Do phaser arrays amplify energy, or merely direct it?

[blssdwlf]

It still boils down to the deflector firing more than the ship can output at once.

Much more importantly, it's more than the PHASERS can output at once. That is the whole reason for using the DEFLECTOR in the first place instead of just spending two and a half minutes charging up the phaser banks for one massive shot.

When has it been shown that the phasers on the E-D can buffer more energy the ship puts out? If they could buffer 2 minutes of phaser power into a blast that would've been one of the things tried in "The Nth Degree".

This indicates that the ship COULD, in fact, max out the large arrays and they cannot channel any more power even if every single one of their emitters discharged simultaneously.

Not really. It tells us that the phasers are unable to buffer more than the ship's energy output and/or keep that frequency.

The smaller arrays do not have that number of emitters, and therefore wouldn't be able to handle the same output.

We don't know for sure how many emitters are in the short strips. What we do know is that "full phasers" can be handled by a point emitter.

And I don't see a difference between a point emitter and the short strip emitters.

Similar to the difference between a really big gatling gun and a really big rifle.

Which fire different sized munitions. That's different from a point emitter and a phaser strip firing the same phaser energy.

But not more power than the SHIP can put out, and leaves the problem for you: if the Enterprise still has power to spare even when the phasers are firing at maximum (and it does, as per Best of Both Worlds) then the longer strips are more powerful than the shorter ones.

I don't see "all the plasma the ship has" in the dialog. It's not in the script either. Nothing there specifies what systems Barclay is drawing that power from, so -- again -- nothing at all to indicate he's drawing it from the entire ship.

And I don't see "all the plasma the ship has from a specific system" either, leaving only the entire ship as the power source.

It would only be channeling if it was coming from a SINGLE emitter and being passed on to a final firing point.

Instead, we have ALL of them firing at once, combining their power into a single beam. That is amplification.

It's channeling because it's coming from one power source that just happens to pass through 40 emitters. At no point are we told that those emitters are adding anything extra to the power input. It's not amplification.

It is increased. One beam channels the signal to the next, which adds its own power to the same signal with the same output characteristics, and passes it on to the next. Rinse, repeat... amplification.

And where are we told that the emitters are adding power to the signal? The only thing that has increased is the energy put into the emitters - not the emitters adding their own power.

A few days ago I would have given you the benefit of the doubt, but we both know you have no intention of backing this up, don't we?

When you can back your "amplification" up with some dialogue, you might have something.

That's keeping track of YOUR fields of fire, not his. A flanking maneuver means you're overlapping two fields from friendly forces for greater effect on your enemy.

You're referring to flanking fire: " fire delivered on an enemy flank from a position to the side of that enemy. " Which would require you to know where the enemy's front and sides are.

I was referring to a flanking maneuver: "Be situated on each side of or on one side of." Which would also require knowing where the enemy's front and sides are.

Like I said, I'm certain that it COULD. But we haven't seen a shred of evidence so far that it DOES, much less that it SHOULD. There really aren't that many ways that information would be useful.

Oh like getting the aft weapons of a certain ship to fire at you ("Partuition").

That's my point: it WAS a range of distances, and Sulu never bothered to specify it as such. Kirk knew what Sulu was talking about without having to be told.

What was your point? The dialogue's use of a range of values already tells us that there is some variability. That's the same thing as saying "estimated distance is X". But it is not the same thing as "distance is X" which doesn't leave room for estimation.

Your example shows that they identified specific variables and were given specific answers. The dialogue indicates that if any of that were to change, then the answer would change.

And yet Wesley doesn't say "If their speed and course remains constant, forty two minutes."

Because Riker said it for him when he asked him. And Riker keeps asking for updates when something changes.

Which funny enough is the problem with your argument. Any information regarding plasma from a specific system isn't provided. And absent a specific system, it just proves its from all of them.

So if you told me "Open my gmail account. Transfer all of the spam to my inbox", you didn't specify WHAT spam, so I should assume you mean all the spam the internet has.

Yep. You deserve it

 

[Crazy Eddie]

But it can be used the same way as a short spear

Which doesn't change the fact that armies whose principle weapon is a short spear do NOT fight the same way or with the same tactics as armies equipped with assault rifles. It's an entirely different paradigm with entirely different rules, not least of which is the situational rules which govern when it is advisable to try and stab the other guy in the chest.

