NOPE. They use force fields to hold people in star trek all the time. People could just walk right through them if they couldnt stop physical objectives. The devs are kind of stupid and dont really pick up on that in this game.
Force Field tech is specifically designed to block all things, including air. Hence their use to seal hull breaches. Personal shield tech is more akin to the shields of a Starship, which allow things to pass through such as the ships own weaponsfire. Also... if personal shields were like full blown force fields, we'd all be wearing EV suits all the time because as I said earlier, force fields can block air. While similar in appearance, we are talking two different technologies.
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
What it really boils down to is plot holes. Someone writes something that another writer has to fill, or has written something that must be circumvented. Shields are the best example of this. They are always coming up with ways to make them or break them so they can shoot one another.
You were thinking of the personal defence shields the Goa'uld use. The ones which allow slower moving objects to pass through. Wouldn't make a very effective trap now, would they?
Not sure if it means anything since it was referring to ship shields and not personal shields (something that wasn't around at the time it was written), but I seem to recall one of the books - "Best Destiny", can't remember the author at the moment - actually explained a difference between the shields of the Starship/Constitution class and the Excelsior class as those of the Constitution (USS Enterprise-A in the book) protected against a wider spectrum of effects, but were overall weaker because of that; whereas the Excelsior shields (USS Bill of Rights in the book) had a higher strength and level of protection, but were more specialized and didn't protect against as many possible encounters.
Just thought I'd throw it out there...
"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross; but it's not for the timid." -- Q, TNG: "Q-Who?"
^Words that every player should keep in mind, especially whenever there's a problem with the game...
Personal theory: Transphasic projectiles. I mean, we have them in game as torpedoes and mines so miniaturizing them to a 200-300 grain bullet shouldn't be that hard.
actually no, shields is Star Trek should have no problem deflecting projectiles...otherwise micro asteroids and debree would destroy the ships quite easily. And in an episode, Worf crafted a one time personal shield before having a western style standoff with a mad holo Data.
The thing in First Contact shouldn't have been possible, but then again, the bullets there were photons? It really depends on how the script of an episode needs it to be to tell a story.
The thing about the Borg seems to be that they take time to adapt, and don't seem to use a general-purpose shield like starships do. It seems likely that they would adapted to the holodeck bullets (whether they were holgraphic or replicated we'll never really know) eventually. But we've seen several Borg go down to phaser fire before the adapted - no suprise they also take some time to adapt to bullets.
My only guess whey the suck at adapting to melee weapons is that the shields are designed to ignore certain "low energy" type of impacts(threats - simply because they'd get in the way of interacting with other things. Besides, in a typical combat scenario, ranged weapons are simply vastly more dangerous (Ever heard of Lanchesters Laws?), and at melee range, the Borg (since First Contact at least) can assimilate at melee range - instead of losing one guy to a sword, there is a good chance they gain another drone...
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
The thing about the Borg seems to be that they take time to adapt, and don't seem to use a general-purpose shield like starships do. It seems likely that they would adapted to the holodeck bullets (whether they were holgraphic or replicated we'll never really know) eventually. But we've seen several Borg go down to phaser fire before the adapted - no suprise they also take some time to adapt to bullets.
Probably an efficiency thing - when the Borg show up, they're about the only ones we see with a personal-sized shield at all. Either the Borg didn't have the scope to put in a shield 'sort of' effective, or more probably, didn't care. "Oh no, we lost a drone! How ever will we withstand this devastating loss?"
Fate - protects fools, small children, and ships named Enterprise Will Riker
Member Access Denied Armada!
My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
Bullets and arrows would penetrate them. Were we to load an 18" Naval artillery piece to our hull and get within a mile or so of a target, the Armor Piecing shell (not High Explosive) would penetrate the shield as well. But that's a very limited range in space where combat actually took place well beyond the 10KM we see in game. The damage from an AP shell would likely be limited as well given the size of ships so the limited range, huge power and size of the weapons don't make sense to carry around. Deflectors would also be an issue, but that would only be when shooting from the front I believe. A shot from the side/rear would get around it, but that's just an another limitation to add to the list.
Personal theory: Transphasic projectiles. I mean, we have them in game as torpedoes and mines so miniaturizing them to a 200-300 grain bullet shouldn't be that hard.
