Baylon 5 & shields

[TheDreadnought]

So do the ships in Babylon 5 have shields? I've been watching a few episodes lately for inspiration, and it doesn't look like they do from what you see on the screen.

If they have shields, what's the source for that assertion? Anything from the show, or just stuff people have written after the fact?

[warchariot]

I sure don't remember shields, but it has been a while. I'll pull out my DVDs and see what I can find.

[adastragames]

Canonically, B5 ships don't have shields. A few of the Ancients have 'organic defenses' that act a lot like shields would, mechanically.

[TheDreadnought]

What do they use for defense in A Call to Arms then? Do they have an armor rating like in Victory at Sea?

[adastragames]

I'll have to take a look for my rulebook, but my recollection was that it was an armor save mechanic a'la Warhammer.

[RiflemanIII]

Jun 10, 2010 21:53:20 GMT -5 adastragames said:

I'll have to take a look for my rulebook, but my recollection was that it was an armor save mechanic a'la Warhammer.

It used roughly the same system as Battlefleet Gothic. Each ship had a hull rating that each die of the attacker's guns had to meet or beat in order to cause damage, modified by things like AP or other traits. Beams more or less ignored this, only needing to hit a set number, regardless of the toughness of the ship's hull.

[toaster]

No shields but they did use interceptors which were point defense type weapons used to shoot down incoming pulse weapon fire, beam weapons were immune to interceptors. Also I think there was a decision to make regarding whether you used your interceptors against incoming fire or enemy fighters.

Robert

[fastgit]

Haven't played ACTA, but canon B5 doesn't include shields. As others have mentioned, Earthforce ships (and others, I think) used "interceptors" (PD) to deal with incoming fire (not beam weapons) & strike craft.

Some of the more high tech races (Vorlon, Shadows, and the Minbari) had tech that resembled shields... At the Battle of the Line (early) Earthforce ships -- if I remember correctly -- were not able to engage Minbari vessels while their shields were up.

Additionally, all three of these races made use of some form of regenerative tech... the ships could heal hull & system damage.

[sting52jb]

There were a few races that did have shields of some type in ACtA mainly the Abbai. I'm not sure how they worked in the game but they had them because the Abbai were more devoted to defense then attack.

[valthonis]

There were a few races in B5, ignoring the ancients, that used shields.
Off hand I recall the Abbai, certain Brakiri ships, and the Minbari Whitestar all had shields.

Though in b5wars shields worked a little differently, it was similar to an additional armored layer. So if you had 4pt shield and 3pt armor you would have needed an 8pt weapon hit to inflict a single point of damage against the hull. "Hard" shields I guess is the term for them, different from the "soft" shields that Star Trek has.


As to the comment about Earth not being able to engage Minbari ships, that was more of the Minbari 'Jammer' than anything else. Again coming from b5wars, the jammer prevented a ship from locking sensors for combat, thus doubling the range penalties for the vessel engaging the Minbari. The jammer being a stealth like device.

[valthonis]

Since b5wars largely lacks the absorption style of shields, I'm looking more towards applying it as extra armor but still having vunerability to the shield critical effects.

Also, full shield coverage is rare in b5wars, shields acting more like a deflector of sorts rather than a bubble of protection. Many ships will only have partial coverage which can be moved.

So you might have a ship with a Hard Shield rating of 3 with a strength of 1. This would allow you to pick at the beginning of your turn, which three hex facings of your ship would gain a '1' to their armor rating. So in the case you normally have armor 2, you would have armor 3 against any weapons fire into those three hex facings.