"Shields at 60%, Captain!"
- Thread starter Praetorian
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My thoughts:
I think the Bassen Rift battle is a good example of ship movements and corrdination.It makes sense for the E to be moving fast,as that's the only way E-E could dodge the larger and superior armed Schimitar's disruptors.
The only weak spot was Geordi being on the bridge (....ok?shouldn't you be in the engine room..),and just telling Picard out the blue that the phasers and torpedos are depleted.It would have been nice pipe up about the Enterprise being almost 'winchester'-before running empty.
The only *major* failure of that battle scene was tactical creativity.Maybe have E-E use the gas in the rift to make a firebreak like Insurrection or similar tactic.
Of course Picard should have avoided the rift entirely,but then Nemesis wouldn't have a reason to exist.
I think the Bassen Rift battle is a good example of ship movements and corrdination.It makes sense for the E to be moving fast,as that's the only way E-E could dodge the larger and superior armed Schimitar's disruptors.
The only weak spot was Geordi being on the bridge (....ok?shouldn't you be in the engine room..),and just telling Picard out the blue that the phasers and torpedos are depleted.It would have been nice pipe up about the Enterprise being almost 'winchester'-before running empty.
The only *major* failure of that battle scene was tactical creativity.Maybe have E-E use the gas in the rift to make a firebreak like Insurrection or similar tactic.
Of course Picard should have avoided the rift entirely,but then Nemesis wouldn't have a reason to exist.
I think one thing needs to be remembered
We think of ST:TNG along with DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise as "modern Star Trek".
But in terms of special effects technology, ST:TNG was actually closer to the Original Series than it was to Voyager and Enterprise.
Pre computer generated effects revolution. All models, lighting, and many passes over models to generate each shot.
Thus, really interesting battles in the ST:TNG era such as Yesterdays Enterprise were very expensive affairs.
Plus, I think the effects people on ST:TNG often found the fictional size of the Enterprise-D to be a daunting obstacle. IIRC, one of them said in a magazine article once that they felt it would be "odd" for a ship of that size to be swooping around during a battle
so most ST:TNG battles relied on static shots of the Enterprise with the effects work focusing on the weapons and shields.
We think of ST:TNG along with DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise as "modern Star Trek".
But in terms of special effects technology, ST:TNG was actually closer to the Original Series than it was to Voyager and Enterprise.
Pre computer generated effects revolution. All models, lighting, and many passes over models to generate each shot.
Thus, really interesting battles in the ST:TNG era such as Yesterdays Enterprise were very expensive affairs.
Plus, I think the effects people on ST:TNG often found the fictional size of the Enterprise-D to be a daunting obstacle. IIRC, one of them said in a magazine article once that they felt it would be "odd" for a ship of that size to be swooping around during a battle
so most ST:TNG battles relied on static shots of the Enterprise with the effects work focusing on the weapons and shields.
How is that tactical creativity if they used it prominently in the previous movie?
I was using that as an example.Ideally there wouldn't have been a battle at all .As in Picard would have known there was a 'dead zone' ,and have taken measures to avoid being ambused in it.
As written,they could have rammed Scimitar and ejected the core manually with a good ole' jury rigged fuse,or feigned surrender and sent a shuttle loaded with Picard (and lots of antimatter) right into the Schmitar's landing bay.Then Picard could use the one-way transport thingy and boom!No more thalaron generator.
But alas,Enterprise is ambushed in a green cloud,and Data is killed by phasering the generator.And people wonder why Trek declined as it did.
I don't expect the TNG Enterprise to be doing barrel rolls and all that in a battle but I do expect it to move a bit, even try to escape or turn away. This was done in DS9 but I agree that the model effects were harder and more expensive in TNG. They could have had the actors convey ship movement and battle damage though and then show one of those stock images of the Enterprise moving away or something.
The two ships always sat there and just fired back at each other. It makes it pretty easy for your enemy to lock weapons and keep firing! If I'm being pummeled, why keep sitting there? If the shields are weakened in the area closest to the attacking ship, why keep it facing the enemy? And if the Enterprise can't move very fast and dodge fire, I would think the ship would have a superior hull so that it can withstand a few shots because it's a larger target and it moves slower so it's gonna be hit more.