If those assault rifles ran out of bullets it would look very similar to short spears

For about fifteen seconds, until the guys who ran out of ammo are quickly mowed down by the guys who still DO. The Japanese found this out the hard way during World War-II, when wave after wave of green recruits lived just long enough to discover that banzai charges don't actually work.

Huh? If the kinetic weapon is still accelerating after it left the barrel then it's operating more as a powered weapon, like a torpedo.

But it doesn't have a warhead, and delivers its destructive force by virtue of its forward motion: the faster it's moving, the more damage it does.

Unlike a torpedo, who's attack power is determined by the tactical officer regardless of range or velocity.

That's not indicative that it will be different from ships closing with phasers and torpedoes exchanging fire.

Yes it will. Ships armed with phasers and torpedoes will close the distance and then reverse thrust, canceling their relative velocity to pound the shit out of each other for several minutes. The older vessels armed with KKVs don't slow down, in fact they continue to accelerate as long as they can because every last m/s of velocity makes their weapons that much more lethal.

Take the Picard Maneuver, for example. Stargazer jumps into warp nine, stops right off the enemy's bow and opens fire with everything it has. With KKVs, Stargazer can't cause an appreciable amount of damage at close range; it has to accelerate under conventional impulse drives (preserving its inertial motion in the process) and then release its weapons at peak relative velocity just before it passes the target.

Against any ship equipped with deflectors or directed energy weapons, this tactic is useless. Deflectors can push those projectiles away, phasers can vaporize them before they hit, and your enemy can still sidestep your attack and smack you in the ass with a spread of torpedoes as you pass; since they have antimatter warheads, they still cause massive damage even if they hit your aft hull plating at low velocity.

So a ship from the old paradigm gets pulverized by a ship from the new one. And this, more than anything, explains why a trained and (presumably experienced) crew like that of NX-01 looks like a bunch of rank amateurs in combat, for the majority of Season 1, right up until "Shockwave" when they finally seem to get the hang of it.

Although in Star Trek, those torpedoes aren't all that slow. Perhaps in ENT they're slow but in TOS, it was only a matter of seconds for one to cross 90,000 kilometers at sublight.

Of course, it takes about five seconds for a torpedo fired from Enterprise to hit Reliant in the mutara nebula, fired at a distance of less than 1000 meters.

Actually, the higher speed appears to be the only significant difference in torpedo technology over the years. Even the Spatial torpedoes don't appear to be THAT much more powerful than the photonics, just a hell of a lot faster and with a handy variable yield.

Full power is full power

Full impulse power is not full warp power.

That face showed a bit of uncertainty

Christopher Lloyd always looks that way.

With Enterprise's shields down, it would have been too close for full power torpedoes. Otherwise, we'd see the large torpedo explosion from TMP.

How about the large torpedo explosion from TUC?

Or the large torpedo explosion from Generations?

Or the large torpedo explosions from First Contact?

Or the large torpedo explosions from Nemesis?

My point is, torpedoes don't cause big explosions. Torpedoes cause OTHER THINGS to explode in a big way. If those other things survive the impact, the result is usually this sissy-looking shimmer or some flashy business against the skin, but Star Trek is remarkably inconsistent in this regard.

Or that torpedo could turn around at some point.

You think disruptor bolts can turn around? Fascinating.

OTOH, if the camera was following the E-D as it rotated around the camera's axis then again, Stargazer was "stopped" and the E-D was moving towards it.

Nope. Enterprise would be slowly yawing to starboard and grabbing Stargazer as it crossed her bow.

But this being space, you've got to consider the more important question: you think Enterprise is moving because the BACKGROUND is moving. What makes you think the background stars (if that's what they really are) are supposed to be stationary?

Any kind of interference, even of the hot Jadzia kind, would still affect the effectiveness of the Vorcha's field of fire.

I just realized you don't know what a "field of fire" actually is.

No doubt you will promptly google it and post a dictionary definition and then pretend it proves that you do.

If we can't see their aft disruptors, what makes you think we can see their dorsal or ventral ones?

What makes you think it HAS them?

If the ship had that kind of power output, then yes. But alas, it only has enough for 1x full phasers + the difference from "all the plasma" the ship has.

Which would mean the deflector blast from Best of Both Worlds is only slightly more powerful than a standard phaser blast.

That is the case. The main deflector channels out more power than the ship can generate at one time because it can buffer the energy.

It is not even worth wondering if you have any evidence to back THAT up.

When you channel a single signal through multiple emitters before a final transmission, you're just channeling the signal.

