Do phaser arrays amplify energy, or merely direct it?

[Timo]

But evidently--probably for the reasons Timo mentioned--the automatic setting has been overridden to avoid provoking potential enemies.

The timeline on that wouldn't really explain STIII, though. For one thing, Starfleet wouldn't grovel in front of its enemies in the late 23rd century yet, least of all the two cloaking-capable ones it itched to have a war with. For another, auto-shields were still a feature in early TNG, before the return of the new and improved Romulan threat involving cloaking superships.

That Esteban wasn't seen or heard raising his shields doesn't mean the shields of the Grissom were down. They could have been auto-raised without Esteban's involvement, or he could have ordered them up when the camera was on Kruge, 1.78 seconds after the cloak was dropped, with the field reaching full strength 3.21 seconds later. It's just that full strength didn't count for much.

I do like the idea of experienced skippers turning off the auto-shield feature...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[CuttingEdge100]

As far as I know, it amplifies as it runs down the ring...

 

[blssdwlf]

In both cases (Klaa and Kruge) neither "green torpedo" left any external damage.

Klaa's torpedo leaves a visible scar on the rim of the Enterprise after impact. It's kind of hard to notice (STV special effects sucked and it was pretty much cartooned-on to an external shot) but it's there nonetheless.

It's also unclear exactly what part of the ship was hit by Kruge, and there's ALOT of external damage already on the hull so it's hard to say what was there before and what wasn't.

You're right, I found the paint scar on the forward top section of the saucer in ST5. It didn't look deep and just painted on... or in-universe, the paint was scorched off.

Which brings us to ST3. There are two scorch hits on the E's top port aft of the saucer when she leaves space dock. When she is hit by Kruge's torpedo, it's between the impulse deck and one of those scorch marks. When she self destructs, the saucer explosion effectively burns away all her paint and when she flies past the camera there are no scorch marks where the two were seen and none for Kruge's torpedo.

That's not true. The automatic deflector system protected the Enterprise in "The Deadly Years" (surprise attack from Romulans) and "Errand of Mercy". In both cases the ship was manned but not at alert. The key point is that the shields go up without user intervention.

Normally, yes. But evidently--probably for the reasons Timo mentioned--the automatic setting has been overridden to avoid provoking potential enemies. Considering how slowly Grissom responded to his arrival, he has good reason to believe the automatic deflector is no longer in use on Federation vessels.

And as Timo also points out later that during ST1-6 the Feds have been at a continuous state of conflict with the Klingons. It's very likely that Grissom's shields were already up yet they were no match for even a weak torpedo. Esteban's first orders were to standby to evade so it's reasonable to assume the shields were raised in that 20 or so seconds. In "The Deadly Years", we never hear the shields called up prior to the first hit - only that they were later said to be protecting the ship and would eventually give out.

Another thing you might want to consider is that the tech manual's estimate of "200" emitters for the large phaser array (I haven't been able to find it, by the way) is probably inacurate, since even the short strips on Voyager VISIBLY possess 80 to 100 individual emitter sections. For the larger arrays, the number of individual emitters could be as high as 800 to 1000.

"A typical large phaser array aboard the the USS Enterprise, such as the upper dorsal array on the Saucer Module, consists of two hundred emitter segments in a dense linear arrangement..." page 123

But if the number of elements in an array according to the TM is inaccurate I'd just as well call the whole TM inaccurate and work with the on-air elements

Although I've not tried to count the physical emitters before...

At 5MW per emitter, those short strips would have outputs between 400 and 1000MW. The longer strip would be capable of around 5GW, which would explain Worf's alarm when the Husnock ship hits them with "500GW of particle energy!" in "The Survivors" (and that single shot obliterates their shields).

400GW (according to the dialogue) of particle energy, probably "positrons and antiprotons" from the previous attack. Which is kinda odd in itself because isn't that like a 50 ton explosion? Then again, I think historically antiproton weaponry had a better than usual effect against shields. However, Worf does state he's having a hard time re-assembling the shields so it might be far more effective at scrambling the shields or the alien on the planet below was preventing the shields from working and influencing the events so that the E-D would have to withdraw...

 

[Ian Keldon]

Each array segment is capable of emitting the full power of the array, but only draws a small fraction of the total power itself from it's power supply, as stated in the TM. The segments then combine (ie "collimate") the energy into one phaser blast.