And as for the battle in Nemesis it moved at an awkward pace. It would start, and then slow to a crawl, and then start up again, and then slow down. The Enterprise moved perfectly in my opinion trying to dodge fire since warp engines were gone. My biggest complaint was I wished the fleet came in to help instead of just sitting there! What the heck did they think would happen flying into a nebula where communications go down!
The two ships always sat there and just fired back at each other. It makes it pretty easy for your enemy to lock weapons and keep firing! If I'm being pummeled, why keep sitting there? If the shields are weakened in the area closest to the attacking ship, why keep it facing the enemy? And if the Enterprise can't move very fast and dodge fire, I would think the ship would have a superior hull so that it can withstand a few shots because it's a larger target and it moves slower so it's gonna be hit more.
And as for the battle in Nemesis it moved at an awkward pace. It would start, and then slow to a crawl, and then start up again, and then slow down. The Enterprise moved perfectly in my opinion trying to dodge fire since warp engines were gone. My biggest complaint was I wished the fleet came in to help instead of just sitting there! What the heck did they think would happen flying into a nebula where communications go down!
I'd argue that's exactly what we are seeing. The ship does have superior protection, and never really gets badly maimed by enemy fire even when sitting still. Indeed, it would make no sense to waste power for maneuvering in such circumstances, when it could be rerouted to shielding and weapons instead...
Timo Saloniemi
The initial battle b/t Reliant and Enterprise. Enterprise took more hits than were shown...it would have been interesting to see all the damage Reliant caused.
3D Master
Rear Admiral
Starshps SHOULD be maneuvering very fast, especially when maneuvering at warp speeds. Space is a vacuum. Things are lumbering and slow on Earth (and especially under water) because there's air, gravity, (and water) to resist a movement of any object. In space, there is no such thing. Even massive ships can be pretty easily maneuvered with even minimal effort, with all the engines and stuff that starships are outfitted with, it should be easy and quick.
Since you brought physics into this, then I ask: if starships should move fast compared and relative to each other according to physics, then why oh why do they bank when they turn? After all, the only reason why ships and aircraft do that on Earth is because of air, gravity, (and water).
If you're bringing physics as a whole as a "should," you can't have inconsistencies, either. Even with that said, to me physics don't make or break a battle, since it's fiction in the end. I'm more concerned about the purpose of the battle within the narrative.
To clarify, I can believe that ships move fast. The dialogue in Yesterday's Enterprise has them moving several hundred thousand kilometers in a few moments, yet what we see on screen is a typically TNG slow-paced but strategic battle, and that's fine. I believe those two facets of combat can be reconciled when one takes into account relativity. But what I'd like is less emphasis on the zoom zoom and more emphasis on how ships tactically and carefully maneuver, not because it looks cool but to dodge or to get an optimum shot, and it can't simply be just two ships blasting each other. It goes back to the narrative, and I think one reason why the Nemesis battle failed so badly was because it was so badly paced, on top of just outright prolonging the movie rather than providing much tension.
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Next Gen battles were always done in dialogue. As in:
'The enemy ship is breaking pursuit. They are going to warp'
'Shields down to 60 percent'
'Fire phasers' 'No effect'
With no exterior opticals. It was clearly a budget-saving move. But it didn't really provide a lot of excitement for the viewer.
'The enemy ship is breaking pursuit. They are going to warp'
'Shields down to 60 percent'
'Fire phasers' 'No effect'
With no exterior opticals. It was clearly a budget-saving move. But it didn't really provide a lot of excitement for the viewer.
3D Master
Rear Admiral
Because it's faster, and it diminishes unbalanced inertial stresses, making it easier for the inertial dampers to keep all well within the ship.
When you reach significant parts lightspeed, turning is going to be a stressful business - similarly, the turns that some ships make in SF (like nBSG) will be SLOW. Turning your ship on a dime is great, going into the new direction once done by simply adding thrust, makes it that you first slow down all the way to a full stop, and then speed back up into the opposite direction.
Or in other words; for a short time you're a sitting duck and easy to hit. You do not want this, you want to keep your speed high.
Actually, keeping your speed high is not quite as desirable a goal in space combat as one might think.
1) In aerial combat, speed is good because you can exchange it for height, thanks to the presence of gravity and lift. But that's not possible in space - speed cannot be exchanged for anything. Except in grand scale if you maneuver close to planets and stars, that is.
2) Also, in aerial combat, speed is good because it allows you to outrun the enemy and his weapons. That of course applies in space as well.