Let say the bullet is a .338-sized things instead of some ver ysmall small duranium+ tritanium super bullet. Its still not very realistic to make small ones. Torpedos in Star Trek can fit an entire person in them. Sure, anti-personnel weapon need alot less power but I am not sure the hardware fits in.
Hast thou not gone against sincerity
Hast thou not felt ashamed of thy words and deeds
Hast thou not lacked vigor
Hast thou exerted all possible efforts
Hast thou not become slothful
Speainf of shield. Does the borg have/want/need the "normal" shield that deplete when fired upon but doesnt need adaption?
At least in early TNG the Enterprise did damage to a Borg Cubes hull before the cube adpated. They might gain the normal shield in later VOY episodes but my memory is fuzzy.
Hast thou not gone against sincerity
Hast thou not felt ashamed of thy words and deeds
Hast thou not lacked vigor
Hast thou exerted all possible efforts
Hast thou not become slothful
Well, it has to do with this, shielding basically acts like a protective barrier, there is many types of shielding borg shields basically only block energy weapons, because if they had the shielding to prevent physical damage then basically that shielding would also prevent them from touching you since the shield would be a solid barrier, they would be confined in the shielding unable to move there arms past it since it would be like a force field. Unless they made the shielding to conform over their bodies like armor then the borg would be able to do both. Physical attacks will work on borg. Stabbing and physical bullets they can't adapt to that they can only adapt to energy weapons. like the nanopluse bathileth for example borg adapt to that since its an energy weapon. They can't adapt to normal bathlieth because that is a solid weapon that is physical. Thus if they did have the shielding and they tried to grab you the shield would block them from grabbing anyone they would unable to be able to move there arms past it.
Federation starships use protective hull plating, then possibly a forcefield like body shield, which is the physical shield then they have the energy shield to block all forms of non physical attacks like plasma phasers and so forth. Shielding can only do so much. Basically, it depends on the technology and weapons being used that depends on how long the shields will last for.
With the kind of personal armor/shields/force fields that exist in the time of Star Trek Online would conventional 21st century or prior bullets and/or arrows penetrate them? Always wondered this after seeing the Picard shooting Borg with holographic bullets in First Contact.
Alright, to weigh in I'm going to go ahead and disregard pretty much everything from Star Trek canon and focus on the technology as it exists in STO, since the PSGs of STO were invented somewhere around 2405, and should be seen as a completely new thing with similarities to personal shields seen in the shows and movies, but quite clearly not the exact same thing, since they run off of a different kind of ruleset.
Judging from a purely STO perspective, I'm under the impression that the technical narrative around PSGs is that they provide resistance to all forms of energy, since directed energy weapons are pretty much what everyone comes across. This includes kinetic energy, which is usually represented by explosives in the game, but PSGs don't protect against kinetic energy attacks as well as directed energy.
If we are to consider Picard's holographic tommy gun, it'd likely produce kinetic damage from the compressed 'hard light', as the tommy gun itself has no chemical propellant or gunpowder. Only "simulated" chemical propellant and gun powder.
The Zefram Cochrane shotgun on the other hand deals Physical damage, and is likely more comparable to a cutting weapon, despite its kinetic output (you could assume it has to do with the shot being tiny and numerous enough to pass through the shields, since it isn't just a single round like in the TR-116 family of rifles).
But, if we're going to talk about actual 21st Century bullets and arrows? I would say that PSGs in STO protect against them, but not to the extent that they would be deflected or the kinetic energy completely absorbed. More likely the PSG's energy field slows down and saps the momentum of an actual chemically-propelled bullet or a kinetically-propelled arrow. This would have the effect of the bullet and/or arrow hitting its target, but at such a reduced speed as to reduce injury or lethality.
The real protection against an arrow or bullet would be the body armor our characters wear, which typically have a high kinetic and/or physical damage resistance. The PSG might mitigate an oncoming bullet or arrow, but the advanced armors we all wear would outright stop a bullet or arrow from killing us. Obviously there are going to be scenarios where that isn't feasible, such as whether or not we wear helmets, since a sufficiently powerful bullet could still be lethal even if partially depleted of its kinetic impact, if striking an unarmored portion of the body (like the head).
Real life doesn't apply to this fantasy, so one cannot truly apply science or logic to explain it in any event. We can only discuss it in the terms established, aka the canon. The difficulty with this is that the writers create scenarios which outmaneuver any established "rules" from previous episodes to create space magic.
