How do you quantify Deploy-able Ablative Armour?

[WaveMan]

As we all know Admiral Janeway violated the temporal prime directive and gave Voyager technology from 2404, one of those technology was deploy-able ablative armour generators, so upon Voyagers return (2378) these technologies would have been quickly adopted through out the fleet (mainly deploy-able ablative armour and transphasic torpedoes).

So the question I am asking, how many SU's do you assign Deploy-able Ablative Hull Armour Generators?

I personally think such a system would cost around 2 SU =15 armour points and would be available after say 2380 (2 years for technology dissemination)

So 1500 points would be 200SU available to Size class 5 and above, and 750 points would be 100SU (a significant reduction in SU cost)

[Owen E Oulton]

Unfortunately, this sort of thing demonstrates a major problem with the SU system - in Trek such systems seem to easily added to a ship without major structural changes and shipyard work. SU by the rules, seems a very nebulous concept, seemingly but not actually a physical thing. Heck, I've even seen Metaphasic Shielding assigned an SU cost, and it's purely - as evidenced in the shows - a software adjustment with no or almost no hardware changes needed.

[WaveMan]

too true Owen, though I would argue the metaphasic shield enhancement costing SU's emphatically, it specifically states in Space Dock that metaphasic shielding costs NO extra SU's. As most would have noted I place metaphasic shielding on almost all of my builds, for me it is a simple technological advancement that IMHO would be adopted universally after around 2370 ( just after the technology is developed).

I asked opinions because of the build I just posted, as in the Falcon class strike cruiser.

[Omega1967]

If you are talking about Voyagers Endgame Armor it was generated by someone awhile back as an addition to the standard shields with an SU cost of 1.5 x size and triples that armor protection. So a ship with 1200 protection would have 3600 production and threshold would act the same tripled. A Search should find it under Endgame.

[The Tatterdemalion King]

Were this to come up in-game, I'd probably want to establish some weakness to the armour, like the replicated matter of the shield being vulnerable to specific resonant vibrations or something.

[Coalition]

I'd make the ablative armor take up more SU than a shield for the same protection, but the nice part is you don't need power to keep it going.

To reflect that physical armor wouldn't have a frequency (unless it was very specifically designed), no frequency vulnerability.

What should be true though is that higher mass for the armor would interfere with the vessel's maneuverability (thruster ports have to be uncovered before accelerating), delay weapons fire (the armor has to retract before firing), and cannot regenerate.


For metaphasic shielding, I'd argue that it doesn't have a vulnerable frequency (as see in ST: Generations when the Klingons got the resonant frequency of Ent-D's shields), but similarly it isn't able to use shield harmonics to boost itself. It is a brute force protection, but to punch through you need to use brute force.


For weaknesses in Spacedock rules, try the following:
Basic Life Support for 1 trillion people: 38 Power
Traveling at Warp 9.5: 49 power
Power demand for just the forward shields on a Galaxy: 120 Power

[The Tatterdemalion King]

It would be a huge power drain to replicate all that armour in one turn. I also think you'd need improved SIFs to keep the armour from turning into shrapnel bouncing around inside the hull if it is breached.

[WaveMan]

Yes the armour I am talking about is the armour Voyager received from the future (2404 tech) I did a search (both for deploy-able hull armour and end game) and came up with squat, Omega can you link me please?

http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/USS_Voyager

http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wik...tive_generator

armour being deployed



The problem is also, in Endgame the armour was shown to be nigh invulnerable to multiple hits from Borg energy weapons, Borg torpedoes and tractor beams, showing far more protective qualities then the 24th century equivalent ablative armour. Basically "plot armour" that is hard to replicate in Space Dock with out making it OP.

It would be a huge power drain to replicate all that armour in one turn.

isn't that the reason there are extra ablative generators mounted on the hull? Plus as seen in the vid it took only 8 seconds to deploy.

Metaphasic shields have the same SU cost as normal shields (or see page 131 for rules on converting normal shields to metaphasic). However, their Protection and Threshold are tripled that of a normal deflector shield, though their power cost remain the same as for the normal, non tripled, shield

IMHO this shield enhancement would be MANDATORY and ubiquitous for all Federation vessels as soon as it was developed. (so after 2369).

[Coalition]

I'd expect the ablative armor deployment to be a dedicated system (as Voyager had to install special fittings on the exterior to set it up). Let alone that it likely uses material stored inside the ship, instead of replicating from energy (i.e. using all of its matter and antimatter stockpile a Galaxy class starship could only replicate up to 960 tons of armor to protect a ~6 million ton ship).

