There were two types of deflector shield: particle and
energy - or ray - shields. Both systems had distinct
advantages and limitations, meaning the most efficient
installations used both.
Particle shields were employed to stop physical
attacks. Not only did particle shields protect against
hazards such as asteroid fields or space debris, but
they could also stop matter weapons - such as proton
torpedos and missiles. The energy drain for a particle
shield was much lower than that of a ray shield,
allowing them to be used for longer without depleting
a vessel's power supply too much. However, particle shields protecting bases and installations had to be dropped in order to allow ships in and out, or for docking manoeuvres. Many installations often place laser cannons near docking bays to make up for the shield loss in that area. The other main drawback with particle shields was that they offered no protection against energy weapons, meaning that a well-placed turbolaser blast could deal heavy damage to a base protected only with a particle shield.
Energy shields were used to stop such occurances. Also known as ray shields, energy shields were designed to defend against energy-based weapons by using energy dampeners to absorb the energy fired at them. Although they required massive amounts of energy, ray shields were the most powerful deflector shields available. The strongest were even able to withstand a volley of turbolaser fire. Unlike particle shields, energy shields were raised only during combat, due to the large energy drain. While particle shields were useless against energy weapons, so were energy shields useless against matter weapons. As the thermal exhaust port on the Death Star was only ray-shielded, the Rebellion used proton torpedos to destroy the battle station. |
