Defenses Tech Tree

Defense technologies are some of the most important - they allow you to equip your ships (or soldiers) with state-of-the-art defenses that provide the much needed protection from modern weaponry.

## Technologies in the Defenses Branch

#### Energy Shield Theory

* Prerequisites: None
* Posts: 10
* Investigations into the theory behind energy shielding have proved fruitful. While energy shielding is not yet possible, further research may enable the creation of a field of pure energy that can surround a ship and block both matter and energy.

#### Energy Shielding

* Prerequisites: Energy Shield Theory
* Posts: 20
* Scientists have developed a crude form of energy shield which is capable of defending ships from mass-based weaponry as well as energy weapons. Shields require a significant amount of power, however, and will fail after taking enough hits. They take a long time to recharge.

#### Energy Shield Harmonizing

* Prerequisites: Energy Shielding
* Posts: 30
* Tunes the frequency of energy shields more finely, resulting in less energy going to waste. Shields use less power and as such, are able to last longer.

#### Large Area Shielding

* Prerequisites: Energy Shield Harmonizing
* Posts: 35
* Advances in shield power efficiency allow the creation of shields which cover a larger area. These area shields are useful for ground defense and are necessary for the construction of larger ships.

#### Absorptive Shields

* Prerequisites: Energy Shield Harmonizing
* Posts: 30
* Shields can now absorb a small portion of the energy emitted by energy weapons. This slightly weakens the weapons' effect on the shield, as they serve to partially recharge it. It's fairly minor, however.

#### Forcefields

* Prerequisites: Energy Shielding
* Posts: 25
* Essentially small-scale energy shields. They are useful for creating impassable "doors" or for emergency situations where a ship is damaged and begins to decompress - they are able to block anything, even air.

#### Subarmor Forcefielding

* Prerequisites: Energy Shielding, Forcefields
* Posts: 35
* This creative use of forcefields allows for their use as a secondary form of defense. Positioned beneath or inside of the ship's armor, they act as a second (though much weaker) shield. They can be used to separate layers of armor from eachother so that energy weapons can only heat up one layer at a time (they will likely fail before the layer above them is completely destroyed, however).

#### Electromagnetic Repulsion Field

* Prerequisites: Electromagnetic Manipulation (Electronics technology)
* Posts: 35
* An electromagnetic burst is emitted from the ship, repelling plasma as well as ferrous (magnetic) kinetic rounds and missiles. Has no effect on lasers. It takes a long time to recharge, and requires lowering the shields temporarily.

#### Personal Shield

* Prerequisites: Energy Shielding, High-Capacity Batteries (Power technology), Miniaturized Batteries (Power technology)
* Posts: 30
* Effectively a smaller version of the energy shields already employed on ships, able to be used as a device for personal defense. Generally requires a heavy generator to be carried or attached to power armor.