Fed ground combat again

[Deepcrush]

Say what...?

But really, you can't always kill everyone. Sometimes you need people alive and well enough to speak.

[Aaron]

Say what...?

It was in a Voyager episode, I don't recall which one. OVEG has a video review of it though.

But really, you can't always kill everyone. Sometimes you need people alive and well enough to speak.

I wasn't being entirely serious but I agree. Which is why I mentioned the gas dispenser, why not use a system that already exists? Like your thing with the atmosphere, or the gas or turning off the AG. There's probably a dozen systems that where one episode wonders that could be used.

[Coalition]

Tear gas, or CB. It's always fun to watch people vomit their guts up all over the place.

Hey...don't ST ships have some kind of nerve gas dispenser hooked up to the vents? Was in Space Seed IIRC.

Why chuck a grenade in or vent the gas into the air ducts? Just beam in the gas itself.

That'd be a fun stunt for a boarding operation. You have a cannister of pressurized tear gas set up, and use the transporter for a site to site transport. However, instead of beaming the cannister and letting it vent normally, you beam over the pressurized gas.

As soon as the gas completely arrives at the destination, it expands to achieve equilibrium (aka overpressurization causing ruptured eardrums to whoever is present), then the people at the destination get to breathe nearly pure tear gas. Without the large cannister, there is nothing for them to work with (aka going over to the cannister and closing the nozzle, or transporting the cannister somewhere else).

[Aaron]

Tear gas, or CB. It's always fun to watch people vomit their guts up all over the place.

Hey...don't ST ships have some kind of nerve gas dispenser hooked up to the vents? Was in Space Seed IIRC.

Why chuck a grenade in or vent the gas into the air ducts? Just beam in the gas itself.

That'd be a fun stunt for a boarding operation. You have a cannister of pressurized tear gas set up, and use the transporter for a site to site transport. However, instead of beaming the cannister and letting it vent normally, you beam over the pressurized gas.

As soon as the gas completely arrives at the destination, it expands to achieve equilibrium (aka overpressurization causing ruptured eardrums to whoever is present), then the people at the destination get to breathe nearly pure tear gas. Without the large cannister, there is nothing for them to work with (aka going over to the cannister and closing the nozzle, or transporting the cannister somewhere else).

I don't particularly care how it's done, your solution seems overly complicated and might end up suffocating them (depending if it displaces the air) but it's not a bad idea.

[Sionnach Glic]

Just a thought, but couldn't you cause serious problems to, say, the bridge of an enemy ship if you just beamed a load of air over? That'd cause a fair bit of overpressure, I think.

Of course, simply beaming over something like a torpedo would solve the problem much quicker.

[Tyyr]

One reason I'm a big fan of the idea of "transporter jammers". Once shields go down if you don't have something like them there's no reason the fight should continue. Just beam the enemy crew off their ship and into your brig, or space if you don't want to waste the time. Hell, Janeway, the most incompetent captain since Archer, thought of just beaming a torpedo over.

[Sionnach Glic]

Aye. Personaly I operate under the assumption that ships put out a lot of jamming in combat, resulting in the lack of transporter use and the insanely close combat ranges.

[Tyyr]

I'm actually working on an idea for the combat ranges. Specifically, they're not actually that close. In normal combat ships are separated by dozens, even hundreds or thousands of kilometers. At those ranges even a 500m long ship is a spec. Due to the accelerations the ships are capable of though even at 500 kilometers they can still twist and turn like we see on screen. In playbacks of battles the ship's sizes are exaggerated in order to make the action easier to follow. Which causes the ranges to look absurdly short.

It's the explanation I'm using when I write starship combat.

[Sionnach Glic]

Yeah, that could work. Though it's a bit too out-of-universe an explaination for me. I prefer to just take what we see as being true, and trying to find some way to rationalise it.

For example, we know from that one incident in TNG (whose name escapes me right now) that the E-D can hit targets at ranges of 300,000 KM. Yet all fleet combat takes place at visual range. As such, I like to imagine that jamming systems haev advanced to the point where sensors can only accurately track targets at close ranges.

[Tyyr]

It worked for Battletech.

It's just my explanation for it and what I'm going with in what I write. If the discussion ever centers on what's canon, well then its that these ships seem to duke it out at 1 to 2 km at most.