Controversial Opinion:
Detached nacelles are excellent and look very cool.
Detached nacelles are excellent and look very cool.
What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?
- Thread starter Amasov
- Start date
sure, if you discount all of the successful dramas and political thrillers...
Even in dramas and political thrillers, there's always something going on. And those movies are also a flesh-and-blood villain.
They do, though I’ve always felt they increase the risk of outright losing a major ship component if heavy damage (or just a strong enough shear) is taken.
@korblborp
Seriously, a light hearted opinion expressed in this thread makes you give an ‘angry’ reaction?
How very tedious of you.
Two tips for growing up:
1) Quote the poster you disagree with and debate.
2) Just fucking grow up.
Cheers.
R
Seriously, a light hearted opinion expressed in this thread makes you give an ‘angry’ reaction?
How very tedious of you.
Two tips for growing up:
1) Quote the poster you disagree with and debate.
2) Just fucking grow up.
Cheers.
R
Easy, tiger.
writing out such a response to a reaction emote (made in jest, even)?
how very tedious of you.
two tips for growing up:
1) don't do that
2) just fucking grow up
cheers
K.
on a detailed note on my objection to detached nacelles:
1) the above "if you lose power they might drift away"
2) powering them in the first place, since warp engines seem to rely on some direct infusion and interaction with high-energy plasma
3) wasting power to keep them in place
4) make more sense to do away with nacelles at this point, as many non-fed ships even before disco's time jump simply don't have them and it would give a better sense that starfleet has advanced it's tech (or better, had developed something other than warp post-Burn, as we know such things have existed also)
For me, they just didn't make sense. It's easier to lose them entirely due to damage or an anomaly.
I feel like they were done just to try to set that century apart from before (along with other things), and while it does do that, it just feels... hollow. Like the rest of the 32nd century, it was just a cosmetic change without really feeling different.
Our world is very different than it was 100 years ago. (Hell, even 50 years.) 900 years? Very little, if anything, should be or feel recognizable.
So, a starship can encounter all kinds of phenomena that can tear it apart. Apparently from how Trek tech is supposed to work, a lot depends upon the structural integrity field. If it fails, your ship's hull can be torn apart, no matter what it's made of.
Since so much depends upon force fields anyway, detached nacelles held in place by force fields alone doesn't seem unreasonable at all. And that would be especially so, if dispensing with the material pylons attaching them to the rest of the ship actually improved the effectiveness of the force fields holding them in place.
Also, the arrangement with force fields permits dynamic reconfiguration which might relieve stress differentials that could not be relieved in material pylons.
Since so much depends upon force fields anyway, detached nacelles held in place by force fields alone doesn't seem unreasonable at all. And that would be especially so, if dispensing with the material pylons attaching them to the rest of the ship actually improved the effectiveness of the force fields holding them in place.
Also, the arrangement with force fields permits dynamic reconfiguration which might relieve stress differentials that could not be relieved in material pylons.
~ Yes. Yes they do! I've thought so since 2015's AWESOME Jupiter Ascending
Structural Integrity Field is important, but it's really most important for warp. (That field's failure is why all the Jem'Hadar died in their ship in DS9's "THE SHIP".)
Just having a force field keep your nacelle there is just ludicrous. Say it fails (which force fields fail VERY often in the franchise), now your nacelle is floating away from your ship. In open space, this might not be too big of a problem... just maneuver back to grab it.
But in a nebula, anomaly, or something else? Can easily be completely lost. Or while in orbit, it falls down the atmosphere, either burning up completely on the way down or crashing to the surface if it actually survives the atmosphere.
Now matter how you slice it, it's just an unnecessary risk.
Oh, I almost forgot. Say the force field fails. We have no idea what kind of residual charge remains that could keep the field stable in some basic mode or how long it might last before the nacelles actually start to drift away from the rest of the ship and become unable to envelope it in a warp field. Heck, for all we know, the force fields are such an integral part of the warp field itself, so that failure of the force field can happen only if the nacelles are useless for a warp drive anyway.
