Fragmention Sheild

[coren]

A sheild type I've been testing and developing for half a year and has held up thus far.

The basic idea of the sheild is that it is made of many peices not a solid feild of psi, similar to thread sheilds. The similalarity stops there however, it is made of polygons of psi stacked layer uponn layer, and aslo fitted together, to create a surrounding shape of the many pieces. As the size of the polygons and number of layers can be varied the protection of the sheild is limited only by you.

Now onto the non-physical features of the frag-sheild. As the polygons are seperate constructs they can operate indevidualy and perform fuctions on a singular or multiple basis. The polygons are all seperate, just closy packed together, so if a virus were to attach to a part of the sheild, only the fragments it was attached to would be effected. I have programed my personal frag-sheild to jettison polygons (or tiles if you prefer) to jettison tiles that have been attached to. A decent frag-sheild can replace all your sheild types and layers, as the polygons are layered and the layers can be mass-programed.

If you plan on making one I suggest starting with Large tiles, as these are esier to keep track of and create. I also suggest making a construct to moniter the tiles and use a cache of psi to create and replace jettisoned or dammaged tiles, this allows the sheild some degree or regeneration.

Comments criticisms and questions would be appreciated. This is my coup de grace of constructs thus far, so if you see anything glaringly wrong or need a better explaination feel free to ask/contribute! (looking at you DA)

[The Devil's Advocate]

I've used similar style constructs. (Puzzle box shield) I've discovered they still need to be reinforced or the 'joints' can be forced much more readily than the individual blocks. The structure is also no stronger than some of the others I have used, and it is actually less durable in many cases (though I will say not all) than the woven and thread constructs I've used. It has a different degree of flexibility; however, as the 'pieces' can be made to 'move' when tampered with adding an extra layer of complexity for anyone trying to get through. Also if you don't replace jettisoned or damaged segments of the shield immediately it starts to develop holes rapidly, but that can be countered with good maintenance. The ones I worked with initially had a tendency to be ‘brittle’. It’s not insurmountable, but it is something to watch for.

If you're the same Coren who was on the old site, this is MUCH better thought out than your other construct ideas. If you're not welcome to the site.

~The Devil's Advocate

[coren]

'Tis indeed I fair lady. Nice to feel welcomed.

And I never thought of moving tiles, and interesting idea, I'll have to mess around with that. I haven't had any diffuculties with real difflulculties with buckling thus far, but my testing was basicly keeping one up for six months. I got an occasional virus, or random attack but it was fairly uneventfull. The bucling sounds very much like a geometric sort of problem to me, I'll try stacking tile in different patterns to find one that buckles less. As for joints being weak areas, That I will deffinatly look into.

[The Devil's Advocate]

The movment was a trick to pull off properly. I couldn't get the pattern complicated to be useful (are you familiar with the concept of the oriental puzzle box?) I had to get away from the concept of a 'solid' shield, but that's probably a different thread.

You might not have some of these problems. I haven't actually looked at yours. These were just some of the ones I ran into before settling into a design that actually worked the way I wanted it to. I'd be interested in what problems you did run into with developing this one and how they contrast.

~The Devil's Advocate

[coren]

Okay, back with A lot more experience with this perticular sheild.

Okay, more panels = better. the more panels you have the more localized your losses are.

Secondly, becareful how you stack the panels, you need to get an even distribution. The last thing you want is a huge lump in the front and a one panel thin weak spot in the back.

Finally, The faster you can regenerate your panels, the more inpenetrable you are.

Okay, in my experience, this sheild has been pretty effective. And trust me, the period of time since I last posted has been quite hellish for my sheild here, but it has managed to stand up to it.

[The Devil's Advocate]

Never think your shields are impenetrable, that kind of thinking tends to lead you to miss the flaws that are in every shield. Is it a stationary block shield or mobile? If it is not mobile, I would recomend finding a way to make it such (so that the pieces move).

1) Joints are points of weakness even in shields.

2) Tiny holes and big holes... makes no difference 90% of the time in my experience. A hole is a hole is a hole.

3) This shield has several huge flaws (as mentioned in my previous posts), the 'flexibility' of motion tends to help, converting the blocked energy to re-aranging the 'pattern' of the shield.

My puzzle box shield is specifically used to protect from attacks. I have other shields that are more effective at blocking ambient threats. Again, my main issue with the interlocking design is that all the joints cause points of weakness, and in most cases a single missing piece negates the effectiveness of the shield, and it's easier to tear it down and start over, psionically, than to fix it.

~The Devil's Advocate

[Cullen]

Ok, I've done some experimenting with this shield type. While I think it has its merits, regenerating the pieces, if done consciously, is substantially two slow. It requires a control construct in order to manage energy flow. If static, it is a very weeks shield. if moving it can be trickier to target an area, but it still has it's weaknesses. I'm not going into the specifics (for hopefully obvious reasons), but if you want a more detailed explanation of was I got around the tests shields PM me and we'll talk. I think as part of an array of shields this could be extremely useful, but I don't see it as a stand-alone. Still, very well thought through, and a good idea!

~Cullen