A take on energy shields - say no to bubbles

[sidegamer]

Friends, Romans, countrymen, today we gather to discuss a controversial issue surrounding many space-oriented games:

One thing I personally have a love-hate relationship with is energy shields. While I know that they tend towards the more fantastical sci-fi end of things, i absolutely hate doing permanent damage to my ships when I deftly land them sideways, onto another ship or an asteroid. I think that limited energy shields should be incorporated into Starbase in order to help the very most skilled pilots like myself.

Lots of approaches to energy shields are garish or overpowered. A bubble surrounding a ship looks ugly, and is never welcome. Plus, energy shield generators that draw massive power to keep a shield up arent practical on ships that are not purpose- built for them, and usually leave little room for weapons or auxiliary systems. But doing away with these useful tools makes players paranoid and their ships much more like flying around a glass vase than a combat vessel.

Thus, a balance must be achieved between durability, focused systems, and paranoia.

I thusly propose this: an energy 'skin' surrounding each part. Shield generators could be placed inside of the ship, and generate a small blue glow around each part of the ship. These generators will draw limited, even power constantly, and could be set up to draw more or less power based on the requirements of the pilot and the available power. If sufficient power is unavailable, or the generators are damaged, the generators shut off and must be re-enabled manually. The skin that they produce would prevent damage to a certain threshold, which would be determined by the amount of power that the generators consume. If this damage threshold was reached or exceeded, the 'skin' would shut off completely (and need to be restarted manually), and the full damage would be done. If the damage threshold was not reached, but damage was done, the damage would be nullified and the 'skin' would shut off for a short amount of time, before once again restarting (which could be modified by upgrades or power draw). The shields would not stack in damage threshold or hits taken, but modules could be used on the generators to modify these attributes, such as surviving more low damage hits (for example, a module would allow each skin to take three hits, but at 1/3 of the damage threshold, allowing a generator that normally negates 900 'damage' to negate three 300 'damage' hits, and so on)

This would allow the players to adopt a more aggressive playstyle, while also feeling slightly less paranoid about flying their best ships, and overall discourage trolls who go around destroying ships, and encourage pirates to board ships and disable them from the inside. Plus, needing to manually restart the shields discourages players from hiding vulnerable generators far away in their ships, as well as discouraging shield use in extended battles. Plus, passing glances by trolls would not impact shielded ships, and industrial ships would survive scraping against other ships and terrain.

Thank you for reading, please comment any questions or ideas! //Sidegamer

 

[Vis]

So, you mean an Integrity Field Generator?...

 

[Vexus]

I dislike this idea, and shields in general. Your actions in game should have an impact. You should be able to receive immediate feedback for your in-game actions. Imagine firing your rifle in game, and it makes no sound. You would be upset and complain on the forums. When you fire your ship cannon at another ship and hit, but nothing happens, you are not rewarded for your good shot. It is not a good option for player retention. In addition, you as a player should be immediately punished for making bad moves with your ship - this is how you learn, by receiving immediate feedback that 'this action was not a good action'. Many games try to make it hard to kill, yet, all the good and popular games have very quick time-to-kill mechanics. This way, even the worst player can get a lucky shot. I loved watching (and rewatching even yesterday) the dev battle videos, and at one point during the fight, the pilot got a lucky shot on the enemy fuel tank and exploded the ship. Later on, that same pilot was killed due to strafing fire by an enemy. A lucky shot - the ship was still in operable condition it seemed.

Starbase, with its voxel damage mechanic, should not be 'shielded' from players seeing it. This is new tech for an MMO. This is insane stuff to see in a game at all in the first place - some games have done it before to some limited degree, but this is a persistent MMO. You should not want to coat this over with shields and not see this. We need to see it in its full glory. This is groundbreaking, game-changing stuff we're witnessing. To limp your ship back to station, full of holes, but somehow it managed to survive, and everyone seeing you come in for repairs knows without a doubt you saw some shit.

That is much more exciting than coming back to station because you ran out of power because your shields drained over and over and you had to come in for more juice to keep going and no one cares. You just swap out a fuel rod and continue on... boring!

