Engineering. Why not follow typical Sci-Fi tropes?


Primarily for me are shields. As far as I can remember with scifi, games and media., they do well to deter smaller crafts. Star Wars famous scene with Admiral Akbar (the shield is still up) "it's a trap!", and the fleet had to turn around is one example. Also commonly "Their shields are down, switching to ballistics"

Rock/Paper/Scissors rules . Shields stops ballistics, succumbs to energy weapons. Likewise once shield is down, energy is almost useless and requires ballistics against hull. Nexus Jupiter Incident had a nice balance for this. Even had specialised weapons that does nothing to shields and hull, but has great penetration to target systems.

Shield has continuous regen rate. Weapon dps vs regen rate. Larger shields should mitigate smaller weapons fire. Size 1-2 weapons should not worry size 3 shields let alone capitals. Maybe we could set tiers :

* Size 1-2 guns good against size 1 shields, poor against size 2 shields, almost useless against size 3 shields, don't bother with capitals. * Size 3-4 guns full damage against size 1 shields, good against size 2 shields, poor against size 3 shields, almost useless against capitals. * Size 5-6 guns full damage against size 1-2 shields, good against size 3 shields, poor against size against capitals. * Size 7+ guns full damage against size 1-3 shields, good against capitals.

These requires us to bring the right tool for the job. Time to KIll (TTK) concerns will not be arbitrary but based on loadout and fleet composition. Also opens up variations of energy and ballistics weapons/ammo.

* Specialised energy weapons against shields. Eats up shields fast but very low damage against everything else. Base energy is balanced. * Penetrating laser that can do very little damage to components but able to cause fires. Maybe even kill crew. * Explosive ballistics that eats up hull but less penetration. * Sniper ballistics that ills components once shields are down. * Energy missiles that eats shields.

Size 3 shielded ships should be able to tank a few small fighters leveraging on shields regen rate. Though could still succumb if they bring a lot more friends.

These even opens up to variations of hull armor plating. 4X Strategy is rife with this trope, especially in forms of upgrades. Armor plating extremely hard to repair without station.

* Plating superb against ballistics but succumbs to energy * Meta material protects against EMP * Self repair living armor, poor against ballistics

This would another avenue for money sink in 1.0 kitting out your hull plating. Makes for a smarter battle for both defender and attacker depending on what loadout they have.

(My apologies, These thoughts were shorter before I wrote it down)