Ships crashing into each other

[Timo]

The highly unusual choice of words might indeed suggest that. And mirror Scotty's "simple impulse power" that in a certain TOS adventure allowed a ship to travel at apparent warp speeds.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Samuel]

The highly unusual choice of words might indeed suggest that. And mirror Scotty's "simple impulse power" that in a certain TOS adventure allowed a ship to travel at apparent warp speeds.

Timo Saloniemi

In regards to "Balance of Terror" and Scotty saying "Their power is simple impulse" it might be that

1) "Impulse power" as Scotty refers to it might've meant simply that their faster than light drive was powered by fusion reactors that we now know is what powers the sublight drives of Federation starships.

2) Scotty was simply mistaken. Unlikely as I'm sure he could monitor the radiation emissions from the Romulan ship to tell that they were using nuclear fusion reactors rather than antimatter reactors to power their ship.

 

[Lord Other]

In regards to "Balance of Terror" and Scotty saying "Their power is simple impulse" it might be that

1) "Impulse power" as Scotty refers to it might've meant simply that their faster than light drive was powered by fusion reactors that we now know is what powers the sublight drives of Federation starships.

Drawing from the episode itself, I would presume the Bird of Prey utilized a low-power, high-efficiency fusion powered warp drive. As a stealthy incursion vessel and sneak-attack instrument, such a design makes a kind of sense. The warp drive and the cloak operated in tandem draw most of the power from the ship's reactors, and when the ship attacks it drops out of warp to power its weaponry, and then decloaks when it's ready to fire, which fits with the dialog and the narrative as shown. There's never a surplus of energy, and everything is "by the numbers" and fuel/resources are strictly accounted for, that the Enterprise and her crew mucked up the Romulan mission is more due to a lack of information about their enemy, than inept handling of their vessel on the part of the crew of the Praetor's Pride. Anyhow that's my two cents and I'm sticking to it. Lol.

 

[Sgt_G]

For what it's worth, in the Star Fleet Battles (game) universe, a ship without Warp Drive can achieve some degree of Warp/FTL speed using the Impulse engines only, but not in a combat setting. How else do you think the Romulans could control a stellar empire?? Ships without warp engines must fight at sub-light speeds, which is how the First Federation-Romulan War was fought. Steve Cole calls this impulse-driven FTL mode "Non-Tactical Warp", which predates Tactical Warp (and thus begs the question of what was it called before Tactical Warp was invented??).

 

[Ithekro]

In theory, in FASA's game, if you had a powerful enough impulse engine, you could likely get to warp as well. But most impulse drives were not all that powerful. But the drives on say Excelsior or a Galaxy-class starship would probably have the power to movement rating needed to get the ship up to low warp speeds (if I remember the system correctly).

 

[Leathco]

I would think that it is more unlikely for a starship to accidentally run into another than two planes running into each other here on earth. The addition of the third dimension vs naval ships makes it even harder for a collision to occur.

 

[Go-Captain]

For what it's worth, in the Star Fleet Battles (game) universe, a ship without Warp Drive can achieve some degree of Warp/FTL speed using the Impulse engines only, but not in a combat setting. How else do you think the Romulans could control a stellar empire?? Ships without warp engines must fight at sub-light speeds, which is how the First Federation-Romulan War was fought. Steve Cole calls this impulse-driven FTL mode "Non-Tactical Warp", which predates Tactical Warp (and thus begs the question of what was it called before Tactical Warp was invented??).

Starfleet Command 3 also allows a ship to hit warp 1 with impulse. You have to rig a super light Nebula hull by using only light systems, armed only with mines and maybe one light phaser. Most people thought I was cheating, but I used the normal in-game ship editor.

I would think it would be called non-strategic warp, because low warp (below warp 2) would have the most use in an interplanetary role (~40 min from Earth to Jupiter at the speed of light, instead of weeks or months), as apposed to an interstellar role. Sleeper ships get around that.

Apparently this idea of very low warp speeds being common within the human span of space history made it into TNG with how the Enterprise intercepts a Klingon sleeper ship from a time humans are known of, and Worf has to act as captain to avert a pointless battle. Obviously this concept is dropped in ENT.

 

[MAGolding]

Timo said:

I'd think the odds of collision in the Trek universe should be relatively high. After all, it's standard practice for two ships to come very close to each other when their skippers want to exchange words. Either this is some sort of interstellar etiquette, or then a prudent tactical move in preparation for the inevitable exchange of fire.

A prime example would be the E-D facing off three Klingon ships in, say, "Mind's Eye". Four vessels are in point blank range of each other. Three have sensor-obstructing devices. Said three are commanded by individualistic, glory-seeking COs whose first instinct at the M Moment of moving from words to deeds will not be to hold formation. And even if it doesn't come to a firefight, all four will be likely to insist on maneuvering that yields no prestige points to the opponent (and the three count as opponents to each other, too).

