Holographic Hull Plating is a new Star ship trait that, as far as I'm concerned is canon.
We’ve seen it on Star Trek Insurrection in the form of the Holo ship; we’ve all referred to it as the ‘cloaked’ holo ship and in the movie Picard I believe tells Data to De cloak the ship, I think that in a sense it was cloaked, besides we all know the Federation is not allowed to have cloaking devises like the Romulan’s so I believe that the ship is covered in millions of holo diodes much like that of the Starfleet Isolation suit.
Here are the rules I’ve come up with: To purchase this trait during ship construction it will cost you 5 construction points.
The plating only gives you a Cloak rating of 10, however unlike cloaking devises you can transform the ship to look like almost anything.
If you are on a planet you can make it look like a rock.
There are ways of increasing the cloak rating, for instance one of my players had installed the Class 4 sensor system on his ship, which is the most powerful system you can get with an E rating so I gave his ship a plus 8 to his sensor rolls which he uses for jamming the enemy sensors.
There are many more ways to use the devise and if you want to post them by all means feel free.
The admiral in Inssurection was violating treaties and Federation law left and right. I don't think it would bother him one whit to secret off a Romulan cloak and make it work for his black-box projects.
We also see simular cloaks and holos through TNG, though, for much the same purpose - to allow Federation personnel to watch over an indiginous people without tipping them off. Probably illegal to the Federation charter - but 'allowed' for convienence, like the UN looking the other way at things during the same period in real life.
Using the hologramms to cloak the ship is one thing, using them to make it look like anything would severelly tax the computer systems, especially if it's already running a sumulation on the inside!
personally I believe the reason that such cloaking devices are not in breach of the Romulan treaty of Algeron, is that they are (usually) easilly detectable by 24th century sensors.. The people in the village couldn't see them in their suits, but the people in the duck blind could see them as clear as day.. hence it's not really an effective cloak for any purposes other than that which it was used for.. primative people without advanced sensors.
I suspect that the holoship was tweaked, but holographic technology fundamentally was only designed to be normally used under such similar conditions.. so that primatives couldn't read it, but advanced cultures could.. however for story purposes they fixed it so Ruafo wouldn't notice. it's much like how in Future's end Janeway simply modulates their shields so that our 'primative' radar etc couldn't see the ship.. that's a cloak, but any lurking Romulans would have been able to detect the ship from lightyears away (had there been any in the 20th century )
The nature of a cloak is that it creates an energy sheath which bends all energy round the ship, but even then they have to carefully ballance the ships systems so you don't give yourself away by other means, such as your warp signature, ion trail or inherent mass and gravity. I'm not sure how good Holodeck technology would be at doing all of that, since it was only ever a visual illusion, hence I would treat it more like the mono-refracting plating from Starships, in temrs of mechanics, perhaps with a bonus depending on how good your Engineers simulation is.
I agree with your term of a Cloaking devise, as for the TN to detect the Holographic hull plating, I used the rules found in the Starfleet Operations Manual camouflage hologenerator.
to detect a camouflage hologenerator the TN is 10, however I am re reading the rules for it and it states
"RULES: In order to conform with the treaty of Algeron, hologenerator illusions can be easily seen through with a Tricorder scan (a system operation (sensor) test at TN 10). Some smugglers illegally alter thier hologenerators with antisensor thoron fields."
So keeping that in mind I think the TN for a ship with this plating would actually be a peice of cake, however we can just say that Starfleet tweeked it a bit.
but as I stated in my first post you can always find a way around the sensors.
And as for energy usage I treat the Hologenerator like a cloaking devise, my player has to shut things down before he can use it.
Yes, directly adapting those rules like that works quite well. I'm not sure how you'ld factor in shutting systems down in Coda for it, as the system doesn't really work like that (Other than, as you say, GM Fiat).