One thing of note is that parts don't seem to just destroy immediately. If you're going fairly slow but bump off a panel or something, you can just get out, grab it, slap it back in place, and bolt it back on. As long as the part didn't take critical damage, it's still there in the game world for you to interact with. And, if it does lose some voxels due to damage, you can repair that part back up and again, slap it back in place. Only in catastrophic damage from certain weapons and ship to ship collisions will parts actually be lost, where you cannot retrieve them and put your ship back together. In those cases - go salvage some other ship nearby! It's possible here. This is fun and interactive.

A good game keeps in mind that every action a player makes, from walking, to jumping, to shooting, to pressing a button or sitting in a chair, needs some feedback to the player. If you cancel out that feedback, the player is not rewarded, and the experience suffers.

 

[Zistack]

Yeah... I was never a fan of the versions of shields that blocked everything until they disabled themselves when they took a certain amount of damage. Besides being abusable, it's unrealistic.

By avoiding the bubble mechanics, your version is slightly less abusable thanks to no capacity for shield layering (unless you build layered armor anyways). However, one can still pack in enough generator capacity to make ships neigh invincible until their 'health bar' runs out. That's kindof a disappointing mechanic in a game with such detail in the damage system.

If shields were added, I would want them to act like a secondary armor value that is active whenever there's sufficient power. If you think about how field generators work in real life, they could never block anything completely, and blocking solid objects in particular is very difficult. I would expect that the shield generators would actually just me some mesh circuitry embedded in the armor parts to be powered with some kind of power port part for the purpose. I would basically expect the mechanics to be essentially damage reduction, with better damage reduction against energy weapons than against physical weapons (if it were totally ineffective against physical weapons, that'd be fine). You can have a minimum damage threshold as well if you want, though it shouldn't be very high. Even if you let that minimum scale, I would expect that only capital ships could become immune to low-level weapons fire. Some of the heavier materials already can't be damaged if the individual hits aren't strong enough, so we already have a notion of physical armor that should be good enough for the purpose you were describing.

 

[Caddrel]

I really like your idea of shields that are there solely to absorb collision damage. My experience between Space Engineer (which has collision damage) and Empyrion (which doesn't) is that you want the danger of collision damage to be present but when it does happen it's quite unfun and crippling.

Empyrion lets you get away with too much, and Space Engineer with too little.

You could have shield generators of different tiers that simply can absorb collision damage up to a certain point, with a recharge time. You can still nerf things on landing, but huge collisions would still cause dents.

 

[Burnside]

Entertaining the concept, reiterating that I don't think energy shields have any place in this game, shields are more fun when you aren't just running them off o a power bank, they need capacitors that break, short, or explode when stressed by incoming fire; integrity fields are the less interesting kind of shield reskinned for people who dislike bubbles but still want damage sinks powered by generators. An interesting building system for me would look something like:

Shield Projector: covers a certain radius around itself for a given power drain, larger coverage leads to geometric power cost- furthermore, shield strength further out from a projector drops off, strongest within the first half of the coverage radius and rapidly dropping after it crosses that halfway point- the larger coverage a projector maintains the stronger the central core of the field is by necessity. When an impact occurs, the shield performs an armor calculation to determine if the shot penetrates and any KE absorbed by the shield is dumped into connected Capacitors via the Buffer, if the capacitors are maxed out they take the transferred power as damage instead

Shield Buffer: transfers power from the network to the projector and sends damage from the shield to capacitors, each power unit transferred creates heat and requires coolant, so shields need more cooling under fire than they do while idling, an overheated buffer shuts the projector down until it cools off; buffers also have a bleed-rate that takes stored damage in the capacitors and eliminates it from the system much like coolant and radiators. Further, shields don't allow radiators to work under them, so careful planning is required to ensure the system protects essential areas and allows itself to cool off. Alternatively, one or more buffers in the system can be switched into a Bleed Mode specifically to tend to capacitors, so systems need a balance of shield buffering and capacitor bleeding or a yolol-assisted switching mechanism in order to be fully functional.

