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This is a fluff question.
In some of the BL books there are personal ,man portable, void shields. In some of the Gaunt's Ghosts stories for example. My question is
why are there no void shields on imperial vehicles. I mean if you can construct man portable ones there should be the possibility to build some for
vehicles too?

They're very expensive and hard to maintain, hence they're only reserved for the most important individuals. There's also the fact that they do considerable damage if they blow out, which does nothing to a Titan, but could damage your vehicles significantly.

Presumably there are for high level persons transports. But they are super rare so won't be for example for random tanks. But planetary goverment on bigger planets.

In Gaunts Ghost you are probably thinking of time when the enemy leaders had refractor fields. The only time I remember them directly encounter void shields is on Phantine (in Guns of Tanith). Those void shields were part of a facility in a hive, not man portable.

In 2nd Ed we had power fields, which were man portable, but encumbered the user like heavy weapons. There were a wargear card so weren't common issue.

In the horus heresy, the Personal Void Harness is a thing.

Note however that at the time of the Great Crusade - the Imperium's technological zenith - this was a one-per-army, "we don't know how it works" artefact. The Imperial expeditionary fleets found some occasionally but don't know how to make or maintain them.

Sub void shield energy fields on tanks do pop up occasionally - like the flare shield or ion shield, or atomantic shielding on contemptor dreadnoughts - but tanks are in that wierd bracket where they're hard to shield; they need a field massively larger than one to protect a single man, but they don't have the massive spare power of something the size of a Knight or Titan with a huge plasma reactor.

Force fields are not uncommon in the fluff where Inquisitors and Rogue Traders have a vast armoury to pick and choose from.

Hmm Does this diamond ring digital laser go with my conversion field bracelet or should I go for the ruby flamer ring and the Displacer field necklace.

I had not come across Void Shields able to be worn tbh. I guess a Jokaro or similar could do it...

Thanks the info!

The personal shields in 1st editions were powerfields as opposed to void shields I think.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Force fields are not uncommon in the fluff where Inquisitors and Rogue Traders have a vast armoury to pick and choose from.

Hmm Does this diamond ring digital laser go with my conversion field bracelet or should I go for the ruby flamer ring and the Displacer field necklace.

I had not come across Void Shields able to be worn tbh. I guess a Jokaro or similar could do it...

Mind you force/power fields are bit different than void fields. There are various fields. Void fields are the most powerful protection. Person held force/power fields are more common but are NOT void fields and aren't as powerful either.

Also power fields are quite common in most aspects.

Space marines captains carry an Iron Halo and cappelans carry the Rosarius wich both produce a Force field to protect their user.

Imperial guard officers often carry refractors shield wich can protect them from incoming fire.

Also in the fluff smaller most specific ones also exits, a quick example when Jes Goodwin designed most of the Eldar he developed *Forcefield Helmets* to explain why some of the Exarchs/Autarchs often battle without a physical one.

U used to have conversion fields, turned the weapons energy into light and blinded near by troops. Displaced fields that teleported the wearer a few feet out of harms way, refractors that deflected the shots, power fields were a simple energy barrier that collapsed when failed and couldn’t be repaired like a void shield. Void shields were the best but required large generators and upkeep. Basically they had all manner of fields like stasis etc.

People could wear or carry a number of powerfields.

There are a few vehicles with void shields (the sokar stormbird for instance), but by the standards of Imperial technology they are typically large, power hungry, poorly understood, and rather explosive.

Their operation is not particularly well described but possibly a pocket-dimension generator that dumps all incoming energy into it and then collapses when the portal/field is compromised, before spooling back up and re-establishing a new pocket dimension.

Power fields create a solid energy 'wall' of sorts, blocking incoming energy by pushing out more energy which eventually burns out the generator. Some powerfields will shrink when damaged to reduce the load and stave off burnout, and most flicker on and off to allow fire out of the field (in the old titanicus game a titan that got a shot through a power field would ignore it with all subsequent shots in the same turn to represent its auspexes locking on to the current flicker pattern)

Iron Halos are, IIRC, power fields. The rosarius is/was a conversion field.

Refractor fields worked by spreading the energy of the hit out across the skin of the field but were also notable for creating a visible energy haze while active.

Any 3++ is a displacer, 4++ is a conversion and 5++ is a refractor in my book 2nd ed power fields were 2++iirc.

 Flinty wrote:
Any 3++ is a displacer, 4++ is a conversion and 5++ is a refractor in my book 2nd ed power fields were 2++iirc.

Seconded. Iron halo???? That’s just a fancy bauble with a conversion field in it.