Unless each emitter adds power to the signal, which is exactly what is happening here. If all of them are firing then all of them are adding power.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Which fire different sized munitions. That's different from a point emitter and a phaser strip firing the same phaser energy.

Do or don't you have any evidence the short strips can channel full phaser power?

And I don't see "all the plasma the ship has from a specific system" either, leaving...

Any number of possibilities, of which "the whole ship" is NOT the only one or even the most likely.

It's become obvious by now that you are perfectly well aware of this and are just being a jerk. Which leads me, ultimately, to ask:

Which funny enough is the problem with your argument. Any information regarding plasma from a specific system isn't provided. And absent a specific system, it just proves its from all of them.

So if you told me "Open my gmail account. Transfer all of the spam to my inbox", you didn't specify WHAT spam, so I should assume you mean all the spam the internet has.

Yep. You deserve it

Do you even give a damn anymore or are you just trolling?

 

[blssdwlf]

Which doesn't change the fact that armies whose principle weapon is a short spear do NOT fight the same way or with the same tactics as armies equipped with assault rifles. It's an entirely different paradigm with entirely different rules, not least of which is the situational rules which govern when it is advisable to try and stab the other guy in the chest.

If those assault rifles ran out of bullets it would look very similar to short spears

For about fifteen seconds, until the guys who ran out of ammo are quickly mowed down by the guys who still DO. The Japanese found this out the hard way during World War-II, when wave after wave of green recruits lived just long enough to discover that banzai charges don't actually work.

Weren't those with swords?

But it doesn't have a warhead, and delivers its destructive force by virtue of its forward motion: the faster it's moving, the more damage it does.

You didn't answer why the projectile would keep accelerating after it left the barrel.

Unlike a torpedo, who's attack power is determined by the tactical officer regardless of range or velocity.

I wouldn't say regardless of range. At close-range the torpedo yield usually must be turned down.

Yes it will. Ships armed with phasers and torpedoes will close the distance and then reverse thrust, canceling their relative velocity to pound the shit out of each other for several minutes. The older vessels armed with KKVs don't slow down, in fact they continue to accelerate as long as they can because every last m/s of velocity makes their weapons that much more lethal.

That didn't happen very often in DS9's battles. Alot of times they just flew at each other and past each other while firing. Even in Nemesis, they kept moving rather than reversing thrust and sitting still.

Take the Picard Maneuver, for example. Stargazer jumps into warp nine, stops right off the enemy's bow and opens fire with everything it has. With KKVs, Stargazer can't cause an appreciable amount of damage at close range; it has to accelerate under conventional impulse drives (preserving its inertial motion in the process) and then release its weapons at peak relative velocity just before it passes the target.

Against any ship equipped with deflectors or directed energy weapons, this tactic is useless. Deflectors can push those projectiles away, phasers can vaporize them before they hit, and your enemy can still sidestep your attack and smack you in the ass with a spread of torpedoes as you pass; since they have antimatter warheads, they still cause massive damage even if they hit your aft hull plating at low velocity.

What you're getting at here again is a difference in technology. Not usage. Big ships still use guns and torpedoes to hit each other. The only difference in your scenario is that one side's advanced technology protects it against the other side's weapons.

So a ship from the old paradigm gets pulverized by a ship from the new one. And this, more than anything, explains why a trained and (presumably experienced) crew like that of NX-01 looks like a bunch of rank amateurs in combat, for the majority of Season 1, right up until "Shockwave" when they finally seem to get the hang of it.

More like old technology vs new. But not really a paradigm shift.

Of course, it takes about five seconds for a torpedo fired from Enterprise to hit Reliant in the mutara nebula, fired at a distance of less than 1000 meters.

You must show when this happens. Both times the Enterprise's torpedo hits Reliant almost instantly in the nebula.

Actually, the higher speed appears to be the only significant difference in torpedo technology over the years. Even the Spatial torpedoes don't appear to be THAT much more powerful than the photonics, just a hell of a lot faster and with a handy variable yield.

Well, that and the antimatter warhead does more damage.

Full impulse power is not full warp power.

I suppose it's possible that the impulse engines use antimatter as well, but I'm leaning to full warp power

SCOTT: Where's the damn anti-matter inducer?
CHEKOV: This? ...No, this!
SCOTT: That, or nothing!
SULU: If I read this right, sir, we have full power.
KIRK: Go, Sulu!
​

How about the large torpedo explosion from TUC?