This has several benefits:

1) the widely distributed system is harder to knock out in combat. If any one segment or segments are destroyed, the rest of the array is still operable, if possibly at reduced power.

2) The array covers more surface area, increasing the "direct arc of fire" and eliminating troublesome blind spots.

(for example: in the old "bank" system with two fixed arc emitter turrets, a bank mounted directly to the port side would be unable to fire directly forward or aft at full power, as one of the emitter "turrets" would be blocked by the other. This arrangement also leaves "blind spots" close in for the same reason. Late 23rd century ships, such as the Excelsior class compensated for this by adding many more individual banks between the standard port/fore/starboard on the saucer section. However, the problems of power distribution and survivability remained.)

 

[blssdwlf]

Why would Gul Evek accuse Starfleet of providing Cardassian weapons to the Maquis?

Cardassian-equivalent weapons to the Maquis, from the translator POV. It's not like he said, "Federation Type-8 phasers..."

Actually it's 4MW, and no it doesn't strike me as odd, since the spread from a shoulder-mounted recoiless rifle to the largest shipboard artillery weapon is about 6MJ.

You are maybe under-estimating just how much destructive power one megawatt actually IS?

The spread is about 100,000x from an assault rifle (3 KJ) to a 16" round (500 MJ). Since we're talking about phaser rifles (1 MJ) and the largest shipboard phaser emitter should start off in the GJ range and not MJ range, IMHO.

That's an example, not a theory. Again, the point is the OUTPUT of that phaser is never stated, and since you don't know generator efficiency, transfer efficiency, emitter efficiency, thermodynamic efficiency, nor is it clear whether a phaser bank draws that power DIRECTLY or discharges from a bank of pre-charged power cells (even TNG/DS9 are surprisingly vague on this last issue) then we cannot realistically claim that a small phaser bank would have an OUTPUT of 4GW.

For purposes of Riker's dialogue we need not consider the efficiency or the firing mechanism other than the power supply. He simply equated a 4GW reactor with powering a small phaser bank. If you went with the efficiency route, we're never given any indication in the series of inefficient phaser systems. If you went with the pre-charged cells then the phaser output could be considerably larger than the power source. In either case, it's still larger than the saucer's 1GW phaser strip as written in the TM.

1) Those are stylistic nitpicks that are next to meaningless in the context of what we're talking about

You're claiming that you can use Encounters to give a meaningful simulation of combat maneuvering identical to the episodes. It's the equivalent of saying Mario Kart racing will accurately simulate the 24 Hour LeMans.

2) Yes it DOES allow you to fly backwards, to the extent that flying backwards is even necessary (as rarely as it was done in TOS/TMP, it usually isn't).

Then what are the control inputs to do this? The Left analog stick is a point-and-go operation and there is no forward/reverse motion button. Which button controls going into warp?

3) The vertical approach from "Sacrifice of Angels" is pretty easily replicated as well. Really, only two scenes in all of Trek history would break the mould: the double hull breach attack from TUC and the Enterprise-D "save the day" maneuver in "All Good Things."

There are only 3 "altitudes" in Encounters. A vertical approach is not possible as you're still flying into a melee horizontally.

Anyway, you're again skirting the point. Because it presents an objective laboratory for experimentation independent of our own opinions about what should or shouldn't be possible, it would allow you to at least test your theory in something resembling trek-world conditions instead of just tossing around your assumptions as if you were a trained expert in space combat.

Not skirting the point at all. If you want to experiment with what is possible then find a simulation that accurately depicts the events of the series. That's where I get my assumptions from, the actual series. A warp ship can easily outmaneuver an impulse-only ship and dictate the attack direction so that is what the simulation should be able to accomplish. If ships can fight at 200,000 Km (see "The Wounded") then I'd expect that to be possible. If ships can control the power settings of their weapons, then that would be good to see. If a Romulan Warbird can take the E-D's shields down to 30% in 3 rapid pulses, let's see that too.

Did they even HAVE phaser arrays in TOS? How is that relevant?

It's a ship in Encounters. You're saying that Encounters can be used to simulate Star Trek. Apparently, only some aspects of TNG then.

That's what I mean. Except for the Picard Maneuver (which is rarely used anyway) it is EXTREMELY accurate to TNG, which is pretty much what we're talking about when we reference phaser arrays.

Some of TNG from a stylistic POV, maybe.

Don't know about an atmosphere, but if you're fighting a cloaked enemy you can sometimes trick him into crashing into a planet so you can target him.