While I’d agree strongly in real life, I think the idea in the era of Burn-and-beyond Trek is that the fields they use are as strong or stronger than physical materials, so in practice they never fail (until one eventually does for story reasons, I’m sure).
Though the SIF has to be just as important for sublight, the way these ships move and accelerate. Otherwise the crew would get pasted against the walls and the rear.
I agree it's important for impulse speeds, for the reasons you stated.
But a ship can still be in one piece without it if it's still or drifting. If it's drifting, chances are it's damaged so badly that the SIF is likely either off or severely weakened, to the point that any loose parts of the ship, like detached nacelles, would be drifting away.
Sure. If anything, I could see the SIF being what holds the nacelles in place in the first place. (Probably on old traditional attached ships too, given the stresses.)
I don't think the detached Warp Nacelles are using any form of Force Fields to stay alongside their Parent Ship.
It's just fancy Synchronized Flying with Low Latency inputs from the Parent Vessel to stay perfectly aligned with the ship.
That's far easier & less energy intensive than having to use a Force Field to keep the Detached Warp Nacelles in place.
You're trying to use the most unnecessarilly complicated & energy intensive way to solve the problem.
Use the KISS Principle.
Detached Warp Nacelles has many advantages.
PRO(s):
- Being easy to reconfigure the Warp Field into any shape is one of them.
- Add in any # of Warp Nacelles to your vessel is another, no need for creating a new variant of a StarShip.
- If a Warp Nacelle is damaged beyond repair or taken out for whatever reason, an ally can easily bring in a Battle Field replacement on the fly.
- Also, you save significantly on Mass/Weight of the OverAll Vessel by not needing a Connecting Neck or Pylons.
- The Individual Independent Shields for each Warp Nacelle can be far more powerful and seperate from the rest of the vessel.
This effectively turns your Warp Nacelles into a Drone Vessel that is digitally chained to your vessel.
CON(s):
- Granted you have to duplicate most major systems into each Detached Warp Nacelles, but that's nothing for a 31st Century StarShip.
- You have extra Complexity when designing StarShips with Detached Warp Nacelles, so all the bugs need to be tested & Ironed Out
- A Warp Nacelle that is Detached will be slightly heavier than a traditional one that is Firmly Attached due to extra Systems necessary for it to function.
Any OverAll weight savings comes from removing the Pylons & Necks.
- You might have limited Fuel within each Warp Nacelle that needs to be periodically beamed in from the Parent Ship to run the Detached Warp Nacelles.
It's just fancy Synchronized Flying with Low Latency inputs from the Parent Vessel to stay perfectly aligned with the ship.
That's far easier & less energy intensive than having to use a Force Field to keep the Detached Warp Nacelles in place.
You're trying to use the most unnecessarilly complicated & energy intensive way to solve the problem.
Use the KISS Principle.
Detached Warp Nacelles has many advantages.
PRO(s):
- Being easy to reconfigure the Warp Field into any shape is one of them.
- Add in any # of Warp Nacelles to your vessel is another, no need for creating a new variant of a StarShip.
- If a Warp Nacelle is damaged beyond repair or taken out for whatever reason, an ally can easily bring in a Battle Field replacement on the fly.
- Also, you save significantly on Mass/Weight of the OverAll Vessel by not needing a Connecting Neck or Pylons.
- The Individual Independent Shields for each Warp Nacelle can be far more powerful and seperate from the rest of the vessel.
This effectively turns your Warp Nacelles into a Drone Vessel that is digitally chained to your vessel.
CON(s):
- Granted you have to duplicate most major systems into each Detached Warp Nacelles, but that's nothing for a 31st Century StarShip.
- You have extra Complexity when designing StarShips with Detached Warp Nacelles, so all the bugs need to be tested & Ironed Out
- A Warp Nacelle that is Detached will be slightly heavier than a traditional one that is Firmly Attached due to extra Systems necessary for it to function.
Any OverAll weight savings comes from removing the Pylons & Necks.
- You might have limited Fuel within each Warp Nacelle that needs to be periodically beamed in from the Parent Ship to run the Detached Warp Nacelles.
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