I have been fairly dissatisfied with the Zero-K shield system for some time because a sufficient quantity of linked shields essentially negates all damage. This can lead to an extremely boring game state where practically all damage is rendered moot.
Obviously under most circumstances, shields work as intended as a bulwark for a moderate amount of damage. Then they fail and any additional damage gets through. Especially in 1v1 shields are actually a fairly poor option compared to building more guns. However in the late game, with enough economy on both sides, I have seen 1v1 games where shields break the otherwise fast, fluid, and active gameplay of Zero-K.
LARGE SHIELD NETWORKS
The true extent of the pathology of shields is evident in large multi-way free-for-alls, where expenditures on aggression are dangerous. Enough shields linked together will even render superweapons irrelevant- a Starlight can't get through a sufficiently dense shield network. A very large network of shields acts like a universal defense barrier, magnifying the effectiveness of front-line units and defenses, anti-air, and also protecting against artillery and even superweapons.
Players should be forced to balance multiple needs in multiple areas, not just apply one type of asset in great enough quantity. Anti-air only protects against air units. Shields will buy more time for your anti-air to work, and better still it will keep those air units from inflicting casualties on your anti-air, or destroying economy in the limited time they have.
Simply put, shields remove tension, risk, and discourage activity. They take Zero-K's fluid, flexible, active gameplay and reduce it to a very binary, damage-mitigation centric paradigm where players aren't constantly losing and replacing assets. They just remove too much damage and risk from the equation. They lead to boring games. Such large shield networks do not occur often, but there really is no truly effective counter.
COUNTERS
Existing counters are effective for dealing with limited shield use. EMP missiles are excellent for a specific site using shields, even a heavily shielded single site. However a large shield network cannot be effectively disabled using EMP missiles because any active shield gains power from the rest of the network. Each EMP missile costs 600 metal, and only temporarily disables a small radius of shields.
EMP bombers and Ticks have much the same issue; at the stage in the game where such a large shield network is even an option, defenses against direct intrusion by enemy units are already in place. Anti-air and anti-ground defenses are cheaper than shields, and will deny limited attacks wholesale. Limited attacks are very likely to do absolutely nothing; sending in a few Lichos to try to snipe a Singularity might result in an unpredictable density of shields either absorbing all damage, and you lose your birds for free. Failed attacks are a waste of resources because of shields, and losing a lot of EMP-equipped units is no different.
The Racketeer has a slightly different problem, shared by any other kind of weapon that deals a lot of damage to shields. It is very effective at dealing damage to shields from a safe distance. However, shields link. Which means the amount of shield strength and regeneration can quite easily outpace the amount of damage that can be brought to bear on a particular point. And again, lost units means resources lost, while lost shield power does not matter at all.
Gauss counters shield bots- not really shield networks. The Detriment being the exception; without gauss the Detriment really would be virtually useless under most circumstances, since a large shield network would make it unable to do any damage.
Despite these counters, a large shield network is extremely resilient even to a very focused attempt to be aggressive against it. EMP missiles don't work as long as one shield remains active in the target area. That one shield can then draw power from others and can still hold off an almost unlimited amount of damage.
Simply put, Zero-K needs weapons that just ignore shields from a distance. These weapons would allow a player to attack a shielded position to eliminate the shields. This would make both defending and attacking a shield position much more active.
NEW SYSTEM
I propose making specific types of weapons completely ignore shields. Shields should deflect artillery, including assault cannons, light artillery, long guns, ship cannons, etc. etc. And shields currently interact well with beams, blocking damage up to a certain amount and then failing.
However, I propose to make certain projectiles ignore shields. Missiles, rockets, torpedoes, bombs, and other slow projectiles, in addition to the existing exception for gauss weapons.
This would allow tac nukes to be used to kill shields instead of merely stunning them with EMP missiles. If this supersedes the current only use for EMP missiles, perhaps make them track again and use them as an additional counter to Striders?
This also creates a useful purpose for the currently woefully underpowered Merl. Due to its low rate of fire and poor accuracy when attacking wobbling radar blips, other artillery options are vastly superior. But Merls would ignore shields, unlike Hammers, Pillagers, and any other kind of artillery.
Racketeers' missiles would also go through shields, allowing the player to manually target the enemy's shield generators and disable them. Massed fire of artillery can overwhelm shields, or alternately the player can use EMP missiles to disable a particular shield.
Air strikes would obviously be vastly improved in effectiveness. Instead of relying on shields to mitigate incoming damage from air units, more anti-air would be required to eliminate those units more quickly. Or, better yet, players might actually begin using defense in depth with their anti-air to make it risky and difficult to make an air raid deep behind their lines. Currently, shields allow less anti-air to be constructed as well as protecting against artillery and superweapons, and also defending front-line units and defenses from direct assault.
Although arguably a nerf to the shield bot factory, it seems to me that the effect would be marginal. Lichos already ignore shield bot factory units' shields, and would be unaffected. Most of the time shield bots' shields absorb damage that would still be mitigated, including Thugs' guns, artillery, Felons' weapons, laser turrets, and so on.
ON DAMAGE TYPES
This does raise the specter of armor types, but it already exists for shields in Zero-K and I simply propose to expand the category of weapons that ignore shields.
The existing system causes a weapon to ignore shields only if its weapon damage exceeds the power of the shield. Treating the shield as an individual, even if it is linked, it cannot block projectiles more powerful than its own strength.
What this creates is a de facto armor type, where certain weapons pierce certain shields while others do not. However the existing system is highly opaque, and really requires manual testing to determine which weapons pierce which shields. This is bad.
My proposed system will govern which weapons pierce shields by the weapon's appearance, which is much easier to display to the player than the amount of damage. Zero-K already does this with gauss weapons. Expanding it to include weapons like tac nukes, merls, torpedoes, etc. does not greatly increase the complexity of the shield system.
As a result, all weapons with the visual appearance of the "cannon," a small yellowish sphere type weapon, as well as any type of beam weapon, again clearly indicated by the weapon's appearance, is stoppped by shields.
