Nature of Shields

[Anew9]

Something I thought of recently, in BC the scripts have recharge rates for each shield vector and I recently recalled in Voyager Equinox that Ransom claimed it takes 2 seconds for the shields to fully recharge if she were to turn them off... does that mean that in the star trek universe shields behave on not only being worn down but on recharge rate?

Like for example, a Galaxy class ship can take (lets say) 5 photons in one vector per volley before collapsing. If I stopped shooting weapons in that vector, the shields would return to 100% in 2 seconds. This would make more sense seeing that in Star trek its more about penetrating shields that wearing them down. Janeway keeps saying to lay down fire whenever she fights people, so I assume that she's trying to saturate a vector with so much fire that it collapses and Voyager can hit the ships hull.

Would this seem to make sense?

[Morgan]

I have no idea what it is you're asking, can you be more clear?

[Anew9]

Do shields in Star trek recharge slowly or fast? When a ship shoots at a shield, is it eating the shield slowly away or is it battling with the ships recharge ability?

In BC, I wanted to make shields recharge fully in 2 seconds when not under fire, is this idea canon? So basically when a ship has "weaker shields" it basically means it cant take alot of punishment before collapsing and fully recharging. If I shoot a Quantum torpedo at a Galor class ship, the shield vector will collapse FULLY after 1-2 shots which leaves it FULLY open to attack for 1-2 seconds before the shield raises/recharges again.

[Morgan]

Do shields in Star trek recharge slowly or fast? When a ship shoots at a shield, is it eating the shield slowly away or is it battling with the ships recharge ability?

Slowly. While the weapons are indeed fighting with the shields recharge ability, the rate of damage is much, much higher than the recharge rate.

In BC, I wanted to make shields recharge fully in 2 seconds when not under fire, is this idea canon?

Far, far from it. I watched "Equinox" a few days ago, and don't know where you got two seconds from, Ransom actually said it would take 45 seconds to fully recharge the emitters. However dropping shields in BC will not speed up there recharge rate (I've tried it many, many times).

Here's a breakdown of how BC's shield system works:

If your recharge rate is set to 30.000000, that means it will regain about 30 hit points every second, weather or not it is being attacked. The thing that makes it hard to notice the recharge rate is that the weapons are usually doing about 600-1700 damage per second to the shield. The recharge rate doesn't speed up or slow down past the value in the hardpoint if the shields are down or not, or if they are being attacked, so the only way you'll be able to achieve the effect you're looking for is to play with your hardpoints and set the recharge rates pretty high.

[Anew9]

Yes that's true that Ransom says 45 seconds to recharge, but Worf keeps referring to "reassembling the shields" especially during the Ent D battle with Husnock

. He says "shields down" like 4 times, how can the shields go up then down after every volley?

The only conclusion I can think of is that the shields recharge very fast but can only absorb an equal amount of energy it outputs per volley. IE If a shield has HP of 4000 it can only absorb 4000 HP in one volley then it fails.

When the tactical officer says, "Shields down to 70%." They are referring to how much HP is left from that volley, in order to collapse the shield more firepower will be needed. Its more about penetrating shields rather than by wearing them down.

Another example would be in Voyager's Unimatrix zero part 1 when Kim says, "Foward shields are down." Then 3 seconds later the cube is seen shooting at the foward shields... it's probably just a continuity issue but that Husnock fight may prove otherwise.

[Morgan]

I suppose it can go any number of ways, every incarnation of Star Trek from the Original Series to Voyager never handled shields consistently, so at the end of the day it comes down to the fact that its your install, set them up however you want.  

[Anew9]

Ya I know, but it just is a little frustrating that when I balance my ships my research becomes contradictory depending on the resources. Like for example, when I balance my Sovereign, how am I supposed to determine how many torpedoes it can take before its shields collapse? How about how many torpedoes to destroy its ablative armor then its hull? It doesnt say anywhere on how the shields work on the Sovvie or how strong they really are.

