Personal force fields..

**Dubwas** · 12-11-2007, 10:00 AM

My parties chief engineer wants to make one as a belt or backpack. I'm a tad bit concerned about that I mean if Worf can make one out of a com badge and a telegraph machine can I really stop him but aside from the animated series with force field belts to make it easier on the anamators who had to just draw a yellow line around people instead of drawing a space suit there isnt to much on a way of personal forcefields. I mean the borg have em but I cant reacall to many instances of it beign used and if Worf can make one with a comb badge and a god dam telegraph machine why the hell isnt some time of force field belt standard. I never figured Worf to be a tech oriented guy anyways more of the arrrgg me kill you type of guy but aparently if he can make one my chief engineer should feasably whip one up too. So i figure if one was made perhaps their hard to maintain consume lots of power negate any stealth as a subspace field sorta attracts alot of attention from sensors and may malfunction alot but still if ever one on the away team has a force field belt eh. either way by coda rules how much damage should it be able to absorb, duration rules for it getting knocked down ect? I was thinking along the lines of preventing 100 points of energy damage but every shot over forty damage lowers its strength by 15-20 maybe give it only a few hours operation time 1-5 something like that. Hmm I could make the thing weigh a ton or something...

**Dubwas** · 12-11-2007, 10:01 AM

oh just to clarify Worf did this amazing feat in a fist full of datas

**Slortar** · 12-11-2007, 10:30 AM

My answer would be to let him do it but put in enough long term side effects that it's clear why Star Fleet doesn't encourage the practice.

Sure, works great, but the battery life is awful and you can no longer have children due to all the radiation whizzing through your junk.

Either that or have it have unexpected ramifications, like it makes you show up like a road flare on sensor sweeps or it interferes with local transporter beam-ins.

W00t. First post on this board. Been lurking way too long.

**tonyg** · 12-11-2007, 11:40 AM

Some ideas:

-The ones from the animted series didn't seem to stop any damage, since punhes and stuff still worked. Probably just provides a bubble that stores an atmosphere (also from the belt). Say 1 point of protection.

-Personal Force fields were written up for ICON. You could just covert that over (I'll hunt for the book with the stats if you don't have it). That would probably be closer to what a designed one would be like, rather than a jury rigged contraption.

- I'm with Slortar. If it is too good, then everyone will want to wear one all the time. So make sure it has some drawbacks. For one thing, forget being transported.

Also the shield could interfere with communicators and tricorders. In the show special arragements are made for those items to work through a ship's shields. FOr a personal shield that might not be the case or be possible. So if using such devices kicked up the TN by one for each 5 or 10 points of protection, it would be a problem. You might even assume the same for weapons.
The character might be able to modify his gear to match the frequency of the shield and thus work okay, but then anyone who is clever could monitor his communicators or tricorder emissions to discover the frequency and then set their weapons to match that of the shield and bypass it.

**redwood973** · 12-11-2007, 01:05 PM

I think it was the ICON Player's Guide wasn't it? I can't take a peek at it at the moment, but if I remember right it could only take a couple of hits before being drained/knocked out.

Oh, almost forgot. . .WELCOME ABOARD Slortar!

**tonyg** · 12-11-2007, 01:53 PM

Originally Posted by redwood973

I think it was the ICON Player's Guide wasn't it? I can't take a peek at it at the moment, but if I remember right it could only take a couple of hits before being drained/knocked out.

Oh, almost forgot. . .WELCOME ABOARD Slortar!

I think so. I believe it stopped something like 200 hp but that was ICON damage. Probably be less in CODA. I didn't allow the things, since I was sure everyone would bring one along on Away Team missions and fights would escalate.

One thing that my group didn't get was that upping your tech, even defensive tech, causes more casualties rather than fewer.

What tended to happen was rather than stun, or use setting 5-6 in a fight, a shield forced people to "dial up" to setting 16, so they could get through the shield. of Course the extra 50 points or so was way more than enough to toast the guy wearing the shield. Even misses tended to knock down sides of buildings, small hills, etc.

BTW, That is what will probably happen to the PC Engineer. He will be explosicvely disrupted rather than stunned. Enjoy.

