[Lone Knight]

I know that this may have been convered before, but I was wondering....what if Cap ships had sheilds?  That would be hard, but cool.  They would absorb most laser fire.  Beam turrets would obviously not be affected by them.  

I was also thinking that all rockets and bombs would hit the hull because, in reality shields would only absorb lasers and other energy-based weapons.

What do you think?

[phatosealpha]

Lets see.  Shields on capships.  Er....well, to be honest, it seems kinda useless like you describe.  Rockets and bombs ignore the shield.  Plasma cannons use matter, so they'd hit the hull too.  Beams happily pass right through the shield too.  The maxim, king of fighter vs. capital ship warfare, is ballistic, so through the hull it goes too.

Kinda hard to think of places where that would be useful.

[Unknown Target]

Do a search, yeesh. Don't we already have a couple topics like this open already anyway?

[Fragrag]

Originally posted by phatosealpha
Rockets and bombs ignore the shield.  

Really? I can swear I see a shield popup everytime a missile hits

[Boomer]

Really? I can swear I see a shield popup everytime a missile hits

Yeah, shields stop all weapons except beam weapons by default.

What it is is that if a missile reaches the shield perimeter at the same time that the shield takes a hit, the missile goes through due to the temporary shield disruption.

Also, all one would have to do is get inside the shield perimeter and fire.

Now what if you had one ship that could project a shield around a fleet that could even stop enemy Long-Range Anti-Cap beams?  You know, like one of the shield ships from the Halo universe (IIRC).

[Charismatic]

Originally posted by Boomer

Now what if you had one ship that could project a shield around a fleet that could even stop enemy Long-Range Anti-Cap beams?  You know, like one of the shield ships from the Halo universe (IIRC).

--Then were all ****ed. Simple.

[achtung]

Where does that ship appear in halo?

[Pnakotus]

Wow, capship shields would have to obey a series of restrictive rules that fighter shields don't!  Why was that again?

*s******* FS guns are plasma!  *s*******

I'm actually not sure what the in-universe explanation is.  Perhaps they're unable to extend the effect far enough to work?  You'd think at very least they'd be able to cover (for instance) turrets in a fighter-grade shield.

[Boomer]

Where does that ship appear in halo?

Doesn't appear in the game.  I think I saw mention  of it in one of the books.  

 

--Then were all ****ed. Simple.

Not once you get inside the shield perimeter, or destroy the shield ship itself.  

Jeez, say it with me.  "Sub-Space Missiles."

[Lone Knight]

Argh! Don't bring Halo into FS!  Too many people at my school play Halo 2 non-stop....

[Nuclear1]

Originally posted by Lone Knight
I know that this may have been convered before, but I was wondering....what if Cap ships had sheilds?  That would be hard, but cool.  They would absorb most laser fire.  Beam turrets would obviously not be affected by them.  

I was also thinking that all rockets and bombs would hit the hull because, in reality shields would only absorb lasers and other energy-based weapons.

What do you think?

We've already a "shielded" capital ship before -- it was this big, evil Shivan capital ship in FS1 called the Lucifer.

That should explain some of the reason why shielding capital ships just isn't cost-effective. Let's take a look back at the first Freespace, shall we? Shortly after the Vasudan homeworld was leveled by the Lucifer, a group of Vasudan scientists crash-landed on a planet in the Altair system, where they discovered the means to bypass the shielding system on the Lucifer.

Right before the Lucifer made the jump to Earth, a group of Terran and Vasudan fighters and bombers tracked the capital ship into subspace, where they ended up destroying it where its shields had no effect. How did they do it? The Lucifer had five main reactors across its hull, and when each one of them was destroyed, the Lucifer's power systems either failed or spiked and destroyed the ship.

Now for the analysis:

The Lucifer had five reactors powering itself. Now whether a significant amount of this went to powering its fusion drives and its beam cannons, I'm not sure--but five reactors were needed to tow that ship, shields and all, around in space. The Lucifer was a very large ship as well, meaning that even more power was needed to maintain a functional, invulnerable shield around it in normal space.

But when it is in subspace, the shield didn't function. There is one explanation for this: simply, the Lucifer had to direct enough power to its subspace drives that the shield would simply not have been able to function.

Additionally, what happened when the Lucifer finally exploded? The jump node to Sol was severed by the explosion of the reactors, and the GTA lost contact with Earth.