3) In terms of targeting, linear speed is good only if it allows you to have great angular speed wrt the enemy. But maximal linear speed translates to maximal angular speed differently in aerial combat and in space. In air, it makes sense to bank into a turn*, even if your aircraft doesn't need to bank in order to turn (say, if you fly a helicopter), because banking is a good way to maintain angular speed within the limitations of aerodynamics. But in space, there are better ways to maximize your angular velocity during a direction change than doing a predictable bank.
And banking is not predictable merely in terms of trajectory (in air - in space, the rules don't apply, even if scifi movies make it look like they do), but in terms of where your weapons and sensors will be pointing during the maneuver. It would be much preferable to rotate your ship in surprising ways during a course change, so the enemy couldn't predict your blind spots or your next acceleration vector.
The key factor for things as massive as jets, ships or starship is inertia. And none of that goes away when the combat moves to space: it's just as difficult to do zigzags with a starship as it is with an aircraft carrier. That is, unless you have learned to defeat inertia. And supposedly Trek starships depend on mastery of inertia. It's just weird that so little of this mastery is evident in the way they do combat.
Timo Saloniemi
* Here I apply "bank" rather liberally, referring to a gentle turn where orientation changes gradually, and not to the specific phenomenon of turning your vehicle through the roll axis during a course change. Of course, the latter sort of banking is nonsensical in space, as its sole purposes are to give lift to your wings (which a starship doesn't have) and to direct the g-forces towards your feet (which is irrelevant in the inertia-compensated starships). It doesn't minimize g-forces: the sum total is greater in a banking turn than in a stop-and-go turn, or in most variants of erratic maneuvering from initial vector to final vector.
1) In aerial combat, speed is good because you can exchange it for height, thanks to the presence of gravity and lift. But that's not possible in space - speed cannot be exchanged for anything. Except in grand scale if you maneuver close to planets and stars, that is.
2) Also, in aerial combat, speed is good because it allows you to outrun the enemy and his weapons. That of course applies in space as well.
3) In terms of targeting, linear speed is good only if it allows you to have great angular speed wrt the enemy. But maximal linear speed translates to maximal angular speed differently in aerial combat and in space. In air, it makes sense to bank into a turn*, even if your aircraft doesn't need to bank in order to turn (say, if you fly a helicopter), because banking is a good way to maintain angular speed within the limitations of aerodynamics. But in space, there are better ways to maximize your angular velocity during a direction change than doing a predictable bank.
And banking is not predictable merely in terms of trajectory (in air - in space, the rules don't apply, even if scifi movies make it look like they do), but in terms of where your weapons and sensors will be pointing during the maneuver. It would be much preferable to rotate your ship in surprising ways during a course change, so the enemy couldn't predict your blind spots or your next acceleration vector.
That's hardly an important factor. Medium resistance is a relevant hindrance when you want to increase your speed here down on Earth or up in the air. It is not a relevant hindrance in other types of maneuvering, such as slowing down, changing direction, or changing orientation.
The key factor for things as massive as jets, ships or starship is inertia. And none of that goes away when the combat moves to space: it's just as difficult to do zigzags with a starship as it is with an aircraft carrier. That is, unless you have learned to defeat inertia. And supposedly Trek starships depend on mastery of inertia. It's just weird that so little of this mastery is evident in the way they do combat.
Timo Saloniemi
* Here I apply "bank" rather liberally, referring to a gentle turn where orientation changes gradually, and not to the specific phenomenon of turning your vehicle through the roll axis during a course change. Of course, the latter sort of banking is nonsensical in space, as its sole purposes are to give lift to your wings (which a starship doesn't have) and to direct the g-forces towards your feet (which is irrelevant in the inertia-compensated starships). It doesn't minimize g-forces: the sum total is greater in a banking turn than in a stop-and-go turn, or in most variants of erratic maneuvering from initial vector to final vector.
That's not really the point I'm addressing, though. For these types of battles, either you write and design them with physics fully in mind, or you damn physics all together, but you can't simple mix and match what one thinks should be proper. Given Trek's history with physics in terms of ship movements, I'd rather have them damn the physics for the sake of continuity. After 40+ years of rediculous (but entertaining) space battles, why choose *now* to adhere to physics (and even then, why, as you propose, would one mix physics in space with aerodynamics)?
