Shields

Shields are an integral part of modern defense and are used by people in all walks of life, though their expense often keeps the better models in the hands of professionals and the well-to-do. They're fully legal, and being asked to deactivate one's shields is an implicit threat in nearly any circumstance. Deactivating one's shields also leaves one vulnerable in that they can take a couple of minutes to spin up and boot properly.
Shields are generally invisible, and their generators may be worn under clothing, but fluoresce brightly when struck. They're known to give off bright halos in the rain, and can be used as an ersatz-umbrella, as rain tends to strike them and become a fine mist before drifting through.
Shields must be personally crafted, and synchronized with anything they are intended to protect. This is easy enough for mechs and vehicles, and shield cores for such devices are produced relatively cheaply. For living beings however, the process is more complex and involves one or more sessions of VR simulation and neural mapping to produce a shield core that allows for the shield and character to operate without interfering with each other. Furthermore, a personal shield shouldn't be stored within the envelope of another personal shield, as such can cause damage or performance-degradation.
The average shield is about the size of a large cellphone and contains a disk which spins softly while in normal operation, and whirs up to high speed to dissipate kinetic energy when the shield is under fire. Most shields sound an audible alarm when they overheat. Shields are ideally worn against the skin, or near to it, as the shield monitors the wearer's neuro-static field to keep pace with what the wearer is doing and to synchronize motion. Most shields are operated by a combination of the shield's neuromonitoring sensing the wearer's general intention, and a small capacitive touchscreen that the wearer uses to enter specifics when adjustments need to be made.
Mech and vehicle shields tend to be far larger, although they are generally integrated into the frame or storage space of the device they protect. Such shields are able to simply have the mech's motor controls routed through the shield hardware, eliminating the need for complex synchronization technologies and making the units far cheaper to produce.
Langrisser Omnicorp is by far the world-leader in shield technology, Although Renraku and Arcadia are known to have similar models, and most corps engage in at least some research or production.

Shield Mechanics
A shield has two defining characteristics, its Rating, and its Resilience. A shield's rating is the overall quality of the device, and the number of dice that it rolls to resist damage. A shields resilience is equivalent to armor, and lowers TNs on the shield's damage resistance tests, a shield's resilience can't exceed its rating outside of special circumstances. A shield can take up to a deadly wound worth of damage before collapsing.
- Shields hug the body closely enough that any successes on a dodge test apply to the shield's damage resistance test; combat pool dice may not be added directly to the damage resistance test however. An opponent may make a called shot at +4TN to graze a target's shields without harming the target directly. 
- Shields are vulnerable to electrical attacks, and such attacks are treated as having +1 damage level vs. shields.
- Shields are resistant to Laser and Plasma based attacks, and apply their full resiliency to the damage resistance test, rather than half.
- Shields are also particularly effective against ranged attacks that do not deal damage, such as paint-balls, and against spray weapons such as flamethrowers. Such weapons find their projectiles or discharge stopped just short of the target, where it tends to fall to the ground.
- Shields do not differentiate between stun and lethal damage; shields have one condition monitor to which all damage is applied.

- Recovery: One minute after last being damaged, a shield makes a Rating test vs a TN of 6. If the test is successful then the shield recovers a box of damage and begins to regenerate at a rate of 1 box every (60sec/successes). If the check fails, nothing happens, and it is retried 1 minute later as the generator's firmware tries to reassemble the shield.
- Over-damage: Any over-damage taken by a shield is resisted by the target at the attack's normal value. Round the damage down to the nearest damage level.
- A character may only have one shield on his/her person.


Shield Prices
Rating        Price
1-3        Rating x 1,000
4-6        Rating x 5,000
7-9        Rating x 10,000
10-12    Rating x 20,000

Resilience   Price
1-3        Resilience x 5,000
4-6        Resilience x 10,000
7-9        Resilience x 15,000
10-12    Resilience x 20,000
*Shields for mechs cost 1/4 these prices and may be integrated at no additional cost. A mech may not however operate shields above its rating.
- Shield Availability is (Rating)x2

Rating and Resilience prices are added together to determine the cost of the shield. A shield's resilience can be no higher than its rating.
Upgrading: A shield's resilience can always be upgraded by paying the difference between the current and projected values +5%. Upgrading a shield's rating can be trickier and may require a general rebuild, though a shield's core and some other parts are useful. A shield's rating, if not a multiple of three, can be upgraded to the next multiple of three by paying the difference +5%; otherwise, subtract half of the old shield's value from the price of the new shield.