Do phaser arrays amplify energy, or merely direct it?

[Crazy Eddie]

My comment is in response to your comment: ""Discharging all the EPS taps" and "channeling all warp power" is not the same thing. It would require a major reconfiguring of the ship's engines -- as Geordi did with the deflector in Best of Both Worlds -- in order to make that possible."

The main deflector in BOBW channeled far more power than the warp core could put out as it took more than 8 seconds of power build up prior to opening fire. The phaser system on the E-D apparently cannot fire more than the ship's power output.

The significant part you're missing here is that if a single phaser array is firing, there is still a large amount of power that could be channeled through a second, third or even fourth array to strike the same target. So "All ships power going through one array" doesn't explain the one-beam-at-a-time trend.

Or the 2nd or 3rd phaser strip firing only splits the total possible phaser output.

It doesn't, though. If your references to "A Matter of Time" and "Best of Both Worlds" have taught us anything it's that the ship can produce FAR more power than a single phaser array can safely handle. If a phaser array can only accept, say, 10% of the ship's total power output (an extremely high estimate, but still) then two could handle 20% and double the total output to the same target.

If all the power is being channeled through a single strip

It isn't, though. The setup from "A Matter of Time" is explicitly unique in that it discharges all of the ship's power into a single phaser blast, which doesn't come close to the output of the main deflector dish and still represents a serious technical challenge. In a combat situation, it would be easier to simply power up an additional phaser array (which is exactly what Spock does in "Paradise Syndrome")

Picard ordered "weapon ranges of the two ships" and not "approximate weapon ranges of the two ships." Data doesn't correct Picard or add any qualifiers to the ranges.

Data doesn't STATE their weapons ranges either. They both know its an approximation, considering the diagram is both two dimensional and obviously not drawn to scale.

More to the point, you strike me as someone who is smart enough to know what "weapons range" actually means and that directed energy weapons don't have a finite range as such; since a phaser beam doesn't just magically vanish at 300,000km, their EFFECTIVE range is a function of their targeting systems and the probability of scoring a hit at that distance. "Firing range" isn't a magic sphere within which your weapons work and outside of which they instantly cease, and "exact firing range" is an oxymoron even for weapons like missiles and cannons that (in gravity, at least) DO have a finite range.

No one on the bridge qualified the graphics as an "estimated firing range"

Since they all knew it was an approximation, why would they bother? The only one who ever bothered with that kind of precision is Data, and he stopped doing it by season 2 after it was pointed out to him that most people found it really annoying.

If Data and the overlay can show us which direction a ship is moving and that they are taking evasive maneuvers, the power status of the Phoenix's weapons and when the ships are firing at each other then they know which direction the ships are facing.

Assuming, of course, that they're only moving in two dimensions (as per the graphic on screen).

We've only seen the 23rd century Klingon BOP in 4 movies of which in TVH it isn't even in combat. That's hardly any time to ascertain that it does not have aft weapons.

"Ascertain that it does not"? Trying to prove a negative again. The weapon emplacements on the Bird of Prey aren't exactly subtle; we haven't seen anything on it that looks like an aft disruptor weapon, and even if it has one, it isn't nearly as large or as powerful as the wingtip weapons.

I do believe that the Defiant's beam phasers can be just as powerful as the four pulse cannons. The pulse phasers appear to be more effective against the Jem'hedar.

Then why don't they use their beam phasers against the Klingons, the Borg, the Cardassians and the Lakota?

The phaser power must be coming from more than the fusion reactors. In "Galaxy's Child", their auxiliary power would only give them 2 seconds of phaser fire.

RIKER: Weapons status?
WORF: Auxiliary power only. Two seconds phaser fire available.​

​

Makes sense. The load on the main power systems was so high (thanks to Junior) that they couldn't power the phasers for more than two seconds without risking an overload.

Doesn't sound like the phaser generator was moved at all. The dialogue puts it as ONE phaser generator that powered all the emitters.

New addition to blssdwlf's world: despite being equipped with four forward-facing pulse phasers and standard phaser arrays, the Defiant is ACTUALLY equipped with only a single phaser weapon that can fire its beam out of any place you want it to.

Okay then...

The only hardware that appears to be outside the hull are the emitters and the power conduit to get the phaser power to a specific emitter(s). That doesn't imply more powerful since what makes the phaser more powerful is well, more power sent to it.

Which, again, eliminates any possible utility of putting 200 emitters on the outside of the hull in the first place. That's your 200-gun battleship with all of the guns fed by a single magazine with a single loader that can only service one of them at a time. Even if the phasers DID work that way, they would immediately be at a disadvantage the first time someone built a ship with TWO generators instead of one.

Which has an interesting question... what phasers are more powerful when the two hulls are separated? The long phaser strip on the saucer section powered by impluse engines or the longest short phaser strip on the battle section powered by warp power?

AFAIK, phasers don't directly draw their power from the warp engines except in very unique circumstances.

What is interesting here is that phaser plasma is being sent to a small group of presumably 40 emitters. Whether that means a whole strip or only part of a strip was used we won't know because we don't get an exterior view of the phaser firing. But it does show that all of the phaser power (and a little more) can fire through a single beam.

What's slightly more interesting here is 1) Worf doesn't fire "full phasers" until Picard specifically gives him permission to do so, which mirrors "Q Who" and leads me to think that the phasers on the saucer section are normally limited to fire "standard charge" until the Captain orders "Mister Worf, set phasers on 'whupass'" in which case FULL PHASERS channel all power from the emitters.

In "The Nth Degree" even a full charge is inadequate, so Geordi fires a full charge PLUS maxes out 40 of the emitters (probably just a bit beyond spec) to get a little more juice out of that one blast.

Significantly here, despite shunting EPS power through 40 different emitters, only a single beam is actually fired. Which means 40 phaser emitters all discharge into a single beam, and that's a canon example of amplification.

Thanks for noticing that!

Based on the above dialogue there is evidence that the TNG phasers are plasma-based (the "plasma phasers). That could explain where the spare parts for the NX-01's phase cannons came from

That phasers use nadion particles is virtually canon at this point and I'm pretty sure the references to plasma actually refer to the EPS system that powers the phasers.

OTOH, I could see a nadion being a sort of modified proton or something (that's basically what an alpha particle is, right?) in which case the phaser beam would be a type of highly energized plasma as we understand the concept.

 

[blssdwlf]

And both are fundamentally different from firing nuclear weapons and kinetic kill vehicles, which is what I wrote.

Which still makes no distinction between ENT and TNG.

That is so NOT what I was talking about.

And which is so NOT what I was talking about either

Yes I am. Because there's no "post phaser" era on the horizon in Star Trek, there's no comparison to the battleship age which was already on the wane by the Battle of Jutland. When we get to a time when starships are using their phasers for surface bombardment more often than they use them to shoot at other starships, THEN the comparison to battleship guns becomes appropriate.

I guess you're unable to show a difference between ENT and TNG weapons usage then.

Sure. Just like fifty pounds of cordite and a shell can be fired out of any barrel, even a makeshift one. That doesn't mean you can press a couple of buttons and have the phaser generator transfer all of its power to Troi's vibrator.

Regardless of how you feel about Troi's vibrator it doesn't change that a single phaser generator was used to power the makeshift phaser via the secondary power grid

Your tactical officer has no way of knowing that, however. Much the same way he would have no way of knowing if, say, the main phasers of the galaxy class are set to their maximum possible level or to their standard anti-ship burst setting.

Which has nothing to do with one beam channeling all the phaser power. Ten strips or 100 strips facing you still equals to 1 beam.

If not for the sudden failure of Enterprise' shields to raise when they were supposed to, Kruge's single shot would have been the last futile act of a desperate man. To use his own words "Why haven't they finished us? They outgun me ten to one!" The answer is Scotty's automation center failed at an inconvenient time.

Are you saying that Kruge knew it would turn out like this and was counting on the automation center failing when it did? Are you suggesting that if he hadn't known about the automation center that he would have attacked from behind so he wouldn't have to worry about Enterprise' torpedo launchers?

Kruge probably had no clue as to how it would turn out other than trying his luck. Like I said before, unless the Enterprise had her shields up already, the torpedoes at close range would not have been powerful enough to kill Kruge's BOP outright.

Parturition remains a problem for you, because once again there's no indication that they KNOW the firing arcs of their enemy's aft weapons. They simply know that it HAS aft weapons and that it will probably fire it at them if they're behind it.

You asked, "can they still hit us with their aft cannon?" and there is an episode that focuses on getting their aft weapons to fire.

