How Many Shields Will Make You INVINCIBLE?

Welcome to another episode of Trailmakers! Today I am putting the energy shields through the ultimate series of tests to understand how strong they actually are.
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About Trailmakers:
In the toughest motoring expedition in the universe, you and your friends will build your own vehicles to cross a dangerous wasteland. Explore, crash horribly, use your wits to build a better rig, and get as far as you can with whatever spare parts you find on your way.
Welcome to the Ultimate Expedition!
Journey over grueling mountains, hazardous swamps, and bone-dry deserts on a distant world far from civilization - it is just you, your fellow adventurers and the amazing, jet-powered hover-buggy you built yourself. Explore, crash your vehicle, build a better one, and get as far as you can with whatever spare parts you find along your way.
Trailmakers is about building very awesome vehicles and machines, but you don’t need an engineering degree to get started. The intuitive builder will get you going in no time. Everything you build is made from physical building blocks. Each block has unique features like shape, weight and functionality. They can be broken off, refitted and used to build something new. Individually the blocks are fairly simple, but combined the possibilities are endless.
Expedition Mode is the challenging campaign mode of Trailmakers. You are competing in an off-world rally expedition with only a few building blocks to get you started. You must build, tinker with and rebuild your machine to progress. Journey through a big world, overcome deep gorges, angry wildlife and dangerous weather to progress and find new parts that will juice up your machine. The world in Expedition Mode will test your survival skills and ingenuity.
Sandbox Mode is where you want to head for an unrestricted, sandbox, vehicle-building experience. Here you can build anything you can dream of, and play around with it in the world of Trailmakers. It is a great place to test out crazy machines, and experiment with the physics engine. With tons of different blocks, hinges, thrusters and interactive vehicle parts - the skybox is the limit.
Trailmakers is even more fun if you play it with other people. Build cool vehicles and compete in mini-game modes with your friends or other Trailmakers online. Build a helicopter, send it to your friend, and shoot them out of the sky. Put two seats on a tank, and let your friend control the turret. As we get further in Early Access development Expedition Mode will also be adapted to multiplayer.
Learn more about the game on www.playtrailmakers.com #scrapman #trailmakers

[@Rellek2700]

Hi Scrapman, I really liked your Multi Terrain Vehicles you built like 2 or 3 years ago, my idea was, try and build a vehicle, that works in Space, on the ground, can hover, flies with wings, can swim and is submersible, that could be nice (for an extra challenge, try doing it within the complexity limit) (holy crap, 700+ likes?! Thank you guys for that!)

[@oliverwebster-in9dt]

everybody like that comment! we need that!

[@user-co9jp8yc6d]

Bro he gonna need complexity mod

[@jasonschuermans1390]

That's a great idea

[@soupeternal3784]

help this man reach his goals

[@gnomewarlord8962]

​@@user-co9jp8yc6dnot really sure it's probably going to be between 5 to 600 complexity if he's smart with his choices but the same pieces you use to maneuver in space and propel you can also be used to fly in fact every vehicle I made for space has wings so I can fly through atmosphere and it works in the base game just equip the diving bell so you don't get booted out if it gets wet make the bottom out of hover pads so that's taken care of ya don't really need to do anything with the wheels as I'm typing this I already have a vehicle built in my head that might work the only problem being how glitchy it might be

[@gail_blue]

You could probably mount the shields on a rotating servo, and just let it rotate all the time.

[@simenkolas9373]

came here to say the exact same thing

[@mordiaky]

I was about to say this LOL. Glad you already did!

[@xtremefear]

had the same idea :D and maybe different speed for different results

[@bungeetoons]

You might be able to get away with 3 if you do that

[@raphaelfranzen9623]

​@@bungeetoonsSo you mean , 'cause the shields could recharge more often , less of them could stay active for longer.

[@Loop_Kat]

A few additional notes to go along with your testing: 1) The secondary color of the shield generator affects the color of the outer edge, but the primary color affects the color of the entirety of the inner dome area. So, if you set the primary color to something more vibrant (or just not black/grey) then it's way easier to see how the shield behaves, particularly the charging effects. I wish they had given it a base color and two energy colors instead because the main block ends up looking rather goofy with certain color combos 2) Upon breaking a shield, the cooldown delay until it reappears seems to be 10 seconds flat. To fully recharge after the cooldown delay, it seems to require an additional 16 seconds, so a 10 second delay + 16 seconds of recharge for a total of 26 seconds for full restoration 3) During the 16 second recharge, the shield will survive 1-2 blaster shots at any point, but will always break at 3 blaster shots for the first 6 seconds. At 7 seconds, the shield will survive 3 shots and will gain health equivalent to roughly 2-3 additional blaster shots every second. So, the shield will survive 3 shots at 7 seconds, 6 at 8s, 8 at 9s, 10 at 10s, 13 at 11s, 15 at 12s, 17 at 13s, 20 at 14s, 22 at 15s, and 23 shots at 16 seconds (fully charged) I don't know who this will help, but hopefully someone finds the info useful, lol

[@lousilver3646]

wow good job man

[@EpsilonRosePersonal]

For 1, it's worth noting that the effect of the primary color may not be readily apparent at first, but it's VERY noticeable while the shield is recharging. For 3, do you know how it works if the shield is given a chance to recharge before it breaks? If it acts as an effective head start on the same patter, then it might be significantly more efficient to rotate cycle your shields before they break. Also, on a related note, do you know if being off effects the recharge (either in the case where a shield has already broken or the one where it hasn't)?

