Phasers vs torpedoes
- Thread starter cwl
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torpedos may have the repuation for being a finishing-off weapon just because they are slower than phasers and may not come into their own until a ship is disabled, tractor-beamed or in some other way slowed down. On the other hand a full spread firing of torpedos might work well for supressing fire, rather like a battleship volley corraling cruisers into a kill zone in the era before aircraft carriers.
Torpedoes being slower than phasers doesn't seem to track.
These interstellar weapons have massive ranges (hundreds of thousands of kilometers) and should have the ability to traverse that in a very short time frame (plus if opposing ships move at about 0.25 C at least - to maybe 0.75C at sublight, weapons would need to be moving at about 1C, or close to it).
I'd imagine that Phasers deliver lower amount of energy potential than torpedoes do, however, over time, they can deliver more destructive energy.
More in the sense that if you fire phasers for about 1 or 2 seconds, you'd deliver as much power as say a photon torpedo set to 25% capacity... but fire them for 6 seconds, and you deliver the same amount of destructive force as a photon torpedo set to 75% of its capacity (approximately).
We have evidence suggesting both Phasers and Torpedoes are well within a Gigaton range... with phasers delivering something along the lines of about 2.5 Gigatons per second at 10% yield, and Torpedoes hundreds of Gigatons yield (at least by the end of TNG).
By DS9, subsequent yields would have increased to Teraton yields (if we take into account 'The Die is Cast' and 30% of planetary crust destroyed in opening salvo' statement).
This isn't impossible for spacefaring civilizations like the ones in Trek though.
And while photon torpedoes carry specific amount of matter and anti-matter, they also carry a comprehensive amount of subspace-based technology that likely amplifies these destructive effects well above the megaton range.
Phasers last for as long as you have the energy to fire them in the main core...
Photon and Quantum torpedoes can be more problematic as you have a fixed amount - with the potential to manufacture more, but that likely takes more time.
These interstellar weapons have massive ranges (hundreds of thousands of kilometers) and should have the ability to traverse that in a very short time frame (plus if opposing ships move at about 0.25 C at least - to maybe 0.75C at sublight, weapons would need to be moving at about 1C, or close to it).
I'd imagine that Phasers deliver lower amount of energy potential than torpedoes do, however, over time, they can deliver more destructive energy.
More in the sense that if you fire phasers for about 1 or 2 seconds, you'd deliver as much power as say a photon torpedo set to 25% capacity... but fire them for 6 seconds, and you deliver the same amount of destructive force as a photon torpedo set to 75% of its capacity (approximately).
We have evidence suggesting both Phasers and Torpedoes are well within a Gigaton range... with phasers delivering something along the lines of about 2.5 Gigatons per second at 10% yield, and Torpedoes hundreds of Gigatons yield (at least by the end of TNG).
By DS9, subsequent yields would have increased to Teraton yields (if we take into account 'The Die is Cast' and 30% of planetary crust destroyed in opening salvo' statement).
This isn't impossible for spacefaring civilizations like the ones in Trek though.
And while photon torpedoes carry specific amount of matter and anti-matter, they also carry a comprehensive amount of subspace-based technology that likely amplifies these destructive effects well above the megaton range.
Phasers last for as long as you have the energy to fire them in the main core...
Photon and Quantum torpedoes can be more problematic as you have a fixed amount - with the potential to manufacture more, but that likely takes more time.
Making it a bit more complicated, it also depends on the type of phaser. If I remember right, the initial phaser blast has more power than the stream, which is why Defiant uses pulse phasers instead of a stream. But this also makes a phaser more like a torpedo, because if you miss with the pulse, there is no stream to redirect or track the target, the pulse simply misses.
Also, a torpedo has the benefit of tracking, to be able to curve around to strike its target, whereas normally phasers fire in a straight line (barring the curved phasers we saw the Vengeance use in Into Darkness).
In standard combat, using standard weaponry, phasers would be better for striking faster, or for stationary targets. Torpedoes are better for moving targets, or if it's necessary to deliver a more powerful blast all at once. Pulse phasers have the benefit of more power at the expense of target tracking. As far as curved phasers.......not really sure why you would want them to fire in a curve, unless it's to dodge around the saucer section if firing from an engineering hull?