There are probably several ways in which you could mask your sensor signature in combination with such a device (which would in turn raise the TN BUT there are more than just the technical implications, there's the fact that the treaty exists. The Defiant was a special case: The Romulans are not likelly to allow anyone to use cloaking devices, and many of the Admiralty would courtmarshial you if you pulled such a stunt (of course non Starfleet people are another matter!). While, for example, the crew of the Enterprise E used such a device in Insurrection, they could not have had time to add a sensor defeating dohickey, so that was likelly already installed when they got it.. The Admiral who had the thing made was the one in trouble (which was moot because he was dead by that point ). There might come a time when the treaty is dropped, but it could be some time, and in which case they would probably just use ordinary cloaks!
I Guess it comes down to 'what is a claoking devies?'
The Romulans don't care about the holographic tech as long as they can see through it so if you use it on ships not much harm done, now the problem is what should be alowed by the treaty?, are thier any counter measuers that we could use in cunjuction with the holographic plaiting without angering the Romulans?
(considering the Romulans I thing they would be ticked with any new idea)
One of my favorite usess for the plating would be the ability to change your apearance, its a very tempting idea for players to change them selves to look like a Romulan warbird (making sure to jamm thier sensors of course) when infiltrating the Romulan teritory for Starfleet intelagence.
one of my players did that because he wanted to talk to the Romulans so that he could fool around with his skills, however one skill he did not have which almost got him killed was the knowledge to speak Romulan... Oh sure he had the universal translator but as far as I know computers can easily tell the diferance between tech and natural, unless you have a universal tranlator from the intelagence agency that is.
it was a riot to see him sweat his way out of the trouble he kept getting himself into.
once he landed on a planet he change the ship to look like a rock it worked pretty well... all except the power grain which would not allow him to have shields or weapons.
You see there you have 3 problems... You are infiltrating Romulan Teritory to gather inteligence and actually landing on Romulus, the heart of their empire.. and you're woried about having a cloaking device! Entering Romulan space is a treaty breaker.. that's why they have that massive build up of forces on either side, and you know the Neutral zone and stuff You would need a VERY good reason to be there, because being caught would be instant death, and possibly a trigger to a war. The reason that pickard got away with it is because the Romulans were politically embarrassed by the failure of their invasion.. and they kind of invaded too, so the Federation could just throw that back in their face! Your player really needed to have a Major reason (such as the rescue of Ambassador Spock, who could represent one of Starfleets major Security breaches ever!) NOT just 'cause he wanted to mess around practicing! (but I take it that's a joke )
There is absolutelly Zero reasons that the Romulans would ever ever ever tolerate a Federation cloaking technology.. that's being used to spy on them! The technical jargon about how it worksis irrelevant.. that they are sneaking around inside their space, without permission, would be a trigger to break the treaty and start a war!
I know all about that, infact I made it perfectly clear to my players, However they were on a mission for Starfleet Intelligence they were not thier to mess around with the Romulan's.
in the Intelligence mission my player was supossed to keep a low profile and was not supossed to take chances but that is besides the point
the point is every race has thier intelligence agencies and they all violate treaties I mean Starfleet Intelligence does not always play by the rules, when you are involved in thing like intelligence missions if you play by the rules you not going to make it far... at least from what I've seen in Star Trek.
As for the mission I gave to my players it was a mixture between Infiltration and counterintelligence.
Basicaly the Holographic hull plating can easily be explained to the Romulans without breaking the treaty because it is not a true claoking devise.
Holographic Hull Plating
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BUT there are more than just the technical implications, there's the fact that the treaty exists. The Defiant was a special case: The Romulans are not likelly to allow anyone to use cloaking devices, and many of the Admiralty would courtmarshial you if you pulled such a stunt (of course non Starfleet people are another matter!). While, for example, the crew of the Enterprise E used such a device in Insurrection, they could not have had time to add a sensor defeating dohickey, so that was likelly already installed when they got it.. The Admiral who had the thing made was the one in trouble (which was moot because he was dead by that point 