Would different "types" of phasers make sense?

[XCV330]

Instinctive Point Shooting is a IRL Shooting Technique where you're not aiming directly with the provided sites on the gun.

Some called it "Hip Shooting" or "Shooting from the Hip".

It does happen, but it's not recommended for distances larger than your typical room in side a building.

Phasers can have sites placed on them if they wanted to.
ST:ENT showed what happens when you modernize, you can even have retractable scopes.

I'm aware of point shooting. I've known some people into cowboy action shooting, that can manage it. I wasn't taught to do it, and wasting expensive ammo at the range trying to learn to be Yosemite Sam didn't interest me. They generally use very underpowered rounds (mouse farts) to do it, so that jives with beam weapons, but its hardly the best case scenario, nor was it ever the prime method. There's a reason even early Colts had a rudimentary sight. People used them. Belly guns like derringers and pepperboxes didn't need them, as they were basically made for contact range.

The dust busters do have a natural holding posture. The more I think about it, they more they kind of make sense.


edited to add: the amount of time it takes to draw, aim, and shoot takes so little time to someone trained to do it, that drawing from the hip and hoping that you hit something just doesn't make sense. it looked great on old westerns, and that's probably why it was done on TOS.

 

[DSG2k]

That might as well be a mini turret mounted on the end of a muzzle since you want it to point off bore axis for you.

Like this?

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Belly guns like derringers and pepperboxes didn't need them, as they were basically made for contact range.

Belly Guns are a seperate weapon category from Derringers & PepperBoxes.

Spoiler: Black Lagoon: Roberta's Blood Trail - Buckle Pistol

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Roberta's Belt Buckle or "Belly Gun" was a 3-shot Derringer Style Pistol disguised as a standard Belt Buckle.
It's based off a real life version of that weapon, but used in the "Black Lagoon OVA: Roberta's Blood Trail".

Derringers & PepperBoxes are meant for CQB/CQC distances only, they aren't really useful for ranges greater than that.

Nothing beats Meryl Stryfe's use of Derringers from the TRIGUN Anime.
She has 50x Derringers hidden underneath her giant coat.

The dust busters do have a natural holding posture. The more I think about it, they more they kind of make sense.

The Dust Buster phasers would've made for a good Hybrid "Phaser Blaster/Saber".
Have one Emitter for the Super Long Beam Blade and the other for a standard Phaser Pistol.
You could easily get a 2-in-1 weapon.

Like this?

The end result is what is shown.

The way I would've done it was with a Ball Turret mounted on the end that can swivel as needed via Computer Aided Aiming.

 

[XCV330]

Belly Guns are a seperate weapon category from Derringers & PepperBoxes.

I was speaking in a modern parlance, not historical or fictional, sorry. In carry/conceal circles, belly gun often just means any tiny firearm that is designed as a last ditch weapon, to just get away from an attack. It's not designed with a shootout in mind and usually only weighs a few ounces: such as the Lifecard, NAA mini-revolver, Berreta Bobcat, etc. But that's getting outside the scope of this.

I liked your idea of the ball-turret inside the the dust-buster.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

The TOS type-1 hand phaser as designed by Jefferies had a sight system with a flip-up screen and control dial:




It wasn't always used, but sometimes it clearly was open.



Memory Alpha article.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I was speaking in a modern parlance, not historical or fictional, sorry. In carry/conceal circles, belly gun often just means any tiny firearm that is designed as a last ditch weapon, to just get away from an attack. It's not designed with a shootout in mind and usually only weighs a few ounces: such as the Lifecard, NAA mini-revolver, Berreta Bobcat, etc. But that's getting outside the scope of this.

I liked your idea of the ball-turret inside the the dust-buster.

I've always liked the Type-1 Phaser from the TNG era.

It was so compact & useful, everybody should have a few in their pockets.

There are so many times that a StarFleet Officer was kidnapped that would've been made easier for them if they had a few pocket knives & Type-1 Phasers on their person some where.

I still remember from the old Time Trax TV show that the main character "Darrien Lambert" had a MPPT designed to look like a Car Alarm Remote Control of the 1990's.

Imagine a modified Type-1 Phaser that can fire phaser bolts, but you would hold the device like you would hold a Car Alarm, the useful-ness would be invaluable when you're in a pinch..

 

[XCV330]

I've always liked the Type-1 Phaser from the TNG era.

It was so compact & useful, everybody should have a few in their pockets.

There are so many times that a StarFleet Officer was kidnapped that would've been made easier for them if they had a few pocket knives & Type-1 Phasers on their person some where.

I still remember from the old Time Trax TV show that the main character "Darrien Lambert" had a MPPT designed to look like a Car Alarm Remote Control of the 1990's.

Imagine a modified Type-1 Phaser that can fire phaser bolts, but you would hold the device like you would hold a Car Alarm, the useful-ness would be invaluable when you're in a pinch..

There must be thousands lost in the cushions of Ent-D

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I liked your idea of the ball-turret inside the the dust-buster.

Gyro Stabilized Gymballed Ball Turrets don't get enough love as a Beam Emitter / Weapons Platform.

Being able to shoot on the move, while moving over rough / uneven terrain while stabilizing the Emitter Head is a vastly under-rated feature.

We already have IRL Gyro Stabilized Gymbals for Action Cameras & Regular Camera's.

