Is a 150% increase in price right for tripling the effectiveness on the jump from shield 5 to shield 6?  The other two multipliers, relative to the first, seem about right (they represent a doubling of effectiveness at each step.)

That first multiplier seems a bit low...

(And:  More conditional rerolls.  Sigh. )

The idea of expandes shields has merrit when you consider that weapons can have a modifier of Piercing +3.  Thus, even level eight shields wound be pierced 1/6 th of the time.  BTW, I think that as long as Piercing +3 weapons can exist, the higher level shields are NOT cost effective.
In the games we play at Gaming Glenn's store in S. Fla., we have banned Piercing +3.  We agreed on this because shields become almost useless when they encounter weapons with this weapon ability.  Level 5 shields were penetrated 2/3 of the time, and were no longer cost effective.  My Navy-style ships have some weapons with piercing +2 (The heavy guns) and some that have no piercing, incase someone comes in w/o shields.  These ones are also used for AA fire. :geek:
Here is an example of one of my Tech Zero capital ships:

(700) USS California
 
Hull: 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1     
Engines: 5 5 5 5 5 4 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1     
Screens: 10 10 10 9 9 8 8 8 7 7 6 6 6 5 5 4 4 4 3 3 2 2 2 1 1     
Weapons: 1:X 2:Y 3: 4: 5: 6:
 
X: "14 Inch Particle Cannon"  10/20/30, 1/3+/1/3
Piercing +2; Starship-exclusive
[GHIJK][GHIJK][HIJKL][HIJKL] 
 
Y: "5 Inch Laser Cannon"  10/20/-, 1/3+/1/1
Carronade; Range-Based ROF
[HIJK][HIJK] 
 
Special: Hyperdrive; Armor Plating; Marines (11); Teleporters (8)

Doesn't this sound a bit like 'one-upism'? I can't think of any justification for it. no offense intended.

With all due respect... I'm sure you can find someone to say "It's not really necessary" for most every option in the book. So if you personally would not use shields 6+, that's cool. But I was hoping to get some feedback on the feasibility/playability of the option.

These are two mutually-exclusive outcomes. Either the option is balanced against all comers, or having shields 8 on the other side of the table requires piercing +3 on your side.

Points wise it will no doubt work because the 8+ shields will take up lots o space that the other guy can load up on. I was just commenting (rather poorly in full ranty mode) on the fact that my opinion is that something like 8+ shields would be a fun-sucker-outer because in my limited amount of mental computing power I can see few ways to overcome them without resorting to uber piercing weapons. I s'pose I could always put a bajillion teeny weapons with starship exclusive and higher IMP ratings and hope some sneak through (probability says there should be some)...but you've obviously never seen how badly I can roll when it comes down to such things! (ask Madseason, he can back me up on this!)
In the end, even 8+ can always be balanced out, but it seems like a slippy "rock-paper-scissors" progression to me, but maybe I'm wrong.
Erik

I can see the argument against having it, it would necessitate you to have piercing to deal with these uber ships.
Honestly, all my main weapons use piercing, so I personally would not have the massive problem, but I can see people's point about it drawing out the game.

But,  you could use expanded shield ratings when you have lots of ships against some BIG thing.
Borg cube, Doomsday Machine, etc..

Dan:

Just a thought from the peanut gallery... but I think the idea of making a Shield 6, 7, 8, 9, or higher harder to penetrate than a 5 is not needed. If you want to allow Shields of 9... then allow them.

But... make PEN rolls of '6' always penetrate.

Thus, if you have Shields 9 and take damage that reduces the shields by one level, then you have a Shield rating of 8... and despite having taken damage, only 17% of PEN dice are going to penetrate... still. Not until they manage to get your below the 5 mark will your shields lose any effectiveness.

This seems the easiest, and least intrusive way of handling this.

In my opinion.

For those that think that Shields 6+ are being ripped off... consider that Piercing +3 will still need a 6 to penetrate a Shield 8+ ship...

I can see TOS vs TNG ships now....

I really like this. Its simple and elegant and most importantly, doesn't add another die roll. Not sure how it would cost out though.