Now I'm sure the GTVA could've taken some serious lessons from the war and not put shields on their capital ships for a number of reasons. For one, they noticed the enormous power cost that it would take to maintain a worthwhile energy shield around a large vessel, and deemed it not cost-effective to try to fit a shield on a capital ship. Five, or even three reactors would simply take up too much space on the ship, and with the majority of that power being shunted to a shield that, by your explanation, can only repel laser fire (which anything larger than a corvette is immune to), and not the true threat of bombs or beam cannons, it simply would not be a viable option for the GTVA.

Another reason would be that the GTVA noticed the weakness in the Lucifer, and now they know fighters can stop a capital ship with a shield system--track into subspace and destroy it, assuming no beam- or bomb-equipped ships were around to assist. Seeing as how the destruction of a large ship in subspace collapsed the Sol jump node, what is it to say that another slightly smaller vessel might not cause serious instability should it be destroyed in subspace? For a shield that shuts down as soon as its ship enters subspace due to subspace power costs, it doesn't seem very worthwhile for the GTVA to plant shields on anything but fightercraft.

Now what if you had one ship that could project a shield around a fleet that could even stop enemy Long-Range Anti-Cap beams? You know, like one of the shield ships from the Halo universe (IIRC).

Then you've got serious balance issues. Unless you're planning on making that shield craft with as much hull integrity as a piece of looseleaf paper and with absolutely no weapons whatsoever, than you've got too much power in one ship.

[Trivial Psychic]

Originally posted by nuclear1
But when it is in subspace, the shield didn't function. There is one explanation for this: simply, the Lucifer had to direct enough power to its subspace drives that the shield would simply not have been able to function.

Remember, your fighters didn't have shields either.  Basically, any shielded ship, will not be able to maintain said shields in subspace.  In some of the pre-FS1 back-story litterature, an extended form of the shield test cutscene was described.  The explanation indicates that shielding becomes unstable in subspace and the power requirements to maintain sheilds in subspace are significantly higher.

One more point... shields do stop missiles, and that includes bombs.  Only beam weapons pierce shields.  That said, from a campaign design point of view, all one needs to introduce a pulse weapon or missile that pierces shields is the correct table entry.

[Cannikin]

Originally posted by Boomer
You know, like one of the shield ships from the Halo universe (IIRC).

I've read all 3 books several times, there is no such "shield ship" in Halo. Only the Covenant ships have shields. All classes of Covenant capital ships mentioned are: frigate, destroyer, light cruiser, heavy cruiser, "flagship" (Ascendant Justice), carrier, assault carrier and mobile command station (Unyielding Heirophant).

Of those the only one I can think of that could be used for shielding a fleet is the 30km (or 60km, book is unclear as to whether 30km refers to one of the two sections of hull, or both together) Unyielding Heirophant station, which had shields that could supposedly withstand the impact of a small moon, but the ships would have to be docked at the station itself to be protected and thus not useful in a combat situation.

The rest of the Covenant capital ships project a shield that envelopes a volume somewhat greater than the ship itself (rather than a surface hugging shield), but from all indications, not large enough to protect another vessel.

Anyway, that's to cover that little tangent. Back on topic.

I've always wondered whether the Lucifer's shields were just an upscaled version of fighter shields, following the same rules, thus allowing beams to be effective on it, or some weird new technology making it truly invulnerable to attack (like rediverting the energy of the attack rather than absorbing it). The fact that harbingers (still quite powerful) had no effect on the Luci indicates something else is at work rather than a giant version of fighter shields (darn you invulnerability tag!).

[aldo_14]

The briefs mention the Lucifer as having 'sheath shielding', although it's highly debatable as to whether that's a different technology to normal shields, or an excuse for no shieldhit effect.....

[Pnakotus]

I think the 'sheath shielding' line was a handwave so we didn't notice there weren't any shield effects.

They Lucifer class ships certainly seem to be dominated by its reactors, and since it's ALSO the only capital ship with shields, you've got to wonder.  It's arguable the reactors are there to power the planet-killing beams, I guess.

Perhaps it's a question of scale.  You can easily (it seems) bolt a shield on a fighter, and double or more it's durability.  Warships, OTOH, are already extremely durable, and perhaps it's not possible to add shields in such a way that the shield benefit outweighs whatever was displaced to fit it.  For instance, the Lucifer would be a far more capable ship (we can assume) if it's entire volume was used for standard destroyer systems, instead of being 40% reactor.  Of course, these were exceptionally powerful shields.

[Lone Knight]

I think the 'sheath shielding' line was a handwave so we didn't notice there weren't any shield effects.

V musta done that so that they didn't have to come up with any animation of shields absorbing the shots like those large ships from Independence Day did.

[Carl]

that's more or less what he just said.