A cloaking device is a mechanism that is widely used by the Romulan and Klingon Empires. Its basis is a space warping field which effectively creates a bubble. This bubble bends all photons around the vessel effectively preventing light from reflecting off the hull. This makes the entire vessel in visible to outside vessels. While cloaked a vessel cannot fire weapons as in effect the bubble of the cloak is reflective and there for torpedoes can impact against it and direct energy weaponary is reflected back around of the internal surface of the vessel. Some of the inabilities of the cloakind device is that it doesn't mask warp or engine trails and that while cloaked the field severely reduces sensor capabilities.
(: TIM :)