With the kind of personal armor/shields/force fields that exist in the time of Star Trek Online would conventional 21st century or prior bullets and/or arrows penetrate them? Always wondered this after seeing the Picard shooting Borg with holographic bullets in First Contact.
It would depend entirely on what type of force field we are talking about and how it exactly works. How it is designed to work will pretty much dictates what forms of forces it can handle.
But before we talk about force fields themselves we can look at the words we use to describe them. We like to think of them as blocking, negating, neutralizing and deflecting... and so forth. With this in mind we can go deeper into the topic of force fields and more heavy into science itself.
We know that the universe consist of varying forms of matter and we also use the term energy, which in a very simple way describes how matter interacts, changes and transforms and the effects of these behaviors. For example, the nuclear reaction from our sun is the result of interacting physical matter as we would like to call it. The sunlight left in that reaction's wake is electromagnetic radiation. And radiation, is in simple terms, ionization (alteration of the bonding in an atom). Sunlight produces heat which in simple terms describes the vibration in surrounding atoms.
So in other words, as you can see all of this involves atoms (or matter) in some form and another. All the energy is a reflection of all the behaviors of said matter.
So how do force fields come into this, one might ask? Well, just as the sun interacts with its surroundings so does a force field. A force field is the product of some reaction, and the behavior of said force field will determine how it will react and interact to anything that comes in contact with it. In other words, a force field cannot really do anything because it works in a certain way dictated by how it is designed to work.
For example, a force field designed to "destroy" matter that comes in contact with it could function in the way that it enshrouds the ship in extreme thermal bubble. The matter in the ship's close vicinity would vibrate so powerfully that it disintegrates matter that comes in contact with it. This would be done thanks to the "motion" of atoms. The shield comprised of very rapidly vibrating atoms would destroy the atomic bonds of matter that impacts the shield.
Now would such a shield work against what normal people would consider energy (like beams). Beams are also made of matter and energy (reaction). Let's say that the beam works through thermal energy like a plasma beam. It is possible that the plasma beam is "hotter" or vibrates more violently than the force field itself and thus would disintegrate the shield before itself got disintegrated.
Also, a thermal force field of this nature would possibly not block radiation either because that is the result of a different reaction (gain or loss of electrons in the atomic structure).
So what about physical matter? That thermal shield would certainly chip away or at least heat up the solid mass that impacts it, but here we have kinetic energy to consider. Kinetic energy is the transfer of "motion" from one atomic body to another. If the force field is not designed to contain enough mass and motion to counteract (send kinetic energy back) then the physical object will punch right through the shield. The "atoms" of the shield would give way for the larger object. For example, you can easily wave your hand in daylight without being affected by the sunlight that hits you. This is because the solar energy that hits your body lacks enough mass and kinetic energy to affect you in any significant capacity.
But there can be two scenarios of kinetic energy. Low mass + high velocity or High mass + low velocity. A kinetic countering force field could either be very dense to stop a bullet, or be less dense but cause quick motion of the atoms in its surrounding to form a higher level of kinetic energy. A kinetic energy that would outcompete the one coming from the bullet or physical object.
There is a lot that can be said about force fields and I am not very good at explaining things. But let's just say that it begs the question if there is one force field that could triumph any form of atomic reaction, whether that is thermal energy, kinetic energy, radiation and so forth (let's not list all reactions that exist known to us humans)?
Well, there is and it is also the result of an atomic reaction as well. We call this force gravity and it happens as a result of amassing matter (atoms) that get compressed into one space. This makes the atoms to bond to one another more and more. Think of space as water. What happens when you put something in your bathtub filled with water? It will cause a "dip" in the water surface. The bigger the mass of the floating or sinking object, the bigger the dip. This is gravity.
Gravity has the tendency to force other "less densified atoms" to break out of their behavior to join the larger mass of atoms (that causes the gravity) and join them in whatever reaction and behavior they have. A gravity force field could therefore theoretically do the same to any form of matter and energy that impacts it. Kinetic energy would be negated by the sheer mass of the gravitational force field. It would be like throwing a tennis ball at earth and hope that the planet will budge. Radiation would not affect this force field either because the atomic bonding of the compressed matter/atoms that causes the gravity would be so strong that they would not rebond. Thermal energy would not be able to make the super dense atoms to budge and vibrate.
In essence, a gravitational force would diminish any sort of outworldy or external forces that occur outside the boundaries of the ship and the force field that enshrouds it. Of course one could argue that such a powerful shield would pull the ship into it and destroy it.