Shield Capacitor: pulls "damage-power" from the shield projector and stores it, if no storage is available in the system the linked capacitors split the excess as damage to themselves semi-randomly so that some capacitors will fail and break before others instead of failing all at once; when a capacitor is destroyed any additional excess power it was trying to handle explodes out of it as pretty electrical damage rays or something cool like that; stored "damage-power" bleeds off as the buffer's bleed-rate allows, creating more heat.

So, now we have a damage buffer system that has: weakpoints and gaps, needs gaps for radiator cooling or has to drop select portions of the shielding to allow cooling; can be penetrated by more powerful shots and shields can be dialed up or down in strength and coverage if your yolol is set up for it; can be overwhelmed by barrages of weaker shots; can overheat and shut down; and internal support system can fail over time even if the system would otherwise stay operational despite the incoming fire.

 

[Vis]

Entertaining the concept, reiterating that I don't think energy shields have any place in this game, shields are more fun when you aren't just running them off o a power bank, they need capacitors that break, short, or explode when stressed by incoming fire; integrity fields are the less interesting kind of shield reskinned for people who dislike bubbles but still want damage sinks powered by generators. An interesting building system for me would look something like:

Shield Projector: covers a certain radius around itself for a given power drain, larger coverage leads to geometric power cost- furthermore, shield strength further out from a projector drops off, strongest within the first half of the coverage radius and rapidly dropping after it crosses that halfway point- the larger coverage a projector maintains the stronger the central core of the field is by necessity. When an impact occurs, the shield performs an armor calculation to determine if the shot penetrates and any KE absorbed by the shield is dumped into connected Capacitors via the Buffer, if the capacitors are maxed out they take the transferred power as damage instead

Shield Buffer: transfers power from the network to the projector and sends damage from the shield to capacitors, each power unit transferred creates heat and requires coolant, so shields need more cooling under fire than they do while idling, an overheated buffer shuts the projector down until it cools off; buffers also have a bleed-rate that takes stored damage in the capacitors and eliminates it from the system much like coolant and radiators. Further, shields don't allow radiators to work under them, so careful planning is required to ensure the system protects essential areas and allows itself to cool off. Alternatively, one or more buffers in the system can be switched into a Bleed Mode specifically to tend to capacitors, so systems need a balance of shield buffering and capacitor bleeding or a yolol-assisted switching mechanism in order to be fully functional.

Shield Capacitor: pulls "damage-power" from the shield projector and stores it, if no storage is available in the system the linked capacitors split the excess as damage to themselves semi-randomly so that some capacitors will fail and break before others instead of failing all at once; when a capacitor is destroyed any additional excess power it was trying to handle explodes out of it as pretty electrical damage rays or something cool like that; stored "damage-power" bleeds off as the buffer's bleed-rate allows, creating more heat.

So, now we have a damage buffer system that has: weakpoints and gaps, needs gaps for radiator cooling or has to drop select portions of the shielding to allow cooling; can be penetrated by more powerful shots and shields can be dialed up or down in strength and coverage if your yolol is set up for it; can be overwhelmed by barrages of weaker shots; can overheat and shut down; and internal support system can fail over time even if the system would otherwise stay operational despite the incoming fire.

So, you would like shields to be more like the shield projectors in From the Depths, but much more complex than just uses power to run?
It would be kind of cool to see things shooting out sparks when they overheat and just can't take any more, but I don't think there would be any sparks or 'pretty electrical damage rays'. There is no sparks when you crash ships into each other, which makes sense because there is no air in space... And the robots in this game don't need air inside of their ships so... I don't think there will be any pretty electrical damage rays or something cool like that. XD

 

[Burnside]

nah, just when the big shield capacitors overload and blow up with a full stack of absorbed damage, then lightning bolt stuff happens

 

[sidegamer]

So, you mean an Integrity Field Generator?...

Exactly!

 

[sidegamer]

Empyrion lets you get away with too much, and Space Engineer with too little.

You could have shield generators of different tiers that simply can absorb collision damage up to a certain point, with a recharge time. You can still nerf things on landing, but huge collisions would still cause dents.

