Equipment/Proposed/EM Shield
Description
Recently aliens created device that sole purpose seems to be render useless our firearms. It slows down our bullets made of metal and even knives (!). This strange shield is carried only by assault warriors like Ortnoks. Fast discarding most of our obsolete equipment will do the trick. Shield not defends from laser beams or plasma shots.
Research
This small device seems to be some sort of Electomagnetic Shield generator. It uses Earth electromagnetic field and creates area of 'thicker' density. Field apears to be sphere of about 1,5 meter of diameter. Our bullets are doing about 50% less damage to shielded target and combat knives aren't much efective too. It fully stops grenades. Good thing is that EM Shield interferes with robotic circuits making it useless for machine combat. Shield is powered by microplasma generator, which offers protection from about full assault rifle magazine.
Game play
This device is carried by the Ortnoks in middle parts of game (when aliens starts to learn from humans). Renders most conventional weapons useless, but also made some of them useful again. I.e. normal grenade, which is trown at enemy will stop always 1,5 m from alien. And boom. The same thing goes for grenades from Grenade Launcher (if Plasma Grenades have metal outer shell they could be also used). For very stubborn players - EM Shield doesn't fully stop bullet fire. Higher calibers (i.e. gatling) or more lead in air put them down in matter of seconds.