My last DS9 viewing featured Kasidy Yates' ship, which doesn't have obvious nacelles.
Nor do the Borg craft.
Are there any inherent advantages to a one nacelled ship design?
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Nor do the Borg craft.
To be frank I don't see the practicality of them except as low-yield / low-capacity, or single-use designs (photon torpedoes being in effect a field capture and sustainer engine with a set of field coils). If there was an obvious advantage to the design I would figure more small craft would utilize single warp coil set / nacelle designs, but we don't see that at all. All the shuttlecraft that are warp capable have two nacelles, not one. That may be a result of Matt Jefferies' design work, without him having any serious consideration of the implications of the lack of craft with single nacelles. The carry over by other designers possibly being more of a tradition in design lineage than an actual technological limitation / feature.
That said it would seem likely that Nomad made use of a very efficient single coil set or a warp ring (after all he helped "improve" the warp drive of the Enterprise before Kirk stopped it)-the body plan was essentially a cylinder with no external structures similar in design to a warp nacelle, so my thinking is the coils are stored internally, or are part of ring assembly near the base. In that respect, single warp coil sets seem optimal for small craft, but are uncommon because of reliability, redundancy, and safety concerns (Starfleet / UESPA probably wouldn't want its starships or crews waiting months or years for assistance if their primary propulsion system / warp drive fails). Now if you ask me if I have a problem with Franz Joseph TM's ships? I don't. I think that the Destroyer / Scout class vessels would have been deployed after the Four Years War / Federation-Klingon conflict as support vessels interior to the frontier, mainly because they don't have a redundant FTL drive. That's my two cents and I'm sticking to it.
That's why I don't think it's "Warp Nacelle's" in pairs, but Warp Fields meeting in pairs or doing some form of balance to accelerate at greater speeds when working together in pairs or more.
Look at USS Voyager, The Nacelle's Warp Field Emitters don't face each other directly, yet it was one of the fastest vessels of it's day.
Look at USS Defiant, The Warp Nacelle Field Emitters were on the rear facing inwards pointed towards a common point in space.
Look at the friggin Borg Cube, no obvious Field Emitters are ever shown, yet it can go at Warp Speed Faster than the Enterprise D pushing Maximum Warp.
Look at USS Voyager, The Nacelle's Warp Field Emitters don't face each other directly, yet it was one of the fastest vessels of it's day.
Look at USS Defiant, The Warp Nacelle Field Emitters were on the rear facing inwards pointed towards a common point in space.
Look at the friggin Borg Cube, no obvious Field Emitters are ever shown, yet it can go at Warp Speed Faster than the Enterprise D pushing Maximum Warp.
The Baxial, Neelix's shuttle, lacked double nacelles and very obviously had warp drive.
In GEN, Soren's torpedo sized weapon had the ability to reach the Veridian star in eleven seconds after being fired from a planet's surface.
The Enterprise's torpedoes had the capacity of being launched from a orbiting Enterprise and intercepting that weapon, a weapon moving at warp speed.
Starfleet torpedoes don't have "field capture and sustainer engines," they have full up warp drives.
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I agree that they likely had some warp speed coming out of the barrier and no reason to think they did not have a not trivial speed after the warp field failed.
My theory is that most ships have dual engines due to what was claimed in Voyager, that while in warp you can only go straight. Ships with only one engine can only go straight. Dual nacelle ships can lower the power to one nacelle while keeping the other powered, which would result in a turn. This means that technically, the quote in Voyager that "faster than light, no left or right" is accurate, a single warp engine can only go forward and has no turning apparatus. Add a second one, and adjusting power levels between the two results in a turn. This also means that four nacelled ships like Stargazer can not only turn, but pitch and dive while in warp.
Strictly speaking, the nacelle is just a container for a specific type of engine that Starfleet tends to use. Vulcan ships use propeller rings and Tellarite ships use God only knows. As an analogy to modern aviation: there are many different types of jets (rockets, pulse jets, ramjets, turbofans, turbojet, scramjets) and weird hybrid engines like turboprops. Something about Starfleet's engine designs (or their starship designs, more likely) necessitates their engine components being placed in self-contained nacelles external to the actual hull. Given that Starfleet ships aren't universally much faster than some of their rivals (even the nacelle-less bird of prey managed to reach Warp 9) it probably has to do with the specific TYPE of warp drive they are actually using.
I would bet that a normal Starfleet design requires the nacelles to operate in pairs or else performance is drastically impacted. Single-nacelle ships may use a different type of engine that is stable as a standalone unit, and is mounted in a nacelle for reasons that are more conventional than functional. Put another way: the specific reason why the turbofan engines tend to be mounted on pods is so that the propellers will have room to rotate without striking the fuselage. Jet engines are sometimes mounted in pods for entirely different reasons, such as (usually) safety, ease of maintenance, ease of construction, etc. Putting a ROCKET ENGINE in a pod would have still other completely different reasons, which may include safety and ease of maintenance but (in the case of the space shuttle) would basically boil down to "Crap, we ran out of room... fuck it, stick em on top and enclose them in a big dumbass pod."
