0019349: Ark Shields only on planets you own? - DEV Arcen

ID	Project	Category		Date Submitted	Last Update

0019349	AI War 2	Gameplay Idea		Jan 25, 2018 2:52 pm	Feb 26, 2018 2:28 pm

Reporter	Chris_McElligottPark	Assigned To	keith.lamothe
Status	closed	Resolution	won't fix
Product Version	0.702 Activating Mk1 Grinding Machine

Summary	0019349: Ark Shields only on planets you own?
Description	Okay, so first of all, we had a lengthy discussion on email about how the shields on the Ark were training players in bad behavior on always keeping their stuff shielded, and I still agree on all that. All the early-game bits also make more sense the way they are now, too. Love all that. My thought is more toward the late game, and only in a defensive sense. I'll admit that the reason this is coming to mind in particular is the progression of the voice warnings from the Watch Commander character. She starts out talking about your Ark shields being under attack, which is like "okay, that's a thing, but probably not a big deal." Then shields are down, and you know it's a lot more serious. Then taking more and more damage, she gets more and more threatening-noting. I suppose that we could accomplish the same thing by talking about Ark percentages of health, since it's a giant ball of iron now, essentially. Basically when the Ark is taking minor fire she doesn't even mention it, it just plays the little alarm sound. But hit 90% and she's giving a warning like the old "shields taking damage" notice or something of that sort. Hit 50% and it's like the shields are down stage. Etc. So that's one way to handle it, and we can close this suggestion if that's what we want to do. BUT. Are we having "candy techs" in the sense of unlocking things other than ships? If so, my thought was that it might be nice to have "conditional shields" as an unlockable. Basically you don't start out with them, but you can choose to unlock shields for your Ark that make it better-defended and able to shield other ships near it... but only on planets you own. That would create a couple of interesting gameplay situations: 1. When do I unlock that, or can I avoid unlocking it? It's purely defensive, and not likely needed in the early game, so can I defer that science cost? That's an interesting decision. 2. Suddenly protecting the planetary controller on planets that my Ark is on in the late game is way more important. The Ark is a big ball of iron either way, sure, but all the shields on it gets dropped if the planetary controller goes down, so now that's a new thing I have to consider. That's interesting to me. 3. Whenever I'm moving my Ark around, particularly traveling through enemy space, that comfortable shield won't be there at all, which makes things seem oh so much more dangerous. I like this a lot, because it's very interesting tension. All of that said, either way I probably need to get some more voice lines recorded from Alicia, who plays the watch commander. I'll probably wait until I get a batch of taunts from the backers who backed at the level where you can give player taunts to the AI, though, and send all those over to her at once. I'm honestly okay with this going either direction.
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Date Modified	Username	Field	Change
Jan 25, 2018 2:52 pm	Chris_McElligottPark	New Issue
Jan 25, 2018 2:52 pm	Chris_McElligottPark	Status	new => assigned
Jan 25, 2018 2:52 pm	Chris_McElligottPark	Assigned To	=> keith.lamothe
Feb 26, 2018 2:28 pm	Chris_McElligottPark	Status	assigned => closed
Feb 26, 2018 2:28 pm	Chris_McElligottPark	Resolution	open => won't fix
Feb 26, 2018 2:28 pm	Chris_McElligottPark	Note Added: 0047078