At what point should a Starship not be able to do barrel rolls?

[Kamen Rider Blade]

The Barrel Roll or Loop-de-Loop isn't the problem.

It's how fast do they turn, how tight of a turn radius can the maneuver.

How much inertia can they cancel to change vectors and how fast can that happen.

Larger vessels shouldn't have anywhere near the maneuverability of a Shuttle / Fighter.

But they can all do the same moves, just how wide, how fast, and how big of a radius does it take to do the same maneuvers.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

At the speed these ships are fighting (near light speed phasers, and tracking photon torpedos), barrel rolls and what not should not matter. In my opinion, combat efficiency is limited not by the ships mechanical structure or physics, but by the slow speed of orders given and confirmed and executed.

I concur, the only reason to do the Barrel Roll is to expose the Firing Arcs from the Phaser Arrays to properly hit the target and to expose different sides of the shield that are stronger to take the brunt of the fire while the weaker sides gets more time to recharge.

 

[Deks]

At the speed these ships are fighting (near light speed phasers, and tracking photon torpedos), barrel rolls and what not should not matter. In my opinion, combat efficiency is limited not by the ships mechanical structure or physics, but by the slow speed of orders given and confirmed and executed.

I actually agree with you here.
Ships in Trek do have really high maneuverability due to using subspace fields to lower their mass, etc... however, even with that, with (near or actual) light speed phasers and photon torpedoes (which can likely achieve Warp in the first place), sublight velocities (of say 0.25 to 0.75 c - even negating relativity with subspace fields) and high maneuverability would be of little use against computers which use transluminal (FTL) processing for going through massive amounts of data (no mere organic humanoid could possibly match this level of processing ability - which is why some episodes of humanoids being better at universal translation than computers were utterly moronic).

The problems we are seeing concurrently happening on-screen are actually down to humanoid error and lack of ability to take into account millions of things that the sensors can keep track of in real time (and humanoids can't), and of course their inherent slow response times in comparison to a computer (of those even of modern times, nevermind computers in Trek).

The writers seriously didn't think many things through in this respect... hence why Trek should really be updated to take these things into account and stories adjusted to fit the technology.

 

[matthunter]

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

In the Riker maneuver here the crew are leaning as the ship is turning. Shouldn't the Inertial dampers be kicking in for that? How many cups were broken here?

The Tech Manuals suggest the IDF has a slight lag and also some inbuilt limits to make dampening more natural - if it held the crew immobile while the ship lurched wildly they'd probably toss their cookies or, worse, suffer muscle/bone damage. It's probably acting more as a "seatbelt" initially with stronger countering forces coming in slowly so as not to strain the body.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

Most Starfleet ships are designed to have almost all angles covered by firing arcs, so larger ones (such as the Galaxy-Class) wouldn't need to pull off such tight manoeuvres though would have evasive patterns to keep themselves from taking too many hits. Others, such as the Defiant-Class, have most of their weapons up front so need to be able to fly in a much tighter manner in order to deliver the full power of their ordnance.

 

[Timo]

The Tech Manuals suggest the IDF has a slight lag and also some inbuilt limits to make dampening more natural - if it held the crew immobile while the ship lurched wildly they'd probably toss their cookies or, worse, suffer muscle/bone damage. It's probably acting more as a "seatbelt" initially with stronger countering forces coming in slowly so as not to strain the body.

You mean the IDF only grabs some select bits of the body, rather than all of it (and indeed everything within the ship, including the air and the vacuum)?

That would be odd - leaving the air ungrabbed would mean it would crush the heroes like a brick wall, say. Surely Riker's bones and cookies get exactly as much attention as his boots or arms or hair...

Now, physical safety belts would probably be worse than useless, as they would indeed just hold Riker's corpse while his innards blew out of his stomach. Riker's spleen simply must have its very own safety belt, too, courtesy of this magical "field".

Not to mention that all the shaking the ships endure never breaks any vases and seldom causes padds to fall on the floor. The IDF really seems to work indiscriminately.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[matthunter]

The IDF really seems to work indiscriminately.

Well, just ask the Palestinians, amirite?

