Shield Bubbles - Consistency (or lack thereof)

[Haste]

Alright, so while attempting to rebalance Nomad snubs and inspecting loads and loads of models and their hitboxes, I noticed something that is incredibly consistent in vanilla Freelancer, but horribly inconsistent in Discovery Freelancer.

Shield bubbles. To illustrate:



Top-left: Vanilla Defender and its (bubble-shaped) shield bubble.
Down-left: Discovery Guardian (the same model as the Defender) and its tight, triangular shield "bubble".
Top-right: Discovery Avenger and its similarly triangular (but obviously larger) shield "bubble".
Down-right: Discovery's Nepthys - shaped much like the Avenger - with an actual bubble-shaped shield bubble.

To summarize: at some point in time, someone decided to take away the Guardian's shield bubble to make it harder to deshield. The Avenger has a similarly 'difficult to hit' shield bubble. The Nepthys, however, has a shield bubble that's shaped like a bubble, like all vanilla fighters.

I'm rather fond of consistency myself and I'd like to see Discovery stick with one type of shield bubble. Either it's what Treewyrm and I came to call an "Extended shrinkwrap" (a shield bubble that goes more-or-less directly from one 'extreme' of the model to the next) for all models or it's a proper bubble for all models.

From my usage of the word "proper" you can guess which one I'd personally rather see. They're called shield bubbles for a reason.

So, what does everyone else think? Should we care about shield bubble consistency at all? Should we have bubble-shaped ones that are substantially larger than the hull, like vanilla's ships? Or should we go for harder-to-hit ones that are merely an extension from the hull?

Would it be worth the trouble to redo a whole lot of shield bubbles for the sake of consistency?

Discuss (:

Please note: the ships in the image are not scaled properly compared to one another. The Guardian isn't bigger than the Defender model, for example.

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[Tachyon]

I already voiced my opinion on this on skype a couple of times; but I'll say it again that I do agree with this and am willing to help re-creating the shieldbubbles once I have all the programs set up on my PC.

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[Highland Laddie]

Seems the bubble shape would be the most consistent...although that would also make de-shielding ships easier, altogether.

Maybe make all shields bubble shaped, along with upping all shield HP by about 10-12%?

[pitockm]

hmm...that would take some time you know...and some are not even possible i guess.

also..try to fight an Asco gunboat. wondering what would you say when you cannot even touch it.( ofc if the pilot is aware of its advantage point. and dodges your fire easily.)

[Haste]

Seems the bubble shape would be the most consistent...although that would also make de-shielding ships easier, altogether.

Maybe make all shields bubble shaped, along with upping all shield HP by about 10-12%?

I believe a fairly substantial part of the server's population believes snubs to be (too) hard to hit. I don't think making their shields (a little) easier to hit would really upset balance too much.

It's primarily about consistency anyways. Look at the poor Nepthys, being a relic of older times, having a far larger shield bubble than its brother from another mother, the Avenger.

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[Omi]

Interesting, although some vanilla ships are balanced in spite of these shield bubbles (which they presumably have), like the Sabre. Wouldn't this be a nerf to non-vanilla ships which are already at or below par even with their current shielding?

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[Haste]

Interestingly, the Sabre actually has a shield bubble, although it's not substantially larger than the ship itself (given the ship's front profile is more-or-less a circle to begin with).

Also please note that "Vanilla" or "Not vanilla" doesn't actually matter here. It seems a lot of vanilla hitboxes were altered to make them have much smaller shield bubbles (if they can even be called bubbles anymore).

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[Highland Laddie]

Seems the bubble shape would be the most consistent...although that would also make de-shielding ships easier, altogether.

Maybe make all shields bubble shaped, along with upping all shield HP by about 10-12%?

I believe a fairly substantial part of the server's population believes snubs to be (too) hard to hit. I don't think making their shields (a little) easier to hit would really upset balance too much.

It's primarily about consistency anyways. Look at the poor Nepthys, being a relic of older times, having a far larger shield bubble than its brother from another mother, the Avenger.

Yeah...but we're talking about Shields here, not Hull. Not many would say that Shields on any ship are hard to bring down (unless you're a fighter taking on a capship...and still there's nuke mines for that)

[Haste]

Eh, it depends on the people (and loadouts) involved in a fight. Some of the flatter ships with more-or-less skin-tight shield hitboxes are currently ridiculous hard to deshield compared to others. We could alter the size on them depending on our own subjective feeling of what they should be - or we could give every ship a similarly sized sphere (which doesn't have to be as enormous as people seem to think, mind you) and then see if shields should receive a buff in return.

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[evanz]

im not sure what all this lot means, but im guessing that the bigger the bubble its easier to hit, and the more defined "closer" bubble to the ship means harder to hit

what is the ascos bubble, as ive never been able to hit that