Approved Submission Mindy Barrier Shield Module

[Rizzo]

Submission URL

https://wiki.stararmy.com/doku.php?id=stararmy:equipment:ke-m2-p2904_barrier_shield_module

Submission Faction(s)

1. Yamatai (except Elysia)

Submission Terms

1. I agree

There's really not anything big wrong with this one except OMG that DRv2 to v3 conversion was far out! It was listed as SP 10~15 is Tier 10, Light Starship! Why the heck don't we just slap that bad boy on literally EVERY SINGLE MINDY? Like, no need to have small ships shielded anymore. Just mindys with these barrier shields taped to the hull! LOL.

Obviously this is not what the author had in mind, that conversion is just bad. Clearly what we have here is the biggest shield generator a suit of power armor can carry without having a box the size of a crate engine on it's back. This is, after all, something that fits between the M2-2D's stowed 50mm shoulder cannons, after all. The biggest PAs are coming in at T6 so that's where I put this at. A standard Mindy with charged barrier can tank a single T5 shot before needing to take cover and recharge. That saves you against an ASBR shot. At T6 you can tank 4 shots from the ASBR. Not freaking funny now! This would remain consistent with the story about 2 Mindys with this fighting a squad of Lamias and winning.

This is an unfair advantage on it's surface but the original author has 2 drawbacks that seemed to indicate a limitation to prevent abuse. First, if this shield goes down it takes 5 seconds to recharge. DRv3 indicates barriers recharge 50% in 10 to 15 seconds. Naturally this submission is set to recharge too fast but seeing as almost all other PA shields have no recharge even listed this indicates to me a period of vulnerability was intended, thus explaining WHY this is not standard issue on every single M2-4. By giving this a 30 second period for activation and reactivation it essential makes a Mindy with this part remarkably durable but remarkably vulnerable if soldier is careless.

Additionally, power usage was addressed as suffering when this is in use. Being able to take 4 times the punishment of all other PA in it's weight class is an incredible feat of engineering. It also requires the power consumption that requires a much larger suit. The original author states the "forearm projectors" recharges at half the speed when this barrier is active. These forearms have been and continue to be used to power weapons like the Aether Beam Saber Rifle. It can be inferred that any weapon powered by a suit that is already running this barrier is going to have half recharge on suit powered weapons.

Now there is a huge loophole that needs to be addressed. Suppose a player has a Mindy with 4 capacitors which recharge systems immediately.. and this barrier... they are now unkillable!
Therefore, the SAoY would only EVER run that exact configuration and just be invincible at all times!

I have worked in a counter already. If we apply the scaling of the rule of 8 from Weapon Limitations which is inspired from and built around DRv3 and consider that a single capacitor can instantly recharge a T4 barrier we could assume the exponential scaling upwards would require 2 for a T5 barrier and 4 for a T6. I'm tempted to say that the Mindy can only use the capacitor for its own on-board T4 barrier BUT those capacitors instantly recharge a dorsal mounted teleporter. Soooo it would still be possible for each capacitor to recharge the barrier by 25% based on established lore and it would be unfair to take that away from a player that has built his ENTIRE suit around being unreasonably bulletproof.

With that I present the updated Ke-M2-P2904 Barrier Shield Module.
Please ignore the red links as those are being caused by an error I cannot figure out. To maintain change log history the WIP page is only here to present the changes planned for the existing page and they work on the current Barrier page.

 

[raz]

There's really not anything big wrong with this one except OMG that DRv2 to v3 conversion was far out! It was listed as SP 10~15 is Tier 10, Light Starship!

That isn't quite correct. It was on the Armor/Mecha Scale for 10 structural points. Conversion to DRv3 provides that to be "SP 5~10 is Tier 4, Light Armor" or "SP 10~15 covers Tiers 5 and 6, Medium Armor and Heavy Armor."

DRv2 kept both the Mindy and Daisy at 10 structural points themselves, which was considered "light." Under DRv3, they are both still Tier 4 light.

A responsible conversion would put the Mindy Barrier Shield Module also at Tier 4. But it's also obsolete equipment because the Mindy has an integrated CFS shield. Essentially, the Barrier Shield was a prototype that has its technology integrated into today's Mindy 4 by default and offers little use unless a soldier is wearing a very old model of the Mindy 2.

