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The Science of Shields in Supreme Commander 2

By Birk - 28th May 2011 - 03:11 AM

Shields in Supreme Commander 2 come in various shapes and sizes from the massive Aegis experimental shield to the tiny Adapter mobile shield. Each faction has it's own shield properties. This guide will provide information on how each faction's shield type works, as well as how each unit shield benefits from it's faction type.

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United Earth Federation
Shield Type: Heavy


Statistically speaking, this is the most impressive shield. It boasts high health, high regeneration rate and doesn't let any damage through to pound your robots underneath. This shield type looks good on paper, but game experience will tell you that this is the weakest shield type in Supreme Commander 2. The reason for this is two fold:

1. Shields within shields are not protected from area damage the way units and structures are. Meaning, shields underneath other shields are taking the full impact of area damage weapons hitting the exterior most shields, even if they are fully and completely on the inside of the shield impacted.

2. Projectiles explode upon impact with U.E.F. shields, thus the full impact of area damage is felt by U.E.F. shields.

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United Earth Federation Shield Generator
  • Cost: 8 Research Points Total
  • Shield Health: 10 000
  • Shield Health Regeneration: 100 per second
  • Shield goes back up in 40 seconds after going down.
What this means in game terms is that you don't benefit as much by placing your U.E.F. shields close together, because they all take damage from area damage weapons such as artillery and experimentals. This is a BIG deal because shields work best when clustered together. Clustering shields together is also referred to as stacking or shield stacking.


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P-Shield
  • Unit health: 560
  • Shield health: 600
  • Shield comes back up in 10 seconds after going down.
P-Shields work best against Aeon land forces which do not deliver area damage attacks such as Yenzoo, Harvog and Shotjas. The main thing to keep in mind is that you want to hit your enemy for long enough to take advantage of your shield health, plus destroy a few enemies and then avoid combat long enough for the shields to regenerate. Make sure you avoid prolonged engagements until you have whittled down your opponents forces enough to crush them.

Fly like a butterfly sting like a bee.
Muhammad Ali

The P-shield does have a special window in which it can mitigate area damage: while a P-Shield is in transit from a Noah Unit Cannon it is not taking area damage. Bombers can destroy a lot of your units by bombing the location they will land on, especially if the bombers are upgraded with bombs that do damage over time. The destruction that such weapons can inflict in these situations is massive. If you queue your P-Shields approximately one every five units built by the Noah Unit Cannon with plenty of anti air mixed in, you can easily make almost any heavy air force wish they didn't try to bomb your targeted landing site. As one P-Shield runs out of health, the next one should be landing to take its place. This can turn a failed Noah Unit Cannon strike into a successful one.

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Aegis Experimental Shield Generator
  • Cost: 22 Research Points Total
  • Shield Health: 50 000
  • Shield Health Regeneration: 0 per second
  • Shield goes back up instantly.
  • Cost 5 000 energy to activate shield restore.
  • Shield restore ability cool down is 60 seconds.
There are multiple reasons the Aegis Shield is not as good as multiple Nano or Chrome Shield Generators. I will list them for you:
  1. The Aegis shield health does not regenerate.
  2. The Aegis shield costs a lot of energy to bring back up.
  3. The Aegis shield is so tall that it does not provide bomber protection.
  4. The Aegis costs a bucket load of Research Points usually better spent elsewhere.
However it also has some advantages:
  1. The large radius of the Aegis generally means you don't need many.
  2. The shield health can instantly come back up to full with an ability.
  3. The Aegis is superior to having multiple U.E.F. Shield Generators against area damage weapons.
  4. The Aegis can absorb the blast of a nuke striking outside of the shield radius.
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Unit Heavy Shield
  • Provides extra health.
  • Comes back up after 10 seconds.

    Land
  • Cost: 7 Research Points
    Air
  • Cost 6 Research Points.
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Cybran
Shield Type: Nano

Projectiles pass through these shields and get their damage reduced by eighty-five percent. This effect is cumulative. Area damage is also reduced due to passing through the nano shield which absorbs eighty-five percent of the projectile's damage. When the projectile hits the ground or a unit, the reduced damage is also the reduced area damage. This is referred to here as area damage reduction.

Also, Nano Shields will absorb 85% of the damage of a projectile that hits it, even if there isn't enough shield health left to do so. This is referred to here as overkill damage absorption.

