Ablative armor

[Captain Seafort]

The optimum would for the armour to be just that - a high density metal or ceramic that does not rely on a continuous power source to operate. This would have two major advantages.

1) When the power fails the ship is still protected.
2) The NDF effect of phasers is noticeably less effective against high density material than against low density material (ie people) or shields.
3) The armour does not need to be set to a particular frequency (as shields do so as to allow the ships own weapons to fir through them) and so would not be vulnerable to frequency-matching tricks such as that used by the Duras sisters in Generations.

[Pi3Orionis]

OK, but if it were merely a physical, matter-based barrier, why would their be any need to raise and lower it like shields? Voyager would have flipped it on once, and left the ship armored forever after. Also, I don't think any conventional armor material would have been so much more effective than shields. Certainly not against Borg weapons, which we've seen cut through starship hulls like a hot knife through butter. To say nothing of just plain transporter beams, which seem to only be blocked by many, many tons of dense material (or a powerful force field).

I've also got some thoughts regarding power usage. I will say that always bothered me on some level -- at some point, you just have to wave your hand and let creative license do its part. I have to imagine that it probably took the entire power output of Voyager's EPS (if only for a few seconds, or few minutes) to initially prime the system and form the armor plates. After that point, though, you'd only have to flux more power in to replace armor material as it is lost at the point of impact (and then some amount of maintenance power, depending on where one believes this "armor" sits on the matter/energy spectrum) It's possible that the major advantage is that the generated ablative armor is like a huge capacitor. You have to dump massive amounts of energy into it, but once it's there it's going to take a lot of damage to dissipate it. That would explain why the armor was so resistant to the sheer power of Borg weapons, but was still whittled away percent by percent.

[Teaos]

Your idea for the armmor while interesting is a bit to powerful. I think it is just a fast acting replactor system that cover a ship in a layer of armor.

The reason for not covering the ship the whole time its to not cover windows and weapons and also make it look less powerful than what it is.

[Devore Sergez]

In my Own opinion Ablative Armor was Grafted to the hull of Starships however Voyager didnt thus the use of Generators. The reason the weapons were covered was Structural integerety if there is a hole in that it would weaken it. Yes it Looked cool but maybe a little too cool and not within Reasonable Operation. In Endgame they could have given them a new Sheild Generator and called it good...

[Teaos]

Shields dont seem to work very well against the Borg which is why the technology was made.

[Mikey]

...which is why it was used on the Defiant, although not with the more advanced generator system. If Voyager's system was, in fact, replicated, how can we explain the use of such a system when raw replicator material was so restricted that they had to get a cook and trade for foodstuffs?

[Teaos]

This has already been discused. They could just stock up on raw minerals in an astroid belt. They wouldn't need the many substanes needed for food.

[Mikey]

...and going back to the beginning, then why remove it when you're done? Why not just replace the damaged areas as necessary? Surely running the generators "in reverse" as it were represents a needless energy cost?

[Teaos]

And repeating the thread again... Because Starfleet doesn't like to project "Warships" thus the high armor all the time is a bad image for them. Also they wouldnt want it on windows.

And really how often is a NORMAL starship in combat? Almost never.

[Captain Seafort]

I expect the armour blocks things like transporters and sensors, given that it covers both sensor palets and the emitters. Same reason ships don't keep their shields up constantly.

[Mikey]

Because Starfleet doesn't like to project "Warships" thus the high armor all the time is a bad image for them.

I meant specifically in Voyager's case, where energy savings would be much more important. And if they can figure out how to expose weapon ports, but not sensor or transporter emitters, something's really wrong...

[Les]

This form of Ablative armor would also render Voyager incapable of warp travel, since it's basicly a solid layer of armor and Voyager relies on variable-geometry nacelles. Also I'm convinced that covering a nacelle (i.e. the blue glow-y bits) reduces it's efficiency so even if Voyager had been of conventional desgin it'd probably be a slowpoke at warp if it tried traveling with it's armor up all the time.

Not to mention the crew would get cranky if all they saw out their windows was armor.

However, I see definate possibilities for this technology. Imagine if you could boost the power efficiency, or the output of the ship's power-systems and it's capacity for 'replicator-stock'. You could get-away with bare-bones ships with just the most basic components needed for space-travel. Planning a long-distance journey? Slap on some bussard-collectors. Need to launch a probe? Slap-on a launcher. Need extra sensor capacity? Slap-on some more palletes. And then just make them go-away when you don't need them anymore.

[Crushproof]

Not to mention the crew would get cranky if all they saw out their windows was armor.

Frankly I'd be pretty reassured if all I could see was Armour.

[Teaos]

All the time for years? People go crazy with stuff like that. I still like the idea of replicating a bit of armor away from the ship to detonate the torpedoes before impact.

[Mikey]

Actually I like Les' idea... though I'm sure in Trek terms it would have to be limited to certain mission-specific pieces of equipment. But imagine, say, a Nebula-class setting up what it needs "on-the-fly" rather than having to go into dock to swap out it's mission pod...