Exactly, most of my need for a shielding want (wow thats an awkward way to say it) comes from SE's infuriatingly weak armor. Im still waiting to see how exactly Starbase handles collision and minimum damage, but i hope its a happy medium

 

[PopeUrban]

Not really a fan of shields as a concept in a game like this. Fb's stated intent is that ships are "easy to diasable hard to destroy" which should roughly translate to "armor is quite durable and modules much less so"

One of the things that makes building sims engaging is the little oopsies and how you play around them. SB has a very powerful fixing tool that can just spray-fix and even spray-replace damaged components, and this tool can be attached to automated systems, allowing players to have automated maintainence systems.

I wouldn't worry about a few dings in your exterior plating unless you've been dinging that plating up for a while and haven't bothered to do a little basic maintainence.

I'd rather keep the little dings and scrapes in those durable plates than have some kind of magic shielding. Engineering sims are most interesting and engaging when things go wrong, and allowing an unmaintained systems to gradually decay makes space for things to go wrong, as well as creates a market for some player industry, Not to mention that low level resource sink helps prevent inflation in the resource economy.

 

[Burnside]

^^^ This, as much fun as imagining the perfect star-warsian shield system, the gritty lived-in aesthetic is more apropos to a system without shields- with them we need degradation and imperfect repair mechanics to keep up with the flow. On top of that, shields still don't quite fit the flavor. Fun discussion, but still an unsuitable mechanic.

 

[CalenLoki]

I'm here because of engineering challenge and localized damage. There's plenty of hp-pool games around to play.

However, I can see two merits of energy-based defences:
1. It allows more active control of ship defence. So can be turned on or off, depending on situation.
2. It allows protecting one part of the ship while allocating the mass somewhere else.

Neither of those requires shields to be "hp-shields", "bubble" nor affect all the parts.


I'd do them as special kind of plating that can use power to temporary increase their durability.

Such plating should be much weaker than normal when unpowered (2x weaker for the same mass), but 5x stronger when powered.
The plate still get damaged when shoot at, and can be penetrated, just 10x less.
And would be almost transparent (4x opacity of glass).

Shield capacitors could be 72x72x72 and device-base compatible, so can be placed on turrets.
You can hook up as many plates to single capacitor as you want, using special type of cable.

But each kv of plates and each dm of cable increase the heating rate and power usage. Also each received bullet increase the heat. So you can never have shields 24/7 (unless you manually replace coolant cells).

If the capacitor overheats, it goes boom. Turning it off takes few seconds, so it's advisable to set up some smart shut-down yolol script.

That's just initial idea that needs refining.
But you get the idea: shielded plates for specific situations, locations and playstyles, rather than replacement for traditional plating.

 

[Zistack]

...

That's kinda similar to my suggestion, though an interesting take on the damage behavior. It's simpler, but doesn't allow for the same kind of specialization. I still don't like the capacitor mechanics, since I still think they're unrealistic, but it would be fine if the capacitor was fragile and could be destroyed easily, much like generators and other ship system components.

 

[PopeUrban]

That's kinda similar to my suggestion, though an interesting take on the damage behavior. It's simpler, but doesn't allow for the same kind of specialization. I still don't like the capacitor mechanics, since I still think they're unrealistic, but it would be fine if the capacitor was fragile and could be destroyed easily, much like generators and other ship system components.

I mean if you wanna nitpick realism, energy shields are no more or less grounded in reality than special plating that somehow becomes more durable with a charge is passed through it.

Realism isn't a useful concept when discussing game mechanics in a general sense unless you're making a simulator. Starbase is most certainly not a simulator. What's useful is determining whether or not those systems are fun, and if they're consistant with the internal logic of the universe they exist in.

Whether or not energy based defenses fit the internal logic of the universe is a matter of opinion, so we're left with the matter of utility.

Calen's suggestion is, roughly, "Charged plating" which while certainly interesting in that they aren't designed to sidestep maintainance seem to me like a needlessly complex system. The current paradigm for "more defense" is "more armor" and so for these elements to have utility they'd need to be superior when powered to traditional armor right? This means running power cables, adding capacitors etc. etc. to fulfill what design purpose? More armor.

This seems to me like complexity for the sake of complexity rather than complexity for the sake of functional design. Its a bit like adding 4 light switches to a room in all four corners in addition to the one by the door. Sure you technically have more options now, but how useful are they?

