Shield Measurements

[Herkimer Jitty]

Something that I don't get is how Starfleet ships can so precisley measure the percentage of their shield strength? Is it a power drop? Why would the power drop if the generator gives a constant output? And how are the measurements so darn precise? I remember having decimals a couple of times.

 

[Timo]

No doubt the field generated by the generator can be measured in some futuristic units, just like a magnetic field can be given a strength or flux density in teslas or volt seconds per square meter, or intensity in amperes per meter. And it shouldn't be any wonder that the measurements involve a few decimals (I think the most we ever hear is one) if the quantity being measured is so immense. Let's say the shields of the E-D have a strength of 100,000 aegises; when they drop to 57,300 AE, surely it would be natural to say they are at 57.3 percent, if 300 AE is still more than the intact shielding of a runabout.

It seems that whatever quality of shield strength is being reduced by enemy hits, it regenerates once the pounding stops - probably within minutes, but clearly not within seconds. We could perhaps think of the shields as a brick wall: when the enemy catapults giant rocks into the wall, parts of it crumble, and the chain of serfs repairing it with bricks from the kiln with a bucket chain cannot refill it quickly enough. But as long as none of the catapulted rocks hit the bucket chain (which can be repaired easily) or the kiln (which is rather irreplaceable but protected by the wall), the wall will recover from attacks when given enough time. Provided, of course, that the kiln can be supplied with enough firewood and clay.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JNG]

The only thing that makes the detailed percentages hard to understand is the fact that we are not certain what exactly those percentages mean. Viewing it this way, we can take that fact that they are reported this way as a clue that they are referring to some aspect of shielding that discharges or declines at a measurable rate when exposed to some force exceeding a presumably known figure (below which the shields would "hold" without notably declining in effectiveness in the short term).

I still imagine many of these reports must be some sort of crunch-time spoken shorthand, considering all the factors they must be covering; after all, we sometimes hear references to multiple different shields that can decline at different rates, or have seen shield setups that appear to be odd shapes that conform closely to the hull instead of an integrated "bubble," or can imagine that some weapons may inflict continuing disruption to the shield over time, or that some disruption to the effectiveness is actually coming from physical damage to the grid along the hull that is "projecting" the field, and so on. It'd be a lot of information about the shields to explain quickly, and while it makes a shorthand report like "Shields down to half!" understandable in an emergency, it also makes the precision of "shields at 42.3 percent!" seem somewhat without purpose.

 

[Mister_Atoz]

I agree with Timo in that they probably have some way to quantify shield strength, but I also have an alternate theory about what the shield strengths refer to.

As I see it, each Deflector Shield has a generator that is kept charged up by the ship's main power source, for whatever reason it takes a long time to fully charge this generator. When the shields are actually raised, the energy is taken from the generator. As the shields are hit more energy is taken from the generator to deflect the damage. Repeated attacks will slowly deplete the energy stored in the generator, when the energy is drained completely the shields rely solely only on the power being actively supplied from the reactor.
The percentage the tactical officer gives would, in these case be refering to the amount of energy left in the generators before the shields buckle.

 

[Major Chord]

My thoughts exactly. The strength of the sheilds themselves is constant, but the amount of energy remaining to supply the sheilds to keep them at this constant strength is where the percentage comes from.

 

[Trekker4747]

My take on shields. From this thread.

 

[FUTURE]

The only thing that makes the detailed percentages hard to understand is the fact that we are not certain what exactly those percentages mean. Viewing it this way, we can take that fact that they are reported this way as a clue that they are referring to some aspect of shielding that discharges or declines at a measurable rate when exposed to some force exceeding a presumably known figure (below which the shields would "hold" without notably declining in effectiveness in the short term).

I still imagine many of these reports must be some sort of crunch-time spoken shorthand, considering all the factors they must be covering; after all, we sometimes hear references to multiple different shields that can decline at different rates, or have seen shield setups that appear to be odd shapes that conform closely to the hull instead of an integrated "bubble," or can imagine that some weapons may inflict continuing disruption to the shield over time, or that some disruption to the effectiveness is actually coming from physical damage to the grid along the hull that is "projecting" the field, and so on. It'd be a lot of information about the shields to explain quickly, and while it makes a shorthand report like "Shields down to half!" understandable in an emergency, it also makes the precision of "shields at 42.3 percent!" seem somewhat without purpose.

You are all wrong.Shield strength is a measure of how much energy they can absorb and dissipate from the attacks.Time is required for the absorbed energy to be dissipated hence the use of the words shields overloaded.

 

[Mister_Atoz]

we're wrong? would you to elaborate on how you cam to that conclusion from what is established on screen? because let's face it any explanation anyone comes up with here is speculation since the writers have remained purposely vague about how the shields operate because they really don't have a clue themselves.

 

[JNG]

The only thing that makes the detailed percentages hard to understand is the fact that we are not certain what exactly those percentages mean. Viewing it this way, we can take that fact that they are reported this way as a clue that they are referring to some aspect of shielding that discharges or declines at a measurable rate when exposed to some force exceeding a presumably known figure (below which the shields would "hold" without notably declining in effectiveness in the short term).

I still imagine many of these reports must be some sort of crunch-time spoken shorthand, considering all the factors they must be covering; after all, we sometimes hear references to multiple different shields that can decline at different rates, or have seen shield setups that appear to be odd shapes that conform closely to the hull instead of an integrated "bubble," or can imagine that some weapons may inflict continuing disruption to the shield over time, or that some disruption to the effectiveness is actually coming from physical damage to the grid along the hull that is "projecting" the field, and so on. It'd be a lot of information about the shields to explain quickly, and while it makes a shorthand report like "Shields down to half!" understandable in an emergency, it also makes the precision of "shields at 42.3 percent!" seem somewhat without purpose.

You are all wrong.Shield strength is a measure of how much energy they can absorb and dissipate from the attacks.Time is required for the absorbed energy to be dissipated hence the use of the words shields overloaded.

Considering the Starfleet shields involve a localized spatial distortion created with gravity and not an electromagnetic force field as some might expect, the mechanics of their requiring a certain amount of time to "dissipate" energy which has been prevented from reaching the hull get somewhat hazy. (Things get still hazier when I try to take into account that paragraph from the TNG Technical Manual about shields that split an incoming beam cross-section.)

But I didn't actually say anything about that before; I simply said the reports must involve some kind of shorthand because the percentages are unable to tell a whole story about what's going on with the shields, and this means the occasional high precision of the given percentages cannot always (or often?) be useful. This seems commonsensical to me and not especially "wrong."

TOS was a bit better about this, sometimes giving us more dramatic and easy-to-understand lines about how the ship cannot withstand one more attack, etc. I also liked when Spock once expressed the potency of a blast that struck the ship as "equivalent to ninety of our photon torpedoes" (something like that). I don't have to go through too many mental gymnastics to get a handle on what terrible news that is.

 

[Trekker4747]

Well, I'll agree with you on that.

The whole "Shields down to x%" thing is cliched as, honestly, it doesn't tell us much as viewers because we, as viewers, have no idea what that means regarding how many more hits the ship can take. More often that not it just serves as a "countdown" until when we "know" the ship will take damage.

Now, granted, "force equal to 90 of our torpedoes" doesn't give us all that much more information but it does tell us the ship was hit with a LARGE explosion and survived.

But the whole "shield precentage countdown" cliche is played.