As for shrapnel, that is an issue for the existing armor plating used on ships as well. You could have exterior baffles so fragments spall loose and hit a thinner interior layer instead of bouncing around the ship (think Whipple shielding). Instead of just a solid layer, there would be the anti-energy layer for dealing with phasers, another layer for dealing with large-scale energy detonations (photon torpedoes), plus interior layers to provide protection as the outer layers fail.

You could also have a fibrous material to reduce shrapnel (a starship sized bulletproof vest-like material so instead of a single piece of shrapnel bouncing around, you have this giant fibrous mass blocking a corridor. The corridor is out of action, but better one corridor than the shrapnel bouncing around inside the ship like a deadly pinball game (like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade when the pistol was fired inside the tank).

With the Federation's focus and capability in scientific areas, I'd expect to have a very well designed armor scheme. It might not be that thick as that would make the vessel into a warship, but what thickness there is would be well designed.

(Federation scientific capability was shown during the Dominion War when they managed to issue a countermeasure to the Breen Energy Dampener after capturing an intact system. They already had a rough idea thanks to the Klingon ship that ignored a hit, but deploying a countermeasure in a matter of months after capturing the weapon is impressive.)


For Metaphased shielding, it looks like there are no drawbacks to it at all. I'd want there to be some sort of drawback to the system, so players have to choose whether they want it activated each turn or not. For example, if it blocks multiple types of energy (so the shuttle wouldn't get destroyed from the star from the variety of energy emissions), then those shields would interfere with sensors too. So the mounting ship is better protected against a variety of energy types, but the protection against each individual type is lower.

[WaveMan]

For Metaphased shielding, it looks like there are no drawbacks to it at all.

as per the write up in Space Dock, no there is no disadvantages to the enchantment, though there is a caveat from Steve Long stating that the Metaphasic shield has the potential to unbalance the game and GM's should be very cautious in allowing metaphasic shields to be used by players on their ships. But that is the difference between building a ship that is balance for "fair play" in a RPG setting and what would happen in a real setting.

For example, if the US navy developed a new way of defending their ships that effectively tripled their current defensive capability (that added no extra hardware to the current system and was just soft ware updates) that enhancement would be automatically installed right away, with out regard for "making their vessels unfairly powerful"

As far as sensor interference, why would metaphasic shields interfere any more then normal deflector shields? SOP is not to have shields up during standard operations anyway, ships do not fly around with their shields raised as it is a drain on their power systems.

[Coalition]

If the metaphasic shields are up, then the ship should have a definite reason to do so. I.e. environmental hazards, or an enemy that uses multi-frequency weaponry (instead of going with a different frequency, they use several of them at the same time). There has to be a reason Starfleet went with variable frequency shields vs the Dominion instead of metaphasic. (Voyager novel said that metaphasic used up much more power than usual.)

From "The Wounded", the high-energy sensor sweep had to align with the shields, and this fact gave O'Brian a chance to beam aboard. This tells me that regular shields will interfere with sensors. Metaphasics that resist against more frequencies would then block more.

So it would primarily be used in dangerous situations where there are a variety of hazards that give almost no warning until the ship is hit. For everything else, the regular and frequency hopping shields should be better.

So for game rules, I'd argue that using Metaphasic shields reduces all scanner ranges by half.

[WaveMan]

what shields are you referring to as far as " variable frequency shields vs the Dominion" ? All Federation deflector shields could rotate their frequencies as required. Are you referring to Multi-spectral shields?

Muti-spectral shields are ubiquitous by 2370's and almost all Federation ships have this type of shielding, and are deflector shield that use multiple spectrum's of energy that allows them to recharge far more quickly. (also written up in Space Dock page 74). Metaphasic shielding is superior to Muti-spectral shield.

http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Multi-spectrum_shielding

As far as an unconfirmed citing of a "Voyager novel" concerning metaphasic shields using more power, Space Dock contradicts that and I am trying to work within the bounds of Space Dock.

[Sarge]

but IIRC the only onscreen use of metaphasic shields was to allow ships to fly into the coronae of stars. So in my headcanon, metaphasic shields are optimised to protect against a broad spectrum of unfocused radiation, and not concentrated monofrequency attacks such as phasers. That seems to match the onscreen evidence without upsetting the balance of power.

