How does "target shield generators" work?
- Thread starter Luckyflux
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Nope. He didn't shoot to kill either Redjac or the Space Amoeba. Hell, he didn't even shoot to kill the Klingon guards when the Federation and the Klingon Empire were at a declared state of war! He explicitly used the stun setting as his preferred weapon of war.
The only entity anybody in Kirk's crew ever shot "in cold blood" was the Salt Vampire. And Bones fired on the creature twice; the first shot, obviously at harmless stun because it spared the life of the other target Kirk, simply didn't stop the deadly attack of the opponent.
(Of course, I'm sure the four redshirts that valiantly fought Nomad had their phasers set on maximum kill and then some. Didn't help them any, though.)
Timo Saloniemi
I think that it is right that even when the shields are up at full strength, small amounts of energy get through; so targeting the shield generators, after enough hits, would get that section of the shields to fail.
Another question would be, if you're going to target a point on a ship, why just use one weapon at a time?
Let's say you're coming up on a Romulan Warbird right at its starboard nacelle, why not fire a full volley of Photons torpedoes right at a small point of the shield, say the direct center of the nacelle, then follow it with as many phaser hits as you can? A targeted attack like that should collapse that area of shielding and destroying or severally damage the nacelle crippling and/or destroying the ship.
Another question would be, if you're going to target a point on a ship, why just use one weapon at a time?
Let's say you're coming up on a Romulan Warbird right at its starboard nacelle, why not fire a full volley of Photons torpedoes right at a small point of the shield, say the direct center of the nacelle, then follow it with as many phaser hits as you can? A targeted attack like that should collapse that area of shielding and destroying or severally damage the nacelle crippling and/or destroying the ship.
Let's give Trek Tech some love 
That would likely be because certain weapons are more affective versus sheilds as compared to the hull. The sheilds are also designed to defend the ship against space debris; a photon would cause more damage than a space rock, but it would still essentially be a giant, solid something impacting the sheilds. However, the phasers, being energy weapons, are likely more effective at draining the sheilds down. And, being energy weapons, the phasers would be better equipped to disable sub-systems because their yeild is more easily controlled.
I'd love some good treknobabble as to why shield power levels can't be re-charged while in use - perhaps some sort of closed circuit generation elements required to generate the shields which must be open circuit for re-charging with some time delay?
Does the Prometheus have regenerative shields?
Does the Prometheus have regenerative shields?
Not necessarily true given the fact that a shield generator can be buried inside a ship and use a projection system throughout the hulls exterior to generate a shield envelope.
The hull grids we see on virtually any starfleet ship could be the projection system the generator uses to create the shield envelope.
It's entirely possible that hitting a general area of the ship which stores main weapons systems and/or shields several times, it would be enough to disable the said systems.
During battle, several systems can go off-line if one of the other systems was an intended target.
All Seeing Eye
Admiral
I would imagine that when they say target shield generators or propulsion the shields still have to be weakened first to do it, so imagine they fire on a single spot the shield weakens and the shield generator is destroyed thus preventing the enemy ship from transfering power from elswhere to those shields to bring them back up to power.
Some have said why not keep the shield generators under deep cover but what good is that really, when theres no shields a phaser beam could easily puncture through an entire hull and hit the generator.
Yes.
Some have said why not keep the shield generators under deep cover but what good is that really, when theres no shields a phaser beam could easily puncture through an entire hull and hit the generator.
Yes.
Well, when the sheilds are getting the crap clobbered out of them, any recharge that occurs will likely be canceled out by another phaser blast
Indeed, during prolonged TNG-era battles, the shield percentages that the Tactical Officer quotes can go up as well as down; it doesn't take a spacedock visit to get the shields from 47% back to 100%. Probably the shields are always doing their best to stay up, but it takes several minutes to hike the strength back up by ten percentage points, even in the best of conditions. The shields are apparently somewhat analogous to electric capacitors in that sense, losing some of their "charge" with each hit but always being recharged at some finite rate.
In that sense, every Trek shield ever encountered is probably "regenerative". Indeed, despite the overtly talkative sales pitch of the Prometheus computer, we have no proof that it would be rare and impressive for a Starfleet vessel to have regenerative shielding or ablative armor. For all we know, those have been standard fare since the days of Kirk if not Archer. Certainly they have never been explicitly described as recent technological breakthroughs.
To call shielding "regenerative" is probably similar to calling a pistol "automatic". It's all centuries-old technology, but there may be a competing technology that is also centuries old, enjoys certain contemporary applications, and thus requires this sort of distinction to be made for clarity. A pistol today might have to be specified as a "revolver" to distinguish it from "automatic", even though there is no such thing as a "non-automatic" pistol in use today (except in sports).
Timo Saloniemi
In that sense, every Trek shield ever encountered is probably "regenerative". Indeed, despite the overtly talkative sales pitch of the Prometheus computer, we have no proof that it would be rare and impressive for a Starfleet vessel to have regenerative shielding or ablative armor. For all we know, those have been standard fare since the days of Kirk if not Archer. Certainly they have never been explicitly described as recent technological breakthroughs.
To call shielding "regenerative" is probably similar to calling a pistol "automatic". It's all centuries-old technology, but there may be a competing technology that is also centuries old, enjoys certain contemporary applications, and thus requires this sort of distinction to be made for clarity. A pistol today might have to be specified as a "revolver" to distinguish it from "automatic", even though there is no such thing as a "non-automatic" pistol in use today (except in sports).
Timo Saloniemi
The last two posts have really helped clear up my thinking on shield operation - thanks snowman1701 and Timo.
I seem to remember a reference to "multi-layer" shields somewhere. Does anyone know of a ship class quoted as having such?
I seem to remember a reference to "multi-layer" shields somewhere. Does anyone know of a ship class quoted as having such?
I believe the Sovereign Enterprise from the TNG movies had them.
We have seen layered and sectored shield graphics in the TOS movies, but that might not reflect "real" technological characteristics... We also witnessed the less than convincing dot symbology of ST2/3.
The only time we've heard on screen that the failure of a shield "layer" would be compensated by the existence of a "lower layer" is with the Scimitar in ST:NEM. But some novels and many fan works attribute such capabilities to various hero and villain vessels. Somehow, I think it just takes away from the drama, even if it were treknologically plausible.
Timo Saloniemi
The only time we've heard on screen that the failure of a shield "layer" would be compensated by the existence of a "lower layer" is with the Scimitar in ST:NEM. But some novels and many fan works attribute such capabilities to various hero and villain vessels. Somehow, I think it just takes away from the drama, even if it were treknologically plausible.
Timo Saloniemi
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