What are the technology differences of the phaser rifles seen on TNG, including the movies?
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TNG era Federation Phaser Rifles
- Thread starter James Wright
- Start date
Yeah, there's not a lot of information there about each individual weapon, not even a diagram showing the component parts of a phaser rifle.
Basically, a phaser rifle is just a bigger phaser. Seriously, that's all it is. It makes our heroes look more heroic and more like they're going to kick someone's ass if they're carrying around a big weapon rather than a small weapon.
In-universe, I suppose a phaser rifle may have bigger power packs and maybe better targeting capabillities. Probably handy if you need to hit something with precision or if you think you're going to be in a prolonged battle. The different phaser rifle types seen since TNG may simply represent subsequently improved models of the same thing, IMO.
In-universe, I suppose a phaser rifle may have bigger power packs and maybe better targeting capabillities. Probably handy if you need to hit something with precision or if you think you're going to be in a prolonged battle. The different phaser rifle types seen since TNG may simply represent subsequently improved models of the same thing, IMO.
Rett Mikhal
Captain
How come no weapons in the future have sites of any kind? Everybody just points and clicks.
Sidearms might have something that negates the need for sights, as they are often seen firing off-axis and hitting their intended targets even though they are not directly pointed at those.
The idea of "target acquisition" does jibe nicely with what we see, though, and all Starfleet phasers might have that. A rifle just acquires multiple targets, and the user can then select which ones to hit. I could imagine a functionality where one points the gun in the general direction of the enemy, presses the trigger halfway, receives a comforting buzz in the handle whenever the gun acquires a target (say, locks on to the closest lifeform in that general direction), and can then hit the target by fully depressing the trigger. The little pop-up "sight" of the rifle would be more informative than the handle buzzer in multi-targeting applications.
The "autonomous recharge" thing sounds weird. Does it mean that the gun will reload itself after being emptied, given enough time? Actually, that might make sense, in the correct context. Starfleet ships and installations might well be equipped with a wireless power network that constantly recharges the PADDs and communicators and other gadgets aboard; a Starfleet phaser rifle could siphon power off this grid all by itself, whereas some lesser weapons might need special power sockets for that. The reloading wouldn't happen if the gun were out in the field, of course. Not unless some hapless sap in the platoon was burdened with a power generator...
As for the original question, the various rifles of ST:FC plus the "standard" rifle seen in TNG and DS9 before that movie, I'd suggest something like this:
Standard two-grip rifle does everything a hand phaser does, plus fires a greater variety of beam or pulse shapes, can multitarget, and serves as a club in hand-to-hand combat. The M16 assault rifle of Starfleet.
ST:FC gripless, pistol-butt rifle is better, because Nog packs that rather than the standard rifle in "Empok Nor". We don't see clear differences in the eps or movies, though. Could be the gun has a higher rate or power of fire or range, making it the M249 light machine gun of Starfleet - basically the same thing as the standard rifle, but adds a bit of bulk and thus decreases mobility while providing slight extra punch. Picard would deem that extra punch a suitable reason for equipping his crew with nonstandard guns in ST:FC, then. Alternately, this design is simply the next standard rifle, and Nog is merely being silly with his gun fetish.
The two different muzzle shapes for this ST:FC rifle are either meaningless, or then the fancy silver angular cover on some of the rifles is a "silencer" or "muzzle flash suppressor" or "accuracy enhancer" of some sort, and easily snaps on and off (because in ST:FC, Worf's rifle mutates between the two muzzle configurations between shots!).
ST:FC two-grip rifle is the exact same as the pistol-butt gun, simply shaped differently so that it can be handled while wearing a clumsy spacesuit. And perhaps built with a few vacuum or zero-gee conveniences, such as gripping pads or extra cooling/heating.
VOY compression rifle is the Starfleet military shotgun, featuring a death ray that is somehow differently put together ("compressed") but in practice yields more or less the same effect as the standard phaser beam. The compression rifle may be best suited for close range work, since we never see long range applications, or may have a narrower selection of firing modes than the competing DS9 design.
Timo Saloniemi
Backstage technobabble doesn't suggest higher output power, but does suggest greater endurance, multiple firing modes and better targeting. Onscreen, Kira describes the good old two-handed Starfleet phaser rifle like this:
She's describing the gun in relation to its Cardassian equivalent, so we might speculate that the Cardassian rifle has fewer settings, needs auxiliary assets for recharging, can acquire only one target, and isn't stabilized... We already know that the Starfleet sidearm phaser has those 16 settings, so that's not an improvement brought by adopting the rifle frame.
