Firing phasers/torpedos

[RobertScorpio]

When a ship, no matter if its Federation/Romulan/Klingon, fires its weapons, how do they not hit the shields that protect them? Are they like propellers of a plane that are timed at the speed of the shot? or do force fields only work one way...

I ask this because my son asked me..and he's only 7..and I had no idea...

What do the experts say?

Rob

 

[Crazy Eddie]

^ They only work one way.

 

[RobertScorpio]

^ They only work one way.

cool....thanks..

Rob

 

[6079SmithW]

I think the weapons are in phase with the shield frequency. That was the point in the "Generations" battle. Normally two dueling ships have no way of knowing what each other's shield frequency is.

 

[Timo]

But that would mean that the enemy can tell your shield frequency simply by reading the frequency of your phaser beams as they hit him!

Doesn't sound likely. If that were true, shields would have to be rotated after each outgoing phaser shot, and we never hear of such a thing taking place.

The one-way shields idea is a bit more likely in light of current evidence.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[RobertScorpio]

Hmmm..it is an interesting question. So what about the Doomsday Machine? When Matt Decker flies his shuttlecraft out of the enterprise, (or Obrien/worf in BoBW) he must have passed through some kind of energy field, like a wall. And once on the otherside, had he returned,he would have hit the shield...

I guess the one way shield makes the most sense too...

Rob

 

[6079SmithW]

Ah well. I guess it goes to show how stupid the battle in "Generations" was. Doesn't Worf say something like, "They have found a way to penetrate our shields!"? Well, just remodulate the shield frequency like with the Borg battles.

Speaking of the Borg, that's sort of related indirectly to my previous post: If you continuously change your weapon frequency while battling the Borg you can eventually get some shots through their shields. So you can defeat one-way shields by switching up weapon frequencies, unless I misunderstood something about the ways the Enterprise fought the Borg.

 

[6079SmithW]

Hmmm..it is an interesting question. So what about the Doomsday Machine? When Matt Decker flies his shuttlecraft out of the enterprise, (or Obrien/worf in BoBW) he must have passed through some kind of energy field, like a wall. And once on the otherside, had he returned,he would have hit the shield...

I guess the one way shield makes the most sense too...

Rob

When the combined Dominion/Cardassian fleet assaults DS9, you will notice that their weapons are impacting the stations shields and you can see the shimmer effect. DS9's weapons, however, shoot off into space and into the ships without any shimmer or interference. So, yeah one-way shields.

 

[RobertScorpio]

that is some kind of technology


Rob

 

[Timo]

Well, just remodulate the shield frequency like with the Borg battles.

What good would that do, when your Chief Engineer always relays the latest settings to the enemy ASAP?

So what about the Doomsday Machine? When Matt Decker flies his shuttlecraft out of the enterprise, (or Obrien/worf in BoBW) he must have passed through some kind of energy field, like a wall.

I don't think the shields were even up in the relevant scene in "The Doomsday Machine"...

However, several TNG-era shows and movies feature scenes where a forcefield is holding back the atmosphere of a shuttlebay, and a shuttle effortlessly flies through that forcefield. This need not be related to one-way shields in any manner, because a shield might easily be configured so that it doesn't let air (at 1 atm pressure) through but will let a shuttle (at, say, 50 atm pressure) push its way through, both ways.

One might have to drop combat-strength shields to let a shuttle out. Then again, torpedoes (which are basically mini-shuttles) fly out through combat-strength shields easily enough, even when the enemy is futilely firing at those shields from the outside. More proof that shields are one-way, also when it comes to matter or physical objects attempting to penetrate them.

that is some kind of technology

But IMHO no less plausible than two-way shields. Indeed, it might be twice as hard to rig a two-way shield...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[6079SmithW]

Well, just remodulate the shield frequency like with the Borg battles.

What good would that do, when your Chief Engineer always relays the latest settings to the enemy ASAP?

Point taken, but Geordie and the rest of the crew had no idea that Geordie was compromised. I guess my main beef with the scenario was that they didn't even attempt a shield modulation strategy as they had during past encounters with the Borg. Granted the tactic would have failed due to LaForge's inadvertent relaying, as you mentioned. Perhaps we could say they tried and failed during cut scenes.

Anyway, here's another shield question: Are there any advantages/disadvantages to having the close skin wrap shield (like in Nemesis) as opposed to the traditional bubble shield? Is there even a significant difference between the two?

 

[SoM]

oAnyway, here's another shield question: Are there any advantages/disadvantages to having the close skin wrap shield (like in Nemesis) as opposed to the traditional bubble shield? Is there even a significant difference between the two?

Well, you'd need more emitters (since each would cover a smaller area, since it can "see" a far smaller area at such close range), and even with each putting out less power, they could easily turn into an energy hog. Plus, in the event of partial shield failure (either complete failure partway through a detonation, or a significant weakening of the shields so that the attack is blunted but not stopped), you'll sustain that much more damage for the same energy penetration if the detonation occurs at closer range.

On the other hand, by projecting closer and with more emitters, the shield may be stronger in an absolute sense (albeit at the energy cost I mentioned).

