[Suicide Junkie]

In short, the leaky shields work by using the crystalline ability.

You get 100% absorbtion until the SE4 shield meter reads close to zero.
Then you get at least 50% leakage as the crystalline effect kicks in. This Lasts a long time, but is progressively reduced as your shield generators get burned out.
The armor is leaky, too, since it dosen't have the armor ability. Instead the hitpoints are tweaked so that armor will be hit more often than other internal components. It is usually hit first, but not always.

That gives you the "exploding panels" effect, as internal components have a small chance to be destroyed even when there are still shields and armor remaining.

[ June 20, 2002, 19:14: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]