Starship Phasers

[James Wright]

Where was it stated during the shows run that the phasers of TOS Enterprise had a range of 300,000 kilometers or was this number just dreamed up by someone?
If the phasers of the Enterprise-D were improved and more numerous, why was the range still 300,000 kilometers?
Were the weapons ranges for the Enterprise-D ever stated on screen or are they speculation?

James

 

[Mister_Atoz]

300,000km is never explicitly stated to be the maximum phaser range in TOS. However, it is conspicuously close to the speed light travels in one second, so it is a reasonable assumption. It may be that the likelihood of a hit decreases rapidly when firing at a target further than 1 light second away.

Ranges of between 75,000 and 100,000 kilometers get bandied about a lot in TOS, suggesting a possible optimal range?

I know the TNG episode "Wounded" strongly implies a weapons range of 300,000 kilometers, but again this isn't exactly confirmed.

 

[blssdwlf]

AFAIK the maximum range of TOS Enterprise's phasers haven't been stated in dialogue.

I remember in "Journey To Babel" the Orion slows down and 75,000km is called out, prompting Kirk to order phasers fired. And in "Obsession", a range of .04 light year was explicitly out of phaser range.

Phaser range was probably dependent on several "in-universe" factors: target maneuverability and speed, target shielding or armor and ability to track / lock-on to target.

 

[Myasishchev]

I think someone just made up 300Mm as a max range, probably crossing some wire with the one that remembered that 300km is the (rounded) distance traveled by a photon in a vacuum in one second.

Assuming it's a neutral particle beam (even if the neutral particles are bullshit like "nadions"), in a vacuum, thermal bloom effects should eventually widen the beam. Of course, if it's a plasma (ha ha ha), it should last all of about a hundred feet...

But even for a NPB, the speed of light should have some significant effects on effective weapons range: if phasers move at .1c, as a target at 300Mm, you have nine seconds to see it and dodge it.

If they move at .9c (and it is unlikely that a starship can trivially spin up kilograms of mass to .9c), at 300Mm, you still have a ninth of a second to see it and dodge it.

If they're 1c weapons, of course, they cannot be seen at all until they strike and hence cannot be dodged except by dumb luck. They would also be coherent light, should not be called phasers, and would be very long-ranged.

So, anyway, the speed of the phaser bolt should provide a max effective range against an agile target of 100Mm to a ceiling of, oh, say 600Mm, where in principle it would be very hard to accelerate something fast enough that it could not be seen coming. 300Mm actually sounds like a pretty good limit to being able to hit a ship that is capable of moving itself out of the way in a second or two.

So even though it was totally pulled out of thin air it's not entirely wrong.

 

[Mister_Atoz]

For what its worth "Grasers" in the Honor Harrington Universe have a range of about 600,000 to 1'000,000 km. Combat in those novels is remarkably similar to Star Trek style combat, and generally more developed. I often use the series to "fill in the gaps" in Star Trek style combat.

 

[Myasishchev]

Does "graser" stand for for "gamma ray laser"? If so, their effective range should be indefinite in a vacuum.

 

[Mister_Atoz]

I believe that is what it stands for, but would gamma ray lasers be any different than any other laser? in that, they are 'infinite" in a sense, but have bloom effect as they travel through space?

also, in regards to Star Trek weapons, I tend to think of weapons range more as an the likelihood of hitting a moving target at that range not not a physical limit to how far that weapon can physically reach.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I think someone just made up 300Mm as a max range, probably crossing some wire with the one that remembered that 300km is the (rounded) distance traveled by a photon in a vacuum in one second.

The only place I've ever heard about 300,000 kilometers being a limit for phasers was in the TNG Technical Manual--and even then, it only stated it as a maximum effective range against a target, not an absolute limit. Phasers could probably go considerably farther than 300,000 kilometers, but perhaps with diminishing intensity...

 

[Timo]

It does appear that ranges beyond 300,000 km are not used on screen in phaser combat, at least not successfully; the Cardassians apparently had to give up at that specific distance in "The Wounded", even though they must have known they had to keep on pounding the Phoenix, or flee, or die. "Successful hits at diminished destructive power" don't really fit that picture.

Phaser fire across the much greater distances in "Balance of Terror" might not have directly hit the Romulans even if they weren't invisible; we just can't tell for sure. But it's obvious that phasers did span more than 300,000 km in that instance, and in some others. It just didn't have the usual or the desired effect.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Deks]

300 000km should probably be the maximum effective range of phasers where their maxed out power output is still effective, but beyond that, it's likely the power output is severely diminished or non-existent at all because the nadion particles lose cohesion after that distance from the source.

 

[Timo]

It might be that the phaser beam is held together by a specific "sheath" of some sort or another. If so, we can allocate all the "magical" properties of the beam to this sheath and interpret the "beam itself" either as a conventional particle beam or even as a coherent EM pulse. The sheath would just need to have the following properties:

- Keeps the package coherent at least up to the range of 300,000 km
- Can lose coherence at a preset distance if desired, releasing the destructive energies there in a big flash
- Regulates the speed of the package, up to and including high warp (or at least allows the beam to pass from one warp field to another or to empty space unharmed, even when e.g. spacewalk gear famously suffers damage at such a transition), and down to and including the speed of sound in normal atmosphere
- Generates the funny glow, the colors of which may also carry some information about the nature, power, frequency or whatnot of the beam
- Possibly is elemental in helping the package penetrate standard shields, which seem rather categorically immune to e.g. conventional lasers

I could see the phaser being more a means of delivering destruction than a means of generating it. Indeed, we see phasers delivering unusual "payloads" in VOY "Macrocosm", and comparable Jem'Hadar weapons delivering poisons, or other agents that create toxic effects in the target, in various DS9 episodes.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Myasishchev]

300 000km should probably be the maximum effective range of phasers where their maxed out power output is still effective, but beyond that, it's likely the power output is severely diminished or non-existent at all because the nadion particles lose cohesion after that distance from the source.

