All good things

posted on December 8th, 2012, 7:44 pm

The problem I see with Galaxy X is that what if you lose say the left nacelle in a battle. If you use the right nacelle and the middle one wouldn't you be going around in circles like if you had a flat front tire? Four nacelles makes more sense as you can use them in symmetric pairs.

No it doesnt work that way, there are 2 episodes where they state that you can still warp around with just 1 operational nacelle , they have no bearing on direction but you wouldnt be able to go full speed. All the nacelle does is create a warp field around the ship making FTL possible.

posted on December 8th, 2012, 9:03 pm

Yeah but they didn't say whether it wouldwork normal or not. I think they would end up having to make a huge circle to the left and come into a starbase or stardock from behind. Sort of like if you had a car that could only turn right. You have to go back around your location to get to it. It's possible but it would be time consuming.

posted on December 8th, 2012, 9:28 pm

That logic makes no sense, youre comparing a ward drive to a car tire. I dont see how thats relevant, and they DO state in enterprise that the ship could go around warp 1 or 1.5 with only one nacelle operational, and never said anything just ending up flying in circles. Again nacelle just created a field around the ship, your looking at it like its a rocket that pushes from behind, it doesnt work like that, if it did then yes they would have issues going in circles.

So as far as whats been shown on the show you can reason out that since the nacelle creates a field around the ship, having a disabled nacelle means the other nacelle has to work overtime to compensate, but having only one nacelle the field surrounding the ship is weaker therefore you have a lower warp factor then what you would if the ship had 2 nacelles operational.

posted on December 8th, 2012, 10:05 pm

I think the confusion is arising from the idea that a nacelle is like a ships screw, and that with an uneven force the ship will go around in circles.

From what I can tell, each nacelle projects the same shape, frequency etc warp bubble around the ship. These layer together when properly tuned (when improperly done they cause inefficiency, ergo lower warp speeds as they often reference in TNG, or even worse a wormhole phenomenon when it's way out of wack).

So, think of it more like two engines driving one screw. If one engine fails, the ship will still move properly, just with half the power available.

EDIT: Yes I know you said basically the same Equinox, I just wanted to put a cogent paradigm out there

posted on December 8th, 2012, 11:22 pm

Ok so the lower speed would be the problem. I was trying to find a single nacelle ship earlier because I could swear that I saw one that was from the Original era in some book or something but all the ships I could find had two of them side by side or vertical. Birds of Prey might have just one although I don't know if that red thing in the back is a warp field emitter or if its an impulse engine like you see on the back of the Galaxies and Sovereigns.

I thought the warp core determined the power output not the nacelles?

Edit: I found the Kelvin class from JJ Trek which looks like the one I saw in one of those technical manuals. It only had one nacelle and was a deep space vessel. I wouldn't make any sense for them to build a ship that big with weapons and shields etc that only went a fraction of the speed it would if they just slapped another nacelle on there. If Enterprise D would be limitted to only warp 1.5 with just one nacelle but a a ship that had a centrally located nacelle wouldn't have that issue then it makes sense that the position of the nacelle does in fact affect the performance of the ship. Perhaps if the Galaxy X lost the port nacelle it would turn off the starboard nacelle and just use the middle one.

We also know that shield generators are dependent on range as the shields are weaker when extended outwards to protect another ship. Warp fields look very similar to magentic fields to some degree and those are also very dependent on the location of the "magnet". The warpfield produced by a nacelle that was lopsided would infact probably be stronger on one side and weaker on the other.

posted on December 8th, 2012, 11:55 pm

Ok so the lower speed would be the problem. I was trying to find a single nacelle ship earlier because I could swear that I saw one that was from the Original era in some book or something but all the ships I could find had two of them side by side or vertical. Birds of Prey might have just one although I don't know if that red thing in the back is a warp field emitter or if its an impulse engine like you see on the back of the Galaxies and Sovereigns.

I thought the warp core determined the power output not the nacelles?

Edit: I found the Kelvin class from JJ Trek which looks like the one I saw in one of those technical manuals. It only had one nacelle and was a deep space vessel. I wouldn't make any sense for them to build a ship that big with weapons and shields etc that only went a fraction of the speed it would if they just slapped another nacelle on there. If Enterprise D would be limitted to only warp 1.5 with just one nacelle but a a ship that had a centrally located nacelle wouldn't have that issue then it makes sense that the position of the nacelle does in fact affect the performance of the ship. Perhaps if the Galaxy X lost the port nacelle it would turn off the starboard nacelle and just use the middle one.

We also know that shield generators are dependent on range as the shields are weaker when extended outwards to protect another ship. Warp fields look very similar to magentic fields to some degree and those are also very dependent on the location of the "magnet". The warpfield produced by a nacelle that was lopsided would infact probably be stronger on one side and weaker on the other.

