So, why did they talk about catching a capital ships with shields down?

[Thalstan]

Speculation...

I don't know about shields in specific, but most ships do not sail on the the seas while at "general quarters" or with all hatches "battened down"


However, In Sci-Fi, the raising and lowering of shields is very common. Here are a few examples:

• BSG - Set condition 1 throughout the ship
• BSG TOS - Positive shields (lowered armor plates across vulnerable areas?)
• Star Trek - Raise shields. In fact, raised shields (beyond navigation shields) in the ST universe can be considered a sign of aggression. Also, review Wrath of Khan. The Enterprise took so much damage from the Reliant specifically because they did not raise their shields when they should have.
• Star Wars - Raise, set, or angle the deflectors or deflector shields. In some cases, you set your shields to cover specific areas while leaving others vulnerable (set deflectors to double front)
• Dahak series (books by David Weber) - operating a shield was only done when needful because of the power requirements.
• Robotech/Macross - the shield barrier and pinpoint barrier was only used in times of combat
• Stargate - Shields used a lot of power. Shields were depleted when the source generating them were exhausted, so they used them only when needed

I think the reasoning is that beyond plot points, making it inconvenient for the crew, or having some sort of outward appearance; having shields up all the time would put wear and tear on the shield generators, increase fuel consumption, expose shield modulation algorithms, make it harder to perform routine maintenance, etc. In general, a ship would only have a shield "up" when it anticipated going into some sort of combat condition.


Now, one other thing...shields in most of these universes come online and up to full strength fairly quickly (how long depends on how long the plot needs it to come up in...or how long it needs to remain in a weakened condition to allow that strategic strike). If SC were to implement some sort of penalty for keeping shields "up" all the time, they would also need to create some sort of mechanism to allow the shields to be raised to full strength fairly quickly. This can be done by having the shield in some sort of "standby" mode where everything is powered up and ready to go with only one or two generators down for routine maintenance at a time for the largest ships. If the shield was "off", then it might take considerably longer for the shield to come up to full. Most ships would only have shields fully down while in cold shutdown in port or when repairing major damages after a battle and they won..but lost most systems in the process. In this case, shields would be brought back up as individual generators are repaired.


Again, in most universes, generating the field is easy...what breaks down the shield is the overheating that occurs in the shield generators as it tries to absorb/dissipate/regenerate the hits being taken. In some universes, it takes just a few minutes of non-combat for shields to come back up to full. In others, it takes much longer for either repairs to shield generators to take place, or to re-charge the...call them shield capacitors or shield banks...what replenish the shield's energy after being hit.


I think this is why there was a reference to "being caught with shields down". The Idris was in "safe space", had no indication of a hostile force, and was running in "normal configuration", shields down. This may be indicating that in the future, raising and lowering shields will become part what ships will need to do prior to going into combat or immediately upon detecting a hostile or unknown force.

 

[Phantomoftruth]

i would not expect the Eclipse to have shields on unless it was Spotted and needed the immediate defense.

In the way they wrote that may show some ideas they have about Shields in general. Right now, all ships have shields on by default as power up sequence. With what we have seen of the interface and granularity in the cockpit of what we touch, running sans shields may become the way to go until threats are assessed. Consider shoving all the shield energy into drives, could we get another 10-100m/s in cruise? what about running weapons cold until needed? This fits in the same category as Shields. "Power to Weapons" is near universally seen as aggressive, whether internal or externally housed.

 

[Blind Owl]

Speculation...

I don't know about shields in specific, but most ships do not sail on the the seas while at "general quarters" or with all hatches "battened down"


However, In Sci-Fi, the raising and lowering of shields is very common. Here are a few examples:

• BSG - Set condition 1 throughout the ship
• BSG TOS - Positive shields (lowered armor plates across vulnerable areas?)
• Star Trek - Raise shields. In fact, raised shields (beyond navigation shields) in the ST universe can be considered a sign of aggression. Also, review Wrath of Khan. The Enterprise took so much damage from the Reliant specifically because they did not raise their shields when they should have.
• Star Wars - Raise, set, or angle the deflectors or deflector shields. In some cases, you set your shields to cover specific areas while leaving others vulnerable (set deflectors to double front)
• Dahak series (books by David Weber) - operating a shield was only done when needful because of the power requirements.
• Robotech/Macross - the shield barrier and pinpoint barrier was only used in times of combat
• Stargate - Shields used a lot of power. Shields were depleted when the source generating them were exhausted, so they used them only when needed

I think the reasoning is that beyond plot points, making it inconvenient for the crew, or having some sort of outward appearance; having shields up all the time would put wear and tear on the shield generators, increase fuel consumption, expose shield modulation algorithms, make it harder to perform routine maintenance, etc. In general, a ship would only have a shield "up" when it anticipated going into some sort of combat condition.


