systems of Intrepid class....

[Deks]

Oh I recall the battle just fine and that the bug ships weapons were going through their shields.
My point was that the Defiant was essentially anti-Borg project that was put on ice (because they were not an imminent threat ... stupid reason) and actually sent into Dominion territory while falling apart.
O'Brien was able to find a patch solution and later after 'the search' a permanent one that was applied to other Defiant class ships.
But back to the subject ...
The Defiant's shields were able to keep the Jem'Hadaar weapons at bay for a time, and she destroyed a bug with a few hits.
Either the weapons on that ship were incredibly powerful (surpassing even the Galaxy class), or the weapons were roughly on par with the Galaxy and incorporated anti-Borg properties (whatever they were) that allowed them to damage the Jem'Hadaar bugs much more effectively than Odyssey's phasers.
It's possible that once SF saw that Enterprise-D systems were more or less ineffective on the Hu Borg ship ('Descent' episode), they again modified the weapons which resulted in a mixture of standard phasers, auto-shifting frequencies, and probably added some properties to the phaser beam that increased damage on Borg hulls.
I mean hey, if the weapons can hurt the Borg ship's hulls, then doing serious damage to Dominion ships is bound to occur.

Taking all of that into consideration (and the fact that Sisko DID capture a Dominion bug ship before the war started), the Feds should not have suffered as many losses as they did.
I agree that suicide tactics will be a problem ... but if you already have the enmies ship at your disposal, you are likely able to find something that will allow you to inflict even more damage that will destroy the ships faster than before.
Can someone say ... sloppy writing?

 

[Timo]

I mean hey, if the weapons can hurt the Borg ship's hulls, then doing serious damage to Dominion ships is bound to occur.

But the Borg are strong because they adapt. The Dominion defenses are "inherently" strong. A weapon devised against the Borg might rapidly change its output to defeat the adaptation, but that would arguably make it weaker against all conventional threats because most of the changing modes would be nonoptimal, and the optimal mode would only be in use for a short time.

The pulse phasers of the Defiant would probably be excellent against the Borg if every pulse were different. But why would they work against the Dominion as splendidly as they do?

It is possible that the phased polaron beams aren't all that penetrating by their nature - it may be that the Odyssey died because there was a Changeling aboard, feeding information about the starship's shields, and perhaps performing sabotage! This would be a grand opening move in the campaign of terror and propaganda against Starfleet and the Federation - but it could not be repeated on the Defiant, a surprise card pulled by Starfleet.

Just musing... But it might be fun to blame the Federation losses on something else besides technobabble, when the Feds usually are masters of technobabble.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[kent]

Auxillary power does come from backup fusion reactors littered around the ship. it can also come from the main impulse engine reactors as well.

Umm, I have never heard of a "backup fusion reactor" anywhere in the episodes or even the tech manuals. The only fusion reactors aboard a ship seem to be its impulse engines, which were suggested to be fusion-based all the way back in "Doomsday Machine" (where one was said to explode like a fusion bomb).









The backup fusion reactors are merely spare fusion reactors that can swap out with non functioning fusion reactors, or turned on in the event of an emergency.

On the blueprints to the E-D, there are some located next to the main fusion generators.

And yes it's assumption that the ships would have been modified to carry quantums. but much of star trek tech is assumption based on common sense. It's also probably that the type 6 was merely more advanced than the type for and not more powerful. But that doesn't really go with the way star trek installs newer tech. Generally speaking when it comes to weapons if it's more advanced it is generally more powerful, IE type 12 phasers that were designed to fight the borg.

And yes they may have purchased new photon's on Voyager. Phtons that look EXACTLY the same as their own with each new purchase? Was that a pre-requisite? I doubt it. Considering they seem to have the ability to create shuttles from scratch, it's a logical conclusion that they are able to create torpedo casings from scratch and use their own matter and antimatter supply to give it it's payload. Remember the ship had an antimatter generator that could generate limited amounts of antimatter. Not enough to sustaing a warp core, but probabaly enough to sustain a few extra torpedo's.

And i don't recall any onscreen evidence that "special" tubes are used to fire quantum's. Visually, there appears to be no difference between a photon tube and quantum tube. The turret of the E-E doesn't appear radically different in shape to fire either. And we never actually saw the Defiant's tubes. Point in fact, when they got quantum's they didn't go through massive upgrades to be able to fire them. And on the MSD's of the Defiant and E-E the tubes look the same whether or not they could fire quantums or photon's. That said, it would simply be a matter of modification to handle a more powerful slightly different type of weapon. And I really don't understand how it doesn't make sense that during the dominion wars these modification's wouldn't be done to the fleet to give it a tactical edge. The reason that you don't see a buttload of quatums is because they use artificial quantum strings which are difficult to create on a massive scale, so only a few more advanced ships got them. Keep in mind the photon's and quantums are almost identical in size and length.

