An interesting note on shields

The Corporal · Post by **The Corporal** » Sun Mar 01, 2009 2:59 pm

Praeothmin wrote: It's made with biodegradable Duranium.
Being over 100 years old, it started to degrade... ;)

Give a hoot, don't pollute?

Wow, I can't believe I remember that...

Seriously, if you look closely, you'll notice a torpedo coming in from the top right part of the screen, and hitting it.
That's what makes it explode...

Oh I saw it but it keeps dissolving after it gets hit in both the saucer and the aft end.

Praeothmin · Post by **Praeothmin** » Sun Mar 01, 2009 3:03 pm

The Corporal wrote:Oh I saw it but it keeps dissolving after it gets hit in both the saucer and the aft end.

Probably power conduits exploding internally.

They weremost likely set to "dissolve"... :)

The Corporal · Post by **The Corporal** » Sun Mar 01, 2009 3:06 pm

Praeothmin wrote:
Probably power conduits exploding internally.

They weremost likely set to "dissolve"... :)

They should use that crap for a torpedo warhead then ;)

Mr. Oragahn · Post by **Mr. Oragahn** » Sun Mar 01, 2009 4:10 pm

Mr. Oragahn wrote:... so after the Dominion War, most of the ships are really relying on hull hugging shields... like in Nemesis?

I think you're right. Voyager is odd. They rely on bubbles, but maybe the Intrepid is part of a old mentality and is about to be phased out.

The Corporal · Post by **The Corporal** » Sun Mar 01, 2009 8:05 pm

Mr. Oragahn wrote: I think you're right. Voyager is odd. They rely on bubbles, but maybe the Intrepid is part of an old mentality and is about to be phased out.

There, fixed that for you. ;)

Or, maybe, just maybe, Starfleet ships can use both.

Post by **Mike DiCenso** » Sun Mar 01, 2009 8:29 pm

PunkMaister wrote:
Praeothmin wrote:Oragahn, here's an even better example, in the "Sacrifice of Angels" battle scene:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoIFUJxJwcQ

Apart from the small Fed fighters taken out in one shot, we don't see any other ships suffer the same fate.
Even the older Mirandas get taken out by torpedoes after being damaged by Phaser and keeping up with the Defiant...
About those fighters I wonder what was the idea of launching small fighters against heavily shielded and armed capital ships. They never had a chance.

BTW: On that note does anyone have any specs on Fed fighters? Their armament etc.?

The backstage info places those volleys of blue bolts they fire as being quantum torpedoes, beyond that the other specifications given don't match up with what we see on-screen; for example the length given in some backstage material claims a 65 meter length for the fighters, however in comparison to the 125-160 meter Defiant, the fighters scale down to around 15 meters.
-Mike

Post by **Mike DiCenso** » Sun Mar 01, 2009 8:32 pm

Mr. Oragahn wrote:
Mike DiCenso wrote:
Mr. Oragahn wrote: They're only seconded by two shots destructions.
We really don't see "one-shot, one-kill" situations. But even in TOS, there is at least one instance of the Enterprise taking out a Klingon ship with just a few phaser shots during the opening teaser of "Errand of Mercy" [TOS, Season 1].
-Mike
... so after the Dominion War, most of the ships are really relying on hull hugging shields... like in Nemesis?

Ah, glad you reminded me of Nemesis where we see semi-conformal bubble shields around the E-E which were able to repel a large chunk of a destroyed Valdore as well absorbing disruptor fire from the Scimitar.
-Mike

Mr. Oragahn · Post by **Mr. Oragahn** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 12:04 am

The Corporal wrote:
Mr. Oragahn wrote: I think you're right. Voyager is odd. They rely on bubbles, but maybe the Intrepid is part of an old mentality and is about to be phased out.
There, fixed that for you. ;)

Or, maybe, just maybe, Starfleet ships can use both.

It doesn't explain much. Trying to reboot this a bit, when I watch DS9 battles, ships get shot down extremely quickly. Hugging shields don't seem to add anything.

And when did First Contact occur? They seemed to enjoy their bubbles then.

The Corporal · Post by **The Corporal** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 12:39 am

Mr. Oragahn wrote:
It doesn't explain much. Trying to reboot this a bit, when I watch DS9 battles, ships get shot down extremely quickly. Hugging shields don't seem to add anything.

And when did First Contact occur? They seemed to enjoy their bubbles then.

No, it doesn't but neither did the switch from ST: VI hull huggers, to bubble in TNG and back to hull huggers in DS9 and back again for VOY.

