Since I didn't get any feedback on what I previously posted I suppose I'll just have to move on to addressing what is being mentioned in more recent posts.
First I'm going to be borrowing from
@Amaryllis' post since I have some things to say.
I really don't think personal shields do much of anything to make infantry plots without power armor more believable/likable/probable.
My stance on this is giving players and GMs the option to present personnel scale combat with weapons below the PA range in a different way. Neither avenue is better than the other merely different. A soldier, or individual in general wearing armor or a shielding system, or a combination of both is going to have different worries and their tactics are going to change in the field. Armor ablates, and deteriorates over time, where as the shields would provide indiscriminate defence against a few things before needing to recharge. How one handles the course of combat would differ widely as one manages the resources and benefits of each system.
Personally I'm of the opinion that a shield would be useless for any sort of covert activity given that the energy signature would scream, "I'm here!" Much in the same way that I believe that most secure facilities in the setting have gravitic sensors that detect Yamataian levitation to make sure that no one floats into the premises undetected.
Unless personal shields somehow are made better than power armor there's no real reason not to equip it.
With this I would argue that some people might want to use the shields in a scenario that is less than a power armor engagement. It could be interesting flavor wise to have some people in what looks like plain clothes be shielded, or have elite police units that have shielding to augment their armor. It's more about flavor below the PA scale than function. These aren't supposed to replace PA, just give narrative options. Whether they get used or not depends on the themes and situations presented.
To add onto this I'm of the opinion that personnel shielding systems would have their own caveats apart from being useless when they get dropped... Such as the unit melting on the user.
And having built in Neko shielding is just going to cause people to complain again/more that Neko aren't human enough for them. You're just going to have more instances of people looking silly because they didn't fly away OR activate their shielding.
I understand this sentiment from an OOC perspective with the issues of new players frequently failing to use what is inherent within the race which I believe was what led to the production of the NH-29 and later NH-33. At the same time from a lore perspective I really hate this attitude. Neko shouldn't be human. They're engineered war machines, representing them as being human, and complaining about their inhumanity seems counter intuitive to me.
With that said, this is part of the reason why in my previous post I suggested that any shielded Neko would be a restricted version like the Stealth models or Samurai models. So that a player won't find themselves using a body type that has more capabilities than they're prepared to work with.
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Moving on to
@Fred's quotes of Wes' old sentiments.
I think it's just too magicky, and if there were personal shields, wouldn't armor become obsolete?
I would disagree with this statement, for the simple fact that even with PA and Starships the existence of much more effective shields than what would be available at the personnel scale doesn't render armor useless.
I'm against personal shields unless the body is built to emit them (such as the NH-32). Fred explained it best. It changes the setting from armored soldiers to people in miniskirts being able to stop bullets. That feels lame and overpowered to me. Plus it would probably require some sort of DR revision to make them useful. What's the point of personnel-scale shields when armor-scale weapons are going to instantly cut through them? Power armor is the way to go. The only people I could think of that might even use personnel-scale shields are police and civilian VIPs.
Part of this answers
@Wes' stance on the matter already... He's suggesting a body type which has built in functionality, which is exactly what he expressed would be needed for him to be okay with the idea.
Moving on; what has been suggested isn't a replacement for PAs, as such it negates the criticism that a personnel-scale shield will be torn apart by a PA weapon system... After all no one says personnel scale armor is useless since the same relative fragility is true were it on the receiving end of a PA's wrath.
This is something that is being suggested to give more flavor and variety to personnel scale conflict. It isn't trying to phase out PA. If the same limitations are applied to personnel scale shields as their larger counterparts there won't be an unbalance in the setting beyond giving personnel the ability to soak a little damage and duck into cover to manage their shielding systems. Even the most pitiful of PAs (hello M1 Demon) should still be a potent threat to any personnel with or without these systems.
So long as the technology is clear in its limitations and no one is led to believe that throwing on a belt is going to allow them to challenge a PA this should really do little to the setting aside from providing a variation in the flavor of personnel scale defences.
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Apart from the bit relating to the relative human nature of Neko where I feel strongly that it harms Neko as a species to be conformed to the limitations of humans, I'm largely playing devil's advocate for this proposed bit of setting material. I think it could work and do little aside from provide a different flavor of personnel equipment, but at the same time I'm not going to be heartbroken if it isn't wanted.
With this in mind I hope that whatever is decided enriches the setting and makes it a more enjoyable place to write in.
