Build:Inertial Damping Field (Inertial Stabilizer)
8.12 Inertial Damping Field (Inertial Stabilizer)
(Required; also one backup for each two main generators)
Cost: 2 x Size (main generator [1 per each 2 units of Size]); 0.5 x Size (backup generator)
Available: 2036
The tremendous acceleration and deceleration involved with space travel and starship combat would be enough to cause fatal injury to everyone aboard ship if not for the inertial damping field (IDF) (inertial stabilizers in the 23rd century). The IDF is a series of variable-symmetry force fields which absorbs and counteracts the forces generated by starship travel. Although normally maintained at a low level throughout the ship, it can respond to data from Flight Control to “redistribute” itself along vectors directly opposing the force generated (there is a millisecond delay while this occurs, so a drastic maneuver may cause some crewmembers to stumble or fall out of their chairs). Thus, the crew on a ship usually feels little, if anything, when the ship accelerates, decelerates, or maneuvers. Pre-warp ships did not employ IDFs.
A main IDF generator costs 2 x Size in SUs. The IDF automatically has a rating equal to the whole number of a ship’s Maximum warp speed (for example, a ship with a Maximum of Warp 9.975 has an IDF with a rating of 9; if a ship can only travel at impulse speeds, its IDF has a rating equal to its maximum impulse speed expressed as a whole number). The stronger an IDF’s rating, the more inertial force from which it can protect the crew.
Star Fleet protocols require a ship to have at least one main IDF generator for every two points of Size; many vessels have more. It should also have at least one backup IDF generator for every two main generators (again, many ships have more). Backup IDF generators cost 0.5 x Size in SUs (minimum of 1 SU) and provide two-thirds of the rating of a main IDF generator (thus, on a ship with an IDF 9, the backup IDFs have a rating of 6).