There are those who believe that the ships in Battlestar Galactica have shields - shields in the sense of energy fields being able to absorb and deflect energy blasts. Personally, I am not one of these people - when a ship is hit, it gets hit, there is no fancy force field to protect the ship. However, it should be noted that the armour on a ship does have shield like properties. When a ship gets hit, the energy is spread across a much wider area of the hull than was hit, and this allows the armour to radiate the captured energy back into space. So ships do have shield like properties. Armour though, is not as strong as normal SFB shields and you certainly can not repair it by throwing energy at it.
If however, you are someone that thinks that the ships should have shields, then this variant ruling is for you.
Nearly all ships may have shields. Any ship which has a Excess Damage rating may have shields. This means that all fighters and shuttles will not have shields. Whilst in reality they may do, they are already included within the crafts damage points and will not come into play further.
Ground bases do not have shields.
If however, you are using the Large Scale Fighter rules then fighters and shuttles will have shields that will come into play. Treat these craft as being Warships.
All shield ratings are based on the Excess Damage amount. Use the following table to determine the exact amount of shield boxes a particular ship will have. The table lists a shield facing as a mulitplier. Simply multiply the Excess Damage boxes by the shield facing multiplier to get the final amount of shield boxes for the appropriate side.
Round all fractions up.
| Shield Facings | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ship Type | 1 | 2,6 | 3,5 | 4 |
| Civilian Ship | 1x | 1x | 1x | 1x |
| Warship | 1.5x | 1.5x | 1.25x | 1x |
| Rotating Warship * | 1.5x | 1.5x | 1.5x | 1.5x |
* This only applies to warships that rotate - like Cylon Baseships, Attack Stars, Half Ships, Patrol ships and the like. Cylon Tankers are treated like normal warships. Space stations may also use these values.
A shield box adds +2 to the ships BPV (much like an Armour point in the Ship Design Guidelines).
Shield Facings
| Ship Type | Excess Damage | 1 | 2,6 | 3,5 | 4 | BPV | Colonial Battlestar | 9 | 14 | 14 | 12 | 9 | +15 | Colonial Light Cruiser | 4 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 4 | +6.5 | Cylon Baseship | 9 | 14 | 14 | 14 | 14 | +17 | | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
This amount of shield boxes is still a lot less than perhaps some people want. However, when you study the Battlestar Galactica films, these ships do take a lot of damage, and actual physical damage. These numbers give some ships more of a chance to hang on, and the shields as a whole do add a lot to ship survivability, especially when you remember that they can be repaired, strengthened and the like. If you do use shields, then I reccomend that you also use the Optional (D3.6) Leaky Shields Rule.
Shields function exactly like those in normal SFB. They take energy to put up and maintain, they absorb incoming damage, they can be repaired, and they can have reserve power applied to strengthen them. Ships with over five shield boxes do have a minimal shield rating.
Shields cost energy to maintain as normal. This is based on the following table:
| Size Class | Minimum | Full | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 (Starbases) | 2 | 5 | = 7 |
| 2 (Battlestars, Baseships) | 1 | 3 | = 4 |
| 3 (Destroyers, Half Ships) | 1 | 1 | = 2 |
| 4 (Light Cruisers) | 0.5 | 0.5 | = 1 |
| 5 (Patrol Ships) | 0.5 | 0.5 | = 1 |
If a ship only has 5 or less shield boxes on all sides, then they only ever pay the minimum shield power rating.