[@Loop_Kat]

@@EpsilonRosePersonal The shields effects are still noticeable with darker colors, yeah, but they're way more prominent with brighter ones. I just figured I'd mention it because most people will probably only use the shield block's primary color to match the rest of their build without realizing that it also affects part of the shield color As for how the shield recharges before it breaks, I unfortunately didn't test that because even just recording the results in my previous comment took way longer than expected due to the uneven scaling per-second. It would also be way more difficult to test because there's no clear indicator as to whether or not the shield health regen pauses when shot or if it's just constantly recharging. It could be the same 10 second delay like when it breaks or it could be significantly shorter as long as the shield hasn't yet broken, and I'm not really sure how to test that without investing way more time with a stopwatch than I'd like to, lol As for the turning the shield off, that's something that I didn't even think to test, but some other commenters have mentioned that shields continue to recover even when turned off. I'm not sure if it speeds up the recovery time at all, but I don't see why it would because I feel like that would make it very exploitable for multiplayer

[@wolffang-vz2ty]

@@Loop_Kat yes but turning them on and off would be an easier system to chain them than moving them around to let them recharge even if they don't get a bonus while off

[@Loop_Kat]

@@wolffang-vz2ty I mean, sure, I'm not saying it wouldn't be useful, I was just stating that on vs off functionality was not part of my testing

[@blueflame_sm]

I have an idea for a less bulky system, but it'll depend on one thing: If shields are able to regenerate while the shield is disabled, why not instead of having a rotating system have the shields turn on and off? That way its way less bulky. And instead of manually timing when a shield should activate you could use logic delays to trigger the shields in a loop, as I suspect a shield that hasn't been destroyed will be quicker to regenerate.

[@blackoak4978]

That's an interesting idea, if you know how long it takes shields to fully regen can you automatically turn them off and on in sequence to make it work? Sounds like it would be a good system that you could leave on all the time. The unfortunate thing is that he did not test this with emp's. I would like to see some more complex testing including those

[@TheMostUt]

I just suggested that, too. We have to find out if they do regen during power down. Perhaps they regen faster during power down, which would make the system even better.

[@shay5025]

I was coming here to say just this idea. I think this is the way

[@GummieI]

Yeah I was thinking the same, his rotating thing, seems like such an overcomplication of the problem. And you also don't have to make sure you hold the button in if its a enable/disable thing instead of that whole rotating thing

[@michaelmain1990]

Your next experiment needs to be how close the shield can be to the craft before damage goes through with the shield being up

[@no3ironman11100]

seems to be mere inches from it, not really interesting data for building imo

[@cyantasks7129]

it happens due to how projectiles don't physically spawn until a certain distance from the gun, to prevent you from shooting yourself too much, so its a pretty simple test and will be done in about 2 minutes

[@timhooper1557]

Try rotating the shield constantly, maybe spread the damage randomly?

[@no3ironman11100]

scrapmans idea works better if the shields have a cooldown time where they won't recharge for a bit after taking damage.

[@timhooper1557]

@@no3ironman11100 Scrapman will have to do some more tests!

[@EpsilonRosePersonal]

@@no3ironman11100 I don't think constant rotation would work well, but rotation at a constant interval might, depending on the cool-down time, regeneration rate, and whether the regeneration is linear (I don't think it is). Basically, so long as your rotation interval is long enough for the cool-down to finish and for enough regeneration to occur, then by rotating your shields, you're ticking down more getting in more regeneration earlier, since only some of your shields will be regenerating on during the first cycle, as the rest haven't taken any damage yet.

[@steeljawX]

The issue with this idea is that the core crux of the concept is that you allow the initial shield to recharge to full health. If damage is being spread across all the shields then none of them get to recharge and all you're doing is making 1 extra beefy shield instead of having a regenerating system. Remember that the shields have to not take any hits before they start to recharge and so if they're constantly getting peppered every so often, they're not going to be recharging. Don't get me wrong, it'd probably be a really cool visual, but that just changes the end result. Instead of a constant "self-healing" system, you just have made the shield extra strong because damage is being spread across multiple shields simultaneously and none of them have any opportunity to actually recharge.

[@timhooper1557]

@@steeljawX remember that a space battle is not scrapmans test rig! Shots will not becoming regular and won't be hitting the same spot!

[@grammeland1]

What about the shield size? Does a larger, more strecht out shield become weaker than a small, compact shield?

[@locke_ytb]

Probably not. Though, bigger shields are a bigger target.