You don't need to calculate their field of fire to do that; a simple guess will suffice.

Nobody asked that in the first place. The question is "Do they (or anyone else) actually know the firing arcs of specific weapon emplacements?" even in Partruition, they don't have a solid understanding of their field of fire, they simply move as close as they can directly behind the other ship in the hope that it'll use those weapons instead of some other emplacement. Like everything else in Voyager, it's just a guess that turns out to be completely true.

The dialogue does not mention anything about being not sure about the field of fire. The only thing that is apparent is that part of getting the aft weapons to fire is to be within 10km and behind the ship. Since they were able to scan the other ship and able to detect this weakness in their power grid then it would make sense for them to know what the field of fire is.

Which, with respect to the overall shape of the vessel, might just be feasible if they took the time to analyze it ahead of time (as they did in Partruition). That's a far cry from calculating the fields of fire from a complex structure like a galaxy class starship one to two minutes after encountering one in space.

You'd figure those fancy sensors and computers would do that for you

So where is your evidence that the engineering hull phasers (the short strips) are weaker than the long strips on the E-D?

Nice of you to dodge the relevant question, but we've already been through this one before. The design of the phasers is implied to have this feature as referenced in the tech manual and the clear intent of the producers themselves: it's not a single phaser emitter at work, but the aggregate of MANY emitters pooling their power into a single beam. The longer arrays would have greater potential power than the smaller arrays for this reason.

Then how come the saucer dorsal phaser strip makes a smaller crater than the shorter saucer ventral phaser strip in "Q Who"?

http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/s2/2x16/qwho185.jpg

 

[blssdwlf]

The significant part you're missing here is that if a single phaser array is firing, there is still a large amount of power that could be channeled through a second, third or even fourth array to strike the same target. So "All ships power going through one array" doesn't explain the one-beam-at-a-time trend.

Or the 2nd or 3rd phaser strip firing only splits the total possible phaser output.

It doesn't, though. If your references to "A Matter of Time" and "Best of Both Worlds" have taught us anything it's that the ship can produce FAR more power than a single phaser array can safely handle. If a phaser array can only accept, say, 10% of the ship's total power output (an extremely high estimate, but still) then two could handle 20% and double the total output to the same target.

"BOBW" taught us that the main navigational deflector can channel at least 8 seconds of pre-charged power from the warp engines which is way more than the ship puts out under normal conditions. "A Matter of Time" and "The Nth Degree" tells us that the phasers can fire all the power from the ship's plasma system in one beam. A 2nd simultaneous beam being fired would just take the power away from the 1st beam.

It isn't, though. The setup from "A Matter of Time" is explicitly unique in that it discharges all of the ship's power into a single phaser blast, which doesn't come close to the output of the main deflector dish and still represents a serious technical challenge. In a combat situation, it would be easier to simply power up an additional phaser array (which is exactly what Spock does in "Paradise Syndrome")

"The Nth Degree" does the same thing as "A Matter of Time". They are firing at full phaser power and it's just one beam. In a combat situation, you see just one beam at a time in the majority of cases because of this power arrangement.

Data doesn't STATE their weapons ranges either. They both know its an approximation, considering the diagram is both two dimensional and obviously not drawn to scale.

He doesn't need to. We can see the screen display. And no one says it's an approximation or that it is not drawn to scale. Plus, they're displaying symbols not pictures of the ships.

More to the point, you strike me as someone who is smart enough to know what "weapons range" actually means and that directed energy weapons don't have a finite range as such; since a phaser beam doesn't just magically vanish at 300,000km, their EFFECTIVE range is a function of their targeting systems and the probability of scoring a hit at that distance. "Firing range" isn't a magic sphere within which your weapons work and outside of which they instantly cease, and "exact firing range" is an oxymoron even for weapons like missiles and cannons that (in gravity, at least) DO have a finite range.

Regardless of how the "real world" would handle the display, what we have in the scene are the weapons ranges for the two ships. You can argue that in-universe it is accounting already for factors that we're not aware of, but it doesn't take away that this does show how far the ships are away from each other and the weapons ranges.

Since they all knew it was an approximation, why would they bother? The only one who ever bothered with that kind of precision is Data, and he stopped doing it by season 2 after it was pointed out to him that most people found it really annoying.

Who knew it was an approximation? What dialogue supports this?

Assuming, of course, that they're only moving in two dimensions (as per the graphic on screen).

I'm not sure if they are moving in 2 dimensions since the background is changing in a way that suggests some kind of 3d movement.

"Ascertain that it does not"? Trying to prove a negative again. The weapon emplacements on the Bird of Prey aren't exactly subtle; we haven't seen anything on it that looks like an aft disruptor weapon, and even if it has one, it isn't nearly as large or as powerful as the wingtip weapons.

Can you point out what the aft weapons look like on Duras' BOP in "The Expanse"? Or the aft weapons of the Klingon BOPs in "Way of the Warrior"? Any close-up screenshot would suffice. And since we've not had too many comparisons with the aft disruptors in use, it's premature to say they are not as powerful as the wingtip versions.

Then why don't they use their beam phasers against the Klingons, the Borg, the Cardassians and the Lakota?

The Defiant fired her nose and dorsal beam phasers at the Lakota. The other battles against the others it looks like the pulse phasers were more preferred although I haven't seen all the DS9 big battles to be sure.

New addition to blssdwlf's world: despite being equipped with four forward-facing pulse phasers and standard phaser arrays, the Defiant is ACTUALLY equipped with only a single phaser weapon that can fire its beam out of any place you want it to.

Funny you should put it that way but not quite. Her one phaser generator seems to work like any other starship in that it powers one phaser beam or quad phaser array at a time at full power or it can split the power to different emitters.

Which, again, eliminates any possible utility of putting 200 emitters on the outside of the hull in the first place. That's your 200-gun battleship with all of the guns fed by a single magazine with a single loader that can only service one of them at a time. Even if the phasers DID work that way, they would immediately be at a disadvantage the first time someone built a ship with TWO generators instead of one.

We know that the Defiant has only one phaser generator. Whether the 10 banks that the E-D has count as 10 phaser generators or she only carries one phaser generator we do not know. In the end with the E-D though it seems that one beam is all you need to channel all your phaser power.

AFAIK, phasers don't directly draw their power from the warp engines except in very unique circumstances.

Let's see, the E-D can divert warp power to the shields ("Hero Worship", "The Nth Degree") and tractor beams ("Deja Q", "The Masterpiece Society") and sensors ("Schisms").

Voyager does have a line where warp power is diverted to the phasers in "Prey" so we know that the Intrepid class can do this.

"The Neutral Zone" does have a line about transferring "all power" to phasers and torpedoes. It's likely that would include warp power as well since they were undamaged.

What is interesting here is that phaser plasma is being sent to a small group of presumably 40 emitters. Whether that means a whole strip or only part of a strip was used we won't know because we don't get an exterior view of the phaser firing. But it does show that all of the phaser power (and a little more) can fire through a single beam.

What's slightly more interesting here is 1) Worf doesn't fire "full phasers" until Picard specifically gives him permission to do so, which mirrors "Q Who" and leads me to think that the phasers on the saucer section are normally limited to fire "standard charge" until the Captain orders "Mister Worf, set phasers on 'whupass'" in which case FULL PHASERS channel all power from the emitters.

"Full phasers" were also used in "Darmok" - wasn't that with the single emitters? I'm assuming that in the Borg encounters that the E-D also fired full power phasers, but hard to confirm without dialogue.

In "The Nth Degree" even a full charge is inadequate, so Geordi fires a full charge PLUS maxes out 40 of the emitters (probably just a bit beyond spec) to get a little more juice out of that one blast.

Significantly here, despite shunting EPS power through 40 different emitters, only a single beam is actually fired. Which means 40 phaser emitters all discharge into a single beam, and that's a canon example of amplification.

Actually, it isn't quite a canon example of amplification. If they were using the emitters to amplify the beam, they would've used more emitters (thus more amplification). Instead, they did the opposite and isolated only 40 emitters to send power to. Those 40 emitters in dialogue sound like they are only channeling the power into a single beam - not amplifying the energy.

Thanks for noticing that!

You're welcome

Based on the above dialogue there is evidence that the TNG phasers are plasma-based (the "plasma phasers). That could explain where the spare parts for the NX-01's phase cannons came from

That phasers use nadion particles is virtually canon at this point and I'm pretty sure the references to plasma actually refer to the EPS system that powers the phasers.

Probably so. Worth a try

OTOH, I could see a nadion being a sort of modified proton or something (that's basically what an alpha particle is, right?) in which case the phaser beam would be a type of highly energized plasma as we understand the concept.

