The Infiltrator

[Thorin]

Good point, but still there's no real reason you couldn't fire from phase cloak. Even if you couldn't fire from phase cloak, when you want to fire, revert to normal cloak, then revert right after back to phase cloak, so even if they do track where the projectile came from, whatever they fire at you would pass straight through. Repeat.

[Captain Seafort]

Wasn't that cloak different to the phase cloak, though?

Not only that, but the phase cloak works both ways - its weapons would pass harmlessly through its opponents.

[Granitehewer]

i'm sure that they would be a way to phase-attenuate the torpedos, mid-transit, but still classically funny image

[Sionnach Glic]

Possibly, but that may involve sticking a phase cloak onto the torpedo itself, which would be far too costly to even consider.

[Captain Seafort]

i'm sure that they would be a way to phase-attenuate the torpedos, mid-transit, but still classically funny image

We've seen what happens when phase-cloaked weapons are fired in "The Next Phase" - they're perfectly effective against other phased objects, but against unphased matter they just produce the particle-of-the-week.

[Thorin]

i'm sure that they would be a way to phase-attenuate the torpedos, mid-transit, but still classically funny image

We've seen what happens when phase-cloaked weapons are fired in "The Next Phase" - they're perfectly effective against other phased objects, but against unphased matter they just produce the particle-of-the-week.

Like I said, revert to normal cloak for the duration of the weapons fire, then go back to phased.
But I'm sure that they would go back to normal phase - there's nothing keeping them phased. For example, if a cloaking device doesn't exist, the matter doesn't cloak. It's default position is uncloaked/unphased. The same with a torpedo, once it's left the ship there's no phase cloak generator keeping it phase-cloaked. Unless once you cloak something, it permanently stays like that regardless of whether there is a cloaking device? But we know that's not the case as we've seen cloaking devices break many times, causing the ship to de-cloak.
So the torpedos should revert to normal phase and uncloaked once they have left the cloaking range/field.

[Captain Seafort]

It depends what type of cloak you're using. If it's a Pegasus-type then it apparently requires a constant power input, like any other cloak. If it's a Romulan type objects apparently remain cloaked until action is taken to un-cloak them.

There's also the huge question of whether it's even possible to fire through the cloak. We've seen precisly two ships capable of doing so - one leaked plasma all over the place, the other was a ginormous great battleship. The first was pretty easy to find and destroy once that weakness had been figured out. The second, despite having a 'perfect' cloak was visible to the naked eye while dropping out of warp and firing weapons, and was hit repeatedly during the battle, even before Troi used her reverse-telepathy trick. This seems to indicate that its cloak wasn't actually that good, and probably managed to avoid detection over Romulus by taking special measures such as shutting down most power sources and running silent.

[Thorin]

It depends what type of cloak you're using. If it's a Pegasus-type then it apparently requires a constant power input, like any other cloak. If it's a Romulan type objects apparently remain cloaked until action is taken to un-cloak them.

There's also the huge question of whether it's even possible to fire through the cloak. We've seen precisly two ships capable of doing so - one leaked plasma all over the place, the other was a ginormous great battleship. The first was pretty easy to find and destroy once that weakness had been figured out. The second, despite having a 'perfect' cloak was visible to the naked eye while dropping out of warp and firing weapons, and was hit repeatedly during the battle, even before Troi used her reverse-telepathy trick. This seems to indicate that its cloak wasn't actually that good, and probably managed to avoid detection over Romulus by taking special measures such as shutting down most power sources and running silent.

The cloak was perfect - I can understand silent running over Romulus, but it was following the E-E at probably well over warp 9, and the flagship of the fleet couldn't find any trace of it. And the phased cloak isn't a romulan type cloak, it's just its own cloak, Federation type, thus Pegasus type, it did require constant power. So the weapons would almost definitely uncloak/unphase as they left the range of the cloak. Remember that they managed to hit it so many times out of firing blind - Worf let out about 50 phaser bursts at zero elevation to find it. Once a weapon had already hit it, it wouldn't be that hard to see where that weapon hit it, it wasn't done by tracking back the disrupters/torpedos to where they originated. It is possible to fire through cloak, then, and the torpedos would realistically de-phase and decloak. Even if the cloak itself sucked (which there is no reason to believe), and they could find out where it is, all weapons would pass straight through her.

[Captain Seafort]

There's still no evidence of being able to fire from a phase-cloaked ship - the ability to phase cloak and the ability to fire while cloaked (which has only been demonstrated twice, a century apart, and both prototypes were destroyed).

They shouldn't have been able to hit the thing at all. Even if the E-E had been able to put up a flack wall like nBSG, the shots would spread out so much that they'd miss. The Scimitar must have been within a few km of the E-E at most for that to have worked, and probably a lot less. Assuming that the Enterprise could fire phaser bursts one degree apart, after just 6 km, the bursts would be 100 m apart. The bursts she actually fired looked more like 10-20 degrees apart, putting at least a kilometre bweteen bursts (wide enough to bracket the Scimitar) at 6km.

[DarkOmen]

Well, since i designed it, i will put the endall down and say it can't... i must uncloak to fire.

Unless rochey says otherwise, thats final



... for now at least

[Sionnach Glic]

Yeah, I was going to have to make them uncloak to fire.
The Laithans have to have some way of taking them down, and it fits in with what we've seen about cloaks already.

[DarkOmen]

Yeah, I was going to have to make them uncloak to fire.
The Laithans have to have some way of taking them down, and it fits in with what we've seen about cloaks already.

lol... i hope its a battle between like 200 laithan ships and the Infiltrator lol... 1 down, 199 to go...

[Mikey]

But I'm sure that they would go back to normal phase - there's nothing keeping them phased. For example, if a cloaking device doesn't exist, the matter doesn't cloak. It's default position is uncloaked/unphased. The same with a torpedo, once it's left the ship there's no phase cloak generator keeping it phase-cloaked. Unless once you cloak something, it permanently stays like that regardless of whether there is a cloaking device? But we know that's not the case as we've seen cloaking devices break many times, causing the ship to de-cloak.

Unfortunately, in the arena of 'Trek, common sense does not overrule onscreen evidence. In TNG: "The Next Phase," to which Seafort already alluded, the Romulan science officer's weapon remained in phase-cloak - and only able to affect other phased targets - even when the phase cloak was shut down and the weapon was being used on AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT SHIP. Until canon proves otherwise, we must presume that other weapons would be affected similarly.

[Captain Seafort]

It depends on which phase cloak technology you're using. While the Romulan version left the cloaked object cloaked until action was taken to de-cloak it, the Federation version, seen in "The Pegasus", worked the same way as a normal cloak. The reason the eponymous ship turned up at all was that the cloak's power failed, causing it to de-cloak immediately, and partialy fuse with the asteroid it was passing through at the time.

[Sionnach Glic]

Okay, since we're on the subject of cloaks, I thought I'd just throw this out here.
Do shields work while a phase cloak is on? Something keeps nudging me towards 'no', but I can't remember any canon evidence to back it up.