Spoilers Star Trek Discovery - Starships and Technology Season Five Discussion

[Markonian]

5x05:
- Sending Detmer and Owo on a mission to ferry the ISS-E back is a bit of a slap in the face to Rhys after building him up like that in the previous two episodes.

I forgot about that. Wow, that's true. Either they bring the Enterprise back later this season and Rhys gets his moment to shine, or the Chekov's hints they dropped about him and the 23rd century Constitution class remain unchecked.

I guess to show the redemption of the ISS Enterprise they couldn’t make it look evil.
Otherwise, the ship might have looked something like this…

 

[KamenRiderBlade]

Phasers rarely get used effectively. The TOS Enterprise once used it's ship's phasers on stun to knock out an entire town. Never seen that again! Kirk used wide angle one time, but I think that was a one off. Maybe it consumes too much energy?

If you use "Spread Mode", the wide beam would suffer from the "Inverse Square Law".
The Effective Range would become really short, and the amount of damage it does would inversely proportional to how far it travels.

It would be only really good for close range defense against lots of small weak objects or at hunting cloaked things.

It's incredibly situational.

The only time we saw wide-beam in use, it certainly SEEMED like something Tuvok did within an instant of grabbing his phaser. Perhaps he had it on speed-dial, being the awesome officer he is.

Mark

Given it's Tuvok, he probably read the room, and had his "Short-Cut" settings ready to go.

 

[fireproof78]

If you use "Spread Mode", the wide beam would suffer from the "Inverse Square Law".
The Effective Range would become really short, and the amount of damage it does would inversely proportional to how far it travels.

It would be only really good for close range defense against lots of small weak objects or at hunting cloaked things.

It's incredibly situational.

Doesn't seem to matter with a ship's phasers, aside from limited area of effect. Interesting.

 

[KamenRiderBlade]

Doesn't seem to matter with a ship's phasers, aside from limited area of effect. Interesting.

It works, don't get me wrong, it does what it says on the tin, all you need to do is adjust the power levels or how far away you need to be to exact the desired amount of energy per cm² on the target area.

But in most cases, how often do you need to attack or subdue a wide area?

How often does that situation come up?

 

[fireproof78]

It works, don't get me wrong, it does what it says on the tin, all you need to do is adjust the power levels or how far away you need to be to exact the desired amount of energy per cm² on the target area.

Yes, but how effectively and is that a function of the initial power production unit?

 

[KamenRiderBlade]

Yes, but how effectively and is that a function of the initial power production unit?

It depends on how wide you want it, and how far you expect the energy to spread before it contacts the target.

If you're hunting for cloaked vessels, you might want to go on maximum power and let it spread until it hits something.

If you're subduing a city block, you might want to be very exacting on how much power you initially put and how far you are from the city block so that you aren't hurting the people.

It all depends on your application.

 

[fireproof78]

It depends on how wide you want it, and how far you expect the energy to spread before it contacts the target.

If you're hunting for cloaked vessels, you might want to go on maximum power and let it spread until it hits something.

If you're subduing a city block, you might want to be very exacting on how much power you initially put and how far you are from the city block so that you aren't hurting the people.

It all depends on your application.

Didn't answer my question but I think I have it figured out

 

[Unicron]

Phasers rarely get used effectively. The TOS Enterprise once used it's ship's phasers on stun to knock out an entire town. Never seen that again! Kirk used wide angle one time, but I think that was a one off. Maybe it consumes too much energy?

That could be a factor. In "The Doomsday Machine", during the initial survey of the Constellation, Scott reports that the ship's phasers are completely drained and that the crew definitely fought, later managing to recharge a single emitter to some degree of functionality. I've also seen some sources that suggest the pulse phasers used by the Defiant have a somewhat similar trade off, packing more damage potential into a series of bursts at the expense of the longer range that a more traditional beam has. The Defiant can easily offset that problem with its mobility, but it might be different if you took a larger ship and swapped the main phasers for pulse models.

I've also assumed that this is one reason most other races besides the Romulans don't use plasma weaponry with the same regularity. It has enormous damage potential when used properly, but its makeup is a lot less stable and more power hungry than traditional weapons. Which, when balanced with a cloak, can make a Romulan ship more tactically limited to attacks of stealth and convenience than a stand up fight.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Canonically speaking, a general lack of power is also the reason phasers were tied in directly to the warp core for the TMP refit - to compensate and get more power allocation according to Decker, which is also exactly why they went offline during the wormhole sequence. When the M/A intermix is imbalanced, the phaser systems themselves might become fatally unstable.

