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Maybe telepathy is entanglement-related
But as you say, we're straying from our flock here
Why Didn't Starfleet Command Use Starfighters? | The Templin Institute
- Thread starter Kamen Rider Blade
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Maybe telepathy is entanglement-related
But as you say, we're straying from our flock here
That's a bug in the programming, that can be patched and fixed now that we know there's a vulnerability.
I love Gundam, Macross, Soukyuu no Fafner, Real/Super Robot/Mecha genre in general.
That's the design principle of StarFleet, to be a jack of all trades and good at many and most. And that's fine considering many one off weird Space Anomalies get solved via Science and Tech then brute force. Even lots of their combat tricks comes from utilizing science and tech in clever ways. Remember Defiant using Tractor beams to screw up the targeting of a Klingon Ship. Or using a specialized energy burst to force enemies to drop out of warp.
Part of the design principle that StarFleet uses is flexibility, and you gotta admit, StarFleet ships already are incredibly manueverable given how massive they are.
And we only need to look at Star Trek Beyond, the Enterprise didn't have enough fire power to slow down the Altamid Swarm Ships.
Imagine if the Altamid Ships weren't focused on kamikaze attacks & boarding parties and just sat at distance and spread apart and fired upon the Enterprise while enveloping them in a spherical enveleopment attack pattern.
It took at technical trick of jamming their VHF signals with "Classical Music" to stop them by flying so close to the swarm that they are literally meters away so that their jamming has enough signal power to work.
And if weapon ranges of 1-3 light seconds were in use, there would be more than enough volume to easily dodge and not enough torpedoes in your arsenal to make a difference since a well programmed drone swarm would automatically know to dodge torpedoes and get away from them.
Actually quite the opposite, Phasers are stated in the TNG technical manual to operate at the speed of light with a range of ~300,000 km. And since beam weapons are the fastest projectile, they are the biggest threat.
While a Torpedo could have fast linear acceleration and top speed, it won't beat a Phaser in terms of raw speed.
And don't think that small fighters / drones won't have sensors and ways to defend itself or attack torpedoes.
If a Torpedo comes out, it's on that target list as well.
Yet we see Shuttles, Maquis Raiders, and small craft be able to do damage to larger Capital Vessels. They may not hit like Mike Tyson, but enough regular hits, the shields will go down. That's why Quantity has a Quality all of it's own when engineered correctly.
Star Trek Beyond was visual proof that a large enough swarm can down the biggest of ships, especially if you don't care for the safety of your vessels and allow kamikaze attacks and boarding parties.
Ergo the ongoing layers of offense and defense, just like IRL.
You have "Attack Fighters" & "Interceptors" to counter the "Attackers".
You have "Space Superiority Fighters", and you counter those "Space Superiority Fighters" with your own.
Etc. The Onion Layer of Defense is what modern US Naval Fleet Doctrine is built on, it won't be that different in space.
The StarShips will happen to be significantly more mobile than US Navy Vessels and the StarFighters will be ALOT more manueverable than the StarShips.
The same applies to Drones & Torpedoes, you have a high number of both along with some amount of manned fighters.
I'm thinking.
1 Space Superiority Fighter: 13 Fighter Drones operating in wingman pairs.
That's not even counting for Attack Bits and Shield Bits that are deployed to operate away from the parent fighter or Star Ship.
I guess we were thinking of two different things.
Since technology is an ever-evolving and fluid thing. I can see moments in Star Trek history where fighters would be more or less useless, then moments where they are useful.
The only fighter I remember seeing in the original series was an actual fighter flying in the atmosphere. I think it was an F-104, class-named “Starfighter,” of all things! Spock said that its weapons could pose a threat to the Enterprise, a single Starfighter interceptor from the 1960’s. That’s about as cannon as it gets in favor of Starfighters!
The swarm, as depicted, in Star Trek: Beyond, however, is not a good example to use to compare fighters versus starships. The swarm was absolutely massive compared to the voluminous Enterprise, which was also not designed to fight like those drones of the swarm. So, it’s like comparing fighter jets to jumbo jets. Jumbo jets with phasers and photons.
Furthermore, if you took the same mass as the swarm but used a massive starship instead of a swarm against the Enterprise, the much more massive starship could easily have defeated it just the same and also would not have suffered a critical vulnerability later on.
For a true comparison in space, you must at least use the same mass on both sides of the contest.
But now you got me looking for some Gundam!
Fly my fangs!
