"so how do we make this great idea work, without breaking how ship-capture works?"
hmmm, possibly worthless suggestions:
1)Make the 'Ice Shields' using the newly working 'Emissive Armor' ability but don't use the 'armor' tag so it is not destroyed first? (and you could give different 'levels' of ice shields this way by upping the emissive ability)
2)Use the Crystalline Armor ability (they are ice crystals
) on a component but again forget the armor tag so they are not destroyed first. Give the component a small shield capacity but 0 points to start off with (to simulate the ice field 'hanging around' so hits reduce the field to nothing but also generate a new ice shield {ie, more water being shot out}). IIRC crystalline armor reduces the hit by 'X' amount and shunts it to the shields so this can simulate the 'shield protection' itself.
or maybe I am babbling again...
[ August 26, 2002, 14:44: Message edited by: Deathstalker ]