Someone with more experience can probably do a better job explaining. However...

shieldAbsorbGrowthPerDamage should affect how quickly shield mitigation grows.

shieldAbsorbDecayRate should be how quickly shild mitigation disipates (probably on a per second basis).

shieldAbsorbBaseMin should be the minimum shield mitigation.

shieldColor is exactly what it says it is. Looks like either Red Green Blue Alpha (RGBA) or Cyan Magent Yellow Black (CMYK) format. Since CMYK is used mostly in printing and RGBA is used mostly for computers, RGBA is more likely. Experimentation could tell you for sure.

okay so what controls how fast a shield darkens/lightens graphically? I would like to at worst make the effect non-existant (but not eliminate the shield mesh) and at best tweak it way down so it doesn't go as opaque and lags a lot less.