I suspect that combat SOP uses phasers as a focused means to wear down a target's shielding, to be pounded by a secondary barrage of torpedoes to finish them off, the latter being not as effective as the former against cracking shields.

 

[Unicron]

I recall that was something I always noted playing 25th Anniversary in my youth, no doubt in part because it was a very convenient game balance. Phasers had a much quicker recharge than torpedoes and were generally better for sniping, with the potential to do some nice damage at times if you were close enough and got a good spread. Photons had less margin for error if you were maneuvering but could deal a nasty bit of damage if they connected.

 

[KamenRiderBlade]

Canonically speaking, a general lack of power is also the reason phasers were tied in directly to the warp core for the TMP refit - to compensate and get more power allocation according to Decker, which is also exactly why they went offline during the wormhole sequence. When the M/A intermix is imbalanced, the phaser systems themselves might become fatally unstable.

I suspect that combat SOP uses phasers as a focused means to wear down a target's shielding, to be pounded by a secondary barrage of torpedoes to finish them off, the latter being not as effective as the former against cracking shields.

This is why future iterations of Phasers should have both "Battery Backup" & a direct connection to the Warp Core EPS conduits.

This way, if your main connection to the Warp Core goes down due to battle damage or whatever reason, you have a supply of energy from your "Battery Backup" to cover your weapon systems so that you can keep on pounding the enemy target(s).

I really like Torpedo's because they're heavy Burst / Area damage, that can be very effective when used situationally.

The main issue is with current Star Trek combat, is that it feels like it's stuck in WW1/2.

There's no CIWS or (Anti-Missile/Torpedo) interception weapons on any ship.

Which is opposite of how Star Trek Space warfare would proceed IMO based on IRL Warfare & Technological Progression.

The next big change to StarShip combat will be CIWS (Anti-Missile/Torpedo/Projectile/Remote Weapons/Drone) systems that are dedicated for that purpose on all StarShips.

The counter to CIWS is to go 2x paths:
1) {Stealth/Cloak} (Torpedoes/Missiles)
2) Itano Circus / Macross Missile Massacre
3) Holographic Projectiles to help act as decoys.
4) Any combination of the above.

Continuation of advanced ECM Warfare with EM Jamming & ECM & ECCM.

Star Fighters will continue to gain importance along with Remote Drones & methods of jamming FTL travel to trap a target into place and continue a fight in local space.

Long Ranged Warfare will also continue becoming more & more important with less importance on "Dog Fighting" in space.

 

[Ithekro]

I wonder if the Arika-class can do a Itano Cirus of Photon Torpedoes from its 15 launchers.

 

[KamenRiderBlade]

I wonder if the Arika-class can do a Itano Cirus of Photon Torpedoes from its 15 launchers.

Probably not, those are traditional Single Torpedo Launchers, not "Multi-Torpedo" launchers like the Enterprise D.

If it had "Several" of those in the Torpedo Pod, that'd be a different story.

 

[Markonian]

Last season SNW used the Discovery ship set.
This season, DSC used the Enterprise set.
Seems fair.

ISS Enterprise (NCC-1701) refit proposals.
USS Federation art by Lee Fitzgerald. Reddit link: https://www.reddit.com/r/StarTrekDi.../federation_hq_refit_lee_fitzgerald/#lightbox

 

[Ronald Held]

Not a fan of detected nacceles, etc. YMMV.

 

[KamenRiderBlade]

Not a fan of detected nacceles, etc. YMMV.

You mean "Detached Nacelles", right?

 

[Ithekro]

I kind of like it. But we're would they reattach? Based of Discovery being a 23rd century ship refit, so too would a Constitution-class design.

 

[Markonian]

I kind of like it. But we're would they reattach? Based of Discovery being a 23rd century ship refit, so too would a Constitution-class design.

Good question. Perhaps there could be a minimalist nacelle pylon, like a thin blue beam.
Or, perhaps the Enterprise doesn't need to reattach the nacelles, like most other 32nd century classes.
On the third hand, the 32nd century Constitution class (Kirk class) does have nacelle pylons.

 

[Ronald Held]

You mean "Detached Nacelles", right?

Yes I did. Not enough proofreading...

 

[Janewaysson]

I wish they had show an overview of the Discovery being build on Earth