Shield inversion for mass enhancement.

[GaeasSon]

I was thinking about the ancient problem of large ships being frustratingly slow to turn, balanced against the similarly ancient problem of balancing fighters against battleships. I think I have a possible solution to satisfy both.

I'm imagining a ship's device that could be described as a mass-effect field, a subspace field, or an inverse shield, depending on how you think about it.

In game terms, the device has multiple effects. "x%" effects are a scaled proportioal function of (shield strength/ships mass)

• When activated, it inverts the output of the shield chargers, drawing the shield strength down to zero, and then towards a full negative charge.
• Negatively charged shields provide no damage protection.
• Negatively charged shields add x% piercing effect to all incoming attacks
• Negatively charged shields reduce ships mass by x% for all performance and subsystem calculations.
• Negatively charged shields reduce ships dimensions by x% for rotation speed calculations.
• When deactivated, shield chargers begin to charge positively again, but must still charge from their negative value back into positive values before the shields begin to provide damage protection again.

Thus, if you just want to turn your battleship to maneuver into space-dock you don't have to wait half an hour to turn around. BUT if you try the same maneuver in combat to bring your main guns to bear, you will be critically vulnerable while you do so. You CAN, if you are willing to bear the damage cost. (and that kind of cost benefit decision is what makes a good game, IMO)
You can also build a heavier (or more energy efficient) jump ship, cloaker, scanner, etc... At the cost of having to invert your shields to operate those subsystems.

Thoughts?

[Clarification: When I talk about reducing ship's dimensions, I mean for turn speed calculation, not screen rendering. I don't think ships dimensions are used in any other physics calculations.]

 

[TheOmega]

Amazing. How would this affect stealth calculations?

 

[kiraen]

I don't think dimensions should be adjusted, but this idea has some merit.
This has the potential to make fighters more nimble as well.
hmmm...how would this effect armor choices?
Definately need to think about this one some more.

 

[GaeasSon]

Amazing. How would this affect stealth calculations?

I'm thinking of it as blanket mass and dimension reduction, at the cost of vulnerability. That makes it more versatile than just a "big ship turn enhancer"

 

[Centauri]

This idea...it is beautiful
Seriously though, the idea of this is amazing, and would work extremely well in lots of different situations

 

[snowhusky5]

Some method of making cloaking and such useable for for ships that aren't 99% power generators would be great, and this idea is more interesting than most.