You are correct, warp power comes from the warp core, not the nacelles. And theres no question that positioning of the nacelles is an important part of starship design, thats why the intrepid class had moveable nacelles.

posted on December 9th, 2012, 12:32 am

I have a theory about the third nacelle. When Voyager was in the delta quadrant they captured a transwarp coil, even burned out I assume they brought it home. Perhaps the two lower nacelles have traditional coils, and the third nacelle has whatever tech they derived from the borg coils.

It would explain the higher warp factor and the third nacelle.

posted on December 9th, 2012, 2:24 am

I dunno, seems unlikely as its identical to the other nacelles. Heres the thing, starfleet is constantly creating faster and faster ships. The Enterprise D could do warp 9.6, 9.9 max for like 10 min, now you got Voyager which can do warp 9.975 sustainable. So eventually they will produce ships that can go 9.99 then 9.9975 then 9.999 and on and on. Warp 10 is impossible to reach on the existing scale because it isnt techincally a velocity, your everywhere at once. Anyway so as warp drives get faster it would make more sense to recalibrate the warp scale again, or keep adding 9's to the end of your warp factor, which would get a bit rediculous down the road. The captain would be counting on his fingers to make sure he ordered the right number of 9's at the end of his order. So by the time of AGT I think they would have gotten to the point where there like lets readjust the warp scale to accomodate these new velocities, so basically warp 9.99 would become warp 10, warp 9.999 would be warp 11 or some such thing.

posted on December 9th, 2012, 2:36 am

That could be as well. But remember, when Voyager had the coil she didn't change visually either. Rationalizing stuff in universe can cause headaches as inconsistent as Trek can be.

posted on December 9th, 2012, 3:48 am

If i remember wasnt the coil a transwarp coil so they could open a transwarp gate? If thats the case thats completely different then standard warp drive and I dont think it woulda helped them much to make the ship go faster with standard warp, its a totally differnt technology.

posted on December 9th, 2012, 4:03 am

I doubt they'd rescale. I mean the TOS Warp Factors were a different measurement. TNG Warp was a different one that was an exponential scale and as far as I am aware, a direct representation. Ergo you have to stick to actual values. For example, you couldn't just say "Oh our plane can go Mach 3.98, but that's close enough so we'll call it 4" it's an absolute value. You'd need a whole new scale.

Also given that scale, the difference between Warp 9.99 and Warp 9.999 is exponentially bigger than that of Warp 9.8 and Warp 9.9, even though the value seems smaller, if that makes sense. Plus you wouldn't need to rescale anything, as getting even one decimal place further up the scale takes so much power it's not worth it. They'd be unlikely to get any further than 2 or 3 places anyway, and rarely do ships ever travel "flank speed" due to the stress on their frame and systems, so it would be a rare nay freak occurrence.

posted on December 9th, 2012, 4:43 am

You forget they already DID rescale from TOS to TNG, doesnt matter how you label it. Lets say I have one which says warp 1 is light speed and another that says warp 2 is light speed, they are both just different representations of the same velocity. So just relabling something like warp 9.99 to say warp 10 doesnt mean the speed has changed, just the designation of the speed for simplicity. And I know the scale in TNG is exponential, and my examples were for simplicity, as more likely you would label 9.99 something like 10 and 9.991 warp 11 or some such thing. And as far as power goes that comes naturally with future tech, I mean in the years between TNG and the start of Voyager they go from 9.6 max standard cruising speed to 9.975 on an intrepid class. I dont think its out of the real they could achive further .9's at some point.

posted on December 9th, 2012, 4:46 am

The transwarp coil is what allows a ship to generate its own conduit, no outside gate required.

posted on December 9th, 2012, 5:37 am

Just as a addendum to the discussion, the warp speed formulae for TOS and TNG are:

TOS: speed = wf^3
TNG up to warp 9 (or maybe warp 9.9): speed = wf ^ (10/3)
Between warp 9 (or 9.9) and warp 10, speed is on a hand-drawn asymptotic curve that approaches infinity as warp factor approaches 10 (ie, there is no particular formula for the region)

wf = Warp Factor
speed is expressed as a multiple of c (speed of light)

The reason for the rescale in TNG is that Roddenberry wanted speeds to be expressed on a simple and abstract 10 point scale which still allowed ships in the new era to be significantly faster than they were in TOS.

posted on December 9th, 2012, 3:42 pm

The problem I see with Galaxy X is that what if you lose say the left nacelle in a battle. If you use the right nacelle and the middle one wouldn't you be going around in circles like if you had a flat front tire? Four nacelles makes more sense as you can use them in symmetric pairs.

Because starships work just like cars... Loss of a nacelle is going to effect the warp field (or kill you), not change the direction. That happening to a Vor'cha is a funny thought, though.