[@ilyte1]

​@@locke_ytbyeah, the downside of a bigger shield is that it takes damage more often

[@AkushevDmitry]

Additional downside to bigger shields - If they're far enough from your weapons, your weapons can actually hit the inside of the shield. Noticed this predominantly with explosive weapons (rockets, cannons, bomb bays) but also (though less often) with regular weapons (blasters, ballistics)

[@Loop_Kat]

@@AkushevDmitry It might have something to do with velocity and not necessarily an issue with shields or projectiles. When you're moving fast enough in Trailmakers (not even super fast, just fast), you can end up colliding with your own projectiles pretty easily, especially the slower ones like cannons or bombs. So, that might be the case unless you were stationary when you noticed this behavior

[@AkushevDmitry]

@@Loop_Kat stationary, at least with explosives (which have an actual mesh asset (bomb model)). Tested in the form of an orbital stationary bomber.

[@Xmar4]

lol there goes Scrapman slowly figuring out exactly how the devs programed everything to work!

[@rexkramer595]

You got so close to actual invincibility lol. The ending mechanism was perfect, all you had to do was continuously spin the wheel in the face of fire. The lasers would’ve been split between the shields due to the rotation and so given the shield time for regen

[@feldamar2]

The shields stop regenerating health temporarily when they are damaged. So spreading the damage out across multiple shields doesn't enhance the regen rate. Because now ALL the shields are NOT regening. So that won't work. It needs to be one shield at a time. Minimize how many shields are NOT regening.

[@OculusUniversale]

That wouldn't work, the shields need some time between damages to regenerate, so having the shots spread equally across the shields mean none of them would have the time to regenerate

[@rexkramer595]

@@feldamar2 but with enough shields and a slow spin, wouldn’t that negate that feature?

[@jacobpinson2834]

Shields recharge while deactivated, so using logic gates you can cycle shields more realistically. I currently have a ship that cycles between two sets of shields and I’m pretty invincible in the sandbox (except for crashing :P)

[@dapperspider3766]

I think you're forgetting a thing your test isn't taking into account: the vehicle is able to move. If you have your shields oriented in various different directions, you end up achieving the same thing with a craft that has effectively full shield coverage at all times. Fly defensively, and your shields will have time to recover, so long as you have enough layers in any given direction. I would imagine a decent layout would be 2 up, 2 down, 2 left, 2 right, 2 forward, 2 back.

[@GummieI]

I mean ofc in a real fight you need way less in general, since not every single shot at gonna hit you at all, and stuff like there. But there are SO many factors in a real fight you can't really test that properly. So yes this kind of test is not about coming up with an actual effective mechanism, but rather to get a better understanding of exactly how the shields work, to be able to on any particular build with any restrictions there might be for those builds, be able to decide what the best configuration is for that build

[@dapperspider3766]

@@GummieI mmm... I don't know how true that is. Least in Trailmakers, a fair few weapons have tracking, and based off of the MPMs Scrap does, it looks like the average amount of shots hitting targets is roughly... 60%? Regardless, the point I was trying to make, is that setting up a ship to take advantage of multiphase shields is not likely to be nearly as complicated as one might first think, as you can simulate the rotary shield by just simply pitching your ship into a different angle.

[@GummieI]

@@dapperspider3766ehmm a 60% hitrate is FAR from the 100% we see in this static test... so yeah you just acknowledged exactly what I said, though the exact hitrate varies a LOT from battle to battle, due to both the exact builds used, and the skills of the pilots to fly those different builds, since the tracking is there to make it possible to hit at all in the first place, but you can still outmaneuver the tracking some some degree. And there are even ways to build to above the tracking, making it likely that shots hits part of your build you want it to hit, or taken to the extreme you can even make it practically impossible to hit, by making the part that get tracked to a point way outside the physical structure etc. etc. So yeah you start by saying you dont know how true what I said it, but then goes on to prove what I said is correct??? As for pitching your ship to simulate the rotating shield system... well again in a real battle sure you can TRY that, but the enemy can also try and counter it with their own movement, hitting the parts that are less shielded... so that kinda goes both ways and equals the stuff out (which is for the same reason, a rotating shield don't don't really work in the first place either as its rotations can also be outmanouvered. A tuggle with buttons/timers however with each shield fully inside the next due to difference in size is the only that that wouldn't be able to be outmanuvered

[@dapperspider3766]

@@GummieI I'm glad I'm not the only one bad with self contradictions. how would you be getting the shields to switch which one is 'in front' but to rotate the shield in some way? you say through buttons or timers, but in effect you're still pushing an active shield to the front. I can only assume an unpowered shield would not benefit from recharging (If that's not the case, then my bad) But regardless, while I understand there are wild builds out there that can exploit the tracking mechanics, the idea of protecting a ship with shields would necessitate some manner of miniaturization (in other words, making a ship compact enough to benefit from full protections). In my mind, a full 360 multiphase shield would ultimately provide the same benefit as having the proposed 'rotating shields', and would be less prone to failure That said, complexity and power core restraints are an issue, so having multiple different facing shields and remaining viable comes with its own host of issues.

[@explosioncatsandknives7747]

15:47 you can press esc the choose the session option to change the time of the map providing a darker background for the tests

[@Dominator_0211]

You could probably have used that upwards facing gyroscope piece and free spinning servos to allow the shields to always face the same direction.

[@rattatoui2654]

Shield idea: Make a bunch of smaller shields that interlock like armor then they spin as one so you have to take out a lot of them to hit the creation.

