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OK.
One of my players and I had an argument. And I need someone to help me understand this.
Does Threshold represent your shields?
Or does it Threshold represent your hull?
When a ship loses their shields, do they also lose their Threshold?
Or when the Shields go down, does the Threshold represent the hull, the last protection of the ship?
My player and I were wondering.
I believe you do, if you look at page 143 in the Narrator's Guide table 9.13 the Deflector Shield costs includes Threshold Base/Max. Remember, Threshold protects against Penetration so when there fired upon they only have a Protection of 5 (Defense). Someone Correct me if I'm wrong.
Threshold is definitely shields ONLY! basically your shields have a protection and a threshold. Your protection is basically your 'target number' for you to be hit, and your threshold is damage reduction, before it is applied to your hull..
Example: Your ship has a protection 16 and threshold 2 - a ship fires on you with a weapon rated penetration 4 - it rolls a 16 - it hits, you take 4 damage to your hull BUT you subtract 2 for your threshold, taking it to only 2 damage.
Threshold is basically how much damage the shields soak up before it's applied to your ship. However note - when a shield is hit it does get damaged. Every shield has a damage rating of 10 (separate from your hull damage) if, for example, as above you were hit with a shot which only had a penetration of 2 - then no damage would be taken to your hull, BUT you would drop your shield damage track by 1 (or 2 if they got a good success, 21 or more in this case).
If your shields damage rating is taken down to 0 - it collapses and provides 0 modifiers to your ship, and your ship resets to 5 protection and 0 threshold - unless you have a backup system, such as hull plating of some kind.
Ablative armour works slightly differently in that it doesn't give you either threshold or protection, it just allows you to soak more damage, without taking a critical hit (you don't get a critical for the first 5 points of damage)
Basically, as you've been discussing in your other thread shields are what hold the ships together, and without them, weapons are deadly to them. However as shown in the series shields don't keep the ship 100% shielded, and very powerful weapons still damage the ship, through them, hence your threshold rating!
Threshold is generally for shields only. THat is why the rating is listeed with the shields. A ship with no shields has a base rating of 5.
The exception to this is ships that have some sort of hull plating/armor. Not that a rating of 7, or 8 is that fantastic.
Note that some ships can have both hull plating and shields (possibly an older design that has been retorfitted with shields).
Everyone else has said it, but I'll reiterate. Threshold is hsields only. When your shields are down, you have a Protection of 5 and no Threshold.
Thanks guys.
I have alot of House Rules now. I have been watching my entire collection of Trek and so far, I have alot of additional rules for ship combat, as well as ship functions, and even personal combat. Created rules for how long you should be at each rank, and even rules for how many advancements a Captain should have. The question I have asked here modifies my damage rules for no shields, because before I thought they kept the threshold number and it was some sort of Hull Rating. Anyway, as soon as I get done, I am going to start a thread and post all of my present and future house rules on a thread so you guys can use em if ya want.
Again, thanks for the response.
Stule