Guide to Shields

2026-07-31T15:05:41Z

Batra: Revised after many shield changes since last update

[[File:SetupShields-ShieldRoom.png|thumb|The shield room in engineering.]]

The shields, as the name implies, protects the [[SCCV Horizon]] from all manner of outer space hazards, such as carp, dust, meteors, and rarely, enemy fire. The shield room is located next to [[Engineering]]'s break room, on deck three.

== Setting It Up ==
Setting the shields is one of the easiest jobs that an [[Engineer]] is tasked with. It's simply a matter of knowing the values to set the SMES, capacitor, and generator to.

[[File:Shield capacitor.png|thumb|The shield capacitor.]]
[[File:Shield gen.png|thumb|The shield generator.]]

# Set the SMES in the shield room to maximum input (3,00,000 watts), and the output to 2,900,000 watts. This is not a hard rule, and you can lower the values a bit if you want.
# Set the '''shield capacitor''' to 2,900,000 watts. Click <code>Activate</code>.
# Now, check out the '''shield generator'''. Set the coverage radius to 100. A coverage radius of 100 will cover all of the Horizon in a blue bubble. Opening the shutters in the shield room will let you see it when on; the shield wraps tightly around the hull.
# The '''charge rate''' can be set anywhere from 1 to 3.
# The '''maximum field strength''' can be set to 1 to 2. Using higher values requires hardware upgrades and high energy availability, and generally should only be done when there's an immediate external danger to the Horizon.

After setting these values and turning on the Generator, you should see power usage statistics start to update. Take care not to just walk away- stay for a minute to ensure that the Generator is reporting that shields are Stable and you reach your target Maximum Field Strength. If it stalls out, you won't know until a stray rock blows out a section of hull, or the Bridge starts complaining!

If you've followed these instructions successfully, then congrats! Shields should be spooling up. Assuming you have used a three-megawatt+ [[Supermatter]] or [[INDRA]] setup, the shields will run mostly stable for the entire round.

== Upgrading Shields ==
Trying to set '''charge rate''' and '''maximum field strength''' higher than the above values will cause shield generation to stall out; you can tell when this happens because the Hull Shield Generator UI reads a partial Renwick count (i.e. 2.##) and that it is drawing exactly the maximum throughput set on the '''Shield Capacitor'''. Both the SMES and the Shield Capacitor are bottlenecks, but both can be upgraded. The SMES can have additional coils installed like all other SMES units, and the Shield Capacitor can receive upgraded parts from Science or Robotics to increase its maximum throughput.

As an alternative to upgrading the SMES, you can also hotwire the Shield Capacitor directly into the main grid! Add a new wire node directly beneath the Shield Capacitor in the direction of the red main grid cable, and splice it in from there. Then you can max out the Shield Capacitor throughput (so long as sufficient power is available in the network) to push the shields to much higher levels!

== Shield Tips and Troubleshooting ==
* Sections of shield that are destroyed (by carp bumping into them, meteors hitting them, [[Security Officer|Security Officers]] slapping them with a maglight, etc.) regenerate automatically.
* You can use a wrench on the capacitor and generator to move them anywhere you'd like. There may be an extremely rare case where it is recommended to seal something on the ship within a bubble, but in that case, you're probably best off using the emergency shields in Engineering Hard Storage instead.
* It is also worth noting that shields '''do not seal atmosphere'''. Don't try using them to hold a breach.
* The shields can be easily sabotaged by snipping the wire nodes underneath them and the SMES they're attached to. Check the wires using your T-ray scanner if the shields aren't working.
* Shields can also drain a lot of power; if they're not turning on, check that you have any of the reactors set up properly. It may be that another appliance on the ship is draining the power you need, or your engine isn't functioning at full capacity.

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Guide to Shields