All of this might be very confusing and I probably did not explain things very well, but hopefully it offers some understanding.
Comments
Force Field tech is specifically designed to block all things, including air. Hence their use to seal hull breaches. Personal shield tech is more akin to the shields of a Starship, which allow things to pass through such as the ships own weaponsfire. Also... if personal shields were like full blown force fields, we'd all be wearing EV suits all the time because as I said earlier, force fields can block air. While similar in appearance, we are talking two different technologies.
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
Just thought I'd throw it out there...
^Words that every player should keep in mind, especially whenever there's a problem with the game...
http://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/10052253
Why are you not rejoicing?
My only guess whey the suck at adapting to melee weapons is that the shields are designed to ignore certain "low energy" type of impacts(threats - simply because they'd get in the way of interacting with other things. Besides, in a typical combat scenario, ranged weapons are simply vastly more dangerous (Ever heard of Lanchesters Laws?), and at melee range, the Borg (since First Contact at least) can assimilate at melee range - instead of losing one guy to a sword, there is a good chance they gain another drone...
Probably an efficiency thing - when the Borg show up, they're about the only ones we see with a personal-sized shield at all. Either the Borg didn't have the scope to put in a shield 'sort of' effective, or more probably, didn't care. "Oh no, we lost a drone! How ever will we withstand this devastating loss?"
Member Access Denied Armada!
My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
Let say the bullet is a .338-sized things instead of some ver ysmall small duranium+ tritanium super bullet. Its still not very realistic to make small ones. Torpedos in Star Trek can fit an entire person in them. Sure, anti-personnel weapon need alot less power but I am not sure the hardware fits in.
Hast thou not felt ashamed of thy words and deeds
Hast thou not lacked vigor
Hast thou exerted all possible efforts
Hast thou not become slothful
At least in early TNG the Enterprise did damage to a Borg Cubes hull before the cube adpated. They might gain the normal shield in later VOY episodes but my memory is fuzzy.
Hast thou not felt ashamed of thy words and deeds
Hast thou not lacked vigor
Hast thou exerted all possible efforts
Hast thou not become slothful
Federation starships use protective hull plating, then possibly a forcefield like body shield, which is the physical shield then they have the energy shield to block all forms of non physical attacks like plasma phasers and so forth. Shielding can only do so much. Basically, it depends on the technology and weapons being used that depends on how long the shields will last for.
Alright, to weigh in I'm going to go ahead and disregard pretty much everything from Star Trek canon and focus on the technology as it exists in STO, since the PSGs of STO were invented somewhere around 2405, and should be seen as a completely new thing with similarities to personal shields seen in the shows and movies, but quite clearly not the exact same thing, since they run off of a different kind of ruleset.
Judging from a purely STO perspective, I'm under the impression that the technical narrative around PSGs is that they provide resistance to all forms of energy, since directed energy weapons are pretty much what everyone comes across. This includes kinetic energy, which is usually represented by explosives in the game, but PSGs don't protect against kinetic energy attacks as well as directed energy.
If we are to consider Picard's holographic tommy gun, it'd likely produce kinetic damage from the compressed 'hard light', as the tommy gun itself has no chemical propellant or gunpowder. Only "simulated" chemical propellant and gun powder.
The Zefram Cochrane shotgun on the other hand deals Physical damage, and is likely more comparable to a cutting weapon, despite its kinetic output (you could assume it has to do with the shot being tiny and numerous enough to pass through the shields, since it isn't just a single round like in the TR-116 family of rifles).
But, if we're going to talk about actual 21st Century bullets and arrows? I would say that PSGs in STO protect against them, but not to the extent that they would be deflected or the kinetic energy completely absorbed. More likely the PSG's energy field slows down and saps the momentum of an actual chemically-propelled bullet or a kinetically-propelled arrow. This would have the effect of the bullet and/or arrow hitting its target, but at such a reduced speed as to reduce injury or lethality.
The real protection against an arrow or bullet would be the body armor our characters wear, which typically have a high kinetic and/or physical damage resistance. The PSG might mitigate an oncoming bullet or arrow, but the advanced armors we all wear would outright stop a bullet or arrow from killing us. Obviously there are going to be scenarios where that isn't feasible, such as whether or not we wear helmets, since a sufficiently powerful bullet could still be lethal even if partially depleted of its kinetic impact, if striking an unarmored portion of the body (like the head).
