https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Deflector_shield Here's what I can remember off the top of my head. 1) Hull of the ship as part of the emitters spread across the etchings on the hull in TNG era -> Conformal Ship Contour shaped -> Large Ovaloid field that protects the ship/base 2) Deflector Dish -> Navigational Field that pushes out Micro Metorites -> Large Ovaloid field that protects the ship/base -> DS9 uses 3x Deflector Dishes to protect the core area. 3) Emitters on the edge of a door frame that form a wall to create a 2D Force Field 4) Hidden emitters in between decks that create force fields of various shapes and angles that can potentially trap personnel 5) Borg has them built into the body and create force fields right above the surface of their body 6) Portable Holographic Emitter can create arbitrary shapes like the EMH 7) Larger Portable Holograhic Emitters can create arbitrary shapes in a giant area near it. 8) 'The Hunters' had arm mounted Shields that absorbed energy and functioned like a 'Deflector Shield' in essence Are there other methods of emitting / creating a force field or creative ways of making one? Alpha / Beta cannon is fine. I know in the StarWars Universe, the Star Destroyers have their shield emitters mounted in spherical orb units near the main bridge. https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/ISD-72x_deflector_shield_generator_dome I'm sure in a future Star Trek you can have something similar built into deep into the hull of the vessel. And the Nova Class has it such that if you take down the Shields, you can quick recharge the Shield Emitters to 100% in 45 seconds. Makes you wonder why they didn't have multiple Shield Emitter systems that can rotate On/Off and protect the ship. A piece of tech to improve StarFleet ship survivability in the future.
The Borg seem to have a more solid force shield--similar to what we saw in Dune--but for drones only...
The Borg seem to at least have standardized shields per drone. How often do we see Humanoid species roam around on a away mission without ANY personal shielding of any sort and random crap starts to happen to them that gets them killed? ALL the freaking damn time. If you at least had personal shields, the death rate of your crew might be alot shorter / less frequent.
I wonder how few deaths there would be in StarFleet if every away mission crew member had a personal force field.
Here's an interesting take on Photon Deflector Shields @ the 5:39 mark on the following video on the Alcubierre-Froning Warp Drive: I can see a similar Deflector Screen/Shield system for TOS with most of the photon frequencies transmitted outside the visible spectrum so the ship doesn't brightly glow all the time. With a very small bleed over into the visible spectrum, this may explain why we can see the ship even in deep space with no external light source, the ship just has an ambient level of glow. The ship may continuously have a low level navigation deflector screen active at times since either the ship is mostly moving around in space, even in planet orbits, or space debris can come from any direction at any time. In combat, the screens are turned on at full force but the power drain is terrible.
Good catch: Judging by their glow, photon force fields, too. I assume the fanny pack carried the air supply system.
You would think those would be standard by now. If Worf could whip one up in the holodeck out of 19th century parts, surely Starfleet in the 24th century could make a version that would fit into a belt.
STO added a line in their backstory that - up until then - it was too technically challenging to create a personal shield that could keep up with the power of personal weapons (which could, canonically, vaporize several cubic meters of rock or lower-quality metals). As for attacks with more primitive weapons? Shields seem to be bad against (relatively) low-velocity projectiles and Starfleet medical tech is good enough to repair/revive from such injuries. Worf's jury-rigged field was to defend against an inhumanly-accurate shooter. AND it deflects the bullet - Starfleet might prefer not to cause ricochets into innocent bystanders (and can't just grab them like Superman).
StarShip shields can deflect slow moving debris coming at the ship. Just look at Star Trek: Nemesis where the shields of the Enterprise protected it from the debris of from a Valdore Class Warbird flying into it at relatively slow speeds. Shields can handle projectiles at any speed as long as you set it up to deal with it. The fact that Force Fields / Shields can stop people from penetrating it, it's obviously a setting somewhere that users can adjust the sensors to turn on the shields for incoming objects faster than a certain speed.
Same in the SW universe. But, for canonical works it seems to be a matter of power supply against constant attack. Star Trek has general portrayed things like shields as being bigger=better so a smaller shield might handle small arms fire for short durations, but prolonged attack impacts their function. But, it is a very popular video game mechanic to explain why the characters are not dead immediately.
I always assume it is far easier to create destructive energy or missile weapons than to protect against same. A hand phaser blast is very difficult to defend against (unless you are Nomad with the power to create a blast equivalent to 90 photon torpedoes).