Re: FT-sheilds

On Fri, Jul 18, 2003 at 12:46:24PM +0000, david smith wrote:

>What`s bugging me is the mass used for sheilds. A level 1 sheild is 5%
mass 
>of the mounting ship, a level 2 10%. If a ship masses 90 mass, a level
1 
>sheild is 5 mass, a level 2 9 mass.

(Actually, no, the bottom end is 5/10 mass - but the same applies for
e.g. a mass-170 ship, where a screen-1 is 8.5 mass (becomes 9) and a
screen-2 is 17 mass.)

>What is bugging me is that wouldn`t 
>twice the sheild have twice the mass? (IE, work out the sheild as 5%
ship 
>mass times 2 instead of 10%?).

Well... that depends. The construction rules describe "a level 2 shield
generator", not "two separate devices", even though the SSD shows it as
two systems; this might simply mean that it's one big system designed
with a bit of redundancy (similar the way main drives work).

I agree that it would make more sense as a strict mass rule,
particularly since you can install three separate "screen generators"
and any two of them will do the job of providing a level-2 screen...

Roger