Warp speed and Nacelle size
- Thread starter ngc7293
- Start date
Modern Trek tech books suggest that warp engine nacelles consume power instead of producing it - power production takes place elsewhere in the ship, apparently at Main Engineering. So in that sense, big nacelles only indirectly indicate great power, and tell little about the amount of extra power available after the nacelles have had their share.
However, there's no pressing onscreen reason to disbelieve in the theory that bigger nacelles give greater speed. Generally, we've indeed seen that bigger means faster - a starship outflies a runabout, a runabout outflies a shuttle. But it's also rather natural to think that newer ships outperform older ones. Which brings us to the one important exception: USS Voyager with her "smaller than Kirk" engine nacelles but "faster than Picard" speeds... Is that because the Voyager engines are significantly more modern than those of the E-D? Or do we have a genuine counterindication to the "bigger is better" rule here? It's pretty much anybody's personal guess here.
As for my personal preferences, I like the idea that size equals speed. With all other things equal, a bigger seagoing vessel is automatically faster, due to the laws of hydrodynamics - good conceptual basis there for a scifi show with a nautical feel... And many classic Trek stories would make quite a bit less sense if the shuttles were faster than the big ships. Keeping the visual cues simple is also usually a good thing: why should the audience not believe that bigger is faster, when such a concept isn't contrary to Trek storytelling so far, and is so intuitive that it actually makes slipping into Trek pseudoreality easier?
Timo Saloniemi
However, there's no pressing onscreen reason to disbelieve in the theory that bigger nacelles give greater speed. Generally, we've indeed seen that bigger means faster - a starship outflies a runabout, a runabout outflies a shuttle. But it's also rather natural to think that newer ships outperform older ones. Which brings us to the one important exception: USS Voyager with her "smaller than Kirk" engine nacelles but "faster than Picard" speeds... Is that because the Voyager engines are significantly more modern than those of the E-D? Or do we have a genuine counterindication to the "bigger is better" rule here? It's pretty much anybody's personal guess here.
As for my personal preferences, I like the idea that size equals speed. With all other things equal, a bigger seagoing vessel is automatically faster, due to the laws of hydrodynamics - good conceptual basis there for a scifi show with a nautical feel... And many classic Trek stories would make quite a bit less sense if the shuttles were faster than the big ships. Keeping the visual cues simple is also usually a good thing: why should the audience not believe that bigger is faster, when such a concept isn't contrary to Trek storytelling so far, and is so intuitive that it actually makes slipping into Trek pseudoreality easier?
Timo Saloniemi
I like to think that nacelle size is totally dependent on the individual design and what is the most efficient for that particular design's engine. Some spacecraft designs may need larger nacelles, while others can do with smaller ones. I tend to also think that other factors (engine output rating, driver coil efficiency, subspace geometry, etc.) determine how big nacelles will be during a vehicle's initial concept period. In such case, the size of the nacelle will indeed vary from design to design, IMO...
Going by Sternbach's reasoning for the size of Voyager's nacelles, I think you have two factors determining the size of nacelles - level (or maturity) of the technology, and top speed. If you have more advanced technology, that's going to push your nacelle size smaller than an older nacelle for the same warp speed. If your tech hasn't advanced but you need to go faster, that's going to push you towards bigger nacelles. It's mostly the back-and-forth between those two factors (IMO, anyway) that makes the nacelle size seem to bounce up and down over the years.
We do have a reference from ENT: In a Mirror Darkly that bigger coil size means faster speeds. But like anything there must be lots of factors involved. Shape of the ship and the geometry needed to create the warp field, mass, power level of the core itself, etc.
We do have a reference from ENT: In a Mirror Darkly that bigger coil size means faster speeds. But like anything there must be lots of factors involved. Shape of the ship and the geometry needed to create the warp field, mass, power level of the core itself, etc.
Then we have the Enterprise-E, with nacelles larger than some starships in their entirety.
In other words, you wanna know how she got from the Neutral Zone to Earth that fast? Being able to maintain Warp 9.99985 means you can cover a lot of distance very quickly (that, and she probably wasn't as close the Neutral Zone as Starfleet had in mind; most likely, just holding at the very edge of sensor range, on the side closest to Earth).
In other words, you wanna know how she got from the Neutral Zone to Earth that fast? Being able to maintain Warp 9.99985 means you can cover a lot of distance very quickly (that, and she probably wasn't as close the Neutral Zone as Starfleet had in mind; most likely, just holding at the very edge of sensor range, on the side closest to Earth).
There is also the Prometheus. The ship is said to be the fastest in the fleet in the Voyager episode Message in a Bottle. I can only find warp speeds at DITL though I would rather find them at a more reliable site. In any case, if Voyager is to be trusted, the Prometheus ship shown in that episode is a very fast ship with small nacelles (granted it has four warp coils, but that didn't make the Constellation any faster for it's type (another ship with four nacelles) )
What I am seeing is trek fans creating their own ships, giving them massive nacelles and then it seems the ship must be faster because of it.
What I am seeing is trek fans creating their own ships, giving them massive nacelles and then it seems the ship must be faster because of it.
It's the common misconception that big = better.
Commonly disregarded in Trek.
The Enterprise-D for example (while about 7 years older in contrast to Voyager) did receive numerous updates while in service.