The idea of "target acquisition" does jibe nicely with what we see, though, and all Starfleet phasers might have that. A rifle just acquires multiple targets, and the user can then select which ones to hit. I could imagine a functionality where one points the gun in the general direction of the enemy, presses the trigger halfway, receives a comforting buzz in the handle whenever the gun acquires a target (say, locks on to the closest lifeform in that general direction), and can then hit the target by fully depressing the trigger. The little pop-up "sight" of the rifle would be more informative than the handle buzzer in multi-targeting applications.
The "autonomous recharge" thing sounds weird. Does it mean that the gun will reload itself after being emptied, given enough time? Actually, that might make sense, in the correct context. Starfleet ships and installations might well be equipped with a wireless power network that constantly recharges the PADDs and communicators and other gadgets aboard; a Starfleet phaser rifle could siphon power off this grid all by itself, whereas some lesser weapons might need special power sockets for that. The reloading wouldn't happen if the gun were out in the field, of course. Not unless some hapless sap in the platoon was burdened with a power generator...
As for the original question, the various rifles of ST:FC plus the "standard" rifle seen in TNG and DS9 before that movie, I'd suggest something like this:
Standard two-grip rifle does everything a hand phaser does, plus fires a greater variety of beam or pulse shapes, can multitarget, and serves as a club in hand-to-hand combat. The M16 assault rifle of Starfleet.
ST:FC gripless, pistol-butt rifle is better, because Nog packs that rather than the standard rifle in "Empok Nor". We don't see clear differences in the eps or movies, though. Could be the gun has a higher rate or power of fire or range, making it the M249 light machine gun of Starfleet - basically the same thing as the standard rifle, but adds a bit of bulk and thus decreases mobility while providing slight extra punch. Picard would deem that extra punch a suitable reason for equipping his crew with nonstandard guns in ST:FC, then. Alternately, this design is simply the next standard rifle, and Nog is merely being silly with his gun fetish.
The two different muzzle shapes for this ST:FC rifle are either meaningless, or then the fancy silver angular cover on some of the rifles is a "silencer" or "muzzle flash suppressor" or "accuracy enhancer" of some sort, and easily snaps on and off (because in ST:FC, Worf's rifle mutates between the two muzzle configurations between shots!).
ST:FC two-grip rifle is the exact same as the pistol-butt gun, simply shaped differently so that it can be handled while wearing a clumsy spacesuit. And perhaps built with a few vacuum or zero-gee conveniences, such as gripping pads or extra cooling/heating.
VOY compression rifle is the Starfleet military shotgun, featuring a death ray that is somehow differently put together ("compressed") but in practice yields more or less the same effect as the standard phaser beam. The compression rifle may be best suited for close range work, since we never see long range applications, or may have a narrower selection of firing modes than the competing DS9 design.
Timo Saloniemi
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We've seen the hand phasers in TNG fire beams that don't seem to shoot straight out, the beam comes out at a good angle. A good in-universe explanation would be that the phasers possess a steerable beam combined with semi-intelligent target seeking ability.
Point the phaser in the general direction of the bad guy and the phaser itself will do the rest.
It's just too bad that this functionality is not exploited to the fullest. Somehow, our heroes still manage to miss from time to time!
Also, if the guns can auto-target, it might make sense for our heroes to occasionally use them in "detached mode": punch in a setting, throw the weapon into a room or around a corner, wait for the noises to stop, and only then enter yourself.
But autonomous weapons are rather dangerous, unless they are equipped with advanced AI that can make moral judgments. Which might rule out "detached mode" and also limit the use of the auto-targeting system so that the man-in-the-loop would be in greater control of the ultimate firing decision.
Timo Saloniemi
Also, if the guns can auto-target, it might make sense for our heroes to occasionally use them in "detached mode": punch in a setting, throw the weapon into a room or around a corner, wait for the noises to stop, and only then enter yourself.
But autonomous weapons are rather dangerous, unless they are equipped with advanced AI that can make moral judgments. Which might rule out "detached mode" and also limit the use of the auto-targeting system so that the man-in-the-loop would be in greater control of the ultimate firing decision.
Timo Saloniemi
With bigger power packs, a phaser rifle may be able to fire for a longer time than a phaser pistol before needing a new "clip". Higher beam settings likely drain power packs quicker than lower settings do, so having a larger energy battery or reserve would come in handy in certain situations.
I don't like the Federation phaser rifles, they're to technical and thry're to long for confined spaces.
Also having a rifle that never needs ammo clips kills the drama.
James
Also having a rifle that never needs ammo clips kills the drama.