[@MothflavoredJam]

I absolutely love the change of music this video. the calmness of early music fit so well with just chilling and experimenting. Also, somehow never notcied the Wumpes plushie on your back shelf before. lmao

[@gameplayer6814]

I would love to see a battle with huge tanky builds and using the new auto aim feature on the large cannons.

[@golden.raja_]

I think bringing the old music/sound effects back will be great

[@Ryanus89]

Enjoyed the video Scrapman! In the blaster vs miniG test (2 of each), the blasters destroyed the shield first but the miniGs were the first to damage the vehicle! The following test, though, concludes that the compounding damage does increase for the blasters and thus is the superior weapon vs shields when using more than 1.

[@felion_]

What if you put shields onto missiles, and after the missiles launch, it is almost like your aircraft has an escort of flying shields.

[@EpsilonRosePersonal]

How does that benefit you over keeping them attached to the craft and how do you get them to move with you?

[@5peciesunkn0wn]

@@EpsilonRosePersonal Cool Factor.

[@GummieI]

Hmm I do like the idea, not as a protect your ship own thing as you seem to say, but rather to avoid your missile from being shot down before it connects. Even a single shield on a self-made missiles would probably make it virtually impossible to hit it enough times to destroy it before it connects with the target

[@LurchTheBastard]

Gonna have a small gloat because I'm pretty sure I suggested the "rotate the shields out" thing when you were still getting early access to the update. It may not be perfect, but just having 2 rotating could definitely increase your shield lifetime in a fight. Meanwhile, the shield blocking all shots if they hit at the same time definitely suggests trying them on a staggered timer in a fight, as they'll start going through as soon as the shields drop.

[@levelzapstudios1145]

the funny part about this is that managing this in combat would be much harder than just not getting hit lol

[@CobetcknnKolowski]

I love these testing videos where we learn so many cool things about the mechanics of the game.

[@dracicc.7596]

It's so cool how you keep doing all these different experiments.

[@BleachWizz]

25:20 - yes, sometimes 2 -3 shots goes to the next layer, so to guarantee i'd say 17 is definetly impossible. still 14 seems the sweet spot.

[@BleachWizz]

19:39, but I think it's a no because they'll break and recharge, then imediatly break again rendering them almost useless, It would be cool if moving the shield on a piston would reposition it. then you could bring them back and let them have time to regenerate while other shields are out, and that might make it a lot more effective.

[@jacksonstarky8288]

This is the kind of quantitative empirical testing I'm here for. Well, this and the multiplayer free-for-all battles. The results of the shield layering experiments were not surprising; I didn't think the devs would have let something like that be feasible.

[@danser_theplayer01]

There's a game called Warframe (looter shooter). In that game it is known as shieldgating - when you purposely make your shields as small as possible so they recharge as fast as possible to full, where you'd get a second of complete immunity to damage when the shield breaks.

[@evangold4748]

An interesting note is that the Bombay uses the same projectile as the tank barrel, which means that it’s four bombs launched one after the other should break the shield and damage the vehicle in one go. The Bombay might be difficult to use in space without some elaborate vehicle design to maximize its effect, but against a ground target, the Bombay should be very effective against shields!

[@under-chonker]

Maybe the blaster is better at destroying shields is because it shoots energy projectiles instead of bullet projectiles like the smart cannon, so the blaster acts like a mini-emp

[@ueberraccoon6609]

So, I opened Excel while watching this video and cross referenced stuff with the blast damages listed in the 1.7 patch notes. What we know from the patch notes: damage of the large cannon is 1200 damage of the tank cannon is 1500 damage of the rocket launcher is 1000 What I think: the shield has 3500 health normal bullets (smart cannon and mini gun) deal 50 damage blasters deal 150 damage shields regenerate with 10% health (350) after 10 seconds broken shields probably regenerate in intervals, as long as they aren't hit during that non-broken shields seem to regenerate faster than broken ones also, it appears the white shield in the test with the six rotating shields was not fully regenerated, but probably at about 80% Anyway, what's probably more efficient in battle with layered shields is deactivating the broken ones or even better already deactivating those about to break until your final shield is about to break. with that you should always get the most regeneration in the shortest time, but it's obviously difficult to track mid-battle and wouldn't have been as visually telling in these testing cases

[@cyclosarin]

Basically you'd need 13 shields at maximum, taking in to account the regeneration time. They seem to regenerate alteas before the quick fire can trigger. 23:51

[@johncage5368]

Very nice experiment! BTW: I like the cool wobble effect the shields have when hit. Good job, devs.

[@RythAnimations]

Hey Scrap! I was thinking it could be really cool if you made a video where you make a large spaceship with a walkable interior

[@guardiantko3220]

color the shields differently, attach to rotating servo, when x color breaks, turn it off for a few seconds while the other tanks, set up logic gates to turn on/off the other on same command

[@nawfel2862]

Moist Critical '' you absalout buffon, its not clips these are mags'' 11:11

[@TheCaptNoname]

Using paddlewheels with several shields on each blade seems like a solid idea. Battle cyclogyros for the win!