**The Tatterdemalion King** · 12-11-2007, 02:06 PM

I was thinking about this the other day and realized that force fields may theoretically mean you don't need more than a small mesh of microgenerators as armour. This may be the real reason behind the ground forces' uniform: it's actually protective gear, it just looks like a black jumpsuit on screen : p . Now, the energy requirements of these things might be kinda high to put them on all the time, but it would probably protect them from stunning (hence weapons on kill during heavy-combat scenarios) and minor scrapes and bruises and things. On AR-558, their energy supply for these had probably been completely used up, or reprioritized for phasers.

Now, the force field Worf used deflected kinetic force, not the kind of energy beam weapons put out. It's likely that the beam weapons are specifically designed for increased effectiveness against force fields.

**Tricky** · 12-11-2007, 05:49 PM

Also, while they may stop Phaser/disrupter fire, there are bound to be things that will side step the field. Lasers, being made of light, will probably get through (the guy's field is transparent, right? he can see though it, so then light is passing through it!), which would be, in todays terms, like a guy getting hit by a rock while wearing the latest body armor.

Or, you could rip off Dune (and one episode of SG-1), and have slower objects pass through the field. Once again, that rock comes in handy!

**The Tatterdemalion King** · 12-11-2007, 07:45 PM

Originally Posted by Tricky

Also, while they may stop Phaser/disrupter fire, there are bound to be things that will side step the field. Lasers, being made of light, will probably get through (the guy's field is transparent, right? he can see though it, so then light is passing through it!), which would be, in todays terms, like a guy getting hit by a rock while wearing the latest body armor.

Or, you could rip off Dune (and one episode of SG-1), and have slower objects pass through the field. Once again, that rock comes in handy!

Well, the idea of Trek force fields is that they simply stopped most forms of energy. Ship shields stop lasers no problem. They aren't walking around with warp drives on their backs, though, so the amount of energy they can harness to deflect things is far more limited.

You could rig up a portable, stronger shield if you have a better (and bigger) power source, or one that burns out after a certain amount of time.

**tonyg** · 12-11-2007, 09:12 PM

Most likely scenario.

"Damn, that guy's got a personal force shield! Everyone switch to a kill setting and concentrate fire at him!"

**The Tatterdemalion King** · 12-12-2007, 02:21 AM

Originally Posted by tonyg

Most likely scenario.

"Damn, that guy's got a personal force shield! Everyone switch to a kill setting and concentrate fire at him!"

Just shoot it with tachyon bursts from something and get him while it's resetting.

**tonyg** · 12-12-2007, 02:37 AM

Originally Posted by The Tatterdemalion King

Just shoot it with tachyon bursts from something and get him while it's resetting.

Why wasate the tachyons. Go to setting 16 and setting the problem with one shot. And the cool thing is, he can't beam out.

Personcal Force Shield, right. More like Portable Target. I guess it doesn't get more "personal" than that. I'd give better odds to a redshirt in a TOS episode.

**The Tatterdemalion King** · 12-12-2007, 02:58 AM

Originally Posted by tonyg

Why wasate the tachyons. Go to setting 16 and setting the problem with one shot.

Depends on how strong the force field is. Presumably any larger field-in-the-field emitter would be designed to handle that kind of sustained fire, if only for a while.

And the cool thing is, he can't beam out.

Unless, you know, it's a wall-type field, or he synchronizes the deactivation with whoever's beaming him.

Personcal Force Shield, right. More like Portable Target. I guess it doesn't get more "personal" than that. I'd give better odds to a redshirt in a TOS episode.

Unless it's a PC.

**Dan Gurden** · 12-12-2007, 06:53 AM

Its also worth noting that Worfs personal force-field had a lifespan of seconds. And that it was in the Holodeck in a fictional scenario...

Now if your engineer feels that he can move FTL to activate the field and deflect beam weapons, then that would be worth seeing? Lets face it which is going to hit first a beam of phaser energy or his hand on the activation switch?

Why not allow a longer duration with advanced equipment, now for the drawbacks...

- Perhaps cut off the air supply within the forcefield? It is a closed system after all, and the air will turn bad quick.

- The generator heats up when it absorbs the energy, but as he is wearing it, its going to burn him badly when it absorbs the sustained fire from multiple enemies.

- being a forcefield it will also prevent the transporters from rescuing him...

- Oh yes, the increased power generation to sustain and generate the field will make him visible on all scanners, even passive scans will show him up like a bright light...

I am sure there are other issues that can be used.

**tonyg** · 12-12-2007, 12:38 PM