In some episodes Star trek ships seem to defy their own specs just for the sake of the plot for example Unimatrix zero... Voyager assaulted the Tact cube for a good 4 minutes without being destroyed yet it wasn't a match for a Malon frigate in the Night episode.

I took it that the Borg have spectacular defenses and dont really care about offense too much, so basically Voyager did no damage while she was hitting the cube yet was being slowly worn down by the cubes weapons slowly.

[Morgan]

Eh I would take what was seen in Voyager's later seasons with a grain of salt, at least from a tech point of view. After DS9 ended the Voyager writing staff pretty much stopped caring about continuity, ESPECIALLY regarding the Borg.

[DKealt]

Shields are a pain in BC and any Sci-Fi series in general. Mainly because it's a made up concept that has no practical working out. I found this a pain balancing the Stargate ships. In that series there were occasions where the shield seemed directly proportional to the power gong into them, essentially once the batteries ran flat the shields went down.

The best explanation I have is that 'energy shielding' in general works along the principal of creating an energy bubble around a ship with the aid of emitters installed along various points on the hull. Shields therefore absorb energy opposed to simply forming a solid barrier. In essence, shield have an energy absorption level. When it comes to recharging, its all to do with emitters. The more power you feed into them, the higher the energy absorption level rises, but that in itself has limits. An example would be trying to charge an iPod with a car battery, it would just explode if you put that much power into it.

Same analogy with that TNG ep. When the Shields drop, they have been overwhelmed, but they constantly recharge. The thing to also take into consideration is BC can't manipulate ship systems the way they should, ie you cant divert power to forward emitters to recharge them faster. In theory it's also possible to move the power from the aft portion to the front, so drop the rear to raise the front.

As for Voyager, yeh the tech on that show was never consistent. I will go far as to say in its defence that over the year it accumulated so much Borg/ 29th Century Borg tech that there was no way to guess what kind of power it had.

[Anew9]

Shields are a pain in BC and any Sci-Fi series in general. Mainly because it's a made up concept that has no practical working out. I found this a pain balancing the Stargate ships. In that series there were occasions where the shield seemed directly proportional to the power gong into them, essentially once the batteries ran flat the shields went down.

The best explanation I have is that 'energy shielding' in general works along the principal of creating an energy bubble around a ship with the aid of emitters installed along various points on the hull. Shields therefore absorb energy opposed to simply forming a solid barrier. In essence, shield have an energy absorption level. When it comes to recharging, its all to do with emitters. The more power you feed into them, the higher the energy absorption level rises, but that in itself has limits. An example would be trying to charge an iPod with a car battery, it would just explode if you put that much power into it.

Same analogy with that TNG ep. When the Shields drop, they have been overwhelmed, but they constantly recharge. The thing to also take into consideration is BC can't manipulate ship systems the way they should, ie you cant divert power to forward emitters to recharge them faster. In theory it's also possible to move the power from the aft portion to the front, so drop the rear to raise the front.

As for Voyager, yeh the tech on that show was never consistent. I will go far as to say in its defence that over the year it accumulated so much Borg/ 29th Century Borg tech that there was no way to guess what kind of power it had.

Well I have the boost shields mod installed on my BC so I can divert power to reinforce weakened shields but I am struggling with recharge rates and shield HP's. Me personally I have not watched DS9 so Im not too clear on the tech shown in that show apart from what I have seen on youtube with the Defiant. I watched the First battle of Chintoka with the orbital platfroms and saw the defiant take direct hits on her shields yet she showed no damage but when a logically stronger ship like a Galaxy class got shot at she was ripped to shreds in 1 volley... how can a tiny ship like defiant outclass flagships like the Galaxy class?

... I never really liked that ship, it seemed way too strong/cheap.

[Nebula]

Saw the defiant take direct hits on her shields yet she showed no damage but when a logically stronger ship like a Galaxy class got shot at she was ripped to shreds in 1 volley... how can a tiny ship like defiant outclass flagships like the Galaxy class?

