SE: Flying so fast it hurts?

[NineNine]

I've added a few advanced jetpacks to my spacesuit in Space Exploration. Now, when I move around, (by jetpack, of course) and I get up to full speed, I see my shields start to go down, like I'm getting hit by biters. My shields come right back up once I slow down or stop.

I imagine that there must be a speed at which the Engineer gets hurt? Is that what's happening?

And if so, does it make sense that that would happen inside of a space suit?

[computeraddict]

It's a setting in the jetpack mod that damages shields while moving, proportional to speed. Before that and the "taking damage from biters makes the jetpack turn off" functionality you could become a hovering god that biters couldn't touch, massively trivializing all combat on foot.

Personally I turn off the shield damage and leave on the drop-on-damage option.

[NineNine]

Thanks for the response! Falling on getting hit makes sense, for sure. Otherwise, yes, hand-to-hand combat would be too easy.

But the damage at speed thing... I don't see how that would help balance combat. If I'm moving fast enough that I start taking shield damage (I think I've got 4 blue jetpacks attached to my spacesuit), I also can't really cause any biter damage, at least with my personal lasers. Maybe there's another weapon that can cause damage, even if the Engineer is flying around at a high speed (I only use personal lasers)?

[mmmPI]

And if so, does it make sense that that would happen inside of a space suit?

I don't know if it make sense, but i pretend it's the mosquitoes, flies and other bugs in the air, the faster you go the more energy you need to shield yourself, otherwise they risk getting through the shields and it's like going fast on a bike through a cloud of bugs, it's not lethal risk, but one in the eye and in the nose at the same time still make you feel like you lost health points. That is making some assumption on the space suit, i suppose those are not fully armored, they can resist small collision or puncture, maybe collisions with 1 mosquito at 45km/h like on bike are not costing energy, but then if it's 200km/h the suit mechanical resistance is not enough and the energy shield are needed.

If you use the rocket launcher, going very fast is making the combat easier because you can navigate the map better, do some rapid pass to bombard nests, you don't need to stay in a risky distance, you can go "in worms range", throw 2 rockets and leave "worms range" even before the worms projectile has landed. I used the personnal laser to kill the remaining ennemies after the nests and worms were destroyed to save on ammo, but the priority targets i usually manually throw rockets or nukes late in game if i'm lazy while hovering from the jet pack at the max distance/ out of their range as i can stay.

[computeraddict]

Maybe there's another weapon that can cause damage, even if the Engineer is flying around at a high speed (I only use personal lasers)?

Rockets, especially explosive rockets. The way the jetpack works removes the slow-down drawback of handheld weapons, and once you do that a rocket launcher with explosive rockets is one of the quickest and most cost effective ways of cracking big nests. You can just circle at max range lobbing rockets at the edges, letting PDLs or terrain obstacles keep the biters and spitters far enough away to not be a problem. Before the damage-causes-knock-down biters would rarely deal enough damage to stress your shields in the brief windows they have to deal damage to a jetpacking character, meaning you could just circle with impunity.

The flying-drains-shields and the damage-causes-knockdown were two possible ways to address the imbalance, and Earendel appears to have said "why not both?" and added them both to the jetpack mod.

I don't know if it make sense, but i pretend it's the mosquitoes, flies and other bugs in the air, the faster you go the more energy you need to shield yourself, otherwise they risk getting through the shields and it's like going fast on a bike through a cloud of bugs, it's not lethal risk, but one in the eye and in the nose at the same time still make you feel like you lost health points. That is making some assumption on the space suit, i suppose those are not fully armored, they can resist small collision or puncture, maybe collisions with 1 mosquito at 45km/h like on bike are not costing energy, but then if it's 200km/h the suit mechanical resistance is not enough and the energy shield are needed.

An interesting theory, but the damage *only* affects shields. There is no damage without active shields, even if you cram armor 100% full of jetpack 4's and go plaid.

[mmmPI]

An interesting theory, but the damage *only* affects shields. There is no damage without active shields, even if you cram armor 100% full of jetpack 4's and go plaid.

Thank you, i learned new things, i didn't take the risks necessary to get this kind of information. I have another theory to submit then : The shields aren't consuming power when stationnary or when there is no threat, so now i suppose it's their activation system that mistake mosquitoes or flies for potential projectile and waste energy shielding the spacesuit as if it was a bullet or an asteroid or space debris due to the speed differential. If we could throw rocks of various size and speed at the armor it would be possible to figure out the sensitivity maybe ?