 

[T'Girl]

More proof that shields are one-way ...

Another piece of evidense is the fact that you can see the ship while the shields are up, even with maximum shields. If the shields were two way the ship would disappear, which might be a possible explanation of a cloaking device. The cloak doesn't so much selectively bend light, as it just holds every type of energy inside.

 

[Captain Rob]

Just my 2 cents: Isn't it in one of the tech manuals how the shields work? That by utilizing transporter-like technology that the pattern of the hardest known substance is called up and materialized as a layer surrounding the ship but as energy only. And that layer is continously replenished.

 

[Deks]

What if the computer automatically opens up a small enough hole for the phasers/torpedoes so they can reach their respective targets?
The opening appears at the same time the phaser beam goes through, and disappears the moment it's stopped.

It's not inconceivable they can do this (taking into consideration what kind of shield manipulation technology they exhibited since the TOS days.

It's possible that having hull-tight shields doesn't require as much energy as say an actual shield bubble which is several meters away from the hull.

Although, in Year of Hell, when Voyager managed to create their temporal shields to protect against the Krenim torpedoes, those were hull-tight.

So it's quite likely that a shield-bubble type is a standard for a period of time, and then after Voyager got back home, they switched to hull-tight shields, reserving bubble type shields so they can encompass them around other ships that need protection.

It's possible anyway ... but I'd dare say the power requirements for keeping up a shield bubble a few meters away from the hull (I think it was more in kilometers before) is virtually no different to having them hull-tight in terms of power requirement ... or it's such a minor difference it doesn't really matter.

 

[Timo]

Perhaps we could say they tried and failed during cut scenes.

No doubt they did. And it could have ended in two ways:

1) LaForge rotates perhaps thrice, sees that there is no effect, and decides that rotation is not the answer.

2) LaForge rotates perhaps thrice, sees that there is no effect, and smells the rat; he performs a little experiment, telling a colleague of his to do the rotating while LaForge himself stands back - and when the next Klingon bolt fails to penetrate, LaForge points a tricorder at himself, eventually locates the bug, and removes it. Way too late to save the ship, of course.

What if the computer automatically opens up a small enough hole for the phasers/torpedoes so they can reach their respective targets?

Quite possible. OTOH, similar holes apparently cannot be created for transporter beams; perhaps any beam passing through a narrow hole is distorted to a degree, and while a phaser beam doesn't mind, a transporter beam does!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Myasishchev]

But that would mean that the enemy can tell your shield frequency simply by reading the frequency of your phaser beams as they hit him!

Doesn't sound likely. If that were true, shields would have to be rotated after each outgoing phaser shot, and we never hear of such a thing taking place.

We don't hear of bowel movements, either, but they're no doubt there.

I like the propeller-timing analogy. I see no reason why rotation couldn't occur on a set schedule, or choice of schedules without any need to specifically or manually do anything. One-way shields, on the other hand, make no sense to me.

 

[Crewman47]

Not sure where I'm getting this from, but hasn't there been a tactic used on Star Trek where to get through shields you specify your weapons to target your enemies weapons ports and emitters and as soon as they fire you can try and get a shot in at them at that spot cause the shield would be weaker at that moment to allow the phaser or torpedo to pass through?

 

[USS Jack Riley]

Ah well. I guess it goes to show how stupid the battle in "Generations" was. Doesn't Worf say something like, "They have found a way to penetrate our shields!"? Well, just remodulate the shield frequency like with the Borg battles.

Not to mention the fact that if the Klingon vessel had any semblance of tactical knowledge, they would have targetted the bridge first. But I digress.

 

[Timo]

We don't hear of bowel movements, either, but they're no doubt there.

But our heroes do rotate shields nowadays - and when they do so for the first time, in "Best of Both Worlds", it's considered downright revolutionary! That seriously undermines the idea that the shield frequency would have been rotated at any earlier point in Starfleet history, let alone every time the heroes fired a phaser...

One-way shields, on the other hand, make no sense to me.

Why not? Gravity is one-way, and the backstage books claim shields are suspended gravitons or somesuch. We can't create two-way gravity today, nor do we have the faintest idea of how to do it in the future...

Of course, our Trek heroes have indeed figured out how to do two-way gravity. Indeed, they can manipulate it at will. But that automatically means they can manipulate it into one-way shields (either direction), into two-way shields, and into "shields" that do not repel in either direction. And the most beneficial variant of those would of course be the "outgoing allowed" variant.

Not to mention the fact that if the Klingon vessel had any semblance of tactical knowledge, they would have targetted the bridge first.

They couldn't - they were under the saucer. They'd have to maneuver first to line up that opening shot, and this would certainly alert our heroes.

Really, in TNG, every small adversary vessel ends up being under the saucer of the E-D when there's a rendezvous or a faceoff. I'm beginning to think that this is deliberate Starfleet tactics: the big ship chooses her position so that the bulk of the saucer blocks the enemy from firing at the bridge, whereas the forward torpedo tubes point straight at the enemy...

Timo Saloniemi