Also, a torpedo has the benefit of tracking, to be able to curve around to strike its target, whereas normally phasers fire in a straight line (barring the curved phasers we saw the Vengeance use in Into Darkness).
In standard combat, using standard weaponry, phasers would be better for striking faster, or for stationary targets. Torpedoes are better for moving targets, or if it's necessary to deliver a more powerful blast all at once. Pulse phasers have the benefit of more power at the expense of target tracking. As far as curved phasers.......not really sure why you would want them to fire in a curve, unless it's to dodge around the saucer section if firing from an engineering hull?
Long ago, I liked to think that torpedoes were indeed more powerful and were more ideal for long-range combat than phasers, but these days I just regard them as just another weapon a ship can bring onto a target when phasers alone aren't enough or aren't available.
Pulse phasers only seem more powerful because the Defiant's were rigged to deliver a more powerful charge:
RIKER: Running the plasma conduit through the primary phaser coupling has almost doubled your phaser power. Doesn't that cut into your warp drive efficiency?
KIRA: Not at all. In fact, it's thirty percent more efficient.
RIKER: That's ingenious. I'd like to see how it's all routed through the tactical display.
There's no reason these modifications couldn't be made on other Federation ships... but in fairness, it might require tinkering with the weapons array to make them work like that.
As for phasers lacking the ability to track their targets... I don't agree with that... Phasers usually fire in a straight line, but they tend to track their target.
We see this happening on Voyager all the time.
In TNG, The Enterprise usually fought against relatively slow or stationary targets.
The Defiant on the other hand seems to be able to fire phaser pulses in a straight line and cannot change their trajectory once they are fired.
As far as Phasers and any other DEW (Directed Energy Weapon), coming up with the energy to power them is trivially cheap to fulfill.
M/AM warp cores or even Romulan Artificial Quantum Singularity Cores can easily generate the Electro Plasma needed to power them.
Photon Torpedoes and other types of Torpedoes have higher damage per instantaneous amount of damage and area, but are physically limited by quantity at hand.
So it's a matter of logistics really.
Torpedoes do massive damage, have tracking, have range, but are physically limited due to quantity / size / physical availability.
Any DEW can easily be recharged by the ships Power Generation systems, so having them filled up is trivial.
M/AM warp cores or even Romulan Artificial Quantum Singularity Cores can easily generate the Electro Plasma needed to power them.
Photon Torpedoes and other types of Torpedoes have higher damage per instantaneous amount of damage and area, but are physically limited by quantity at hand.
So it's a matter of logistics really.
Torpedoes do massive damage, have tracking, have range, but are physically limited due to quantity / size / physical availability.
Any DEW can easily be recharged by the ships Power Generation systems, so having them filled up is trivial.
Any of the "Energy Bolts" type blasts have different properties from the concentrated beams.
Beams are great for delivering lots of damage over time, but it probably has a horrible ability to adapt to energy shield frequencies over time at a fast rate while the enemy can rotate their shield frequencies quickly. You'd probably have to temporarily cut the stream just to readjust.
Bolts can be fired past your shields and easily rotate the frequencies between volleys making it easier to adapt to deliver maximum potential damage.
I once heard a comparison as a stream of water from a super soaker compared to being hit with a water balloon. Both will get you wet but in different ways
We've seen Data fluctuating phaser resonance frequencies when they were trying to cut out Borg's tractor beam in BOBW.
There's no reason a computer can't be set up to do this automatically, and even adjust frequencies through a single beam... though in fairness, the Enterprise-D did fire multiple beams from the same location - which begs the question why not fire multiple beams with different frequencies from the same phaser strip?
We've seen the Enterprise fire multiple beams simultaneously from a single strip when they were destroying the Lysian attack drones - so they do have this capability (my guess is,... the FX guys weren't exactly in tune with the phaser technical capabilities of the Enterprise - these are the same people who managed to create an FX shot of a phaser coming out of a torpedo tube - so it could easily be seen as a mess up).
However, we have seen a potential weakness in sustained phaser beams... namely, the Borg were able to send a feedback pulse along the beam to disable it.