 

[bolak]

-- diversion starts ---
As far as I am aware, no airliner has actually achieved a barrel-roll. What Tex managed was a sort of wobbly aileron roll with a dollop of pitch, which after the fact he couldn't really describe as anything in particular. And which he never attempted again in anything that size.

It's actually a rebuttal to the claim that airliners can barrel-roll, which is a corkscrew manouvre in which the nose yaws 90 degrees each way from the direction of flight. Imagine following the coil of a suspension-spring and you've got it. It's fairly pointless other than training pilots in three-axis control and it's difficult.

-- diversion ends ---

As to starship agility, in 'reality' I'd imagine that the attacking ship would be firing a spread of torpedoes in such a pattern as to try and neutrailise the defender's escape vector options. So having a more-agile ship which could turn 'tighter' would in turn neutralise that firing pattern, which would require more extensive spreads.

Futher thoughts:
1. A spread would be a cone-like projection in four dimensions, trying to anticipate the vectors that the defender might / can choose
2. A 'turn', as noted in other comments, would be a roll-yaw-pitch to a new heading and then a blast of propulsion. So a faster overall slew would be beneficial to slip through the gaps in the 'spread'

 

[Tenacity]

As far as I am aware, no airliner has actually achieved a barrel-roll. What Tex managed was a sort of wobbly aileron roll with a dollop of pitch, which after the fact he couldn't really describe as anything in particular.

Tex Johnston did in fact perform barrel rolls above the crowds at the 1955 gold cup hydroplane races.

And which he never attempted again in anything that size.

After he did the first barrel roll, Johnston turned the plane around and did a second barrel roll.

 

[Dryson]

Gravity exists the farther away from a planet or sun that you are. The gravity created by a sun is also relative to its density and its elemental composition.

A starships computer would be able to analyze the electromagnetic fields of each element present in the sun, planet or object producing gravity to then create its own field that would neutralize or increase the electromagnetic lines for each element in the object generating gravity to manipulate it so that gravity would exist around the starship but only in very small amounts within the warp field bubble itself. The small amounts of gravity that are present in the warp bubble is basically an external inertial dampener.

Jaylah.

 

[Timo]

Hmm. Fields of all sorts are ultimately source-agnostic: a sun would simply be a mass (a point mass, from any appreciable distance), regardless of its density or composition. And if mass were a field, rather than this Einsteinian geometrical construct we currently model it as being, it could be treated in bulk, if at all.

Addressing the electromagnetics of the source would not have much to do with the gravitics, though. Those are, as far as we can tell, completely different and unrelated things. They might remain unrelated even in the Trek universe where gravity would manifest as "fields" mediated by "gravitons"; any sort of a grand unified theory of electromagnetics and gravity would only kick in at extreme conditions and circumstances, much like today's models of the unity of electromagnetism and the weak atomic force are basically relevant only in extreme "laboratory conditions" and don't much affect day-to-day stuff such as basic atom-splitting.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Arpy]

They dart through the cosmos at billions of miles per hour; I don’t mind barrel roles. But the larger they are, the more they should just SCREAM with the effort. Blow our speakers off, soundlessnes in space be damned.

 

[F. King Daniel]

If Star Trek ships started obeying the laws of physics when moving and turning in space, it would look really weird.

I'd kind of like to see it, though. It would emphasise the silly shape of the Enterprise.

 

[gerbil]

As always with many of these discussions we’re looking at a society capable of an unimaginable control of energy and mass. To me it means that cloaking technology and things should never have been a surprise and certainly not have needed to wait until the 23rd century to appear.

That small tangent aside, we have to accept that starships are capable of whatever acrobatics or maneuvers the captain or helmsperson deems appropriate or necessary. I love the movements that give ships mass and size but there’s no reason for that to be the norm.

 

[mos6507]

I really think so much of our entertainment boils down to simple aesthetics. You know in your gut when something feels right and when it doesn't. It's not rational. And our reference point is terrestrial vehicles. Star Trek represents a tall-ship metaphor (sometimes expanded into a sub metaphor) and that means ships don't turn on a dime. It just looks better that way. Even Star Wars did it this way as capital ships don't bob and weave the way fighters do. This is also why ships tend to (with with rare exceptions) align to the same 2D plane.

