[Spaceship question] Which one is quicker to upgrade?

[CheertheSecond]

I want to get a general response not an accurate answer.

If in a scifi and someone asked you, "the ship plating and the ship shield which is quicker to upgrade"? Which one would you pick?

Situation for anyone interested:

Your empire's flagship just became a past tense. Your military now need a new flagship to host the emperor for a revenge battle. You got a line of high-grade ships but the imperial security department demands better durability for the new flagship so it is either the plating or the shield because the D-day is just around the corner.

 

[Cipiteca396]

Weird question. Mid battle, you could overclock the shields. But that would only last a few seconds/minutes.

A permanent upgrade though, just depends on what you have available.

Or rather, upgrading the ship's armor would require you to replace the entire ship's exoskeleton. If it's heavier armor, then you might need to replace the engines as well.
Replacing the shields would require you to replace the entire ship's circuitry and the projectors, possibly the power source as well to keep up with output.

Frankly, you should do both... This is the emperor after all, and you're already dismantling the ship either way, so both at the same time is probably faster anyways.

 

[Arkus86]

Armour plating is just the external "skin" of the ship. You strip it off and weld on a new one, or just slap on additional plating on the existing. It could also increase the mass of your ship significantly (generally undesirable), but it would be relatively quick and simple.

For shields, you potentially have to rip up parts of the ship internals to even get to the shield generators/emitters , only to find out the new and better generators have different dimensions and don't fit, requiring further modifications. And that's before considering whether the power generation and distribution of your ship is able to handle it.

So replacing or thickening the armour plating would be the quicker option.

 

[CheertheSecond]

Weird question. Mid battle, you could overclock the shields. But that would only last a few seconds/minutes.

A permanent upgrade though, just depends on what you have available.

Or rather, upgrading the ship's armor would require you to replace the entire ship's exoskeleton. If it's heavier armor, then you might need to replace the engines as well.
Replacing the shields would require you to replace the entire ship's circuitry and the projectors, possibly the power source as well to keep up with output.

Frankly, you should do both... This is the emperor after all, and you're already dismantling the ship either way, so both at the same time is probably faster anyways.

Not mid battle.

They were planning for the next incursion which would happen in next month or two.

It's the perma upgrade I am asking.

The new flagship is chosen from an existing custom-made battleship normally used for Admiral so they didn't dismantle it. They were planning to retrofit this Admiral-category Battleship to make it even more durable for to host the emperor. Hence, if you are to pull everything out and install new things, what would be quicker? A better shield system or ship plating?

 

[SurfAngel_1031]

When thinking about this question, an image from 'Star Trek: Voyager' came to mind. The very last episode shows that the USS Voyager had gotten both shield and armor upgrades while getting back to Earth in order to combat the Borg.

It's implied that they learned how to get the upgrades and given their limited resources still managed to outfit the ship.

Given the full force of an empire behind it, both the armor and the shields could be done in pretty fast order.

I mean modern Tank armor is (called Reactive armor) is merely bolted on and when hit by high explosive anti-tank rounds, will shatter away from the rest of the tank.

Modern computer systems are much the same. Upgrading a CPU or RAM is as easy as a click in many cases.

Given this is a science fiction, I'd say it's easy to change it. Ultimately it comes down to what you'd like the reader to experience.

If you want the reader to like experience their panic and hastily throw something together, that works. If you want the reader to experience the full force of an awakened empire that's good too.

 

[LilRora]

This all depends on the technology. Slapping an additional layer of basic armor can be done in hours, but upgrading the hull could potentially take weeks or months if you have to disassemble the ship to put on new armor. Similarly, depending on technology, upgrading the shield can be as simple as pulling the cables on the old generator and replacing it with a better one, or can be as complex as rebuilding an entire shield structure across the ship's innards.

 

[Alski]

I want to get a general response not an accurate answer.

It depends on the rest of the setting.

 

[Dec]

Logic dictates that stronger shields require stronger generators, capacitors, and more space unless there is a multi-generational leap between original parts and currently accessible ones that are the same size and stronger while using less power.
If there is no such leap, strapping additional armor or replacing the current one will be faster AND cheaper, as you don't need to rip apart and upgrade half of the ship's internals to replace a single shield generator. And armor is not an integral part of the ship anyway, just an external layer that comes in easily replaceable parts - at least that's the logical approach, as in the heat of the battle you need an option to easily and fastly replace damaged parts so the ship can return as fast as possible instead of staying in the dock doing nothing.

the ship plating and the ship shield which is quicker to upgrade

If there is a multi-generational leap in shield technology that makes sense to use, then shields. Else ship plating.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Would depend on resources available and technology. Easiest upgrade would probably be ablative (i.e. temporary) armor, that gets "used up" as it protects.
Best bet would be reinforcing both the shields and the armor a bit, rather than giving only one a big upgrade.
Though I would probably look at improving the power supply so that it could be diverted to shields, or used to speed up repairs of armor during battle, rather than upgrading either one directly (assuming that's a possibility)

 

[HisDivineShadow]

It really depends on what’s quicker and uses fewer resources in your world — and whether there’s even time for that. It could lead to conflict, or help avoid one, depending on what the goal is. You’re bringing it up without saying what you're actually aiming for.