My apologies Tenacity, I wasn't being clear as to what I was trying to say- Federation Starfleet / UESPA shuttlecraft have apparently all had two coil sets / nacelles.
It's interesting you point that out. Personally I have toying with the concept of photon missiles, which in effect would be what you describe. Since the photon would have its own integrator / reactor it should be able to accelerate and decelerate as need be, which is what I am assuming you're describing. As for the sustainer engine concept- it is not my own, it's been around for awhile. It shows up in the ST: TNG Tech Manual (p. 129) and was in the script for "Half a Life" before the dialogue was cut out.
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The movie Generations. Soren's missile was going to reach the star in a few seconds (so it was either a warp-speed missile or a very, very small star), and Worf said that while the Enterprise was theoretically capable of shooting it down, the fact that they didn't know where on the planet it was coming from meant they might not be able to lock on to it before it reached its target.
Yes, and you are making it more so..
The simplest explanation is usually the correct oneYou have NO WAY of knowing that. It's not in the dialogue, and it's not implied- Delta Vega's only distance referent is a "few light days away.." That's what was said, that's what you get to play with. Stating otherwise is inventing information out of whole cloth to no purpose. Besides in this rather large spiral galaxy we call home, would you not consider it likely, if not probable that some stars and their retinue of planets and objects may end up crossing the Energy Barrier because of their natural orbits or because they have reached the galaxy's escape velocity? Delta Vega could be an outlier, extremely close to the Barrier, but just inside, and as Timo cited, an extremely useful jumping off point to points unknown.
..and there's no reason to believe that the ship would be able to attain superluminal velocity without the warp drive. As IMPLICITLY stated in dialogue, "Captain's log, Star date 1312.9. Ship's condition, heading back on impulse power only. Main engines burned out. The ship's space warp ability gone. Earth bases which were only days away are now years in the distance.." You make an assumption that is unnecessary to start with, unsupported by evidence provided, and just keep hammering away at a point which can easily be explained without all the machinations. Occam's razor applies.
..and again, you're making assumptions that the impulse drive can get you past the light speed barrier -and- that warp speed is tied to acceleration, which was never shown, in any episode.
Can you show me ONE, one single solitary example of that EVER happening on ANY of the Star Trek television series, please. Just one. As much as I, or anyone would like Star Trek to make sense, the warp drive is NOT going to be something that will ever perfectly do that. I'm not arguing that in RL vessels will not have to do exactly that or some variant of it, but shoehorning the warp drive as shown into a pet theory (be it yours, mine, or anyone else's) to make sense of the mess when it discards onscreen evidence and dialogue directly to the contrary when someone is asking / discussing what was actually shown seems disingenuous to me, and in the end making the mess worse.
And here's where you have a problem?!
Here's some food for thought.Indeed, I had forgotten that reference. Veridian IV looks as if its orbiting a Sol-like star, and Star Trek Star Charts lists it as a G-class star (presumably main sequence) - so it's not likely that it's retinue of worlds would be "huddled" like ducklings close to their mother. LOL. Regardless, it's an interesting thought problem. If Veridian was a M-class dwarf, then the .05 or .06 AU distance from the primary for Veridian IV would make perfect sense for Worf's comment.
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No. The explanation that fits the relevant facts without relying on unnecessary guesses is usually the correct one. Omitting relevant information to preserve simplicity results in an incorrect explanation.Yes, and you are making it more so..
In which case, Kirk's initial log entry noting the seeming impossibility of finding another Earth Ship that close to the barrier would be rather silly. After all, if Delta Vega was that close to the barrier, then whoever BUILT that outpost, years ago, would already be aware of the barrier and, possibly, of the Valiant's distress beacon as well. This episode implies -- and heavily depends on -- the idea that the Enterprise is traveling to a region of space where no one has ever been, only to be incredibly surprised to find someone HAS been there before and that something terrible happened to them. Everything that happens AFTER they cross the barrier, therefore, happens relatively far from it, closer to known/charted space.
It's not like the name of the episode is "Where everyone but us has gone before."
We have multiple instances of starships doing exactly this throughout Trek history, so it's evidently possible. Significantly, nothing implies that it ISN'T possible, so we can safely conclude that the ship can, in fact, attain superluminal velocity without warp drive. A really great example of this is "Relics" where the Enterprise, under 60% impulse power, covers a distance of about 90 million kilometers in 2 to 3 minutes, implying an average velocity about twice the speed of light (at below C, that would have taken almost 9 minutes).
