Shield Generator Relay

[Mouse Trap]

At the moment, the Shield Generator Relay feels useless - Maybe I'm not using it right, maybe I'm not in the right situations, but based on my experiences, it could use some changes / buffs. One of the ways I was thinking of buffing or altering the stratagem, would be to make it something that you call down, but can also be manually turned on and off - If it's turned off, it lets the generator recharge for use again

[Eudicots]

The problem with this stratagem has to deal with the gameplay. On higher difficulties, you very rarely hold your ground. Even if the cooldown is lowered to 70 seconds it would still be hard to use.

[Mouse Trap]

Completely makes sense, but as an extract tool, especially for those extracts that last up to 3 minutes, it'd be nice to have some sort of defense system that actually feels impactful - Because at the moment, there's not really a reason to pick this over the other defensive stratgegems

[Clive Hawkins]

Also I'm not sure why it still has a Deployment time even after purchasing the ship upgrade that is supposed to remove the Deployment time for these strategems.

[Mouse Trap]

Originally posted by Clive Hawkins:

Also I'm not sure why it still has a Deployment time even after purchasing the ship upgrade that is supposed to remove the Deployment time for these strategems.

Didn't even realize this was an issue either! Hopefully the devs take a look at this ^^

[Katitoff]

Originally posted by Clive Hawkins:

Also I'm not sure why it still has a Deployment time even after purchasing the ship upgrade that is supposed to remove the Deployment time for these strategems.

It is deployed instantly.
The pod still needs to be shot from the ship and land.
Deployment time was the duration it remained on ship before it was shot down.

[xaerock [RVR-42]]

I really enjoy using this against automatons, especially paired with an autocannon. Against bugs no point but thats fine I think.
Put one up and your team can hold your ground and use their heavy weapons to take out bot swarms quickly aiming at their weak points with no risk. If they fix the instant deployment time even better.

Even if you don't go inside the bubble it becomes a big area of artificial cover for people to retreat or reinforce behind

[Roy]

Has anyone tried if a relay shield can withstand friendly orbital barrages?

Might be useful if you can use it like a bubble shield as seen in Halo, while also calling in heavy strikes directly on your position.
Idk if it's the case but the shield shouldn't have a healthbar, but rather just a timer.

It's rare to find a good use for it at higher difficulties, it will only help against ranged enemies so i hope it's invulnerable?

[Ben.Wasden]

I recently used this stratagem and I found this stratagem to be more of a handicap on higher difficulties.... I honestly don't understand why anyone would ever choose it over having another orbital or eagle stratagem.

To me versus the backpack shield generator it's very underpowered.

Shield relay Vs Backpack shield
Timed - Permanent
Doesn't recover shield - Recovers shield
Stationery - Mobile
Covers wider area - Personal use only

The last two on the list in my opinion make absolute sense. But the first two on the list don't make sense to me. Why would the shield relay not be a permanent stratagem until destroyed? Also why is it not able to recover like the backpack stratagem?

If they just changed these two things it would suddenly be very viable, but still a trade off from taking other offensive stratagems. It also wouldn't be as immersion breaking because there is no way a backpack battery is bigger than a stationary shield battery. If the backpack shield is permanent and can recover then the stationary much larger generator should also as a minimum do this and really should be better at it.

Also if they were to change to permanent and allow it to recover it's shield overtime, they would need to increase the call down timer.

Does anyone agree with the above? Has anyone other thoughts on this?

[tom tomorrow]

Does it still reflect bile titan spew back at them and kill them? Because that was pretty useful.

[Singularity's Marauder]

Originally posted by Roy:

Has anyone tried if a relay shield can withstand friendly orbital barrages?

Might be useful if you can use it like a bubble shield as seen in Halo, while also calling in heavy strikes directly on your position.
Idk if it's the case but the shield shouldn't have a healthbar, but rather just a timer.

It's rare to find a good use for it at higher difficulties, it will only help against ranged enemies so i hope it's invulnerable?

yes... But it only lasts for a moment.

