Ability ideas

posted on April 26th, 2009, 5:55 am

Thought up 3 new ideas:
* Wormhole Torpedo
    fires a high-power torpedo that will open a micro-wormhole, which it travels through to hit the target in a short amount of time.
* Nutational Shields
    nutates the shields (don't remember the exact technobabble), doubling shield regeneration
* Q Bubble
    Makes a bubble made out of the same material as the Q-net in the target are, freezing all ships there and preventing weapons fire in or out.

posted on April 26th, 2009, 8:32 am

Intriguing list. Chaff Cloud is an interesting idea but I would use this instead -

Chaff Caster/Sand Caster (activate) - Weapon range Medium (maybe short?). Particle cloud created in area of effect; say about twice the size of the originating ship. Lasts 30-60 seconds. Cloud can be dissipated by massive weapons fire (enough to destroy originating ship four times over). Obscures sensor view of area behind particle cloud. Damage to ships from energy weapons fired through cloud reduced by 50%. Torp locks affected by cloud (accuracy -50%), but torp damage not affected.

Instead of the reactive shields -

Black Globe (activate) - Initial cost of 50 special energy to activate. Creates a spherical black shield around the ship (twice protected ship's size; does not work in nebulas). Distance at which ship is detected is reduced to 1/3 of detecting ship's sensor range. Weapons fire directed at the protected ship is absorbed by the black globe. Energy from received fire is stored in ship's capacitor banks in the form of special energy. If ship absorbs over 300 special energy, it catastrophically explodes and deals damage to all ships within short range. While the Black Globe is activated, protected ship has no use of engines, weapons or sensors. If activated while under power, protected ship "coasts" along its original vector as the engines are shut down.

Black Globe (deactivate) - Upon bringing down the Black Globe generator, 50 special energy (or proportion thereof) goes to recharging the ship's standard shields to maximum. Remaining special energy goes to increasing weapons output. Ship's standard energy weapons have their damage doubled and range increased by one category automatically at the cost of 3 special energy per second. If additional special weapons are carried that cause physical damage (heavy disruptors, ion storm, etc.); using them costs twice the normal energy cost. But damage from those special weapons is tripled (range stays the same). Once special energy reaches 0, increased damages/ranges/energy costs end. Special energy then regenerates as normal.

Instead of HoloStealth -

Stealth Hull (passive) - Protected ship is not detected past half of detecting ship/station's sensor range. Within half of detecting ship/station's sensor range, attacks directed at protected ships are -50% accuracy. This includes weapons that normally always hit. Stealth Hull is ineffective if protected ship's hull suffers over 50% damage. Note that due to the materials used in stealth hull ships, expensive modifications are needed to equip such a ship with a cloaking device. In other words any ship/station with both abilities will either be under a build limit; or be deficient in other areas (like weapons, shielding, etc).

The first two are liberally taken from an old game called Traveller. All three were things I was was thinking could be used on Section 31 ships (if such an avatar was created). The Black Globe could be put on Starbases (and be overkill when the generator was deactivated.) What do you think?

[mimesot]

posted on April 26th, 2009, 11:06 am

Last edited by mimesot on April 26th, 2009, 11:08 am, edited 1 time in total.

A new member? Welcome!

A creative but hard-edged one ... very welcome! 

Your Chaff Caster sounds really good. I believe that the idea: "Obscures sensor view of area behind particle cloud" is unfortunalty not possible to implement or at least very difficult stuff, as there are no senor angles defined (I believe it would have to be hardcoded by the mods). Maybe it is possible to use the "vessels inside are hidden" feature of the nebulas.

"Damage to ships from energy weapons fired through cloud reduced by 50%. Torp locks affected by cloud (accuracy -50%), but torp damage not affected." I just wanted to say about that particular statement, that it really really pleases me. Really! 

The black globe: You think about it as some kind of gravimetric shield around the vessel, which is so strong it can create a spherical (with hollow, a spherical shell, a ball cup) horizon, do you?

If you do so: First, we do not concern about energy needed, we might take it from a Q-Torpedo  I have no idea, if you could possibly create such a globe from the inside, but I can't exclude it. The creation of that black globe could proceed the same (unknown) way, as the creation of the warp-bubble, so it's probably done by the engines, not by the shield-generator (at least as long as we don't know how they really work). You may do it inside a nebula, but i think the effect would be devasting for nebula, vessel and large surrounding.

You are right that the ship will most likly not be able to turn or alter speed while inside the black globe. And I also see, that the fire, directed at the protected vessel will be absorbed by the globe.

As the shield is some kind of horizon, the vessel itself is disconnected of the outer universe. Thus it may not be commanded by the player for the time of duration, and sensors won't work either. The disconnection also makes me wonder, why the incoming energy should be stored in ship's capacitor banks. The energy is stuck in space right outside (infinitly close) the sphere.