[@Verin100]

@ScrapMan The explosion does go through shields, but a few meters is enough of a buffer to prevent damage. You also have to account for game lag and moving projectiles, so the shield in front should be a little farther out. Additionally, sometimes projectiles do get through a shield after it's just been hit, (can't say if this a bug or by design) but having some layered shields is enough to protect against this.

[@thecrimsonsoldier6803]

Hi Scrapman, I have a small thought. you know how in space battles, the parts that break off of a ship can be targeted by the targeting system? well, what if you make parts that you can deploy like flares that confuse missiles? and if said flares have shields on them, then it'll be harder to get rid of them.

[@blackoak4978]

@thecrimsonsoldier6803 Yuzie tried that on a fighter jet, it technically works, but requires good timing. During combat anyone who's good enough to use flares adequately probably doesn't need to use them. Same with this shield system Scrapman came up with. It requires so much focus that he would be better off focusing on his flying and shooting

[@real_dickens]

Possibilities of doing incredible tank battles increased wildly 😮

[@frasermiller4366]

what if you rotate the sheilds away before they break so they can start gaining health back immediately?

[@Beregorn88]

They don't start regaining health immediately, and that has been proven in the video. The question is whether a damaged shield recover faster than a broken shield, as that seems to be the case from what we saw. So maybe yes, a slowly rotating carousel may be a better solution than changing shields only when broken

[@Manni-Astracraft]

I really forgot to check Trailmakes for a while LMAO Didn't even know it existed before i watched this.

[@pardotkynes1]

Like gailblue said but add a second axis of rotation, let it rotate constantly. Then when you add the sporadic nature of hits during an actual dog fight I think it would be so close to invincible you would win almost any fight

[@altioar]

I see scrapman is plotting his revenge on Yzuei for the "Not auto aim space battle"

[@Ghent_Halcyon]

Been a lot of fun watching your new vids with the new stuff.

[@gamerboi64729]

Yeah, I kind of expected the results of the tests, based off of the fact that i messed around on Nassau with pretty much all of the guns. Overall a great video!

[@JanTonovski]

Melee battles with vehicles with dynamite outside of an energy shield could be interesting

[@TinaGloria2012]

This is an amazing video. I love the testing and like myth busting you're doing around the shield generator. Its really interesting to see the difference between the different weapons and how they affect the shield itself. Just as I'm about to put my comment of how do rockets and stuff affect the shield and scrap already starts doing it lol. (EDIT) Scrap if you read this my best idea is to essentially to make a cube of shields with the max amount of shields you can put into it while covering them all but essentially making them all the same size so they all maybe share the damage taken instead of each layer tanking all the shots. Because if my guess is right it doesn't matter if its the same build or not you can always shoot through the back side of the shields. Then you can make something that will be able to tank just about anything because the shields will be constantly regenerating like the 19 shield test, but because they are all essentially taking up the same space it will help against breaking in the first place. With it being a separate build from your ship, craft, or whatever you're putting it on. Then when it comes time to put the other build and the shield block together you can either attach with an anchor block or leave a spot in your other build to spawn the shield block into so that way its protecting the other build.

[@TinaGloria2012]

As far ad all the layers regenerating and rebuilding health I actually think if you make all your layers of shield the same size and put multiple shields down like maybe 8 or so you should be able to actually prevent things from breaking through. Because you will have compounded shields blocking shots, but I'm not sure if that will help or hinder the performance with them essentially "glitch welded" together.

[@TinaGloria2012]

Also, if you put them in a square block space and adjust all their sizes you should honestly I think be able to make multiple shields look like one shield and make it so that they all share the damage instead of one tanking it at a time. (EDIT) So you should be able to honestly make a bank of shields where they are all stacked together on top of each other and make like one big mega shield that shares all the damage together. However, you will need to test to make sure you can fire out of it without damaging it. I think this may have been tested already when you have done space battles with only one shield, but maybe you can then make a max complexity shield build that you attach to your other build with like anchor blocks or something. Then with the shields all essentially mashed together you will have something that should be able to withstand just about anything. Except for maybe a giant battery of lasers.

[@thesunnynationg]

20:30 unless you have a mechanism to swap the generators positions. maybe we get an update where we can control the size of the shields in flight.

[@slowmotion5406]

Scrapman please put the shields on pistons so when the first shield breaks you can pull it behind the other shield using the pistons maybe this might work a lot more better

[@CyarSkirata]

I'm now imagining a fightercraft of whatever type having a separate shield generator for each facing. It'd really eat into how many power cores you have available to use, but theoretically it'd extend the life of your shields in a dogfight since you and your opponent will be maneuvering so much that they're near enough guaranteed to have their damage spread across at least 2 shields.

[@ArinJager1]

I'm getting nam flashbacks to TerraTech, because the shields or the bubbles (blue shields, green heal/repair your tech) are a big deal in that game (but you have batteries and solar panels and stuff in it, too, so you have to manage the energy supply and stuff)

[@toddabbott781]

If you put 4 shields on a space ship you are going to be near impossible to destroy. You saw what adding a second did. It gives you a huge advantage.