It's just as well that starships are virtually indestructible, so that what should result in a cloud of very small shrapnel ITRW is merely a love tap between starships. And conversely, a ramming attempt looks no worse than a ramming on today's seas, despite the immense power of the ships.

On-screen battle scenes, especially on DS9, show oodles of ships packed together in very tight formation, but I don't remember any collisions between friendlies, even with crippled ships flying every which way out of formation. In my view, ship-to-ship combat should have ships much farther apart, measured in dozens if not hundreds of kilometers, so the chances of accidents would be zilch.

Outside of combat situations, the only time such accidents could possible happen is while docking at a base station or in orbit over a very busy planet. I suppose an accident could happen in deep space if the ships were trying to dock together and someone screwed up. Otherwise, no, I don't see any way ships could run into each other in deep space.

In TOS the budget usually didn't permit showing enemy ships, so they were described as being so far away they were mere dots or totally unseen.

In "The Changeling" they are attacked by an unknown enemy.

SPOCK: Unknown, Captain. Nothing within sensor range. (a third bolt approaching) Something now, Captain. Very small. Bearing one two three degrees, mark one eight. Range ninety thousand kilometres.

In The Enterprise Incident the Enterprise is being chased by a Romulan vessel.

[Romulan Bridge]

TAL: Helmsman, flank speed. Weapons officer, stand by to fire main batteries as soon as we reach optimum range.

KIRK: Mister Spock, distance from the Romulan vessel?
SPOCK: One hundred and fifty thousand kilometres, Captain, and closing very rapidly.
KIRK: Stand by, phasers. Commander, you'll forgive me if I put up a fight.
COMMANDER: Of course. It's expected.
SPOCK: One hundred thousand kilometres. They should commence firing at us within the next twelve point seven seconds.

So it looks like optimum range for the Romulan main batteries would be about fifty thousand to seventy five thousand kilometers.

In "Elaan of Troyius" a Klingon ship rushes at the the Enterprise.

KIRK: Give us every ounce of power you can from the impulse drive, and find a solution to the bomb. Kirk out. Mister Sulu, stand by to make your manoeuvres smartly. She'll be sluggish on response.
(Elaan enters the bridge. Kirk sees her during Sulu's countdown.)
SULU: Aye, sir. One hundred thousand kilometres. Ninety. Eighty.
KIRK: Phaser crews, stand by to fire on command.
SULU: Sixty.
KIRK: Ready.
SULU: Fifty.
KIRK: Hold your fire.
SULU: She's passed us without firing a shot.
SPOCK: I don't think they meant to attack us. We were very fortunate this time.

KIRK: I'd say our strategy wasn't totally effective.
SULU: Captain, the Klingon ship is closing on an intercept course. Five hundred thousand kilometres. Deflector shields up.
KIRK: Scotty, can you give me partial power on the phaser banks?
(Elaan enters, in the blue wedding dress and wearing the necklace.)
SCOTT [OC]: No, sir, not a chance.
SULU: Three hundred thousand kilometres.
KIRK: I told you to stay in Sickbay.
ELAAN: I want to die with you.
KIRK: We're not going to die. Now get off the bridge.
SULU: One hundred thousand kilometres.
(Weapons fire hits the Enterprise)
SPOCK: He's passed us. All shields held.

SULU: One hundred thousand kilometres.
KIRK: Scotty, stand by to cut in warp drive.
SCOTT: Fluctuation. It's the shape of the crystals. I was afraid of that.
SULU: Seventy five. Seventy. Sixty. Fifty.
KIRK: Fire at minimum range.
SULU: Forty.
SCOTT: She won't steady down.
SULU: Thirty.
KIRK: Warp in, Scotty. Full power to shields.
(The Klingons fire.)

In "Journey to Babel" an unidentified ship attacks.

KIRK: Hold your fire, Mister Chekov.
CHEKOV: Phasers locked on target. Range closing. Seventy five thousand kilometres.
KIRK: Fire.
(There's a satisfying flare on the viewscreen.)
CHEKOV: Got him!

In the TOS movies they had a bigger budget and showed ships fighting at much closer ranges. They did that again in the era of TNG.

We might suppose that in the era of the TOS movies new shield designs were hundreds or thousands of times more powerful than earlier ones and so ships had to get within a few kilometers to have any chance of blasting through shields and damaging enemy ships. No doubts weapons were later greatly improved and space battles were again fought at distances of tens or hundreds of thousands of kilometers. Then by the era of TNG and DS9 shield technology improved again and ships had to get within a few kilometers in order to penetrate enemy shields and damage enemy ships.

 

[Sgt_G]

Well, yes, I suppose that is a workable theory.