 

[Soban]

I'll note that it's explicitly an addition to the CFS, so the CFS basically integrating it doesn't make sense. My characters who use it have it as basically temporary additional shielding that (if you don't have the capacitors) takes a long time to recharge. There are a lot of things in the wider sci-fi fiction and such where you can activate some ability and get extra shields temporarily. Because of that, I don't think it's role is obsolete at all.

 

[Wes]

Essentially, the Barrier Shield was a prototype that has its technology integrated into today's Mindy 4 by default and offers little use unless a soldier is wearing a very old model of the Mindy 2.

This is an interesting observation and I actually loaded the Mindy 2A page (January 11, 2007) from the archives to verify.

The Mindy 2A's primary shield systems were its forearm projectors:

Forearm Shield Projectors (2): Built into the enlarged forearms of the Mindy, the projectors face the outer side and produce a compact but very powerful protective field (in a biconvex dome-shape). Used in a manner similar to an arm block, the forearm shield can deflect heavy focused attacks (making them relatively effective against most anti-armor weaponry). An arm block with both limbs can cope with slightly more powerful attacks. The forearm shield in itself does not degrade when breached, though damage to the Mindy can compromise its performance (like losing a limb). The forearm shields may not function at the same time the forearm weapons are active and charging.

The Ke-M2-2904 Barrier Shield Module, which this thread is about, is a section in the Mindy 2A's article.

Ketsurui Fleet Yards Ke-M2-P2904 Barrier Shield Module: The Barrier Shield module was first developed at the Secret Scorpio Research Base as an add-on to provide the Mindy's CFS system the same shielding function as shuttles and starships have. The unit functions by using the electrogravitic and electrostatic fields formed by the CFS to protect from both solid and beam weaponry by curving the space around the armor, allowing the attacks to be deflected without harm to the Mindy. First tested by the YSS Sakura in the PNUgen raid in YE 29, the barrier shield proved itself as being extremely effective, allowing two Mindy armors to survive a skirmish with a squad of M1 Lamias.

• Barrier Shielding: Can blunt and deflect attacks. The barrier can absorb and cope with a very heavy amount of punishment. It takes five seconds for the barrier shield function to active or deactivate.Power Usage: Using the CFS system to provide the Mindy with such powerful, all around protection drains a lot of power, slowing the recharge of the forearm projector by half while it is active.

The original Mindy Ke-M2-1A shipped with the Ke-M2-P2901 Combined Field System and the description says:

Combined Field System: The Mindy M2 uses a combined field system. In effect, the CFS sustains a small "pocket universe" around the suit by nesting electrogravitic and electrostatic fields. The combined field can serve a number of purposes, in this instance propulsion and weaponry (powering the NSBs); for this reason, it is almost always on to some extent.

• Propulsion: The armor propels itself at speeds many times the speed of light by generating continuum distortions in the CFS and nesting them to create asymmetric peristaltic fields. This allows the armor to travel thousands of times the speed of light. Distortion based systems allow the armor to stop or move nearly instantly because the armor has not "moved" in the traditional sense.Shielding: The Ke-M2-P2901 also protects the Mindy from scalar attacks. Note than an active CFS can cause lethal arm to an unshielded organic within 2 meters of the power armor.

This is a little vague, but the only thing that the CFS explicitly shields against is its gravity field stops scalar attacks.

So yeah, Raz is right in that some older models of the Mindy didn't have full shields unless they were also using this module. In the Mindy M2-2C update in YE 36, the Ke-M2-G3600 Conformal Barrier System was added, which gave the Mindy 2 series full shields for the first time. Nevertheless, according to the page for the M2-2D, the old Ke-M2-2904 Barrier Shield Module was still in use as an acccessory, I guess as a backup shield to use while the main one regenerated/recharged? On the OOC side essentially you got 10 extra hit points (DRv2's SP/structure points) by using it. Which is basically the point of it being around after all this time. But now we need to move it onto DRv3.

I'll note that it's explicitly an addition to the CFS, so the CFS basically integrating it doesn't make sense. My characters who use it have it as basically temporary additional shielding that (if you don't have the capacitors) takes a long time to recharge. There are a lot of things in the wider sci-fi fiction and such where you can activate some ability and get extra shields temporarily. Because of that, I don't think it's role is obsolete at all.