Soren's solar probe on Veridian III is another example: given that it is almost certainly a main sequence star (since both the 2nd and 3rd planets are Earth-like worlds in its habitable zone) then the distance is anywhere between .7 and 1.3 AUs. Either way that probe -- which takes off like a small rocket and doesn't seem to be equipped with anything as fancy as a warp drive -- would have to be traveling at an average velocity of over 100 times the speed of light to make that trip in just a couple of seconds.
... to all explanations that fit the facts equally.
The FACT is any distance that would require "days" to reach at some relatively high warp speed (meaning, more than one day) would be on the order of hundreds of light years. There's no call to assume the ship is limited to sublight velocity on impulse power, so that's a guess we don't need (and it's contradicted by other stories). There's no call to assume Kirk is saying "years" when he really means "centuries" either, so that's also a guess we don't need. We don't know where Delta Vega is relative to the barrier, but we know whoever built that outpost didn't make it as close to the barrier as the Enterprise did (or even the Valiant, for that matter) so Delta Vega being close enough to the edge for convenient impulse power is another guess we don't need.
What fits the facts without those unnecessary guesses? That Enterprise CAN travel at superluminal velocity without warp drive, just not nearly AS fast. What else fits the facts? That warp drive, like impulse power, is a unit of acceleration rather than absolute speed, and that travel times reflect both the time spent accelerating and decelerating. This latter assumption is NOT a guess, because it's the way spacecraft actually work in the real world. So to assume that Star Trek propulsion systems work entirely differently is, in fact, another unnecessary guess.
I can give you two:
UHURA: Captain, Starfleet signals growing in strength, sir. ...They still have the intruder on their monitors. It's decelerating!
SULU: Confirmed. Lunar beacons indicate intruder on a course into Earth orbit.
SULU: Confirmed. Lunar beacons indicate intruder on a course into Earth orbit.
Also:
PICARD: From this point, no station aboard, repeat no station, for any reason will make use of transmitted signals or intercom. We'll try and take them by surprise. Let's see what this galaxy class starship can do. (to Worf) Lieutenant, inform engine room to prepare for maximum acceleration.
Both of these suggest warp drive isn't a "constant velocity" proposition but is actually a function of acceleration or deceleration. In the second case, this is Picard telling us that "maximum acceleration" is the same thing as "maximum warp."
Also:
SPOCK: Your perception is correct, Doctor. In order to return us to the exact moment at which we left the twenty-third century, I have used our journey back through time as a reference, calculating the coefficient of elapsed time in relation to the acceleration curve.
McCOY: Naturally. So what's your problem?
SPOCK: Acceleration is no longer a constant.
McCOY: Naturally. So what's your problem?
SPOCK: Acceleration is no longer a constant.
Again: suggesting that warp drive produces acceleration, not constant velocity. The ship's acceleration, however, is no longer constant, because Spock has no idea what kind of output the ship is going to be able to sustain this time.
Perhaps not, but it fits the facts well enough. It's just a feature of spaceflight that has never been explicitly described on screen in Star Trek. Which is fine, because in all honesty, it's never been explicitly described in ANY science fiction production, even those productions where this is undeniably the case.
It's not a problem, it's just a fact.
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This "implies" a reduced FTL velocity, and not a restriction to non FTL speeds.
The Enterprise possessed the ability using impulse engines to reach far distant Earth bases in years.
Not centuries.
No, it implies specifically that the main warp drive is out, and that the ship's space warp ability is gone. It implies nothing other than it will take years to get back to a support base- which even if you are traveling at .25 c would only take years, perhaps. Question: If the support base is 20 ly away, how long will it take the Enterprise, non-relativistically speaking to travel there at .25 c?
That we can agree on.
is the .25c impulse maximum speed a fanfic creation or implied in dialogue?
I bolded part of your statement to show that it is unlikely to be true in your first example. For your example to be true where a ship has "to slow down for the second half of its trip" then V'Ger should have been decelerating well before encountering the Enterprise. Instead it is decelerating near destination.
The phrase "maximum acceleration" sounds more like instructions to reach maximum warp speed in the shortest amount of time. There isn't anything in the dialogue to suggest that warp itself is a unit of acceleration. Later Trek like Voyager's "The 37's" even states Warp 9.9 as a specific unit of speed, not acceleration.
I do agree though that there is evidence (more so in TOS) that impulse is capable of superluminal speeds, but then again, I personally consider TOS a different universe than TNG and later incarnations.
IIRC, it's something from the printed TNG Technical Manual. Not really supported in dialogue or episode AFAIK.
It probably is also the source for the two nacelle thing too.