I'm having a hard time imagining a situation in which the weight and power differentials, not to mention wiring required to deploy enough such plates, the electronics required to control them, etc. would be practical in a design sense when compared to strapping on more armor plates that fulfill the same function 100% of the time while connected to nothing, and can be repaired by any random peon I send outside with a hand tool. These plates are used for the exact same function as normal armor, but are significantly harder to design a ship with, and have more ways than 'being shot" to damage their defensive power. I'm all for options, but I'm not for bloating the game with essentially useless options and that feels like what this implementation would be.

Just my opinion.

 

[Zistack]

I mean if you wanna nitpick realism, energy shields are no more or less grounded in reality than special plating that somehow becomes more durable with a charge is passed through it.

You seem to think that these ideas are not physically realizable in the real world. Time for a physics lesson.

First, the concept of shields isn't totally insane. We can generate magnetic fields and those fields can repel lasers, particle beams, and projectiles made out of various metals when they're strong enough. If you were to do something interesting with some sort of induction + gas containment setup, you could probably block even more than that. The reason we don't have this tech right now is primarily the absurd energy expense of actually doing any of this. While it's theoretically possible and demonstrable in a laboratory setting, we'd need all power to look like nuclear power in order to reach the required energy density to deal with any of this on a scale that looks like videogame shields. That said, the overheating mechanics of such a system were it to be built in real life would not look like what people use for videogames. It doesn't make sense to have a 'shield capacitor', though a large capacitor bank for powering the shields might make sense (they'd just be regular-ol' supercapacitors, though). Only the field emitters would have any chance of overheating, and they generally wouldn't since the amount of energy that could be imparted to these fields would stay fairly bounded if just blocking more conventional attacks, plus the required field strength would be unattainable without using superconducting materials, which changes the nature of the heating game entirely.

Second, the concept of materials that get harder when charged is also not totally insane. There are already materials that change their material properties when charged. Piezoelectric materials that change their crystalline structure, and memory metals that change elasticity when heated (which could be achieved via induction). Plus there's the whole field of metamaterials where the unit cell structure of a material is designed to have interesting electromagnetic and mechanical properties. It would not at all be a stretch to design a material which consumed electrical energy to negate or absorb physical forces and re-emit them as heat or light or some such thing. This is actually even more plausible as a practical solution than the field-based shield approach, even though all the basic principles of the field-based shields have already been demonstrated, since manufacturing a metamaterial is generally going to be easier than acquiring the energy required to deal with bullet-deflecting fields.

Realism isn't a useful concept when discussing game mechanics in a general sense unless you're making a simulator. Starbase is most certainly not a simulator.

I disagree. The real world is interesting in many ways, and is often the reference for what a 'balanced game' would look like. It's an excellent source of ideas for how to implement things such that they're not horribly abusable or unbalanced, thanks to the fact that nothing in the real world comes for free. Also, Starbase is a simulator. It's not a physics simulator, of course, but because we require that actions have consequences and that the state of the universe not devolve into chaos over the long term, the kinds of concerns that a game like Starbase has are very similar to that of a more rigorous simulator. Besides, as I explained above, reality is not so boring as you might think.

I'm having a hard time imagining a situation in which the weight and power differentials, not to mention wiring required to deploy enough such plates, the electronics required to control them, etc. would be practical in a design sense when compared to strapping on more armor plates that fulfill the same function 100% of the time while connected to nothing

The primary advantage would be in weight. It would weigh less for the same amount of armor value to use an energy-consuming metamaterial-based solution, but of course the trade-off is that now your armor consumes power, and the fuel requirements of the ship go up during combat, plus if the pilot was caught unawares with the armor uncharged, the ship would be really fragile. This would mostly be useful for things like fighters that are a part of a larger fleet.

Of course, it may well be that the balance of the game as implemented without shields is fine, and wouldn't benefit from any such implementation. We can only wait and see on this point.

 

[PopeUrban]

You seem to think that these ideas are not physically realizable in the real world. Time for a physics lesson.

That is not what I typed. Time for an English lesson.