What happens, if you turn off that gravitational field? If the energy-density of the collected fire is low enough to make the instable (which should be the normal case), the enrgy is simply released, most likly to all directions in the same way, due to interaction. The ship in the middle will unfortunatly suffer the highest energ dose, if it cannot jump away quickly. Byt the radiated energy will also harm anybody (also allied) else. This can be done by an AoE-weapon.

I the other case the incoming energy is so much (i don't think it is really possible) that the horizon becomes stable. The vessel inside cannot free itself, but will not be harmed. The black hole will then  slowly evaporate and release the ship after some time, or leave the map with the vessel inside. Hopefully the blak hole will not collide with any station on it's way.

So i think there is still a lot of work todo for that feature.

The idea that the vessel may use the rest for recreation and preperation for a fight afterwards is really good IMO.

Stealth Hull: Much better than any holo-ideas heard before. Holo is misunderstood most times, as it can only be user to disguise things but not for hiding them (in and around the optical regime). It will do a great job and is most realistic. I really appreciate it! 
[move]:cloak:[/move]

posted on April 26th, 2009, 11:40 am

* Wormhole Torpedo
    fires a high-power torpedo that will open a micro-wormhole, which it travels through to hit the target in a short amount of time.

A very very special and malicious tool. I like it (if we don't mention energy costs ). If it travels through a wormhole it can bypass shields as well, and deal direct hull damage. So it can be seen as extension of the klingons "shield breaking torpedo".

* Nutational Shields
    nutates the shields (don't remember the exact technobabble), doubling shield regeneration

Nutational really sounds like babble to me. But depending on how the shiels work, a rotation of the shilds could direct the less depleted side of the shield towards the ource of fire. Effectively that means that the shield strength can be raised by let's say 30% again.

* Q Bubble
    Makes a bubble made out of the same material as the Q-net in the target are, freezing all ships there and preventing weapons fire in or out.

Just voyageristic.

All right after some investigation into the terms asymptote and asymptotic, i have a new ability idea fix:
* Asymptotic Energy Gradient
    Applies a special field to space around enemy ships that will damage them in proportion to their current speed, up to a maximum
and i have also thought up a replacement to holo-stealth

OK, if you know so much about asymptotoc fields, you may share your secrets. What kind if field is it? What about that field is asymptotic? How does it work? (I don't mean a mathematical drication, just a cheap phenomenilogigal conclusive explanation.)

* Holographic Obfuscation
    uses a combination of sensor misdirection and holographic technology to obfuscate the apparent position of the enemy vessel
    shuts down sensors and engines on the target vessel for 10 seconds

Aha, well, a sensor mistdirection, sounds plausible ... but what does the holographic technology do there? And what is displayed by the holograph?

posted on April 26th, 2009, 3:35 pm

How about  the Ability of  several ships to concentrate fire (beam weaponds only ) upon one ship and then that ship would  direct the energy the same target  like the 8742 BIO cruiser? ships. or a special torpedo /relay probe . that could do the same as a ship based system. Or as a special ability  emergency warp out would give the  any ship an emergency 3 second warp jump away from a battle area. However the ship must go back to  a repair yard to  repair the shipand the repair time would be doubled.

posted on April 26th, 2009, 7:06 pm

@ mimesot

The Black Globe is closer to a discontinuity in concept. I literally cribbed it from the Traveller RPG, so there is a lot of source material on how it works. In the setting, the original device was based in part on teleportation technology. The generators are not of human manufacture, but of an extinct species. Humans can't recreate them, but can salvage them from wrecks for use on their ships. The species in question later used a derivative of the technology to carve out entire star systems into pocket universes. I have some electronic sources on my other computer, so I'll dig them up. Does the forum take attachments, or is it easier to just summarize?

The increased weapons fire ability also comes from that setting. As weapons fire hits the globe, the incoming energy is shunted through the generator into a special capacitor bank. The limit on how much fire can be taken is limited by the capacitor bank. Crew member maintaining the globe generator referred to this limit as the "traffic ceiling." Exceeding the "traffic ceiling" would result in the capacitor bank going, followed by the generator and the ship. In extreme cases, this resulted in the formation of a short lived discontiuity centered on what was the ship. For anyone who's played Warhammer 40K, think "vortex grenade" on a much larger scale. The inability to use this device in nebulas and thick asteriod fields is because just about everything hitting the globe is converted to energy. In fact the easiest way to bring this thing down was for another ship to acclerate a huge rock into it. Maybe the best way to think of the Black Globe is as an extremely strange derivation of transporter technology.

After bringing down the globe, that extra energy had to be shed off somehow. So the ship would either use it to overpower existing weapons, or to power special weaponry that normally would not be used by a ship of that size. I figured there was no easy way to simulate that; therefore it had to be easier to increase damage/range at a cost to special energy right after dropping the globe. While the energy could be used to overpower engines, that did not happen often. Because usually when dropping the globe, the ship was surrounded by others wanting to kill them.

