Recnetly with entrenchment it seems like alot of the shield meshes are causing a bit of a stutter to me.  I never really paid attention to the shield shapes and colorations before but i've noticed a few things since moving to entrenchment.

When I invade a system and I launch some fighters/bombers (about 15 squads total) against a starbase, when their weapons connect and the shield mesh becomes visible, my computer slows down to a degree where it is noticable. This happens with any attack that makes the shield hits visible. but is especially pronounced when multiple hits are taken at once like with the initial fighter/bomber launching after entering a system with a starbase.  I've also noticed this on cap ships but only on advent and vasari shield meshs.  From what I can see the tec shields on caps are mostly ovoid in shape and not the form fitting shields that the other factions have.  This slowdown is the worst when fighting the vasari starbase possibly because of the complexity of the shield's shape to conform to the odd shape.    This happens at all times even when there are only a small handfull of ships in the opening 30 mins of the game and is not typical of my system in similar situations/fleet supply on 1.12.  I think my eyes are failing me but it also seems like the shield meshes were changed for some advent craft namely the rapture.  The shield shape extends quite a bit aftward and covers where the exhaust trails would be and beyond.   This ship in particular along with the vasari starbase cause slowdown when the shields are displaying hit effects.  The complex shapes of some of these shields appear to directly relate to the slowdowns i've experienced.  It's not game breaking but perhaps there should be an option to default to oval shield bubbles.  Also why don't the tec have the form fitting shields like the other races?  They all have oval shields it seems like with no slowdown in my case.

take 10 carriers and launch them into a system with a single vasari starbase.  Zoom in to a degree and watch the shield hit effects.  Even in this situation with only 11 total ships and 20 strike squads my system stutters. 

Do shields reflect the starfield/nebula backdrops? 

e8400 @3.6 / 750i p5n-d  / 4gb ddr2800 / 9800gtxSli (disabled for sins).