I'd like a ShieldType OTHER, that can be set via ShipAPI.setShield()
This ShieldType would be treated like the SS AI and player controls like any other Shield, in terms of control states (isOn() would return true if turned on) but would otherwise behave as ShieldType NONE, other than coded behavior provided by the modder.
This would fix a bunch of issues relating to building things that use the Shield control state to do <stuff>, freeing modders from having to use Systems to do alternative Shield behaviors or other complicated workarounds.
Alternatively, simply let us use ShipAPI.setShield(ShieldType.FRONT, 0f, 0f, 0f) where that doesn't come with a minimum Arc; it would effectively like NONE but the AI would think it had a 360 shield.
I'm saying all of this because I got true skin-shield behaviors working in the engine, even better than what I did with the Acanthus back in the day, except for the control issues; essentially, if I try ShipAPI.setShield(ShieldType.FRONT, 0f, 0f, 0f), there's some tiny wedge of Shield in front of the ship and the rest of the ship doesn't register hits properly, to boot (and attempting to get around this by moving the Shield's center far away or setting the shield's Radius to a small number resulted in a ship that didn't register collisions, which I feel is a straight-up bug).
And of course the SS AI doesn't really respond well to this situation; I want it to think it has a 360 shield, ideally.