Re: [GZG] Screens versus Advanced Screens in Cross Dimensions?

>One thing that could be added in as a mechanic to help balance out 
>Advanced Screens is some kind of Damage Threshold to it.
>If an advanced shield takes/absorbs enough damage in a turn then the 
>shield might overload, malfunction, and/or just shut down. This can 
>make advanced shields susciptible towards massed fire of even 
>smaller weapons in a attempt to being down the shields with mass 
>fire.

I think the existing FT mechanisms already represent this. For
example, a typical Star Trek combat scene runs something like
"Shields at 60%"
Zap-zap-zap
"Shields are down!"
BLAM!
"Red shirt casualties on deck 40!"
"Scotty, we need those shields!"
"Shields back up!
Zap-zap-zap

All this takes place in about a minute.

Now one FT turn is five to ten minutes long, so is made up of
several such scenes. On average, the shields are up for some
of that time, down for others. In FT, the more beams you can
shoot at the target ship in that turn, the more damage you'll
do - just as if the shields were being overloaded more often.

>A mechanic already exists - the threshhold check.

Yes, and it works well. Hit a ship sufficiently hard and you
are more likely to reach a threshold point which might bring
the shields down ("It's no good cap'n, I canna do it!") for
the rest of the turn or longer. It does look a bit wierd when
say a battleship blasts all but one of the boxes in a row off
and has no effect and then a destroyer does the 1 more point
that forces a threshold; but this can be explained away by
saying that the fire from the two ships really overlaps, it
only looks this way because of the turn mechanism.

>The only consideration is on a damage per turn (at the end of every 
>turn the damage absorbed is removed), or on damage per battle 
>(Basically turning the advanced shields into another set of 
>hull/armour boxes effectively).

Damage per battle is how Alderson fields in Mote in Gods Eye and
the force wall in Blake's Seven work. They're better represented
in FT by armour rather than either standard or advanced screens.
(In the particular case of advanced screens, "advanced" armour
isn't necessary because armour already works on missiles, etc.)

>In either format, you could have multiple levels of threshold checks 
>so if enough fire is poured onto the target ship there would be a 
>greater chance (multiple threshhold checks) of bringing the shields 
>down).

For the reasons given above, I think the existing threshold check
mechanism already represents this well enough. It's not perfect,
but having "critical hit" possibilities on every shot is slower
and frequently either too deadly or too ineffective.

>One option is if the shields absorb the energy and it has to go 
>somewhere (powering the ship maybe?) if the generators fail 
>spectacularily it could take out the ship.

Yeah, FT doesn't handle this case.

	cheers,
	Hugh
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