Re: Conquering planets.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I thought Stargate SG1 Technobabbled this quite well http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Bullets and staff bLasts couldn't penetrate shields but you could throw a knife and it would pass through (slower moving objects)

That and they made Sam Carter say it, and no self respecting Stargate SG1 fan is going to get on the wrong side of her http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

Re: Conquering planets.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Depends what her "wrong side" looks like http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Conquering planets.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Depends what her "wrong side" looks like http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Lol...are you going to disagree with a women who is trained in unarmed combat, probably knows 6 different ways of killing you with complex science that you will never understand and can use a P-90 expertly...I know sure as hell i'm not http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

If you mean in another sense then No, i don't think she has a bad side http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Conquering planets.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Which movie's would these be? </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Besides those mentioned already, "Dune" comes to mind. Shields reflected weapons back on themselves unless they were slow (and therefore supposedly short-range or HTH only). Although, for all the imagination in the Dune books, I felt the techies never showed much imagination in getting around this issue.
Anyone know how (or if) they handled this issue in Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Star Trek (any and all Versions), Star Blazers, Battlefield Earth, etc.?

Re: Conquering planets.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Range in troop combat is completely irrelevant. So is rate of fire. All damage done is based off of the range 1 value, and is done every turn. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Holy Smokes! I see you're officially a Fanatic, but are you sure about that? 'Cause that really changes some of my strategies.

Re: Conquering planets.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I don't recall any planetary shields in Star Trek, but there was an episode of TNG where Lt. Ro flew a small ship through a "weak spot" in the Enterprise's shields.

I vaguely remember them opening Earth's shield to let ships in on Buck Rogers.

Re: Conquering planets.
 

sci fi movie and series shields have always come in two flavors

flavor number one
this shield is a high energy shield any fast moving obje\ct is reflected/bounced slow moving objects are passed through like air
slow is a relative term in dune slow was almost molasses like so Thrown knives were too fast
in stargate sg-1 thrown knives were not to fast depends on the intent of the storyteller


flavor number two a solid shield
this shieeld can prevent the passage of energy and matter of a certain density there fore depending on the tuning/ power of the shield it can prevent mass objects from passing usually starting at high mass and going down
example being the starwars deathstar its sheild can prevent the passage of ships however the power to do so was not deemed necessary as the other security measures were deemed enough (note turbulence in star wars as they went through the sheilds in the fighters and the disdain of the admiral for fighters)
however the empire learned with the second attempt to build and upped the power of the sheild to prevent even small ships from getting through course they had to make the sheild ground based and use a huge amount of a moon.s power output (lando calrissian "i hope they got that shield down or this is going to be the shortest mission ever" not a perfect quote but close enough )

in science fiction shields have been a very useful tool to diret the story away from the importance of large impersonal battleships down to the intense emotionally charged arena of the small fighters where the audience ca more easilly become involved in the struggle of the hero
there arte many examples of the one man on his own
very few example of the general or tactical leader
the few that come to mind are movies of ww2 usually about pearl
though a notable exception is a john wayne with kirk douglas and burgess meredith
yet these movies of commanders are still not as involvng or intensly charged as those of the individual pilots of a fighter

as a general rule of thumb the ability of a sheild to prevent the passage of low energy/low mass objects is tied to the amount of power it is useing more power more protection but usually that amount of power would be too costly (like take up the entire gnp of the planet)

there fore slow moving or low mass objects get through easily

edit to my knowledge battlestar galactica had no shields just armor

[ July 01, 2004, 06:09: Message edited by: psimancer ]

Re: Conquering planets.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Absolutely certain. Hopefully SE5 will have far more detailed ground combat...

Re: Conquering planets.
 

A plot device in the Thrawn Trilogy was that they sneaked a cloaked ship into low orbit of a planet (Cloaking being unique, they only had one ship). A whole fleet arrives so the defenders activate their invulnerable shield, which extends to high orbit. The fleet fires and as its fire hits the shield the cloaked vessel (still cloaked) fires. The defenders seeing that the empire has a new weapon capable of defeating shields surrenders.

Re: Conquering planets.
 

any empire capable of weilding a planatary invasion fleet is going to be capable of defeating even an invulnurable shield if nothing else they can set up satellites to stretch out a mylar film blocking the solar primary from ther planet which in most planatary systems will cause sever diffuculties
(sure theyve got fusion etc but hey fusin doesnt grow dinner and that would cause a huge additional power cost to begin planetary light and planetary heating talk about your seige tactics http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif )