In Season 5:Extreme Risk the crew shows that they have the ability to create a much superior shuttle craft , the Delta Flier .Out surpassing the class B by a long shot.It would have benefited them alot to create several attack support craft. It's been a tried and true method in trek the more phazers the better. I personaly think it would have added an extra muscle that Voyager could flex and the extra kick in the asses of the borg.
First of all...a shuttle kicking the asses of the Borg?? Uh, you first! I don't imagine a shuttle's "phazers" make a whole heck of a lot of difference in any such conflict; typically, neither did those of Voyager herself. Second, the Delta Flyer very nearly didn't fit into the shuttlebay in the first place. I think things might get awfully cramped with multiple larger craft in there, especially since they evidently kept a generous complement of the regular personnel shuttles available too. It must have been like a game of Tetris to set up takeoffs and landings. Finally, I'm not sure the other capabilities of the Delta Flyer were all that impressive. A larger set than the cramped "speedboat" shuttle one for the actors to play in? Sure. But aside from when they jacked the thing up with a transwarp coil or had it enter a slipstream and so forth, I don't know if we saw the Delta Flyer do anything a runabout or Data's mission scoutship couldn't have done. So clearly it was a useful step up from the regular personnel shuttles, but it's hard to imagine that Voyager had a lot of spare resources around to be building any craft, let alone custom-engineered ones. Of course, the ship does have its own special craft with its own special launch facilities: the AeroShuttle/AeroWing, which we never got to see in action. Shame, that. Probably an Intrepid-class starship should also typically carry a cargo shuttlecraft that is somewhat larger and sturdier than the personnel types, and perhaps this would have served them nearly as well as something like the Delta Flyer. Poor Voyager was certainly not expecting a long and complex mission when it set out from DS9.
first you gotta remember these are shuttle craft, not f-14's . There's not a gonna be a taxing or runway takeoffs .Computer controled takeoffs and landings optimizing the shuttle bay. Second Technology was the main reason Voy was able to survive the DQ was at its inception Voy was the mos advanced ship in the fleet. They spent the time to upgrade the astrometrics lab an build the Delta Flier , but still not enough was done to build there armament.7 of 9 and B'lanna could had a working craft with upgraded phazers in a couple months or weeks or days in a pinch. Do I think the atack shuttle craft would have made a differnce against a borg cube, but in several episodes where smaller hostile craft were involved , fast craft would draw fire and lay down support fire for Voy to make its move. Star Trek in general was shy when it came to using small atack craft. WWII showed us the importance of the aircraft carrier , if the ship had the capability it should have additional atack craft . history is screaming toloud to be ignored.
Trek space combat is usually more cinematically comparable to old-style battleship duels or submarine hunts than it is to aircraft-carrier style engagements with small craft as a big factor. Working backwards from this, if Star Trek consistently had its Federation and most of the other major powers declining to make heavy combat use of small attack craft for the battles that matter, clearly space combat in that era typically bears little resemblance to World War II. A small number of fighters were put into use in the Dominion War; they, like runabouts and Data's mission scoutship, are even larger than Delta Flyer and won't fit into the shuttlebays of virtually any Federation starship I can think of aside from the Galaxy-class main shuttlebay. A runabout can deliver four full-sized torpedoes, albeit as "soft" launches only, a fighter can probably carry about the same, and I imagine Data's mission scoutship could carry a few more than that tops. Delta Flyer, AeroShuttle, and regular shuttlecraft appear to have no built-in method of delivering full-size torpedoes. Full-size torpedoes are the only way I can imagine Trek small craft could hope to dent a Trek capital ship (aside, perhaps, from ramming). The phasers (and similarly-constrained Threat force beamed weapons) on a shuttle-sized or runabout-sized craft clearly present little threat to capital ships, and the small craft are not resilient enough to withstand much of a pounding (as their role in a Trek story is always to isolate the characters in a much weaker and more vulnerable vehicle than the mothership, don't expect this to ever change). Defense of the mothership is thus a very unlikely mission for a shuttle unless, as you say, enemy small craft were involved; even then, it's unlikely these could really present a risk to the mothership (the bit where they transported the Voyager main computer off the ship is an exception, and I think the little Suliban ships hit pretty hard for little ones as well), and I think you'd often be putting the shuttle crew in harm's way unnecessarily. Runabouts worked with Odyssey against 3 Jem'Hadar attack ships on DS9, but reviewing the scene, somehow I don't get the impression their phasers were considered key to the effort. For scenarios where the Borg were involved, I see absolutely nothing to support the idea that Seven and Be'lanna, or the whole crew for that matter, could have somehow upgraded the phaser armament on any of the ship's embarked craft to the point where it would have had significant utility against the Borg. It doesn't even seem to have been possible with the vastly more powerful shipboard phaser banks--even for a drone using 29th century technology and inside knowledge against the Collective ("Drone").
