How to deal with shielded bases?

[mcsproot]

One of the bases I wanted to attack has a shield. It's on a planet so it's SVs and HVs only. Both of these quickly lose their shields in a straight fight, and I can't even try to take out the turrets first due to the shield.

I tried using an Artillery Cannon since it can out range it, but it seemed the shield regened almost as fast as I could damage it.

Am I just meant to shoot hundreds of Artillery Rounds at it until the shield drops? Or is there potentially a better way? Such as maybe making a beeline for the wall on a fast HV in order to break into the base directly?

[BGratz]

* Tank HV (never done myself)
* Tank SV (never done myself)
* Agile SV can be hard
* Drill HV easy going from underground
* On foot from underground = you need tons of explosives
* Foot on Ground = Wish you much luck ^^
* With Tank Cv = Need long, costs much

My prefered way
* Mini SV that attack from a death corner the turrets can´t fight you

My golden way
Dont attack such pois, make zirax friendly

[JoeSloeMoe]

I use a tank SV - one I made myself.
You can strafe left or right and dodge the fire but its a lot of work because it takes time for the shield to come down. But a lot of time its about using the terrain to your advantage. Hills, rock pillars - anything you can hide behind while you are in range for your plasma cannons.

Scope the place out first.

I've found plasma cannons the best for getting the shields down but it takes a bit. Usually have at least 4 plasma cannons. With a few turrets as well 'cause the drones can swarm you while you do this.
If I can hide behind something and see the top of the base I can fire at the top without exposing myself to the turrets at the bottom of the base,
Some bases you can get right up to them if you have scoped it out beforehand and notice a blind spot where the turrets cant get you when you are up against the base wall.
If you find yourself on foot at the base the explosive devices (made from promethium) work wonders against the shield.

Sometimes I just dodge and tank the destruction - which is what I made the tank SV for - I can always repair it or build another one from the factory. I've had it where the base has blown the SV to bits and I've dropped down at the wall and finished the shield with the explosive devices - then I died but the feeling of triumph at taking down that shield was well worth the effort as it doesnt regenerate but I will be back.

Some people also go sapper commando and tunnel up to the base and come up underneath it. If you're playing Reforged and do this the drones will detect you tunnelling and try blast you through the dirt (but they cant hurt you) - when you actually get under the base they will actually destroy the shield while trying to kill you. There is a lot of debate about whether this is a valid means of attack - play the game that gives you enjoyment and live a happy life.

[horkage]

Use the terrain to your advantage. If there's no terrain advantage, make one.

[Xerxes86]

jrandell has a very good tank HV that I have used to great affect. That's the only way I know how to do it.

[Lee_3po]

filler tool also makes quick makeshift mound/wall to hide behind too

[Sprocket66]

I like to use the laser drill/filler tool for the foxhole/defilade tactic. When you get close enough you can 'snowball' the turrets that might hit you and bring in your chosen looting vehicle to help bring down the shields or just go in and core it.

[ChumSickle]

To add, it is often possible to charge a base, get right up next to it, and take its shields down that way. A bases turrets have a limit on how far down they can traverse, so if you can get under them, you are protected. Then you take out the shield, back up a bit and take out the guns.

[Whiplash711]

While everyone gave you ideas on how they failed to tell you the weapons that work best. You can use a mini gun turret as I have done. Uses under 2k ammo not by much. I was using the terrain to my advantage, was under 300m from it. The Plasma and Pulse laser are the way to go if you use either of the SV approaches. If you do underground you need around 30-40 explosives to bring down the shield and break in. I have done this then buried everyone that came out alive. LMAO. This works great if you know where the core is too.

Shielded bases are meant to be a late game challenge when you have the T2 shield and the high end weapons. Then if you are smart about things it is rather simple. Would not charge the base though because if you die inside it could be long time to get that lucky again or you need that HV again to do it.

[BDAKiwi]

I used Darth Zaphod's excellent T4 Nephilim hover vessel, loaded the ammo up and found that with careful manoeuvring I could get myself into a spot where only one cannon could hit me. I dodged some of the occasional rockets from Zirax soldiers but managed to get the base shield down without losing mine, then switched manually to artillery and pounded a hole until I hit something that shut the base down. The other guns on the ship took out the base guns they could reach. It went better that I thought it would, success on my first attempt. It is a 3rd person only vehicle, takes a bit of getting used to if you usually play 1st.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2331190358

[shdwdrvr83]

There are a lot of threads/guides here discussing how to beat base shields.
I wrote up a comprehensive list of weapon damage vs shields last year, I recommend checking that out to see which weapons do the most damage.
The artillery turret is a good plan, but you need to hit the shield often enough that it doesn't start regenerating.
The easiest solution and the one most often suggested is to drill underneath the base and attack it from below. Once underneath it, you can take the shields down cheaply with handheld explosive packs, but other energy weapons do it quickly too including the epic laser gattling gun or the plasma blaster.

Some people swear by SVs for this, but you'll have to dodge incoming shots for several solid minutes, as it'll take a couple hundred rounds from rockets/plasma/pulse weapons to deplete the shields fully. Pulse lasers should bring them down the fastest of the SV weapons based on damage per shot and rate of fire.

Hover tanks are the standard approach. I can't say much on this as I don't have much experience with them, but responses above indicate that if you find a good position where you're not taking too much fire it shouldn't be too hard.

Another approach that I particularly like is using a dedicated CV made for atmospheric combat. Spanj's 'GroundPounder' is a great example. He's done several videos with it. The idea is that it's a massive CV with a ton of downward-facing projectile weapons and a lot of redundant armor, with decoy devices to draw enemy fire into the heavily armored sections. Your CV shield will almost always fail before a base shield does, but the extra armor layers should keep you safe long enough to bring down their shield end start removing weapons.

Finally, it was mentioned briefly above but another simplistic approach is to use a throw-away SV and kamikaze yourself straight for the entrance. You'll often be able to get into the POI safely even if you lose the ship in the process. Then you can take it down by hand from the inside.

[Berallan]

There are many ways to do it from what I've read, it just depends on which way you like to play the game. I don't know the game well and still learning how to use the weapons and ships. So if you're like me and don't know what you need in a ship or die every time you attack the base on the surface and still don't have a lot of resources to build these bigger stronger ships then this is my advice.

I'm playing SP and found the easiest and cheapest way if you know roughly where to find the core, is to use a good little miner with gats and drill under to where the core is, then plant 10 explosives all at once so the shield doesn't have time to regen. If you don't plant 10 at once then it will regen while you get more or able to plant the next lot.

After taking out the shield you chip away at the foundation blocks with the gats till you break through to the core and destroy it. I take little damage if any doing it this way. I just finished taking out the Zirax Drone Base on the moon this way right before seeing this post.

[BGratz]

found a new way to handle the drone base
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2352347104

[Berallan]

Bury it?

Well at least it can't shoot you but how do you get in?

[Sprocket66]

Only problem with snowballing turrets is that they can still shoot you at a distance until the fill materiel renders back in. Learned the hard way when I put an autominer on a zasc deposit right next to a missile defense tower.

I took out the tower core initially, but our server regenerates poi's so I snowballed the turrets so I could come back and empty the autominer without getting shot. Took a few missiles to the face when I came back until the fill rendered back in.