Holodeck Technology...

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One think that I was thinking about is the size of holodecks. Has it ever been established if the bigger the holodeck the larger the holo-simulation you can program, it would seem to make sense. However, I have also seen what looks to be smaller holodecks being able to simulate very large holo-simulations. Finally is there a limit to just how large a holo-simulation can be.

On Voyager "In the Flesh" species 8472 simulated most of San Fransisco, across the Golden Gate and onto Star Fleet Headquarters. The Hirogen used the holo-techonolgoy to hunt Holograms in a large simulation. In Voyager "The Killing Game" pts 1 and 2, the Hirogen made Harry tear down wall to expand the holo-capacity on Voyager.

Resistance is Futile

 

[Timo]

It would probably mostly depend on how many users have to be accommodated. If there's just one player, he or she can be whisked across the entire universe in a holocube two meters on a side. But if there are ten different players with ten different agendas, they might need a nearly house-sized holodeck in order to roam through a holographic house. Otherwise, the partial simulation that convinces Player A that he is in the bathroom might overlap with the partial simulation that tells Player B that she is in the pool, or C that he is falling from the roof after trying to fix the TV antenna. Such risks would explain why the 8472 and the Hirogen would wish to prepare for their large crowds of users by choosing a maximum-size holodeck from the very beginning.

Then again, large crowds might be accommodated by linking several small booths together, virtually rather than physically. That's how they seemed to do the baseball diamond in DS9. But the 8472 and the Hirogen were planning for large-scale simulations from the beginning, so they had little reason NOT to design a single massive playground, while Quark or Starfleet would probably have found that uneconomical for most applications.

Timo Saloniemi