Easy the defiant is faster so it can maneuver around some of the weapon fire better than the larger ships it also has new armor... so it's hull is slightly stronger.... but it isn't invincible. I can also explain away the galaxy getting its ass kicked by saying it was in a firefight before we saw it and it's shields were taken down quite a bit. I may need to watch the ep again but I think simple tactics can explain this... I think I'd want to focus on the heavy hitters first lol.

[Morgan]

how can a tiny ship like defiant outclass flagships like the Galaxy class?

DS9 actually explained the Defiant pretty well. It was built specifically to fight the Borg, and its crew accommodations are probably only a leg up from those found on a shuttle craft to make room for weapons, shield generators, and it has pretty durable hull armor. It can also dodge incoming fire easily, unlike the Galaxy (being the behemoth it is).

The Galaxy may be well armed, but its older, and it was designed and built before the Borg and the Dominion threats emerged.

When you think about it the Galaxy is sort of a flawed design technologically. When it was introduced it didn't include any new innovations, only a culmination of current technology. Only a few years after it was introduced the Borg came along and made the Galaxy's technology obsolete almost over night.

[Anew9]

Saw the defiant take direct hits on her shields yet she showed no damage but when a logically stronger ship like a Galaxy class got shot at she was ripped to shreds in 1 volley... how can a tiny ship like defiant outclass flagships like the Galaxy class?

Easy the defiant is faster so it can maneuver around some of the weapon fire better than the larger ships it also has new armor... so it's hull is slightly stronger.... but it isn't invincible. I can also explain away the galaxy getting its ass kicked by saying it was in a firefight before we saw it and it's shields were taken down quite a bit. I may need to watch the ep again but I think simple tactics can explain this... I think I'd want to focus on the heavy hitters first lol.

Again, I have not seen the show fully so I don't know what happend before or after that battle. IF this is true, then I need to rebalance my ships AGAIN! How long before the Chintoka scene was that Galaxy in a fight? Im trying to create recharge rates for shields based on the show...

[Morgan]

Well if it helps Galaxy's did fare quite well in the Dominion War, after they had been upgraded. DS9 only showed the Odyssey being destroyed in the second season.

How long before the Chintoka scene was that Galaxy in a fight?

It was in the first battle in its entirely, the battle was won. The Galaxy just took damage.

Despite DITL's reputation, its article on the Defiant-class is actually 85% reliable, along with the Galaxy-class. I'd suggest taking a look at those.

[Anew9]

So basically your saying that the recharge rates on shields are slower than I am stating. The HP of shields needs to be dependent on what ship I am using. Sigh, Unimatrix zero makes balancing the Intrepid almost impossible unless she had equal shielding to the Galaxy class which is retarded since she had problems with the Kazon...

[Nebula]

what makes you think they didn't divert power from other systems or from shields facing away from the side in battle :/

[Anew9]

what makes you think they didn't divert power from other systems or from shields facing away from the side in battle :/

So basically your saying that SFC3 shields are canon in comparison to BC. Can someone make a mod like that, have the ability to reinforce shields so they are 2x stronger at one vector and have the opposite shield become 50 - 70% weaker?

[Nebula]

IIRC I think there was a mod like that made.... and I think it was defiant who made it.... it might be in KM.

[Morgan]

Sigh, Unimatrix zero makes balancing the Intrepid almost impossible

Honestly dude, the best way to make your life easier is to simply IGNORE that battle, or, if you don't want to do that, I just rationalize it by assuming the Cube wasn't going all out on Voyager (they wanted to assimilate it, not destroy it, plus it was only one ship, so they didn't need to use so every weapon they had). I know you're going for canon, but that battle was just a plot device, don't let it determine how your whole game is balanced.

[Vladko1]

You can make this. I played with HPs recently and I made the shields like that:
2000 shield strengh and 180 shield recharge and It was pritty same like in star trek. If I Fire 5-6 Photons at one time, I can penatrate the shield and damage the hull sevearly and It was tough, but If I fire torpedoes slowly, the battle took very long, and It was very cool