you'd see in Warhammer 40K. It'd probably be fun. But I'd like to see you try to explain how that really makes sense from a fiction standpoint.

Either way, it's perfectly sensible for Tynan to simply give no explaination of the energy shields. If there's no explaination, then there's no ret-conning and no confusion and no posited physical properties that may or may not be borrowed from Dune.

I'd just prefer actual, physical shields because actual, physical shields make more sense (both from a realism perspective and because, as I said, it makes no damned sense for raiders to have energy shields and stone shivs.)

[Viceroy]

I doubt there is a cult of people following Dune as prophecy in the game any more than people in real life are following Star Trek as being prophetic of the automated sliding door.. The game incorporates certain elements of the Dune universe, like knife-fighting with energy shields.

Not the books themselves. And energy shields are pretty much in-line with what Glitterworlds are capable of. So it isn't at all jarring to me.

That being said, I do think techlevel appropriate weapons should be included with melee attackers wearing the shields (stone shiv + energy shield = lolwut?). And I also second the proposition of low-tech craftable physical shield-shields. That would have the added benefit of being able to block melee weapons with a certain efficacy.

[Kegereneku]

Maybe we can agree that the problem is the lack of gradual evolution ?
Glitterworld justify energy shield existing, but the lack of equivalent for low tech threat isn't.

I put it on Rimworld being Alpha and so lacking most of the game-balance content that would make the game progress smoothly. (both in items and research)

[Gemeciusz]

And while we are ar w40k, this game needs chain swords, and chain shields, aaaand chain bikinies...
But on topic : I personalky would love to see the combat system redisegned a bit so colonists have 2 separate hands, so a survival rifle, or a minigun would take both, but you could pair up a gladius and a buckler or a two pistols or even a pistol and a mace, now that would feel awesom. I shoot them till they get close than hit them on the head with my gloving (why aren't they glow ingame yet) uranium mace.
One or two more that just came to me (not exactly on topic, but hell) : utility slot, like a belt slot or something, so personal shields wont compromise armor, it could be used for other utility equipments, like target finders for ranged combatants, or multi purpose tools for the builder/miner civilians, or even a nice pheromone package for the colonies warden.
And traits like defensive combatant: feels better while protected (mood buff for having a pesonal shield on, debuff if not), ambidex (faster attack rate with two separate weapons) shieldbearer (better accuracy while carrying a classic shield), favoured hand (more accurate and faster with a single one haneded weapon) and so on...

[Sorenzo]

Yeah, I guess it's silly of me to judge the discrepancy between shields and weapons when the game is still in alpha. I still think shields are a good idea for the game, I just think energy shields are kinda unnecessary and weird.

I just hope the word "Hoffmann effect" or whatever doesn't show up in-game. I'd consider that breaking immersion, and I like my immersion. It's what keeps me from thinking about my real life, after all.

[ja7833]

I really think it'd make sense to just give people actual shields...

+1

[BetaSpectre]

IMO shields should allow rifles that are long to fire out, and be equipable with any armor.
But be really rare. As is its a stop measure to allow melee to be a viable play style. Though normal shields could take on that role by having a chance to absorb all (chance) or reduce the damage(percent damage taken).

[Mathenaut]

Nothing wrong with energy shields.

I'm just wondering how the 'energy shields are not realistic' position also supports 'normal shields block bullets'.

They don't, nor do they protect against much. Even riot shields are mostly only good vs lower caliber fire.

[Johnny Masters]

Medieval shields then Riot shields then Energy shields. There, we can have peace now. And fun.