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Cybran Shield Generator
  • Cost: 11 Research Points Total
  • Shield Health: 8000
  • Shield Health Regeneration: 80 per second
  • Comes back up in 40 seconds after going down.
The Cybran Shield Generator has approximately the same shielding strength as the U.E.F. Shield Generator by allowing projectiles to pass through the shield to hit structures and shields underneath. Pass through reduces the strain on the shield by fifteen percent, because the shield is only absorbing eigthy five percent of the damage of projectiles which hit it. Fifteen percent pass through thereby provides the Cybran Shield Generator good actualized health and regeneration, despite having less health and regeneration than the U.E.F. version.

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Adapter
  • Unit health: 700
  • Shield health: 140
  • Shield will come back up in only 10 seconds after going down
Low shield health makes the adapter very weak to high rate of fire weapons such as tanks, assault bots, gunships, beam weapons, etc.

Due to their low cost, mobility and the short interval for the adapter shield to come back up Adapters make the best use of overkill damage absorption of any unit in the game. This feature allows adapters to dissipate the attacks of many hard counters to land forces.

Examples:
  1. One Adapter Shield will dissipate the damage of one bomb from a bomber despite a bomb doing twice as much damage as the Adapter has shields.
  2. One Adapter shield will dissipate the damage of one shot from a Shotja despite doing four times as much damage as the Adapter has shields.
  3. A large group of Adapter shields will dissipate the damage of Overcharge.
  4. A couple of Adapter shields will nullify the damage of multiple bombs that do damage over time.
  5. Three tiny Adapter Shields will dissipate the damage from a Jackhammer shell which does 3750 to 7500 damage.
Since the primary reason to use shields is to deal with low rate of fire, high damage, area damage weapons such as bombs and artillery, the Adapter is an excellent mobile shield.

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Bomb Bouncer
  • Unit health: 26500
  • Shield health: 12000
  • Shield goes back on in 20 seconds
The bomb bouncer has very good shield health and regeneration for it's cost. It costs about twice as much as a Cybran Shield Generator, but it is mobile, has 50% more shield health, plenty of unit health and it has a deadly mega blast attack.

The shield is not a completely enclosed bubble shield but it is more like an umbrella shield, so projectiles fired below the shield are not absorbed and can directly damage the Bomb Bouncer or other units underneath.

The Bomb Bouncer has a Mega Blast ability that is charged both manually or by the energy of projectile impacts on the shield. Mega Blast is best used on bombers (thus the name) but it is also useful against land units and even structures in a pinch.

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Unit Nanoshield
  • Provides extra health.
  • Comes back up after 10 seconds.
  • Area damage reduction
  • Overkill damage absorption

    Land
  • Cost: 6 Research Points
    Air
  • Cost: 7 Research Points
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Illuminate
Shield Type: Anti Matter Chrome


Projectiles have a fifty percent chance to pass through or reflect off these shields with eighty-five percent of its damage removed per shield pass or reflection. For all intents and purposes there is no functional difference between the Cybran shield mechanics and the Illuminate shield mechanics. Visually some of the projectile bounce off of Chrome shields instead of passing through, but the important thing to remember is that eighty-five percent of the damage is absorbed by either shield type, so the projectile explosion's area damage is dissipated similarly either way. Area damage is mitigated, because the projectile has no damage left when the area damage explosion occurs. This is referred to here as area damage reduction.

Also, Anti-Matter Chrome Shields will absorb 85% of the damage of a projectile that hits it, even if there isn't enough shield health left to do so. This is referred to here as overkill damage absorption.

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Illuminate Shield Generator

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The Illuminate Shield Generator is highly appreciated for multiple reasons.
  • Cost: 6 Research Points Total
  • Shield Health: 10 000
  • Shield Health Regeneration: 50 per second
  • Shield comes back up in 40 seconds after going down.
  • Anti-Matter Sponge Upgrade: Converts damage absorbed by shield to energy.
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Unit Anti-Matter Chrome Shields
  • Provides extra health.
  • Comes back up after 10 seconds.
  • Area damage reduction
  • Overkill damage absorption

    Land
  • Cost: 5 Research Points
  • Upgrade Cost: 3 Research Points and doubles shield health.
    Air
  • Cost: 6 Research Points
Written by Bastilean.
Edited by D.S.M.
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