And that is consistent with TNG?

Yep. But mainly referring to the Cardassian bombardment of DS9 and to a lesser extent the Battle of Wolf-359: starships that only maneuver in two axis--if they maneuver at all--and only ever fire one phaser beam at a time.

Or you could just use Space War since the ships only maneuver in two axis and fire one weapon at a time.

But they never did in TNG. Never even tried. If that's something that makes Encounters less like TOS, I kind of agree, but that has more to do with its attempt to imitate TNG than anything else.

Stylistically, very TNG-ish for the slow slugging matches. But performance of the ships and weapons still could be more accurate, IMO.

If you want to replicate TOS-style combat you should probably download Star Control-II. But even in THAT case, you're going to find that forward-facing weaponry isn't a liability for any starship except at EXTREMELY close range, and then only against the most nimble adversary imaginable (say, Arilou vs. Earthling cruiser).

The Arilou was always my favorite

I don't love it at all. I don't even LIKE it. But phaser arrays are a product of TNG, so we're stuck with TNG's depiction of space combat.

Well there are ships that don't have arrays in TNG's time like the Centaur from "A Time To Stand", the Lakota and the various old-style ships. The Phoenix and Voyager are all array ships and they occasionally buck the trend of slow slugging match mentality for some of their battles. TNG's depiction of the E-D's combat could just be specific to Galaxy-class combat limitations rather than all inclusive of other ships...

If you want to talk about how phaser arrays might be used in the TOS universe... well, that's a WHOLE different discussion.

LOL

 

[Crazy Eddie]

But evidently--probably for the reasons Timo mentioned--the automatic setting has been overridden to avoid provoking potential enemies.

The timeline on that wouldn't really explain STIII, though. For one thing, Starfleet wouldn't grovel in front of its enemies in the late 23rd century yet...

You're forgetting the contact scenario in TMP, where Kirk intentionally kept his shields down to avoid provoking V'ger. "No, Mister Decker, that could also be misinterpreted as hostile." This from an Admiral in Starfleet who spent two and a half years as chief of operations; evidently, the policy caught on.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

"A typical large phaser array aboard the the USS Enterprise, such as the upper dorsal array on the Saucer Module, consists of two hundred emitter segments in a dense linear arrangement..." page 123

I didn't think this was what you were referring to, but as I read it last week it doesn't seem to refer to any SPECIFIC phaser array (otherwise it would be implying that the short strips and the long strips have the same number of emitters, right?).

400GW (according to the dialogue) of particle energy, probably "positrons and antiprotons" from the previous attack. Which is kinda odd in itself because isn't that like a 50 ton explosion?

In chemical energy, yes, but that would also translate to over a thousand times the kinetic energy of a 16-inch battleship gun. Or, in more appropriate terms, it's the equivalent of getting hit by a pickup truck traveling at 10 km/s.

Now it's not purely kinetic energy--shields and deflectors can handle that--but antiprotons react to shields in strange ways (the Doomsday Machine, for example, and the antiproton beams used to penetrate cloaking devices) so in addition to being quite powerful in and of itself, it's also in a form of energy that would do considerable damage to the shields. Phasers and disruptors, I think, also have various effects against shields depending on how they're adjusted, so even a few direct hits at 5GW would chip away at your shield reserves pretty quickly.

OTOH, a 5GW phaser blast would probably incinerate a fair-sized chunk of the target vessel without its shields up.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Why would Gul Evek accuse Starfleet of providing Cardassian weapons to the Maquis?

Cardassian-equivalent weapons to the Maquis, from the translator POV. It's not like he said, "Federation Type-8 phasers..."

That's never happened before. 99% of the time, the universal translator renders improper nouns to their closest human equivalent.

The spread is about 100,000x from an assault rifle (3 KJ) to a 16" round (500 MJ). Since we're talking about phaser rifles (1 MJ) and the largest shipboard phaser emitter should start off in the GJ range and not MJ range, IMHO.

But phaser rifles are NOT equivalent to assault rifles, and strictly speaking a phaser array isn't equivalent to a 16-inch battleship gun. The largest naval guns CURRENTLY in use are 5-inch rifles and the big battleship guns aren't going to make a comeback... well, EVER. So there is that, but there's also the fact that phaser rifles are a type of heavy weapon that can be used against anything from tribbles to tanks and is probably more the equivalent to a 21st century grenade launcher than an assault rifle.

