darkwing_duck1
Vice Admiral
Production reason for the "look" of the torpeoes: When the BoP was designed, it was a Romulan ship. The torpedo FX were designed to suggest the "plasma" torpedoes from the series.
Klingon BOP Torpedos
- Thread starter Omega_Glory
- Start date
Why not extend that to the Trekverse, too? Maybe these plasma weapons were another piece of Romulan tech the Klingons were eager to get, so some BoPs built right after the alliance had them and called them plasma torpedoes as a weapon designed for smashing. Then, some ships were refit with conventional photorps for disabling. As time went on, the Klingons for whatever reason favored equipping photorps to all of them.
I'm a fan of the BoP but by the TNG era its like wtf- why havent the Klingons upgraded them? a couple of disruptor canons, 1 forward torp launcher 1 aft isnt much- especially since the torps nor disruptors fire quite slowly. by the TNG era it should be only useful as a commerce raider but we see it in battle time & time again.
If you like, the fact that they obviously are still capable frontline combat ships can be taken to suggest that they have been upgraded in various ways. Martok even has dialogue about why he prefers to command a Bird of Prey instead of one of the other available ships.
As for connections to the idea that the design of the BOP being originally Romulan, I'm sure this was out of the script by the time final VFX were going in; besides, within the canon I feel like the appearance of the "old" Klingon BOP on ST: Enterprise really put the nail in the coffin for this idea.
Indeed, ENT would probably have us believe that Klingons invented/stole true cloaking tech first, in "Unexpected", and the Romulans were Johnny-come-latelies in that respect.
All the less basis for the speculation about Klingon/Romulan technology exchange sometime during or after TOS. The Romulans wouldn't have anything to pay with (as Klingons already had cloaks), and in any case they wouldn't have needed to buy much (as Romulans already had highly advanced warp drives).
Of course, we might speculate that Klingons and Romulans had some shady business together before ENT, and that the BoP design indeed dated to the Romulan drawing boards of those olden days...
Timo Saloniemi
All the less basis for the speculation about Klingon/Romulan technology exchange sometime during or after TOS. The Romulans wouldn't have anything to pay with (as Klingons already had cloaks), and in any case they wouldn't have needed to buy much (as Romulans already had highly advanced warp drives).
Of course, we might speculate that Klingons and Romulans had some shady business together before ENT, and that the BoP design indeed dated to the Romulan drawing boards of those olden days...
Timo Saloniemi
Omega_Glory
Commodore
I made three different versions of the ship for the game. One with the same photons as the K'Tinga. Another with a small plasma but as Shinra Actual pointed out, the green torpedos were not seeking weapons as seen in Trek V. For the final version I came up with a Klingon only torpedo that is either explosive kinda like a photon or has an energy disabling warhead. This might actually be the best choice since the torpedo in Trek V did not seek the Enterprise as she streaked away.
trevanian
Rear Admiral
But the torp fx design would have taken well after the point when the story changed it to klingons on the ship. EDIT: sorry, didn't look down and see somebody else already pointed this out.
Not only that, the plasma things were massively destructive, not the fizzy little sparkler seen in SFS.
I think the main dif lookswise is that ILM had to do the battle animation themselves in SFS and couldn't just farm it out to experts like Pete Kuran at VCE (who did the phasers and beamups and spock-in-reactor enhancements on TWOK, and did the receding-in-perspective-lasers on SW and EMP plus all the neat sword glints in DRAGONSLAYER.)
Last edited:
In DS9, these BoPs and Battlebugs alike blow up at the first touch of a capital ship or space station weapon, so their defenses are consistently weak. They are more or less impervious to fire from lesser vessels such as civilian ships or small craft, though, again consistently. In TNG, the small BoPs were virtually never subjected to enemy fire so their defenses are unknown but could be taken to be consistent with DS9.
The only thing that might appear inconsistent is the destructive power of a BoP or a Battlebug. Both of these small starships typically pounded capital ships in formations of three or so - and it took ages for them to finish off the Odyssey in "Jem'Hadar" or Dukat's cruiser in "Way of the Warrior". Yet they can blast each other to bits fairly easily. We could simply assume that capital ships and the like have very strong defenses, and that the guns of the BoPs or Battlebugs aren't really all that impressive.
Timo Saloniemi
The only thing that might appear inconsistent is the destructive power of a BoP or a Battlebug. Both of these small starships typically pounded capital ships in formations of three or so - and it took ages for them to finish off the Odyssey in "Jem'Hadar" or Dukat's cruiser in "Way of the Warrior". Yet they can blast each other to bits fairly easily. We could simply assume that capital ships and the like have very strong defenses, and that the guns of the BoPs or Battlebugs aren't really all that impressive.
Timo Saloniemi
Unless of course you’re watching Rocks and Shoals where a bugship survived multiple hits from a starship without taking any serious damage, even after being damage by an explosion it again survives being shot at by dominion ships and instead of blowing up in a big ball of fire it manages to crash land safely. Naturally it blows up by the first thing that touches it in the following episode where 4 can’t seem to win from the Rotarran, and I can assure you those crews had no time crash-land there ships
So its hard to make any sense of ship strength in star trek (it ridiculousness is just 10 times more obvious in DS9)
But that starship was a pitiful specimen, too. Probably the closest thing that Starfleet had to a BoP or a Battlebug, if we exclude the Defiant.
It's one thing that the Centaur in close scrutiny looks like she would be smaller than a Miranda and also significantly lighter and slimmer even if perhaps longer than the Defiant. This might not be evident from the episode itself, where the shots don't allow close scrutiny. But it's another thing that the episode made the dramatic point that the Centaur and Sisko's Battlebug were equally matched (and, judging by some shots, sized). These two facts in combination would seem to preserve the idea that a "real" starship makes short work of these assorted lightweights.
Let's also remember that the fight between Reynolds and Sisko in that episode was a warp chase. Ships have never been able to seriously damage each other during a warp chase: there's always an initial stage where some pounding is required to force the victim ship out of warp, and only thereafter can the real demolition begin. Sisko used tactics to keep away from Reynolds' sights after his bug was forced out of warp, and suffered relatively few hits as the result.
Also, forgot to comment on this:
But the E-A went to warp. Even a torpedo normally capable of tracking would have been incapable of coping with such an extreme escape velocity; the onboard tracking device would simply have broken its neck trying to twist towards the ship fleeing at near-infinite angular speed, and the torpedo would have continued on a more or less straight path.
Timo Saloniemi
Wait...you mean this tech isn't real and its capabilities arbitrarily determined by writers?
If only there were some sort of online discussion forum where tech-minded people could enjoy reverse-engineering their decisions and speculating about implications of the fun sci-fi technology!
Hard to reverse-engineer anything if the writing lacks any kind logic, doesn't mean we can't try though.
But it wouldn’t hurt if the occasionally decide to NOT make everything (non hero) explode at the first thing that touches them. I know that big explosions are supposed to be crowd pleasers but such big inconsistencies are just annoying.
Similar threads
