In light of David Griffin's search for "Real Shields" and the petering out of
WotW #9, Here's # 10 with Damage shields and their ilk:
Damage Shield
Generic damage absorption shield. Mass is 2% ship mass per shield point (1
mass per point minimum). Cost is 3 points per Mass.
Each shield point has its own box on the SSD + 1 box for the generator.
When damage is taken from any source over one turn, it is applied to the
damage shield first, until the shield has absorbed as many points as it has
boxes. Each box that absorbs damage rolls a threshold at the current level,
and burns out if it fails (i.e. that box cannot absorb damage on
subsequent turns until/unless repaired). If the Shield is overwhelmed
(damge received is greater than number of functioning shield boxes), then the
generator also takes a threshold check. When a normal threshold due to damage
is called for, each shield box
_and_ the
generator take another threshold roll.
----------
Globular Shield
Mass: 3 per DP absorption, Cost 4xMass Deflects all damage up to its DP each
turn.
Restrictions: When active, mounting ship can't use thrust, weapons, FTL, or
launch fighters. FTL can't be used for 2D6 turns after last use.
If the shield takes more damage than its DP remaining in one turn, the
generators overload, taking a threshold check, but can be repaired with DC
parties. If repaired, the shield is
re-activated at half it`s original DPs, and can regenerate as normal
from there.
Comments: (Oerjan) Conceptually similar to the Phalon vapour glands, but the
Globular Shield gets better the more of it you can carry (ie., the bigger your
own ship is). Still, considering its size and
penalties it probably isn't too much of a problem - eg., replacing the
normal screens on a
Komarov-class SDN with Globular Shields gives the Komarov 7 "free" DP
per
turn -
equivalent to the average damage its normal screens save
from 21 beam dice - but only if the ship doesn't maneuver or fire. All
in all I'd say this
potentially very powerful, but so loaded-down with restrictions that it
becomes virtually useless.
------------------
Mass/Energy Shield (ME shield)
Trek type shield. System has emitters and generators. Generator costs
5%
ship mass/level.
Emitters: 360 degree coverage = 3 mass, 180 = 2 mass, 60 = 1 mass. Cost
3/mass
Absorbs damage. Acts as screen against beam weapons (Screen level = shield
level/2 round
down). Reduces other damage by shield level for each die of damage. Damage
reduction is for ship itself. Full damage is applied to the shield (e.g. a
level 2 ME shield prevents a beam roll of 4 from damaging the ship, but the
shield counts as having taken that point of damage. Similarly, a roll of 6 vs.
this shield scores 2 points to the hull and 2 vs. the shield total. If a
shield facing receives more damage than its level from a single source
(weapon, not ship), the emitter facing that direction makes a threshold check
at current level.
----------------
Pinpoint Shield
Mass: 40, Cost: 120,
Able to absorb 20 DP Shield must "intercept" attacking fire by rolling higher
than attack die roll. First intercept roll is
at +2, each subsequent rolls subtract 1. (1d6+1, 1d6, 1d6-1...).
Pinpoint shield automatically absorbs some damage from any "area" attacks.
> From D6 "damage=roll" attacks (Plasma bolts, Nova Cannon) PS absorbs 1
Against missiles, the shields roll a 1D6 after PDS, to see how many of the
remaining missiles they stop (each missile stopped applies its damage to the
Pinpoint Shield. If, for example, 3 missiles are stopped, but the 2nd missile
pushes absorbed damage to or past 20 DP, the third missile still goes
through).
Shields can regenerate at the rate of 1D6 + 1 DP per turn (after all
attacks completed). With the pinpoint shields in use, normal screens are
inoperable. Multiple pinpoint shields can be mounted in a ship, and used
together or separately.
Comments:
This one sounds promising. I wonder if Jon is going to include something like
this in the "official" next generation? It seems to me that lots of genres
would have shields of various types, so it's not just Star Trek.
> --- "Izenberg, Noam" <Noam.Izenberg@jhuapl.edu> wrote:
....
> Mass/Energy Shield (ME shield)
> On 6-Jun-01 at 14:13, David Griffin (carbon_dragon@yahoo.com) wrote:
So how many points of damage does a shield have?
> > Similarly, a roll of 6 vs. this shield scores 2
In message <6B3C0EEAB4FED3119F5F009027DC5E9E01D73106@spacemsg3.jhuapl.edu>
> "Izenberg, Noam" <Noam.Izenberg@jhuapl.edu> wrote:
> In light of David Griffin's search for "Real Shields" and the petering
Hmm.. thats quite a lot of thresholds if you've got a few shield points.
