Planetary shield

[BlackMorphues]

Does it matter where you put them or will you get 100% planetary shield once u have 80 of them, no matter where they are?

[Tyroil Smoochie-Wallace]

Looks like it matters. You can see the coverage mesh when you select them.

[D92C]

yea, i do belive it matters where you place em, atleast the first ones.
would say that the first ones should go in your base.

[D92C]

yep. you really want the first one in your base. just got attacked by 30 ships that shield saved me

[murlocgriswold]

i wish it covered all the planet when you placed enough of them. does the shield combine together are does there health stay separate

[Aprotosis]

The shield will combine. The bluish area of a shield does give some protection, but not as much as the whiter center. From my experimentation, they will evenly combine if you put them 45 degrees from each other. This will give you full planet coverage with 24 shield units. I haven't done it yet, so that is just on paper numbers for now for full coverage. You might need the planetary poles to get a shield unit too, for 26 units.

[BlackMorphues]

Originally posted by Aprotosis:

The shield will combine. The bluish area of a shield does give some protection, but not as much as the whiter center. From my experimentation, they will evenly combine if you put them 45 degrees from each other. This will give you full planet coverage with 24 shield units. I haven't done it yet, so that is just on paper numbers for now for full coverage. You might need the planetary poles to get a shield unit too, for 26 units.

So you think 8 shields on the equator and 8 on every side of the planet 45° apart from another + 1 on the poles? I've been thinking about how I should organize them, will try that once I del my factorio and start using logistic hubs.

[Zaflis]

I'm not sure of applicable ways to know where to place the shields, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_icosahedron If you have shield on each vertex location of icosahedron you get an absolutely perfect coverage because each triangle is same size. Probably same with some smallest hexagon spheres at center of its faces.

That would use only 12 shield generators so it probably doesn't have good height everywhere. You would place 1 shield on each pole, and then 2 rings of 5 shields. It's very important that the 2 middle rings do not align horizontally but is shifted by half distance as if drawing triangles in the middle. You can probably do it thinner spacing too with 2 + 8 + 8 = 18 shields.

[BlackMorphues]

Originally posted by Zaflis:

I'm not sure of applicable ways to know where to place the shields, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_icosahedron If you have shield on each vertex location of icosahedron you get an absolutely perfect coverage because each triangle is same size. Probably same with some smallest hexagon spheres at center of its faces.

That would use only 12 shield generators so it probably doesn't have good height everywhere. You would place 1 shield on each pole, and then 2 rings of 5 shields. It's very important that the 2 middle rings do not align horizontally but is shifted by half distance as if drawing triangles in the middle. You can probably do it thinner spacing too with 2 + 8 + 8 = 18 shields.

I looked it up and found a bp for nearly 100% coverage. You have to place them across the planet to get the coverage up. Placing additional generators up to 80 only strengthens the shield but it costs a huge amount of energy to have 80 on the planet. Imo its a waste to have so many because you need turrets anyways to shoot down landing and spaceships. With a few turrets the spacecraft will never penetrate the shield.

https://www.dysonsphereblueprints.com/blueprints/factory-planetary-shield-100-coverage

[mr-johnson3]

It is possible to get 100% coverage with 20 generators. 1 on each pole, then 3 rings of 6, at equator and the other 2 at 36 degrees N/S, staggered by 30 degrees E/W.

[weiss]

its useless to cover the entire planet anyways unless you want the achievement. just focus on it that your major production lines are protected against the hive strikes. expanding the shield up to a 100% coverage without that ya use the entire planet already is just a waste of power.

tho this is just my opinion x3.

[Terraziel]

Originally posted by weiss:

its useless to cover the entire planet anyways unless you want the achievement. just focus on it that your major production lines are protected against the hive strikes. expanding the shield up to a 100% coverage without that ya use the entire planet already is just a waste of power.

tho this is just my opinion x3.

Before the latest patch this was true, but now that you can use the shields to prevent new bases spawning covering unused bits of planets is entirely sensible. That said even then you don't really need "100%" the droopy bits of shield prevent base spawn as well.

[cswiger]

Originally posted by mr-johnson3:

It is possible to get 100% coverage with 20 generators. 1 on each pole, then 3 rings of 6, at equator and the other 2 at 36 degrees N/S, staggered by 30 degrees E/W.

I often use five rings of 4 for a total of twenty also, but I think you can get by with just 12 total using three rings of four. Four spaced at 0/90/180/270 at the equator and four in two rings at 60 degrees N/S gives these results:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3127617672
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3127619570
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3127621896

To improve coverage further, add four in two rings at 30 degrees N/S offset by 45 degrees (ie, 45/135/235/315), and/or go with 8 around the equator instead of 4.

This keeps the poles free for Ray Receivers.

[CPT Chthonbeard the Pirate]

Originally posted by Zaflis:

I'm not sure of applicable ways to know where to place the shields, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_icosahedron If you have shield on each vertex location of icosahedron you get an absolutely perfect coverage because each triangle is same size. Probably same with some smallest hexagon spheres at center of its faces.

That would use only 12 shield generators so it probably doesn't have good height everywhere. You would place 1 shield on each pole, and then 2 rings of 5 shields. It's very important that the 2 middle rings do not align horizontally but is shifted by half distance as if drawing triangles in the middle. You can probably do it thinner spacing too with 2 + 8 + 8 = 18 shields.

A regular icosahedron has equilateral triangles as it's sides with vertices spaced at 26.57 degree arcs. This could in fact work. I believe you are correct that 12 is the smallest number of shield generators that can protect a planet!