Sure. The phaser energy is in the magic energy column for me so that sounds reasonable.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I guess you're unable to show a difference between ENT and TNG weapons usage then.

What part of this are you not understanding here, dude? The paradigm shift happened BEFORE Enterprise, not after.

Kruge probably had no clue as to how it would turn out other than trying his luck. Like I said before, unless the Enterprise had her shields up already, the torpedoes at close range would not have been powerful enough to kill Kruge's BOP outright.

But it DID kill it. He was down to emergency power, no maneuvering capacity, no shields and no weapons; the Bird of Prey was every bit as disabled as the Enterprise at this point.

You asked, "can they still hit us with their aft cannon?"

No. I asked if the tactical officer can actually calculate the fields of fire for the enemy ship's weapons. Do you have a reference for that or not?

The dialogue does not mention anything about being not sure about the field of fire.

Asking to prove a negative again?

You'd figure those fancy sensors and computers would do that for you

Those fancy sensors and computers aren't all that consistent with what they're able/not able to do.

Then how come the saucer dorsal phaser strip makes a smaller crater than the shorter saucer ventral phaser strip in "Q Who"?

Because it fired for a longer duration at an edge piece of the cube where the depth of the crater also contributes to its diameter.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

"BOBW" taught us that the main navigational deflector can channel at least 8 seconds of pre-charged power from the warp engines which is way more than the ship puts out under normal conditions.

And yet they do it again (or attempt to) in "Night Terrors." Assuming the latter attempt is at normal output, that still puts the total power production of the ship WAY above what the phasers could handle on their own.

"A Matter of Time" and "The Nth Degree" tells us that the phasers can fire all the power from the ship's plasma system in one beam.

We don't get that from "Nth Degree," and in "A Matter of Time" it takes them some time to modify their systems to make it possible. In the former case, it's really just diverting EXTRA power to 40 phaser emitters to augment that one phaser bank.

Curiously, Geordi probably would have gotten better traction by channeling additional power to a second phaser array and combining both beams on target (like they had to do with the hand phasers in "The Arsenal of Freedom).

"The Nth Degree" does the same thing as "A Matter of Time".

No they don't. Not even close.

He doesn't need to. We can see the screen display.

The screen display doesn't tell us what those ranges are, nor is any explanation given for the concentric circles inside the highlighted area.

And no one says it's an approximation or that it is not drawn to scale.

No one has to; everyone knows that already.

Regardless of how the "real world" would handle the display, what we have in the scene are the weapons ranges for the two ships.

So you're going to completely ignore logic and anything that resembles common sense and simply repeat "I think the highlighted circle that shows their exact weapons ranges!" That's really the best you can do?

Who knew it was an approximation?

Everyone on the bridge who knows how viewscreens work.

I'm not sure if they are moving in 2 dimensions since the background is changing in a way that suggests some kind of 3d movement.

If any 3D movement is implied, it isn't shown in the display.

And since we've not had too many comparisons with the aft disruptors in use, it's premature to say they are not as powerful as the wingtip versions.

It's not premature at all. The wingtip disruptors on the Bird of Prey are extremely large weapon emplacements; the putative aft disruptor is small enough that you cannot actually see it on the physical model. This means either size is irrelevant to disruptor power (in which case the Bird of Prey's design makes even less sense than the Galaxy class) or the microscopic aft cannon is less powerful.

The Defiant fired her nose and dorsal beam phasers at the Lakota.

Dorsal only, not nose, and then only when the forward phasers couldn't be fired against it.

Voyager does have a line where warp power is diverted to the phasers in "Prey" so we know that the Intrepid class can do this.

That, I believe, would be the "Unique circumstances" I mentioned.

"Full phasers" were also used in "Darmok" - wasn't that with the single emitters?

It was with the mystery phaser in the torpedo deck, but this was in the beginning of Season 5, when the new FX were introduced and we started seeing phasers firing in short pulses instead of the long sustained beams we had seen before.

Actually, it isn't quite a canon example of amplification. If they were using the emitters to amplify the beam, they would've used more emitters (thus more amplification).

Begging the question again: How do you know? Any specific reason why 40 overcharged emitters wouldn't be sufficient?

Those 40 emitters in dialogue sound like they are only channeling the power into a single beam

Which in this context is amplification: power is put into the array at 40 different locations and multiplexed through a SINGLE emitter.

Now ask yourself this: would Geordi have been able to do the same trick if he had been forced to use an array that only had 10 emitters?

 

[blssdwlf]

I guess you're unable to show a difference between ENT and TNG weapons usage then.

What part of this are you not understanding here, dude? The paradigm shift happened BEFORE Enterprise, not after.

What part are you not understanding? I've been saying all along nothing's significantly changed from ENT to TNG.

Kruge probably had no clue as to how it would turn out other than trying his luck. Like I said before, unless the Enterprise had her shields up already, the torpedoes at close range would not have been powerful enough to kill Kruge's BOP outright.

But it DID kill it. He was down to emergency power, no maneuvering capacity, no shields and no weapons; the Bird of Prey was every bit as disabled as the Enterprise at this point.

No it wasn't. Kruge's BOP could still maneuver (it moved away when the Enterprise exploded) and he fired one torpedo and was preparing to fire another one from his emergency tube. Just because Kruge called for "emergency power to his thrusters" doesn't mean the ship is screwed up. Kirk called for emergency power in TMP to try and break free from V'ger's tractor beam. Geordi called for emergency power to the shields to reinforce them from an attack in "The Arsenal of Freedom." Kruge's ship was not even close to being disabled.

No. I asked if the tactical officer can actually calculate the fields of fire for the enemy ship's weapons. Do you have a reference for that or not?

I have no references to indicate whether they can or cannot calculate fields of fire. In episodes that involved tactical analysis the relayed information included number and/or power of weapons, shields but not specific weapons arcs.

Asking to prove a negative again?

Well, you wrote, "..in Partruition, they don't have a solid understanding of their field of fire, they simply move as close as they can directly behind the other ship in the hope that it'll use those weapons instead of some other emplacement."

And watching the episode the dialogue does not mention anything about being not sure about the field of fire or not having a solid understanding of their field of fire.

You'd figure those fancy sensors and computers would do that for you

Those fancy sensors and computers aren't all that consistent with what they're able/not able to do.

Yet they are still able to scan for and count the total number of weapons a ship has unless the ship is somehow jamming them.

Then how come the saucer dorsal phaser strip makes a smaller crater than the shorter saucer ventral phaser strip in "Q Who"?

Because it fired for a longer duration at an edge piece of the cube where the depth of the crater also contributes to its diameter.

The phaser duration for the last two hits with the dorsal strip and the ventral strip was about the same.

 

[blssdwlf]

"BOBW" taught us that the main navigational deflector can channel at least 8 seconds of pre-charged power from the warp engines which is way more than the ship puts out under normal conditions.

And yet they do it again (or attempt to) in "Night Terrors." Assuming the latter attempt is at normal output, that still puts the total power production of the ship WAY above what the phasers could handle on their own.

Once again they need much more power than the ship can output normally and it took them alot longer to build up the power due to the power drain.

From "Best of Both Worlds" as to why they used the main deflector dish:

LAFORGE: If we can generate a concentrated burst of power at that same frequency distribution, I mean a lot more than anything our phasers or photon torpedoes could ever provide.
​

From "Night Terrors" as to why they used the main deflector dish:

LAFORGE: But we aren't carrying anything that could produce that kind of explosion. Not even our photon torpedoes would be enough.
DATA: Commander La Forge and I have come up with a potential solution to our predicament. Perhaps the modifications used to increase
firepower against the Borg could be effective here.
PICARD: Channelling power to the main, er, deflector dish.
DATA: Yes, sir. I believe that within six hours we could generate a concentrated burst of energy which might disrupt the Tyken's rift.
...
WORF: Deflector power banks approaching maximum. Discharge in fifteen seconds.
​

"A Matter of Time" and "The Nth Degree" tells us that the phasers can fire all the power from the ship's plasma system in one beam.

We don't get that from "Nth Degree," and in "A Matter of Time" it takes them some time to modify their systems to make it possible. In the former case, it's really just diverting EXTRA power to 40 phaser emitters to augment that one phaser bank.

The extra time needed in "A Matter of Time" was for the calculations and modifications to avoid burning off the atmosphere. However in "The Nth Degree" it was on the fly and clearly points to a single beam channeling all the phaser power they can pump out. When Riker called for more phaser power, Geordi doesn't add a 2nd or 3rd beam into the attack but instead reduces the amount of phaser emitters being sent power.