Combining them with real world beam Emitter weapons is the next logical evolutionary step.

 

[blssdwlf]

edited to add: the amount of time it takes to draw, aim, and shoot takes so little time to someone trained to do it, that drawing from the hip and hoping that you hit something just doesn't make sense. it looked great on old westerns, and that's probably why it was done on TOS.

It seems to be a mixed bag on when phasers were aimed down sights or fired from the hip in TOS. Here are a few times when phasers were aimed down sights and one where you see both aiming and firing from the hip by two different characters.

https://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/screencaps/season1/105-man-trap/man-trap-br-582.jpg

https://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/al...n1/113-galileo-seven/galileo-seven-br-324.jpg

https://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/al...n1/113-galileo-seven/galileo-seven-br-338.jpg

https://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/al...n1/113-galileo-seven/galileo-seven-br-341.jpg

 

[CorporalCaptain]

https://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/screencaps/season1/105-man-trap/man-trap-br-582.jpg

Thanks for posting that one. It's a great shot of Kirk firing his phaser-2 with its phaser-1 sight activated.

 

[blssdwlf]

I totally forgot about "The Naked Time"

https://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/screencaps/season1/106-naked-time/naked-time-br-508.jpg

https://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/screencaps/season1/106-naked-time/naked-time-br-570.jpg

 

[Sgt_G]

Up topic, someone mentioned Gatling Phasers in SFB. Those ship-mounted weapons, but I thought the point of this thread was handheld weapons.

 

[Oddish]

A couple of thoughts...
First, phasers are not the only weapons you need. Consider the scene in Enterprise, where the Nausican pirates attacked that freighter. There were a cluster of them together. A WW1-issue grenade would have shredded them. Instead, they got what they wanted, and undoubtedly continued with their piracy since they received no consequences for it. Happily, the MACO's did have grenade type weapons.

Also, in Star Trek Elite Force, you have a nice assortment of weapons, with their equivalents.
1. Hand phaser. Equivalent to a pistol.
2. Compression rifle. Equivalent to a semiauto rifle, with a sniper mode.
3. I-MOD. Also like a semiauto, but works on Borg.
4. Scavenger rifle. Like a fast firing submachine gun.
5. Etherian weapon. Kind of like a shotgun.
6. Grenade launcher. Fires grenades or sticky bombs.
7. Tetryon pulse disruptor. Hirogen weapon, similar to a light machine gun.
8. Photon burst. Handheld torpedo launcher, like a missile launcher or RPG.
9. Arc Welder. Welding tool improvised into a weapon. Continuous fire, like a man-portable minigun

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

We definitely need more variety of weapons.

I already have in my head cannon arsenal several innovations.

A combo of "Corner Shot" & "LMG" where you can bend the emitter around a corner and just spray the area w/o exposing yourself.

A Multi-Lock Auto-Targeting Phaser Bow where the user wear's a special Sun Glasses / that helps with wide area auto targeting and the bow has a array of Beam Emitters mounted along the limbs that allows you to fire X# of Beam Bolts simultaneously at different targets on the field.

I have all sorts of interesting gadgets for the StarFleet Officer to wield.

Literally as much gear as "007 has access from Q" or "Batman & Ironman would have access to", but distributed to the average StarFleet Officer to choose from.

StarFleet is "Very Busy" on creating new gear to solve problems or potentially solve problems.

 

[korblborp]

Why would you need rapid-fire phasers, when you could fire one in each hand?(fire the right hand, then the left. Or if need be, both at the same time).

the same reason you don't actually do this with guns in real life: aiming and stability

 

[korblborp]

The thing is we aren't talking about IRL guns, we're talking about 300 years-from-now-energy weapons.

Those computers should have no problem ID-ing the target, compensating for any movement of the operator, leading the target, etc. and directing the shot where it needs to go.

and there's no reason we (and the designers of said future weapons) should not draw upon the nearly a millennium of lessons learned when thinking about about them.
relying on an auto targeting thingyhoosy, for example... neat idea, probably fail or at least be unreliable for all sorts of reasons in practice

A stock is extra weight and more cumbersome unless you really need one for one or more reasons.

it could just be a simple wire stock

 

[Airmandan]

Given the amount of CQC we see in the Star Trek universe, you would think that a wide cone or fan would be the standard firing mode. Would be much more effective in the frequent corridor firefights we keep seeing. The way the Klingons hand weapons that could be attached to stocks like in Search for Spock made a lot of sense and is something that the Federation should had utilized in their hand weapons. Rifles are inherently easier to shoot for beginner's or those lacking experience, would make a lot more sense for federation types that don't carry weapons often.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Given the amount of CQC we see in the Star Trek universe, you would think that a wide cone or fan would be the standard firing mode.

Those would drain a LOT more energy to hit with the same amount of damage a bolt does.

Basic Laws of Physics dictates that you don't burn through your energy pointlessly firing a wide cone or fan if you don't have to.

Short of fighting a swarm of killer insect droids, or actual insect swarms, or many high speed moving projectiles coming in at you; you generally only need concentrated energy against a single target.

---

stock

Most modern stocks are incredibly light weight and made of advanced polymers.

For IRL weapons, the heaviest components are the barrel, the receiver, the frame, the operating system internally, and the ammo usually.

For future weapons, I'm betting the battery will be one of the heaviest components in the weapon.