The Shield Void

[stupidnewbie]

There are not a lot of pure shield weapons in the game. Exactly 10 counting the HHG. There are also 4 weapons 2/3 or more weighted toward shield damage. Compare this with pure armor weapons of which there are 23 counting the Nuke and 2 more weighted at least 2/3 toward armor damage. It's a very lopsided count.

Of the 10 pure anti-shield weapons only 3 are neutral. 1 is the HHG requiring 100 alignment to buy. Another is the Shield Disruptor which has prohibitively high accuracy/low damage. And finally the Advanced Shield Disruptor that's effective in a pinch.

Of the 7 racial options three have prohibitively high accuracy and are rarely used. Those are the HHD, Alskant Anti-Shield System, and Ik-Thorne Accoustic Jammer. The four remaining are generally seen in use each game: WQSV, TSD, Creo Shield Sucker, and Salv Flux Missile. The latter two are less used because their damage numbers are on the low side.

The 4 shield heavy weapons: NIPP, NID, NIPB, and SEMFC. The Nijarin weapons are generally sought after because they hit for reasonably large numbers. Especially the NIPB which is the 4th largest shield burst you can get.

start here for a shorter version

This all leaves 3 avenues for respectable shield damage: green alignment, Thevian peace, or Nijarin peace. 3 avenues for mediocre shield damage: Salvene peace, WQ peace, Creo peace. Or you cobble something together out of garbage.

We should be looking to minimize garbage options as a general matter of game design. There should always be better and worse but the absence of options or only having crappy ones should be avoided when possible.

We could leave more doors open by making weapon adjustments:
HHD in the 150-170 damage range
Bring the damage up on Skant and Ik P2 weapons
Adjust the ratio on the Salv Chain Laser and weight it more shield heavy

We could pad the floor by adding weapons:
Neutral P1 or P2 with high damage/low acc - TL/PCL2 counterparts
Neutral P3 shield weapon round 125 damage - or move the CSS here and put this in the 110 slot
Neutral P4 shield weapon around 150 damage - near the HHD but with lower accuracy maybe

These are all things we have with armor weapons. It's not breaking the game. Everyone still pushes the political buttons to try and get the CBD or HPT. With a variety of choices to fall back on. Why don't we have these options with shield weapons?