Introduction

Shields can protect units inside by absorbing the damage from attacks in exchange for charge. While shields can stop all but a select few weapons, any area of effect from the detonation will still pass through the shield, so don't expect any units near the edge of the shield area to be completely safe from harm.

If you relay only on shields and get killed otherwise then notice that each of this big shields need 1/3 fusion or 7 solars to restore it's charge. Also your human enemies will beat you with other weapons like Emp-Missles, shield penetrating weapons like gauss / the meele weapon of Jack or even try to nuke you. If you remember that each of your shields costs it's own metal and 1/3 of a fusion, don't wonder if they have used there own metal to get something unexpected.

Shield Charge

When shields take damage, their charge is depleted. As the shield charge depletes the shield color will change from blue (full charge) to red. They will continue to stop weapons until the amount of charge is lower than the damage done by the weapon. The shield requires energy to replenish its charge, and with sufficient energy will recharge at a steady rate.

Shield Link

Shields can link up to share charge, so if a few shields are taking more damage, the other shields will help them recharge faster. There is no limit to how many shields you can link together. However, because charge transfers at a finite rate, one shield in a large chain can still be made vulnerable with focused fire.

Shields from any type of unit can link together.

As a shield takes damage it turns to red. The shields it is linked to will help recharge it.

In-depth Mechanics

As a general rule every weapon is blocked by shields. When a projectile collides with a shield it's damage is compared to the current shield power. If shield power is greater than weapon damage the projectile explodes. Beam lasers that collide with shields drain the shield completely before the beam penetrates it, the beam stops at the shield if intercepted. As the damage exceeds the shield's power, the laser penetrates the shield and deal the remaining damage to the target.

• Shields lose power equal to weapon damage when blocking projectiles.
• The AOE damage of weapons is still dealt to units near the explosion, even those inside the shield.
• Heatray damage against shields does not fall off with range (this is an engine limitation).
• Wolverines deal damage to shields equal to the total damage of all the missiles shot by the mines they lay.
• EMP weapons damage shields for 1/3 their EMP damage against units.
• Lightning weapons (Zeus and Panther) deal both normal and EMP damage. When damaging shields only the EMP component of their damage is used.
• Weapons that pass through units are also completely unaffected by shields. This includes Gauss, Fire and Dgun.

Beating Shields

Area Shield

Artillery units with high DPS/cost such as Hammer can wear a shield down over time. As an added bonus the accuracy of the weapon does not matter because shields are very large, this makes Tremor particularly effective.

AOE weapons in general have poor raw damage so are poor against shields unless you wish to use the AOE to hit something near the edge of the shield.

High burst weapons such as Penetrator can usually pierce a shield in one shot if the shield power is lowered slightly first. Tacnuke is another good example, a shield on less than 95% power will let a tacnuke right through.

If your opponent has a shield extending beyond their defence you can move short ranged high dps units (such as riots) in and attack ground to drain the shield. Make sure to stay out of the range of turrets that are probably within the shield.

Personal Shield

Personal shields are weak to the same things as Area Shield as well as a few more. In particular AOE works well against personal shield as the low shield radius will cause a lot of AOE weapons to damage the shield owner even if the projectile explodes on the shield. (In effect, AoE weapons can do damage twice: once to the shield and once to the unit.)