Jochaim's damage report to Khan

[DanGussin]

This need not be in conflict with TMP. These may be two different situations - it depends on what was meant by “the mains.” In TMP, the phasers were automatically cut off as a safety measure because of the engines imbalance in order to avoid a catastrophic failure.

In TWOK, for all we know there was nothing wrong with the warp engines per se, only with the power source to the warp drive. The phasers could still be channeled through the warp drive with no issues - they just wouldn’t have the added “punch” they would normally get from the warp engines because there was no power going to them.
Think of it like a hybrid car that depletes its battery and has to rely on its small motor for power.

Failures of the power systems, though relatively infrequent, are seen to occur numerous times theoughout the various films and episodes and we’re likely anticipated to sine deree as a result of battle, attack, stress and wear and tear. Designing a primary offensive system in such a way that it would become inoperative during these conditions - and arguably the conditions where offensive systems are most required - is orders of magnitudes more shortsighted than a safety cutoff from engine imbalance which is so rare that IIRC we only see that one time. We might be able to infer that, much like with tires/tyres “balancing” the warp engine only needs to be done one time for new warp nacelle. This is a very different case, and I can see how it could be decided that non-operation of phasers in this condition would be deemed acceptable as balancing would probably be handled by system testing well before the ship goes back into service. In TMP, Scotty seemed to think the engine balancing could have been handled with more time (his assertions that they needed 20 hours for launch likely accounted for that. I don’t think Scotty doubted that Kirk would want warp drive - he just didn’t expect it to be needed until after they cleared the solar system.

My inner nerd is running a bit wild here but here goes -

What would happen if phasers were fired within the gravimetric and temporal distortions of the wormhole created by warp engine imbalance ? A physical object like a torpedo might take an altered route or have disrupted timing as it rode these distortion waves and be able to have its self destruct activated if requred, But what might occur to a beam of coherent energy and what if it was deflected back towards an unshielded ship by the distortion effects of the wormhole ?

We saw something like this occur in TNG to a phaser beam fired within a nebula so the phaser cut off might be a safety feature to deal with this.

 

[Timo]

Firing phasers at warp has sometimes been considered risky or difficult in fan takes of Trek - although never in any actual episode or movie.

Nevertheless, while most phaser fights at warp go without a hitch or comment in actual aired Trek, there are special cases, such as the madly curving phaser bolts of the ST Into Darkness warp chase. Perhaps there indeed always is a bit of risk there, and extreme situations such as wormholes, or the interaction of the engines of a regular and a king-size starship at close range, do warrant the safety cutoff?

(Then again, the phaser bolts of the Vengeance continued curving madly even after the ship dropped out of warp... Perhaps Admiral Marcus forgot or declined to turn off his engines?)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[f14peter]

About the phasers and the warp drive. This is what Decker actually said: "Sir, the Enterprise redesign increases phaser energy by channelling it through the main engines. When they went into anti-matter imbalance, the phasers were automatically cut off." He says phaser energy is increased by channelling it through the main engines. Doesn't say one way or the other if the phasers can't or can fire, albeit at a lower power presumably, if the mains are offline. Engines being offline is different from being in anti-matter imbalance in which it's clear the engines are actually still running (amok as it were) and phasers are automatically cut off.

 

[Marsden]

About the phasers and the warp drive. This is what Decker actually said: "Sir, the Enterprise redesign increases phaser energy by channelling it through the main engines. When they went into anti-matter imbalance, the phasers were automatically cut off." He says phaser energy is increased by channelling it through the main engines. Doesn't say one way or the other if the phasers can't or can fire, albeit at a lower power presumably, if the mains are offline. Engines being offline is different from being in anti-matter imbalance in which it's clear the engines are actually still running (amok as it were) and phasers are automatically cut off.

Plus they needed a "reason" for Decker to show up Kirk being out of touch and it was more fun to hear Koenig yell PhoeTON tooorrrrpeeeedooooesss avay!

 

[CorporalCaptain]

The Reliant is larger(in terms of volume) and, as it's probably a newer design, could be superior.

It is? I thought their saucers were the same size. Granted I've never looked at specs, studied the models side-by-side, or picked apart screencaps. But, seriously, just to be sure I understand, are you saying that the internal habitable volume of the Reliant is larger than that of the Enterprise? How so?

 

[Timo]

http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWvolumetrics.html

No, the Miranda isn't larger if one counts the secondary hull (the nacelles being the same and the pylons being so thin as to be irrelevant). But there's little telling which of the two has more habitable volume. We have seen the cavernous holds in the secondary hull of the Constitution refit - are those a plus or a minus to habitable volume? The Miranda has two very prominent shuttlebay doors, potentially indicating massive holds within that hull, too - but we never got a good glimpse inside, and possibly those bays are as "shallow" as the one on the Discovery.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[CorporalCaptain]

http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWvolumetrics.html

No, the Miranda isn't larger if one counts the secondary hull (the nacelles being the same and the pylons being so thin as to be irrelevant). But there's little telling which of the two has more habitable volume. We have seen the cavernous holds in the secondary hull of the Constitution refit - are those a plus or a minus to habitable volume? The Miranda has two very prominent shuttlebay doors, potentially indicating massive holds within that hull, too - but we never got a good glimpse inside, and possibly those bays are as "shallow" as the one on the Discovery.

Timo Saloniemi

Yeah.

From that site:

The B-type Constitution is the TMP (movies) version.​

Constitution B volume = 234,928 m³
Miranda volume = 217,770 m³

Being a much shorter ship, one might've expected the Miranda to have much less volume than the Enterprise-A. However, the large four-deck-high extension on the rear of the saucer does much to offset the issue, though that and the torpedo "roll bar" do cause the ship's surface area to be rather high (hence the low value for its V/SA ratio). The same sort of thing occurs with the Nebula, whose pod severely increases the surface area while providing little volume, giving the total ship about half the V/SA of the Galaxy Class.​