Energy screens are cohesive barriers of energy (often called "shields" thanks to the prevalence of various ancient science-fiction shows) which are designed to deflect physical projectiles and absorb beams of radiation. It's the sort of thing you wish you had when you were being bullied on the playground (don't pretend you weren't).
Energy Screen Generators have several ratings. The important factor is the Integrity — how many Damage Units the screen will prevent from reaching the unit before the screen collapses. Other factors, also rather important, are the Recharge Rate, the Absorption Percentage, and the Maximum Absorption.
Recharge Rate determines how many points of Integrity the Energy Screen Generator rebuilds per minute. Absorption Percentage determines the percentage of damage from any given attack which is absorbed by the energy screen, with the remaining percentage "leaking" through the energy screen — no energy screen is perfect. The Maximum Absorption is the largest blast (in Damage Units) that the energy screen can withstand before the remainder of the blast penetrates the energy screen unimpeded; for instance, if a Weapon causes 50 Damage Units and an Energy Screen Generator has a Maximum Absorption of 30, then 20 Damage Units pass through the energy screen, and only 30 Damage Units are cancelled out by the energy screen.
Note that the Maximum Absorption applies only to a single blast; the Integrity is the number of Damage Units the energy screen can withstand over time while the Maximum Absorption is the number of Damage Units the energy screen can withstand at a single instant. When the Integrity is completely expended, the energy screen collapses; when the Maximum Absorption is completely expended, the remaining damage gets through but the energy screen still remains until its Integrity is completely compromised. Think of it as the difference between pushing a nail through a piece of paper versus shredding the piece of paper to bits with dozens of cuts with a knife. You can replace "piece of paper" with "human body" and the analogy still holds... but if you're that kind of person, you need counselling.
May 24 2007, 5:03 pm
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TheMonkeyDidIt
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I always liked the Dune kinetic shield. It was a neat idea to get hand to hand and sword combat back into a civilization that had advanced tech. I have to admit, tho, the whole mutual suicide by nuclear reaction to lazgun thing seemed a bit kludgy.
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Oh come on, Jtgibson, I expected more from you. Why Energy Screens? Why not Plasma Windows? :(
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Well, superheating particles to be ionised gas would be more detrimental than beneficial, since if a kinetic energy projectile was shot through a cloud of plasma it'd just become a very, very hot projectile. =P
I also have masking screens, dampening screens, and scattering screens. They use the same underlying pseudophysics*, but serve radically different purposes. * Shooting particles at a certain speed with other particles at a higher speed to make microexplosions of gravity, electromagnetism, or other particles at a certain range from the unit. If you were wondering. | |
Why not mention the new material some MIT students have been attempting to make.
It scatters light that reaches the material, making it almost impossible to see with the naked eye. It's far from an invisibility cloak, though. It's only able to hide one color at a time, so it's visible at sunset and sunrise, when natural light spectrums are strained. Invisibility > invincibility | |
A masking screen is like a "rear projection screen" which projects an image of the space on the opposite side of the vessel into an intangible wall of "smoke"-like particles, and causes particles from outside the screen to wrap around the screen like water landing on a sphere (pretty much exactly like a Star Trek cloaking device).
Dampening screens are designed to absorb and scatter incoming particles of all kinds, making the object give off a visible signature (it's still reflecting energy, and any decent sensor in the Alliance era can detect energy emissions even if it's not physically struck by them) but making deep scans impossible; you can detect size, velocity, and shape, but can't detect mass, cargo, personnel, etc. The "dampening" in this case refers to the effect to the unit behind the screen, not the underlying principle of the screen. Scattering screens are designed to reflect light like a mirror. If you peg a vessel with a scattering screen with a laser beam, you risk damaging yourself or another innocent party -- scattering screens are pretty much used exclusively by raiders who are invading civilian areas, since anyone who shoots at the raider will hurt his own populace. (I considered calling them reflective screens, but scattering screens sounds cooler, and it implies a bit of randomness to the deflection angle of the beam. I do imagine there'll be some confusion between dampening screens (which are worthless as a physical defence) and scattering screens (which are worthless as an electronic-warfare defence). | |