But as far as I'm concerned, Timo hit the more literal points on the dot.
3D Master
Rear Admiral
I just told you they DID adhere to physics?????
And I just told you that they don't have to adhere to physics (and never really have in 40 years), so approaching space battles from a physics-correct standpoint is a sort of moot position in the world of Trek.
3D Master
Rear Admiral
Again: I just told you THEY DID???
Wait... you can't mix and match them? Says who? Maybe your opinion is that they shouldn't mix and match, but there is no rule on the subject. This is a fictional television and movie franchise. The physics of that universe can be whatever the writers feel the episode or film needs. If they want to have the ship be a lumbering hulk in one episode and a maneuverable fighter in another, no reason they can't. It might look odd, but it's well within their perogative to do so.
Hehe
Realistically speaking, there's no reason for the bridge officers to exchange any verbal comments during these battles. Given the technology presented in any and all of the Star Trek series, it makes sense that the computer would be allowed to take care of everything. Human responses are way too slow compared to computer responses, no matter how strategically/tactically gifted humans may be relative to computers.
Real space battles would last a matter of seconds, not minutes. It would all be over before a human could even say a complete sentence.
But Trek has always depended on lots of shots of the bridge officers talking to each other during a battle. It's really cool to watch, but no way in hell would a real battle between ships equipped with that kind of technology involve much if any human conversation.
The computer would, realistically speaking, take care of the entire engagement. The only input that humans would need to have is answering the question of "Attack or not".
Realistically speaking, there's no reason for the bridge officers to exchange any verbal comments during these battles. Given the technology presented in any and all of the Star Trek series, it makes sense that the computer would be allowed to take care of everything. Human responses are way too slow compared to computer responses, no matter how strategically/tactically gifted humans may be relative to computers.
Real space battles would last a matter of seconds, not minutes. It would all be over before a human could even say a complete sentence.
But Trek has always depended on lots of shots of the bridge officers talking to each other during a battle. It's really cool to watch, but no way in hell would a real battle between ships equipped with that kind of technology involve much if any human conversation.
The computer would, realistically speaking, take care of the entire engagement. The only input that humans would need to have is answering the question of "Attack or not".
They never put them above 60%. They were just trying to save gas.
Someone mentioned targeting the warp core--I never understood why an extreme emphasis was never placed on the antimatter bottles, at least in situations where killing the ship was what was desired. The warp core's just the thing most prone to screw up on its own, the AM containment units, no matter how well-armored (with AM weapons, armor's cardboard against a stick of dynamite), seem to clearly be the most vulnerable part of the ship.
I'd very much have liked to have seen a one shot lighter effect for any ship expressly without shields. Take Generations--Enterprise should've been taken out in the first few seconds.
I'd like to have seen ramming have less of an effect than it did in, say, Nemesis. If you can't handle the kinetic energy of a million tons moving relatively at .00000^5% lightspeed, you can't handle the kinetic energy of the photons released by a volley of torpedoes. Ramming should work only if you intend your ship to become a flying bomb.
I'd have liked to have seen CIWS, especially by the time of the Dominion War. Sometimes they use phasers to this effect, but not often enough. This is sort of alluded to in Nemesis, viz. the Scimitar and it's ridiculous number of disruptor banks, although I'm pretty sure not on purpose.
I'd have liked to have seen damage to the nacelles be less deadly (crippling, yes, deadly, no). Given what we know about power transmission in the ships, the nacelles should be the best place from which to leak drive plasma, since they're on the extremity of the ship, away from sensitive areas (people, photon torpedo stores) and are designed to handle the plasma anyway. The runaway reactions seen in e.g. (not a battle but same diff) "Cause and Effect" are weird. Why does the Enterprise blow up when the USS Frasier tears a hole in an area that can ordinarily, for hours, days, perhaps years on end, handle that power flow? What is the feedback mechanism there? Have you considered turning off your warp core? Is there no mechanism for just venting this stuff? Why are your nacelles full of plasma anyway, you're just sitting here staring at an anomaly?
The lights should never go off. Are there no batteries in the future? This begs the question why you've got the warp core running a flourescent light anyway, but... And things on the bridge should not explode unless the bridge is hit. Trek XI did this right iirc.
And, yeah, the shields down to x stuff doesn't make a whole lot of sense, as shields aren't a physical barrier anyhow, and it's not worthwile, as it is intensely undramatic.
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