Since technology is an ever-evolving and fluid thing. I can see moments in Star Trek history where fighters would be more or less useless, then moments where they are useful.
The only fighter I remember seeing in the original series was an actual fighter flying in the atmosphere. I think it was an F-104, class-named “Starfighter,” of all things! Spock said that its weapons could pose a threat to the Enterprise, a single Starfighter interceptor from the 1960’s. That’s about as cannon as it gets in favor of Starfighters!
The swarm, as depicted, in Star Trek: Beyond, however, is not a good example to use to compare fighters versus starships. The swarm was absolutely massive compared to the voluminous Enterprise, which was also not designed to fight like those drones of the swarm. So, it’s like comparing fighter jets to jumbo jets. Jumbo jets with phasers and photons.
Furthermore, if you took the same mass as the swarm but used a massive starship instead of a swarm against the Enterprise, the much more massive starship could easily have defeated it just the same and also would not have suffered a critical vulnerability later on.
For a true comparison in space, you must at least use the same mass on both sides of the contest.
But now you got me looking for some Gundam!
Fly my fangs!
The Cardassians have created a basic weapon that does just that, without having to expand the shield bubble.
The Cardassian ATR-4017 "Dreadnought" has a Plasma Wave attack that damages everything around it in a large ellipsoid bubble.
Indeed, we should realize that, layered defenses or not, there's basically no benefit to having point defense death rays. A shield bubble is simply a CIWS gun that covers all angles simultaneously and has an automatic 100% hit rate. Any power channeled away from that and into defensive phasers would only serve to weaken the defenses.
Now, a type of point defense weapon that does not detract from shields might be a good additional layer. Essentially, it would need to be something you fire unplugged. A swarm of fighters? A battery of projectile throwers, or then death ray projectors furing ammo preloaded at the factory and consuming zero energy outside that which is packed in the shell already?
Fighter swarms are bad for defense in that they need to expend their own power in order to stay apace with the maneuvering mothership. Turning them into mounted gun turrets would save power!
Except we know torps can do FTL, so they would automatically beat lightspeed phasers by a wide margin in certain fights.
Except we further know that phasers can do FTL, too. And some serious STL as well, all the way down to paintball speeds.
In practice, both are line-of-sight weapons that move so fast that we basically never observe any need to apply a lead against a moving target. In contrast, small craft are often outmaneuvered by their targets, so that walking the beam (or the projectiles) to the target is actually quite the chore.
Timo Saloniemi
Now, a type of point defense weapon that does not detract from shields might be a good additional layer. Essentially, it would need to be something you fire unplugged. A swarm of fighters? A battery of projectile throwers, or then death ray projectors furing ammo preloaded at the factory and consuming zero energy outside that which is packed in the shell already?
Fighter swarms are bad for defense in that they need to expend their own power in order to stay apace with the maneuvering mothership. Turning them into mounted gun turrets would save power!
Except we know torps can do FTL, so they would automatically beat lightspeed phasers by a wide margin in certain fights.
Except we further know that phasers can do FTL, too. And some serious STL as well, all the way down to paintball speeds.
In practice, both are line-of-sight weapons that move so fast that we basically never observe any need to apply a lead against a moving target. In contrast, small craft are often outmaneuvered by their targets, so that walking the beam (or the projectiles) to the target is actually quite the chore.
Timo Saloniemi
We don't see StarFleet launch Torpedoes at FTL while @ STL speeds.
The only time Torpedoes go FTL is when the StarFleet vessels are at FTL and the Torpedoes use their Warp Sustainer engine to borrow a chunk of the Warp Field when leaving the Warp Field of the vessel that launched it.
If StarFleet Torpedoes could actually hit Warp Speeds while launching from STL speeds, than they would be way more useful since the range they can cover would be significantly longer range than Phasers at 300,000 km.
The only reason line of sight weapons don't need to lead their target because the phasers travel at the speed of light and they're fight so close at WVR ranges that I can throw a base ball while in a EV suit and hit the hull of the enemy.
If they decided to do a real BVR fight like they did during the B5 in the "Battle of Gorash 7", then there would be a point to leading the target since they're at significant distance that leading would make sense.
The only time Torpedoes go FTL is when the StarFleet vessels are at FTL and the Torpedoes use their Warp Sustainer engine to borrow a chunk of the Warp Field when leaving the Warp Field of the vessel that launched it.
If StarFleet Torpedoes could actually hit Warp Speeds while launching from STL speeds, than they would be way more useful since the range they can cover would be significantly longer range than Phasers at 300,000 km.
