ok let me say that in previous games i have played i have not encountered this bug but its been their the past two games ive played now this is post patch. also im uncertain if its a bug with just the shipset or not although im not sure why that would be as my saves with a cerberus shipset did not have this bug, only when i played with alliance shipset is when this started happening so i do know how to get the high tier shields and whatnot

1. ok so for me as far as shield types are experimental force fields and as well the psionic shields.
2. no auto designs i always manual anyway
3. ethics im unsure of your question i did research psionic shields but that was only after i noticed it was not giving me the tier 7 shields so i experimented and researched psionic shields just to see if that was also doing the same thing. it should be noted that i waited several years over 50 and many tech cycles before researching psionic as well i didnt just research it after 5 min i did wait more than enough time and all i had left was repeatables.
4. im unsure how i would provide you the save file but i would be glad to if you could tell me how

also im unsure if you deal with the projectiles as well but this is another bug ive encountered where the projectiles that should be coming from the ships instead come out of the sun in the middle very very odd im not sure why these saves would have these strange bugs out of nowhere i havent enabled any mods since then in fact ive disabled mods to try to correct the ongoing bugs if i can provide you a save file you will see

Thank you very much for your information Sovereign. Unfortunately i was not able to find out what's causing problems for you after reading your comments.

Well i asked about ethics because every empire has one type of shields available for research (not all types of shields).

F.e. there are psionic T6-T10 shields, synthetic T6-T10 shields etc. depending on the ethics.

Robots will f.e. only have their own T6-T10 shields to research. You can get more than one shield tech if you

a) switch ethics in game => "become another empire" => you get other shield tech
b) or if you analyze debris from previous battles with other empires
BUT you will only get new research options on the shield technologies that are related to your ethics. So if you analyze debris with other shield tech, you won't get the subsequent shield tech unless you have the corresponding ethic.

So if you maybe switched ethics => you get other shield tech research options and other subsequent shield tech research options.

Since i did not update this mod and since i could not find anything that pdx updated that could cause those issues, i don't know how to help you yet.

Maybe it will help if you check the compatibility thread and make sure you only use mods, that are compatible with ACG

Regarding other mods: if you use mods that change ship components OR add/modify ethics that could cause issues. A graphical shipset, that is not listed in the compatible mods thread, should cause graphical inconsistencies but not a bug like the one you mentioned (unless this incompatible mod also changes things i listed above)

Just from what you wrote, i was not able to recreate the bug or find the bug yet and right now i can only "guess" what could cause this bug for you. I am sorry i could not help you more yet. Hopefully we can fix it soon :)