Particle Shields

[Mamatried]

I can't remember if it is ROTJ or ESB but I think Han Solo is flying through an asteroid field, where asteroids are "bouncing" on the ship and hull.

I think simply it is basically meant to indicate "what" you use the shileds for, if you turn off energy shileding you are left with particle shileds.

To me this is simply something like this: hull 3D shileds 2D+2 total roll 5D+2
with shileds.
turn of off energy shields you roll 3D+2, on ALL energy attacks, but now you have the max 5D+2 vs things like space rocks and people using hammers to try get into your ship.

However all energy attacks now pass through and you roll -2D on those attacks, while keeping collison damage at "now" full shilding.

I think this makes sense, as we see like the A wing crashing ino the executor.

He passed thtough the energy shileds, making no worth wile shileding vs collisionbecuse the focus is space combat and in a space with little debris.

Once the energy shiled that is now active is pierced, then you have what ever is left as any particle shilding.

Now I am quite sure with the swarm of fighters that the executor had energy shields close to maxed out in all arcs.
so once the a wing got through the executor defended with hull only.
having 0 particle shileding, making the vessel vulnerable for exactly that...collisions.

I think we sort of see this several times.

[Whill]

[Mamatried]

I can see that the Proton Torpedo actually have an active ion charge, and this is the "breach" charge if you will making able to penetrate shields.

the breaching charge it sends out, weakens or even removes the shiled for penetration purpose, however the breach charge is not powerful enough to create a breach greater than what is needed to "push" the torpedo through.

I can envision an active transmitting warhead, sending out a small ion pulse poweful enough to breach shiled, and as such the weapon is effective against shileded starships as we see in the movies.

in fact looking at the sequals and the impacts of non balster weapons, we in most cases see the "blue" shiled flash a moment as the weapon penetrates

[garhkal]

So perhaps proton torpedos, have instead of 9d (fighter) scale damage, they should have maybe 6 or 7d, BUT each one ignores 2d of shields, due to that "ion pre-charge'?
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[CRMcNeill]

[CRMcNeill]

[Whill]

Fair but that is balanced out by the fact that you weren't paid to do it. We're just fans giving to the community out of sheer love of the game.
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Star Wars D6 Damage

[CRMcNeill]

[Macavity]

So I've been having a detailed think about Particle Shields in Star Wars and how the text in the WEG Star Wars 2nd Edition book is worded.

[CRMcNeill]

I'd prefer to have Particle Shields 1D as stock with the option of upgrading as high as 2D.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[Macavity]

[CRMcNeill]

Part of my reasoning is that in my SWU, particle shields are essential for the operation of starships, providing protection from high-velocity impact in space and shaping into a low/no drag aerodynamic form to ease a ship's passage through the atmosphere.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[Whill]

Macavity, particle shield tech could very well be an extension of repulsorlift tech. For the sake of my disbelief suspension, they also include an element of Star Trek's 'structural integrity fields.'

The problem with low Hull ships not having particle shields is that particle shields were invented to be a hand wave that required no game mechanics. High speed space ships must have protection against micro-meteor impacts and atmospheric friction. No rolls needed for these things. Remember, it isn't the inherent danger of micrometeors, but rather it is the relative velocities involved in space travel (or decent to planets) which make them dangerous. If some spaceships don't have particle shields and you invoke scale rules to protect ships, you are (1) not considering that the micrometeor's added damage value from the velocities involved as the ship unknowingly plows into a particle, and (2) you are bringing game mechanics and dice rolls unnecessarily into the game for mundane things like micrometeors and atmospheric friction, which defeats the purpose of the hand wave tech in the first place.

The original WEG Star Wars game was a group effort by multiple designers, and it is extremely likely that the author who decided that 2D of a ship's Hull code is particle shields is not likely the same author who gave TIE fighters a 2D Hull. A much simpler solution than yours is to simply reduce the particle shields to only 1D of the ship's Hull.

This simple tweak of reducing particle shields from 2D to 1D still allows for the intended hand wave of no rolls for mundane things when the particle shields are functional, while eliminating the 0D Hull situations. And it means that spaceships are made tougher, which I feel they should be, rather than depending on shields as much. It is worth mentioning that according the game's shields rules as designed, mechanically a ship's particle and energy shields both provide protection from both physical and energy damage. The main difference is that particle shields are designed to be on most all of the time the ship is in flight (which is mostly mundane), while energy shields require more power and are primarily only used for combat. I think energy shields could provide the benefit that particle shields do if the particle shields get damaged, but that would never happen in RAW's damage system (see below).

If a GM using this 1D particle shields tweak feels it makes ship hulls too strong with no downside, please see the rest of my starship damage and repair rules. RAW has no rules for particle shields being damaged. When energy shields get completely blown, it goes to control ionized. You have the hand waving particle shields protection as long as you have main power. I have kept the main power rule (for all shields like in RAW) and added that after all energy shields get blown, further shields damage results blows the particle shields. I feel the particle shield should be last because it has the hand waving benefits and it equally applies to all fire arcs (so energy shields also protect the particle shields). And since particle shields can actually be damaged in my damage system, there are of course rules for repairing them in my repair system.

If a GM using this tweak still wants the option for some ships to have 2D in particle shields they can, but those ships should probably have a minimum Hull of 3D and TIEs definitely still have only 1D in particle shields. But using this tweak means 1D is enough for the hand waving particle shields benefits so having more than 1D in particle shields would mainly be increasing the ship's Hull code in most situations, which could become overpowering. If a GM uses this tweak and adds that some ships can have more than 1D in particle shields, I would recommend further tweaking the damage system so that particle shields can possibly get blown ahead of energy shields getting blown, to actually add more risk to go along with the additional benefit of an increased Hull. Personally, I think it is easier to just keep particle shields at 1D (of the Hull code) for all ships, and increase the ship's Hull or energy shields using the rules for those things, if you want to give the ship more protection.
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Star Wars D6 Damage

[Macavity]

Maybe the best way to keep particle shields handwavey is to say that losing the particle shields drops spaceships one scale level down.

So starfighters still roll the same hull dice, but take +2D scale damage from other starfighter scale weapons, and roll the base level of hull dice against straight damage from Walker-scale vehicles now.

A spaceship flying without particle shields up can just take collision damage if flying in atmosphere or space that might be particularly debris laden - at the GMs option.

[CRMcNeill]