StarTrek shields ... poll

posted on May 9th, 2009, 9:45 pm

Can somebody tell me how how strong phasers are? Does anybody have canon soureces? Would be really nice for some calculations.

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

there is one somewhere on memory alpha. 

posted on May 9th, 2009, 11:19 pm

I only found a List (extract of TM) at http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Phaser. But it's hardly usable:

#8
Disruption Effects - causes a cascade disruption that vaporizes humanoid organisms. Any unprotected material can be penetrated.
#9
Disruption Effects - causes medium alloys and structural materials, over a meter thick, to exhibit energy rebound prior to vaporization.
#10
Disruption Effects - causes heavy alloys and structural materials to absorb or rebound energy. There is a 0.55 second delay before the material vaporizes.
#11
Explosive/Disruption Effects - causes ultra-dense alloys and structural materials to absorb or rebound energy before vaporization. There is a 0.2 second delay before the material vaporizes. Approximately 10 cubic meters of rock are disintegrated per shot.
#12
Explosive/Disruption Effects - causes ultra-dense alloys and structural materials to absorb or rebound energy before vaporization. There is a 0.1 second delay before the material vaporizes. Approximately 50 cubic meters of rock are disintegrated per shot.

posted on May 9th, 2009, 11:21 pm

Ah, so you did find it

posted on May 9th, 2009, 11:40 pm

Well: http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Tech/Beam/Beam1.html 

posted on May 9th, 2009, 11:46 pm

Not a good site. Very bias on pretty much every page.

posted on May 9th, 2009, 11:48 pm

Yah, you might notice the big logo in the corner of the screen.  Their info (not saying it is) could be wrong cus it looks like it is mainly a star wars stie.

[mimesot]

posted on May 10th, 2009, 12:12 am

Last edited by mimesot on May 10th, 2009, 12:14 am, edited 1 time in total.

Not a good site. Very bias on pretty much every page.

Indeed, concerning the bias. But they're citing canon often, and their critics are quite clear. StarTrek can be criticized, because the  Tech is commented and used so often. This is certainly not possible for StarWars, but the numbrs are always a laugh.

An energy range of 1GW to 300000TW for standard ship phasers is a little too broad estimation.

[Lt.Cdr.White]

posted on May 10th, 2009, 12:32 am

Last edited by Lt.Cdr.White on May 10th, 2009, 12:40 am, edited 1 time in total.

I only found a List (extract of TM) at http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Phaser. But it's hardly usable:

#8
Disruption Effects - causes a cascade disruption that vaporizes humanoid organisms. Any unprotected material can be penetrated.
#9
Disruption Effects - causes medium alloys and structural materials, over a meter thick, to exhibit energy rebound prior to vaporization.
#10
Disruption Effects - causes heavy alloys and structural materials to absorb or rebound energy. There is a 0.55 second delay before the material vaporizes.
#11
Explosive/Disruption Effects - causes ultra-dense alloys and structural materials to absorb or rebound energy before vaporization. There is a 0.2 second delay before the material vaporizes. Approximately 10 cubic meters of rock are disintegrated per shot.
#12
Explosive/Disruption Effects - causes ultra-dense alloys and structural materials to absorb or rebound energy before vaporization. There is a 0.1 second delay before the material vaporizes. Approximately 50 cubic meters of rock are disintegrated per shot.

Those are hand phaser settings, not shipboard phasers. The list is taken from the Technical Manual, as said.

Let me see what they say about the power output of shipboard phasers of the Galaxy class:

"The main phasers that are used in Galaxy class starships are counted among type X, the largest type of emitter that can be used aboard starships. Each emitter element can produce 5.1 megawatts."

"A typical large phaser bank aboard the Enterprise, for example the upper bank of the saucer section, consists of 200 emitter segments in close linear arrangement [...]"

(again, retranslated from the German version)

Still seems a bit vague, as we don't know how many segments are used at the same time.


Interesting things can be found in the section about tactical maneuvers:

(one threat variant, Galaxy class is at cruise mode):

"Enemy vessel  [Romulan Warbird] shoots 20 GW strong phaser impulses at Galaxy class. Shields of the Galaxy class reach minimal phaser dispersion strength withing 550 ns, full strength within 2000 ns."

So we have some data about shield reaction times.

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

#12 says "Approximately 50 cubic meters of rock are disintegrated per shot." Aside the fact that desintegration is a little stange, this doesn't seem to fit a hand fire weapon. #1 to #3 did of course.

Your info ist very helpfil, indeen. Thank you! 

posted on May 10th, 2009, 11:16 pm

Well, Memory Alpha cited two episodes as sources for what a 24th century type-2 phaser could do on level 16:

Type 2 phaser - Memory Alpha, the Star Trek Wiki

And after all, 50 cubic meters of rock are just a cube with an edge of about 3.7 m. The question is also how many shots can be fired at levels 12+ until the sarium krellide cells are empty.

The interesting fact is that the TM was written by the technical consultants of TNG, which means the writers might not be forced to follow that data, but at least these are official guidelines.

And according to the TM, it's definately the description of the 16 settings of a type-2 24th century phaser that has been cited above.

[mimesot]

posted on May 10th, 2009, 11:32 pm

Last edited by mimesot on May 11th, 2009, 12:12 am, edited 1 time in total.

Sounds crazy, but as you say, it's canon.

EDIT: Did some wrong calculations, redone now. Sorry!

For vapourizing such a rock you would need approximatly 1[MJ/kg] * 3000[kg/m³] * 50[m³] = 150GJ , which is about 100 kilotons of TNT explosives, something like a small real nuclear bomb. This is of course possible with only 6 milligramms of antimatter, but then never shake that weapon while loaded and avoid strong magnetic fields. It may blow a whole ship's setion apart. Well it's more realistic that the integrity fields would hold the section together, but all people inside would certainly die from the shockwave, and the interiour would get a little messed up. I neither assume such a handweapon realistic nor a good choice, to give so much power in one single hand.

[Lt.Cdr.White]

posted on May 10th, 2009, 11:53 pm

Last edited by Lt.Cdr.White on May 11th, 2009, 12:15 am, edited 1 time in total.

Hm, well, the cobra-head type-2 phaser has an energy cell of 10.2 x 3.0 cm with an energy capacity of 4.5 x 10^7 megajoules according to the TM.

So it seems they really mean it.


Memory Alpha quotes the TM on energy density of sarium krellide:

Sarium krellide - Memory Alpha, the Star Trek Wiki

"The maximum energy density of sarium krellide was 1.3x10E6 megajoules per cubic centimeter, leaking less than 1.05 kilojoules per hour."

Which is indeed correctly quoted, as well.

In the TM, they add: "Given the fact that the whole energy amount stored inside a Type-1 phaser is enough to vaporise one cubic meter of tritanium if fired at once, it is reassuring to know that a charged energy cell cannot be discharged accidentially."

According to the TM, it can only be discharched when coupled with the superconductive LiCu 521 crystal inside the phaser.


PS: I read somewhere (Design of Star Trek, perhaps) that phasers, being powerful as they are, must be handled with care during the writing process. Otherwise someone carrying a phaser would become all too powerful.


PPS: Concerning the power settings, the TM I have is more complete as it says about level 12:

"energy discharge index 540 000 for 0.82 seconds, SEM:NDF ratio 1:14, [...] < or = 50 m³ of rock/ore of 6.0g/cm³ are explosively decoupled."

In German it's "explosiv entkoppelt", could be a strange translation of "disintegrated".
No unit is given for the "energy discharge index". SEM means "simple electromagnetic" effects, while NDF is "nuclear disruption force".

[mimesot]

posted on May 11th, 2009, 12:27 am

Last edited by mimesot on May 11th, 2009, 12:31 am, edited 1 time in total.

"The main phasers that are used in Galaxy class starships are counted among type X, the largest type of emitter that can be used aboard starships. Each emitter element can produce 5.1 megawatts."

"A typical large phaser bank aboard the Enterprise, for example the upper bank of the saucer section, consists of 200 emitter segments in close linear arrangement [...]"

This gives us 1GW when all emitters are coupled.

"Enemy vessel  [Romulan Warbird] shoots 20 GW strong phaser impulses at Galaxy class. Shields of the Galaxy class reach minimal phaser dispersion strength withing 550 ns, full strength within 2000 ns."

States 20GW .... is a Warbird so much stronger than a galaxy? Nevermind, the regime is at GigWatts, which means there is 1 GigaJoule released per second. Given this, a 50m³ rock would take some dozen seconds to evaporize. (I'd like to add that the rock is more likly to explode first than to evaporate)

Looking at this:

"Explosive/Disruption Effects - causes ultra-dense alloys and structural materials to absorb or rebound energy before vaporization. There is a 0.1 second delay before the material vaporizes. Approximately 50 cubic meters of rock are disintegrated per shot."

We see that the handfire phaser van evaporize the 50m³ within 0,1 sseconds. That is really strange. Why should a hand-phaser have a greater power than all ship-phasers together? The hand-phaser would have around 1,5 TW in comparison.

Just to remind you: A common nuclear weapon has about 1MT TNT = 4*10^18 J = 4billion GJ

What power and energy-capazity should I take for StarTrek-realistic now?

[Lt.Cdr.White]

posted on May 11th, 2009, 1:32 pm

Last edited by Lt.Cdr.White on May 11th, 2009, 2:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Good questions.

Followings things may have happened:

- translation errors in the German TM

- disintegration not meaning vaporizing but merely tearing apart, thus much less energy is needed, rather that of a usual conventional 450lb bomb or such (some episodes / movies seem to support this).

- deliberate discrepancies by the writers to leave options open to say "oh, you misunderstood us" or to leave open some freedom for the writers. Giving precise numbers in a Sci-Fi series is always a bit dangerous... they also used kiloquads as a measuring unit for computer memory sizes in the TM instead of current units, perhaps to not be behind future real world technology.

- bad coordination of different chapters with contradicting facts

Talking about the Warbird vs Galaxy class:

Could be either the bad coordination mentioned above or the Warbird is only capable of firing short bursts of 20GW, while the Galaxy would be able of prolonged constant firing. Also, I think Romulan Warbirds are indeed pretty powerful and those high power bursts could mean they're more easily able to drain shields than a Galaxy class is.


But indeed, it seems the TM is not consistent with its own statements, just as the series are.


Edit: Typos...