Now, one other thing...shields in most of these universes come online and up to full strength fairly quickly (how long depends on how long the plot needs it to come up in...or how long it needs to remain in a weakened condition to allow that strategic strike). If SC were to implement some sort of penalty for keeping shields "up" all the time, they would also need to create some sort of mechanism to allow the shields to be raised to full strength fairly quickly. This can be done by having the shield in some sort of "standby" mode where everything is powered up and ready to go with only one or two generators down for routine maintenance at a time for the largest ships. If the shield was "off", then it might take considerably longer for the shield to come up to full. Most ships would only have shields fully down while in cold shutdown in port or when repairing major damages after a battle and they won..but lost most systems in the process. In this case, shields would be brought back up as individual generators are repaired.


Again, in most universes, generating the field is easy...what breaks down the shield is the overheating that occurs in the shield generators as it tries to absorb/dissipate/regenerate the hits being taken. In some universes, it takes just a few minutes of non-combat for shields to come back up to full. In others, it takes much longer for either repairs to shield generators to take place, or to re-charge the...call them shield capacitors or shield banks...what replenish the shield's energy after being hit.


I think this is why there was a reference to "being caught with shields down". The Idris was in "safe space", had no indication of a hostile force, and was running in "normal configuration", shields down. This may be indicating that in the future, raising and lowering shields will become part what ships will need to do prior to going into combat or immediately upon detecting a hostile or unknown force.

Dear god, how do you find the time to theorycraft to this extend. I applaud you good Sir.

I'm reckoning you hit the nail on the head in your thought processes. There will have to be some penalty for keeping shields at full all the time.

 

[Beerjerker]

I'm hoping you will be able to tell at a glance if another ship has their weapons off, kind of like how you could see a target's shields on the old HUD. Could sort of serve as a way to show you are not hostile, so every encounter with a new stranger isn't instantly a kill-or-be-killed PVP scenario.

"Unknown vessel, this is Captain 360noscope2000. How's it going, m8?"
"Captain, they're powering weapons!"
"Raise shields! Pwnagestations, n00bz!"

They might be able to do this by making it much more fuel efficient with systems off, likely more so for larger ships or long range travel. Might also be able to do this by making NPCs turn hostile if you roll into their turf with your guns hot. Not sure how well the player base would react though, even to what I would consider relatively small inconveniences.

(Edited to add "Pwnagestations." How I did not see that one a mile away escapes me.)

 

[EpilepticCricket]

I agree completely with your hypotheses and would like to add that it's likely that as ships get larger and larger, the energy consumption requirements of any given module outpace energy generated by the power plant. This will necessitate more and more careful power management.

I haven't really looked into the most recent numbers, but fresh in 2.0 the power plants and energy system was reworked in anticipation for power management to become a thing. At that point, a size 1 PP was ~100 "size/weight" units and the energy generated was around 1k. Size 2 PPs were around 500-600 "size/weight" units, but they generated ~6k power. So, we've known for a while that energy generated scales faster in comparison to the size-to-weight ratio. I'd have to find hard numbers (and more recent ones), but unless I'm mistaken, power consumption scales at an even higher rate.

I don't think it would be dangerous to assume that CIG has designed the power system with some version of the inverse square law in effect. As any system gets larger and more complicated it requires more and more energy to run/maintain/cool/etc and at each step of the way there are more circuits, chips, and wires that each add resistance and cause current drop (not that every last little chip and board will be realized in game, but the concept should apply). So, as you move into s8 and s9 systems you simply can't pay for everything all the time with a similarly sized plant. Battery systems will give you a window to push beyond the limitations of your power system for a while, but until you can turn systems off to charge them again, they're a one-and-done deal.

In a combat situation, a large ship won't have shields up, weapons hot, and engines at max for more than a short time. And God help you if you find yourself in a situation where that's necessary anyway.

In addition to all that, I'd guess that shields at max on a very large ship probably lights up every scanner in the sector so it's a security risk running shields up near non-friendly territory.

 

[marcsand2]

In addition to all that, I'd guess that shields at max on a very large ship probably lights up every scanner in the sector

not only on large ships. Shields would make every ship better detectable on radar, EM and IR.