[@lstchance87]

Put the shields on a constant steady rotation so that no single shield is taking all of the damage at once

[@Icedcoffee-ff5ku]

Hey scrap man, something crazy happened while I was playing trailmakers and I think it would be cool if you did one of those investigation type videos about it. What happened is that when I launch bombs in space they only move the direction the space ship is moving. I Was messing with that and launched it in space directed into doon. It flew in space and then went into the atmosphere of doon, but instead of falling once it gets in doon. It kept going as if it wasn’t bothered by gravity even though it was in doon. I think it would be cool to see if other weapons like cannons do the same thing

[@VSTMM270]

The rotating shield is a good idea. You could attach a few to a heli type setup and have them rotate perpetually but in space since there is no weight I just make a huge ship and put as many shields as possible and when they run out on one side I turn my ship to the un damaged side and so fourth. Mass emp and mass rocket seem to get them all at once though. Extra shielding using hull blocks also helps a lot to prolong the life of the vehicle.

[@arthuryongxiao7243]

Can you do another space community series ? My suggestion is to make it a sequel of the mars series where you travel between mars and the new colony supplies and base parts and stuff. I think that the new colony could be on Saturn’s moon Titan as it has the highest chances of life in our solar system. You can do more research on titan for more info on its methane cycle,seas,lakes and rivers of methane and its underground water ocean. I suggest the lore being in search of the aliens who built bases on mars.

[@tristoms0971]

Scrapman testing out how long shields last against different weapons: The EMP launcher:

[@gokselaras9002]

With the smart cannon test we can confirm that first regen has %10 of the initial hp

[@YourMoralCompas]

This leads me to question if certain weapons deal more damage to shields but less to building blocks

[@lordcatofthepurplevoid8633]

it would be intereting to see a multiplayer battle but you have to use a shield system like this and have a limited number of blasters and see who would win

[@sarodorethedragon9865]

did the math: you need 25 layers of shields to completely negate this rate damage, 24 because each layer regens to take set of rounds per

[@TheMostUt]

You could use this data to make a spreadsheet for per weapon projectile damage, shield total damage mitigation, and shield regeneration time. I would start with a minimum projectile damage at 5 (or some small non-zero non-one number). Number of rounds to shield shutdown and ratios will give you a better idea of where that would start (assuming whole number damage). Number of shields required to provide invincibility will rely on shield regen timers. If there is a mechanism to detect shield overload, simply turn it off until it is back up to full power, that would be logic (you could do it manually, but it requires many much brain powers). You could probably just have the shield array rotate slowly, such that no shield ever actually fails before rotating out of the line of fire.

[@thecommandblockguy6805]

What if you made the whole shield mechanism slowly rotate so that the next shield took over right before the first shield was destroyed, optimizing it’s time to regenerate. The rotation could also be automated. I feel like this is a revolutionary shield defense mechanism that you created. Nice job!

[@darkstar_sierra1588]

Yeah but remember he was only using one blaster at the start where people are using multiple in servers plus he has them firing all at once where other players usually have them set to stagger fire for higher ROF which essentially means no shield layering is going to save you regardless if you have it rotating around or not i have already faced shield spammers thinking there invincible but my guns take them out like it's nothing and they end up stopping there shield spam and just go with normal shields (Non stacked). Note: Yes i use stagger fire for my guns and if they keep using the multi-shield tactic i pull out my "Shield Breaker" which consists of 20 EMP launchers set to stagger fire which breaks through all there shields in seconds allowing me to light them up with blaster fire and rocket fire.

[@thecommandblockguy6805]

@@darkstar_sierra1588 yeah that’s a good point. I suppose having that many shields can just be a hassle, but I think if you’re maneuverable enough, and give them time to recharge, it might work.

[@darkstar_sierra1588]

@@thecommandblockguy6805 well my build is super maneuverable where it can do a 180 within 1 second so maneuverability is not a problem to deal with for me.

[@ElitefirstYT]

You made infinite rockets and bays and now invincibility. Now can you add all of them together

[@cyantasks7129]

a simple compromised solution that might be practical in battle is to just put two shields on pistons and alternating between which one is extended. Pretty much the simplest way to still do it

[@masterdragon2698]

One thing that could potentially increase shield health is to have the shields rotating around a creation, spreading out the damage done to the shields and giving them time to regenerate a bit before the next barrage

[@sonnyblasingame7443]

Key thing to note for this, you won't be getting shot consistently like in the video. You'll have time to get 3-7 shots in before you lose your lock with the weapon of choice. I'm thinking you CAN stack guns and have them shoot at the same times to brake the first shield, THEN you'll have a few other guns that are delayed from the stacked one. So let's say you have 24 guns that shoot at the same time to break the shield, then you'll have like 2 or 3 more guns to shoot NOT at the same time. try to see if

[@marcoscaio4133]

I think this Shields update has really balanced the fights that the whole team does, what do you think about having another tank fight, however, with Shields, to make it very difficult to finish the fight practically with a single shot in the seat ?

[@circuitgamer7759]

I think you might be able to do a similar system to the rotating one with pistons instead, using the offset settings to line up the shields. That might be easier to control and program, and might be more compact, but I don't have the game so I'm not sure about either of those.