Then again, we've seen both Federation and other ships doing the same thing to other tractor beams (sending a feedback pulse along the beam to disable not just it, but also inflict damage onto other ship systems).
Bolts can't be fired past shields unless they target the specific frequency of the shield to bypass it... (its the same with regular phaser beams).
It might be possible that each individual pulse carries a different resonator frequency... making it more likely to hit the right one... but more often than not, DS9 simply didn't bother with shield effects in large fleet battles, and they still had to hit the shields of an attacking ship.
The Defiant had an advantage over the Oddyssey because it was able to fire 4 bolts simultaneously in rapid succession on a single ship and carrying twice the firepower at the same time - essentially, brute forcing its way to destruction.
Subsequently, we've seen other Federation ships improving in taking down bug ships too.... likely because they received the same upgrades and delivered twice the firepower than before.
There's really only speculation because all we have canon-wise is a few remarks and special effects which are always unreliable when the speeds are at scale. Ships can attack each other at warp so presumably phasers are able to fire at speeds relativisitcally faster than whatever speed the ship is moving at, outside of its warp bubble.
If you accept there is ftl radio and travel in Star Trek, that's fine. When TOS showed beam weapons as instantaneous to the naked eye, that was fine too. Now though it looks like fairly slow tracer rounds.
If we take phasers to be a DEW, then essentially there is no acceleration and the weapon is consistently fast, whereas a torpedo must accelerate. it may well be capable of speeds greater than the DEW, with star trek physics, but it might take longer to get there.
Considering General Order 24, maybe the primary reason for having photon torpedos at all is planetary bombardment.
That's the thing... directed energy weapons SHOULD be instantaneous to the naked eye...
As for torpedoes... we would only (technically) see just an initial flash of a launch from its tube, and subsequently hitting its target less than a second later.
I would attribute the 'slow tracer rounds' to SFX for artistic purposes... to make it more 'visually interesting' to the viewers... however, I would prefer seeing two or more ships engaging in such combat with more accurate effects as described... instantaneous phasers reaching their targets, and photon torpedoes not really being seen by the naked eye once fired.
There could be a number of reasons for having photon and quantum torpedoes as part of regular armaments.
In the event you lose phaser power, you are still left with torpedoes, and vice versa.
Its possible that torpedoes do carry more of a punch in a single blast... but phasers would likely have to be at least similar and deliver similar amount over a slightly longer period of time.
In which case, it makes sense to have them.
As for General Order 24... since phasers can easily obliterate a planetary atmosphere in seconds, I don't see why torpedoes alone would be needed for planetary bombardment - unless you are punching through a planetary shield.
Considering the bombardment of Corvan.. that. Also the ability to change the warhead was useful for the Sisko's bombardment of a Maquis world. It looked like Empress Georgiou used torpedos for bombardment also.
I wish they WOULD use instanteneous beam effects. It CAN look good.
Phasers have more flexibility, but they are shorter range and limited to sublight combat. Photons have more punch, have FTL capability, but can miss their targets. Most movie-era combat is photon torpedoes flung at different targets, with the occasional disruptor.
Gattling Phasers were developed by the Hydrans to shoot down Klingon missiles without using their primary anti-ship phasers. Hydran Stinger fighters also used them. They took 1/4th the power to fire, but did 1/4th the damage. This was ideal for destroying missiles without using excess energy and damage potential. The tech was given to the Feds for some of their escort ships.
Gattling Phasers were developed by the Hydrans to shoot down Klingon missiles without using their primary anti-ship phasers. Hydran Stinger fighters also used them. They took 1/4th the power to fire, but did 1/4th the damage. This was ideal for destroying missiles without using excess energy and damage potential. The tech was given to the Feds for some of their escort ships.
It shouldn't matter which strip the beam is fired through as long as the corresponding point in the shield it passes through has the same frequency. The Federation has shown fine detailed manipulation of Force Fields / Shields at a point level (e.g. opening a hole to let things pass through for brigs / jail cells). I'm betting a well programmed Phaser Array would fire multiple beams of different frequencies through the same Phaser Array as time progresses and constantly be rotating it to try to have a best match against the shield frequencies of the opponent.
