I think it WILL take (not more damage) rather the same about of FIREPOWER and receive less damage (or drain), thus making the shield appear stronger. While each hit does reduce the shields overall power reserve.

I think I just confused myself...

If I am right, I do hope Blair gives me a cookie.

Blair has posted that the shield system is designed to reduce micro focus firing tactics. Here is my best guess on how Ironclad could do this.

When shields get hit, they will get a % bonus to resisting damage for a second or so. This means that for that second after the shields take a hit, they will be more effective at minimizing the damage from any further weapon hits. Once the second (or whatever time span) is up, shields return to taking full weapon damage until after the next hit.

The logic here could be explained as such: weapon fire hits to shields cause short lived energy flairs that interfere with other incoming weapons fire, thereby reducing the % of damage that actually reaches the shields.

Shields block all damage untill the collapse, then the ship starts getting damaged.

Given the goal of reducing the tendancy to focus fire on a single ship then it would make sense to make shields more effective as damage to them increases. The reason is that if a ship is faced with several targetes, it can inflict maximum total damage by spreading its firepower across all targets evenly because the less damaged the target is the more damage it will take.

Now, as for explaining it from a technical perspectie:
I saw a show (real show on the discovery channel or something, not fictional) where they had developed some materials for helmets, armor, etc. that are soft or at least flexible most of the time (for comfort). But when they are impacted by a strong force they become ridgid. After the impact they return to their flexible state. It could be explained that the shields do something similar where the more force that has been applied to them the harder they become (up to the point of failure) and then they return to their more pliable state.

Along similar lines, you could explain that something about the process of recharging the shields makes them tougher while being recharged. And the more depleted they are, the more effort is put into recharging them - thus they are the strongest just before failing. And, conversely, they are the weakest when they are at full power because no effort is going into recharging them. The reason that it is desireable to have them fully charged vs. constantly recharging is that, although they let more damage through to start with, they have a greater capacity to absorb damage before failing than a stronger shield that is still being charged. For example, if the ship is being hit by a constant laser beam and its shield is at full power, it will start taking damage but much of the damage will be absorbed by the shild. The shield takes more and more damage before ultimately failing. Once it fails, the laser really rips into the hull and starts doing significant damage. Now if the ship had lower shields that were stronger, sure it would take less initial damage but the shild would completely fail sooner - the real damage would start being delt sooner.

the problem with the current idea is that no focusing still accomplishes nothing. damage will have to cause some sort of percent failure otherwise spreading out fire will only delay the takedown of a lot of ships by a lot of time.

makes sense to me.
but then again, you guys love to change things without running it by us   .

its a special type of material embedded with iron shreds that becomes rigid when induced to an electromagnetic field.
yes I'm aware of the stuff.

sounds to me like your saying a faster accelerating car will do more damage than one at higher speed.
it just doesn't check out.

THAT IS NOT A COOKIE! Its like a chip from a cookie!

Good idea Schematicsninja. That would work out even better than the 1 second period I mentioned earlier. Having shield damage resistance increase after a hit only to then drop exponentially back to normal would be far more logical.

It even fits with my Tech Lore about missile/shell and plasma/particle hits to shields leaving debris/gases near the shield surface which would momentarily interfere with further income weapons fire. The end result of which would decrease weapon damage getting through to shields = shield damage resistance.

How about it Blair? Does Schematicsninja have it right? I really hope so.

I am glad Blair commented. I dont I would have it in me to read all of that.

 
rock on, I got something right!
lets see just how close we can get.

'Now we are even very very closer!'

means I'm right   
of course with kudos for you bringing the whole idea up.

Hmmmm , I get it now.   

If 5 ships vs 5 enemy ships all decided to micro-attack one ship, initial beam will be 100% effective, but because of shield mitigation the second ships beam will be 50% effective , the next ships beam 25% ,then fourth ships beam 17.5% , then fifth ships beam at 8.25% If 5 ships unmicroed targeted all 5 ships , each ships beam will be 100% effective so its better to target multiple ships.


*sticks out cookie hand*

Sorry, that wasn't what what Schem and I were getting at (sorry if I am misrepresenting your views on this Schem. If so, I doubt you'll mind setting me straight).

What would happen is the first weapon hit would cause a shield flare up/vortex. This shield flare up/vortex is tied into the physics of the shield projectors introducing new energy to compensate for shield damage. This flare up/vortex would increase the shields ability to resist damage. However, this resistance bonus would drop off at an exponential rate so it wouldn't last long (prob a second or two, and at a decreasing resistance as time progressed).

So, example as follows:

-a weapon strikes the shield doing 100% weapon damage to said shield.
-the resulting compensation from the shield generators create a flare/vortex that provides a 25% bonus damage resistance to any further weapon hits (we'll use 25% for this argument).
-no further weapons strike the shield and so shields lose that damage resistance at an exponential rate (increasing decline).
-after a second or two, the shields lose all of their damage resistance bonus and the next weapon hit will do 100% weapon damage.

example #2:

-so, let's say the same shields as above take another hit from a weapon.
-that shield takes 100% weapon damage and gets its 25% damage resistance bonus.
-the clock starts to count as the shields begin losing its damage bonus at an exponential rate.
-another shot hits the shields a micro second after the first.
-the shields take 75% weapons damage from that weapon hit.
-the shield damage resistance bonus is also reset to 25% damage bonus and the clock starts again as the shields begin to lose its damage bonus at an exponential rate.

What this means is that as long as the shields continue to take hits in very rapid succession, the damage resistance will be maintained at (or very close to) that 25% bonus.

This doesn't mean that focus fire tactics are useless, it just means that other tactical options become valid possibilities, especially at the beginning of a battle when all shields are at maximum.

Still, keep in mind that once a ship loses all shield power, focus fire is once again the tactic of preference. Ironclad isn't trying to totally get rid of focus fire tactics, it is just trying to open up other tactical possibilities.