Perhaps if the ship makes a normat threshold check, roll 1 threshold for the
whole system for speed of play?
> ----------
This is rather a long time (on an average roll) - I'd remove this
limitation, and just keep the limitation above.
> If the shield takes more damage than its DP remaining in one turn, the
Still,
> considering its size and
Could make the MASS a proportion of the total MASS of the ship, say (just as
an example), MASS = 2% of hull MASS per point (must buy at least 1 MASS
worth)? Or leave MASS as given, but COST multiple is a percentage of hull
MASS?
Well, this one's gone a bit quite - most of the arguments seemed to
revolve about the effects of adding a defence to weapons that did not
previously have them - and the effect of relative effectiveness of
weapons of a 'defend against all' shield.
So granted an omnipotent defence will cause problems - as everyone would
want one - having a number of specialist defences againsts different
types of attack should cause less problems - if they are made exclusive
- maybe.
In summary:
Damage Shield - in some ways this is like the 'armour generator'
proposal - as written, it defends against everything.
Globular Shield - firstly - why does it KO the ships FTL drive for 2d6
turns after it is switched off? As it cannot be used with anything else
- I'm not sure it would see much use.
Mass/Energy Shield - again a 'defend against everything' - and it could
slow the game time (beams will need resoving indivdually).
Pinpoint screen - first thought _why_ can it block area effects? - I'd
remove this ability.
Also - I think its a bit unwieldy.
Void Shield - effectively works like regenerating armour - so as Oerjan
says - works better of bigger ships with more crew.
I've already proposed one possible solution to that - another would be
to remove the regeneration dependence on damage control (and hence ship
size) - each damaged void shield box is regenerated on a roll of 6 on
1d6 (roll for each damaged box, during damage control phase).
Assuming an average game length - it should be possible to come up with
a reasonably balanced cost.
In terms of genre - I don't believe I've ever seen a Kinetic weapon used
in Star Trek - so Trek genre designs don't need Kinetic protection :-)
- ok, the piblished PSB for deflectors says they would defend vs.
kinetics - but the published PSB doesn't match the observed effects
either :-).
Any further comments?
[quoted original message omitted]
In message <001b01c0f6a1$775c9e60$e8c0893e@inty>
> "Bif Smith" <bif@bifsmith.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
[snip]
> > In summary:
Err.. Head hurts!
> > Globular Shield - firstly - why does it KO the ships FTL drive for
Hmm.. I may have the wrong end of the stick here - but, how is a ship
that has dropped its Globular Shield different from one that doesn't have one
anyway (in this respect)?
> > Mass/Energy Shield - again a 'defend against everything' - and it
Actually, thinking about it, I could be wrong - as all damage from a
salvo will, of course, impact the same shield, and thus you just count the
whole damage rolled to see if the shield overloads.
> > Pinpoint screen - first thought _why_ can it block area effects? -
Ok, I vaguely remember macros, IIRC the pinpoint screen was a lot
smaller than the SDF - so how would this work? :-)
Personally - if I was to use such a system - I'd prefer something
simpler: Say: ship can mount any number of pinpoint screens (MASS allowing)
each can intercept ONE attack per turn (say on a roll of 4+ or 5+)
vs. fighters or Salvo missiles intercepts 1 beam dice of attacks.
No idea as to cost ATM.
[snip]
Hmm.. a further thought about the Void Shield proposal:
My 'regenerates automatically' proposal (IIRC roll 1d6 for each damaged shield
box, on a 6 it regenerates), is, on hindsight, likely to slow down play quite
a lot (if you have a lot of void shield boxes and
most/all of them take damage...)
This is less of a problem with the original proposal (use DCPs to repair the
void shield), as even the biggest ships would have a limited number
of DCPs to spare - also, in the original proposal, to a certain extent
there are diminishing returns from having a lot of void shields - unless
you can manage to avoid fire for the time taken for them to be repaired.
As an expansion to the void shield proposal:
Layered Void Shield - like phalon shell armour - 2nd layer is twice
cost, 3rd layer is 3 times cost, etc.
I'm still not sure if the cost in the WDA (4/MASS) is right - probably
ok if the void shield is repaired, probably too low if it regenerates.