Andrea 'Highlander' Santoro and others
Just a quick comment; before deciding any pseudophysical model for shields we should decide how do they practically work in the game, because there are a lot of ways in which an entity called "shields" might behave; some quick examples:
1) The 'Classical' model: shields absorb all the damage until they are down, then the damage is entirily suffered by the hull.
2) The 'Fixed Damage' model: Shields absorb only a fixed damage for each hit; if the damage of the hit is below that value, the hit is completely absorped by the shields, otherwise the remaining part of it is suffered by the hull (even if the shields are not yet down); once they are down the whole damage is suffered by the hull.
3) The 'Master of Elite' model: A model used in Master of Orion 2: shields simply cancel part of the damage and absorb the rest of it; when they are down they continue to cancel part of the damage, while the rest is suffered by the hull; the hull will experiment full damage only if the shield generator is shut down or destroyed. Personally i prefer model 3, because it offers the opportunity to distinguish between shield's class (which is the damage canceled by the shields) and shield's energy (which is the damage they can absorb before the hull is hit).These means more equipment (as you know, I like it).
4) The 'Goldilocks' Model: In this model, shields may be too soft, too hard, or just right. Like in 2) and 3) shields cancel part of the damage they take, and absorb the rest of it. But, the more they are depleted (by the damage they have absorped), the less is the damage canceled from subsequent hits.
Of course the question is: why are you doing things so complex? Because, if some numbers are carefully decided we can obtain some interesting situations:
EXAMPLE 2: My laser can do a damage of 30 "hit points". But I run into a ship with shields capable of cancelling a damage of 50. So my laser is _completely_ineffective_ against their shields. I must first use some kind of "single shot" weapon (like missiles or some kind of energy bomb) to lower their shields; only when they have been lowered more than 40% I can use my laser with any result.
Note that this gives a new meaning to the expressions "my laser was too weak to pierce through their shields" and "I used my missiles to brake through their shields"; moreover, it increase the importance of both missiles (if you meet a ship with hard shields your only hope to defeat it is having aboard some missiles), and equipment like radar mapper (it might be critical to have informations about your enemy; it is not like in Elite or FE2 where you fire and sooner or later the enemy will be destroyed. With this model it might happen to fire at an enemy _uselessly_ if you don't check their shields class). In other words this kind of damage absorption model gives way to new combat tactics and enhances the importance of some equipment.
5) Gaseous Jetsam: A result of a collaboration of X, Quickshot, and a little Porphyre. A cloud between your ship and your aggressor would obscure your position. You could also deploy mines in this area or eject chaff to act as decoys (chaff would be much more effective when there's no visual fix on a target). You could even through out a few nanotech bots and/or probes so you'd have more of fix on their positions than they do on yours. If all else fails, this is the equvalent of an octopus's defense... you can always squirt and run.
6) Tone's Tactical Defensive Deflector Shield System: The TDDSS is the main defensive system of most larger spaceships. The system is based on sets of deflector shield generators, which protect both the ship and it's contents from naturally occuring spatial and planetary hazards.
How it works:Ben Motz:
The deflector shield system works by creating a localised zone of highly focused spatial distortions, within which an energetic, gravitational field is maintained. The field itself is emitted, shaped and maintained by the shield generator - which in itself is actually four smaller generators, positioned around the craft - resulting in a field that surrounds the form of the spaceship itself.The field is highly resistive to physical impact, ranging from relatively small subatomic particles travelling at high velocities, to much more massive bodies at lesser relative velocities. When such an intrusion into the field occurs, field energy is concentrated at the point of incursion, creating an intense localised spatial distortion. The net result being a semi-elastic collision with the 'shields'.
The shielding system is also effective against wider ranges of electromagnetic radiation, as well as nuclear and other radiated and field energies.
The shield system uses groups of four polarised gravitic field generators, whose output is phase synchronised with each other. The phase output frequency is modified randomly so as to prevent hostile forces gaining an advantage by adjusting and matching their directed energy weapon output frequency so as to penetrate the shields. (Too star trek? I dunno...)
Why lasers don't pass through (or why ordinary light isn't blocked):
The field of gravitons is just there, held in the deflector field by the generators. There's no need for sensors to do any work because the gravitons are polarised to such an extent that only highly focused, highly polarised light (or should I say LASERS) is affected by them. Since light from stars and such is not polarised, focused, or of high enough energy to cause damage to such an extent where the shields would deflect it, it simply passes through the deflector field.
7) The 'E-War' model: Derived from I-War. Shielding is provided by special devices mounted on the hull. Each device is a gyroscopic platform with an array of displacement cells on it, which can lock onto, and track, any one ship or object. When it is tracking an object, it will automatically absorb any energy based weapons originating from that object. Becuase of the way these devices work, they can only work on line of sight targets. Most ships have two of these devices, mounted on opposite sides of the hull. This makes for rather neat gameplay; you can only be shielded against at most two ships at a time, and shields are totalled quite frequently. It means that a player has to consciously align their ship so that the shield devices can lock onto enemy ships, and it also means that some ship designs have blind spots that the shields can't cover...
8) The 'Elite: Final Conflict' Model: Derived from 'Virtual Glass' from Earth: Final Conflict. Take a highly polar liquid with high surface tension and suspend it in a magnetic field. The high surface tension of the liquid will block physical objects, but by manipulating the field, objects can pass through if you wish (e.g. outgoing missiles and laser fire). Laser fire would have to be stopped by some type of tint, reflective, or refractive property of the liquid. This shield model would be hit harder by missiles, but lasers would have a temporary piercing effect if used consistently on the same location (getting a chance to cause hull damage prematurely). Every hit vaporizes a portion of the liquid, depleting the shields as a whole as well as weakening them in the specific area until the shields can adjust.