Soban is also right in that essentially it's a backup shield system for the main shields all current Mindy models now come with.

I don't know I feel about the capacitor thing, but I think it's clear that the shield system should be basically carrying an extra shield system not necessarily a much more powerful one. Given that the Mindy M2-2 series had 8 SP and the shield add-on had 10 SP, I think it would make sense for this to be Tier 5 to the Mindy's built-in Tier 4.

The article needs a history section and OOC Notes added to bring it into compliance with the current standards:

====== Title =====
Quick overview

===== History =====
The IC history and usage in the RP

===== Description =====
What the thing is

===== Usage =====
How to use it correctly.

===== OOC Notes =====
Wes wrote this item. Updated by Rizzo.

 

[Rizzo]

Soban is also right in that essentially it's a backup shield system for the main shields all current Mindy models now come with.

I don't know I feel about the capacitor thing, but I think it's clear that the shield system should be basically carrying an extra shield system not necessarily a much more powerful one. Given that the Mindy M2-2 series had 8 SP and the shield add-on had 10 SP, I think it would make sense for this to be Tier 5 to the Mindy's built-in Tier 4.
[/CODE]

This sounds good, and the context makes this MUCH clearer!

So to make sure I understand correctly, this will provide a T5 shield IN ADDITION to the T4 shield? I like this as it still gives the Mindy the ability to take 3 T5 hits which is appreciable for its size. If we scale it this was that system would require 2 capacitors to instantly recharge, but we could make the system incompatible with capacitors if that better fits your vision of the Barrier.

 

[Wes]

Due to the way shields work, you can essentially turn on one or the other and then when one is shot up, you can switch over (preferably spending 5+ seconds behind cover during the transition). But you can't use them at the same time.

 

[raz]

I’ve never liked this part of the system, but technically the way DRv3 is written explicitly disallows shields to be a higher or lower tier than the equipment using it. So a T4 power armor can only ever have T4 shields. If I recall correctly, this was to prevent extreme trade-off creations like having a T0 or T1 belt that gives a user Mindy shields while essentially unarmored.

It’s the first footnoted text in the DRv3 article.

So under how Fred designed things, this could only ever be a redundant backup shield system for whatever it is mounted on.

Personally, I prefer being able to have shields a different tier from the armor or ship that mounts them. But the guidelines as written are explicit (and Fred gave designer commentary confirming it), so allowing varied shield tiers would be a fairly major change.

 

[Wes]

I don't know if it's a huge change; for example the Star Army explorer uniform is basically an armored uniform with power armor scale shields, but not full armor (you don't need to wear a helmet). Also, as noted, the shield originally had 20% more SP than the actual Mindy 2.

 

[raz]

Hey, I’m cool with it. I used to design ships that had low armor with high shields but haven’t been able to so love that there is some leeway again for the first time in years. Was just posting the info because it was a rather big sticking point at the time of DRv3 approval.

 

[Soban]

demibear — Today at 9:04 AM
Bah, I thought I knew what caliber to use for a non-EM General Purpose Machine Gun. But now I am second guessing myself.

Rizzo — Today at 9:30 AM
I am seeing that there is an apparent difficulty in understanding the purpose of DRv3 tiers. It’s clear that by boiling these down to numbers out of convenience it is being forgotten WHAT these numbers represent.
It has even gotten so bad that people will sometimes even ignore the written descriptions of the item and hyper focus on the unapproved Tier rating!
This is a common occurrence in Science Fiction, specifically a trope is that science fiction authors are bad with math. Truth is, Science Fiction authors suffer from a difficulty realizing scale.
I want to put together a chart that shows exactly what each tier would look like, but I am not good at making such charts. Would anybody with some minor art skills be willing to assist with this?

demibear — Today at 9:34 AM
Define minor art skills.

Rizzo — Today at 9:35 AM
Can make things look better than paint 3-D and pictures ripped off the Internet
We essentially need some kind of silhouette chart that shows players what these tiers mean visually
Like a side-by-side size comparison

demibear — Today at 9:36 AM
Instantly disqualified

Rizzo — Today at 9:36 AM
Lol OK I think we’re on the same boat there!