 

[A.Santos]

Argh .......way 2 early in the morning for that kind of heavy reading .... need coffee !!

But an interesting topic............ I will return :grin:

 

[FluffyVonRage]

I agree completely with your hypotheses and would like to add that it's likely that as ships get larger and larger, the energy consumption requirements of any given module outpace energy generated by the power plant. This will necessitate more and more careful power management.

I haven't really looked into the most recent numbers, but fresh in 2.0 the power plants and energy system was reworked in anticipation for power management to become a thing. At that point, a size 1 PP was ~100 "size/weight" units and the energy generated was around 1k. Size 2 PPs were around 500-600 "size/weight" units, but they generated ~6k power. So, we've known for a while that energy generated scales faster in comparison to the size-to-weight ratio. I'd have to find hard numbers (and more recent ones), but unless I'm mistaken, power consumption scales at an even higher rate.

I don't think it would be dangerous to assume that CIG has designed the power system with some version of the inverse square law in effect. As any system gets larger and more complicated it requires more and more energy to run/maintain/cool/etc and at each step of the way there are more circuits, chips, and wires that each add resistance and cause current drop (not that every last little chip and board will be realized in game, but the concept should apply). So, as you move into s8 and s9 systems you simply can't pay for everything all the time with a similarly sized plant. Battery systems will give you a window to push beyond the limitations of your power system for a while, but until you can turn systems off to charge them again, they're a one-and-done deal.

In a combat situation, a large ship won't have shields up, weapons hot, and engines at max for more than a short time. And God help you if you find yourself in a situation where that's necessary anyway.

In addition to all that, I'd guess that shields at max on a very large ship probably lights up every scanner in the sector so it's a security risk running shields up near non-friendly territory.

I'm seeing a very 'Capacitor banks at 65% and falling captain' situation here - Which is good. Brings meaningful gameplay into power management and systems management - crews balancing their very limited power output among systems, dipping into capacitor reserves where necessary, and maybe some systems falling offline as the capacitor runs out. There's going to be a lot of skill involved in keeping on top of all that in dangerous situations, as well as the intense theorycrafting of when best to activate systems etc.

#Hype

 

[Peter Deynholm]

Has CIG ever made any statement regarding wear and tear of individual components when in use ? That would add another advantage to not power up your entire ship all the time (in addition to the IR/EM signatures).

I wonder how complex power/systems management will be in the end. The more complex, the better of course... but there must be limitations imposed by the game engine, especially in a multiplayer context.

 

[Metal-Muffin]

I typically roll with my shields and weapons off, but only because of the 'immersive' experience of needing to flip a switch IRL to activate them. I like OP's thinking, though. I kind of feel that being able to detect whether another player's/NPC's shields and/or weapons are active, it would only aid in your decision-making process as to how to approach or respond. I feel like it may also add a level of skill required for those wanting to practice stealth and EWO.

 

[marcsand2]

Has CIG ever made any statement regarding wear and tear of individual components when in use ? That would add another advantage to not power up your entire ship all the time (in addition to the IR/EM signatures).

I read once that fune tuning will shorten components life, so why not regular use.

 

[marcsand2]

I kind of feel that being able to detect whether another player's/NPC's shields and/or weapons are active, it would only aid in your decision-making process as to how to approach or respond. I feel like it may also add a level of skill required for those wanting to practice stealth and EWO.

You are able to see the EM / IR level of other ships. IR missiles don't lock if your target has low IR and isn't shooting. The HUD should be better readable or on an external screen / tablet to be usefull.

 

[Printimus]

Because in any great space movie, how often are shields up and holding against enemy incoming fire?

 

[Han Burgundy]

I foresee shield use being very similar to the use of windshield wipers; Use when needed. Otherwise you get that annoying squeeking sound as rubber drags across dry window, and nobody wants that.

 

[Shadow Reaper]

Great stuff here!

I think when the entire scan system is in place, meaning they have EM, IR and RCS all working as intended, people will generally tend to scan for EM and IR passively to detect other ships. RCS pulsing can give away your position as easily as obtain another's. Since everyone is always served well to detect others before they themselves would be detected, flying with shields down is generally a good idea. Shields spray EM out hard, as does powering energy weapons.

We do not know the actual specs but it is a fair guess to say powering your shield will make your ship twice as easy to spot, and four times as easy if you are flying Void Armor. This appears is the point behind the Terrapin design--huge hull so it can sit very quietly with shields off.