Curiously, Geordi probably would have gotten better traction by channeling additional power to a second phaser array and combining both beams on target (like they had to do with the hand phasers in "The Arsenal of Freedom).

Yes, if that was possible. However, unlike 2 hand phasers each with an independent power source that aren't physically shared, the E-D can pool its power sources and channel all its power into one beam.

No they don't. Not even close.

Yes it is. Both episodes show them pumping all their eps/plasma into the phasers and the result is a single beam on target.

The screen display doesn't tell us what those ranges are, nor is any explanation given for the concentric circles inside the highlighted area.

Data tells us how far they are and the outer circle tells us the weapons ranges for each ship. We don't know what the inner circles are as they are not described to us.

No one has to; everyone knows that already.

You've got no evidence of that.

If it was something estimated it would be stated like in "Sons and Daughters"

ALEXANDER: Jem'Hadar attack ship bearing one seven zero mark zero four five. Estimated weapons range in twenty two seconds.
​

So you're going to completely ignore logic and anything that resembles common sense and simply repeat "I think the highlighted circle that shows their exact weapons ranges!" That's really the best you can do?

That's the best Star Trek can do. Heck, you even pointed this out that ranges can be arbitrary and make no common sense. Newtype_alpha wrote, "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."

If any 3D movement is implied, it isn't shown in the display.

Just to be clear, I'm talking about the ships' movement not that we're watching a 2D representation. If you watch the display movement, the background dots are not all moving in the same direction.

It's not premature at all. The wingtip disruptors on the Bird of Prey are extremely large weapon emplacements; the putative aft disruptor is small enough that you cannot actually see it on the physical model. This means either size is irrelevant to disruptor power (in which case the Bird of Prey's design makes even less sense than the Galaxy class) or the microscopic aft cannon is less powerful.

We can't even see the point emitter that channeled the main phaser banks in "Encounter at Farpoint". That doesn't make it any less powerful than the phaser strips. The BOP's design only needs to make sense to the Klingons

Dorsal only, not nose, and then only when the forward phasers couldn't be fired against it.

The first phaser that the Defiant fires is it's nose phaser.

That, I believe, would be the "Unique circumstances" I mentioned.

LOL.

It was with the mystery phaser in the torpedo deck, but this was in the beginning of Season 5, when the new FX were introduced and we started seeing phasers firing in short pulses instead of the long sustained beams we had seen before.

Yet, still "full phasers" with a point emitter

Actually, it isn't quite a canon example of amplification. If they were using the emitters to amplify the beam, they would've used more emitters (thus more amplification).

Begging the question again: How do you know? Any specific reason why 40 overcharged emitters wouldn't be sufficient?

Your argument is that the longer the strip, the more powerful the phaser beam due to amplification of the emitters. If the emitters amplify the energy and a longer strip was more powerful than a shorter strip then it would follow that Geordi would throw all the emitters from the longest strip at it and/or keep piling on more emitters. Instead, Geordi reduced the number of emitters involved and channeled all the power to that subset to be fired as a single beam. He even says that he can't do any better than that.

DATA: The probe's field intensity is continuing to build, sir. We are in danger.
RIKER: Riker to LaForge. Can you increase phaser power?
LAFORGE: Attempting to now, Commander. Isolate phasers eighty to one twenty. Shunt all the plasma
BARCLAY: To the emitters. Yes, sir, I'm already on it. Ready.
LAFORGE: Phasers are as hot as we can make them, Captain.
​

Those 40 emitters in dialogue sound like they are only channeling the power into a single beam

Which in this context is amplification: power is put into the array at 40 different locations and multiplexed through a SINGLE emitter.

And where do you get the amplification from? The 40 emitters are channeling the energy into a single beam. There isn't any dialogue or indication that the emitters are amplifying the power, only that more power is being put into a small group of emitters.

Now ask yourself this: would Geordi have been able to do the same trick if he had been forced to use an array that only had 10 emitters?

If it followed the pattern of the dialogue, Geordi would've isolated 2 emitters and shunted all the plasma into them

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I guess you're unable to show a difference between ENT and TNG weapons usage then.

What part of this are you not understanding here, dude? The paradigm shift happened BEFORE Enterprise, not after.

What part are you not understanding? I've been saying all along nothing's significantly changed from ENT to TNG.

That's why the battleship analogy doesn't work. NX-01 was the first Starfleet ship to ever use those types of armaments in combat against another vessel. Earth spacecraft had been using nuclear weapons and kinetic projectiles for a full century prior to this; apparently, so were their primitive Vulcan and Andorian counterparts before they too adopted directed energy weapons and the tactics thereof.

So the paradigm shift represented by NX-01 away from kinetic projectiles and nuclear weapons represents the first -- but not the last -- major step on the transition to the new paradigm, much like the USS Yorktown was the first major step away from the battleship age.

No it wasn't. Kruge's BOP could still maneuver (it moved away when the Enterprise exploded) and he fired one torpedo and was preparing to fire another one from his emergency tube. Just because Kruge called for "emergency power to his thrusters" doesn't mean the ship is screwed up.

It's as screwed up as Enterprise is, considering Kirk ALSO ordered emergency power and was preparing to return fire. The only difference is Kruge can still control his vessel (such as it is) and Kirk cannot.

I have no references to indicate whether they can or cannot calculate fields of fire.

Then we can safely put this one to rest. There's no evidence that they can, so you assuming that they can and should is unsupported conjecture.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Once again they need much more power than the ship can output normally

No they don't. They need more power than their WEAPONS can output normally. Which logically implies that they HAVE more power than their weapons can output.

However in "The Nth Degree" it was on the fly and clearly points to a single beam channeling all the phaser power they can pump out...

Yes, a single beam being generated from forty different emitters. And nothing suggests it is "all the power they can pump out" from the entire ship, it's the maximum output of the PHASERS that is the limiting factor here.

When Riker called for more phaser power, Geordi doesn't add a 2nd or 3rd beam into the attack but instead reduces...

He does nothing of the sort. He merely increases power to forty of those emitters and tries again. For all we know he's reproducing the "controlled overload" scenario from "Silent Enemy". Why 40? Probably because that's the largest number of emitters he can safely overcharge without risking the potentially crippling "plasma recoil" effect.

Yes, if that was possible. However, unlike 2 hand phasers each with an independent power source that aren't physically shared, the E-D can pool its power sources and channel all its power into one beam.

It can't, though, as per "Best of Both Worlds." The ship has power to spare that the phasers cannot handle.

If it was something estimated it would be stated like in "Sons and Daughters"

ALEXANDER: Jem'Hadar attack ship bearing one seven zero mark zero four five. Estimated weapons range in twenty two seconds.​

[/quote]
​

And Alexander is exactly the kind of numbskull rookie who would waste words being as precise as possible because he's afraid of being misunderstood.

We can't even see the point emitter that channeled the main phaser banks in "Encounter at Farpoint". That doesn't make it any less powerful than the phaser strips.

VFX errors are rarely more powerful than purpose-built elements.

Your argument is that the longer the strip, the more powerful the phaser beam due to amplification of the emitters. If the emitters amplify the energy and a longer strip was more powerful than a shorter strip then it would follow that Geordi would throw all the emitters from the longest strip at it and/or keep piling on more emitters.

They DID throw all the emitters into it at "Full phasers." It still wasn't enough, so Geordi overcharged 40 of them and tried it again. That's "Full Phasers Plus" from a single array.

The thing is, he clearly had more power to work with if he was able to draw additional power from the plasma grid to those emitters, which means any way you slice it, it would have been easier to simply divert additional power to a SECOND phaser array and concentrate both beams on target. The trick with the overcharge was just an excuse to throw some technobabble into the episode and demonstrate how Barclay was already getting smarter.

And where do you get the amplification from? The 40 emitters are channeling the energy into a single beam. There isn't any dialogue or indication that the emitters are amplifying the power, only that more power is being put into a small group of emitters.

Which means that the arrays don't have to fire single emitters at a time, but can route their power through MANY emitters for a single concentrated beam. This means the longer strips, which have many emitters, are logically more powerful than the shorter strips, which have fewer.

Now ask yourself this: would Geordi have been able to do the same trick if he had been forced to use an array that only had 10 emitters?

If it followed the pattern of the dialogue, Geordi would've isolated 2 emitters and shunted all the plasma into them

No, he would have either increased the number he overcharged -- thus risking serious damage to the phaser array -- or done something even more mindlessly exotic (say, "Cross polarize the reverse power coupling, increase plasma resonance by fifty megahertz!").

