Good referances all. Finding one-off equipment hidden inside unit articles requires more digging than I'm used to. Replied in order of postage.
Moonman. The flicker shield is a good idea, but not quite what I was after. Wouldn't it be a bit hard to fit those into the current rules? Maybe that's why they choose to drop it.
Doshii Jun. The Mindy's forearm shields were sorta close to one of the things I had in mind, I couldn't find the "solid-state" energy shields you mentioned but will dig deeper soon. I also found an old unapproved Mindy model that looks like it might need some love.
Kai. The Iroma shields seemed based more around reducing the VANDRs detection profile than pure defense, it's also never mentioned if it's effective against the mark one eyeball. It's secondary Barrier Guard system is interesting though.
Ira. The defense screen is still pretty much a bubble shield, only taking homage from the Shield Ship of Homeworld 2. While a praiseworthy idea of maximising resources it's still pretty much a bubble shield, although the timing of those flickers must be a very impressive thing to calculate.
Wes. Ground defense shield in space?
Another question. Similar to the Iroma's VANDR II, is it possible to make directional shields more powerful than bubbles? Are there any hard and fast rules for these, or is it a case by case basis?