All that, of course, leaves out the fact that the aggregate of phaser emitters on the main array WOULD add up to a couple GJ of output.

For purposes of Riker's dialogue we need not consider the efficiency or the firing mechanism other than the power supply. He simply equated a 4GW reactor with powering a small phaser bank. If you went with the efficiency route, we're never given any indication in the series of inefficient phaser systems. If you went with the pre-charged cells then the phaser output could be considerably larger than the power source.

Which doesn't change the fact that we don't know the specs of the "small phaser bank" he's referring to (actually, we don't know the specs of the subspace relay he's referring to either). We do NOT know that the output power of that phaser would be anywhere near 4GW, or even a tenth of that. It's an assumption you want to make, clearly, but there's no support for it.

You're claiming that you can use Encounters to give a meaningful simulation of combat maneuvering identical to the episodes. It's the equivalent of saying Mario Kart racing will accurately simulate the 24 Hour LeMans.

No, but Mario Kart could be used to simulate a movie about the characters from the Mario videogames having a gocart race.

It's not as if Star Trek is a real thing that obeys real world rules that are objectively deductible based on science. Star Trek works exactly the way television producers want it to work, and the games are designed to simulate that producer intent. It cannot be helped that BOTH of them are fundamentally flawed in a number of ways.

There are only 3 "altitudes" in Encounters. A vertical approach is not possible as you're still flying into a melee horizontally.

Put one ship on the lowest altitude and one ship on the highest, dive and attack. It's been done.

Not skirting the point at all. If you want to experiment with what is possible then find a simulation that accurately depicts the events of the series. That's where I get my assumptions from, the actual series. A warp ship can easily outmaneuver an impulse-only ship and dictate the attack direction...

See, you're getting assumptions from what you SEE, not anything you've actually DONE. If we were discussing football, it would be like you saying "Look at all that space on the right side of the defensive line. If they just blitz on that side, they'll be able to sack the QB every time." I'm the guy sitting there telling you that it's not that simple, not by a longshot, and it only seems simple because you've never actually tried it yourself.

But since you don't play football and it's unlikely you're going to start any time in the next two hours, the next best thing you can do is get a copy of NFL-2K12 and try it a few times, then come back and tell me how well "blitz to the right every time" works as a game strategy.

It's a ship in Encounters. You're saying that Encounters can be used to simulate Star Trek. Apparently, only some aspects of TNG then.

Yes, some aspects of TNG-era Trek... the ONLY series in which phaser arrays appear, which is what we're talking about.

I don't love it at all. I don't even LIKE it. But phaser arrays are a product of TNG, so we're stuck with TNG's depiction of space combat.

Well there are ships that don't have arrays in TNG's time like the Centaur from "A Time To Stand", the Lakota and the various old-style ships. The Phoenix and Voyager are all array ships and they occasionally buck the trend of slow slugging match mentality for some of their battles. TNG's depiction of the E-D's combat could just be specific to Galaxy-class combat limitations rather than all inclusive of other ships...

Even Voyager was fairly slow moving 90% of the time. More maneuverable than the Galaxy, to be sure, but I'm mainly referring to this tendency to swoop around your enemies at 200mph, firing off phasers and torpedoes at ranges of 5 to 10km. This was apparently such a VFX staple that by ENT it even found its way into dialog and combat ranges were STATED as being only a handful of kilometers.

 

[blssdwlf]

But evidently--probably for the reasons Timo mentioned--the automatic setting has been overridden to avoid provoking potential enemies.

The timeline on that wouldn't really explain STIII, though. For one thing, Starfleet wouldn't grovel in front of its enemies in the late 23rd century yet...

You're forgetting the contact scenario in TMP, where Kirk intentionally kept his shields down to avoid provoking V'ger. "No, Mister Decker, that could also be misinterpreted as hostile." This from an Admiral in Starfleet who spent two and a half years as chief of operations; evidently, the policy caught on.

That's got nothing to do with policy but paying attention to what happened to the Klingons and the monitoring station. Kirk had no intention of provoking an attack. And second, this isn't even an enemy surprise decloaking situation

 

[blssdwlf]

"A typical large phaser array aboard the the USS Enterprise, such as the upper dorsal array on the Saucer Module, consists of two hundred emitter segments in a dense linear arrangement..." page 123

I didn't think this was what you were referring to, but as I read it last week it doesn't seem to refer to any SPECIFIC phaser array (otherwise it would be implying that the short strips and the long strips have the same number of emitters, right?).