The only reason line of sight weapons don't need to lead their target because the phasers travel at the speed of light and they're fight so close at WVR ranges that I can throw a base ball while in a EV suit and hit the hull of the enemy.
If they decided to do a real BVR fight like they did during the B5 in the "Battle of Gorash 7", then there would be a point to leading the target since they're at significant distance that leading would make sense.
We see the torpedo-shaped probe at warp nine in "The Emissary". It has less space for a propulsion system than a genuine torpedo. If launched from FTL, it either accelerated to much higher FTL, or then the Admiral was lying when she claimed her starbase did not have a ship that could deliver K'Ehleyr. The former is the likelier alternative. So torps have zero excuse not to accelerate themselves to FTL speeds.
Also, Kirk in "Journey to Babel" fires torps against a FTL (warp 8) target from a standstill starship. Sure, it works just as poorly as firing phasers at it, but the fact that Kirk tries would make no sense unless Kirk's projectiles (and beams) were capable of the intercept. It's very difficult to see how that could work if they weren't FTL.
Apart from this, the time it takes for a torp to hit the target ship or planet is not significantly different from the time it takes for a death ray to do so. Either both are STL, or both are FTL, but death rays don't provide a major tactical advantage in that respect, in the assorted space fights or orbital bombardment scenes we do see in full Technicolor.
We know that to be false (see above). If we want to believe in the Tech Manuals, then it being false simply means it's a lie, and the Tech Manuals are supposed to tell lies.
As far as onscreen Star Trek goes, warp sustainers don't exist. Whether torpedo launchers have any FTL properties, or indeed propulsive properties in general, is unknown; all torps might simply "swim out", and a launcher is actually a mere dispenser.
They are useful. They get used a lot, in all sorts of fights, including FTL battles, STL battles, bombardment, extreme range stuff like the strike against V'Ger... Nothing seems to limit their usefulness.
Not really - the beams would simply move faster when crossing greater distances. I mean, that's what we see happen with our own eyes. It takes the same time for a beam to cross a room as it takes for a beam to cross from ship to ship, or ship to planet, under all circumstances.
Timo Saloniemi
They could've launched her torpedo from a shuttle and the Torpedo could've grabbed the Warp Field off the Shuttle.
The only way that would work is if you predicted where the enemy was going and set the Torpedoes to Proximity Detonation once the enemy was close enough.
Phasers are stuck ASL (At the Speed of Light) for its beam incarnation. Bolts are obviously STL.
Torpedoes are STL when launched from a vessel moving at STL or FTL when a vessel is at FTL.
The only Torpedo that I saw with it's own FTL engine that can go from STL to FTL at Warp was the Druoda built Series 5 long-range tactical armor unit. That Torpedo was amazing in build/engineering compared to the StarFleet Standard Torpedo. It was only a meter long and significantly smaller than the standard Photon Torpedo casing that was the shape of a standard coffin.
It had it's own highly power dense battery in the form of CEM (Condensed Energy Matrix) that could power the torpedo over a distance of 80 ly, can defend itself with it's own shields, has enough Anti-Matter in it's Warhead for a blast radius of 200 km (Better than Tsar Bomba's 35 km), it can fight back as needed, has it's own AI for dodging & maneuvering, ECM, ECCM, hacking, etc.
It's the Cadillac/Mercedes of Torpedoes.
At that point, that's more about how the VFX artists chooses to render the beams
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Which would be the "Admiral lies to Picard" part: if the shuttle can do warp nine, then K'ehleyr would ride the shuttle.
[/quote]The only way that would work is if you predicted where the enemy was going and set the Torpedoes to Proximity Detonation once the enemy was close enough.[/quote]
And that's how all missiles work ITRL. But they still need to be way faster than their target to achieve that - in this case, faster than warp 8. Intercepting something head-on is one of the most demanding scenarios, and calls for the greatest agility and speed advantage.
As are the beams, since we can see their front ends moving through space easily enough. Except when they are FTL. Really, there's no set speed for a phaser beam, and no reason to think that there should be. Obviously you just turn a knob on your phaser to select speed.
Utter bullshit. Torpedoes are any speed they want to be, and there is no limitation based on launching conditions. No episode or movie of Star Trek ever claims otherwise.
Timo Saloniemi
So K'Ehleyr was transported in a Class 8 probe.
That "Probe" was a modified standard Torpedo Casing. It is capable of sustaining the speed of warp 9 for 6.5 hours
Intercepting a target head on requires more lateral agility and accurate sensors along with decent speed.
