"Starships" Questions

[tonyg]

I think strict31 has it right. Using a TREK example, many fans were impressed when TNG came out and we saw how HUGH the ENT-D was.

When the Romulan D'Deridex uncloaked and was even larger it had an effect on viers AND the crew of the ENT-D.

THe D'Deridex didn't HAVE to be built that big. It was done so for political reasons as well as tactical ones.

THe big battle/warship ship do have a few game advantages over the generally better crusiers and explorers, mostly due to being able to be a point or size or two larger:

1) THe slighter higher size means slighly more ability to soak damage (higher structure), that can be augmented by sacrficing SIZE for structure. Take a SIZE 8 CA design and change the size to 9 and call it a CB, DR, or BA and see what extra space you have left to "toughen it up".

2) That "extra" space in the larger ships can be reused for other things, allowing for some intersting refits. It is generally easier to squeeze on a few exra heavy weapons on a larger ship, since there is more "room" to play with. Squeezing and extra dozen phaser banks is easier on a bigger ship. Ditto with transporters, assault craft, whatever. This can lead to things like a Battleship being modified into a fairly decent carrier vessel. Just think what spending a couple of points of space on shuttlebays and transporters can do to of those big ROmulan Warbirds.

[tonyg]

Someone has probably pointed this out by now, but I'll bring it up anyway. Maybe someone can redirect me to a thread.

I've been designing some ships for a new alien species with less advanced technology, and have run into a design problem.

Since a ship's suggested offensive value is based on it'S class/type as a muitplie of it's size, older ships tened to have about the same offense as newer designs--they just require more weapons to get there.

The problem is that older weapon systems are far more efficient in terms of Offense/Space ratio resulting in older designs having more firepower for a given amount of space than a newer design. Type II (Type III for "heavy" vessels) phasers give more firepower for a given amount of space than more "powerful" beam weapons.

Is this correct? Am I missing something? Is there a cap on threshold for olderdesigns? Can you really up the Offense of a Sovereign-class ship by over 50% by replacing the 36 Space used for the six Type XII phasers with thirty six Type III phasers?

[TFVanguard]

[/b]Aside from the dialog in "Balance of Terror" I think it's pretty silly to say the Romulans have no warp technology, especially since ENT has shown the Romulans galavanting about the galaxy nearly 100 prior. But, that's just me.

Just a quick nitpick, Scotty is only referring to the Warbird's main power system.

It used to be stated that the impulse systems were the primary power source for Star Trek ships, and that the warp pylons were for little use other than warping space. this has changed somewhat, but I think the idea was that the Romulans didn't have anything special for their propulsions systems, which the Enterprise certainly did.

One of the joys of dealing with TOS material, you have to fudge a lot.

[TFVanguard]

You're right, it is. As for the Ranger's fantail and hangar doors, yes, they are "upside down" compared to the same area on the Constitution.

I noticed that, but it's also a legacy picture that I see a lot of, probably an artifact of the Ranger's actual origins. At least it's not the Bonaventure!

[TFVanguard]

Originally posted by Don Mappin
Unofficially, I'd say no. I'll do a little research and make a recommendation in my errata to Jesse.

Wouldn't you have different rigging for different banks, not unlike different guns on our ships today? A scout or destroyer may not have a variety of different phaser bank styles, but I would imagine a cruiser, command cruiser, or the more 'PC' Exploration Cruiser (read, Battleship or Dreadnaught) would have an assortment of banks to play with.

[tonyg]

I liked James Dixon's solution for the lack of warp power on the old BoP.

His explanation was that since the warp drive distored (warped) space around the vessel, it interfered with the cloaking device (the cloak had to warp the llight and EM signatirue of the craft). So the Romulans turnd thier warp drive off.

Makes a lot of sense.

THose nacelles on the Bird of Prey certainly look like warp nacelles.

[Tobian]

Erm... but that still doesn't make any sense because the 'warp drive' is off unless it's traveling at warp.. unless you are confusing it with the 'warp core' which if course WOULD be online because it's basically a huge generator... which they would probably need for their cloak !

It's like if you had an ocean liner you can still leave the engine running to power your lights and other things - the 'warp drive' is just the propeller! I can't see them having two seperate power generators - one for JUST the warp drive and one for JUST the cloaking device. If the ship has warp nacelles and a means to travel at warp then I am sure they would have said that, rather than saying it had none?

