Holo-cloaks

[Unicron]

Not sure if this idea was mentioned in any other sources, but Starfleet Command 3 introduced an interesting plot device for the Romulan campaign. They modified some of their cloaks to act like hologram projectors, so that instead of making the ship invisible they could match the appearance of another ship. The Romulans then began to undermine the Federation-Klingon alliance by posing as one group and attacking the other side.

It's an interesting strategy, though the game implies it still has some weaknesses. The ships still use their normal weaponry, and it seems a little odd that nobody detected an unusual weapons signature that wasn't Fed or Klingon. The ship might run into trouble if the cloak is damaged too, since it has no stealth capacity.

 

[SonicRanger]

The Romulans used this tactic in ENT too.

 

[Unicron]

Yeah, I seem to recall that now. I'd imagine that the system from the ENT era was fairly power intensive compared to the modern one used in SFC3, since the Romulans hadn't perfected practical cloaks yet.

 

[AlxxlA]

Speaking of which, why not use holoemitters to project aerodynamic surfaces, i.e. wings, onto a ship which is not otherwise airworthy.

 

[Verteron]

Speaking of which, why not use holoemitters to project aerodynamic surfaces, i.e. wings, onto a ship which is not otherwise airworthy.

Why not just project the entire ship, floors, walls, warp engines and all?

 

[Reverend]

Probably because it would take more energy to sustain it than it would to build it for real. That and real objects don't disappear when you loose power.

As for using holograms for generating aerodynamic surfaces, I imaging existing shield technology dose that just as well, since most shuttlecraft aren't exactly aerodynamic anyway.

 

[Jono]

Activision also created the Incursion class for the Feds for the game, Star Trek: Away Team that used a holographic generator to disguise the ship as any other known design. It also had a cameo in the final mission of Star Trek: Armada 2.

 

[Jimmy_C]

Speaking of which, why not use holoemitters to project aerodynamic surfaces, i.e. wings, onto a ship which is not otherwise airworthy.

A holoemitter is just a high-precision force-field projector (ie "photons in force-fields"). They probably could, but it is probably more effective just to either shape the shields to provide an aerodynamic body... Or instead just project the force-field downward and use that as thrust against gravity.