Plz add ship shield item

[alfa2]

So big non capital ships can use them in cost of some amount of power. (small ships will not use it couse of high power cost)
That will makes big ships playable and durable - couse for now they are meat for fighters and have no chanses vs small boat with 1 rocket man on it

 

[Askannon]

Shields are a bit of a sore topic in SB.
Yes, they make ships durable, but on the flip side they remove the need for solid design and combat becomes a static slugfest of who can exhaust the enemies shield first instead of chipping away at each other until one gets disabled.
It also lowers the cost of combat for the victor as small amounts of return fire would get absorbed which usually would cause slight issues that need a stay at a repair hall, removing the threat for a short while.
And unless your big ship can fight back it only prolongs a lost fight unnecessarily.

Here's a quote from the Starbase discord that sums it up quite well, I think:

well i prefer vulnerable ships over near indestructible shield and armor chunks and temporarily protected but otherwise helpless miners they would certainly be used in combat, would be too expensive for inexperienced players to even poses them and they would only offer temporary protection for miners as mining ships will definitely be slower than combat ships shields dont solve any problems.... players should just learn to not crash and avoid pirates. shields dont help the game, they just make certain aspects boring and easy going mining with an expensive ship is an investment that you should be able to lose to your own mistakes

If you want big ships to work you need big components that would not fit on a small ship but are better at what they are doing, but only in the context of a large ship, e.g. better thrusters for moving large ships (maybe with drawback of low acceleration) or certain armor pieces that are only available in large shapes but can take more fire (maybe even powered, so you'd get a sort of shield effect for that one plate).

 

[ChaosRifle]

shields are a cop-out of bad game design. Just fix the armour system.