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Ablative Armor Generator Ablative armor generator technology is a advanced combination of holocloak technology, energy projection, computer pattern formation and power generation. The result is the formation of a virtual layer of quasisolid ablative armor formed at a predetermined distance from the ship, which has the properties of both high-density type 3 ablative armor and regenerative shielding and is capable of offering several magnitudes of protection above normal shielding, at the cost of a large power drain. The technology involves the construction of large omnidirectional holoemitters at key points along the hull; when activated, the beams form a conformal holofield alot like a holocloak`s. At this point energy is pumped into a replicator, capable of creating any matter directly from input energy. A dedicated computer core constructs a pattern of specialized type 3 ablative armor designed to best resist incoming energy; it updates this pattern every 5 seconds. The matter\energy beam is then conducted through the OHD`s, forming a quasisolid layer of energy armor, which is kept close to the hull of the ship via bonding to the SIF field, thereby enhancing both the ship`s structural integrity and the e-armor`s strength. There is one significant drawback to this technology; the strength of the e-armor is directly proportional to the energy put into it. So ships with smaller power reserves cannot put up a shield at all. Ships with powerful fusion engines or multiple warp cores would be best for this. On a side note, the size of the ship does factor into the equation for the generator; the power neccesary to cover a tiny shuttlecraft is many times less than that of a starship; even so, all non-essential systems on a fighter or shuttle would have to be shut down for the generator to be activated(this does not include weapons, engines or internal life support). Gelfworks had been working on a matter-energy system almost since its inception. It was obvious to the first teams of designers that a armor layer that was capable of being created by the ship and regenerated by its power systems would be an invaluable asset. The problem was, how to do it? Initially, research focused on a combination of transporter annular confinement beams and replicator matricies. This proved to be far too fragile and power-intensive to be of any use to even the most tech-hungry CO. It was reluctantly shelved in late 2396, with only intermittent work done on it by newcomers who thought they could solve the perplexing problem. Then, of all things, one Harry Barclay, the son of a obsessive holodeck user, came to work for the company, and hit upon the solution instantly: holocloaks. Holocloaks had been introduced fairly recently as a less energy-intensive alternative to a true cloaking device. They were essentially big holodeck generators that projected out instead of in. And that was the key; holodeck OHD`s were tied into replicator systems on the micromechanical level, enabling them to normally project matter inside of a holodeck for the user. Barclay used this to perfect his test generator. He first used a replicator to disassemble a piece of Gelfwork`s most advanced ablative armor alloy, then fed the data to a specially designed isolinear computer. It failed, destabilizing due to destructive coherence. He went to a storage closet and got a small bioneural pack and plugged it in, and low and behold, it worked! The test target was protected from the brunt of three type-3 thaser rifle beams for over a minute before the nanofusion cell ran out of fuel. It seems that the pattern-recognizing abilities of the bioneural pack could compensate for the interference patterns before they destroyed the shield. Eager to size up the technology, a holodeck was stripped of its OHD`s, tied into a shuttles impulse engine and sent on a test flight. Drones using type VIII phasers could not penetrate the armor. The technology was condensed down into a workable generator, and showed to the Federation on SD 240106. |