The phrase "energy shields are no more or less grounded in reality than special plating that somehow becomes more durable with a charge is passed through it." states that there is an equivalent level of realism to these two theoretical technologies. it does not state that either is not physically realizable. They are both theoretically possible for reasons you, in your defensive zeal, have so eloquently explained to yourself.

I disagree. The real world is interesting in many ways, and is often the reference for what a 'balanced game' would look like. It's an excellent source of ideas for how to implement things such that they're not horribly abusable or unbalanced, thanks to the fact that nothing in the real world comes for free. Also, Starbase is a simulator. It's not a physics simulator, of course, but because we require that actions have consequences and that the state of the universe not devolve into chaos over the long term, the kinds of concerns that a game like Starbase has are very similar to that of a more rigorous simulator. Besides, as I explained above, reality is not so boring as you might think.

You shouldn't equate inspiration with justification. A game system is not of greater or lesser value because it is more or less "realistic"

Health bars are not realistic. They are generally a more intuitive and thus fun way to represent health, unless you want your game to centralize concepts like localized damage.

The reloading mechanisms of most games are not realistic. They are generally more intuitive and thus a preferred way to handle a player's ammunition resources, unless you want your game to centralize mechanics like minimizing reloads for more difficult ammo economies.

Fall damage. In general this is wildly variant depending on what the specifics of the game demand. Its variance is determined by not only how easy it is to fall off of things, but how often the player is expected to do so, what the penalties are for taking that damage, and how hard it is to recover from.

And so on and so on.

The point here is realism is not a suitable justification for adopting or avoiding a gameplay system. It may or may not be a suitable justification for including or excluding specific themes in the design depending upon whether or not they serve its gameplay and world building. Magic spells and zombies are unrealistic, but they're fun. They are equally as valid an inclusion in your game as flamethrowers and Nazis for the same design purposes, namely, have bad guys whom you can set on fire.

The primary advantage would be in weight. It would weigh less for the same amount of armor value to use an energy-consuming metamaterial-based solution, but of course the trade-off is that now your armor consumes power, and the fuel requirements of the ship go up during combat, plus if the pilot was caught unawares with the armor uncharged, the ship would be really fragile. This would mostly be useful for things like fighters that are a part of a larger fleet.

Of course, it may well be that the balance of the game as implemented without shields is fine, and wouldn't benefit from any such implementation. We can only wait and see on this point.

This does not account for the reams of electronics and the difficulty of routing those wires to plates that cover an entire ship. This is why I used the "light switches in all four corners" analogy.

Sure there's an advantage to having all those switches. You can flip the lights on and off no matter where you are! However one questions how often you'd actually need to flip the lights on and off anywhere but the door. Won't you walk through the door when you leave the room or enter it? How often do you need to toggle the lights while remaining inside?

Thematically similar is this charged plate system. The standard bubble generator makes sense. Its a single point of failure, generally doesn't take up much space, and confers a unique defensive property: you can use it when there's a giant hole in your ship as it'll still defend anything beyond the hole. That's kind of why I don't like that idea.It makes putting holes in things less useful and takes away from opportunities for mechanical creativity. However it DOES have a unique enough function to justify putting it on a ship in stead of or in addition to more armor.

The charged plating style solutions have exactly the same utility as armor, with the theoretical advantage of less weight. However, since they require power you're pretty much at a break even in terms of power usage. You can either strap a couple more armor plates on and jack up the thruster count and pay more power for enhanced performance at the cost of a few thrusters you can easily wire on. Want to use less energy while not in combat? Turn off the extra thrusters. Getting hammered in a fight? You have redundant thrusters likely to keep you mobile longer!

Do that with the charged plating as proposed here and you're paying the same energy cost, but now you get to have crap armor if specific wires are cut, have to install extra wiring, capacitors, etc. all over the ship, and all you've gained is the ability to turn off your armor, which is a thing you'd rarely want to do in the first place. Also you have less thrusters and are thus easier to disable than the alternative.

So while yes it would be an OPTION, my assessment here is that its a pretty pointless and potentially detrimental option useful only for making ship designs more complex (and thus more prone to failure in a combat situation) for the sake of having more crap on your ship or having it glow blue or whatever. Its a system that's only useful to someone who wants to overengineer a much simpler problem.