The wording just says the upper dorsal array on the saucer module with a nice graphic that points to it. What other "upper dorsal array on the saucer module" is there? It doesn't indicate how many emitters are in the short arrays.

400GW (according to the dialogue) of particle energy, probably "positrons and antiprotons" from the previous attack. Which is kinda odd in itself because isn't that like a 50 ton explosion?

In chemical energy, yes, but that would also translate to over a thousand times the kinetic energy of a 16-inch battleship gun. Or, in more appropriate terms, it's the equivalent of getting hit by a pickup truck traveling at 10 km/s.

Still short of nuclear weapon-level territory though.

Now it's not purely kinetic energy--shields and deflectors can handle that--but antiprotons react to shields in strange ways (the Doomsday Machine, for example, and the antiproton beams used to penetrate cloaking devices) so in addition to being quite powerful in and of itself, it's also in a form of energy that would do considerable damage to the shields. Phasers and disruptors, I think, also have various effects against shields depending on how they're adjusted, so even a few direct hits at 5GW would chip away at your shield reserves pretty quickly.

OTOH, a 5GW phaser blast would probably incinerate a fair-sized chunk of the target vessel without its shields up.

The problem with low GW phasers is the 10,000x spread to the photon torpedo as described in the TM. Considering both weapons blow ships and asteroids up in similar manner the two weapons should output at the same level. That's why the "A Matter of Time" over 60GW steps in precision make far more sense than the max 1GW phaser array of the TM, IMHO.

 

[blssdwlf]

Why would Gul Evek accuse Starfleet of providing Cardassian weapons to the Maquis?

Cardassian-equivalent weapons to the Maquis, from the translator POV. It's not like he said, "Federation Type-8 phasers..."

That's never happened before. 99% of the time, the universal translator renders improper nouns to their closest human equivalent.

If that were the case then there's plenty of room for confusion for the listener. "Excuse me Gul Evek, did you mean a Federation Type-8 phaser or a Cardassian Type-8 phaser?" On the contrary, the translator should be translating if from the speaker's perspective.

But phaser rifles are NOT equivalent to assault rifles, and strictly speaking a phaser array isn't equivalent to a 16-inch battleship gun. The largest naval guns CURRENTLY in use are 5-inch rifles and the big battleship guns aren't going to make a comeback... well, EVER. So there is that, but there's also the fact that phaser rifles are a type of heavy weapon that can be used against anything from tribbles to tanks and is probably more the equivalent to a 21st century grenade launcher than an assault rifle.

It doesn't matter if the 16" gun will be back or not. It's one of the largest naval guns that was in service (well there are the 18" from the Yamato...) The big phaser array on the E-D is the big gun. It should deliver big damage appropriate for a starship.

All that, of course, leaves out the fact that the aggregate of phaser emitters on the main array WOULD add up to a couple GJ of output.

A couple of GJ TOTAL is still less than the being off by 60 GW in "A Matter of Time".

Which doesn't change the fact that we don't know the specs of the "small phaser bank" he's referring to (actually, we don't know the specs of the subspace relay he's referring to either). We do NOT know that the output power of that phaser would be anywhere near 4GW, or even a tenth of that. It's an assumption you want to make, clearly, but there's no support for it.

The assumption you want to make is that the TM is correct for a GW output for the largest phaser array on the E-D. Clearly there is no support for that based on "A Matter of Time", an actual episode. Come to think of it, there is no support for low efficiency phasers, based on "In the Mind's Eye". So again, 4GW reactor powering a "small phaser bank" can only mean something above 1GW even with an unsupportable measly 25% efficiency. Quite larger in output than the 1GW that the TM writes about.

No, but Mario Kart could be used to simulate a movie about the characters from the Mario videogames having a gocart race.

It's not as if Star Trek is a real thing that obeys real world rules that are objectively deductible based on science. Star Trek works exactly the way television producers want it to work, and the games are designed to simulate that producer intent. It cannot be helped that BOTH of them are fundamentally flawed in a number of ways.

The games that I've played (including Encounters) are designed to be balanced and fun-to-play. If they were simulated to producer intent the Galaxy-class phasers would have zero effect on the Jem'hedar bug ships for half the game and we wouldn't have to run around picking up Power Ups to get infinite phaser or shielding. Encounters is not a wargame simulation or anything approaching that level of detail or accuracy to the series.

