I am planning on enhancing ion weapons for my PC's to add to the tactical options they have during space combat.

The description of ion weapons in the CRB mentions effectiveness against shields in some way I think (AFB), but doesn't mention any in-game effects related to this. I plan to give ion weapons the following additional effect:

Ion weapons ignore setback dice from shields. On a successful hit (i.e. damage must exceed amor), instead of inflicting system strain the attacker can choose to remove all shields in the targeted area (aft, fore etc) until the end of the attackers next turn.

What I want is to give the players an option to remove shields when facing larger craft with heavy shields. So that the first Y-Wing might go in and remove the shields from one area of the ship and then the following fighters target that now vulnerable area.

What do you guys think? Has anyone else played around with giving ion weapons any other functionality?

I agree with the bypassing shields bit (I assumed they did this already). Shutting them down is probably a bit too powerful.

As they're vulnerable to it, you could rule that Droid controlled ships probably suffer a setback on their next action, or need to make a Piloting check if the environment is hazardous.

You could let them Aim at the shield generators for 2 setback, any crit takes the shield down for a round or 2

A ship that has their system strain equal to their strain threshold doesn't have most of their systems turned off or failing?

Isnt that pretty strong already? You can turn off nearly the entire ship with Ion damage.

Thanks guys I like the suggestions. I agree removing the shields for a couple of rounds is probably OP. I hadn't really considered that the crit table also has effects on shield removal and so removing them should be saved for situations where you trigger a critical hit.