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Miranda Class Phasers

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James Wright

Commodore
Commodore
How well can the Miranda Class defend it self from multiple targets on the ventral side, especially when one or more targets are approaching rapidly from below and aft of the sensor dome? Is there a blind spot in the Mirandas' phaser cover?

James
 
Bottom aft would seem to be the Miranda's biggest blind spot phaser arc wise.
Many Federation ships of the 23rd century have this problem. phasers seemed to be more off a forard weapon back then but the ships were smaller and I think the range made it sort of a non issue. But the 24th century makes a big deal out of close range attacks.
 
The funny thing is, the mounting of main phasers on top and bottom of flat saucers creates coverage problems dead ahead. These get worse when we move from TOS to TOS movies, because apparently the phasers slide farther up/down the slopes of the central bulges and more to the flat area...

It's almost as if these ships are designed to fight opponents in any direction but the one the ships are pointed at! In sailing ships of old, this was the unwelcome result of severe, almost crippling technological limitations. What is Starfleet's excuse?

Regarding Miranda bottom aft coverage, one of the photos of the Reliant shooting model seems to show two single phasers flanking the bottom of the impulse engine assembly - or at least two yellow squares of the correct size. The detail is not on any reproductions of the model, nor are there screenshots that could theoretically show it. I just can't find the photo online now... It's part of a four-way shoot for which the bow, top and starboard views are readily found on the net. Anybody know what I'm rambling about (again)?

Timo Saloniemi
 
Interesting observation but I don't think firing on zero elevation will be be that big of an issue. But it does seem to be the case the way the firing arc is arranged.
 
Interesting observation but I don't think firing on zero elevation will be be that big of an issue. But it does seem to be the case the way the firing arc is arranged.
 
Regarding Miranda bottom aft coverage, one of the photos of the Reliant shooting model seems to show two single phasers flanking the bottom of the impulse engine assembly - or at least two yellow squares of the correct size. The detail is not on any reproductions of the model, nor are there screenshots that could theoretically show it. I just can't find the photo online now... It's part of a four-way shoot for which the bow, top and starboard views are readily found on the net. Anybody know what I'm rambling about (again)?

There is a ventral shot on page 206 in "The Art of Star Trek". You can see the two phasers. I've not spotted those phasers in the movie though. That spot is usually in shadow or not close enough to identify the phasers.
 
Wow, nice find! I may have to add them to my blueprints.
I can't find that pic online either, so here it is:
miranda1.jpg
 
How well can the Excelsior and Constitution class starships cover their aft quarter with phasers compared to the Miranda?

James
 
How well can the Excelsior and Constitution class starships cover their aft quarter with phasers compared to the Miranda?

James

Constitition refit does have similar aft phasers. Only two. and no aft torpedoes. That's why I always considered the Miranda a better ship than Constituion. More isn't necessarily better Miranda had some serious fire power with those forward canons.

Excellsior is done the same way with two little phaser pods on the dorsal aft shuttle bay.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IYihBiTh-...bNxyDhXScwY/s1600/excelsior-gus-top-small.jpg

I should note those two little yellow squares don't actually appear on the model itself though. At least I haven't found them.
 
How well can the Excelsior and Constitution class starships cover their aft quarter with phasers compared to the Miranda?

I don't have a good model of the Miranda or Excelsior and haven't had a chance to model the Constitution... but using Dennis Bailey's model, these were the phaser blind spots I found on the ship. These blind spots only work if your ship was very small, like no more than a 10' sphere. Otherwise, at least one phaser or more could engage you.

Food for thought: The USS Lakota when it fought the Defiant, never missed with her phasers and there was no place where the Defiant could hide. So I'd guess that the Excelsior upgrades had good phaser coverage as well.

Armament-wise, the Miranda appears to have one more torpedo tube (aft) but same number of phasers as the Constitution (18). There was no evidence that the rollbar phasers in TWOK were any more or less powerful than the Enterprise's phasers since they were all fired at low power. The aft torpedo placement of the Miranda means faster time to target for torpedo since it wouldn't have to fly around to hit something behind it (like in "The Changeling").

Phaser-Blind-Spots-1701refit-output.jpg
 
How well can the Excelsior and Constitution class starships cover their aft quarter with phasers compared to the Miranda?

I don't have a good model of the Miranda or Excelsior and haven't had a chance to model the Constitution... but using Dennis Bailey's model, these were the phaser blind spots I found on the ship. These blind spots only work if your ship was very small, like no more than a 10' sphere. Otherwise, at least one phaser or more could engage you.

