How do Shields work in 2e?

[H]

The benefit of having helped devise shield mechanics for Stargate ships.. I should really get that written up and posted!

 

[phoenixhawk]

I thought a Stargate ship minis game would be cool. I want a Deadulus-class ship mini like NOW.

 

[thePirv]

I thought a Stargate ship minis game would be cool. I want a Deadulus-class ship mini like NOW.

Daedalus was too flat and squashed looking.

Prometheus, although not as advanced, looked far better IMO.

Also, as to the models, there's definitely a website selling them. Someone posted a link to it recently on these boards, but I can't remember the site or what thread it was posted in.

 

[captainsmirk]

http://www3.telus.net/armourytoys/stargate.html

Bit pricey though...


Nick

 

[thePirv]

http://www3.telus.net/armourytoys/stargate.html

Bit pricey though...


Nick

Yup, that'd be the exact website I was thinking of.

Very expensive, but the minis look nice in the pics.

 

[phoenixhawk]

Those minis are pretty cool. A little out of my price range at the moment, but later, for sure. Thanks for the link.

Chris

 

[Arcadia]

From Mongoose Star Wars Mod

Shields X/X: Using particle repulsors or other high technology jealously guarded, this ship relies on a passive shield system for defence. When attacking a ship with Shields, it is assumed to have a Hull score of 4 until the Shields have been reduced to 0. It then reverts to its normal Hull score unless the Shields are raised again.
The fi rst Shields score indicates how much many points of damage the shield can absorb before they are deducted from the ship’s own Damage score. While a ship’s Shields are still intact, do not roll to see if Bulkhead or Critical Hits have been scored - simply deduct the Damage dealt from the Shields. If an attack causes more damage than you have Shields remaining, the extra damage automatically goes through to the hull - roll on the Attack Table as normal. The second Shields score indicates how much damage the shield automatically regenerates in the End Phase of every turn. Shields automatically cease to function if the ship is Crippled.
Note that the Shields will completely stop a hit from reaching the ship’s hull. So, a Double Damage weapon hitting a ship that only has one point of Shields remaining will not transfer the remaining one point of damage to the hull. A second hit will strike the hull as normal.

Arcadia.

 

[Greg Smith]

The rules for 2e have changed since the Star Wars mod. Because a shielded ship was hit in a 4, it became much easier to damage a hull 6 ship with just 1 point of shield than if it had no shields left.

 

[Commador Q]

The rules for 2e have changed since the Star Wars mod. Because a shielded ship was hit in a 4, it became much easier to damage a hull 6 ship with just 1 point of shield than if it had no shields left.

But the ship still can't take any criticles from the attack that drops it's shields. the extera damage continues over but there's a 5/6 chance that would have hapened anyway. I though shields worked out ok the one time i tried a rebble alliance vs ISA fight. Admitedly there weren't verry many AD being slung around so it might be different with other fleets but to me it seemed like the shields did a good job of absorbing damage and criticles, with the miner side effect that the WS could get more triple damage hits in against the hull 4 than the hull 5, but that's being changed in 2nd eddition anyway. Though this may be a bad example as the ISA also have a lot of precise multi-damage weapons with few AD so the criticle blocking effect is more signifigant than the damage reduction.

I thought the biggest problem was not that the shields made the ships more vulnerable at low power levels, but rather that the shields keep regenerating once they are down, but take a while to become effective again. so if you can't get the ship out of the line of fire for a couple turns you are better off not having your shields regenerate (mon-call cruisers against WS, isn't a verry favorable racing match for the rebbles). This was most noticable with ships that had a regeneration avalue of 1 or 2 where one hit from either weapon on a WS would clear it. I'd say it's probably best to just let the player choose whether or not he wants his shields to regenerate each end phase. So basicly if the camptain doesn't yell "where the hell are my shields", or "Get those shields back online" into the intercom every so often the engineering staff works on something else.

 

[Greg Smith]

But the ship still can't take any criticles from the attack that drops it's shields. the extera damage continues over but there's a 5/6 chance that would have hapened anyway.

Remember that any damage that exceeds the shields rolls on the attack table, so can cause criticals:

If an attack causes more damage than you have Shields remaining, the extra damage automatically goes through to the hull - roll on the Attack Table as normal.