[Prowler™]

The shield relay is actually extremely OP vs bots
However to get the big value you really need some teamplay and multiple copies in play which negates its cool down.
4 players in chat together running it vs automations is an easy win with pretty much 0 damage taken every time.

vs bugs its obviously worthless.

The shield backpack is actually the noob trap of this game. You think its helping you but it is in fact a dead weight thats taking up a slot you could put something actually useful in lol
Even a jetpack is more use than the shield pack. By a huge margin as it lets you skip otherwise impassable terrain.

[LeftIsBest-James]

Originally posted by Prowler™:

The shield backpack is actually the noob trap of this game. You think its helping you but it is in fact a dead weight thats taking up a slot you could put something actually useful in lol :evadebullets:
Even a jetpack is more use than the shield pack. By a huge margin as it lets you skip otherwise impassable terrain.

I don't use sheildpack anymore, but it was an immense help clawing up the early levels.

It's a noob tool, but not a 'trap'. I've seen Solos, no-STIM, FullClear d9 with this.
'Loadout' is a product of it's times; of the current enemy-types distribution, which we should agree has shifted over months.

[Midas]

I've seen it used well in various situations, like popping it over a hellbomb, or a console so players can interact with it. But 9/10 it doesn't make enough of a difference to justify the slot.

[The Ironguard]

Originally posted by Snazzy n' Classy:

At the moment, the Shield Generator Relay feels useless - Maybe I'm not using it right, maybe I'm not in the right situations, but based on my experiences, it could use some changes / buffs. One of the ways I was thinking of buffing or altering the stratagem, would be to make it something that you call down, but can also be manually turned on and off - If it's turned off, it lets the generator recharge for use again

Well, the main issue with the shield generator, is basically the rate of incoming enemy fire.

To give you some specifics, the shield generator has a 4000 health shield, with a 5 second delay on shield regen, at 300/sec regen. Shield broken delay is 8 seconds, though i am not aware if it then fully regenerates after 8 seconds, or just starts up at 300/sec.

Now, 4000 might sound like a good deal. It's more health than the main body of a bile titan. The problem is of course, that the shield takes full damage from everything. While i don't have hard damage numbers for bots, a HMG can do 3600 damage in about 2 seconds at the highest RPM. While bots are probably a bit lower on damage, you can see how the bubble might not last long against multiple opponents. Especially given that it is an ENORMOUS target.

Frankly, i think the shield would be best for protecting a very specific asset for a short amount of time, or assisting a fortified position against enemies with slow but powerful attacks.

Example: HMG emplacement + shield generator versus a factory strider would likely work out very well, as long as you take out its miniguns fast. The shield can absorb several hits from the back mounted canon, while the HMG emplacement clears out the chaff that can burn the shield down, and takes out the strider.

[Niliu]

Originally posted by Ben.Wasden:

I recently used this stratagem and I found this stratagem to be more of a handicap on higher difficulties.... I honestly don't understand why anyone would ever choose it over having another orbital or eagle stratagem.

To me versus the backpack shield generator it's very underpowered.

Shield relay Vs Backpack shield
Timed - Permanent
Doesn't recover shield - Recovers shield
Stationery - Mobile
Covers wider area - Personal use only

The last two on the list in my opinion make absolute sense. But the first two on the list don't make sense to me. Why would the shield relay not be a permanent stratagem until destroyed? Also why is it not able to recover like the backpack stratagem?

If they just changed these two things it would suddenly be very viable, but still a trade off from taking other offensive stratagems. It also wouldn't be as immersion breaking because there is no way a backpack battery is bigger than a stationary shield battery. If the backpack shield is permanent and can recover then the stationary much larger generator should also as a minimum do this and really should be better at it.

Also if they were to change to permanent and allow it to recover it's shield overtime, they would need to increase the call down timer.

Does anyone agree with the above? Has anyone other thoughts on this?

dude... necro? Really?