Rizzo — Today at 9:59 AM
You know. I don't even think it'll help.
Anyone who is looking at an unapproved Tier number and just goes, 'yeah that sounds right' and just ignores the rest of the written article isn't going to care about the size chart.
The best thing I can focus my efforts on is updating the articles that need help

demibear — Today at 10:04 AM
It'll still help for the visual learners out there.

Rizzo — Today at 10:07 AM
Maybe if I had the skills to make it look nice! Perhaps I'll ask around for someone with the right skill and work with them. Imma just do what I do best. Next up, pissing off the Grognards by updating the Nodal support bit launcher!

Ke-M2-W2704 Nodal Support Bit Launcher on Star Army Space Roleplay

wiki.stararmy.com

Rizzo — Today at 10:14 AM
Something I believe players from v2 are also forgetting is that those rules measured damage over 10 seconds. v3 is Per shot or per attack

Wes — Today at 10:32 AM
Suhc a chart exists, and it's the Damage Rating guide.

Rizzo
Nodal Support Bit Launcher Update
If you're gunna be the bad guy you may as well...

raz — Today at 3:11 PM
You have a fundamental misunderstanding of what the DR system is. Only defensive tiers are tied to any sort of size/mass. It’s in the text on the page. On the offensive side of the system (which provides GMs with damage guidelines), there is no such stipulation; there is nothing that any tier “should look like.”

Soban — Today at 3:12 PM
I disagree, I don't know if it's on the wiki, but we talked about it and there was an idea floating around that generally a weapon that did tier X damage would be about tier x-2 in size.

Rizzo — Today at 3:14 PM
A Tier 7-8 weapon being the size of a pen is fundamentally rediculous. We can do better than that. We're not amatuers

Soban — Today at 3:14 PM
That's the thing though, it's not the size of a pen. it's the size of a couple of dozen pens ish which increases it's size as well.
The half/double guideline kinda breaks down at the more human/powered armor scale.

Rizzo — Today at 3:18 PM
Do you mean size in relation to DRv3 or literal size?
Like, mass

Soban — Today at 3:20 PM
Like size in general, not technical aspects of DRv3. (although the point does apply to DRv3)

Rizzo — Today at 3:25 PM
Ah, I understand whatcha mean now!

Soban — Today at 3:32 PM
And now I'm thinking about combining mecha to make bigger weapons and systems, lol

raz — Today at 3:33 PM
No one has really argued for a weapon the size of a pen to do that damage (though they can be that powerful in theory). But things like power armor cannons that are several feet long can be. Here’s the article section for DRv3 about size. It lacks an offensive description side because DRv3 is only tied to mass for defense. Fred even talks about this in the lengthy thread from when the system was being approved. Damage Rating (Version 3) on Star Army Space Roleplay

Rizzo — Today at 3:37 PM
That link doesn't support your argument or disprove his.

raz — Today at 3:39 PM
Yes it does. Only defense is tied to size.
There is no stipulation in DRv3 that weapons or ammunition need to be a certain size to be a certain tier in the same way it is for defensive rating. In fact, most PA scale weapons are the same size as personnel scale weapons.

Rizzo — Today at 3:40 PM
@Fred I hate to bug you but as the creator of DRv3, we could really use your insight.
There is no definitive size scaling we can point to. To me it appears that weapons would fit the Tier size group. Others disagree. Is this something that had been considered?

Fred — Today at 3:42 PM
That's more a construction standard issue than a descriptor issue
A bazooka can be held by a man, and can explode a tank.
One could argue that's ridiculous. But it happens.
Missiles on jets can do a hideous amount of damage to structures or big ships
DRv3 just answers the question of what a weapon is meant to maybe kill, and the scale upwards and downward. It gives examples, but it does not in itself rule what is meant to kill what

Rizzo — Today at 3:48 PM
That all makes sense

Fred — Today at 3:48 PM
A ruling was instated to set the amount of firepower a ship can carry (and I originally had suggestions), but DRv3 is not in itself a ship-making tool. Just a standard

Soban — Today at 3:49 PM
The question then is why doesn't everyone go running around with bazookas like it's a game of Halo. The reason is that there are trade offs between different weapons systems, which we often aren't good at teasing out.

