Capt. Hunter asked the following questions over in "Questions & Mechanics," which I decided to move here so that everyone interested would see the answers.
It couldn't ignore the cost, exactly. It would simply pay for the cost out of the battery's reserve instead of the usual flow of power through the EPS systems. I suspect that Starfleet Regulations frown on this sort of thing, though, since the batteries are intended to provide power for the system only after main power has been cut off or the like. It's up to the captain to decide what's appropriate for any given situation.I have one question (possibly answered in the pages I haven't printed yet) - the text states that phasers have backup power cells enabling the ship to get off a few shots if power is low. Does this mean a ship could effectively ignore the power cost for phasers for a round if it just fired one shot (by using the reserve and not recharging it)?
It's correct as written. The Forward Phasre Array is the one that fires through the detachable warhead in the front -- it's neither ventral nor dorsal, but on the "centerline" of the ship, so to speak.Also, in the Defiant writeup at the end, should the Forward Phaser Array weapon actually be a Ventral Array (or is it Dorsal)? The ship has one of the two as listed, enabling it to fire at targets behine and below/above it, so is the Forward Array correct or a typo?
The Dorsal Phaser Array listed is the one in the circular area on the dorsal side of the ship (right on top of the bridge, IOW). None of the schematics for the ship show an array there, but it's been quite clearly shown in use on several episodes of DS9.
Does that answer your question?
Steve Long