Ungoverned Territories places too much emphasis on shields

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Derakon
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There's no less than four factions that are a major pain in the butt to fight if you don't have a shield or your shield drops:

- Heliotropes: have cannons that blind you. Now, blinding has been removed as a weapon effect, so right now these guys are pretty harmless. I include them here for the sake of completeness.
- Dwarg and pirates: both have ships that EMP you. EMPing is my least favorite mechanic in the game now that device destruction has been removed. The Dwarg have a particularly nasty version, what with the long-range homing projectiles.
- Lumiere: have armor-buster weapons. Their roaming autons are nasty enough as it is, but the Thera cannon that their destroyers carry is incredibly dangerous.

Almost all of the really nasty effects are piled into the middle third of the game. The only other cases I can think of are the Ventari (device ionization), Resurrectors (death pods), and Sapiens (radiation). The first is disruptive, but something you can usually deal with. The latter two can be absurdly nasty if there isn't a friendly station nearby (especially Resurrectors, since there's no "barrel of remove this device that's drilling into my hull" that you can carry as a safety), but their stations tend to be rare and comparatively easy to avoid.

My inclination is to fix this on a case-by-case basis. For example:

- Make blinding (and defective visual enhancement ROMs) give all ships stealth for some time, so you can only see them if you're close
- Make EMPing degrade your ship's basic functions instead of being a one-hit lockout, so e.g. your turning gradually gets more erratic (ship turns on its own, or refuses to turn when you try), engines stop working so well, guns lose accuracy. Getting hit once wouldn't be a big deal, but building up a big stack would be nearly as debilitating as the current effect while still allowing you to try to do thingsn
- Replace the Lumiere weapons with ones that are more appropriate to their level, or nerf the armor-buster property. Does that property even show up on any other weapons?
Ferdinand
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Well, I do not agree.

Those properties keep the game interesting and challenging. If you want it easy just play in story mode.

Those enemies make you choose your armor and/or shields wisely. I often play without shields and it is very much possible to overcome all these enemies if you choose well.
Derakon
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Ferdinand wrote:
Wed Mar 16, 2022 8:28 am
Well, I do not agree.

Those properties keep the game interesting and challenging. If you want it easy just play in story mode.

Those enemies make you choose your armor and/or shields wisely. I often play without shields and it is very much possible to overcome all these enemies if you choose well.
Please do not tell me to git gud. My last playthrough (which won the game) was on permadeath difficulty with the following conducts:
- No using dockyard services to refuel or repair armor
- No purchasing fuel
- No using regenerating armor or regenerative devices (e.g. patch spider, Novaya armor repairer)
- No using Domina Restore

I find these constraints to be quite enjoyable. Because your only sources of healing are armor repair items and buying new armor, every fight matters. Fuel also matters a lot more when you have to find it instead of buy it.

Because of the fuel constraints these conducts impose, I also frequently play without shields, and let me tell you: Lumiere ships make me burn through healing items like mad. They are an outsized threat for their level. The best particle resist armor available at that point is no help against armor buster weapons.

EMP is just straight-up not an enjoyable mechanic (for me at least). I would rather a more punishing mechanic that nonetheless let me retain some agency, rather than taking my ship away from me for ~15 seconds.
Ferdinand
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Hmm, never found those Lumiere ships to powerful to overcome, usually I harvest them for their weapons....
But hey, I do use dock services, autorepair devices, regenerative armor and everything else.

But I somewhat agree on the emp effect, it is annoying. The fact that it leaves you spinning in a stationary spot is weird and unrealistic. It would make more sense if the effect made your ship uncontrollable, but still moving in the same direction with the same speed as when you were hit.
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