Unit idea: Crawling bomb that spawns a shield

Hmm that sounds really interesting, I think the "Shield Bomb" would be pretty cool yes, but it probably should be a rather small shield, and cheap unit. You don't want to invest 500metal into a unit that dissapears, and if it had a huge shield it would simply be to cost effective, but I guess a middle can be find.

Giving the bandits a decreasing small shield is also a reallly awesome idea in my opinion. They would have to be nerfed a bit elsewhere, but that would be really cool, and really in support of the more defensive kind of play shieldbots have (Altough with the Outlaw buff I'm seeing some very agresive play).

My point was that the bandit's temporary-shield would be a very weak, minor buff. Just a small replacement for the autoregen. Something that means the bandit's stats could stay otherwise unchanged. A bandit can tag-up to a shieldball and get an extra 50% or something while a Glaive can retreat and regenerate. Remember that in the opening raiding game investing in a shield-source for your Bandit like a Thug or a Shieldbomb would be a risky and expensive proposition and most of that early play would still be focused on unshielded Bandits.

If you personally micro 1 unit well you always outmicro fight comand on same unit. And that happens a lot with first scouting raiders, when com are queued to build base or something, 1 glaive kills like 3 glaives 1 by 1 and so on.

I don't really see how a shield bomb would be used. How big is the shield? Do you blow it up on static defenses and then run your units in under its cover? Why not use a thug or a clogger for this? It seems merely a way to carry around excess charge for your shield units, which is a nice idea, but I dont think a kaze is the way to do it.

I've been considering swapping the bandits regen for shields for a looong time. Google thinks Bandit is already unique enough though.

So instead, I've been considering removing the autoheal from the bandit and adding a new unit to the factory. It will have a very small, very quickly regenerating shield, making it good against light resistance early game or units that come 1-by-1, something like the old maverick, but dies very fast to front-loaded weaponry or concerntrated DPS. It can also charge other shields fast if they are low, but only to a certain level because the shields max power is not high.

There are a lot of implications to this though. Firstly, on a small shield, any AoE will also do HP damage (we can add the whole 'draining HP drains shields first' but that is still double damage from AoE or a bunch more special rules). Secondly a few of these units will make it really hard to drain a thug ball using low RoF weapons. Thirdly, high-damage weapons with a higher threshold than the shields power will pass right through (Kinda intended, but a bit too hardcounter). Finally, there is the whole 'Where does this fit into the rest of the factory' thing? If its a new, maverick-style riot unit, then how does it relate to outlaw? If its a new raider, how does it relate to bandit? Does it have synergy, or simply different situational use? If it is something a little bit inbetween (Which is where im thinking) what sort of gap does it fill and what sort of price range should it have? Wouldn't a second, heavy raider be more appropriate in a factory with cheaper raiders, but then veh has dart and scorcher while spherebot has glavie and scythe, so why shouldn't shieldbot get a second raider?

So all these considerations are why I haven't proceeded with the idea.

Counter bombs with Bandit?

The problem with shield bots and roach is, that each roach which kills 2 bandits of a player which is lower on ressources "makes cost".
To protect your shield army against roaches, Bandits are insufficient - you can even cloak roaches or make jumping skuttles and still make cost against Thug+Bandit or Felon - Felon don't help against cloak.

If we should really be able to counter roaches with Bandits, Bandits have to be a lot cheaper and more independend from LOS ( dirtbox's hills block bandit's shots against roaches ).
One option would be to give Bandits teleporting weapon projectiles which allow them to shot through anything but hit only 1 target each time.

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Back to topic:

I would like a repulsor-slow-bomb unit.
* deny any unit - ally or enemy - to enter a small area for a limited time.
* slow down any unit which try to walk into this area.
If you use it in front of your shield units, it can decloak cloaked units and allow your shield bots to retreat or recharge.

But before we make a shield bomb, we should get a more effective shield factory unit against snipers, penes and area cloaked or self-cloaked bombs.

Snipers/Penes:
* One option would be to increase Aspis shield charge capacity to about 4000 or 4500 and Thugs capacity to at least 3000.
* Another option would be to get shield capacitor units with no recharge, but a really huge capacity.
* A third option would be to equalise Felon's and Thug's shield size to make Felon less noticeable.

Is it possible to balance shield units if Aspis has still 3600 charge and Thug has no weapon/recharge, but 4500 shield charge?
With Thug/Aspis protected outlaws or Felons are much more usefull against defense and penetrators if Aspis is much longer charged at 3600.
For exchange Felons could get more HP/recharge and less shield capacity and shield size.