Originally posted by vegascat:
The next point is, where will the weapon energy go to? It is deflected away into the vacuum.
Any other ways to handle shields? Any loop holes I missed?
I tend to classify shield systems in Sci-fi into three broad categories: absorbtive (black globes), ablative (sand casters), and reflective (honor harrington/star trek).
Absorbtive shields soak up the energy applied to them by an attack. This energy goes into some sort of storage device for later release. At lower tech levels, this energy is entropic (can't be used... basically waste heat), and depending on the setting, may become usable on some level at higher tech levels. In general, if your storage device gets overloaded your ship goes boom. These shields would have an energy cost for startup, and would then power themselves.
Ablative shields attempt to force the attack to burn through a barrier, which bleeds off energy in the process. Sandcasters are the only shield of this type that I can think of right off the top of my head.
An ablative energy field might have an interesting explanation for in game tech though. If it was an energy barrier, this sort of system would require a constant recharge to restore the lost energy... i.e., you have to put energy into the field equal to what the attack just burned off. This would be in addition to the upkeep cost of the system.
Reflective shields attempt to deflect the incomming fire away from the ship. These are probably closest to star trek, although trek shields also degrade like ablative shields do. Side wall generators in Honor Harrington are another good example of this sort of tech, but they use an intense gravitational field to try to "bend" attacks away from the hull. The main weakness being that really powerful attacks, or close range attacks can manage a straight shot through the wall. This sort of shield would have a constant energy cost.
Getting rid of your energy depends on how your shields are based. If they're ablative, your problem is solved... the attack burns off layers on the way through and the energy is already out of your system. The same is true of reflective shields. Any energy that is removed by the shield is already outbound or reflected away.
Only if your shields are absorbtive (black or white globes, et all) do you have the problem of re-radiating the waste energy. Then you've either got to find a way to use the energy (like the Andros from SFB), or a way to re-radiate it somehow.
Now, all of this ignores waste heat built up by the system, energy absorbed by the ship itself, and other thermodynamic concerns. Whether or not you account for those effects depends on how serious a gear head you want to be.