[@soupeternal3784]

Dear Man of Scrap: I would like to say with humble regards from the knowledge I've collected over the years of playing many Sci-fi FPS games such as Halo, Doom, and Starfield, and a few more games that I have forgotten or failed to remember, it would be well known that energy weaponry disable or break energy shields far faster and more effective then kinetic/ballistic weaponry, so I hope this hopefully easy to read note helps you understand that in hopefully any and all games with energy weaponry and energy shielding would have that basic logic within the game. Humble regards, EternalSoup.

[@soupeternal3784]

Add on: As always I tend to forget watch videos all the way through so I will be learning more about how this damage system works to further my knowledge upon Sci-fi game weaponry. And so it seems with Trailmakers all cannons takes three shots to disable the energy shield, further research must be conducted, I will read all 98 comments and check back up in the future to see if anymore comments can help me. It seems the rocket launcher takes four shots to disable the shield, upon reading some comments a "rotating shield" can take more damage. It seems you'll need more then one shield, as I watch further I understand it takes two dynamite explosions to disable the shield. A still target can have their shield disabled with one minigun, but two blasters are more effective then two miniguns, at last the point of energy weaponry being more effective to take down energy shielding. At last, the shield test, studying his test shows three shields can last a minimum of 17.27 seconds against one blasters, but that isn't the max amount of blasters he can and could use, using 8 shield generator he can last up to 1 minute, 8 seconds, but that's not the strongest he can be. and so watching through more of his video it seems to be a line of 14 shields can and will protect you, but rotating shields will work better if you set it up correctly.

[@soupeternal3784]

Note: it only works against one, but if you the reader of this comment were to refine this idea to make a indestructible shield then you can win any fight.

[@couch6783]

i mean it makes sense, you look at any space game generally the laser or energy based weapons damage shield better, and the ballistic weapons damage the hull better, i like that they kept it like that.

[@westsidetrucker7943]

This video had some great info. Now you should try a 3v1 with the gang like your op aa gun match. Have the 1 have a vehicle with insane layered shields and the 3 have a power core limit for weapons and speed, then time trial it to see how long the one lasts.

[@rolandramirez44]

Scrapman, I'm surprised you have not tried bomb bays on the shield test (specialy with your bomb bay turret). I do not know how powerful each bomb would be, but if 3 hits is the sweet number for explosive guns, the 4 bombs of the bomb bay would be the "fastest fire rate" of the explosive based weapons.

[@How2Bboss]

I wonder if the weapons that do more shield damage do less physical/block damage, and vice versa (not including the explosive guns)? So you could use blasters to break shields, then smart cannons to destroy the enemy.

[@darkstar_sierra1588]

The laser blasters are more powerful because they do way more damage to creations then any of the other guns i have already tested it the 2x4 block (IIRC) only took 2 shots to destroy with laser blaster where the normal guns destroy it within 4-5 shots so you do the numbers and you'll realise the Laser guns are more effective.

[@How2Bboss]

@@darkstar_sierra1588 hmm, thanks for letting me know. I would’ve tested it myself if I had the game

[@ethanelliott9250]

The little “no”s from the editor next to scrap man’s face when he’s counting wrong are so funny.

[@presidentmichael3349]

Hey Scrapman I was curious if the shield's recovery time is better if the shield isn't completely broken, if so it may be possible to just have it slowly spinning and if you can find the speed it takes the shield to recover fully from one hit then putting one rotation as the per hit for each might be good. Also as far as aesthetics go it would be kind of cool looking to have a scifi paddle wheel look with the shield generators maybe 12 so they look more pleasing and fill the gap in coverage better if you have it constantly spinning.

[@superkillskulldeath6624]

i know this is old but its-3 you have to remember it will be 24 shots but then when its taking damage another shield will be remade and remove 24 off so you need now 27 shots and every shield gives + 3 on top to the end so if you stacked 24 shields you should never brake the last one or at lest something along those lines also if you set it up the shields could spine so they never take full damage

[@EpsilonRosePersonal]

So, a few thoughts: First, is it possible to layer enough shields that they'll withstand an endless stream of fire from an infinite number of blaster? Or, more accurately, is it possible to layer enough shields that the shield gating-the brief period when a shield breaks where it stops all incoming damage-from one shield chains into the next. Second, for your rotating shield design, would it be possible to just use a grid of shield on pistons and simply push the "lead" shield to the front? It would be a very directional shield array and you might have to play with angles, shapes, and offsets to maximize the overlap, but the control mechanism should be A LOT simpler. Third, what would happen if you cycle shields on a fixed patter, rather than waiting for the first shield to break, so when you cycle a shield out it's not regenerating from completely broken? Finally, rather than physically moving the shields, what would happen if you simply turned them off? This also leads to the follow up question, does being off effect the regeneration rate of a non-broken shield? (That is, if you turn it off, while the shield is visible, will that change anything?)

[@Belzemat]

A lot of people are suggesting having them rotate automatically very fast, I think it'd be a mistake to go fast. I think if you rotate at a very slow speed you'll have better luck. make it rotate at about the same speed as scrap was doing manually, so that you're basically assuming that they're breaking through the shield. if they aren't, obviously you're fine, if they are, you should be just as good.