 

[STEPhon IT]

Did you know airliners (as in, just about all models flying today) can physically do barrel rolls? A proper barrel roll is a ~1G load on the airframe, which makes no more stressful than flying in a straight line. To answer the title: never. That is not a hard manuever.

However, aircraft are limited by gravity (and the need to produce lift), air resistance, and the fact that thinning air limits thrust and manueverability and the ground limits how low you can go. A 747 could do a vertical loop with enough height, low enough weight and enough air to maintain thrust and control. Lower gravity might help too. It's not a control surface or structural limit issue.

A space ship, freed from air and gravity, is only limited by its propulsive systems and structural limits. Given that the Enterprise-D was shown being able to pivot around 180 degrees in ~3 seconds (which is really fast, especially for something that big) the real question is why it wasn't shown doing it more often. Of course, the answer is motion capture filming wasn't up to the task on a TV budget.

Not to go Trek v Wars, but the starship Enterprise has always had the manueverability of the Falcon despite a mass closer to an Imperial capital ship.

Perfect explanation. Another thing is the TNG and TOS producers' thinking caps were STAR TREK related and not the continuing bleeding of the Star Wars atmosphere. The Starship Class and the Galaxy Class were all capable of performing feats like an X-Wing fighter, but what's the point of doing them when the mission statements is for peace and exploration??? These ships needed to have some special operations in order to engage whatever was out there and couldn't rely on getting aided for help every sub-lightyear.

 

[MAGolding]

I remind everyone that the largest starships in Star Trek are incredibly tiny compared to the planet Earth. The planet Earth does barrel rolls. In fact planet Earth is constantly barrel rolling and can't stop without a catastrophe.

It is impossible for any starship to do a barrel roll because that is a maneuver that airplanes do in strong gravity wells and in thick atmospheres, both of which are absent in outer space. Spacing is very different from flying.

But any starship can roll 360 degrees in any direction along any of the ship's axis if there is some reason to do so.

And also remember that there is very little maneuvering in space battles. Every space warship and space war fleet tries to have weapons that out range the enemy. If they do they can stay out of range of the enemy's weapons and blast them in safety. If the enemy tries to close the range they can retreat while blasting the enemy in safety. If the enemy tries to retreat they can pursue them while blasting them in safety.

So when two enemy forces approach, the winner is in doubt until it is discovered which side has the longer range weapons. Once that is discovered both sides will know who is going to win.

Unless, of course, they have force shields. Then the relative strengths of the force shields will also be important in determining who wins the battle.

 

[Leathco]

The planet Earth does barrel rolls. In fact planet Earth is constantly barrel rolling and can't stop without a catastrophe.

I hate to be "that guy" but if Earth was doing barrel rolls, there is a good chance we would see DRASTIC weather changes due to the fact that a barrel roll is not what most people think it is. What most people call a "barrel roll" (including Peppy from Nintendos Star Fox franchise) is actually an aileron roll. An aileron roll is the plane/ship/whatever spinning without adjusting its Y axis. A barrel roll is a spin made around a theoretical circle, like the inside of an actual barrel.

This video explains it better:

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

 

[Discofan]

Without inertial dampers, the people would be squashed all over the walls the first time they'd go to warp...

And with inertial dampers, there's no inertia, IE a perfect maneuvrability.

 

[STR]

I hate to be "that guy" but if Earth was doing barrel rolls, there is a good chance we would see DRASTIC weather changes due to the fact that a barrel roll is not what most people think it is. What most people call a "barrel roll" (including Peppy from Nintendos Star Fox franchise) is actually an aileron roll. An aileron roll is the plane/ship/whatever spinning without adjusting its Y axis. A barrel roll is a spin made around a theoretical circle, like the inside of an actual barrel.

This video explains it better:

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

Yup. An aileron roll subjects you to +1 to -1 G's as the aircraft turns upside down. As I said above, a proper barrel roll maintains a roughly 1G load through the whole maneuver.