As a house rule, I'm wondering if having vehicle shields work like Reflect (on the planetary scale) might be a way to increase the staying power of ships.

This would mean that a ship with Defense 2 in a given arc would count as having Reflect 2 allowing it to reduce incoming damage by 4 in exchange for suffering 3 System Strain. Obviously ships with higher Defense get better deals on this (reducing more damage for the same SS cost) and ships with higher SST can make use of this more often.

Opinions?

But ships don't recover system strain the way characters recover strain. Some ships have really low system strain, so one or two uses of that and you're cooked.

That's true, but they also dont recover HTT all that quickly either. Exceeding SST isn't quite as bad as exceeding HTT even though both put you out of the fight. Damage control to repair SST can be done every turn unlike repairing HTT which is limited to once per encounter.

How would ion damage work?

Pretty much the same way that Stun setting weapons work against a Jedi with Reflect. It's only effective once your rating is 3+ (it breaks even at rating 2 and is actually counterproductive at rank 1).

...interesting....

Hmm. Yeah, I like it. Would there be a way to arrive at a "Supreme Reflect" situation, where you're only spending 1 system strain to activate the defense if you haven't made a combat check in the previous round?

Also, I'm thinking that the High-G Training talent would be massively useful with this effect, possibly too good of a combo, so that'd be something to watch.

I was actually working on rules for this, and had a thread about starship house rules that included a version of this. I then made defense not based on shields, and had positive handling add defense instead.

It made more maneuverable ships harder to hit, while making tougher ships harder to take down. It also makes Fine Tuning a WAY better talent.

Hmm. Yeah, I like it. Would there be a way to arrive at a "Supreme Reflect" situation, where you're only spending 1 system strain to activate the defense if you haven't made a combat check in the previous round?

Also, I'm thinking that the High-G Training talent would be massively useful with this effect, possibly too good of a combo, so that'd be something to watch.

The issue with the Supreme Reflect option is that the shield operator is likely never making attacks in anything Silhouette 5+. That doesn't sound like a good idea to me.

As for High-G Training, sure Mr. Hotshot. Knock yourself out. No, really...

I like it . We used the "Reflect" version for a few sessions. Now our group is testing a new one: Shields have a personal "Soak/Armor" Value, have a "Wounds" pool and are able to regenerate with a Comp (and Mechanics?) check and some special ones even have a basic round regeneration.

About the reflect one, we don't use the "Improved" option.

But ships don't recover system strain the way characters recover strain. Some ships have really low system strain, so one or two uses of that and you're cooked.

It would need a parallel mechanic to recover shield strain...maybe avoid shooting for a turn, or a Mechanic check.

I like this idea as well. I had an experimental ship use a type of 'ablative' shielding where it could take additional damage (10 points I think) and it took damage from all sources, just to see how that might work. I think the Reflect Quality could work better, perhaps as a special attachment or modification to existing shields?

Thinking that through further, you could have an Attachment called Absorbing Shields, for example, with the Quality: Absorb, that functions mechanically the same as Reflect. Any mods available to the system could reduce the Strain needed to activate by 1 to a minimum of 1 thus making it safer for ships with less ST to use without failing.

My comment would be that generally, shields in Star Wars don't seem as selective as this house-rule would make them. Like, shield operators could not single out incoming fire from one enemy while ignoring fire from another enemy, by choosing which attacks to "Reflect". At best they can angle shields to a particular direction, or zone in game terms.

I do like the idea though. It really seems like a better way to mimic shields.

In any case, it's gonna have to be a little abstract, just like the rest of this game's mechanics. And System Strain is already one huge abstraction of a bunch of stuff in-game, so adding one more thing to that list (shields) doesn't seem to be a terrible idea to me.

I'd be more than willing to give this a try!

Hmm. Yeah, I like it. Would there be a way to arrive at a "Supreme Reflect" situation, where you're only spending 1 system strain to activate the defense if you haven't made a combat check in the previous round?

Also, I'm thinking that the High-G Training talent would be massively useful with this effect, possibly too good of a combo, so that'd be something to watch.

The issue with the Supreme Reflect option is that the shield operator is likely never making attacks in anything Silhouette 5+. That doesn't sound like a good idea to me.

As for High-G Training, sure Mr. Hotshot. Knock yourself out. No, really...

Our group's hotshot makes *great* use of High-G Training, to keep his V-Wing in one piece. The stray Advantage he rolls keep him in the fight.

Was I the only person who read the topic title and saw a mental image of turbolaser bolts bouncing back and forth between two ships? It was like some kind of anti-Pong with the ships serving as paddles that are trying to avoid intercepting the turbolaser bolts which are serving as balls.

As a house rule, I'm wondering if having vehicle shields work like Reflect (on the planetary scale) might be a way to increase the staying power of ships.

This would mean that a ship with Defense 2 in a given arc would count as having Reflect 2 allowing it to reduce incoming damage by 4 in exchange for suffering 3 System Strain. Obviously ships with higher Defense get better deals on this (reducing more damage for the same SS cost) and ships with higher SST can make use of this more often.

Opinions?

I do this but I base it on Pilot Ranks + Handling. It allows for the craft's agility and the skill of the pilot to actually have an effect on defense. Small nimble fighters will get the most benefit, but their System Strain Thresholds will limit their chances to use this to 2-3 times per combat. Larger ships (I max it at Silhouette 4) won't get as much of a benefit due to usually having Handling of 0 or worse, but a skilled pilot could still shave a few points of damage off from several hits.