— Group Shield Linker module
Each ship closer to the module range that has the same module, get’s the protection of a group shield.
For example, using GSL modules with range 100, four ships in a straight line 300 units long could link together.
The shield has a maximum number of linked units.
The idea is that the GSL give about 75% the usual shielding but distributes the unstability and damage between all linked ships.
Thus, if four ships with four standard shields have:
N, N, N and N shield.
Four with a linked shield would have.
0.75N, 0.75N, 0.75N and 0.75N but they’d force any attacking enemy to destroy all 4 shields (3N power) before being able to hit any single ship.
Of course, the ships could have both linked and unlinked shields; in which case, the linked shield would fall first, leaving each ship with its personal shields to go on.
I was thinking something similar. Think of the attack on Endor, where they have to destroy the shield generator. You could make a support ship whose purpose was to shield all the surrounding ships, increasing the defense of those ships, but leaving the protector with little else to protect itself other than the shield it is generating. It would also force ships to stay together to be behind the shield, increasing the effectiveness of AoE weapons.
The obvious offensive strategy is then to make the large shield-generating ship and, behind the shield, make several ships who have powerful weapons but little defense. Once the enemy can break through the shield, it’s quickly game over, but it will be hard to take down the shield without being destroyed first. As a defense, some AoE or ECM could make the shield much less effective, which itself isn’t a good tactic against other strategies.