The imminent release of both Distant Armada and Battleships Armada for SFU Unity has caused Starmada to again rise to the top of my admittedly lengthy and diverse list of interests. Today I was going over the game materials, mostly perusing my collection of starships, when something caught my eye.

Looking at the Klingon E4 Light Frigate, I started to wonder about those shields. 7-3-3-3 seemed very front-heavy to me. So, referencing the FedCom ship card, I ran the numbers. Recall the formulae for determining shield strength in Starmada SFU:

Starmada Fwd = Shield #1 x 30% (rounded up)
Starmada P/S = lower of Shields #2 and #3 x 30% (rounded off)
Starmada Aft = Shield #4 x 30% (rounded down)

In FC, the E4's #1 shield is rated at 21. 30% of this yields 6.3. Rounding up we get 7. So far, so good.

All the rest of the E4's shields are rated 12 in FC. 30% of 12 is 3.6. Rounding down we get 3 - the value of the aft shield in Starmada. But shouldn't the P/S shields in Starmada be rated at 4 since they are meant to be rounded off? Or was an exception made to preserve the sameness of all but the forward shields on the FC version?