And i can't assume that Voyager carries quantums if they've never fired any. Why would they rely on photon's in the most dire of situations if they had quantums?? Especially if they're up against a tactical cube.

 

[Deks]

I mean hey, if the weapons can hurt the Borg ship's hulls, then doing serious damage to Dominion ships is bound to occur.

But the Borg are strong because they adapt. The Dominion defenses are "inherently" strong. A weapon devised against the Borg might rapidly change its output to defeat the adaptation, but that would arguably make it weaker against all conventional threats because most of the changing modes would be nonoptimal, and the optimal mode would only be in use for a short time.

The pulse phasers of the Defiant would probably be excellent against the Borg if every pulse were different. But why would they work against the Dominion as splendidly as they do?

It is possible that the phased polaron beams aren't all that penetrating by their nature - it may be that the Odyssey died because there was a Changeling aboard, feeding information about the starship's shields, and perhaps performing sabotage! This would be a grand opening move in the campaign of terror and propaganda against Starfleet and the Federation - but it could not be repeated on the Defiant, a surprise card pulled by Starfleet.

Just musing... But it might be fun to blame the Federation losses on something else besides technobabble, when the Feds usually are masters of technobabble.

Timo Saloniemi

Actually, it can be argued that Borg hulls are inherently strong as well.
All that ablative (and thick) armor (probably even more enhanced version of the one the Feds are using because the Borg are technologically superior and would likely be aware of elements ... or a combination of elements that the Feds didn't discover/think of yet).

I agree that the evidence in Q Who is a bit contradicting to that statement.
Why would the Borg's 'inherently strong' hull be so weak against Galaxy class phasers?
Well there is a possibility the Enterprise-D inflicted as much damage because the Borg WANTED them to?

If we take FC into equation, the Borg had issues regenerating because SF ships were constantly firing on them, but also, SF weapons took their time before penetrating the ablative hull on the cube (although they were doing damage).
So I think it's logical to theorize that inflicting more damage onto Borg ships hulls would also inflict damage on Dominion ships.

 

[Cmdr Sho]

Wow.... I would agree that the pulse phasers on defient class vessels would more than likely be a different setting, but then why not just equip pulse phasers to all the ships in the fleet?? And in Fc why did the borg not sustain much damage from them and the defient so much?

 

[Deks]

Wow.... I would agree that the pulse phasers on defient class vessels would more than likely be a different setting, but then why not just equip pulse phasers to all the ships in the fleet?? And in Fc why did the borg not sustain much damage from them and the defient so much?

Well, I know it's not canon, but in Star Trek Elite Force II game, there is a level on which you control a pulse phaser cannon on the Enterprise-E's hull along with the torpedo launcher to stop incoming ships.

I think this could allude to the possibility that pulse phaser rotating cannons could be installed on larger ships as auxiliary weapons for example.

At the same time though, we can also argue that pulse phasers aren't really needed on much larger star-ships, because regular phasers underwent sufficient modifications to inflict similar/same damage.
Remember that increasing the out-put of the beam itself is not always the answer.
Modifying phaser frequencies or adding certain properties to the beam while retaining previous output levels could be more than adequate as well.

Of course, ships power outputs would increase as time goes by in order to improve their capabilities and life-spans.

But the point was that pulse phasers might be a much more practical solutions on vessels smaller in size (such as the Defiant).

 

[Cmdr Sho]

i see.... interesting..... well thanks for the imput!!!

 

[JNG]

Wow.... I would agree that the pulse phasers on defient class vessels would more than likely be a different setting, but then why not just equip pulse phasers to all the ships in the fleet?? And in Fc why did the borg not sustain much damage from them and the defient so much?

Well, for one, the system was new and still in testing.

For another, retrofitting it to all the ships in the fleet would probably have taken a decade or more, even if it were fully finished and approved for such a thing.

For a third, this kind of phaser would only be most useful to the more maneuverable ships, because the coverage would seem inferior to what the arrays would provide. I think it would only be useful to, say, an Ambassador-class ship if mounted along the primary flight direction. Studding the ships with dozens of them pointing in all directions is probably impractical, especially as there may be other technical hurdles to retrofitting these as well.

And finally, they didn't punch a big hole in the Borg because even dozens of the Federation's best ships could not and the difference is obviously not so great that this new phaser system causes the Defiant to outgun dozens of other ships. I think the intended anti-Borg utility probably comes from the idea that each pulse in the rapid-fire multi-pulse salvos could have different characteristics, interfering with the Borg's ability to adapt their defensive methods to it, whereas the modulation on the existing phasers seems to be more gradual or require a longer interruption of the firing to accomplish the changes. Future conventional phaser arrays may indeed incorporate improvements which allow them to duplicate the functionality, but we can also figure the ones on the Defiant are just...really big guns, too, and probably push as much power as any conventional phaser hardware that was available at the time they were designed.

