We have no proof at all that warp power to phasers diminishes their effectiveness.
We have Paradise Syndrome and Elaan of Troyus as datapoints. We also have "The Cage" which suggests that phaser output is directly proportional to power input, and a hundred years earlier this is already true of the phase cannons on NX-01. It is ALSO true of forcefields and deflector systems as per "The Changeling" and "Elaan of Troyus" again.
In fact the last two sliders above that tells us the true power of the phasers was at max.
In the first place we cannot see the position of the sliders on that board, so that remains to be determined.
In the second place, I wouldn't expect Reliant to be firing on the Enterprise with its phasers on the stun setting... would you?
Negative, no Time Frame is given.
SPOCK: "Engine room reports auxiliary power restored. We can proceed at impulse power."
^ Takes place immediately after Peter Preston dies.
JOACHIM: "Impulse power restored." Takes place at 12 to 24 hours after Petre Preston dies.
There's your timeframe.
I won't contradict that.
Yet, the implication is that they can indeed leave. No repairs are apparently standing in the way.
Yes. They can leave at impulse power and repair the warp drive later. Khan has no reason to be afraid of the Enterprise running away and warning Starfleet; Enterprise is the only ship in the quadrant. He has even less reason to worry about Enterprise chasing him down; until now, Khan has done all the chasing, and he's been lead to believe that Enterprise is in no condition to fight anyway.
It really IS just a choice between "Finish him!" and "Onwards to conquest!
That is an incomplete and false analysis.
Reliant brought one one phaser to bare (and you know that) while previously Reliant had both beams pinpointed on Enterprise.
Incorrect: the first phaser attack was a direct hit from the portside phaser bank firing downwards and to port; the starboard could not have fired without shooting through Reliant's saucer section. The second attack was fired straight forward with BOTH phaser banks firing but only one of them hitting.
So the analysis stands. Reliant's second phaser attack was NOT more powerful than its first, and was arguably LESS powerful since it caused less systemic damage overall.
But everytime Reliant fired on Enterprise they loss main power.
Incorrect. In the second attack Scotty voluntarily took main power offline because of a radiation leak, probably due to a failure in his system bypass. Enterprise' phaser attack on Reliant hit the bridge and ONLY the bridge, which makes for a fitting comparison.
Also False.
Enterprise clearly suffers from a lack of main power in the first battle and the phasers INFACT....still operate.
But not at all power, which we've already established. Battery power can give you a little bit of power for a little bit of time... but not as much as impulse, and not NEARLY as much as the warp drive.
You were straightforward when you thought you were right
And I'm straightforward now. The best-fit logical conclusion is that their phasers were at power parity throughout the film; they deal out similar levels of damage in similar timeframes with similar contact. The only wiggle room in the analysis is HOW MUCH damage was dealt, and that is impossible to conclude either way with only the information available although it leans slightly on the favor of Enterprise.
OTOH, "Reliant's phasers were more powerful" is not supported by ANYTHING in the film, even if (as you have) we assume that premise for no reason whatsoever. You would have to ignore much and equivocate more in order to make that assumption workable, and there's no compelling reason to do so.
If Sulu pulls down all the photon charge slide controls and Enterprise's photons blow away the Roll bar tubes and blow away the warp engine and we've seen Reliant's torpedo against Enterprise causes no hull breech at all...it means making a case by means of the control panels for warp power or not just became hugely irrelevant.
Photon torpedoes aren't powered by the warp drives.
It's not the same ship. It's not even the same series.
Actually, it IS the same ship, just refit with new technologies.
In any case the basic principal still applies, possibly more so since the ship has been redesigned to be even more dependent on warp power than before.
If you had read what me and Blssdwlf were talking about...
I did, and I agree wholeheartedly with blssdlf's conclusion on this matter (where it comes to FX comparisons).
Blssdwlf talked about Paradise Syndrome. In that episode Enterprise races at warp nine to meet an asteroid only 2 month's away at it's speed and that burns out the engines for the phasers? That makes no sense at all. They should have been at warp for mere seconds...(and that threatens to burn out the star drive?) Now IF you can explain why the engines are so weak...
The engines are mechanical devices like any other. They are only as strong as their weakest components, and a failure in one of those components can cause compound failures that lead to damage to the entire system.
The engines are designed to operate safely within a pre-defined regime of stress and output. When you exceed that output, the stress on the engine increases. That increased stress erodes the strength of its many components, slowly compromising their integrity. For comparison, imagine what would happen if you tried to drive a car at 70mph for 8 hours while still in 1st gear. In less time than that, you're going to severely fuck up your engine and/or transmission. Now imagine if, after those 8 hours your engine is still somehow intact, then suddenly you throw it into third gear and try to accelerate to 120 (that's pretty much how my little sister blew a headgasket last year).
Suffice to say, the power requirements from Full Phasers are extremely high, probably similar to that of the warp engines themselves.
"Main energizer" is equivalent here to "warp drive," and we know that the impulse engines are part of the auxiliary power system. We do not know how badly Reliant's engines were damaged... but then, we don't know that of Enterprise either. All we know is:
Reliant lost warp drive, Enterprise lost main power
Reliant lost impulse, Enterprise lost auxiliary power
Reliant lost photon control. Enterprise didn't.
Why do we need visual display?[/quote]
Because we didn't get a complete VERBAL report from the Enterprise, not the way we got from Reliant. Otherwise there's nothing to compare.
How did this inconsistency become a superior standard over just looking at the ships move and listening to damaged and recovered systems?
Because only a handful of damaged/recovering systems are mentioned, and not all of the damages ARE mentioned.
The reason we can't use the models/visuals alone is because 1) the models used for TWOK lacked the ability to directly control their lighting (deflector dish is always blue, engines always glow, running lights don't blink, etc) and 2) we do not know whether thruster action alone is insufficient to produce the types of movements we saw, let alone whether a loss of impulse propulsion would have resulted in (or even
from) a loss of impulse POWER.
Reliant Damaged Warpdrive
Reliant Damaged partial impulse power (the engines are lit while Reliant retreats)
Reliant Lost photon control.
AND warp drive, AND impulse power. Don't forget those.
Enterprise Lost shields
Enterprise Lost ALL impulse Power and Auxilary power
Enterprise Lost Main Power
And this we have equivalency:
Reliant lost warp drive, Enterprise lost main energizer
Reliant lost impulse power, Enterprise lost auxiliary power
Reliant lost photon control. Enterprise
didn't.
And this with Reliant hitting Enterprise with phasers and a photon torpedo, and Enterprise hitting with phasers only. Do you honestly believe that Reliant would still have been in better shape than Enterprise if Kirk had hit them with a torpedo as well?
Reliant never lost main power
Reliant lost warp drive, which--when it comes to shields and weapons--is the same thing.
Reliant never lost Aux Power
Reliant lost impulse power, which--when it comes to shields and weapons--is again the same thing.
One ship could move.
One couldn't.
One ship had power
The other ship didn't.
Both of them could move. Even Reliant was able to maneuver with its impulse engines knocked out (which they
were, until at 12 to 24 hours later). Enterprise could have maneuvered too using thrusters, but it couldn't get all the way to Regula-1 that way, and without phaser power there was no reason to pursue Reliant.
Loss of photon control means torpedoes are out; loss of warp drives means phasers are out (thus Joachim's answer to Khan's "Fire! Fire!" is a "We can't fire, Sir!").
Why is this so complicated?
Because you're starting with a premise that has no support and trying to make the evidence fit that premise. The truth is, there's no evidence that Reliant's phasers were EVER more powerful than any other weapon in the universe, and the balance of evidence points to power parity at all times.