Also with some mods you can change the weapon category, but maybe then the abilites and animations does not work as intended.

@Master Green Fox:
There are several possibilites. Even without mods you can allow every soldier class (base game classes or custom classes) to equip shields. In the XComClassData.ini (for base game in your documents folder, for mods in the Config folder of the mod) are entries like [Classname X2SoldierClassTemplate]. Below this line you should add:
+AllowedWeapons=(SlotType=eInvSlot_SecondaryWeapon, WeaponType="shield").
Now this soldier class can equip all Shields from the Ballistic Shields mod or from this actual mod.
The shields should work properly, because in this mod the abilites are given to the item (shield) and not to the class.
But you can also use different mods to allow this weapon class to other units.
For example (i think this is what you mean) you can use the "Utility Sidearm Slot" to allow equipping shields in the utility slot. This can be done by configuration or via MCM (but last only work when one soldier class can equip this category).

You say vanilla classes cannot equip these shields, but is it possible if a mod is loaded to assign weapons to catagories which are then codeable into character class data?

For instance right now I have shields as a catagory and everyone can equip shields in a utility slot.

@Xecutor / Wolf Renage: Okay now i understand what you mean. But, so long i know, all custom skins/outfits for soldiers and all custom items are full graphical assets. This means they include the 3D Model, the textures and the animations. Even only a symbol on an item looks a little bit different than the ingame item, the custim item is a full graphic asset, leading to a greater need for hard disk space, memory and also leads to longer loading times.
So therefore it makes no difference if these shields are fully working, equippable shields or only skins for other shields (ghost templates). You need to have the full graphic asset in both cases for their incredible nice look.
Only tintable uniforms/weapons, the hair color and the skin color seem to have exchangeable textures, but i am not sure with this.

@Xecutor I should've been clearer, I meant as Ghost templates, whilst yes as you said you can do it as you mentioned, the problem is the assets. Having many assets loaded tends to increase load time.

The Shields look GREAT, AWESOME, MAGICAL, SUPER. I hope i dont forget any praise for this mod.
@Xecutor / Wolf Renegade: With the mod XSkin you can use these shields everytime as a skin for all ballistic shields. It should also be possible with WSR (Weapon Skin Replacer), but maybe then you need some configuration entries. Then they have the stats (and behaviour/abilities) from the ballistic shield but the look/animations from this nice looking Star Wars Shields.

wolf renegade, just find any weapon skin changer mod thatll make it so these are skins lol

Would it be possible to have these as skin variants?

Just curious what custom classes use this mod can anyone list 1 or 2 at least?

Always love to see more Star Wars mods. Awesome work man.

good good, now all we need for star wars mods to be complete is grenades

Excited to give these a try, they look great