[@deus3x236]

What about simply turning a shield off instead of rotating? Does it recharge in that state? If so you could have a shield battery that just shuts a shield down every X seconds (the time it needs to regen) and turn another one back on. I think doing that in a round-robin way would result in a semi-perfect cycling. You might even combine it with a rotation to reduce the number of shots per shield.

[@Crimsonwlf22]

ScrapMan & Yzuei should make capital ships with multiple shields and weapons and see how that goes if the game doesn't lag itself to death as the battle ensues I'm not sure this idea would work out very well though as the game gets cranky when you have a lot of blocks on one creation, let alone 2

[@danejones-qy6jy]

I would imagine the blaster has like +25% DMG to shields. But -25% to blocks.

[@somax1259]

Me: sees the thumbnail also me: *red sun starts playing*

[@Shadow4wolfz]

In a ground based battle, you could totally just make a turtle if there was no power core limit I feel like.

[@PeterDropveter-ev8lt]

Do shields still generate when turned off? Because then you could just stack multiple shields together, no need for rotating/turning them? For example having 2 shields(1 set) activated at the same time while the others are deactivated. You could then create a system that turns off the first set of shields that need recharging, and at the same time activate a different set of shields. Could even have a timer alternate between these sets automatically maybe! But then it could switch shields too soon or too late.. It's probably best to do it by a button yourself. Maybe a silly idea, I don't play this game myself, I just enjoy watching you play it :)

[@alpalmaster8705]

My hypothesis is that the shields hp regenerates faster when not broken than when broken, so what happends if you put the wheel on a constant rotation. Fast enough that the shields dont die but slow enough that the shields are regenerating for a significant ammount of time.

[@ThatGamerPilot]

If you made a capital ship, the shields would probably hold out long enough to take on multiple fighters, depending on how many turrets it has.

[@darkstar_sierra1588]

Not if your up against a "Shield Breaker" creation which i have one of those it's designed to deal with shield spam and also deals massive damage to there creation (Even large battleships) also it's extremely tanky too so they do less damage against me where i completely obliterate them because i use specific blocks that make it harder to destroy my creation.

[@jonathonchristensen3279]

MPM? So cops and robbers in space? Two teams. Team 1 has1 ship, two seats, shields, and a turret. Team 2 has two small fighter/interceptors with no shields or a single shield. Speed, power cores, max shields for robbers, and max fire power is at your discretion. Robbers start in the station, Fighters start on the ship. Robbers win if they make it to the designated planet or tunnels. Interceptors win if they can stop them by any means. Also would be interesting to see a juggernaut version of this where it is three on one. Using shield generators on pistons to alternate them in and out of fire. Fixed fighters or custom VS fixed juggernaut or custom? Either way would be cool.

[@Pitstopcomponents]

Questions regarding the shield: Does it recharge health when toggled off? Does it regain health during the reload time of the large cannon? How do they act if the shields are all on the exact same height, like same sizes, and offset so that it looks like its only one, do the maybe hit a different shield every time or is there a logic behind which is damaged... Can a single bomb bay destroy the shield AND the creation?

[@DanyF02]

So blaster does more damage to shield, does it do less to blocks? At 17:15 the gatling guns seemed to wreck the shield blocks a lot more. Assuming that's the case, it would be interesting to mix and match to see what's the fastest way to take out a cab protected by a shield. 3 blasters? 2 blasters and an EMP? 3 gatlings? 2 gatlings and an EMP? 1 of each?

[@nicklausdavis]

Due to how space ‘dog fights’ work, I think having a couple of auto rotating shields would work well but would they work better than just an equal amount of well layered shields? I don’t know

[@LoyaLPikmin]

I think with the explosive guns that have a long reload time let the shield regenerate, that’s why it was so consistent

[@2literbottleofsprite78]

You should make a space battle ship battle that has a minimum power core and block requirement to make sure the builds are BIG

[@mrniceface]

Now you just have to use rotating servos with distance servos or something to fire more blaster shots faster. Or tank cannons, like I did.

[@Renegade-re4vs]

Scrapman! It would have been better to test this with two blasters, seeing how you tested for which has the highest time-to-kill (TTK). This way, you have the highest average time to kill accounted for when considering the lifespan of each shield. Accounting for a single blaster serves well enough as a proof of concept of course, but for practical applications, I think the revolving shields would work quite well against higher time to kill if it automatically rotated after a set time, keeping non-uniform shooting patterns from destroying the shields, simply because of optimization

[@jacobkrout1627]

I do believe that you can turn the shields on and off, if so, you need to figure out if the shield turns on with full health. if it does, you can have only three shields in a fighter, One main shield, One backup shield (both always on) an then have and emergency third shield that is bigger than both and when the main shield goes down, you can turn on the emergency shield to protect the main shield while it is re-healing itself.

[@danser_theplayer01]

I believe you could have a timer system and move fresh shields "into scope" via pisons.

[@sufi4360]

12:30 "You absolute buffoon, what you have there is not clips, these are mags"

[@SaganTheKhajiit]

What about just constantly spinning shields? To spread the damage across multiple shields instead of switching when a shield breaks or something

[@mihalydozsa2254]

We need programmable shield sizes with automatic detection, :D So we can reduce the size of each shield after each