Lol, I should have expected a Romulan player to come up with something like that.
Ok, I just checked some technical info on Star Trek, and basically it is mentioned that a cloaking device uses so much energy that there is not enough power left for the weapons. Normally, while I was unable now to look this up online, it is known that a cloaked ship also has (except for the navigational deflector, which obviously needs only very little amounts of power) NO shields activated.
This is reinforced by the fact that when ships cloak or uncloak, they are unshielded. Now why should one lower his shields for this process if he actually HAS the power to keep shields up? If you would be right, it means the following:
- When cloaked, a ship has only power for cloak and shields, but none for weapons. When decloaking, the ship transfers the power used for the cloak to the weapons if needed.
If this would be true, why should the shields be lowered for cloaking/decloaking when the required power transfer happens only between weapons and cloak? Why should one give up his main defense, even if it only was for a few seconds, if he can keep power to the shields?
So, you can assume that shields also are inactive due to the huge power consumption of the cloaking device. Unfortunately, this specific logical point seemingly was never pointed out directly in the Star Trek series, which lead to episodes/films in which a cloaked ship gets hit directly, and others where cloaked ships have shields. But normally they are NOT supposed to have shields under cloak.
Besides, the B'Rel in Generations had no specific problem with it's cloak and shields, it was something with a plasma conduit (dont recall it exactly) which was linked to the cloaking device. And by emitting a certain signal, this "conduit" was lead to "believe" that it received the command to cloak, and so the shields went automatically OFFLINE.
Both the Bird of Prey in Star Trek 6 and the Scimitar in Nemesis were new experimental ships.
I can only guess that the gas trail that the B'Rel left behind should normally be cloaked too, or else Starfleet would only have needed to equip its Torpedoes with those sensors if it always would have been THAT easy to find a cloaked ship. So probably the Klingons found a way to reduce the cloak's power consumption far enough so that there is power for the torpedoes. This guess is reinforced by the fact that the torpedoes that were fired by that ship had a relatively long reloading delay.
The Scimitar was a revolutionary ship, and one can assume that it's ability to stay fully shielded, fully cloaked and ready to fire was made possible with a new extra strong power core, and some advances made in reducing the power needed by the ship's main systems. Also notice that apart from sensors, life support, engines, weapons, shields and other key systems, the Scimitar had in fact less basic systems to power than the Enterprise. The Scimitar was build purely as a warship, and therefore one can imagine that it doesn't have had as much replicators, holodecks or any other systems/sections like the Enterprise has them -> more power left for main systems. Also remember that the ship was a large Thalaron generator, and therefore it's wings mainly served that purpose. And since the Thalaron generator is only active when needed, it also does not require any power until activated.
Besides, if it really is that "easy" to create cloaked ships with active shields and weapons, one has to wonder why the Romulans didn't come up with a ship like that earlier, considering that they have by far the most experience regarding cloaking technology. I guess the Remans got to develop the Scimitar only by 1.) the help of some Romulans and 2.) the FACT that they were forced to work not only in the mines, but obviously in some military construction sites on Remus too, which probably gave them the needed knowledge and insights. Probably the Remans were able to think of one or two ideas the Romulans didn't think to be possible.
So, in short: except for some errors and special ships, up to now there has NEVER been a normal cloaked ship that was capable of powering more than it's cloak OR weapons and shields simultanously.
- Future