 

[blssdwlf]

What part of this are you not understanding here, dude? The paradigm shift happened BEFORE Enterprise, not after.

What part are you not understanding? I've been saying all along nothing's significantly changed from ENT to TNG.

That's why the battleship analogy doesn't work. NX-01 was the first Starfleet ship to ever use those types of armaments in combat against another vessel. Earth spacecraft had been using nuclear weapons and kinetic projectiles for a full century prior to this; apparently, so were their primitive Vulcan and Andorian counterparts before they too adopted directed energy weapons and the tactics thereof.

So the paradigm shift represented by NX-01 away from kinetic projectiles and nuclear weapons represents the first -- but not the last -- major step on the transition to the new paradigm, much like the USS Yorktown was the first major step away from the battleship age.

The battleship analogy works across the pre-ENT era based on your own argument. Ship bring guns (kinetic weapons) and torpedoes (nuclear weapons) against other ships with the same types of weapons. The change from a kinetic energy weapon to a direct energy weapon isn't that severe when you get down to their usage. If you think about programming a simulation for kinetic weapons you're dealing with tracking a projectile with speed, direction and environmental modifiers such as gravity, etc. Direct energy weapons would also be treated in the same way with a higher speed.

No it wasn't. Kruge's BOP could still maneuver (it moved away when the Enterprise exploded) and he fired one torpedo and was preparing to fire another one from his emergency tube. Just because Kruge called for "emergency power to his thrusters" doesn't mean the ship is screwed up.

It's as screwed up as Enterprise is, considering Kirk ALSO ordered emergency power and was preparing to return fire. The only difference is Kruge can still control his vessel (such as it is) and Kirk cannot.

That's not the only difference. Kruge calls for emergency power to the thrusters. It is not for the entire ship because it is not as hurt as the Enterprise.

KRUGE: Emergency power to the thrusters!
​

Kirk calls for emergency power because the hit knocked everything out that wasn't already knocked out when the automation overloaded moments before.

KIRK: Emergency power! Prepare to return fire. Mister Scott, can you transfer power to the phaser banks.
​

I have no references to indicate whether they can or cannot calculate fields of fire.

Then we can safely put this one to rest. There's no evidence that they can, so you assuming that they can and should is unsupported conjecture.

There is also no evidence that they cannot calculate fields of fire either. If they are able to count the weapons on an enemy ship then there is more reason to believe they are capable of determining the fields of fire.

 

[blssdwlf]

Once again they need much more power than the ship can output normally

No they don't. They need more power than their WEAPONS can output normally. Which logically implies that they HAVE more power than their weapons can output.

How's that? BOBW they couldn't fire the main deflector dish immediately.

WESLEY: Sir, they've done it. The Borg ship is dropping out of warp.
RIKER: Go to impulse.
WESLEY: Aye, sir.
LAFORGE: Diverting warp energy to main deflector.
RIKER: Move us to within forty thousand kilometres. Match velocity. Commence arming sequence. Increase deflector modulation to upper frequency band.
​

2 minutes and some seconds go by...

RIKER: Is the deflector ready?
LAFORGE: It's ready.
​

From this point to the time Riker orders the deflector to charge up it is more than 2 minutes till it is ready to fire. That is more energy than the ship puts out at any one time. They need more power than their weapons can provide which also happens to be more power than the ship puts out at any one time.

However in "The Nth Degree" it was on the fly and clearly points to a single beam channeling all the phaser power they can pump out...

Yes, a single beam being generated from forty different emitters. And nothing suggests it is "all the power they can pump out" from the entire ship, it's the maximum output of the PHASERS that is the limiting factor here.

Laforge states that all the plasma is being directed to those emitters. So, yes, that is all power they can pump out to the phasers.

LAFORGE: Attempting to now, Commander. Isolate phasers eighty to one twenty. Shunt all the plasma
BARCLAY: To the emitters. Yes, sir, I'm already on it. Ready
LAFORGE: Phasers are as hot as we can make them, Captain.
​

He does nothing of the sort. He merely increases power to forty of those emitters and tries again. For all we know he's reproducing the "controlled overload" scenario from "Silent Enemy". Why 40? Probably because that's the largest number of emitters he can safely overcharge without risking the potentially crippling "plasma recoil" effect.

We don't know if he is "overcharging" them. For all we know he's firing them on maximum and 40 emitters is how many that might be needed to get to maximum power. Also, there is no indication of any recoil danger.

And Alexander is exactly the kind of numbskull rookie who would waste words being as precise as possible because he's afraid of being misunderstood.

Still doesn't change that The Wounded wasn't using any "estimated ranges"

VFX errors are rarely more powerful than purpose-built elements.

Full power phasers from the point emitter from the torpedo launcher area.

They DID throw all the emitters into it at "Full phasers." It still wasn't enough, so Geordi overcharged 40 of them and tried it again. That's "Full Phasers Plus" from a single array.

We don't know if the "full phasers" fired at first used all the emitters of that strip. What we do know is that when it came down to increasing phaser power it did not involve a second strip and that they isolated 40 of them and pumped all their plasma into them.

The thing is, he clearly had more power to work with if he was able to draw additional power from the plasma grid to those emitters, which means any way you slice it, it would have been easier to simply divert additional power to a SECOND phaser array and concentrate both beams on target. The trick with the overcharge was just an excuse to throw some technobabble into the episode and demonstrate how Barclay was already getting smarter.

On the other hand, since "full phasers" still left plasma to be used for other systems but "all plasma" to the phasers still meant one beam (and thus one strip) we're still left with a single beam can deliver all the ship's power. If it were a simple 2nd strip to be used, we would've seen it.

And where do you get the amplification from? The 40 emitters are channeling the energy into a single beam. There isn't any dialogue or indication that the emitters are amplifying the power, only that more power is being put into a small group of emitters.

Which means that the arrays don't have to fire single emitters at a time, but can route their power through MANY emitters for a single concentrated beam. This means the longer strips, which have many emitters, are logically more powerful than the shorter strips, which have fewer.

Since we've seen that "full phasers" can come from a point emitter by default all the strips can fire "full phasers". However, I would agree that the longer strips on the E-D probably are the only ones that can channel "all the plasma" of the ship since we are told that they needed 40 emitters.

 

[Search4]

Am i the only one who is thinking that you two should "get a room"?

 

[Crazy Eddie]

What part are you not understanding? I've been saying all along nothing's significantly changed from ENT to TNG.

That's why the battleship analogy doesn't work. NX-01 was the first Starfleet ship to ever use those types of armaments in combat against another vessel. Earth spacecraft had been using nuclear weapons and kinetic projectiles for a full century prior to this; apparently, so were their primitive Vulcan and Andorian counterparts before they too adopted directed energy weapons and the tactics thereof.

So the paradigm shift represented by NX-01 away from kinetic projectiles and nuclear weapons represents the first -- but not the last -- major step on the transition to the new paradigm, much like the USS Yorktown was the first major step away from the battleship age.

The battleship analogy works across the pre-ENT era based on your own argument. Ship bring guns (kinetic weapons) and torpedoes (nuclear weapons) against other ships with the same types of weapons. The change from a kinetic energy weapon to a direct energy weapon isn't that severe when you get down to their usage.

Yes, it really is. Kinetic kill vehicles gain their lethality purely by relative velocity and an attacking starship is at an advantage when it is moving towards its opponent at incredibly high speeds. This makes boarding actions infeasible and incredibly rare, and also changes the dynamics of space combat and the sorts of tactics used. It's a rather huge contrast to directed energy weapons which are more "up close and personal" and leave open the possibility not just of prolonged engagements, but of the disable, boarding and capture of your opponent, something which is not usually possible when the only weapons that don't require hypersonic closing velocities are likely to vaporize your enemy outright.

Likewise, kinetic energy weapons seem somewhat ineffective against conventional shields and deflectors unless they have a technobabble "boost" to them, and that eliminates the utility of kinetic energy IN AND OF ITSELF as a destructive force. Ultimately, even photon torpedoes are a type of directed energy weapon.

That's not the only difference. Kruge calls for emergency power to the thrusters. It is not for the entire ship because it is not as hurt as the Enterprise.

KRUGE: Emergency power to the thrusters!​

Don't think so. Almost 100% certain that line he's screaming at the top of his lungs is "I need emergency power! Stern thrusters!"

Kirk calls for emergency power because the hit knocked everything out that wasn't already knocked out when the automation overloaded moments before.

Nothing WAS knocked out, other than the shields, that never went up. It's implied that Enterprise could still have returned fire IF the automation center hadn't failed at that moment.