James
Just as a modern military rifle has the have a new barral after being fired several thousand times, a phaser may need servicing periodically and require components to be completely replace (followed by calibration) after a certain number of firings. Different power settings increase "wear."
The phaser rifle (how is it "rifled"?) would possess more robust components, but they come with a size and weigh penalty.
Yeah. I never watch shows where they have guns; swords are the only dramatic way to go.
We've seen explicit power clips in one episode, "Omega Glory", for the Type 2 weapon.
We've seen what looked like possible power clips in ST5:TFF, for the supposed Type 2 weapon used there (although the designation is unclear - perhaps that one was more like a submachine gun?), and in "The Siege of AR-558", for the standard Type 3 rifles. The rifles from ST:FC also seem to have a sliding top hatch just behind the sight, for checking on charge status, inserting a clip, whatever. But the removables in these guns could have been something unrelated to power storage, too - perhaps they are the component that is subject to wear and tear that T'Girl postulates?
Also, I retract my earlier comment about the two-grip rifle from ST:FC being configured that way solely for use with a spacesuit. In VOY, our heroes use the standard ST:FC rifle, with the standard butt, in combination with their spacesuits. So we're left wondering if the increased bulk of the two-grip gun again means increased power, or increased versatility, or some such advantage.
Timo Saloniemi
Can the components of a Federation phaser rifle be miniaturized to reconfigure them into a bull pup design for use in confined spaces, corridors of starships for example?
I don't really see the need. The TNG/DS9 standard rifle is already as "bullpup" as one would ever want it to be: there's no stock, just two pistol grips, and placing the grips any closer to each other would make one's hold of the weapon less secure (and reduce its value as a club in close combat).
It's not possible to configure a phaser for what's currently meant by "bullpup", to be accurate: there's no barrel, and the thing most analogous to lock or firing chamber is located at the very forward end of the gun, so one gains nothing by placing this machinery aft of the trigger grip, and cannot even do it in practice. But one gains very little by generically shortening the TNG/DS9 standard gun, too.
This is not to say that 24th century engineers mightn't toy around with exotic layouts, just like today's engineers create "bullpups". Perhaps a phaser rifle could be constructed so that most of it forms a comfortably worn belt or harness, and the very light and small emitter is strapped to the user's wrist? Or to his forehead or temple? Perhaps there could be multiple emitter heads, placed around the top of the user's head like a crown and equipped with a 360 degree scope, so that the user can peek past an obstacle without actually exposing his head, and shoot in every possible direction without turning his head or body. Or the strip technology used on starships could be worn like wraparound clothing by infantrymen. Why settle for the complicated "point and shoot" when you can simplify it to just "shoot"?
Timo Saloniemi
It's not possible to configure a phaser for what's currently meant by "bullpup", to be accurate: there's no barrel, and the thing most analogous to lock or firing chamber is located at the very forward end of the gun, so one gains nothing by placing this machinery aft of the trigger grip, and cannot even do it in practice. But one gains very little by generically shortening the TNG/DS9 standard gun, too.
This is not to say that 24th century engineers mightn't toy around with exotic layouts, just like today's engineers create "bullpups". Perhaps a phaser rifle could be constructed so that most of it forms a comfortably worn belt or harness, and the very light and small emitter is strapped to the user's wrist? Or to his forehead or temple? Perhaps there could be multiple emitter heads, placed around the top of the user's head like a crown and equipped with a 360 degree scope, so that the user can peek past an obstacle without actually exposing his head, and shoot in every possible direction without turning his head or body. Or the strip technology used on starships could be worn like wraparound clothing by infantrymen. Why settle for the complicated "point and shoot" when you can simplify it to just "shoot"?
Timo Saloniemi
Just how long is the last phaser rifle you mentioned above?
Aren't phasers meant to overheat if used often on the highest settings? (IIRC, the top setting - which isn't so much "kill" as "disintegrate" - only lets you fire off a short burst every couple of minutes) Phaser rifles may have more efficent cooling across their larger areas for those circumstances.
I think I'm going to have to dig out my technical manual aren't I?
Being published well before TNG movies and maybe a series or 2, the tech manual will cover the very first phaser rifle.
Being published well before TNG movies and maybe a series or 2, the tech manual will cover the very first phaser rifle.
Check out phasers.net 
http://phasers.net/2360/type3.htm
You can see how compact those phaser rifles are.
Edit: Not quite as fun or ergonomic as a P90 though
http://phasers.net/2360/type3.htm
You can see how compact those phaser rifles are.
Edit: Not quite as fun or ergonomic as a P90 though
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