-- GRAVITY SHIELDING --
At one time, an armor plating's thickness was the only defense against a weapons hit. As the lethality of weapons increased, the life expectancy of combat units decreased dramatically.
With the development of gravity-based technologies it was soon discovered that a thin wave of pressure-gravity would create a barrier impervious to all forms of energy. Power demands and technological limitations made it impossible to create a shield that was permanently on, but it was further discovered that flickering the shield on and off at a rapid rate significantly reduced power requirements. Though this flickering technique did permit some laser shots to get through the shields, it still significantly reduced the effectiveness of the shots.
A shield is effective against energy weapons, and low-mass projectiles (under 100 grams). Additionally, a shield will violently disrupt any electronic circuitry that passes near it, causing missiles and other fire-and-forget munitions to detonate permanently. (The electronics of the shielded unit are not affected because they operate in sync with the shield's cycles.)
A shield's effectiveness is measured by its flicker rate, the number of on-off cycles during one second. Under combat conditions, a shield rated at 50 would intercept most incoming attacks 50 percent of the time. Though there is no theoretical limit to a shield's flicker rate, there seems to be a limit on battlefield effectiveness. No matter how fast the flicker rate, at least 10 percent of all shots get through. (NOTE: In order for the gravity fields to form it does require a dedicated fusion engine that cannot be used for anything else than to power that shield generator.)
To determine the flicker rate of any installed shield system, take the total engine rating (fusion only) and divide it by five to obtain the effective flicker rate, round the total down to the closest whole number. The shield generator itself masses 1 ton for flicker ratings between 10-50, and for flicker ratings between 60-100 masses in at 2 tons, and the shield emitters for the system take up zero mass but are required to occupy a single critical location in each of the equipped units facings. (NOTE: Units massing 100 tons or less only require a single shield generator for coverage.) Any internal damage done to a location where a flicker shield emitter is located disables the system in that area.
For all other craft that mass over 100 tons, that will have gravity shielding, will be required to have a shield generator installed in each of the unique facings for coverage.
To calculate the mass of these vessels shield generators as follows: Shield Generator Mass = Total Engine Mass / 100 with a minimum of 1 ton. This is for one side of the ship. Each ship / station type has multiple facings and must mount a generator for each side. The cost for each generator is 100,000 C-Bills each.
For ease of play, shield flicker rates are fixed and must be determined at this time. Each ship class gets a set number of shield factors, which must be divided up among the six sides of the ship. No single side may have a rate greater than 5. Once set, these values may not be changed during the course of the game.
SHIELD POINT TABLE
Class Shield Class Shield
Factors Factors
Large WarShip 30 JumpShip / Space Station 18
Small WarShip 24 Small Craft / DropShip 12