And that diverts from the simple truth in this situation: All things being equal -- e.g. a fully crewed Enterprise against Kruge -- those torpedoes would have sealed his fate; Kruge's return fire would have bounced off the shields and Enterprise would have either carved him to pieces with their phasers or forced Kruge to surrender. Decloaking directly in front of Kirk's torpedo launchers leaves Kruge vulnerable when he decloaks. So why didn't he go for the rear approach?

Most likely he over-estimated the efficacy of his cloaking device and assumed he wouldn't have to worry about a counter attack one way or the other. And this should tell you something about space combat: The strength and field of fire of the enemy's weapons is vastly less important than the strength and field of fire of YOUR weapons.

BTW, I managed to track down the one and only canon reference to this subject in all of Trek canon:

DATA: I have computed a possibility, Commander. Since even deep space contains trace gases, sir, a vessel in the Picard manoeuvre might seem to disappear, but our sensors could locate any sudden compression of those gases.
RIKER: And use it as an aiming point and blow our Captain to bits?
DATA: This class starship has enough power to use our tractor beam on it. Seize it, limit it's field of fire.
RIKER: Right. Concentrate shields at that point. Make it so. I hope you're right, Data.
DATA: No question of it, sir.

The way the maneuver was described, Picard evidently stopped "right off the enemy's bow"; while the Ferengi were shooting at the afterimage, Stargazer cut loose with full phasers and six photon torpedoes, destroying the target.

Data's idea is that Enterprise grabs Stargazer with a tractor beam BEFORE it's in optimum firing position; Stargazer is now too far away and at the wrong angle to bring all of its main phaser banks to bear and Enterprise can hold off what weapons ARE available by concentrating all of its shields directly forward.

IOW, they are exploiting a PARTIAL blindspot in the coverage of Stargazer's main phaser banks; probably, positioning it so they can fire with four banks (or two) instead of the usual six.

This seems to be possible only because 1) Stargazer is very old starfleet ship that has been modeled in countless simulations and Data has computed the phaser coverage of its weapons in his head and 2) They know exactly what Picard is going to do before he does it and they have devised a counter tailored specifically for this move.

That's about as ideal as circumstances are going to get... and yet no one on the bridge (other than, possibly, Data) knows or cares about the dimensions or location of Stargazer's phaser blind spot.

There is also no evidence that they cannot...

To expect we should have to prove a negative is EXTREMELY fallacious. You know better than that.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

How's that? BOBW they couldn't fire the main deflector dish immediately.

Not until they had dropped out of warp and had a chance to reconfigured the deflector from... well, a deflector into a BFG (you, of course, realize that the deflector has a NORMAL purpose other than "convenient plot device to emit technobabble" right?).

Two things happen in this scene: 1) They divert warp energy TO the deflector (previously it was in the engines) and 2) They reconfigure the deflector to emit the right kind of energy pulse at the right frequency, including the modifications they made to increase its range so the blast wouldn't completely destroy the Enterprise as well.

The "two minutes" that pass are approximately the amount of time it takes for the away team to beam back and have a really emotional talk with Riker about how Picard has been "altered" by the Borg, when suddenly it becomes apparent that the Borg are regenerating and they won't have their shot for long.

It's doubtful the arming sequence takes more than thirty seconds or so; ask yourself if Picard would have still fired it with Shelby, Worf, Data and Beverly aboard and Picard still a prisoner.

Laforge states that all the plasma is being directed to those emitters.

All the plasma from what? The phaser power subsystem? The main power grid? Array's power capacitors? Or -- in keeping with the "plasma phaser" theory -- all the plasma from the REST OF THE ARRAY to be received by those forty emitters and then concentrated again into a single beam?

It's not as straightforward as "all ships power" and it isn't meant to be. The operative dialog here is that Geordi is overcharging forty different emitters instead of a single one.

Still doesn't change that The Wounded wasn't using any "estimated ranges"

That's what firing range IS, dude. It's an estimate of an acceptable (e.g. significantly high) probability of a hit. How you define "effective" range depends on how you define "significantly high."

On the other hand, since "full phasers" still left plasma to be used for other systems but "all plasma" to the phasers still meant one beam (and thus one strip) we're still left with a single beam can deliver all the ship's power.

Well, it can shunt all the plasma from... something. It's never made clear what it's shunted FROM. That's still a FAR cry from "all the ship's power."

If it were a simple 2nd strip to be used, we would've seen it.

And we probably should have. But the writers were too busy making Barclay (and to a lesser extent Geordi) look smarter.

Since we've seen that "full phasers" can come from a point emitter by default all the strips can fire "full phasers".

Sure. That would suggest one single large emitter could have similar power as an aggregate of many smaller emitters concentrating their power into many beams.

 

[blssdwlf]

Yes, it really is. Kinetic kill vehicles gain their lethality purely by relative velocity and an attacking starship is at an advantage when it is moving towards its opponent at incredibly high speeds. This makes boarding actions infeasible and incredibly rare, and also changes the dynamics of space combat and the sorts of tactics used. It's a rather huge contrast to directed energy weapons which are more "up close and personal" and leave open the possibility not just of prolonged engagements, but of the disable, boarding and capture of your opponent, something which is not usually possible when the only weapons that don't require hypersonic closing velocities are likely to vaporize your enemy outright.

Likewise, kinetic energy weapons seem somewhat ineffective against conventional shields and deflectors unless they have a technobabble "boost" to them, and that eliminates the utility of kinetic energy IN AND OF ITSELF as a destructive force. Ultimately, even photon torpedoes are a type of directed energy weapon.

Like I said before, that doesn't change the guns and torpedoes usage. The ships still need to fire upon each other.

Don't think so. Almost 100% certain that line he's screaming at the top of his lungs is "I need emergency power! Stern thrusters!"

Nah, Kruge says:

KRUGE: Emergency power to the thrusters!

Nothing WAS knocked out, other than the shields, that never went up. It's implied that Enterprise could still have returned fire IF the automation center hadn't failed at that moment.

If the Enterprise was okay except for the automation center then by your own argument that the "Bird of Prey was every bit as disabled as the Enterprise at this point" would also indicate that the BOP was okay as well, with the difference is that Kruge still had control of his ship.

Newtype_alpha wrote, "The only difference is Kruge can still control his vessel (such as it is) and Kirk cannot."

And that diverts from the simple truth in this situation: All things being equal -- e.g. a fully crewed Enterprise against Kruge -- those torpedoes would have sealed his fate; Kruge's return fire would have bounced off the shields and Enterprise would have either carved him to pieces with their phasers or forced Kruge to surrender. Decloaking directly in front of Kirk's torpedo launchers leaves Kruge vulnerable when he decloaks. So why didn't he go for the rear approach?

Most likely he over-estimated the efficacy of his cloaking device and assumed he wouldn't have to worry about a counter attack one way or the other. And this should tell you something about space combat: The strength and field of fire of the enemy's weapons is vastly less important than the strength and field of fire of YOUR weapons.

The strength of the field of fire is irrelevant for both ships when a single beam can channel all the power of the firing ship. As to why Kruge picked a head on approach, its as simple as Klingon tactics

From "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges"

O'BRIEN: I make up the repair schedule according to my assessment of which ships have the greatest need.
CRETAK: Odd that the Klingons seem to always have the greatest need.
WORF: They are usually more damaged because Klingon warships are relentless in pressing home their attack.
CRETAK: Reckless would be another way of putting it.
WORF: The fight must be taken to the enemy. We cannot win this war if
KIRA: All right. We're not here to debate combat tactics. Chief, how soon can you have those warbirds into a docking bay?
​

BTW, I managed to track down the one and only canon reference to this subject in all of Trek canon:

DATA: I have computed a possibility, Commander. Since even deep space contains trace gases, sir, a vessel in the Picard manoeuvre might seem to disappear, but our sensors could locate any sudden compression of those gases.
RIKER: And use it as an aiming point and blow our Captain to bits?
DATA: This class starship has enough power to use our tractor beam on it. Seize it, limit it's field of fire.
RIKER: Right. Concentrate shields at that point. Make it so. I hope you're right, Data.
DATA: No question of it, sir.

The way the maneuver was described, Picard evidently stopped "right off the enemy's bow"; while the Ferengi were shooting at the afterimage, Stargazer cut loose with full phasers and six photon torpedoes, destroying the target.

Data's idea is that Enterprise grabs Stargazer with a tractor beam BEFORE it's in optimum firing position; Stargazer is now too far away and at the wrong angle to bring all of its main phaser banks to bear and Enterprise can hold off what weapons ARE available by concentrating all of its shields directly forward.

