chen@gitpyr.UUCP (Ray Chen) (11/26/85)
Regarding the lowering of the shields in A Taste of etc...
I though Scotty had moved the ship further out in orbit so that
it was out of range of the planetary disruptors. (If I'm wrong,
send me *mail*, don't post, please...)
In any case, everything I've seen or read (with that possible exception)
indicates that it's impossible to transport through shields. This makes
a great deal sense since the shields are supposed to protect the ship
from (among other things) E&M radiation.
About the cloaking device. The explanation I've seen is that the
conditions for cloaking are precise enough so that cloaking can be
disrupted fairly easily if you know a ship is cloaking and have
some knowledge about the cloaking device being used.
My guess would be that it's very difficult to cloak a capital ship
well enough to make it worth while in terms of power costs and
other restrictions necessary for the cloaking effect. For one thing,
I'd think that the bigger the ship, the more difficult it'd be to
mask effects that could trigger motion sensors such as the space warp
effects caused by an operating warp drive.
Cloaking devices would probably prove very useful for scout ships
and spy ships and they can afford to trade weaponry off for the
necessary power generation. In addition, the movement restrictions
wouldn't matter to those ships since if they're in unfriendly territory,
they usually spend most of their time sneaking about anyway.
Ray Chen
gitpyr!chen
Georgia Insitute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!chen