Food for thought: The USS Lakota when it fought the Defiant, never missed with her phasers and there was no place where the Defiant could hide. So I'd guess that the Excelsior upgrades had good phaser coverage as well.

Armament-wise, the Miranda appears to have one more torpedo tube (aft) but same number of phasers as the Constitution (18). There was no evidence that the rollbar phasers in TWOK were any more or less powerful than the Enterprise's phasers since they were all fired at low power. The aft torpedo placement of the Miranda means faster time to target for torpedo since it wouldn't have to fly around to hit something behind it (like in "The Changeling").

Phaser-Blind-Spots-1701refit-output.jpg


Defiant Lakota was a very brief visual fight. A couple of cheap shots on Defiant, Defiant makes a two passes. One pass over the saucer and another over the top. We never get the rear approach so it's hard to say but Lakota had a bunch of extra phaser arrays where there are none on the moldel such as on the neck, between the impluse engines one on the pylon junction...

Miranda's Roll Bar Phaser did CONSIDERABLE damage to Enterprise. The bolts were twice as large as Enterprise. And Reliant was firing at full power. But we know Enterprise was not because they lost main power. Even the Diagram shows Relaint hit a lot of locations and did considerable penetration. That's to be expected because physically those roll bar phaser are 2 or 3 times larger than the banks both ship use as standard armament.

Miranda has two aft torpedo tubes while the Enterprise has none.
 
Defiant Lakota was a very brief visual fight. A couple of cheap shots on Defiant, Defiant makes a two passes. One pass over the saucer and another over the top. We never get the rear approach so it's hard to say but Lakota had a bunch of extra phaser arrays where there are none on the moldel such as on the neck, between the impluse engines one on the pylon junction...

We're not sure if the Defiant passes behind and below the Lakota, but she does pass above from from front to rear, IIRC.

The entire fight lasted between 4-5 minutes, of which we only saw the early portion. In the exchange:

Lakota lands 10 phaser beam hits (100%) attempting to target weapons and engines.
Defiant lands 33 phaser pulses out of 52 pulses, 2 phaser beams and 1 photon attempting to target Lakota's weapons.

What we also know is that Lakota's phaser beam takes 20% off of one of Defiant's shields and the battle goes long enough for them to hit the ablative armor. Lakota as far as we know did not use her photons or quantums.

At the conclusion of the battle, neither the Lakota or the Defiant succeeded in their goal.

Miranda's Roll Bar Phaser did CONSIDERABLE damage to Enterprise. The bolts were twice as large as Enterprise. And Reliant was firing at full power. But we know Enterprise was not because they lost main power. Even the Diagram shows Relaint hit a lot of locations and did considerable penetration. That's to be expected because physically those roll bar phaser are 2 or 3 times larger than the banks both ship use as standard armament.

Miranda has two aft torpedo tubes while the Enterprise has none.

The Reliant has two "unconfirmed" aft tubes since we only see one torpedo fired. Is there a tv episode where we see both in action or a close-up?

As to the phaser power, they were fired at low power. You can see in the screenshot that none of the power indicators are lit up to the left Joachim's hand.

Reliant_Phaser_Firing.jpg


Also, none of the phaser shots (or torpedoes) penetrated more than a room or so into the Enterprise.

At most they were at 1/4 phaser power.

Remember, full power phasers at medium to long range in "The Ultimate Computer" killed the entire crew of the Excalibur. At point-blank range, full phasers would've cut the Enterprise in two, blown large chunks of it into oblivion and probably set off the antimatter fuel resulting in the biggest explosion that side of the Mutara Nebula ;) Not to mention Khan would've FAILED in robbing the ship of power and taunting Kirk since he would've been killed with full power phasers :D


TWOK-Battle-Damage-Comparison-output.jpg
 
Lakota lands 10 phaser beam hits (100%) attempting to target weapons and engines.
Defiant lands 33 phaser pulses out of 52 pulses, 2 phaser beams and 1 photon attempting to target Lakota's weapons.

Nice Catalog of shots. I never thought to do that with this battle in particular. Should be able to determin Lokota shield strength but equating it with other target Defiant has assaulted like BoP's Galors and Attack ships...

What we also know is that Lakota's phaser beam takes 20% off of one of Defiant's shields and the battle goes long enough for them to hit the ablative armor. Lakota as far as we know did not use her photons or quantums.