[WaveMan]

it is true that metaphasic shields allow vessels so equipped to venture into the corona of stars, thus protecting the vessel for the intense heat, radiation and pressure found in the corona, but they are still 'shields' and offer all the same protective qualities that normal shields provide as well (hence effective against weapons of various types)

As per space dock "Developed in 2369 by a Ferangi scientist, Dr Rayga the Metaphasic shield generates overlapping low-level subspace fields. This causes anything within those fields to partially enter subspace, which provides a high level of protection from phenomena in normal space. Metaphasic shields have the same SU cost as normal shields (or see page 131 for rules on converting normal shields to metaphasic). However, their Protection and Threshold are tripled that of a normal deflector shield, though their power cost remain the same as for the normal, non tripled, shield. Among other things, this allows a ship equipped with metaphasic shields to safely enter and spend time in the corona of stars"

What you are doing is enhansing the existing shield grid to have metaphasic qualities as well as all the usual shield qualities.

[Coalition]

what shields are you referring to as far as " variable frequency shields vs the Dominion" ? All Federation deflector shields could rotate their frequencies as required. Are you referring to Multi-spectral shields?

Muti-spectral shields are ubiquitous by 2370's and almost all Federation ships have this type of shielding, and are deflector shield that use multiple spectrum's of energy that allows them to recharge far more quickly. (also written up in Space Dock page 74). Metaphasic shielding is superior to Muti-spectral shield.

http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Multi-spectrum_shielding

As far as an unconfirmed citing of a "Voyager novel" concerning metaphasic shields using more power, Space Dock contradicts that and I am trying to work within the bounds of Space Dock.

The fun part is if we work within the bounds of Spacedock, we have to accept that a shuttle producing 40 pts of power to spare can provide enough life support for over 1 trillion people. We also have to accept that a Galaxy class starship's forward shields require over twice as much power as a ship traveling Warp 9.6. Unless there has been published errata, it is still possible to add as many Warp Drive system upratings (chart on p36) as desired.

Multi-spectral shields are merely selecting the Class 2+ recharge system, and allow for faster recharging (by the Spacedock rules).


The metaphasic shield upgrade is an obvious one that offers no drawbacks whatsoever, and I'd like to make it where the players have to determine if activating metaphasic shields is a better idea, instead of an obvious selection for all ships. Quoting from Spacedock on p74, the end of the second paragraph for metaphasic shields: "For obvious reasons, metaphasic shields can significantly unbalance a Star Trek roleplaying game series; Narrators should be very, very cautious about allowing players to have metaphasic shields for their ship."

Since the metaphasic shield blocks multiple types of energy (i.e. ionization, heat, & radiation), it would interfere with a ship's sensors. Over time the sensor interference would be reduced as better technology was introduced.

So adding metaphasic shield technology would allow the shield system to have the option to (relatively easily) convert to handle various types of incoming energy at the same type (JOAT), while standard shields could be configured to better handle a single type (specialist). For example metaphasic shields would be relatively immune to enemies trying to match shield frequency to punch through (i.e. Borg), but be overall weaker (since the same shield strength is defending against multiple threats, most of which aren't doing anything). They would also be relatively immune to matching shield modulation, magnetic radiation, anti-proton shield disabling, interferometric pulses, shield dimpling (Spacedock, p134), and similar tactics that exploit a shield protection or similar vulnerable frequency weakness.


TL;DR for my version of metaphasic shields: Double Threshold, halve Protection while active. (To convert from MP to normal mode, double the current Protection and halve the current Threshold. Power costs are unchanged.) The fun part is the automatic defense rule (Spacedock p125) means that if an attack that does less than 1/4 the Threshold it is treated as doing no damage at all.

So a Galaxy (1800 Protection, 400 Threshold, 100 immune) with this MP change would become 900 Protection, 800 Threshold, 200 immune. The book version of MP shields would make it 5400 Protection, 1200 Threshold, and 300 immune.


Voyager novel = Mosaic, p291:

Almost immediately, there was relief from the heat. The metaphasic shielding program, an innovation implemented just before Voyager was commissioned, had been developed on the former flagship of Starfleet, the U.S.S. Enterprise-D. It had been added to the defensive systems of certain classes of starship, and was supposed to provide enough protection from heat and radiation that a ship could actually enter a star's inner corona. Because it was a new technology, there hadn't been the opportunity to accumulate much data on its reliability. But it was the only hope Janeway had now of providing enough protection to take her ship closer to the fiery star.

"Mr. Paris, move us closer. Thrusters only."

"Aye," said Paris, and they watched as the solar disc grew larger still.

"I can't guarantee how long we'll be able to keep the metaphasic program stable," Chakotay warned. "It's draining our power reserves pretty rapidly."