Then they should probably use something that doesn't, like a hydrogen atom.

Indeed, maybe they could use even all that harmful deuteurium they carry around, or--better--that suicidally dangerous antideuterium. That would hurt.

Why does everything always have to be exotic matter? I mean, the warp thing makes sense, because no exotic matter = no FTL, but plain old neutral particle beams have served us faithfully since the Battle of Carrhae.

Possibly is elemental in helping the package penetrate standard shields, which seem rather categorically immune to e.g. conventional lasers

This throwaway line always struck me as weird. Is the navigational deflector actually some sort of x-ray-and-up-opaque particulate matter suspended in front of the ship? Because a magnetic field will not change the path of a photon.

Also, ignoring physics, logic gets in the way too--if lasers don't work, why would nukes? Or antimatter explosives? The striking package is fundamentally the same--high-frequency light.

Christ, how do they see?

 

[Timo]

Odds are that shields are gravitic tech (as indicated in the TNG and DS9 Tech Manuals). That's the most commonplace and probably also the best explored magic tech in the Trek universe, and has the potential for working on everything one could imagine needs to be worked on - interstellar propulsion, bending or stopping of EM, circumvention of certain basic laws of mechanics to the end of creating perpetual motion machines, etc.

Creating of an infinitely deep gravity well at a set distance from the ship should indeed have the effect of stopping just about anything. But one might do well to tune that barrier, so that it could best deflect the relevant threat. Lasers would be simple to block, being extremely narrowband; it would be easy to postulate a system that tracks the band and tunes the shields to block nothing but that band, thereby conserving resources and achieving much higher degree of deflection than would be possible against a more generic, wider-band threat. A side effect would be the ability to see everything but the enemy beam...

A radiation front from a nuke or a photon torpedo would be quite broadband and thus more likely to get at least some destruction through.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Myasishchev]

Then the distinction between nav deflector and regular deflectors is nil?

I can sort of get on board that trolley.

 

[Timo]

It would be slightly odd if two devices of the same name were based on completely different physical principles. But not impossible, I guess, if the common factor is that they are used for more or less the same purpose (gun, railgun, airgun, nailgun).

I'd assume that all Starfleet shielding is based on the principle of suspending an ungodly amount/strength of gravitons in space by means of subspace field magic, so that they wreak gravitic havoc with anything that dares impact but don't create gravitic attraction or repulsion in the surrounding space. Such devices could have specific areas of application, so that navigational deflectors might be optimized against the particulate threat of space dust, while combat deflectors would have properties that make them particularly suited for deflecting EM, or sustained bombardment of specific points, or massive kinetic impact. There could even be separate combat deflector devices for handling the rayguns and the kinetic impactors, but these would always be operated in concert via common software and commonly considered "shields".

Really, "being shielded" might just be a degree of "being clothed", and the ship would always wear the skimpy nightie of navigational deflectors, and oftentimes also the chaste fan of navigational deflection beam for covering the strategic spots.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[James Wright]

With the Defiant's phasers being pulse cannons is their range shorter than 300,000 kilometers?

 

[Timo]

Who knows? But they are only seen used at point-blank ranges. Perhaps they lose potency at longer ranges - or perhaps they just cannot be aimed as accurately as the strip-type or turret-type phasers, even though it's clear they aren't completely immobile, either.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Deks]

The pulses were portrayed visually as too slow to be effective at long ranges (at least in the later seasons).
In 'The Search' episode, those pulse phasers were firing rather rapidly and were reaching it's target in a virtually same amount of time like beams usually would.

But I personally think that both the beams and pulses should be moving at equally fast speeds to reach their designated targets (1 light second).
Ok ... perhaps lower the radius to 150 000km for pulse phasers and keep 300 000km for beams so that pulses can be fired at closer ranges, while beams at longer ranges.

 

[Omega_Glory]

IIRC, the book The Making of Star Trek stated that the phasers had a 300,000 km range.

Timo,
In Balance of Terror where is it implied or stated that the Enterprise fired on the Romulan ship at a range in excess of 300,000 km?

 

[Timo]

The hero vessel retreated from the Romulans at "emergency warp" for at least a minute (the time we saw on screen) and probably two (the estimate Sulu gave), without slowing down or flying in circles. That gives the two vessels a hefty separation, certainly in excess of one lightsecond.

Kirk then gives chase to the Romulans at less than maximum warp, again becoming a sensor ghost to them. He may have closed some of that distance there, but not down to a lightsecond, it seems - because he then orders maximum warp to catch the Romulans before they cross the Neutral Zone border, definitely much faster than the speed of the Romulans, and still fails to appreciably decrease range within the next twenty seconds of action (which involves phaser fire fired from a distance Stiles increduously considers "this distance?").

The main argument for a distance greater than one lightsecond is that Kirk doesn't overshoot the Romulans while firing, despite maintaining maximum warp. Luckily for us, his earlier retreat at maximum warp allows for that.

Timo Saloniemi