Transporters in ENT era

[stephane]

Hi all,

When would you make the transporters technology reliable in ENT era ? My players are in 2155 now, and I'm unsure if I should go for a "c'mon guys you can use it now" or still wait. Any thoughts ?

[Mazza]

They seem pretty reliable on the show in all honesty. I believe there were more transporter accidents in TOS than there have been in Enterprise so far!

[stephane]

Yup but they use it 3 times / season in ENT and many times / episode in TOS.

Lets say they used it 6 or 7 times before Vanishing Point and they had their first problem. Not that reliable.

With such probabilities, they would have a transport accident every three episodes in TNG

[Owen E Oulton]

Of course, they've only used it three times on people, and one of those times it scrambled the person with plant matter. And that was with no technobabble problems - just a little wind. That's a 33% failure rate. If you actually look at the problems in TOS, you'll find they're A) pretty rare, and B) almost always a result of external sources.

For an Enterprise era game, just bump all tasks up a difficulty level or two, and don't allow any automatic successes when transporting people. Don't make the consequences horrendous, though - the transporter is, after all, safe enough to be approved for biotransport. On a simple failure roll a D6 and apply the following results:

1. Dizzy spell - +1 difficulty to all Coordination or Intellect based tasks for 1 hour.
2. Prolonged dizziness - as above, but for a full day.
3. Lightly stunned - as phaser light stun
4. Stunned - as phaser heavy stun
5. Power discharge - power cells in all equipment carried are discharged.
6. Roll twice, ignoring any results of 6.

[stephane]

Yup Owen, fair enough, I'll use your table.

[redwood973]

. . .it scrambled the person with plant matter. And that was with no technobabble problems - just a little wind.

So avoid the three bean burrito before transporting on any away missions? Sorry couldn't help myself.

1. Dizzy spell - +1 difficulty to all Coordination or Intellect based tasks for 1 hour.
2. Prolonged dizziness - as above, but for a full day.
3. Lightly stunned - as phaser light stun
4. Stunned - as phaser heavy stun
5. Power discharge - power cells in all equipment carried are discharged.
6. Roll twice, ignoring any results of 6.

Thanks Owen! I will be using this as well.

[Owen E Oulton]

Hey, it gives the impression that it's dangerous without arbitrarily killing PCs off. Of course, if you want to really ram it home, turn a Security NPC inside out on the second time the roll fails. Don't let the players know what the table says.

I guarantee you, they'll think twice before using the transporter routinely.

[Phantom]

I just hope no crew members get changed into a 3 bean burrito.

[Owen E Oulton]

"I just hope no crew members get changed into a 3 bean burrito."

With chunky salsa (or guacamole in the case of Vulcans)? Nah, I guess that would be an Inertial Damper failure.

[Lt.Khrys Antos]

Originally posted by Owen E Oulton
"I just hope no crew members get changed into a 3 bean burrito."

With chunky salsa (or guacamole in the case of Vulcans)? Nah, I guess that would be an Inertial Damper failure.

Whatever type of failure it is...I think it would be a popular crewmen.

I'm going to use Owen's table in my TNG era game for the ship my crew is using (since its an old 22th century courier).

[qerlin]

I figure if Starfleet's just approved the transporter for live beings (I think that's what they said in season 1), that you'll have the usual military "well, it only kills people x amount of the time" mentality. The 33% chance of error seems good with outside interference; figure half that under ideal condition. I like Owen's table for minor errors.

Even in the post-DS9 era game we've been running, we see little transporter errors. I figured the "Heisenberg compensator" is essentially 'guesses' -- uses the most likely position of atoms, etc. We see the occasional pregnancy that might have otherwise not have happened because the embryo was simply joined with the uterine wall. The occasional confusion or minor memory loss by a neuron or two either having their charge/spin/chemistry altered or otherwise effected. The confusion, etc. of Owen's chart could indicate that; it would take a bit for the brain to rewrite to certain K-lines, or some such. The mistakes are rare and small, but could conceivably give you the surprise stroke, cardial infarction...gas from that damn burrito...

[Owen E Oulton]

" I figured the "Heisenberg compensator" is essentially 'guesses'"

Actually, the term used in Relics was "redundant Heisenberg compensators." Since Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle states that you can either know a particle's position or its velocity, the redundant Heisenberg compensators are a pair of linked computers, one of which calculates each particle's position and the other one calculates its velocity. I'm pretty certain this was the gist of the technobabble in-joke on the part of the writers...