See, you're getting assumptions from what you SEE, not anything you've actually DONE. If we were discussing football, it would be like you saying "Look at all that space on the right side of the defensive line. If they just blitz on that side, they'll be able to sack the QB every time." I'm the guy sitting there telling you that it's not that simple, not by a longshot, and it only seems simple because you've never actually tried it yourself.

Nah, you're the guy telling me it's not possible because you tried it in an arcade game that has dubious accuracy to the material and failed. You failed to recreate the event simply because the game isn't trying to hard to be accurate to the material. The material already shows what is possible by depicting it happening. I suggest you find an application that can simulate the episode

Even Voyager was fairly slow moving 90% of the time. More maneuverable than the Galaxy, to be sure, but I'm mainly referring to this tendency to swoop around your enemies at 200mph, firing off phasers and torpedoes at ranges of 5 to 10km. This was apparently such a VFX staple that by ENT it even found its way into dialog and combat ranges were STATED as being only a handful of kilometers.

The thing is that most of the time in Voyager it appears to be a choice to fight close in rather than zipping around ala USS Phoenix. We know they can fight further out because they've done it. I agree ENT on the other hand actually had plenty of dialogue that limits their ranges to well under 10km.

edit: Speaking of which - how do you know it's 90% of the time? Are you cataloging every space battle?

 

[Ian Keldon]

The problem with low GW phasers is the 10,000x spread to the photon torpedo as described in the TM. Considering both weapons blow ships and asteroids up in similar manner the two weapons should output at the same level. That's why the "A Matter of Time" over 60GW steps in precision make far more sense than the max 1GW phaser array of the TM, IMHO.

Except they don't deal damage in the same manner.

Photon/quantum torpedoes are simple M/AM explosive devices in simplest terms.

Phasers use phased nadions at higher settings to "transition matter out of the continuum".

That's a different damage mechanism.

I'll use as an analogy the breastplate from a suit of plate armor. Pound a guy wearing one with a mace and you may knock him down. You may even get lucky and do rib damage, but you almost certainly won't kill him outright with one shot, and you certainly won't punch a hole through the plate. That's because the armor is distributing and blunting the impact of the blunt force trauma.

Shoot the same guy with an arrow, esp one with an AP head, and it's a whole new ball game. You WILL put a hole in that plate and likely will either severely injure or kill the wearer outright, because the arrow pierces through the protection by concentrating the damage in one place.

Two different types of damage. Two different results.

 

[blssdwlf]

The problem with low GW phasers is the 10,000x spread to the photon torpedo as described in the TM. Considering both weapons blow ships and asteroids up in similar manner the two weapons should output at the same level. That's why the "A Matter of Time" over 60GW steps in precision make far more sense than the max 1GW phaser array of the TM, IMHO.

Except they don't deal damage in the same manner.

Photon/quantum torpedoes are simple M/AM explosive devices in simplest terms.

Phasers use phased nadions at higher settings to "transition matter out of the continuum".

That's a different damage mechanism.
...

Two different types of damage. Two different results.

Which is different from two different types of damage with the same result. A full powered phaser will destroy a starship just as surely as a full powered photon torpedo.

We've got an episode ("A Matter of Time") that puts the E-D's phaser output's margin for error at 60GW so we can say that the phaser output quite easily exceeds 60GW.

So from a power perspective, phasers should be on par with photon torpedoes. Two different types of damage capable of the same results.

 

[Timo]

it doesn't seem to refer to any SPECIFIC phaser array (otherwise it would be implying that the short strips and the long strips have the same number of emitters, right?).

Umm, sorry, which is it? If the wording refers to a specific array (the one in the "say"), THEN it follows that the long and short strips might have differing numbers of emitters. If the wording is unspecific (hence the "say"). then all strips must have 200 emitters, regardless of their length, width or depth.

On the contrary, the translator should be translating if from the speaker's perspective.

This probably never happens, considering how every alien is heard using "minutes" and "meters" at our human heroes.

Rather, what apparently happens when the viewpoint of the speaker needs to be emphasized is that the UT leaves things untranslated for emphasis. "Kellicams", "pon farr" and "veruul" indicate the UT is facing a concept new to it, a concept with no exact and compact translation, or a concept that would lose impact if translated - and the UT doesn't do "translator's comments", at least not verbally.

On the specific issue of Type 8 phasers, Evek was accusing the Maquis of possessing Federation/Starfleet hardware, however indirectly. Conversely, the Cardassian nationalists in DS9 had "Galor class phaser banks" as per Sisko's accusation...

