Runabouts

posted on September 9th, 2009, 9:20 pm

Did you NOT see the Deep Space Nine Episode, Emissary Part II?  it doesnt get much more cannon than that.


on a side note,  I dont fully understand how the impulse engines allegdelly work, but, i DO KNOW, that in the depths of space, mass and towing weight should be irrevelent.  it might take a while to "get up to speed"  and turning could be difficult if not pre-planned. 

but that brings up another topic i started a while ago, about perhapse combining tow ships,  i.e.  1 could tow at a speed of 2,  but 2 could tow at a speed of 4.  etc.  max speed of 6.  or some ships simply take 2 ships to move. (technically, 2 ships to handle, i.e. turning and stopping)

All I've got to say is BULLSHIT

Impulse engines work on normal physics--none of that crap dealing with subspace... and momentum and mass most certainly matter in terms of astrophysics, otherwise we wouldn't have a spaceshuttle now would we?

posted on September 9th, 2009, 9:22 pm

I feel tempted to bring up Star Trek Physics... Star Trek engines run by them, not real life stuff that will most likely be proven wrong by Scientists in the future.

posted on September 9th, 2009, 9:27 pm

A runabout should never be able to tug a battleship or even a cruiser... it's engines simply can't generate enough forward momentum I would think. I guess this is why the construction ships will be regaining tractor beams

Wro-ong. In sea, you use several (usually two or three) tug boats to haul, say, a Carrier not because none of the ships is able to move it by itself, but to move it fast and with manouvering capacity. One tug boat could move a one million ton ULCC. The problem would be controlling the momentum once gained.

AND water has friction that goes against movement. In space, I'd daresay that a lone shuttle or a Venture could move even the biggest battleship, if it's equiped with tractor beams.

Still, I'd say that moving the battleship is one thing, and moving it while keeping control of it so it can turn or stop without crushing the puller ship is entirely different. I'd say it would be needed a special tug boat with more than one tractor beam, and even a pressor beam, to haul safely a huge ship around, actually, any ship bigger than the tug boat.

posted on September 9th, 2009, 9:35 pm

No, you are completely incorrect. Can you move the earth with a friggin' Venture?

posted on September 9th, 2009, 9:54 pm

No, you are completely incorrect. Can you move the earth with a friggin' Venture?

Not the earth, but it stands to reason that if a ship is powerful, even if it is small. It can move something much larger, albeit slowly.

posted on September 9th, 2009, 9:55 pm

It depends.  "Give me a fulcrum and I'll move the world."

Still, we are talking about an immobile ship in space, without momentum. What a tug boat needs to do is to pull it until it moves in the desired direction.

posted on September 9th, 2009, 9:55 pm

Do the math though: it would require an extremely powerful engine... to move something as massive as a battleship with such a weak vessel.

posted on September 9th, 2009, 10:04 pm

A runabout should never be able to tug a battleship or even a cruiser... it's engines simply can't generate enough forward momentum I would think. I guess this is why the construction ships will be regaining tractor beams

I'm not disagreeing with you Dom, cause I don't know a ton about physics, but I thought in space there is no weight, so an engine being able to go 10 light years per hour (that's a made up figure) would be able to go 10 light years per second, no matter what the payload.  Please let me know if I'm wrong or not.

posted on September 9th, 2009, 10:05 pm

Dom,  I know your THE MAN when it comes to the FO world,  but your dead wrong here buddy.  and a huge AMEN to DarthThanatos,  you hit it right on the head man. (i'm not going to quote your whole entry as it is honken, but the tugboat / battleship analogy is dead on)  in the army, one tank can tow the Abrahms, but it takes 2 to stop one.  while it has the muscle to pull, it dont have the brakes to stop (easilly).

while a venture CAN NOT move the earth, the earth having a whole internal gravitational field and all, it can move a huge honken ship.  I realize we are ALL arguing over the abilities of a FICTIONAL ENGINE, but it is cannon accepted that a ship CAN tow someone many times its own mass.

posted on September 9th, 2009, 10:06 pm

I'm not disagreeing with you Dom, cause I don't know a ton about physics, but I thought in space there is no weight, so an engine being able to go 10 light years per hour (that's a made up figure) would be able to go 10 light years per second, no matter what the payload.  Please let me know if I'm wrong or not.

no Weight or no Mass?... 

posted on September 9th, 2009, 10:09 pm

No weight.  Mass is, relatively constant.  Though mass increases as an object (that has mass) accelerates.

posted on September 9th, 2009, 10:19 pm

Yeah. In a way it's related to another fictional device that makes those huge space ships move without consequences: the inertial dampener.

Without it, the instant a Galaxy, nah, a Defiant ship tried to turn, it would convert its crew into pink paste in the wall opposite to the turn.

posted on September 9th, 2009, 10:29 pm

Yeah. In a way it's related to another fictional device that makes those huge space ships move without consequences: the inertial dampener.

Without it, the instant a Galaxy, nah, a Defiant ship tried to turn, it would convert its crew into pink paste in the wall opposite to the turn.

Haha, yeah funny how a million times during the show the helmsman was like "Inertial Dampeners are offline!". Yeah ok ... and everyone is dead.

[Dominus_Noctis]

posted on September 9th, 2009, 10:37 pm

Last edited by Dominus_Noctis on September 9th, 2009, 10:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'm not disagreeing with you Dom, cause I don't know a ton about physics, but I thought in space there is no weight, so an engine being able to go 10 light years per hour (that's a made up figure) would be able to go 10 light years per second, no matter what the payload.  Please let me know if I'm wrong or not.

Hehe, don't worry, you are wrong (I mean that only in jest Borg101--no offense intended). I've got a budding astrophysicist sitting right next to me, who doesn't look too pleased at the moment

A vessel still must accelerate. Momentum is P=MV, which has nothing to do with gravity. Your mass isn't determined by gravity, but your weight is. No matter where you are in the universe, a large mass has much more momentum and is thus much harder to move than a small ship. If I was dead wrong, the Universe would cease to exist as we know it . Even it if is canon as you'd like to point out, that doesn't make it make sense in any way. We've seen all sorts of nonsensical things in Star Trek, and even blatant contradictions when the science advisors weren't consulted. This is still simple physics however. You cannot tow a 747 with a lawnmower, the mass and momentum is too much. You cannot push the ISS out of orbit with a model rocket for similar reasons (discount friction in this case).

For that matter, a spaceship cannot accelerate beyond a certain amount for the VERY SAME REASONS. Do you ever ask yourself why spacecraft that rely on atomic powered engines have a maximum velocity (as they have a maximum amount of fuel... if you kept on adding fuel in some miraculous manner... well then...  ), and why even after slingshotting to gain additional momentum they still cannot go faster? The faster you go, the more energy you must expend, until you reach an infinite amount of energy.... aka becoming energy as you hit the speed of light . Think about this now in relation to that venture and that battleship. The mass of the battleship is enormous but is being towed by a tiny vessel... at most the battleship will move at an extremely small velocity... but I guess it's ok if it takes a few thousand light years to get to the nearest starbase--at least they tried!

EDIT: some clarifications

posted on September 9th, 2009, 10:48 pm

Pointless, pointless.

Same as in STA2/FO, a spaceship stops moving as soon as it runs out of crew, or their engines stop working. If things were realistic, the ship would keep its momentum and keep going until either it hit something or disappeared beyond the map limit.

So, if the developers say a Venture can haul a Tavara, you will say: "SIR, YES SIR".