So you're saying that StarFleet has been holding back and not turning up the Speed Setting to 11 and going ASL.
So determined by writers plot is how you would define it.
Some F-104 variants were capable of carrying tactical nuclear warheads.
True, and the Enterprise was in a rather compromised condition at the time. Still, it was a real fighter versus a capital ship in Star Trek.
The fighter was operating in the medium it was designed to operate in, while the starship was climbing to get back into the medium it operated best in.
The fighter was operating in the medium it was designed to operate in, while the starship was climbing to get back into the medium it operated best in.
Which goes to prove that torpedoes can go FTL independently, as discussed above (just use that thing as a torp). It's just a matter of deciding if they do. And, again as discussed above, there is no evidence that they would not. They are always fast enough, after all, also in FTL engagements.
What we observe gives the 100% hit rate and the near-instant hits across arbitrary distances. So yes, the speed is turned up and down at will, to produce this observed perfection. This should not be particularly unclear or debatable, since it's observable.
Naah. Determined by what the end result of the toilings of writers, VFX wizards, carpenters and stagehands presents to our eyes is how it goes. And the writers may end up being flat out contradicted by that end result.
On the issue of how fast a torpedo moves or which buttons need to be pushed to make it jump to warp eight, the ultimate authority tends to be the VFX team, with a minor additional role for the director and editor who provide the pacing for the relevant cues on time-from-A-to-B and the like. And these parties apparently never read any Tech Manual and never will; instead, the manuals are written with the already witnessed onscreen events in mind, and most of their additional speculation never catches on.
Some does, but so far, not the idea that torps would have "sustainers", let alone those only. Which gives us maximum leeway in deciding how viable small fightercraft might be; perhaps a torpedo with a cockpit (as already seen!) could be our starting point?
Timo Saloniemi
You really want to make a Coffin Fighter, don't you?
Well, the only way I could see it win fights is if it delivers live Klingons to the target. But this might not be a bad way to win.
(I wonder if the superlarge torp fired by Control against the Enterprise wasn't designed for the very purpose. That is, S31 might on occasion want to deliver a giant kaboom, but more often the mega-torp would hold spying sensors or top secret courier packages - or be used for inserting or extracting agents. Through some walls if need be!)
Timo Saloniemi
(I wonder if the superlarge torp fired by Control against the Enterprise wasn't designed for the very purpose. That is, S31 might on occasion want to deliver a giant kaboom, but more often the mega-torp would hold spying sensors or top secret courier packages - or be used for inserting or extracting agents. Through some walls if need be!)
Timo Saloniemi
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Drop troopers?
I’m going to piggyback off this thread to ask the question: do the Type-18 Shuttlepods count as fighters in your guys eyes?
Shuttlepods are pretty tiny, and the Type 18 is supposed to be the “all tactical” version of a shuttlepod in the same way the Defiant is to a starship, and they are I think closer to what people think of as “fighters” in sci-fi than some of the “fighters” of the Dominion War that are runabout sized (and probably more akin to MTBs).
Although they would be fairly weak in combat, the Type 18 is the sort of “Star Trek Fighter” I would not mind seeing more of. It to me *looks* like the sort of thing Starfleet would build to fill that role: sturdy and utilitarian looking as other shuttles, but yet small, nimble, and well armed. I can just imagine a gaggle of them spilling out of an Akira’s shuttle bays.
Shuttlepods are pretty tiny, and the Type 18 is supposed to be the “all tactical” version of a shuttlepod in the same way the Defiant is to a starship, and they are I think closer to what people think of as “fighters” in sci-fi than some of the “fighters” of the Dominion War that are runabout sized (and probably more akin to MTBs).
Although they would be fairly weak in combat, the Type 18 is the sort of “Star Trek Fighter” I would not mind seeing more of. It to me *looks* like the sort of thing Starfleet would build to fill that role: sturdy and utilitarian looking as other shuttles, but yet small, nimble, and well armed. I can just imagine a gaggle of them spilling out of an Akira’s shuttle bays.
Cannon fodder. IN the TNG episode Connundrum, Enterprise vaporises an entire squadron of small ships in less time than it takes to swat a fly. "Fighters" in trek universe are far larger ships in the 30-60 meter range. Anything smaller would be vaporized in the first attack against an enemy ship. On the other hand a modest vessel with heavy duty starship parts like shield generators and weapons could hold it's own despite it's small size, for it isn't necessarily size but power output that matters.
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