The reduced detection ability while the globe was up referred to this device's occaional use as a poor man's cloak. Basically get up some speed, turn on the generator and coast. Of course while it would be hard to see you, you can't see anything around you either. This would leave you guessing as to whether you reached your destination. Does that help somewhat?

posted on April 26th, 2009, 7:24 pm

Sounds really interesting. I like the fact that this approach is so detailed. The only thing I dislike about it is, that it utilitizes transporter technology (nogo with quantum mechanics), but I could arrange with it, as beamin' has been element of StarTrek eversince. Currently I'm just wondering why it should be completly black.

Btw. you can attatch files to your posts.

posted on April 26th, 2009, 7:48 pm

I'd guess it's black because all light hitting it is converted to energy.

posted on April 26th, 2009, 8:03 pm

Light is energy my dear ... you mean instantly transported to the buffering systems, as well as the light and warmth emitted from the vessel.

I'm currently thinking, if the fact, that it's blackness is incompatible with thermodynamic's second law. (I think this one was always preserved by star trek, on contraty to special relativity and QM)

posted on April 26th, 2009, 8:43 pm

I personally believe that the blackness is not incompatible.  If Light Energy is being converted to electrical (or whatever type is being actually utilized) and siphoned away without loss, then no light will reflect back to grant it a 'color'.

This would definately make it an inferior cloaking device, as it would be a pitch black spot in space with no light at all...no stars, no color, no nothing.  And if it somehow developed a capacitor that could run it long enough, it would rapidly create a true case of absolute zero via elimination of warmth in even the pittance that is existant in deep space.

[mimesot]

posted on April 26th, 2009, 8:53 pm

Last edited by mimesot on April 26th, 2009, 9:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Silent93, you're hitting the spot: "If Light Energy is being converted to electrical (or whatever type is being actually utilized) and siphoned away without loss".

Is this possible without breakin thermodynamics second law? That one states that entropy alwas stays the same or rises. According to that a perfect machine is impossible as long as you can't obtain a place with Temperature=0 in the energy puffer, which is not possible by the third law of thermodynamics.

B.t.w. Not even a black hole is completly black due to Hawkins-radiation.

[Zebh]

posted on April 26th, 2009, 8:58 pm

Last edited by Zebh on April 26th, 2009, 9:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Silent93, you're hitting the spot: "If Light Energy is being converted to electrical (or whatever type is being actually utilized) and siphoned away without loss".

Is this possible without breakin thermodynamics second law?

No, because device like that would be in perpetual motion.

[RCIX]

posted on April 27th, 2009, 5:02 am

Last edited by RCIX on April 27th, 2009, 5:10 am, edited 1 time in total.

@Corsair: Top notch ideas, i really like them!
@mimesot: for the q bubble, try taking a look at "The Encounter at Farpoint" (http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Encounter_at_Farpoint_(episode)), i do believe there was a q bubble like object in that episode. the holographic technology is to prevent ship being seen in the optical range. Also: heres my pseudo explanation for the asymptotic energy gradient:
Creates a subspace distortion bubble (before you scream "too voyagery" look at the sovs distortion field, what could it distort but subspace) that damages ships proportional to thier speed up to their maximum

[mimesot]

posted on April 27th, 2009, 9:10 am

Last edited by mimesot on April 27th, 2009, 9:24 am, edited 1 time in total.

I know about that episode. There really was such a weird phenomenom. Do you believe that anything, which is canon should be implemented to FO? Q is one of the most fanastic elments on StarTrek, nearly crippling StarTrek to a phantasy tale (Pah-wraith of DS9 were heavy phantasy stuff either, so it's not just VOY), which is certainly not the objective of that mod. I am curious what the mods would say about that.

I know that you want to see holographic technology to prevent a ship being seen in the optical range. Anyone got this by now. But again, this is only possible for stationary objects with stationary background, which is not possible for an turning object like a ship.

My second question is still unanswered: And what is displayed by the holograph?
Stationary background?

What has a subspace distortion to do with asymptotic? A distortion field with poles would certainly rip just anything within range. I must admit I am not happy with subspace distortion causes engines to fail either, as we only have impulse speed within FO, which doesn't rely on subspace. That medium is only invented to keep he alcubierre metric stable from the inside at it's outer bounds. The IS bomb of the Dominion may also make warp fail, but not necessarily impulse engines. I'm not arguing against those, because they are already implemenented, but I clearly try to prohibit the implementation of additional unrealism, to prevent FO from getting ridiculous.

A possible weapon that stops ships from activly moving would be a heavy electromagnetic pulse, which causes the plasma in conduits to get instable due to expanding fluctuation (if you know about MHD, or at least chaos-theory), thus the engines will get deactivated, if you are not well prepared.

posted on April 28th, 2009, 1:08 am

Ok i think i will abandon holo-stealth since i cannot seem to explain it properly. I'll take a shot again at explaining the asymptotic energy gradient:
Generates a field of EMP energy in the area which causes unstable expansion of the plasma in the impulse engines proportional to the speed at which the ship is moving up to a maximum.
In this case i am using asymptotic to explain the specific behavior of the energy field in relation to how fast the ship is moving. (Ya know im beginning to think that you would make a great technobabble advisor for some star trek show )