FWIW, in "Return to Grace", the Cardassian anti-starship surface guns are "system 5 disruptors", probably a native designation. Then again, there are no humans or Feds present during that episode's discussions.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[blssdwlf]

^Sokath, his eyes uncovered!

For the purposes of Gul Evek's translation, it's alot more likely that it was not able to translate it into "Federation Type-8s" since the word "Federation" didn't get tacked onto the translation which leaves it quite open to interpretation. Since it's coming from a Cardassian and they also happen to use phasers on their ships it could easily mean the equivalent of Cardassian Type-8s.

 

[Ian Keldon]

The problem with low GW phasers is the 10,000x spread to the photon torpedo as described in the TM. Considering both weapons blow ships and asteroids up in similar manner the two weapons should output at the same level. That's why the "A Matter of Time" over 60GW steps in precision make far more sense than the max 1GW phaser array of the TM, IMHO.

Except they don't deal damage in the same manner.

Photon/quantum torpedoes are simple M/AM explosive devices in simplest terms.

Phasers use phased nadions at higher settings to "transition matter out of the continuum".

That's a different damage mechanism.
...

Two different types of damage. Two different results.

Which is different from two different types of damage with the same result. A full powered phaser will destroy a starship just as surely as a full powered photon torpedo.

True enough, but not in the same manner or with the same exact outcome. It also depends on exactly where the strike happens. Does the phaser simply "hole" the ship (cut a hole in it), or does it hit the warp core and detonate it?

We've got an episode ("A Matter of Time") that puts the E-D's phaser output's margin for error at 60GW so we can say that the phaser output quite easily exceeds 60GW.

Ok.

So from a power perspective, phasers should be on par with photon torpedoes. Two different types of damage capable of the same results.

Never said otherwise. I just was pointing out that phasers didn't need to necessarily have as much raw power to get the same result (wrecked ship target) as a torpedo.

 

[Ian Keldon]

The problem with low GW phasers is the 10,000x spread to the photon torpedo as described in the TM. Considering both weapons blow ships and asteroids up in similar manner the two weapons should output at the same level. That's why the "A Matter of Time" over 60GW steps in precision make far more sense than the max 1GW phaser array of the TM, IMHO.

Except they don't deal damage in the same manner.

Photon/quantum torpedoes are simple M/AM explosive devices in simplest terms.

Phasers use phased nadions at higher settings to "transition matter out of the continuum".

That's a different damage mechanism.
...

Two different types of damage. Two different results.

Which is different from two different types of damage with the same result. A full powered phaser will destroy a starship just as surely as a full powered photon torpedo.

True enough, but not in the same manner or with the same exact outcome. It also depends on exactly where the strike happens. Does the phaser simply "hole" the ship (cut a hole in it), or does it hit the warp core and detonate it?

We've got an episode ("A Matter of Time") that puts the E-D's phaser output's margin for error at 60GW so we can say that the phaser output quite easily exceeds 60GW.

Ok.

So from a power perspective, phasers should be on par with photon torpedoes. Two different types of damage capable of the same results.

Never said otherwise. I just was pointing out that phasers didn't need to necessarily have as much raw power to get the same result (wrecked ship target) as a torpedo.

 

[Lord Manitou]

Needless to say, Phasors aren't Disruptors and Disruptors aren't Phasors. Phasors also borrow from Disruptor technology because they don't do all their damage by venting power from the engine.

 

[Dick_Valentine]

Is there any in universe reason why after about the 5th series Voyager "forgot" to charge its phasers with the cool looking two pulses running down the phaser strip before the beam leaps out when firing?

I know out of universe we could put it down to FX team laziness/different FX houses not knowing the "house rules" etc but it always used to irk me as a kid when Voyager would fire its phasers without the charging pulse, mainly because I thought it was really cool and in my head I still have it marked that "Child's Play" was the last time we ever saw that effect so, yeah, why would Voyager fire without it if it was the de facto way for a Federation ship to fire its phasers?

 

[Lord Manitou]

There is not any clear info. on disruptor technology that is used by Klingons, Romulans, Breen and other races.
Five years following the franchise I suppose it would be a strange collection of particles that does that. The particles are carried in a transport medium that effectually carries out the strange particles in a beam.
In fact, why someone won't effectually make the ray gun is depressing.
Every one knows laser energy isn't the same as directed light. Suppose the scientists then get the shakes.