New Voyager Ablative Armor

[Wildside707]

i was wondering if anyone could help me figure out a way to get the new Armor that voyager sported on the season finally. it is just normal ablative armor that can be deployed at will. i see this as a major advatage because your ablatve armor is hard to replace, and it is waisted on pansy shots. i need some help with this so i can get my GM to let me have it...LOL

[JALU3]

This is the GM. Again, I shall state that this wasn't given to Voyager until three years or so after their present, which would be aroun 2378 or so. Furthermore, this technology comes from around seven years in the future of their future, thus having you have it before the first reported canon instance wouldn't be correct.

Furthermore, about the slipstream, I was just thinking. When did Voyager run into the supposed USS Dauntless NX-1A? Next question is when would be the earliest that Voyager would have communicated the facts of the technology to Starfleet? If this is in the future of GAME present time, then I'm afraid you can't have it.

Furthermore, even if the information about this new technology was forwarded to Starfleet, I would still think it would take AT LEAST a year until Starfleet has some sort of understanding how the tech works due, and then another two before they have a working model themselves. For note, that Voyager didn't have much time to look over the systems of this alien vessel.

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"See Everything; overlook a great deal; correct a little." -Pope John XXIII

[Dan Gurden]

Well, 'Hope and Fear' was closing episode of season 4, so if you take the rough equivalent that each season takes a year then the events of the episode including the use of the Quantum Slipstream drive, would have been 2376.

However occasional contact was not re-established until the Midas Array was in use, and the was 1/2 way through season 6...

So way into 2377...

Looks like bad news, unless you go with Brian K's version...

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Dan.

"A couple of thoughts from a random mind!"
http://www.theventure.freeserve.co.uk

[JALU3]

OK, got me there then.

However, by my technical timeline the prototype ACTUAL Fed Starfleet vessel to be put into the NX phase still wouldn't have been produced until 2380. Therefore, your vessel would be produced @ the earliest in 2381, which I will allow with open arms.

Note . . . game date is around SEPT 2376. Which means that Voyager has just regained contact with Starfleet VERY recently.

However, this would work, due to the fact that the normal ODG's posting is two years which would bring your ODG back, just about the time that they were trying to figure out how slip stream works (that and with your propulsion wiz), except for the initial ODG's which built the 'Camp's. But what fun would that be if you were a NORMAL ODG?

[This message has been edited by JALU3 (edited 05-25-2001).]

[Karg]

I Believe however that there 1st contact with Starfleet was in mid 5th Season in the episode "Message in a bottle" When they used the Hirogen array and the EMH landed on the Prometheus.

Karg


[This message has been edited by Karg (edited 05-25-2001).]

[Protius]

Just remember it probably makes things like firing phasers a moot possibility. The only thing it form-fitted around and did allow show through were the nacelle vents and most likely the impulse vents too.

[Wildside707]

hey there....i just need help with creating a system that would fit in with SpaceDock. i'm trying to figure out SU cost, Power usage, and abilities/description. i have a general idea that i will post later. thanks for descussing the timeline, but i need help with the system not the timeline. i can figure out the timeline later, i want to know if/how the plating will work.

[Weyoun11]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Karg:
I Believe however that there 1st contact with Starfleet was in mid 5th Season in the episode "Message in a bottle" When they used the Hirogen array and the EMH landed on the Prometheus.
</font>

Yes there was very brief contact by the EMH "Message In A Bottle" mid-2374 as you mentioned and via the Hirogen array into the next episode "Hunters" where Starfleet sends letters from home to the Voyager crew. Oddly enough those personal letters transmited from Starfleet was made more important than informing a Federation ship the folks sending the letters at home were up to their necks with the Jem'Hadar but that just typical Voyager anti-continuity for you to omit that tidbit. "Hope and Fear" with the NX-1A ruse ship occurs later. A coded message that had been garbled from the "Hunters" transmission by Admiral Hayes was decoded in "Hope and Fear" where Hayes informs Voyager they were trying to find ways to get them home sooner but sorry for now they are still on there own. Also oddly enough the added complication of Starfleet putting its resources toward a war was not mentioned again either. The Hirogen array I believe gets destroyed in the "Hunters" episode cutting off contact until "Pathfinder" circa 2376 where JALU3 is correct about Starfleet "regaining" contact with Voyager.

[Robert Lai]

The problem with the ablative armor shown in 'Endgame' is that it doesn't seem to be entirely thought out. Some points that I mentioned in another thread ...

- If the armor is 'replicated' into place, where does the raw material come from? How much volume does it take up in storage?

- If the armor is ablative, i.e. it flakes/chips/evaporates away, then you actually need MORE raw material, so the shield can be reinstated later at full strength.

- The armor should NOT feed off a collector grid such as the Bussard Ramscoop, otherwise it becomes a Miracle Shield (TM) that could be infinitely replenished. It could be argued that the raw materials can be replenished when the shield is down, but you'll need to sketch out a time frame for replenishment.

- If the armor is replicated in contact with the exterior of the ship, you also have a potential weight and structural integrity issue. The SIF would have to extend through to the shield layer to support its weight.

- If the armor is replicated as a free-floating layer, then you have an inertia/mass problem. Namely, the shield layer must be connected via tractor beams or other hardpoints; secondly, unless it is encompassed within the inertial dampers, the shield layer could be jarred independently and collide with the ship.

- Strangely enough, if the shield is replicated, and the ship is at red alert or reduced power mode, replicator systems are one of the first things taken offline. So a distinction must be made between the 'shield replicator' and the standard replicator, requiring the space for a second replicator system.

- Why would ablative armor be such an impediment to the Borg, who have been shown to cut through tritanium starship hulls with very little effort? What is the shield made of, and why would the Borg take more than a volley or two to adapt a weapon to make the shield useless?

I'm not saying it's IMPOSSIBLE to create this in Spacedock, but there are some necessary TrekTech issues to consider before you proceed/your gamemaster signs off on the system.

My preference is to leave it in the 'technology from the far future' department and disallow it for a campaign set in the 'present era'.

If you REALLY want to make it work for your game, there ideally needs to be a research/development phase (tested in a lab, then on a shuttle), then a production phase (experimental spaceframe) before it becomes issued on a line starship.


Bob