If fighters can mount such heavy weaponry that the can routinely exceed the damage reduction of the deflector shields then there is no point in the deflectors existing at all. That's why I was using such an arbitrary and crazy example. I was under the impression fighters could not mount heavy weapons, and I'm fairly certain spinal mount weapons are right out. Stoping 20 points of that 600 points vs 150 may seem accademic but what about 20 vs 150 against a 200 damage attack? My concern is that normally shields will stop up to 150 of the first shot while deflectors or negate 20 and heavy weapons can do 60 or more damage and capital/spinal mount weapons can deal hundreds of damage. so a ship with 300 could potentially restore 4 deflection a quadrant per round I think. They also get 1-2 for diverting power to shields and 1 per 150 PCU. I really would be interested in seeing some game play and whether the loss/gain works out or not on them. And if enough of them were equipped would wear down that deflector shield quickly. I'd hope with those 500 fighters one or two of them would have some kind of shield penetrating weapons like buster cannons.

And the capital ship will slowly kill them all. However, if they reduce damage by 20 all those fighter's weapons will do nothing. Now, such a scenario should never really happen but it's technically possible. I know this is extreme, and not a real example but lets consider 500 single manned fighters vs a capital ship.Įven if the capital ship has the biggest shields you can buy, 600 points which is divided by 4 arcs (150 per arc) they can still bust through the standard shields and deal damage, likely substantial damage too. That way players feel like they get to do more and combat can be more interesting by getting more kinds of actions than just the basic required pilot, engineer, science officer, gunner. These NPC crewman would have a skill bonus based on the level of the ship (though not sure exactly what it would be) and the enemy would get an equal number of roles as the PCs (to keep things balanced). I think something that could work is allow players to have a crew on board their ship once it gets to a big enough size and allow each player to run an additional character in a role that isn't currently being performed. Though I must admit as a player I absolutely wouldn't want this, as I do enjoy the thrashing our starship gives to the enemy.īut it can be quite boring for a lot of people, and only the pilot has any real agency.Įveryone else can just write a simple routine for their behavior during starship combat. Honestly I think if players are going to use deflectors, it's a situation where regular shields need to be removed from the game universe and substituted for a combination of deflector shields and ablative armor.īut I agree with you Hammerjack, it could make combat more interesting and more challenging. Still need the experience in game to see if that's how it ends up going, though. If they prove to be viable, without being as powerful as giant regular shields are, while preventing Divert to Shields from being the only thing an engineer does (by setting things up so that system damage will happen without already being in Death Spiral levels of damage), that will be a huge improvement to the system. Not being stronger than regular shields is a big part of why I am eager to see how things play out using deflectors, and possibly some ablative armor underneath them, instead. That's been one of the problems with the balance of shipbuilding since the beginning, along with the low, low cost of turrets. Regular shields (especially at the levels people tend to purchase them, but that leads into the optional ship budget limitation rules) are definitely going to be the stronger approach, most of the time.īut we've already seen that regular shields with no limit on your spending are way too strong for published content.

Deflector shield