Interphasic Cloak

[Kitsune]

This came up because my roommate is into Star Trek Sims......
Apparently, he has been giving ships in the Sim interphasic cloaks
Is there any way of hurting a ship with one?

[Bounty]

Canonically? Because if he's running a sim game he can pretty much do whatever he likes.

Phase cloaks still allow interaction with the real world - cloaked ships can scan the outside world so radiation gets through, and if radiation gets through you just need to send a whole lot of it towards the cloaked ship to make Bad Things happen.

Moreover, as early as The Next Phase it was shown that the effects of phase cloaks can be remotely reverted, a trick Tuvok used again in Distant Origin. So yes, it's a neat toy if you're sneaky, but it's not a god mode.

If you want to implement it in a game... well it depends on how flexible the game is.

[Kitsune]

I am not a big Trekkie these days, I was just curious because he was mad because the other people in the game thought it too powerful. Kind of wish I did know the other people in the Sim to suggest that idea.

[Bounty]

Phase cloaks are overrated and don't make sense? I that respect his buddies have a point. It's really nothing more than a cloak-but-supposedly-better that allows for whacky ghost stories and works as a neat McGuffin.

[Kitsune]

If I was running a Trek Sims myself, I would not like somebody introducing them.
There does need to be somebody in charge of writing that says "No" at times to episode writing.
He does have a habit of introducing stuff into universes without thought of power level

[Covenant]

The phase cloak is fairly useless overall. Think of it this way--a normal cloak makes you invisible. A phase cloak makes you invisible and lets things pass through you with low interactivity. What's the difference out in space? Rarely will you fight in a dense planetary ring full of rock chunks, so the phase aspect is nearly pointless. It can make you mostly resistant to attack. But since this is Star Trek, let us examine it in a bit more depth--since that depth is very shallow:

Interphase Cloaks don't cloak the ship, they take it out of phase, which ghosts it. This is the technology used, as stolen from Memory Alpha:

A molecular phase inverter is a device that can alter the structure of normal matter, putting it out of phase with normal matter. Matter that has been "phased" can no longer make physical contact with normal matter. However "phased" matter can make physical contact with "phased" matter that has the same phase variance. Phased matter is also unaffected by external energy sources such as heat, allowing a phased object to be able to, in theory, go inside a planet. In addition, conventional weapons would be completely ineffective against phased matter.

Three different powers, the Klingon Empire, the Romulan Empire and the Federation (with the latter being done illegally) attempted to combine a molecular phase inverter with a cloaking device, creating an interphase cloaking device or an interphase generator (either of which would have provided a substantial tactical advantage), all with limited success. (TNG: "The Next Phase", "The Pegasus"; ENT: "These Are the Voyages...")

As you can see, there's a big gaping hole in this equation. Phased matter can be interacted with if you phase the weapon to the same phase variance. Though none of that makes any sense, it does mean that the frequency-adjusting weapons that you see people use so often would be able to calibrate and then fire again, whacking the ship even though it had been phased. If Interphasic Cloaks became a popular option, you'd have Phase Inversion Torpedoes at the ready to blow them away before too long. Just pre-phase a few from one tube and leave at the ready.

Furthermore, it is also seen that interphasic material (as demonstrated on Voyager multiple times, where interphase cloaks are not uncommon third-party plot devices) can be blocked by forcefields of high enough power, so it's not as if an Interphase Cloak gives a ship shield-penetrating weaponry. Though the vessel itself might be able to push through, small masses (like people) can't walk through high-level shielding and, as stated, the Interphase cloak can be knocked off by an appropriate magic phase blast. I would also assume that a ship in phase cloak mode would have their shields lowered to prevent them from being detected that way, so overall if you can manage to spot them you could damage them extremely easily. Such modifications aren't that bad, because instead of being literally cloaked, they're still emitting, just on a phased variance or whatever. In Voyager, there was an episode where phase cloaked individuals were experimenting on the crew, and Seven's implant was modified to let her see them. That, plus the ability to phase-out a phaser or torpedo, would make it really hard for a phased ship to do anything useful.

So really, what the phase cloak lets you do is slip through solid material, which would be nice for a shuttlecraft but useless for a big ship. If he adds phase cloaks, make sure he adds in the ability for opposed captains to modify their weapons and sensors to match it, so it becomes little more than a first strike weapon.