 

[CalenLoki]

There are several applications where you just can't cram more plates. Either because of mass, limited space or vision obstruction. I.e. turrets, doors and cockpits.

Increased mass and volume of using more armour and thrusters hinder ship usage outside of direct combat. That includes long traveling time (also on board of carrier) and all multi-purpose ships (i.e. armed miners or cargo ships).
It also makes you bigger target and reduces agility (increase angular momentum).

Also since each capacitor/emitter/shield unit heats up when connected plates take damage, it can be used to create directional damage indicators or save damage data for post-battle analysis. Possibly more precise than counting holes.

At the same time it has one main unique unavoidable weakness compared to armour. It can't run all the time, due to heat build up.
I.e. 1 minute up, 3 minutes down at full load and optimal cooling.
If you stack multiple layers, to run it all the time, it becomes less efficient than using armour. And outer layers aren't protected by inner layers.
If you throttle it down, it stops being more mass efficient than armour (but still works as damage sensor)

Regarding complexity, it's not that bad. Generator---shield unit---plate + shield unit---radiator.


Example of numbers, for those who like reading it that way:

Traditional military plating:
Mass: 1,
Armour value: 2.

Powered plating:
Mass: 1 + 0.5 for shield unit + 0.5 for generator and cooling (used for other systems as well).
Armour value: 1 + 9 when fully powered.
Heat capacity: (for 2:1 plate to unit proportion) 1 minute up-time at full load or 15s of sustained damage from 1 mass of AC).
Heat dissipation: needs 3 minutes to fully cool down from full heat with optimal cooling. Must be turned off for that.
Responsiveness: 5s to gradually throttle from off to full or full to off.


Of course all those numbers are subject to heavy balance adjustments. They're just to show general idea.

 

[Zistack]

A game system is not of greater or lesser value because it is more or less "realistic"

Agreed. What's important is its internal consistency, or its coherence of design. Starbase is a sci-fi game, so things that exist in the game should generally be plausible to at least some degree. Right now, the game has done an excellent job of sticking to things that more or less could exist in real life. I think that they should do their best to continue that trend.

Separately, as I already argued, adopting things that are realistic makes it easier to design things that are balanced. Shields bubbles are _not_ balanced. I've yet to see a game that has them where they don't become the meta for defense. Such a system would turn Starbase ships into hitpoint pools, more or less completely defeating the purpose of the damage system.

The charged plating style solutions have exactly the same utility as armor, with the theoretical advantage of less weight. However, since they require power you're pretty much at a break even in terms of power usage. You can either strap a couple more armor plates on and jack up the thruster count and pay more power for enhanced performance at the cost of a few thrusters you can easily wire on. Want to use less energy while not in combat? Turn off the extra thrusters. Getting hammered in a fight? You have redundant thrusters likely to keep you mobile longer!

Since power looks somewhat nuclear in this game, powered plating would most definitely win the weight game, big time. The amount of mass you'd need to add to boost power output enough to handle the plates will be less than the amount of mass needed for the extra armor, extra thrusters, and extra fuel and power needed to gain that armor in a more conventional way. Outside of realism, it would be totally pointless not to design this feature this way.

This does not account for the reams of electronics and the difficulty of routing those wires to plates that cover an entire ship. This is why I used the "light switches in all four corners" analogy.

Allow me to account for that now, since you seem to be stuck on the naive formulation of this feature. No engineer in their right mind would require that you actually wire up each individual plate. This is absurdly complex, and totally pointless when you're already embedding so much circuitry in the plates themselves. What you would do is allow the plates to connect to each other to form larger 'single' plates that only require a few connection points for power and control. I actually explained this in my initial suggestion, but it would appear that you missed that detail. Allowing plates to connect to each other would solve all of the complexity and robustness problems that you describe, since now there are very few wires to cut, and there can be redundant connections.

 

[Burnside]

they'd work like triangle thrusters, additional device bases hooked up to a single "meta-plate" would only be there for increased anchoring and power-supply redundancy