If a Nova scores 6 hits on a Tiraca that has one point of shields remaining, one hit removes the last shield, five further hits get through - potentially causing five criticals (or hitting the bulkheads five times and doing nothing).

 

[Da Boss]

Maybe a "All power to the Shields" Special order? CQ 8 or 9, ship can not turn, moves at half speed, can only fire one weapon(or none?), shields are fully replenished or maybe double regeneration rate?

 

[Commador Q]

Yes, but when the ship has 1 shield left, and is hit once by a triple damage precise beam, even though 2 damage caries over there's no chance of a criticle (that hapened a lot in our perticular game)

like i said fleets with more AD might change things as the extera AD get to take advantage of the 4+ to hit but aren't subject to the damage grouping effect of multi-damage weapons, but i'm still not sold on the idea that more has to be done than simply letting shields not regenerate at their controler's option.

As it is the damage carriover nicely refects the "our shields are failig" followd by lots of explosion sequences, but then continued fire is much less catistrophic effect that prevails sci-fi shows which involve shields.

I think adding a little more damage to shielded ships could compensate for any specific ship's shield failyer effect being to damaging (basically add in the damage they're expected to loose in an average shield failyer cascade)

 

[Greg Smith]

Yes, but when the ship has 1 shield left, and is hit once by a triple damage precise beam, even though 2 damage caries over there's no chance of a criticle

But that doesn't happen:

Note that the Shields will completely stop a hit from reaching the ship’s hull. So, a Double Damage weapon hitting a ship that only has one point of Shields remaining will not transfer the remaining one point of damage to the hull. A second hit will strike the hull as normal.

If a ship has 1 shield and takes one hit from a triple damage weapon, it will take no damage. If it takes two hits from a triple damage weapon the first hit is stopped and the second hits as normal, potentially doing a critical.

Note: the wording in ACTA second edition has been changed to make the way shields work much clearer.

 

[Commador Q]

where are these quotes from? because while it has been a while and i don't have the Star Wars mod in front of me at the moment, i, and several others read it over a few times before playing and that isn't how we used the rules.

it's possible i'm wrong, but i'd be very suprised to have been that wrong, unless this is a quote from the 2nd eddition system, or a newer version of the SW mod than i have.

besides preventing all the damage in that way just makes them better than how i was understanding them.

anyway i'm sure the 2nd eddition change is for the best since while i don't think the old system was borken, i'm not so in love with the details of it that i can't accept a different version.

 

[Greg Smith]

I'm quoting Arcadia's post, where he was quoting the Star Wars mod.

I'm not revealling exact details of the 2e shield rules, and doing so in this discussion wouldn't be fair.

 

[Commador Q]

i wasn't asking you to reveal the secret 2nd edition rules (heck i didn't actually know you had them) i was just curios as to the source, since it seemed like actual rules text, but didn't say exactely what i expected it to.

anyway, now that i've had a chance to look at the actuall text of the SW mod, i can see both that i was wrong and why i made the mistake i did.

you've already explained that the 2nd eddition rule is going to be worded differently and different mechanically, but i'm going to take a crack at rewriting it in such a way that i would understand it. while simultaniously fixing the 4+ hit problem.

Shields X/Y: A ship or auxilery craft with this trait is protected by an energy barrier which refracts, deflects or simply blocks incomming weaponsfire. The fist value (X) is the shield score, and the second value (Y) is the regeneration score.

Whenerver a ship with shields takes damage if it's shield score has not been reduced to 0 treat the ship as having a hull 4 for the to hit role regardless of it's actuall hull. As long as the ship's shield value is grater than 0, hits will be absorbed by the shields rather than impacting the hull. Do not role on the damage table as each hit will deduct 1 point from the target's shield value (with double, triple and quad damage weapons multiplying this damage as normal). If a hit would reduce the shield value of it's target below 0 (a multi damage weapon against a ship with 1 shield left for example), the hit is absorbed by the shields causing no damage, and the shield score is reduced to 0. When the shield value of a ship is 0, all remaining hits, must be compared to the target's hull score if they would still be hits resolve them normally.

During the end phase if a ship with this trait regains lost shield points equal to it's rengeneration score.

Auxilery craft with shields take shield damage in the same way as ships, but as usual are destroied by the first hit, after their shields are depleted.