First want to start off by apologizing if this is the wrong place to post this, first time using these forums.

Now, onto the entire point of this. My GM and I where discussing for some time how Ion Weapons works, and how they deal damage to Shields as my character has a personal Shield installed in his armor. As we understand when hit the shield automatically loses half of its Shield rating until repaired. So if I have a 20 SR Shield and I'm hit by an Ion blast I'll lose 10 SR points until I have the the time to repair the shield.

This got me thinking that there must be a way to protect agaisnt this other then with a proper solid barrier. Which resulted in my GM and I discussing how Ion Weapons work and I proposed that there must be some sort of upgrade out there that would help protect agaisnt Ion based weapons. Weather a barrier over my Shield or an upgrade to the shield itself. But, my GM and I agreed that such a thing wouldn't be feasible unless we knew more about how the Ion Weapons work, in a more scientific manor.

From what little we know and what little there is in the lore, we know that ion weapons work using Ion particals directed in a beam, and that when said beam hit's an electronical device it damages the circuits by frying or melting them together.

But that's all we could find, there's mentions of Ships having defenses agasint ion based weapons as well a Droids which resulted in the production of even stronger ion weapons. But it doesn't say how these ships and Droids had defensive capabilities agasint it. I personally chalk up the Droids as having back up circuits and possible using special materials, but the ships could be left very much to the imagination.

Hence the point of this entire post. Just how does Ion weapons work? And are there any known ways to defend against its affects?

Any information would be greatly appreciated.

First of all: Shield Rating?

As I understand it the "damage" is temporary: Strain/System Strain. Personally, I have it working, quoth the Wookiee , "...in much the same manner as an electromagnetic pulse."

For countermeasure, something along the lines of a Faraday cage is conceivable. But it would naturally be located underneath the shield itself. Therefore I wouldn't allow anything protecting the shield itself from being disrupted.

I cant find anything about Ion technology in the book (Force and Destiny). Where you find rules about that?

The ion rules are listed in the Weapons Quality section, under "Ion". There might be some more stuff in the starship combat chapter as well.

There's at least one ship attachment (hydraulic control circuits) that helps against ion attacks, and I seem to remember one of the more recent books having another one as well.

Are you talking Saga? 'Cause this 'ere reeks o' dem Saga stuff! We don't take not kindly to dem Saga folks 'round 'ere!

Jokes aside, as far as I understand, your GM made some House rules, because shields just give the attacker black dice en gros. They don't have "wounds"

My impression of ion weapons is that they bypass shields and cause temporary disruption to electronic systems in the target.

A lot of our interpretation of the rules are tainted by years of mechanics coming from books and games where shield were often described has a physical barrier that absorbed damage until it's energy was gone, much like the shields in Star Trek. Unfortunately FFG takes us out of our comfort zone by changing the way shields work. To have a more streamlined system, shields are included in the same category has cover or lightsaber deflection. This way, players have only 2 health bars to track, Hull Treshold (Health) and System Strain (Strain).

Just throw out your ideas about shields....

In this system, shields just increase the odd of a missed shot, but once it lands, it lands full force... be it blaster or ion canons.

The only time weapons bypass soak is the weapon quality "stun" where you need to spend advantages. No weapon automatically bypass soak.

Pierce and Breach lowers soak but doesn't bypass it per se.

So shields increases defense that simply add Setback dice (black) to the enemy roll to hit.

Once it hits, shield don't do ****....

Ion doesn't bypass shields, Ion doesn't ignore soak. Ion deals damage like normal damage, except that it affects System Strain instead of Hull Treshold. That's it.

Hope it helps.

It's all in the narration...

The only time weapons bypass soak is the weapon quality "stun" where you need to spend advantages. No weapon automatically bypass soak.

Pierce and Breach lowers soak but doesn't bypass it per se.

More accurate to say Pierce and Breach ignores a certain amount of soak. The Stun quality (not the Stun damage/Stun setting qualities) ignores any and all soak.

The idea for the hydraulic control circuits comes from one of the Han solo novels where the Falcon is using primitive parts called fluidics for replacement parts, a primitive defensive component to guard against particle attacks on circuits. In the book he talks about that being the best he can get as the idea of "shielded circuitry" can't be found in the backwater place he is. Seems like a quick house rule on shielded circuitry as an attachment of some kind to provide additional defense might be appropriate.

A lot of our interpretation of the rules are tainted by years of mechanics coming from books and games where shield were often described has a physical barrier that absorbed damage until it's energy was gone, much like the shields in Star Trek. Unfortunately FFG takes us out of our comfort zone by changing the way shields work. To have a more streamlined system, shields are included in the same category has cover or lightsaber deflection. This way, players have only 2 health bars to track, Hull Treshold (Health) and System Strain (Strain).