Or did I misunderstand your statement?

Don't get me wrong - I think it's stupid too but it's what you saw on the show

[TFVanguard]

How about, 'their warp drive was powered by their impulse reactor', and not a dedicated warp core? This might allow them some warp capabilty, but not a whole lot.

Of course, this doesn't explain how the same ship class can give the Enterprise a good chase a little later in 'The Deadly Years'. Maybe they were already installing dedicated warp cores after realizing their Warbird's fatal weakness?

[Tobian]

As a general rule of thumb warp cores are not needed for weapons. A Fusion reactor is plenty for energy weapons and photorps need minimal power.

For all we know the Romulans may well have warp drive it's just that it's hard for them to make so they make a few big ships which tow smaller one's in to defend a sector.. I mean why give your ships a chance of escaping when they could kamikaze at your enemy

[tonyg]

Originally posted by Tobian
I mean why give your ships a chance of escaping when they could kamikaze at your enemy

(Entering Vulcan Mode)
Because it costs you more in men an craft that it costs the enemy. Just look at WWII.


If your culture has a "come back victorious or don't come back at all" atitude (the ROmans did, as did TOS era Romulans) you might do it anyway.

[tonyg]

Originally posted by Tobian
Erm... but that still doesn't make any sense because the 'warp drive' is off unless it's traveling at warp.. unless you are confusing it with the 'warp core' which if course WOULD be online because it's basically a huge generator... which they would probably need for their cloak !

It could make sense (as much sesse as Treknobabble ever does). FOr one thing the less power a ship is generating the easier it would be to cloak it (look at modern stealth tech). The cloaking device might not require warp power if it doesn'T have to try and hide a running warp core.

It's like if you had an ocean liner you can still leave the engine running to power your lights and other things - the 'warp drive' is just the propeller! I can't see them having two seperate power generators - one for JUST the warp drive and one for JUST the cloaking device. If the ship has warp nacelles and a means to travel at warp then I am sure they would have said that, rather than saying it had none?

Warp Drive and Warp Engines were used fairly interchangably in TOS (and even in ENT). The term warp core didn't get invented unti TNG. Even in the real world there is a habit of reffering to the engine as the means of populsion rather than the power train. Technically the engine just provides the energy to do so, as in a car.

Yes, you can leave the engine running, but if the ship is designed right, you don't have to. Same is true with a car. You don't have to run the engine to have the lights on or listen to the radio. Likewise in TREK there is olttile evidence that you need warp power to run anything other that warp drive. IN fact, the evidence seems to suggest the opposite. Most systems can be run on "impluse auxiliary" or "battery" power for a time.

COnsider that "Baance of Terror" was inspired by WWII submarine battles and the concept makes even more sense- WWII subs had to run or battery power when submerged.

I wouldn't be so sure about what they "would have said". TOS (TREK in general) is full of situations where they didn't say what they should have. I doubt they should have said "proximity fuse phasers" in "Balance of Terror" either, but they did.
It is also possible that they didn't catch it on the scans, since they didn't get much scanning time in (the Rom was cloaked most of the time).

Or did I misunderstand your statement?

Don't get me wrong - I think it's stupid too but it's what you saw on the show

No, you didn't misundestand my statement. It is just that the sitation leaves room for different interpretations.

I agree, there are a lot of blunders in the episode. No warp drive makes the Romulan War sort of impossible. THe Romulan fleet would probably have just gotten back to Romulus by the time the episode starts. I know Romulans have long lifespans, but really.

Even more stupid is how a ship moving at warp can't manage to catch a ship travelling at impulse before it crosses the Neutral Zone. Guess Kirk wasn't in a hurry.

[Tobian]

Yes I agree - the whole mess over exactly constitutes a warp drive in TOS makes the entire thing a mishmash of technobabble... you would NEVER have your dilithium crystals sitting on a shelf glowing in the TNG era because it makes no sense whatsoever in a TNG context - but that's exactly how they have them in TOS (and the earlier films) - retrospectivelly TOS technology is SO much more inconsistient than TNG but then it was all just a bunch of props back then - I mean the whole scene in Wrath of khan - withe dilithium sitting in a room to one side of the EPS conduit mostly makes no sense - it was just a set

However that said nothing in the statements they made in that episode said "THE ROMULANS AS A PEOPLE HAVE NO WARP DRIVE" - all they said is "THAT SHIP" had no warp drive - hence I don't have that much of a problem leaving it allone.... Perhaps the ship was actually just a local ship, built locally in a local shipyard.. perhaps they built hundreds of them like that because the technology was cheap... maybe the cloaking device required so much room they couldn't fit a warp drive IN THAT MODEL - but you know - tractor beams and towing are possible in TOS ! Bottom line there was only one prototype ship in that episode !

