Lets talk shields

[Anomaly]

I'm not sure NQ will see this let alone use it but at least Ill be able to laugh if what they go with is crap.

 

So what do we want to accomplish with the implementation of shields?   At the top of my list is encouraging ship shapes beyond cubes.  If we could make fights more fun as well, that would be a nice bonus. 

 

So lets start. 

1: Shields are created by projectors with a S-L  size range. They vary in size and strength but they cannot overlap and cannot face each other. They act like large flat voxels when connecting to each other. 

 

With just that you can see that more surface area will allow for more shields so bigger core ships have an advantage at last. Also, while the no facing rule means they cannot be stacked, shield emitters can still be at 90 degree angles to each other so we might see more interesting ship shapes. 

 

Now I am already imagining giant mesh cubes with sides like ruffled potato chips so... 

 

2: As a shield takes damage, an increasing amount of that damage is radiated to the voxels beneath it.

 

If it is placed on a solid surface of voxels, several thick or of a high tier the voxels should last - especially if auto repair is implemented.   Placing shields on a mesh 1 voxel thick would mean an early death for your shield emitters and this is important given the next rule.  

 

3: As long as the emitter itself isn't destroyed, the shield it generates will slowly regain HP. 

 

Now the pilots have an even more active role in combat. As some shields take damage, they will need to turn their ships so that fresh emitters are taking more of the damage. Is it worth your gunners losing lock? Is it worth exposing the engines or bridge?   

 

Battles could be less of a slugfest and more of a dance  with ships trying hide their injuries while staying on an enemy's damaged side. 

 

 

I'm sure there are things I have overlooked so please post your own corrections or rules below. 

 

[TheKatzMan]

I really like the idea of shields in game, if nothing else, to cover vital areas of the ship. I even considered doing some testing to see if i could use force ramps as some sort of basic shield, but the force area interferes with things like engines, just like voxels or other components would. I think there should be shield generators and shield emitters, I think the shield generators should be reasonably big and heavy... big/heavy enough to make putting it on a little pvp cube impractical, but small/light enough to be completely practical on any sort of reasonably sized ship designed to actually do anything other than sit in space waiting for an unsuspecting hauler to happen into its radar range... (sorry minicube meta anger issues). The size of the generator could affect how many total voxel area of shields that can be sustained, and also affect the shield replenishment rate. The emitter size could affect how big on an area the the emitter could project. Being able to push power to the emitters that are facing the enemy could allow for much greater protection on that side, or you could push it equally and have to rotate the ship to get maximum use of shield replenishment.