Rebalance the Shield Generator on Clarion/Destiny

[Spoodle]

Currently, flipping one switch in the engineering control room makes meteors a non-problem on Clarion and Destiny. It's pretty boring, as it trivializes the meteor event. I think that it should drain more power, or at least have something changed to add more depth. What are your peoples' thoughts on how it could be rebalanced?

[AlbretEinstrong]

I'd set up the full ship shields in one of two ways.

1) The shields draw massive power, something like draining two full SMES's in 60 seconds. To prevent abuse as a free power sink, the switches are removed and they can only be turned on through the shield computer with a head level ID.

2) The shields draw less power, but have an automatic shutdown at a certain level of reserve power i.e., total SMES load below 10/25/50 percent kills the shields and puts them on cooldown to be turned back on.

EDIT: Thinking it over, I much prefer the first idea. Imagine the tension of rolling blackouts as power begins to fail and the crew hold their breath hoping the shields hold long enough to survive the storm. It also gives a reason to use the engine on Clarion, which is currently completely unnecessary to power the station.

[cyberTripping]

for something like the first idea, i think it would be safer if the meteor storm being detected "unlocked" the shield controls, since its not like head IDs are particularly rare

[kyle2143]

rebalanced?

RE-balancing would imply that it was balanced or had any drawback to begin with. 

The shield generator draws no power. It might need the equipment power of its room to be on, but it doesn't use any power to be active. It basically exists to look cool because the only actual reason to use it is if you want the whole station to yell at you for being an unfun jerk.

But yes, it should use power. I'd especially like it if the shields also lost power from attacks other than meteors. I remember one goon1 round I had a while ago where the Captain panicked and turned it on when Syndicate Nuke Ops were discovered and it basically turned into a 20 minute debate to decide whether or not to turn off the shields so the Syndies could come in and kill us.

[Frank_Stein]

The shields should use power, but not a whole lot. Basically, enough that you can't run the lights or the equipment and the shields all at the same time.

Having to drop lights or turn off computers and door locks(!) makes using the shields a nice trade off

EDIT: Honestly, we need a lot more of this kinda stuff as for as power management goes: Having to divert stuff from one area to power up something in another. It's a classic sci-fi trope and makes for interesting game play as it gives antags a means of subversion in one place to get to another

[Wraithcraft]

maybe around 300000 kw? little less than the science portal, but not much. also means that it needs some smes messing to be active all the time.