Why Do Federation Ships Go Around With Shields Down Most of the Time?

[Kor]

In the III novelization, the cloaking device was said to cause madness at times:

It would definitely be freaky if everything and everyone around were slightly transparent.

Kor

 

[Ithekro]

The cloaking device being off allows more power to weapons, shields, engines, sensors, and whatever else a ship might need in combat. If firing while cloaked is nominally ineffective, than it be better to use that power elsewhere. Especially on a smaller ship like the various races' Birds of Prey.

 

[TwoJakes]

It would definitely be freaky if everything and everyone around were slightly transparent.

Wasn't there something like that in the original version of The Cage?

Pike orders the ship to warp and we can see stars passing superimposed as we view the bridge, thankfully this was dropped in the second pilot and subsequent episodes.

 

[Timo]

We can debate whether the transparency thing in "The Cage" was just "artistic license", an unusual portrayal of standard warp travel - or something the heroes themselves would personally experience. The intriguing thing there is that Pike and his officers seem to resort to hand signs during the effect, as if they wouldn't be able to hear each other...

Perhaps it's just Number One's irritating habit of turning the knobs to eleven for her pedal-to-metal music whenever they engage warp?

Timo Saloniemi