IOW, they are exploiting a PARTIAL blindspot in the coverage of Stargazer's main phaser banks; probably, positioning it so they can fire with four banks (or two) instead of the usual six.

This seems to be possible only because 1) Stargazer is very old starfleet ship that has been modeled in countless simulations and Data has computed the phaser coverage of its weapons in his head and 2) They know exactly what Picard is going to do before he does it and they have devised a counter tailored specifically for this move.

That's about as ideal as circumstances are going to get... and yet no one on the bridge (other than, possibly, Data) knows or cares about the dimensions or location of Stargazer's phaser blind spot.

Here are the problems with that example.
1. What phaser blind spot? As you point out, they still reinforce shields facing the Stargazer expecting to be hit.
2. The Stargazer stops next to the E-D but it is NOT head-on with it and not directly facing the E-D. This is before the tractor beam is engaged. Only the forward and port phasers of the Stargazer would have been able to fire on the E-D, not forward+port+starboard.
3. You're also assuming that the Stargazer would fire all it's emitters vs the standard all power through one beam (or a pair of emitters) approach.

Interestingly, DS9 gives us a follow-up example where the tractor beam is used against a Vorcha and it is effectively "limiting it's field of fire" by deflecting some of the shots:

From "Way of the Warrior":

DAX: You were right, Mister Worf. The modulated tractor beam's deflecting some of the Klingons' disruptor fire.
WORF: Disruptor's effectiveness at fifty percent.
​

There is also no evidence that they cannot...

To expect we should have to prove a negative is EXTREMELY fallacious. You know better than that.

So you can't prove their inability to calculate firing arcs. You know it too

 

[blssdwlf]

How's that? BOBW they couldn't fire the main deflector dish immediately.

Not until they had dropped out of warp and had a chance to reconfigured the deflector from... well, a deflector into a BFG (you, of course, realize that the deflector has a NORMAL purpose other than "convenient plot device to emit technobabble" right?).

Two things happen in this scene: 1) They divert warp energy TO the deflector (previously it was in the engines) and 2) They reconfigure the deflector to emit the right kind of energy pulse at the right frequency, including the modifications they made to increase its range so the blast wouldn't completely destroy the Enterprise as well.

The "two minutes" that pass are approximately the amount of time it takes for the away team to beam back and have a really emotional talk with Riker about how Picard has been "altered" by the Borg, when suddenly it becomes apparent that the Borg are regenerating and they won't have their shot for long.

It's doubtful the arming sequence takes more than thirty seconds or so; ask yourself if Picard would have still fired it with Shelby, Worf, Data and Beverly aboard and Picard still a prisoner.

Which doesn't change that in BOBW they couldn't fire the main deflector dish immediately. You'll notice that they have already dropped out of warp before charging up the deflector and two minutes go by.

WESLEY: Sir, they've done it. The Borg ship is dropping out of warp.
RIKER: Go to impulse.
WESLEY: Aye, sir.
LAFORGE: Diverting warp energy to main deflector.
RIKER: Move us to within forty thousand kilometres. Match velocity. Commence arming sequence. Increase deflector modulation to upper frequency band.
​

2 minutes and some seconds go by...

RIKER: Is the deflector ready?
LAFORGE: It's ready.
​

From this point to the time Riker orders the deflector to charge up it is more than 2 minutes till it is ready to fire. That is more energy than the ship puts out at any one time. They need more power than their weapons can provide which also happens to be more power than the ship puts out at any one time.

Laforge states that all the plasma is being directed to those emitters.

All the plasma from what? The phaser power subsystem? The main power grid? Array's power capacitors? Or -- in keeping with the "plasma phaser" theory -- all the plasma from the REST OF THE ARRAY to be received by those forty emitters and then concentrated again into a single beam?

As Laforge states, "All The Plasma" Absent of any specific systems and that he's increasing power to the phasers then it is "All The Plasma" they are using.

The only other time something like this has been done is from "A Matter of Time" and it was in reference to plasma that the ship uses.

From "A Matter of Time":

DATA: Yes, sir. After an eight point three second burst from the dish, we'll discharge all EPS taps through the phasers.
​

The operative dialog here is that Geordi is overcharging forty different emitters instead of a single one.

We don't know that Geordi is "overcharging" anything. He could just be firing them at full capacity when normal "full phasers" is not. The operative dialogue is that Geordi is using an isolated group of emitters to shunt all the plasma into instead of adding a second strip or expanding the number of emitters to fire.

That's what firing range IS, dude. It's an estimate of an acceptable (e.g. significantly high) probability of a hit. How you define "effective" range depends on how you define "significantly high."

That's what precise language IS ALSO FOR, dude.

In "The Wounded" there was no guessing or approximation as far as the overlay was concerned regarding the two ship's weapons ranges. In "Sons and Daughters" there was room for approximation since they added "estimated" into the dialogue.

Well, it can shunt all the plasma from... something. It's never made clear what it's shunted FROM. That's still a FAR cry from "all the ship's power."

What's not clear from "Shunt all the plasma"? It's all the plasma the ship has since Laforge doesn't indicate a specific system to pull it from and Barclay doesn't ask or confirm from which system to get it from either. The only answer is "all the plasma" the ship has.

If it were a simple 2nd strip to be used, we would've seen it.

And we probably should have. But the writers were too busy making Barclay (and to a lesser extent Geordi) look smarter.

That doesn't change the fact that a 2nd strip wasn't used When they needed more power they increased power (plasma) to it and not added a 2nd strip.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Yes, it really is. Kinetic kill vehicles gain their lethality purely by relative velocity and an attacking starship is at an advantage when it is moving towards its opponent at incredibly high speeds. This makes boarding actions infeasible and incredibly rare, and also changes the dynamics of space combat and the sorts of tactics used. It's a rather huge contrast to directed energy weapons which are more "up close and personal" and leave open the possibility not just of prolonged engagements, but of the disable, boarding and capture of your opponent, something which is not usually possible when the only weapons that don't require hypersonic closing velocities are likely to vaporize your enemy outright.

Likewise, kinetic energy weapons seem somewhat ineffective against conventional shields and deflectors unless they have a technobabble "boost" to them, and that eliminates the utility of kinetic energy IN AND OF ITSELF as a destructive force. Ultimately, even photon torpedoes are a type of directed energy weapon.

Like I said before, that doesn't change the guns and torpedoes usage. The ships still need to fire upon each other.

It is a fundamental paradigm shift in the WHAT they are firing at each other. No such shift has occurred since ENT or shows any evidence of occurring in the future. This is in stark contrast to the battleship age, where battleships were competing not only with one another, but with submarines and aircraft carriers that together represented the new paradigm for naval combat.

If the Enterprise was okay except for the automation center then by your own argument that the "Bird of Prey was every bit as disabled as the Enterprise at this point" would also indicate that the BOP was okay as well, with the difference is that Kruge still had control of his ship.

Enterprise was disabled BECAUSE of the automation center; the bird of prey was disabled because of severe damage to its power systems.

The strength of the field of fire is irrelevant for both ships when a single beam can channel all the power of the firing ship.

Which it can't, as implied from "Paradise Syndrome" it would take the combined of at least 4 phaser banks to draw that much power.

But even if it could, Kirk engaged Kruge with torpedoes, not phasers.

As to why Kruge picked a head on approach, its as simple as Klingon tactics

Indeed. If you hit him hard enough and fast enough he won't have a CHANCE to fire back, so you don't ever have to worry about his strong/weak weapons fields.

The broader question is whether or not this tactical reality is unique to the Klingons or applies to everyone else as well. It doesn't SEEM to be a uniquely Klingon tactic.

Here are the problems with that example.
1. What phaser blind spot? As you point out, they still reinforce shields facing the Stargazer expecting to be hit.

Yes. With a smaller number of phaser banks than ordinarily would be available IF Stargazer was in optimum firing position. This pits the full strength of Enterprise' shields against the half strength of Stargazer's weapons.

2. The Stargazer stops next to the E-D but it is NOT head-on with it and not directly facing the E-D. This is before the tractor beam is engaged. Only the forward and port phasers of the Stargazer would have been able to fire on the E-D, not forward+port+starboard.

But we do not know Stargazer's final position, nor do we know the safe firing angles of the midships weapons. Depending on where Picard was going to come to a stop, it could be a matter of facing three phaser emitters (one port and two forward) instead of eight (six each dorsal and ventral emitters). It's enough to know that for some reason the Picard Maneuver allowed Stargazer to take out a fully shielded enemy vessel at point blank range with a single concentrated attack, something that under normal circumstances wouldn't be possible.