Among those upgrades was a new warp core, which was stated on-screen to provide power necessary to achieve faster warp velocities and other things.
So, with the Enterprise-D fully upgraded by the end of Season 7 and when Voyager launched, the smaller ship was essentially a downsized Galaxy class.
Same capabilities in everything, but capable of sustaining a much higher warp cruising speed.
We did notice that SF began focusing on constructing smaller but equally, if not more powerful vessels to what they had just less than a decade earlier.
This also occurred after the Borg attack.
As for the Prometheus ... in the episode where it was featured, it was travelling to Romulus at Warp 9.9 if I'm not mistaken.
The writers never really bothered with consistency in Trek, so ships travelled at the speed of the plot (as previously established), and their top speeds were drastically reduced or dumbed down.
I do not think that the size of the nacelles necessarily equals faster ships.
The Defiant is for example also capable of going faster than Warp 9, but they have to put power into the SIF fields to safely accelerate beyond that velocity in order to prevent the ship from falling apart.
I think the speed more revolves around design of the ship itself rather than it's size alone.
Commonly disregarded in Trek.
The Enterprise-D for example (while about 7 years older in contrast to Voyager) did receive numerous updates while in service.
Among those upgrades was a new warp core, which was stated on-screen to provide power necessary to achieve faster warp velocities and other things.
So, with the Enterprise-D fully upgraded by the end of Season 7 and when Voyager launched, the smaller ship was essentially a downsized Galaxy class.
Same capabilities in everything, but capable of sustaining a much higher warp cruising speed.
We did notice that SF began focusing on constructing smaller but equally, if not more powerful vessels to what they had just less than a decade earlier.
This also occurred after the Borg attack.
As for the Prometheus ... in the episode where it was featured, it was travelling to Romulus at Warp 9.9 if I'm not mistaken.
The writers never really bothered with consistency in Trek, so ships travelled at the speed of the plot (as previously established), and their top speeds were drastically reduced or dumbed down.
I do not think that the size of the nacelles necessarily equals faster ships.
The Defiant is for example also capable of going faster than Warp 9, but they have to put power into the SIF fields to safely accelerate beyond that velocity in order to prevent the ship from falling apart.
I think the speed more revolves around design of the ship itself rather than it's size alone.
Along with what Deks said, we have to accept a trade-off between nacelle size and defensive operations. Theoretically, if you accept that larger engines = greater speed, you may be able to affix Sovereign-class warp engines to an Intrepid-class hull and generate some really high warp numbers (fellas, don't EVEN get me started on the ugly kitbashing in the DS9TM), but larger nacelles = larger required area for shields, as well as making necessary a much larger warp bubble that would probably eat up the perceived greater warp power given by the bigger nacelles. So larger ain't always better, or even faster.
Plus, the Intrepid-class's service age suggests a mid-phase design change to take into consideration damage that warp fields do to space (as shown in a TNG episode that I'm sure someone else more familiar with it will reference in a subsequent post), and the "new" nacelles rectified that particular problem. I also recall seeing a picture of an early Intrepid-class model by Rick Sternbach, with longer and differently-shaped nacelles, that would also dovetail nicely into that theory of a design change.
No, I believe it's the whole package...warp core for power generation, nacelle warp coil configuration for optimum distribution of the warp field, and hull geometry to make the best use/lowest hull stress of it all.
Plus, the Intrepid-class's service age suggests a mid-phase design change to take into consideration damage that warp fields do to space (as shown in a TNG episode that I'm sure someone else more familiar with it will reference in a subsequent post), and the "new" nacelles rectified that particular problem. I also recall seeing a picture of an early Intrepid-class model by Rick Sternbach, with longer and differently-shaped nacelles, that would also dovetail nicely into that theory of a design change.
No, I believe it's the whole package...warp core for power generation, nacelle warp coil configuration for optimum distribution of the warp field, and hull geometry to make the best use/lowest hull stress of it all.
You must remember that even though Voyager has smaller nacelles, it is a smaller ship. And it may seem that the Enterprise-D had small nacelles, but then look at how big the ship is. One nacelle is half the size of all of Voyager put together. And then remember that Voyager has that foldy nacelle thing too, whaever that does. (There's probably some technobabble explanation for that)
kkozoriz1
Fleet Captain
http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Variable-geometry_pylon
According to the unpublished VOY Season 1 edition of the Star Trek: Voyager Technical Guide, by Rick Sternbach and Michael Okuda, it was suggested that because of the variable-geometry pylons, warp fields may no longer have a negative impact on habitable worlds as established in TNG: "Force of Nature".
It also looked kewl. 
Except that as used, they made no sense: the nacelles seemed to have only two positions, and would move from one to the other for warp flight. That is, the "down" position was only used when not moving at warp, and the only position shown when moving at warp was fully "up". 
Except that as used, they made no sense: the nacelles seemed to have only two positions, and would move from one to the other for warp flight. That is, the "down" position was only used when not moving at warp, and the only position shown when moving at warp was fully "up".
Maybe the worst damage is done when a ship is entering warp, and by shifting the warp field in that way, it prevents the damage? I'd assume, of course, that later nacelle designs avoid this issue completely...somehow.
IIRC, wasn't the Voyager's impulse engines located on the moveable warp pylons themselves? If so, it might have been more efficient to have the nacelles lowered for impulse flight whereas the raised position worked best for warp flight.
Similar threads
