Natalie LaForte
~The Ghost watches~
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To create a new type of shielding system for the closed-market
- Image Source: Screencapped myself (Satelight animation)
- Canon Link: N/A
- Restricted Missions: N/A
- Primary Source: N/A
- Manufacturer: IMF
- Model: N/A
- Affiliation: Closed-Market
- Modularity: N/A
- Production: Mass-produced
- Material:
Plasma components - De-ionizers
- Durasteel structure
- Power redirection system
- Cooling system
- Nuclear energy generator
- Standard deflector shielding
- Standard ray shielding (particle and energy shield)
- Standard force field generator
SPECIAL FEATURES
- Projected Shield - Shielding panels can project a shield onto another vessel or structure. The actual consumption of energy depends on the size/volume of what it is attempting to cover and the damage it is blocking. The structure of this shield can be manually modified to fit around it
- Overheating detection - When the shield is about to overheat, the panels go on a gradient from Teal - Blue - Green - Yellow - Orange - Red. When it eventually reaches the final state, it automatically shuts down. Overheating depends on the energy it is absorbing and the overall strain of covering larger vessels and structures and must go on a recharge for a minimum of 5 minutes.
- Shielding configuration - Can only project one type of shielding at a time, the three being deflector shielding, ray shielding and force field shielding. Switching between these three modes takes a standard time of up to 2 minutes, during which it can not protect anything.
- Set-up time - In order to be properly configured so the shielded ship can fire without getting deflected right back at it, the Z-Shielding Panel has a set up time of around 3 minutes, less on smaller objects.
- Very heavy shielding - Provides shielding to other vessels, meaning they can reduce their own defensive capabilities and rely on it for defense.
- Long range - So long as the vessel or structure it is projecting upon is within a reasonable distance and is within line of sight, the vessel the panels are placed upon don't need to place themselves in any real danger or combat situation
- Circuit overload - Extreme energy outputs at a single instance can cause the individual panel to shut down completely and be unusable unless repaired
- Energy drain - Despite having its own power generation, these are extremely draining on a ship, vehicles or structure's energy supplies and would either make all other subsystems operate very poorly or outright disable them if they can't sustain them for long enough. It should be noted that the ship's weapon systems would be ineffective while this is being used, and as such would require its own escort in order to stay completely secure.
- Size does matter - The bigger the ship it is trying to protect, the higher the drain on the projecting ship's own power supply, and eventually gaps in the shielding will begin to appear if it is unable to sustain the beam. Additionally, any ship above 2000 meters would not be full covered and would require multiple panels to fully cover the surface area.
- Single layered - The more shielding panels a ship has, the more susceptible it is to overloading.
The Z-Shielding Panel is a super heavy projected shield barrier which multiple shielding configurations for every imperialistic empire or benevolent dictatorship to use. Whether it be supporting a heavy dreadnought or stopping a vital ship from being utterly annihilated, it has a place in every arsenal. The shield created is a bubble-like shield and can be visibly seen as the equivalent of whatever gradient it is currently at. (A teal power level of 100% would display a teal coloured shield, for example. Although it's not vibrant, more like a tint)
Strengths: The Z-Shielding Panel allows ships to reduce their own shielding capacities or just outright disable them and concentrate more heavily on firepower, thus overall increasing their total damage output in a combat situation. In addition to this strategically speaking due to the nature of how this works, the projecting ship doesn't even have to involve itself in combat (or at the very least, not be near it) in order to be effective. So long as the targeted ship is within line of sight and 1500 meters from the panel, it will work just fine.
Weaknesses - Like every shielding system, it can overload. And whenever one of these overloads, it requires a minimum recharge time of 5 minutes, and before overloading it will go on a gradient from Teal - Red, indicating the increasingly decaying shielding levels. Furthermore, the shielding panel can be completely disabled if too much energy is shot at its projected target at once, causing it to in turn to be useless until out of combat repairs can be made. Finally, it is an extreme energy drain, requiring not only the power to generate a shield, but to project it to another vessel and sustain it while under fire. Due to this, in most situations the ship's own weaponry systems and other sub-systems may need to be turned off or have their own power consumption reduced to sustain the wave.
)
