| Planar Shields | |
| Faction |  Atomic Kingdom of China
|
| Function | Defensive Shielding Technology |
| Brief | Energy shields that resist kinetic and directed energy weaponry |
Jade has many strange properties. When you shine a beam of high energy photons (of either the gamma or x-ray frequencies) through it, you get a ray weapon. With a concentrated beam of ultraviolet radiation, Jade can be used as a data storage medium. When you run an electric current through Jade, you get a planar shield. A planar shield is so called because the shield exists within a very constrained shape defined by the projecting aperture, and end with a flat plane of "solid" energy. A planar shield exerts more resistance the more kinetic energy is enacted on it, but once the appropriate point on the resistance curve is crossed it will turn away any amount of force.
However, it is strictly one-way; objects have no difficulty exiting a shield. Planar shields cannot be curved, so they must be layered and shaped carefully in order to fully cover the body of the vehicle. As you need more power to project the field farther away from the projector, one must find an ideal balance between number of projectors and distance from the hull. There is one downside to the shields, however; because of the power requirements and weight of a shield projector, most Chinese units have only minimal armour plating, in order to avoid compromising mobility. Fortunately for the Chinese, planar shields are more than capable of shielding the units behind them, and do work as intended, with no unintended side effects to the best of the Atomic Kingdom's knowledge. The effects of planar shielding are rather delightful; when a shield is hit by energy weaponry, the shield will absorb the entire energy output by the weapon, transferring the absorbed energy to a series of projector housings spread around the body of the vehicle.
When encountering ballistic weaponry such as tank shells, bullets and the like, the rounds will disintegrate or explode upon contact with the shield. Of course, the shield still has to obey the conservation of momentum, and the transfer of excessive force into the generator can cause them harm. As a fail-safe, shields will cut out after a certain amount of damage is taken, and whatever is left of the blow will continue on to the vehicle. This is seen as a necessary trade-off, as it is much easier to simply reactivate a shield then to replace a destroyed generator, and any attack strong enough to down a shield in one blow would likely rip the generators from the housings entirely and send the generator flying about the innards of the vehicle anyway. To make a shield stronger one simply places a higher density of projectors around the vehicle, spreading out the force of the blow more evenly.
Planar shields do have a few other disadvantages. As they act in a manner similar to a non-newtonian liquid, slow-moving objects or low concentrations of energy can pass right through. Though this is vital to allow light and air into and out of the vehicle, it does expose a shielded vehicle to several threats. Many vehicles were lost in the ruins of Beijing when Red Guardsmen jumped aboard passing vehicles to jam mines and grenades into vents and joint. In theory, units employing melee range weapons, such as Imperial Warriors, should be able to bypass the shields. Terror Drones are also theorized to be capable disabling a shielded unit with its electrostasis ray, though no one has gotten a chance to test either of these hypotheses yet.