[DaveJB]

The biggest advantage I can think of to the phase cloak is that it eliminates the possibility of an enemy fucking up your ship by getting in hits when you're cloaked and your shields are down, as happened to Chang's and the Duras Sisters' BoPs (leaving aside idiocy like the Scimitar's "uber cloak-fire while cloaked-shields while cloaked" combo). In realistic terms it's more of an evolution of the idea behind cloaking devices, despite Pressman's wanking over it.

[Teleros]

Don't the personal-level phase cloaks also allow some interaction with light & gravity?

[Batman]

Don't the personal-level phase cloaks also allow some interaction with light & gravity?

As they don't render people blind and have them sink though deck plates the term 'yes' comes to mind. Ironically, the Captain Future novels DID elaborate on that and a cloaked person being blind despite getting just about EVERYTHING else wrong.

[saurc]

Isn't the phase cloak used for the super-torpedos in VOY Endgame?

[Singular Intellect]

Isn't the phase cloak used for the super-torpedos in VOY Endgame?

Unknown. The torpedoes were simply called "transphasic" torpedoes.

But if you think the name explains any part of the actual mechanisms of the torpedoes, then you probably think turbolasers are lasers and sandwichs have sand in them.

[CaptainChewbacca]

If a phase cloak means you aren't interacting with normal matter, is it possible it would reduce the power drain on a deflector shield while at warp, and therefore increase your engine/power use efficiency while travelling FTL?

[DaveJB]

Only if the phase cloak used less power than the navigational deflector, and seeing as conventional cloaks use so much power as to render a ship's weapons and shields useless, I wouldn't think that was the case.

[Darth Wong]

Phase cloaks are overrated and don't make sense? I that respect his buddies have a point. It's really nothing more than a cloak-but-supposedly-better that allows for whacky ghost stories and works as a neat McGuffin.

Every time anyone has experimented with a phase cloak in Star Trek, there's eventually an accident, an explosion, and people die. Picard only used it for a few seconds in "Pegasus". The actual USS Pegasus suffered an explosion when they used the very same device, and the Romulans also suffered an explosion when they tried to develop a similar device. Neither party resumed that avenue of research as far as we know, Pressman's zeal to recover his lost baby notwithstanding.

In a game, I would suggest forcing every player to do a die roll for a catastrophic failure (assuming it's that kind of game) every time they use it.

[Darth Wong]

The phase cloak is fairly useless overall. Think of it this way--a normal cloak makes you invisible. A phase cloak makes you invisible and lets things pass through you with low interactivity. What's the difference out in space? Rarely will you fight in a dense planetary ring full of rock chunks, so the phase aspect is nearly pointless. It can make you mostly resistant to attack. But since this is Star Trek, let us examine it in a bit more depth--since that depth is very shallow:

Interphase Cloaks don't cloak the ship, they take it out of phase, which ghosts it. This is the technology used, as stolen from Memory Alpha:

A molecular phase inverter is a device that can alter the structure of normal matter, putting it out of phase with normal matter. Matter that has been "phased" can no longer make physical contact with normal matter. However "phased" matter can make physical contact with "phased" matter that has the same phase variance. Phased matter is also unaffected by external energy sources such as heat, allowing a phased object to be able to, in theory, go inside a planet. In addition, conventional weapons would be completely ineffective against phased matter.

Three different powers, the Klingon Empire, the Romulan Empire and the Federation (with the latter being done illegally) attempted to combine a molecular phase inverter with a cloaking device, creating an interphase cloaking device or an interphase generator (either of which would have provided a substantial tactical advantage), all with limited success. (TNG: "The Next Phase", "The Pegasus"; ENT: "These Are the Voyages...")

As you can see, there's a big gaping hole in this equation. Phased matter can be interacted with if you phase the weapon to the same phase variance. Though none of that makes any sense, it does mean that the frequency-adjusting weapons that you see people use so often would be able to calibrate and then fire again, whacking the ship even though it had been phased. If Interphasic Cloaks became a popular option, you'd have Phase Inversion Torpedoes at the ready to blow them away before too long. Just pre-phase a few from one tube and leave at the ready.

It's unfortunate that Trekkies feel the need to talk to each other in this bullshit made-up jargon. It's honestly no less nonsensical than declaring that they have a Cloak of Invisibility +5, but you can override it with a Spell of Vision.