Shield power would be more natural and interesting if it was proportional to a ship's surface area.
One shield block should create a more effective shield on a 5x5x5 cube ship than on a 100x100x100 cube ship. Imagine it as having to create a skin of protection around the ship-- covering 150 squares (on the 5^3 cube) vs 60,000 squares (on the 100^3 cube).
Shield Strength = Constant * (Shield Blocks) ^ Damper / Surface Area
Damper should be tweaked to balance the N^2 increase of surface area that must be shielded with the N^3 increase of internal ship volume in which to place shields-- but larger ships should still be capable of slightly stronger shielding.
Surface area could be calculated from the ship's bounding box, or could be more precisely calculated by counting blocks in the shadow the ship casts along each axis (the projection of the ship), which would let players make more interesting shapes without being penalized by the bounding box.
EXTRA:
Shield regeneration should require power, and maintenance should require a small amount of power. This probably would need some sort of control to throttle shield regen during a fight.
Regen delay should be removed or made fractional (regen 20% rate while under fire), it makes it possible for the tiniest ship to destroy the largest if the tiny ship has rapid enough rate of fire.
One shield block should create a more effective shield on a 5x5x5 cube ship than on a 100x100x100 cube ship. Imagine it as having to create a skin of protection around the ship-- covering 150 squares (on the 5^3 cube) vs 60,000 squares (on the 100^3 cube).
Shield Strength = Constant * (Shield Blocks) ^ Damper / Surface Area
Damper should be tweaked to balance the N^2 increase of surface area that must be shielded with the N^3 increase of internal ship volume in which to place shields-- but larger ships should still be capable of slightly stronger shielding.
Surface area could be calculated from the ship's bounding box, or could be more precisely calculated by counting blocks in the shadow the ship casts along each axis (the projection of the ship), which would let players make more interesting shapes without being penalized by the bounding box.
EXTRA:
Shield regeneration should require power, and maintenance should require a small amount of power. This probably would need some sort of control to throttle shield regen during a fight.
Regen delay should be removed or made fractional (regen 20% rate while under fire), it makes it possible for the tiniest ship to destroy the largest if the tiny ship has rapid enough rate of fire.
