Star ship shields

[Picaboo]

i have but a simple question for all of you. When a starship shields are down, what happens to the shield's thresold? The protection drops to 5 but nothing is said about the thresold. We know that it is reduced by one at strenght 4 but that is all. If it is indeed the case then some weapon could never damage some starships. e.g. A penetration 3 against a thresold 4 could never arm the ship even if it brought its shields down to 0 because the thresold would be reduced to 3 but no less.

I am using the house rule that a 0 strenght shield has a thresold of 1 but I would be glad to have something official on this. Any ideas???

[qerlin]

I get the impression it's 0. The shields aren't doing anything.

[Dr Nick]

That's what I figured too. Its seems illogical that the shields still provide protection after they are down.

Dr Nick

[Lancer]

Page 114, under 'Battle Damage', end of 2nd paragraph: "If a ship lacks functioning shields, ...,all damage applies directly to the ship's hull." (Emphasis added by yours truely.)

the only way all damage can get through at a ship's hull would be with a threshold of 0, so I think it's save to assume that that is indeed what the threshold becomes once the shields are down.

[Imagus]

Bear in mind that a vessel's protection rating is basically its chance to be hit. This seems to be 5 for a normal object, with the shield's rating enhancing it (the protection rating) by deflecting glancing shots. The shield then protects the ship by absorbing damage as well (the threshold).

Damage to the shield is represented by shield strength, starting at 10 and reducing to 0 when the shield is explicitly down. The shield can also be damaged on its own damage track by criticals.

I thought this was really complicated at first. Then I looked again, and it all made perfect sense...