Engage Reverse Thrusters!

posted on February 21st, 2010, 6:06 pm

Reaction control thruster
If a ship in StarTrek turns or flies reserve or want to stopp (below warp) it would use this
Reaction control thruster - Memory Alpha, the Star Trek Wiki
It is not fast but it will work

posted on February 21st, 2010, 6:09 pm

If the RCS Thrusters are what they use to turn, they are only slow when stopping or reversing, considering how fast a Galaxy can turn.

posted on February 21st, 2010, 6:25 pm

Trekphysic
Maybe they have thrust vectoring for their impulse engines. 
Thrust vectoring - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Or maybe a gravityfield like in Babylon5. It was never mentioned. But the RCS Thrusters are the only engine mentioned to turn the ship. Maybe the mainthrusters are very strong. 

posted on February 22nd, 2010, 4:56 am

O btw more than likely the reverse impulse would become the new 'kiting' if it was ever implemented

posted on February 22nd, 2010, 7:40 pm

Just for your interest:

concerning thrust vectoring - the positions of the engines (eso. with feddies ships) are located so close to the center of mass, that almost the entire impulse would go int translative movoment, almost none into rotational momentum.

posted on February 27th, 2010, 3:34 am

Yet ships rotate without a problem.

posted on February 27th, 2010, 4:53 am

Well, nobody said Startrek was realistic 

The way I've usually viewed ships (at least in TNG and TOS) is as a means for the story to continue - they aren't the main event, as the action isn't in seeing the ship blow its way out of trouble, but rather see the captain and crew use everything to their advantage. Startrek usually tries to remain decently realistic (or at least not outright crazy), but it ain't a show like Firefly for instance. 

posted on February 27th, 2010, 5:14 am

"See Vera, you dress up nice and get taken somewhere fun."

posted on February 27th, 2010, 8:57 am

Now that comment reminded me of a book by one of my favourite authors, Heinlein:

Have a space suit. Will travel.

posted on February 27th, 2010, 3:39 pm

  That was such a good book!!

The movie was a piece of crap in comparison.

posted on February 27th, 2010, 7:41 pm

If a reverse was to implemented for balance purposes it should be slower than the slowest forward movement speed. There should be a disadvantage to using it and that makes sense since players would still likely lose ships using it vs a conventional retreat at top speed.

posted on February 28th, 2010, 3:42 pm

Why on earth should something be slower when moving backwards?

There's no sense for implementing a realistic manuver when making it urealistic for balancing reasons again. If so, then the you could let them turn or have an 360° firing arc anyway.

posted on February 28th, 2010, 3:51 pm

all the impule engines are on the back, we always see ships moving forward, so its not a huge stretch to say that these engines are directional.

and on the front there are less engines, so top speed would be the same, just acceleration would be slower.

[mimesot]

posted on February 28th, 2010, 3:57 pm

Last edited by mimesot on February 28th, 2010, 4:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

If impulse engines are turned off the ship still moves in the same direction with the same speed. Engines provide the direction of the acceleration, not of the velocity! If one acceerates (with the main thrusters) to an arbitrary velocity and then turns the ship 180° around (with the mein thrusters off) you will still move in the same direcion at the same chosen speed but with your back side in flightdirection. There's no reason to use any thrusters in nose-side-direction or anything else, and there is no loss of speed, when moving that way.

Acceleration is quite irrelevant in StarTrek, as ships always move at combat speed. In reality such a manuver could be impractival, as you can't effecticely accelerate and escape while having your thrusters in the "wrong" direction.

posted on February 28th, 2010, 4:01 pm

i was talking about from rest. in battle you find your ship is sitting still firing at the enemy, if it wants to reverse, acceleration will be slow.