Just talking on discord with some peeps and we were discussing shield mechanics, At the moment I was thinking of the old tabletop battle games like Star fleet battles were ships start the game allocating power to shields and having them stay on. The idea I thought was shields could be powered with energy then maintained at zero cost(a burst of energy, which would require you to power down weapons or not move due to energy requirements) A damage shield can start to decay as well as it takes damage, going to zero if no power is used to recharge. The logic behind this is that sol Meta is to turtle and I see frustration on both sides but if they need more power to recharge shields then but also encourage them to hit and run and let ship battles be more maneuverable Sol ships can then soak up damage and hit and run, while allowing them to move around the battle rather then diverting power to shields and wait on the sides.
Though keep in mind that after Star Fleet Battles, came in Starship Tactical Combat Simulator from FASA, which removed the permanent charge of the shields, and you had to recharge them on every allocation round, which I do prefer to adhere to. To change the rules to above, means changing entire game mechanics, including say, weapons, which then should not have to be recharged as well, unless you use them. And with the extra power now at a player's disposal, it also means reducing power output of ships overall, otherwise we're going to have to really dance around the map. Lastly, if we went this round, there would be less tactical decision making, as the shields would automatically be up on all sides fully when you first appear on the map (that's what I would do), then forget about them through battle unless its decayed or damaged enough.
I believe this is also the case with x-wing and star wars armada , continuous redistribution of power each turn . Now that I think about it you're right .
I actually really like this idea but you can make it into a sol specific science officer skill of 50%/80% retain maximum shield(if 100% charged it goes to 80% if its 80% charged it goes to 60%). Reason being that genari has an unique +2 damage skill and it actually makes shields a important part of sol.
I to like this idea, to a degree. I believe undamaged shields should retain 50 percent of their strength. I also think unfired weapons should retain the "normal" power. The green power settings. Maybe half of the yellow.
Changing this would obviously have some balance repercussions and would be tricky to balance. I am in favor of keeping the current system. I do want to point out, however, that shields are not nearly as powerful as game design wants to believe. There are some serious weaknesses to them. 1.) Even if they were balanced for 1v1 combat (which I think they are not btw) they still fail in actual battles which are team endeavors. It takes a large amount of energy to try to cover all sides and the enemy only has to focus their power onto a single side to easily overwhelm even the strongest shields. 2.) They are complexly useless while attempting to warp out.
