This is (sort of) stirring the pot - it's not meant to be a knock on Starmada, which is aiming more for the "12 to 20 ships at a time" niche than Squadron Strike, which is firmly in the "1-5 ships per player" niche.
But these are the defenses currently in Squadron Strike. Dan, you're welcome to use any of these for inspiration.
SS uses incoming damage facings - Nose, Aft, Top, Bottom, Left and Right. Depending on the universe variables selected, you may also have a Profile rating which adds a variable between +2 and -4 to the shooter's Accuracy target number. Faced Defenses are allocated per facing of the ship (sort of like faceted shields in SM). spherical defenses mean the facing of the ship doesn't matter.
In SS, the conventional defenses are:
ECM: Adds to the Accuracy TN of the weapon firing at you. (Lower Accuracy numbers are better; it's on a d10 based system.) This is a spherical defense. Profile Numbers are effectively side/shape/dimension-based ECM-like modifiers.
Deflector Shields (Mixture of DR and shielding - every unit of deflectors provides 4 shield bubbles; the last of those bubbles provides DR.). The last box removed (and the first regenerated) in a give group restores the DR. This results in an oddly brittle defense. You're nigh invulnerable up until the incoming weapon fire can do 4 more damage than you have DR, then your defenses crumble quickly. It's an interesting dynamic. - Faced defense
Ablative Shields: SFB-style shields. Every unit of protection provides 6 shield bubbles, but no DR. You can have both Deflector and Ablative shields on the same ship; the Deflector shields are on the 'outside'. Shield regeneration works from the inside out, must complete repairing a single group of shield bubbles before moving to the next on that facing. - Faced Defense
Armor - Acts like DR. Values range from 1 to 9 - Faced defense
Component Armor - increases the amount of damage needed to remove one box out of a group of boxes on a hit location row. Values range from 0 (the default) to 2 (which means it takes 3 damage to remove one box of that particular type.) - Spherical Defense.
Hull & Cargo - the 'padding' boxes at the beginning of each hit location row. Extra hit points that, when they ablate, are harder to restore, and which provide an imperfect defense.
Unusual Defenses:
Prismatic Globe: This is outside of shields. When active, roll a d10 for each point of damage that comes in; every d10 that equals or exceeds the target number on the globe means one point of energy is caught by the globe and is stored by the accumulator. The remaining damage from that weapon strike passes through to other defenses normally; e.g, it doesn't turn a 7 point hit with 3 absorbed damage into 4 1 point hits, it turns it into a 4 point hit.. Spherical Defense, does not put any restrictions on the mounting ship, other than the fact that accumulators can explode when they take damage, and they have a limited capacity to absorb damage.
Cloaking Device: This doubles your ECM value and adds its level to the result on top of that for an Accuracy modiifer. When a weapon hits you in spite of this, your ship makes a Crew Rate check, adding the level to the result. If the Crew Rate check succeeds, you take half damage from the weapon. If the Crew Rate check plus modifiers exceeds 10, you take 1/4 of the damage from that weapon. Spherical Defense, prohibits the unit from firing while it's active, has a limited percentage of turns it can be active in a scenario.
Ebon Globe: This adds its value to the Armor or Deflector Shields DR value while active. Spherical Defense. While active, you cannot fire, cannot apply thrust, and for Mode 1 movement, cannot change facing - you'll continue to drift on your prior vector. It can be set to only cover two facings of the ship, but they must be opposite facings. If Nose/Aft, it still interferes with thrust.
For those who liked Starmada-X's damage allocation (with the ability to 'pad' parts of the ship), my damage allocation system is something of a spiritual descendent of that system.
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