I am pretty sure that the problem of not being able to take damage is connected with the fact that they aren't on the platform itself. The developer of that shield projector mod is having the same issue (the shields do not take damage if they are outside of the platform but take it when they are inside.)
Not sure if this can help you but knowledge rarely hurts

Hey, awesome thanks for the tip, this sounds very feasible, I did infact look into that shield generator mod and noticed it didn't work with space platforms, but was unsure why. This could quite possibly be related thanks.

Hi, I am also looking into this. I think I can confirm that asteroid chunks only deal damage when they hit a foundation tile, and then it damages whatever's on top.

I wanted to add something like this too and my solution is to make only the central tile require a foundation. So it's still cheaper on foundation, and at least some of it can get bodied by asteroids. I don't know, maybe they're so thin they phase right through the asteroids without touching them ...

(What a good kitbash for the sprite! I took your idea and redid the sprite a little differently :] )

Aeeyyooo, thanks for the info! Ill have to revisit this and do a fix.

Any thanks, always happy to provide some inspo - my initial attempts had a wonderful if not somewhat janky "unfolding" animation when the solar panels were active, and I had big dreams of being able to extend and de-extend them via circuit networks for flight safety etc, but alas all of these implementation details became too much work.

Looking forward to checking out your implementation!

If you want you can check out my Discord server where I'm playtesting the overhaul mod all of this is going into, dm me at petrakat7604 :]