Holographic cloaking

Holographic Cloaking is a stealth technology, most commonly deployed on shipkillers, which employs both a specialized holographic image, as well as a custom crafted energy field designed to hide an Earthfleet starship in plain sight. So, rather than completely concealing the ship from all forms of detection, holographic cloaking masks the true identity of the vessel it is protecting, appearing to any and all nearby ships that it is something completely different than it really is. Holographic cloaking is often used in situations where the use of regular stealth or cloaking technology is impractical or ill advised. In some cases, being seen, even if it is as something or someone entirely different than their real identity, is far better than not being seen at all. Also, while holographic cloaking as its advantages, it also has its disadvantages, as the size of the hologram and false energy field is limited to no less than the physical size of the parent ship, and no more than twelve to twenty times that of the same.

For example, a shipkiller would be able to mimic a Gayik'Von frigate or sub-destroyer, but nothing larger than these as they exceed the size and energy capabilities of the cloak. One advantage of holographic cloaking, however, is that multiple ships can combine their cloaks together to produce a single object that is much larger than any one of them would be able to produce individually. However, maximum projection limitations would still apply, even if the cloaks were combined. Thus, four ships, each having a 20x capability, would be limited to producing a holographic cloak no more than 15-20x's their combined capabilities. IE, between 60 and 80x's an individual ship's total mass. Generally though, to ensure that the cloak is not compromised or rendered unstable, resulting in compromise of their attempted stealth, most ships will only employ their holographic cloaking in resolutions up to 10x's their total mass.