3. You're also assuming that the Stargazer would fire all it's emitters vs the standard all power through one beam (or a pair of emitters) approach.

Yep. Stargazer's an old ship, so like the TOS Enterprise it probably can't channel all that power through a single emitter and would have to employ a simultaneous discharge from all of them at once.

Interestingly, DS9 gives us a follow-up example where the tractor beam is used against a Vorcha and it is effectively "limiting it's field of fire" by deflecting some of the shots

It has nothing to do with its field of fire; they're using the tractor beam to scatter the disruptor's energy like an extra layer of shielding.

So you can't prove their inability to calculate firing arcs.

Nor have I attempted to. I have merely stated -- and proved -- that they don't CARE.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Which doesn't change that in BOBW they couldn't fire the main deflector dish immediately.

Yes they could. The "arming sequence" took a matter of seconds, if that; the only thing that prevented them from firing it was their desire to NOT vaporize Captain Picard and the away team in the process.

From this point to the time Riker orders the deflector to charge up it is more than 2 minutes till it is ready to fire.

It's ready to fire quite a bit earlier than that; again, it's not the charging sequence that takes that amount of time, it's all the shenanigans on the Borg ship trying to recover Picard.

As Laforge states, "All The Plasma"

From WHAT?

That's what precise language IS ALSO FOR, dude.

Precision is used to prevent misunderstandings, not to restate things that everyone in the room already knows.

In "The Wounded" there was no guessing or approximation as far as the overlay was concerned regarding the two ship's weapons ranges. In "Sons and Daughters" there was room for approximation since they added "estimated" into the dialogue.

By "they" you mean "Alexander," the ship's resident rookie who fifteen minutes later locked himself into the engine room. As it stands, Alexander's penchant for precision is already irritating enough when Martok asks him "What of the Jem'Hadar?" and Alexander answers "Which one?"

It doesn't change the fact that firing range BY DEFINITION is an approximation; strictly speaking its a function of probability, not the actual reach of those weapons. This is what the Rotarran's tactical officer means when he says "They're out of range." He isn't saying their disruptor bolts will mysteriously vanish before they hit the target, he's saying that the Jem'hadar ship is too far away for him to score a hit.

What's not clear from "Shunt all the plasma"? It's all the plasma the ship has

See, it's that second part you're injecting in there as if it's clear when it isn't. "All the plasma the ship has" isn't stated in that line; it's just as likely to be "all the plasma in the dorsal capacitor bank."

Geordi isn't meaning to make himself understood by the audience, he means to make himself understood by Barclay in particular, who -- unlike the audience -- knows EXACTLY what he's talking about.

 

[Timo]

It has nothing to do with its field of fire; they're using the tractor beam to scatter the disruptor's energy like an extra layer of shielding.

If the backstage technobabble on tractor beams and shields both being gravitons suspended in subspace fields is correct, then this might make some sense.

However, the visuals of the scene offer their full support for the much simpler explanation: the Vor'cha is explicitly shown failing to hit the Defiant when the tractor beam is aimed at the cruiser's bow. The disruptor beam is not diluted from its previous incarnation, yet it is deflected away from the hero ship, giving us a preferred interpretation for the word "deflect" here.

It's a turning battle. From previous scenes, we know the bow weapon of the cruiser can go off-boresight to some degree, mainly up and presumably down as well. After the tractor is applied, though, the Defiant starts to bank to port, in addition to maintaining a "climb", and the cruiser again fires up but a bit too much to starboard (that is, not enough, if at all, to port).

Combined with the dialogue of the tractor deflecting "some of the fire", the scene looks and sounds unambiguous enough. The only odd bit there is that Dax "modulated" the tractor beam; previously, AFAWK, no such trickery has been needed or used in order to make a tractor beam solidly grab a shielded and resisting vessel.

The visuals can support either interpretation.

http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/4x02/wayofwarrior2_317.jpg

The tractor is held on the bow area of the ship; in one interpretation, the disruptor beam goes up from the emitter, just a tad above the tractor, and misses the heroes by mere meters, never losing brightness. In another, the two intersect at the weapon emission point and slightly beyond, and while the disruptor beam doesn't lose brightness, it looks a bit "cloudy" afterwards. But in any case, it misses.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[blssdwlf]

Yes, it really is. Kinetic kill vehicles gain their lethality purely by relative velocity and an attacking starship is at an advantage when it is moving towards its opponent at incredibly high speeds. This makes boarding actions infeasible and incredibly rare, and also changes the dynamics of space combat and the sorts of tactics used. It's a rather huge contrast to directed energy weapons which are more "up close and personal" and leave open the possibility not just of prolonged engagements, but of the disable, boarding and capture of your opponent, something which is not usually possible when the only weapons that don't require hypersonic closing velocities are likely to vaporize your enemy outright.

Likewise, kinetic energy weapons seem somewhat ineffective against conventional shields and deflectors unless they have a technobabble "boost" to them, and that eliminates the utility of kinetic energy IN AND OF ITSELF as a destructive force. Ultimately, even photon torpedoes are a type of directed energy weapon.

Like I said before, that doesn't change the guns and torpedoes usage. The ships still need to fire upon each other.

It is a fundamental paradigm shift in the WHAT they are firing at each other. No such shift has occurred since ENT or shows any evidence of occurring in the future. This is in stark contrast to the battleship age, where battleships were competing not only with one another, but with submarines and aircraft carriers that together represented the new paradigm for naval combat.

What you are talking about are improvements in weaponry, not a shift in the use of weapons. Ships bring guns and torpedoes to fight against other ships and from the looks of pre-ENT or looking at the Vulcans, Andorians and Tellarites, that hasn't changed.

Enterprise was disabled BECAUSE of the automation center; the bird of prey was disabled because of severe damage to its power systems.

What severe damage are you talking about? Kruge's ship could still maneuver out of the way of the exploding Enterprise and later on warp out of orbit with "full power" available to it.

Which it can't, as implied from "Paradise Syndrome" it would take the combined of at least 4 phaser banks to draw that much power.

4 phaser banks simultaneously through the standard pair of emitters on the Enterprise. For older ships, two emitters.
The strength of the field of fire is irrelevant for both ships when a single beam in TNG or a pair of beams from TOS can channel all the power of the firing ship.

But even if it could, Kirk engaged Kruge with torpedoes, not phasers.

And if he energized phasers it would've tipped Kruge off

Indeed. If you hit him hard enough and fast enough he won't have a CHANCE to fire back, so you don't ever have to worry about his strong/weak weapons fields.

That's obvious from a sneak attack POV as long as you can successfully sneak up on the target.

The broader question is whether or not this tactical reality is unique to the Klingons or applies to everyone else as well. It doesn't SEEM to be a uniquely Klingon tactic.

Have you indexed every decloaking attack made by the Klingons and Romulans?

Yes. With a smaller number of phaser banks than ordinarily would be available IF Stargazer was in optimum firing position. This pits the full strength of Enterprise' shields against the half strength of Stargazer's weapons.

But we do not know Stargazer's final position, nor do we know the safe firing angles of the midships weapons. Depending on where Picard was going to come to a stop, it could be a matter of facing three phaser emitters (one port and two forward) instead of eight (six each dorsal and ventral emitters). It's enough to know that for some reason the Picard Maneuver allowed Stargazer to take out a fully shielded enemy vessel at point blank range with a single concentrated attack, something that under normal circumstances wouldn't be possible.

We do know Stargazer's final position to the E-D since we're shown where it drops out of warp. The tractor beam doesn't even engage until a few seconds after the Stargazer has stopped.

Yep. Stargazer's an old ship, so like the TOS Enterprise it probably can't channel all that power through a single emitter and would have to employ a simultaneous discharge from all of them at once.

If it is like the TOS Enterprise it can channel all it's power through a pair of emitters, just like in "The Paradise Syndrome".

Interestingly, DS9 gives us a follow-up example where the tractor beam is used against a Vorcha and it is effectively "limiting it's field of fire" by deflecting some of the shots

It has nothing to do with its field of fire; they're using the tractor beam to scatter the disruptor's energy like an extra layer of shielding.

As Timo points out, the FX doesn't support any scattering of the disruptor but actually causing it to miss the Defiant.

So you can't prove their inability to calculate firing arcs.

Nor have I attempted to. I have merely stated -- and proved -- that they don't CARE.

And I've proved that ships have 360 firing arcs and it isn't relevant in the tactical analysis. So likewise, they don't have to CARE