Very true...O Brian was right...that was A LOT of Fire Power for an Excelsior class. If that's Sovereign firepower in those phasers then it's a good argument to Defiant going down in that battle. The Armor litterally made the difference in the episode but then again...Valiant took 30+ against the Dominion Battleship with no shields or armor. (to crippling effects)



The Reliant has two "unconfirmed" aft tubes since we only see one torpedo fired. Is there a tv episode where we see both in action or a close-up?

Negative: I'm a drafter by trade, I count hard points. It's habit. Going strictly by canon is problematic as it shows us that Excelsior has phasers where the physical model does not and this happens alot in DS9. Resolving totality for what hard points the ship has been canon and physical model is impossible if I go by which confirmed activity and thus the ships would be horriblly miss armed. At the same time I can't say for sure that the hard point aren't there or were intended to be there but weren't created...so I just go by the physcial depiction.

Not only is the hard point duplicated on the other side but also on the front side of Role Bar and it's the same hard point Enterprise has on it's tubes. The consistency has been established.

As to the phaser power, they were fired at low power. You can see in the screenshot that none of the power indicators are lit up to the left Joachim's hand.

I honestlyl don't know what those indicators mean.

Also, none of the phaser shots (or torpedoes) penetrated more than a room or so into the Enterprise.

Yes, those were soft breaches. That tends to happen with plasma. The hull seemed to have resealed after melting. They didn't concentrated their firepower on one area for long. That's why there was all that splash effect on impact which implies A LOT of ablation of the heat

At most they were at 1/4 phaser power.

I have almost no way to determine if that is true.

Remember, full power phasers at medium to long range in "The Ultimate Computer" killed the entire crew of the Excalibur. At point-blank range, full phasers would've cut the Enterprise in two, blown large chunks of it into oblivion and probably set off the antimatter fuel resulting in the biggest explosion that side of the Mutara Nebula ;) Not to mention Khan would've FAILED in robbing the ship of power and taunting Kirk since he would've been killed with full power phasers :D

I don't know if it's right to expect them to maintain that continuity from the former series. I don't even know if they were aware of it.

TWOK-Battle-Damage-Comparison-output.jpg
[/QUOTE]


Yeah that's the damage indicators I was speaking of.
 
Negative: I'm a drafter by trade, I count hard points. It's habit. Going strictly by canon is problematic as it shows us that Excelsior has phasers where the physical model does not and this happens alot in DS9. Resolving totality for what hard points the ship has been canon and physical model is impossible if I go by which confirmed activity and thus the ships would be horriblly miss armed. At the same time I can't say for sure that the hard point aren't there or were intended to be there but weren't created...so I just go by the physcial depiction.

I don't have a problem counting that aft torpedo hard point if I had a better view of it or saw both tubes firing. Otherwise, it's a probable for having two aft torpedo tubes, IMHO. You can count which ever way as YMMV.

I honestlyl don't know what those indicators mean.

Power to phasers. If it is lit all the way to the right...

Setting-Phaser-Power.jpg


Yes, those were soft breaches. That tends to happen with plasma. The hull seemed to have resealed after melting. They didn't concentrated their firepower on one area for long. That's why there was all that splash effect on impact which implies A LOT of ablation of the heat

At most they were at 1/4 phaser power.
I have almost no way to determine if that is true.

Well with the last 3 power indicators unlit, it wasn't 100%. "Soft breaches" at point-blank range equal "low power shots".

I also forgot another example, "Day of the Dove", 4 full power phaser hits at unshielded Klingon warship resulted in a total explosion. And that was not at point-blank.

I don't know if it's right to expect them to maintain that continuity from the former series. I don't even know if they were aware of it.

Let's say they ignored TOS. We still have the phaser power settings from the control panel. And can you even point to the Reliant's phasers causing significantly more damage or penetration than the Enterprise's weakened "few shots" or the barely powered phasers she had later on in the nebula?

TWOK-Battle-Damage-Comparison-output.jpg
 
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According to this

http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=43469&highlight=cole

the green metered scaling areas above are actually for the power levels while the ones below are for power transfer.

And since the phaser power is transferred directly from the warp engines (ala TMP) then phaser power is limited to how much warp power is being transferred.

So again, console shows low phaser power setting and no Reliant hit penetrates or does any more damage than the Enterprise's when at reduced strength.

Therefore, there is no way to determine that the Reliant's rollbar phasers are any more powerful than the Enterprise's since they're not fired at full power :)
 
I've got no problem with different ships having different types of coverage, or a lack of aft torpedo tubes.
I just wish there was another image around of the Reliant shooting model that showed that particular area with more detail.
 
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