Rizzo — Today at 3:51 PM
In this case, well..
We have a full auto lunchbox shooting T7-8 shots at 13 rounds per second and I'm crazy

Fred — Today at 3:51 PM
DRv3 is not balanced either. The weapon can have a high rate of fire, limited ammunition, etc... but it covers the lethality of a single application.
The rest is up to the submission to express.

raz — Today at 3:51 PM
Because it’s a written RPG community, not a GMless d&d game full of munchkin murderhobos.

Rizzo — Today at 3:52 PM
Thanks for offer that insight, Fred. I know it helps me grasp the concept at play

raz — Today at 3:53 PM
Hey @Fred, since you’re here, can you confirm that technically shields must always be the same tier as what mounts them. I remember this being a fairly big point back in the huge 20 page approval thread.

Rizzo — Today at 3:54 PM
I do remember that being a decision NTSE checked me on
@raz I know your inbuilt shield cannot exceed the tier of the vehicle it is built on, but this is an accessory like the OI shield pods. IDK if anything has been ruled on auxiliary shields as an accessory yet

raz — Today at 3:58 PM
If something is mounted on another something, it is part of that thing.

Rizzo — Today at 4:00 PM
That is a fact. Imma suggest it be a backup shield with a 5 second delay per Wes, and maybe axe capacitors so characters aren't just able to instantly regen it. IE never ending shields

Soban — Today at 4:01 PM
I don't think we should axe capacitors. Remember a capacitor also has to be refilled just like a shield would.
"Depleting a barrier by excess causes an overload which renders that barrier facing inoperable for 15 seconds while the barrier emitter is reset (think of it as resetting a tripped fusebox). Certain systems, such as capacitor reserves on the M2 Mindy and M6 Daisy power armor, are designed to 'hot restart' a power armor's barrier. "

Fred — Today at 4:17 PM
@raz essentially, yeah. We're not a number-crunching game to such a huge degree and making a transition from tier 5 armor to tier 4 barrier would be awkward.
Equipment determines if you have barrier functionality. Efficacity of said equipment is the barrier type: bubble like when you're playing Gradius, 2sided like x-wing, 4 sided, and then 6 sided.
A six sided shield essentially has 3 times the "hit points" of the 2-sided shield, so, it's a better shield

Fred — Today at 4:22 PM
But that's only there because I had an infatuation to Startrek's "Shields at 80%"
Anyone looking at the impact on shield percentiles could translate that into a hit point system... but then again, shields are fantasy, versus the more "how to relate with the physical damage done by weapons on actual things". Tried to straddle a line, but I'll admit to some hypocrisy due to my shield bias

 

[Fred]

Now having context, if I was empowered to make a ruling on it, it would be:

Yes, the module was the first bubble barrier protection the Mindy received. The Mindy II's forearm shields were a different animal.

Later models included barrier capabilities by default. I'd view them as comtemporary/equivalent equipment.

Meaning that from that point on, DRv3 would view a doubled-up barrier setup as redundant, rather than complementary.

Both being more effective together would be a GM's own interpretation, based on unique circumstances.

 

[Yuuki]

It hasn't come up, but might, because we might be doing a boarding action, but as a GM I see a forearm shield as being like another unit. It's a Tier-Whatever thing, and takes damage as one, if the attack would have hit the shield instead of the shielded, and when it is wrecked like a unit would be it's no good anymore, and if it's overpenetrated by an attack I'd just have to call it depending. Basically the same as having someone stand in front of you.

 

[Fred]

As the creator of that forearm shield, I'd agree it's something of an exception to the way shield/barriers function now.

I'd say, regardless of what's written in the article, the intent was to have not go for a full shield system and yet have something. An inspiration might have been the pin-point barriers from Robotech/Macross. In effect, the forearm energy shields should act the same way as the shield does on the Daisy, except that it was made by energy and thus renewable after taking damage. The gains were mostly aesthetic: you didn't have to carry a shield and lacked the bulk of carrying one, but you could briefly summon one.

If I would be doing an equivalent in this day and age, I might have used hard light. But that wasn't yet a thing back then.

 

[Wes]

Thanks for updating this based on feedback. The submission is approved.