 

[kent]

Wow.... I would agree that the pulse phasers on defient class vessels would more than likely be a different setting, but then why not just equip pulse phasers to all the ships in the fleet?? And in Fc why did the borg not sustain much damage from them and the defient so much?

Well, for one, the system was new and still in testing.

For another, retrofitting it to all the ships in the fleet would probably have taken a decade or more, even if it were fully finished and approved for such a thing.

For a third, this kind of phaser would only be most useful to the more maneuverable ships, because the coverage would seem inferior to what the arrays would provide. I think it would only be useful to, say, an Ambassador-class ship if mounted along the primary flight direction. Studding the ships with dozens of them pointing in all directions is probably impractical, especially as there may be other technical hurdles to retrofitting these as well.

And finally, they didn't punch a big hole in the Borg because even dozens of the Federation's best ships could not and the difference is obviously not so great that this new phaser system causes the Defiant to outgun dozens of other ships. I think the intended anti-Borg utility probably comes from the idea that each pulse in the rapid-fire multi-pulse salvos could have different characteristics, interfering with the Borg's ability to adapt their defensive methods to it, whereas the modulation on the existing phasers seems to be more gradual or require a longer interruption of the firing to accomplish the changes. Future conventional phaser arrays may indeed incorporate improvements which allow them to duplicate the functionality, but we can also figure the ones on the Defiant are just...really big guns, too, and probably push as much power as any conventional phaser hardware that was available at the time they were designed.

The reason why the Defian't pulse phasers are seemingly so powerful is because of their location. The phaser couplings intersect a plasma conduit, so they get a HUGE boost in power versus other phaser systems which have to rely on the EPS taps to get their power. I suppose you could add phaser cannons to other ships, but they'd have to intersect the plasma couplings like in the Defiant to be as effective, so they'd only be good in one place. I figure Starfleet doesn't see the need in fitting such a dependent weapon on other ships since they already have phaser arrays and torpedo launchers that work just fine. Not to mention phaser cannons are fixed focus, so they wouldn't really be able to do the job on larger ships as it would on the manuverable defiant class.

 

[Cmdr Sho]

The reason why the Defian't pulse phasers are seemingly so powerful is because of their location. The phaser couplings intersect a plasma conduit, so they get a HUGE boost in power versus other phaser systems which have to rely on the EPS taps to get their power. I suppose you could add phaser cannons to other ships, but they'd have to intersect the plasma couplings like in the Defiant to be as effective, so they'd only be good in one place. I figure Starfleet doesn't see the need in fitting such a dependent weapon on other ships since they already have phaser arrays and torpedo launchers that work just fine. Not to mention phaser cannons are fixed focus, so they wouldn't really be able to do the job on larger ships as it would on the manuverable defiant class.

i can totally see that point, but then if this "phaser cannon" (like the one on all good things) were to be installed the "place" you are suggesting would be under the saucer, right? as for the defiant using plasma conduits for their pulse phasers, then why in the ds9 episode "rocks and shoals" miles said that they burned up another power supply for the phasers. why would that be if they are tied into the plasma conduits?

 

[JNG]

^

The relevant line about the conduit is from "Defiant." Riker says: "Running the plasma conduit through the primary phaser coupling has almost doubled your phaser power."

It is true that in "Behind the Lines" O'Brien presents a used-up disposable item he calls "the power cell from the phaser array."

In general, I think we would assume that a ship's phasers in the TNG era are not dependent upon battery-like items that would potentially have to be charged up or replaced during crunch time (at least since TMP, where the phasers seem to be tied into the warp reactor).

We may easily make up some idea that parts get worn out by the powerful weapons firing a lot, since this is the implication of the item and the scene built around it (that they don't stop fighting).

As an alternate explanation, I suppose we could also imagine this part to be from one of the smaller additional phasers Defiant has aside from her pulsed emitters. She was shown to fire regular phaser beams a couple of times from certain points on the hull (at which there is no corresponding detail on the model, but we may explain that with recessed ports and ablative armor matrix covering stuff up and blah blah).

 

[Cmdr Sho]

Did they ever fire these "other phaser strips" on the show? If a phaser cannon were to be attached to the underside of a galaxy saucer, at what decks would the cannon touch the secondary hull??

 

[JNG]

Did they ever fire these "other phaser strips" on the show?

Yep. "Shattered Mirror" Defiant for one

If a phaser cannon were to be attached to the underside of a galaxy saucer, at what decks would the cannon touch the secondary hull??

If I understand the question correctly, I think there is a range of possible answers based upon just where they wanted to attach it...but that doesn't seem like the best location, at least if you meant a cannon of the type they have on Defiant.

 

[Cmdr Sho]

i meant a cannon like on all good things..

 

[JNG]

i meant a cannon like on all good things..

Oh, THAT thing

Well, I don't know if those things will ever actually exist and tend to doubt it, but I think the lowermost deck of the Galaxy saucer would be 16 and some of the attachment hardware might be contacting higher decks (hopefully not ruining the view).