But overall we're looking at the options for shielding.  The critical thing is to get the gameplay right.  Technicalities of how things work are secondary to making this a fun and convincing game.  If we can't do shielding right to where it's a bonus to gameplay and not a hinderance then we won't be implimenting it.  Though for all the hopefuls, I will state we haven't actually put any shielding on yet so our options are still wide open on whether we will have any

Well, ship-based shielding anyway.  We do have other shields already in-game *cue vigorous suggestive winking*

It doesn't matter what came out first [...]

Well, it can matter, but it obviously does not in this case.

First of all, X-Wing also had the radars of the Star Destroyer be shield generators, and yet we now know that's false.

Second, as TY2D2 pointed out, if starfighters can have their shields "punctured" (thanks for pointing that out, I'd forgotten about that!), then cruises can, too.

[Edit] Oh! And remember the officer in Return of the Jedi reporting that the Executor had lost her bridge deflector shield? I think a line straight from the movie should be sufficient evidence.

This way is better for game-play anyhow, I feel. Requires some team-work and co-ordination, and the tactics and strategies that can arise are interesting. For example, you may face a situation where a Carrack Cruiser has lost most of its port side shields and a Lancer moves so that it physically covers the port side of the ship from attack.

Acutally, the New Essential Guide to Vehicles and Technology retconned it with stating the globes contained both deflector shields and sensors.

In this case, the sheild generators being the weak spot, and the autorepair could just be very fast acting, to seem more like sheilds...

for sectional sheilds,look to the security doors in the titan... they are sheilds that are brought down one at a time...

so you make the sheild (which lets friendlies pass, but not enemies) stretch to cover one quarter of the ship... hopefully you can bend it like the main titan sheild... where i get stuck, is figuring a "console destroyed" effect for each sheild, be it a large ivisible overlay, or a not terribly lore-friendly ship protusian.

personally, i like the rogue squadron games where you just need to shoot the big sheild generator balls on top of the bridge before its sheilds go down.

the hard part I'd like to see done is sectional damage to capitol ships, where large chunks can be missing with fires coming out...

or just get 50 x-wings to fly at 1 shield clicking anything that shoots stuff!!(i like shooting stuff )

It doesn't matter what came out first [...]

Well, it can matter, but it obviously does not in this case.

First of all, X-Wing also had the radars of the Star Destroyer be shield generators, and yet we now know that's false.

Second, as TY2D2 pointed out, if starfighters can have their shields "punctured" (thanks for pointing that out, I'd forgotten about that!), then cruises can, too.

[Edit] Oh! And remember the officer in Return of the Jedi reporting that the Executor had lost her bridge deflector shield? I think a line straight from the movie should be sufficient evidence.

This way is better for game-play anyhow, I feel. Requires some team-work and co-ordination, and the tactics and strategies that can arise are interesting. For example, you may face a situation where a Carrack Cruiser has lost most of its port side shields and a Lancer moves so that it physically covers the port side of the ship from attack.

I'n the MOVIES, ships could transfer power from one part of the ship to another, which vaguely implies that there is a difference (in  some way) between the front and back... On bigger shields there could be front, back, top, bottom...

But there is no concrete evidence.

So basically the ship's covered by invisible shields shaped like the part of the surface they cover. Combined, they envelop the craft completely. They re-spawn upon destruction (with, say, 5-10% hit points) and you can only damage the portion of the ship they cover while they are gone.

If possible, it'd be awesome if the game could tie a system message to each shield's destruction, such as "ISD JUDICATOR: BSHIELD 50%" (B shield at 50% hit points) or "CRL LUSLA: DSHIELD DN" (D Shield down). The messages could be standardized, so that A-E shields, for example, always referred to dorsal shields and F-I Shields always referred to ventral shields. Also, you could make it a rule of thumb that the first letters referred to the after shields. So an Interdictor cruiser could have seven shields, three below, three above, and one for the bridge tower: A, B, C, F, G, H, and I.

Of course there's a problem with lag, but I think this method would work great. If the ship has an external shield generator, breaking through to it with weapons fire and destroying it would, if possible through coding, permanently kill off all the SP's.

Only problem is I don't know how it'd handle fighter taking off and landing. I suppose they'd have to be allowed to fly right through the shield.

Especially if the dev's implement sub-systems that can destroyed. Imagine having to head home not because you're heavily damaged, but because your lasers can't be fired until you repair your fighter. Would be awesome.

As for lasers, I think more missle-esque weapons, such as Proton Torpedoes and other similar things, should do damage straight to the hull.  In the movies, lasers never penentrated a shield.  The shield generator always had to go down before any major damage by lasers could be done (on a starfighter level).  I think Battlefront 2 set a good example, but they did it a bit excessively.  I would like there to be a way to destroy the shield generator so that small fighters could do their damage, but it should be down to the capital ships, a well-placed volley of missle weapons, or some sort of expert infilitration (if we get the possibility, and nothing stupid like in Battlefront 2) to cut the shield generator.  After that, let starfighters wreack an annoying havoc on those mammoth capital ships.