With regards to the whole power thing. As a rule you hardly ever saw the enterprise D without her warp core online - of course you can conjecture it's 'cause it looked cool in the set but then that's all we have to go on - the show It looks like they do use it allot for power. I suspect that TOS era ships were less demanding - Holodecks use ALOT of power ! but then I would probably conjecture things like transporters need that level of power to be available. Fortunatelly EPS systems seem to be able to store energy inherently throughout the grid - so it's not like when you shut off mains line electricity - some power can be coaxed out - which of course does make logical sense in the sense that it's energised plasma held in toroidal magnetic suspension and not 'electricity'

With regards to the Romulans and kamikaze runs - well look what they did to those 3 Vulcan ships with boarding parties on them in "Unification" - THAT is the type of thing I mean.. it's fair to say that if the Enterprise hadn't got lucky the Romulan ship could have survived and hailed a nearby ship for a tow - because no matter how good your cloak is it can't cloak your COMMS

[tonyg]

Using the dilithium as some sort of focusing crstal makes sense. It is just having it sit there that doesn't. At least in TWOK it looked like it was part of something, as opposed to someone's jewlry box.

The TNG warp core on-line thing doesn't apply here since it was a different show, made 20 years later. You have to look at TOS without TNG.

As for the ship not having warp drive, I reinterate, that could have been that it didn't show up on the scans because it wasn't running.

Heck, Kirk has the Enterprise play dead to lure the Romulans back, and the Enterprise didn't have to take the warp engines off line to fool the Roms (if they had it would have taken 30 minutes to get them back up) , just powered down most systems.


Now that is one interpretation. THere are others. But I thingk this one makes a lot of sense. You can see the blasted warp nacelles on the ship.


Another interpretation, as you pointed out, is that the ship does have a warp powered transport that drags it about.

THere are lots of ways to store power. MOst things in the real word can run fine on batteries (you just need a lot at out tech level). According to most of the early TOS era books the matter/antimatter system was needed to get the massive amount of energy required to move a ship at FTL level. Not for the other systems.

Roms don't let themselves get captured. In BoT there were other reasons besides Romulan Pride for the commander to self destruct his ship-it was a testbed with two protetype systems aboard. Couldn't let that fall into the hands of the Federation.

[TFVanguard]

Okay, I'm a bit fuzzy on this, didn't the Phoenix have a fusion-reactor based Warp Drive? (Anti-matter wouldn't be too easy to come by /on Earth). And isn't the fusion reactors on the Enterprise referred to as the 'impulse system'?

As I said before, isn't it possible (though retconning) that the BOP's warp drive (which they had to have had in The Deadly Years, at the very least) was a major power drain from their impulse engines (then channeling power to the warp thingies), rather than the 'intermix' engine of the Enterprise?

"Simple Impulse" ... still keeping the meaning that it was a more primitive drive system, but still a warp-capable one?

[tonyg]

Originally posted by TFVanguard
Okay, I'm a bit fuzzy on this, didn't the Phoenix have a fusion-reactor based Warp Drive? (Anti-matter wouldn't be too easy to come by /on Earth). And isn't the fusion reactors on the Enterprise referred to as the 'impulse system'?

As I said before, isn't it possible (though retconning) that the BOP's warp drive (which they had to have had in The Deadly Years, at the very least) was a major power drain from their impulse engines (then channeling power to the warp thingies), rather than the 'intermix' engine of the Enterprise?

"Simple Impulse" ... still keeping the meaning that it was a more primitive drive system, but still a warp-capable one?

I think so.
The impulse engine is some sort of reactor or reaction drive.
Yes, according to TOS cannon, it would be a big drain. Much more so than the "impulse".
Could be. If we went this way, we would have to figure out how to reflect this in CODA.

For starters, it would probably have to be a slow engine., since the power requires are non-linear.

Secondly, we'd have to assign temportary damage boxes to systems to reflect the reduced power.