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The ablative
armour hull plating has been in development for a number of years, though
various related to materials availability, instabilities, phaser and torpedo
resistance, and long fabrication lead times have prevented it's widespread
use on front-line starships.
The armour works
in two stages; in the event of a shield envelope disruption, phaser or thermal
EM is first dissipated over the hull surface, and above an undisclosed threshold
causes the the molecular matrix to boil off at a controlled rate, carrying
away a large fraction of the landed beam energy. In most cases, the boil-off
creates a medium density particle cloud, which may help disperse the incoming
beam.
The first active
starship to use ablative was the USS Defiant NX-74205. After this vessel's
armour proved itself in combat, and also due to the Dominion War, many starships
currently in production incorporate ablative armour.
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