I just thought of something that might need to be changed or added in the Code if there ever are plans to create a full-fledged Star Trek mod for FS2. Right now, any beam can penetrate any shield, fighter, bomber, or capital (ie. Lucifer). Obviously, in Star Trek most weapons can't penetrate shields, so that leaves 2 options. Except for rare cases (Dominion phased poloron beams), all beams will have the "pierce" flag removed. This would be the easiest way to go about it. The other, would be to add some ship flags and weapon flags so that other mods for the FS2 universe could retain the same FS2 beam rules, but perhaps come out with new shields and new weapons within that campaign. Perhaps add a "shields_resistant" ship flag which would allow capital ship shields to partially absorb beam dammage. Then, if someone came up with a weapon to counter this shield, it would be flagged "extra_pierce" or something.
Later!