Re: Kinetic Shields

David Griffin wrote:

> > You could get that, provided that the "shield" is
> > considerably less
> > effective, or more expensive for the same effect,
> > against the currently
> > screen-skipping weapons ...> The various
>screen-skippers were all balanced around
> > the fact that they
> > aren't degraded by screens, so if your "shield"
> > degrades them by the same
> > percentage at the same cost as it does beams you
> > effectively make all
> > screen-skipping weapons useless :-(
> >
>
>That's a bit of an exaggeration. After all beams
>aren't "useless" just because there are screens.

No, it isn't an exaggeration. The reason the beams aren't useless in
spite 
of the existance of screens is that the screen-skipping weapons are
about 
as powerful against unscreened ships as beams are against ships with 
level-1 screens. If all ships always had level-*2* screens, then beams 
would indeed be useless.

>Tell you what, you take such a screen and I'll
>sit outside with 30 pulse torpedoes and we'll
>see how it goes ;-).

If the shields degrade beams and P-torps equally and we both take them,
it 
is quite easy to predict the outcome: my beams inflict more damage
through 
your shields than your p-torps do through mine (on average about 20%
more), 
and I win the battle.

>I figure if it was possible to balance screens
>against beams it's possible to balance a kinetic
>shield (or a universal one) against the rest of
>the game.

It was possible to balance screens against beams and P-torps because
they 
were designed at the same time. It was possible to fit the K-guns into
the 
scheme because they are very similar to the P-torps, and Pulsers because

they are essentially beams.

To add a shield which degrades P-torps, K-guns *and* beams equally means

that you'll have to re-balance all weapon in the game.

If you can design a shield which retains the relative penetration rates 
between screen-skippers and beams, you're fine... but if you do that,
you 
could just as well say that the difference between a ship with shields
and 
one without them is the number of hull boxes

>  After all, every game with shields
>does it (Renegade legion interceptor, renegade
>legion centurion, renegade legion leviathan,
>FASA starship combat simulator, Star Fleet Battles,
>and so on).

Can't speak for the Star Trek games - I haven't played the FASA one at
all, 
and it was a long time since I played SFB - but in the RL ones each
level 
of shields gives the *same* level of protection against just about all 
weapons... and the weapons were designed around this fact. In FT, the 
weapons were designed around the fact that screens do *not* degrade them

all in the same fashion - which means that if you want a shield which 
*does* degrade them all in the same fashion, you're putting a square peg
in 
a round hole.

Regards,

Oerjan

oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
-Hen3ry