Massive Waste of Planetary Space?

[Nocturnal]

I know this must have been raised before but I couldn't find the search function. I just got a worse than useless tech from ruins: Massive Planetary Shield Generator.

This is a facility that provides my planet with a whopping 5000 shield points if I am not of sound mind and want to spend 30kT minerals, 1000 organics, 10kT radioactives and a precious building slot building it. Now, this didn't sound reasonable to me, so I fiddled with the designs window a bit, and found...

Two medium weapons platforms with: computer core, 8x shield generator V, 2x shield generator I, and one armor (just for kicks...) together cost 8940 minerals, no organics, and no radioactives. If you want to build a Cargo Facility to hold them, that's another 5000 minerals bringing the price up to 13940 minerals for the 5000 shield points, which my abacus tells me is still less than the 30000 minerals, 1000 organics, and 10000 radioactives it costs me to build the Massive Planetary Shield Generator facility. And the facility can't be picked up by my transport ships either.

Now given the above, would there be any reason in my right mind (which is debatable in itself but not the subject of this thread) that I would want to build this? If I'm incredibly low-tech in the beginning of the game and stumble upon this ruin, would it maaaybe then be a minor blessing and not be a terrible curse?

Is there some key rule I'm missing in the way the shields on a planet work? Or should I just mod that to be cheaper or something?

[gregebowman]

I don't think it's that useless. ONce I discover this technology, I'll usually start putting on planets, except for the ones that I've already filled up. For those, I'll make mines, weapon platforms and satellites to guard my planets. But if I have a big planet with lots of room to put stuff on, then a planetary shielf would be nice. Also, if I have a planet on the edge of my empire, then I include a shield to make sure no one destroys my planet.

[Fyron]

The planetary shield is fairly useless. It does not generate enough shield points and costs too much to be effective. If it made, say, 10 times the amount of shields it does now, and they were phased instead of unphased, it might be useful. Or 5 times and half the cost...

[Alneyan]

I believe it is indeed useless. What use is 5,000 non-phased shield points? PPB would disable this facility, and even regular weapons could destroy the shield fairly especially. (I won't even speak of the planetary bombs, these ones should destroy the shield in no time) The only use would be to protect your planets against a single raider, but that is a bit expensive for such a purpose. And it won't repel a bigger offensive.

[jimbob]

typical example of an imbalance easily rectified by moding http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[Baron Munchausen]

This is the beauty of Space Empires. You can mod it yourself with little trouble because all the settings are in text files! Sure, set it to produce 25,000 shield points and reduce the cost by half or so. BTW, there is apparently no difference between the 'planetary shields' ability and regular shields, so you could make it produce phased shields, as well.

[Suicide Junkie]

P&N has six levels of planetary shield tech.
The first three give 20k, 50k and then 75k phased shields.

The other three are researchable without finding ruins, and are weaker Versions of the above.

[se5a]

well we could get aaron to make it more worthwhile in the next patch???

[Phoenix-D]

Originally posted by gregebowman:
Also, if I have a planet on the edge of my empire, then I include a shield to make sure no one destroys my planet. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">This shield does not protect against planet-killing weaponry.

[Arkcon]

Originally posted by jimbob:
typical example of an imbalance easily rectified by moding http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Absolutely. The Proportions mod makes every large city provide some shield points.

Hit it {link} (http://www.invirtuo.cc/phpwiki/index.php/massive%20planetary%20shield%20generator)

[PvK]

Proportions also offers heaps more and better planetary shield facs. The unmodded ones are practically useless because they are so weak.

PvK

[ November 21, 2003, 21:24: Message edited by: PvK ]

[Antonin]

Originally posted by Nocturnal:
I know this must have been raised before but I couldn't find the search function. I just got a worse than useless tech from ruins: Massive Planetary Shield Generator.<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">For what it's worth (nothing, I know), when I acquire tech that doesn't fit my personal playing style I just chalk it up to the fortunes of war and fuggedaboudit.

I've never bothered with weapons platforms or any kind of planetary shields; my object of choice for protecting my empire is satellites and mines over wormholes.