Just throw out your ideas about shields....

In this system, shields just increase the odd of a missed shot, but once it lands, it lands full force... be it blaster or ion canons.

The only time weapons bypass soak is the weapon quality "stun" where you need to spend advantages. No weapon automatically bypass soak.

Pierce and Breach lowers soak but doesn't bypass it per se.

So shields increases defense that simply add Setback dice (black) to the enemy roll to hit.

Once it hits, shield don't do ****.... Ion doesn't bypass shields, Ion doesn't ignore soak.

Hope it helps.

That impression comes from more than just the older games -- it also comes from the movies themselves, the various "technical manuals" based on notes from the creative staffs of the movies, etc.

Shields appear to actually deflect damage (they're called "deflectors" more than once) and ion cannons appear to bypass them, in the movies.

Now, if FFG chose to not model that for simplicity, that's their choice, but it's still a system that doesn't properly model the "fictional reality" we're shown.

(Of course, I operate under the philosophy that the "reality" of the game world is the actual territory, and that the system/mechanics need to function as a "map" of that territory to a sufficient degree that they do not cause dissonance. If one is "mapping" our actual reality for a sort of low-power gritty game, then rules that let characters jump over 20-meter gaps just by running on foot and taking a leap immediately break verisimilitude, and push the players out of the game and into a moment of "HUH?")

Shields appear to actually deflect damage (they're called "deflectors" more than once) and ion cannons appear to bypass them, in the movies.

The only time I can remember that we see Ion cannons is in The Empire Strikes Back while fleeing Hoth... we are never shown they bypass shield... just that it was a huge badass canon that could disable for a few seconds a Star Destroyer with one shot... So no I would not say that we are shown that they bypass them.

With the exception of the Death Star, we are never really shown what shields are. One time in the Phantom Menace, we see the shields coming back online from the display console after R2 repaired them. I agree that this one time we see some kind of bubble popping around the ship on display, not in reality... we can always argue that it was just a Hud display and not the real thing. But I side with you on how the shields look like...

But I have to side with FFG for their choice mechanic for shields...

In the movies, X-Wings and Y-Wings have shields but when they get shot, they go down immediately like any TIE Fighter. So it would be reasonable to believe that shields don't give extra hit points nor armor, but increase the odds of a missed shot by completely deflecting a shot from hitting the ship. That interpretation of the technology behind shields would make it also consequent with the Falcon's escape from Tattoine in ANH when Han says "we're loosing the rear deflectors". It could mean "the deflectors don't have anymore juice, they've been hit too many times" or "the deflectors have deflected too many shots and are overheating". Both ways are good in my opinion.

When we were playing SW D6 WEG, both Stun damage and Ion damage bypassed soak. But with FFG, these weapons don't bypass it anymore.

We had to accept this new ruling but we are fine with it.

I don't recall "stun" damage in WEGd6.

Well, in our “real world” there is something called “Electro-Magnetic Pulse” (or EMP), and there are hardened circuits that are made using technology like Gallium Arsenide, Gallium Nitride, etc…. Wikipedia has a good section on this subject at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hardening#Radiation-hardening_techniques

So, yeah — I could see a house ruled attachment that allows you to apply other forms of EMP/ion hardening to your equipment, but it should be very rare, hard to apply, expensive to buy and also expensive to maintain, and probably also somewhat reduce the functionality of the component because you would have to displace so much of the existing technology with alternatives that are slower and bulkier in trade for their being hardened against EMP.

Basing more of your systems on optical fiber also helps, and there's good promise that "optronics" be faster than electronics.

I'm not near my books, but the hydraulic backups mod for ships seems to be in line with this. Mechanically I think it just ups the ship's strain limit if memory serves. This essentially allows the ship to tank more Ion damage.

EDIT: Just realized 2P51 touched on this already.

For droids, I could envision a faraday mesh armor. Bleeds off part of an ion blast, but if it gets overloaded by taking too many shots without time to dissipate the charge, it burns out like the filaments in a light bulb or something. Not necessarily all super sciency and such, but perhaps a place to start.

With the exception of the Death Star, we are never really shown what shields are. One time in the Phantom Menace, we see the shields coming back online from the display console after R2 repaired them. I agree that this one time we see some kind of bubble popping around the ship on display, not in reality... we can always argue that it was just a Hud display and not the real thing. But I side with you on how the shields look like...

While most shielding in the SW movies is indeed invisible, to say we don't see their effect is pushing it a bit.

Further, you seem to be forgetting the droidekas and the N1 fighter's shields as well, both being pretty visible.

And while you may not see the shield itself, there's plenty of narrative throughout that suggests that they shrug off damage, from the Falcon routinely losing its rear deflectors, to the Executor at Endor...