Were they even firing at full power in most of the shots? The largest torpedo explosion was the homing torpedo that hit the BOP.

Or the large torpedo explosion from Generations?

The Klingon BOP's green torpedoes? Because you can't be talking about the E-D's since we're never shown the torpedoes hitting from an external shot.

Or the large torpedo explosions from First Contact?

The Borg cube isn't taking damage like it was from "Q Who". None of the hits were making big craters like the E-D's phaser hits.

Or the large torpedo explosions from Nemesis?

The ones that kept impacting the mega ship's shields?

My point is, torpedoes don't cause big explosions. Torpedoes cause OTHER THINGS to explode in a big way. If those other things survive the impact, the result is usually this sissy-looking shimmer or some flashy business against the skin, but Star Trek is remarkably inconsistent in this regard.

Interestingly, in "The Nth Degree" where we know they are firing at full yield we get the nice bright shockwave that shakes the ship. We don't get too many of those explosions.

You think disruptor bolts can turn around? Fascinating.

I wrote "torpedoes". Do you think that disruptor bolts can turn around? Not that is fascinating.

Nope. Enterprise would be slowly yawing to starboard and grabbing Stargazer as it crossed her bow.

A slow yaw to starboard for the E-D would still indicate a stopped condition for Stargazer. Otherwise if it were continuing to move at the E-D it would collide with the E-D's forward port saucer section.

But this being space, you've got to consider the more important question: you think Enterprise is moving because the BACKGROUND is moving. What makes you think the background stars (if that's what they really are) are supposed to be stationary?

Other than the obviousness of the ship being either stopped or in motion. What makes you think the background is not suppose to move?

I just realized you don't know what a "field of fire" actually is.

Here's the definition I'm working from: "the area that a weapon or group of weapons can cover effectively with gun fire from a given position."

What's yours?

What makes you think it HAS them?

What makes you think it doesn't have them?

Which would mean the deflector blast from Best of Both Worlds is only slightly more powerful than a standard phaser blast.

The deflector blast channeled 2 minutes worth of stored up ship's energy. That's quite a bit more more powerful than all the power the ship has at any one time.

That is the case. The main deflector channels out more power than the ship can generate at one time because it can buffer the energy.

It is not even worth wondering if you have any evidence to back THAT up.

Back atcha.

Oh wait.

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.

...

RIKER: Mister Worf? Fire.
LAFORGE: Deflector power approaching maximum limits. Energy discharge in six seconds.
WORF: Firing, sir
​

When you channel a single signal through multiple emitters before a final transmission, you're just channeling the signal.

Unless each emitter adds power to the signal, which is exactly what is happening here. If all of them are firing then all of them are adding power.

1 beam = 40 emitters = "all the plasma" from the ship.

is not the same as

1 beam = 40 emitters x "all the plasma" from the ship.

Where is the dialogue that indicates that the emitters are increasing the input energy?

 

[blssdwlf]

Which fire different sized munitions. That's different from a point emitter and a phaser strip firing the same phaser energy.

Do or don't you have any evidence the short strips can channel full phaser power?

I've got the shortest strip ever... the point emitter from "Darmok".

And I don't see "all the plasma the ship has from a specific system" either, leaving...

Any number of possibilities, of which "the whole ship" is NOT the only one or even the most likely.

They're trying to increase power to the phasers to destroy a deadly device bearing down on them and it's not going to be the only time they've emptied all the plasma into the phasers. ("A Matter of Time"). So absent of a specific system, it's the whole ship.

It's become obvious by now that you are perfectly well aware of this and are just being a jerk.

Whoa whoa. I'm only responding at the level that you're operating at. If you give a jerk's response, I'll give one back, just a little gentler. If you want to have a straight forward discussion I'm happy to oblige as well. We obviously have very different viewpoints here. If you want to just end it with agreeing to disagree, I'm fine with that.

Which leads me, ultimately, to ask:

So if you told me "Open my gmail account. Transfer all of the spam to my inbox", you didn't specify WHAT spam, so I should assume you mean all the spam the internet has.

Yep. You deserve it

Do you even give a damn anymore or are you just trolling?

I don't know, tell me if you give a damn anymore when you write stuff like, "or beaming Dax onto their bridge to give a blowjob to the tactical officer."

Think about it.

 

[Unicron]

I think perhaps it's best to close this, since the discussion seems to be going around and around. But in the future, you guys both need to avoid getting personal. You know better.