I don't see why it's a problem that they can switch around, Voyager changed its shield shape to enter atmosphere after all. And perhaps using hull hugging shields in a fleet battle minimises the risk of collision with fighters and allows tighter formations.

Mr. Oragahn · Post by **Mr. Oragahn** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 2:54 pm

You don't even see the shields flare up when hit, safe for, eventually, the shielded asteroid and the center section of DS9, for the few examples I can think of.
It's inconsistent.
The duration against enemy fire and the lack of flares indicate that the ships didn't use shields.
But they did.

So we obviously have to pretend something was there, even if we don't see it 99.9% of the times.

PunkMaister · Post by **PunkMaister** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 10:33 pm

Mr. Oragahn wrote:You don't even see the shields flare up when hit, safe for, eventually, the shielded asteroid and the center section of DS9, for the few examples I can think of.
It's inconsistent.
The duration against enemy fire and the lack of flares indicate that the ships didn't use shields.
But they did.

So we obviously have to pretend something was there, even if we don't see it 99.9% of the times.

You are right in a lot of instances in ST during combat you do not see shields flaring up as they are hit. But what does that mean? That the armor in ST has gotten better? What?

Sideswipe · Post by **Sideswipe** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 10:55 pm

PunkMaister wrote:
Praeothmin wrote:Oragahn, here's an even better example, in the "Sacrifice of Angels" battle scene:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoIFUJxJwcQ

Apart from the small Fed fighters taken out in one shot, we don't see any other ships suffer the same fate.
Even the older Mirandas get taken out by torpedoes after being damaged by Phaser and keeping up with the Defiant...
About those fighters I wonder what was the idea of launching small fighters against heavily shielded and armed capital ships. They never had a chance.

BTW: On that note does anyone have any specs on Fed fighters? Their armament etc.?

The point was to get a bunch of Cardassian ships to follow them, thus breaking a hole in the line of ships for the Federation fleet to break through.

Dabat · Post by **Dabat** » Tue Mar 03, 2009 10:43 am

PunkMaister wrote:
Praeothmin wrote:Oragahn, here's an even better example, in the "Sacrifice of Angels" battle scene:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoIFUJxJwcQ

Apart from the small Fed fighters taken out in one shot, we don't see any other ships suffer the same fate.
Even the older Mirandas get taken out by torpedoes after being damaged by Phaser and keeping up with the Defiant...
About those fighters I wonder what was the idea of launching small fighters against heavily shielded and armed capital ships. They never had a chance.

BTW: On that note does anyone have any specs on Fed fighters? Their armament etc.?

In the alternate timeline of Star Fleet Battles ship survivability is roughly the same; one or two passes from ships of a similar size and both will likely be too crippled to continue the fight. Fighters are essentially ships smaller then a corvette which normally have one or two limited shot capitol scale weapons. While it takes a full flight of them to even begin to become a threat to anything larger then an old tech destroyer, they are still a threat far to large to ignore.

At this point the defender must make a choice, to fire at the incoming capitol ships and ignore the swarming fighters, in which case the fighters are about to unleash a swarm of disrupters, torpedos, and warp-drones; or focus on the fighters at the expense of the capitol ships, in which case the defender's offensive capability is spent as they stare down a fully functional capitol ship. Unless the defender is a drednaught class or larger, splitting it's fire on the first pass will likely just result in neither target being sufficiently damaged to break off the attack. Thus, in this case, fighters aren't the show, they are the side act that makes the show a hit.

That's the way it is in Fed Com, anyway.

Praeothmin · Post by **Praeothmin** » Tue Mar 03, 2009 3:08 pm

You are right in a lot of instances in ST during combat you do not see shields flaring up as they are hit.

Yes, but also in a lot of instances, you see hits that create explosions, yet we don't see any parts of the ship explode.
The video I linked has a lot of those.
Those may be shield hits, but the shields may be conformal, hence the lack of noticeable "shield effects" during hits...

Post by **Mike DiCenso** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 4:45 pm

Praeothmin wrote:
You are right in a lot of instances in ST during combat you do not see shields flaring up as they are hit.
Yes, but also in a lot of instances, you see hits that create explosions, yet we don't see any parts of the ship explode.
The video I linked has a lot of those.
Those may be shield hits, but the shields may be conformal, hence the lack of noticeable "shield effects" during hits...

Actually, there is at least one Cardassian Galor that definitely takes damage during one of the fighter squadrons' stafing runs, but as you say, the other strafing runs are a bit less certain as to whether or not they take damage.
-Mike