VFX mistakes are common when you're on a tight weekly schedule.
Exactly, another advantage of bolts / streams of energy versus the consistent beam. You can't have any feedback when you send Bolts, Streaks, or Pulse-Streams along to the target while a constant Beam will always be in risk of that.
Defiant is the first purposed built warship while the Odyssey/Galaxy Class is a multi-mission explorer. If the Galaxy Class was equipped with the same Power to Mass & Volume ratio as the Defiant, it would also be OP as heck.
It's a issue of design / technology.
I suppose the beam vs bolt issue speaks to the caseless photon torpedoes of the Star Trek era. Basically the photon torpedoes are more akin to bolt style phasers, though we did see those too. And considered that visually the torpedoes and the phasers were fired from the same areas of the ship this lends credence to the idea that photon torpedoes and phasers of the era may have been similar. Similar enough to utilize the same projection mechanisms. Then in TMP era they really became differentiated when the cased torpedoes and launcher were installed.
I know, I know. Bring on the fan rage.
I know, I know. Bring on the fan rage.
But, that doesn't exactly hold ground, since feeback pulses sent along the attacking phaser beam are seen in exceedingly rare amount (to date, we only have two examples of that) and bolts are bursts of energy... if your enemy has a reflective field around it capable of sending that energy back at you, bolts or beams are at a same disadvantage.
We've seen this happen in season 1 or 2 episode with the swarm ships on Voyager.
Voyager was also able to break through the frequency and used its phasers to cause a chain reaction which destroyed the initial amount of swarm ships.
The second time involved an alien barrier in Season 7 when Chakotay and Seven were struck by an energy barrier - again, phasers were reconfigured to avoid the issue of feedback.
If you ask me, 'battleship' is such a useless terminology in Trek.
All ships in the Federation could easily be seen as deadly weapons of mass destruction or even 'warships' if you want to use that kind of terminology (which is useless for Federation ships because they are not built primarily to wage war - but can easily wage one effectively if its required).
They have really powerful weapons that can lay waste to a planet in a short amount of time, and most Federation ships for example have 360 degrees coverage.
They also have quite fast firing rates.
The Defiant wasn't anything special... in fact, it has a few blind spots, plus its relatively slow (warp speed wise - there's little point in having an overpowered ship that can't even get to the front lines on time)... and the only thing that gave it a bit of an edge was the ablative armor (which could have been applied to other ships in the fleet).
To top it off, with other ships, if you want to turn them into more powerful versions, most of what you need is simply upgrade their internal systems.
The USS Lakota was old Excelsior class starship (its design is from 80 years ago relative to the Defiant)... and yet, it was able to go hand in hand with the Defiant and brought the fight to a stalemate (plus, neither of the two ships wanted to use full force on each other) - had the Defiant not have ablative hull armor on it, the Lakota might have emerged victorious in that battle.
As for the Galaxy class... there's no reason to think that SF might have made it even more powerful than it already was for its mass/size.
Placing more phaser strips on its hull likely would be counterproductive as the whole point of having 1 large strip is to cover the area of the hull it resides on.
SF would likely have had to put in a more poweful warp core, better shields, and higher powered phasers and photon torpedoes on it to turn it into a more powerful ship as far as combat capability goes.
Not quite, Starfleet vessels are designed and built to be the ships which fight the Federation wars. Even small starships like runabouts are equiped with phasers and micro-torpedo launchers. Not calling them "warships" is just charming word play.
I have yet to see Bolts be returned back like sending feedback pulses along a consistent beam. The same with a reflective field as well. I've yet to see one to my recall.
As far as "Naval Warship" Classification, it isn't used consistently, it should be; but it's not.
The Excelsior Class was a Top of the Line Starship that was upgraded, yet had trouble with a tiny little ship like the Defiant. The Defiant is smaller, less crewed, yet can fight a much larger / filled with more crew / has a spherical firing arc. That's a testiment to the Defiant more than anything. Doing more with less resources.
I've never said anything of placing more phaser strips on the hull, but there are plenty of add-ons you can do to the Galaxy Class Frame to make it more battle ready.
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