I'm not sure the Delta Flyer made the Tetris/TARDIS shuttlebay any more cramped than usual, though I do love this idea of waiting for a long bar shuttle to come down to complete your lines. Indeed, the Flyer is in fact bigger than the launch bay doors, but still somehow manages to pass in and out with ease. Also, the crew seem to have built the Delta Flyer II in record time following the events of Unimatrix Zero, so you've got to wonder just how much resource they had to hand - I'm guessing it's wherever they keep the Chakotay-proof shuttle store. I do have a question though regarding the Flyer's weapons armaments. Wasn't it shown to be firing some kind of Borg-influenced torpedo on its debut? If I'm remembering correctly, you never see it fire these again... But obviously, they'd got around the problem of not being able to construct their own torpedoes. This post wasn't to disagree with anyone, or anything like that, but I'm just wondering how much logic you can apply to anything shuttle related for a ship that readily confused and abused the viewers for trying to keep track of them Even the number of decks and people on board changed regularly. Maybe the entire series was set in Chaotic Space...
Yes, Delta Flyer fired some "photonic missiles" which were described as "Borg-inspired," if I remember correctly. I will give Seven of Nine the benefit of the doubt and buy the idea that her massive Collective-inherited technical knowledge somehow allowed her to work up mini-missiles that are lots more effective than a microtorpedo, but it doesn't appear that they started launching Delta Flyer every time there was a firefight, so these still must not have been a big deal in the grand scheme of things. I guess the Borg sometimes use some kind of missiles with compact explosive warheads; for one, they deployed magnetometric guided charges in "The Best of Both Worlds." I don't think Voyager got too hard to keep track of. It is very well documented for a Trek ship and I am not sure they ever got the number of decks wrong. The "Shuttlebay Two" thing was a bit weird for people, but I always wondered if perhaps the launching area for the AeroShuttle was designated Shuttlebay One. Just an idea. Anyway, its many (MANY) shuttles and relatively small storage space for them is probably the biggest problem; it isn't by any means impossible to rationalize that they built more shuttles, especially if they tore down AeroShuttle and shuttlepods for spare parts, but it is weird that they made it such a priority.
I can't give you any episode names I'm afraid as I wasn't keeping track, but I'm sure in the first season there is a bit of confusion as to which deck Engineering is on - whether it's 12 or 14. And then in a late season 3 episode (somewhere round the time of Rise - Distant Origin) there's a reference to the ship only having 14 decks, when I was under the impression there were 15... Before Seven joined didn't Cargo Bay 2 have a problem with where it's situated on the ship too? I watched The Gift last night, and Janeway is trying to get Kes to Deck 6, apparently to the shuttlebay. I'm not convinced that the shuttlebay could be on Deck 6, considering where Year Of Hell places Deck 5. Now I think of it, this ship is confusing me more and more...
Was't Neelix's ship also in the shuttle bay during most of the series? Also you could have support craft possible connected to the hull (something like the captain yact) , you could beam people to the cockpits.
^Neelix's ship was indeed in the shuttle bay. He used it again in season seven's "Homestead" and took it with him when he left Voyager.
I like the way you think. A little modification to the hull and Voyagers warp field and they would have been set.
Even though it's not canon I seem to remember them saying in Star Trek: The Magazine's Trek Tech Briefings from a few years ago that the Voyager's AeroShuttle had been scavenged for parts.
There are times in trek where the story and the technology dont meet eye to eye.In the episode where the doctor day dreamed he whas the ECH he dreamed up the photonic cannon witch is possible using holo tech.(with the safety protocols off of course) There were so many things they could have done to better there situation, so much tech they came across that was forgotten just because the story called for it.If dinosaurs are trans work capable b'lana and 7 could have figured it out.
To the contrary, I'd argue it's unbelievable as all hell that our stranded heroes in their lost little starship could "figure out" anything much. That they could identify new fuel sources and fill up on them is quite plausible. That they'd identify new kind of dilithium and experiment with it is borderline plausible. That they'd build an all-new drive system for a shuttlecraft and make it work, and then go on to reach new speed records with it, is no longer plausible: they don't have the brainpower because they are cut off the Federation network of thinkers. Reverse-engineering the warp drives of alien cultures after at most a few weeks of exposure - no way. Adopting Borg technology would only be possible thanks to them having a helpful, cooperative Borg aboard; one of 'em Drones has more technological expertise in her augmented cranium than any given standard humanoid. Timo Saloniemi
But did they really build an all-new drive, or was it simply the modification of the crystals combined with changes to the shuttle's structural integrity that allowed the Cochrane's speed improvements? (Dear God, am I actually playing devil's advocate for 'Threshold'? )