That assumes V'Ger was flying a brachistochrone trajectory all the way from the machine planet and making a beeline directly for Earth. We've always kind of assumed that, but it doesn't follow from observations; V'ger has knowledge that "spans this universe" which means it has been sort of aimlessly wandering the galaxy for the last couple of centuries, gathering data, eating solar systems, doing its own thing, until it suddenly had an existential crisis and decided to find its creator.
Nor do we know for sure that V'ger was still traveling at FTL velocity when the Enterprise encountered it. We know for sure that V'ger was two days away from Earth when it encountered Epsilon IX, but we have no idea what velocity it was traveling. For a cloud 82 AUs in diameter, V'ger could be traveling anywhere between 10 and 50 C and it would still take several minutes for that cloud to fully pass over the station, time during which V'ger destroyed it with a zappytorpedo. If it was still at that velocity when Enterprise intercepted it, we have no way of knowing.
Either way, Enterprise's average velocity is significantly faster than V'ger's, so clearly V'ger isn't in that much of a hurry. He's coasting, and probably has been for years.
"Now hear this: Maximum, you're entitled to know, means we'll be pushing our engines well beyond safety limits." And minutes later, Worf says:
WORF: We're now at warp nine point three, sir, which takes us past the red line, sir.
Of course, it's a scifi tradition to conflate "velocity" and "acceleration" in dialog. Even the Expanse does this, despite the fact that ships in that series EXPLICITLY do not work that way.
"Captain, assuming we have full warp capability, accelerating to warp seven on leaving the solar system will bring us to IP with the Intruder in 20.1 hours."
[Minutes later]
"Mr. Scott, we need warp drive as soon as possible."
"Captain, it was the engine imbalance that created the wormhole in the first place. It'll happen again if we don't correct it!"
"That object is less than two days from Earth. We need to intercept while it still is out there."
[A few more minutes later]
"...Repair time: Less than three hours, which means we will be able to intercept Intruder while still more than a day from Earth."
So we know V'Ger is traveling at a speed where it can cover the same distance as the Enterprise did at warp seven in twenty hours in about twenty-four hours, so V'Ger is traveling at a bit less than warp seven. Assuming, of course, Starfleet's estimates weren't building in about four hours for the sublight approach, in which case V'Ger was probably traveling at exactly warp seven.
Hmm... the explanation however runs counter to the example you are attempting to provide to Lord Other. Your V'ger example is supposed to show:
"The answer is: it's not about velocity, the Enterprise sometimes reaches many tens of thousands of times the speed of light, but it has to SLOW DOWN for the second half of its trip in order to not completely overshoot its destination, and that long slowdown stage accounts for part of the travel time."
For that to work, the example would need to have a known starting and ending point to determine if the ship really does start the long slowdown stage at the halfway point.
Now you're saying that the starting point is unknown and possibly cruising aimlessly around the galaxy. This would invalidate the V'ger example as now you have no known starting point.
This second example from "Encounter at Farpoint" leaves out a few things. You left out the lines about Warp 9.2 and Warp 9.4 and the part where Worf calls out Warp 9.2 as a velocity. Picard is asking for the ship's maximum acceleration to get to maximum speed as fast as they can.
PICARD: Stand by. Engage.
WORF: Velocity warp nine point two.
DATA: Heading three five one mark eleven, sir.
PICARD: Steady on that.
TASHA: The hostile is now giving chase, sir. Accelerating fast.
WORF: We're now at warp nine point three, sir, which takes us past the red line, sir.
PICARD: Continue accelerating. Counsellor, at this point I'm open to guesses about what we've just met.
...
WORF: We're at nine point four, sir.
TASHA: Hostile is now beginning to overtake us, sir.
PICARD: Are you sure?
DATA: Hostile's velocity is already warp nine point six, sir. Shall I put them on the main viewer?
WORF: Velocity warp nine point two.
DATA: Heading three five one mark eleven, sir.
PICARD: Steady on that.
TASHA: The hostile is now giving chase, sir. Accelerating fast.
WORF: We're now at warp nine point three, sir, which takes us past the red line, sir.
PICARD: Continue accelerating. Counsellor, at this point I'm open to guesses about what we've just met.
...
WORF: We're at nine point four, sir.
TASHA: Hostile is now beginning to overtake us, sir.
PICARD: Are you sure?
DATA: Hostile's velocity is already warp nine point six, sir. Shall I put them on the main viewer?
There is abundant evidence of ships accelerating to a specific warp speed, cruise at the set speed and then decelerate when near destination. I just don't recall anything specific where we see a ship accelerates at warp all the way to a midpoint and then decelerates from midpoint to destination in TOS, TNG, DS9, Voyager or Enterprise.
From TNG onward acceleration to cruising warp speed is fast, as well as deceleration.