It would depend entirely on what type of force field we are talking about and how it exactly works. How it is designed to work will pretty much dictates what forms of forces it can handle.
But before we talk about force fields themselves we can look at the words we use to describe them. We like to think of them as blocking, negating, neutralizing and deflecting... and so forth. With this in mind we can go deeper into the topic of force fields and more heavy into science itself.
We know that the universe consist of varying forms of matter and we also use the term energy, which in a very simple way describes how matter interacts, changes and transforms and the effects of these behaviors. For example, the nuclear reaction from our sun is the result of interacting physical matter as we would like to call it. The sunlight left in that reaction's wake is electromagnetic radiation. And radiation, is in simple terms, ionization (alteration of the bonding in an atom). Sunlight produces heat which in simple terms describes the vibration in surrounding atoms.
So in other words, as you can see all of this involves atoms (or matter) in some form and another. All the energy is a reflection of all the behaviors of said matter.
So how do force fields come into this, one might ask? Well, just as the sun interacts with its surroundings so does a force field. A force field is the product of some reaction, and the behavior of said force field will determine how it will react and interact to anything that comes in contact with it. In other words, a force field cannot really do anything because it works in a certain way dictated by how it is designed to work.
For example, a force field designed to "destroy" matter that comes in contact with it could function in the way that it enshrouds the ship in extreme thermal bubble. The matter in the ship's close vicinity would vibrate so powerfully that it disintegrates matter that comes in contact with it. This would be done thanks to the "motion" of atoms. The shield comprised of very rapidly vibrating atoms would destroy the atomic bonds of matter that impacts the shield.
Now would such a shield work against what normal people would consider energy (like beams). Beams are also made of matter and energy (reaction). Let's say that the beam works through thermal energy like a plasma beam. It is possible that the plasma beam is "hotter" or vibrates more violently than the force field itself and thus would disintegrate the shield before itself got disintegrated.
Also, a thermal force field of this nature would possibly not block radiation either because that is the result of a different reaction (gain or loss of electrons in the atomic structure).
So what about physical matter? That thermal shield would certainly chip away or at least heat up the solid mass that impacts it, but here we have kinetic energy to consider. Kinetic energy is the transfer of "motion" from one atomic body to another. If the force field is not designed to contain enough mass and motion to counteract (send kinetic energy back) then the physical object will punch right through the shield. The "atoms" of the shield would give way for the larger object. For example, you can easily wave your hand in daylight without being affected by the sunlight that hits you. This is because the solar energy that hits your body lacks enough mass and kinetic energy to affect you in any significant capacity.
But there can be two scenarios of kinetic energy. Low mass + high velocity or High mass + low velocity. A kinetic countering force field could either be very dense to stop a bullet, or be less dense but cause quick motion of the atoms in its surrounding to form a higher level of kinetic energy. A kinetic energy that would outcompete the one coming from the bullet or physical object.
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There is a lot that can be said about force fields and I am not very good at explaining things. But let's just say that it begs the question if there is one force field that could triumph any form of atomic reaction, whether that is thermal energy, kinetic energy, radiation and so forth (let's not list all reactions that exist known to us humans)?
Well, there is and it is also the result of an atomic reaction as well. We call this force gravity and it happens as a result of amassing matter (atoms) that get compressed into one space. This makes the atoms to bond to one another more and more. Think of space as water. What happens when you put something in your bathtub filled with water? It will cause a "dip" in the water surface. The bigger the mass of the floating or sinking object, the bigger the dip. This is gravity.
Gravity has the tendency to force other "less densified atoms" to break out of their behavior to join the larger mass of atoms (that causes the gravity) and join them in whatever reaction and behavior they have. A gravity force field could therefore theoretically do the same to any form of matter and energy that impacts it. Kinetic energy would be negated by the sheer mass of the gravitational force field. It would be like throwing a tennis ball at earth and hope that the planet will budge. Radiation would not affect this force field either because the atomic bonding of the compressed matter/atoms that causes the gravity would be so strong that they would not rebond. Thermal energy would not be able to make the super dense atoms to budge and vibrate.
In essence, a gravitational force would diminish any sort of outworldy or external forces that occur outside the boundaries of the ship and the force field that enshrouds it. Of course one could argue that such a powerful shield would pull the ship into it and destroy it.
All of this might be very confusing and I probably did not explain things very well, but hopefully it offers some understanding.