Hand phaser combat

[sunnyside]

It would seem that one of the advantages of a phaser/disruptor is that you can crank up the power level. We've seen them do some pretty impressive things.

However how often do you get shootouts in Trek where people are taking cover behind things like crates or maybe some furniture.

Any ideas why they can't either shoot through the cover, blow the cover up, or at least melt/disintigrate the cover?

[Mikey]

Here's a couple of ideas (but no good ones):

1 - materials that are resistant to phasers/disruptors/misc. directed-energy weapons are so ridiculously abundant that people actually use them commonly to make packing crates, yet effective body armor is still somehow incomprehensible;

2 - nobody who uses a phaser is sufficiently trained on their capabilities a/o operation; or

3 - nobody who uses a phaser has the presence of mind in a firefight to actually recall the training mentioned above.

Anybody have any less sarcastic ideas?

[Blackstar the Chakat]

Purhaps in some cases they worry about collateral damage. Although that only works for some cases, like with ship-board fights or most cases with Starfleet personel. On ships and stations you don't want to blow a hole in the hull, or blast an EPS conduit for example. Starfleet hand weapons may also be the most powerful and versitile in the quadrent. And I doubt civilians would have easy access to super-powerful weapons like the Starfleet phaser. Higher settings may mean fewer shots. These clearly can't cover every situation, but it's better then just going "the writers/characters/starfleet are idiots" like we usually do in these plot-driven cases. Sometimes they're little more then energy guns, while other times they seem to do everything except play MP3s.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

Packing crates are commonly built of ablative armor rated to withstand the explosion of a Quantum Torpedo?

[sunnyside]

I don't begrudge them not having body armor since when a phaser shot on a moderate setting hits all that's left is a smear on the ground.

Actually to be fair federation phasers are supposed to be set to "stun" by default and usually the people are just trying to stun anyway.

I can understand that if a blast can waste a table it isn't "stun" anymore.

But for other groups that don't have a reason to hold back it doesn't make sense to me.

I guess a small aspect could be that they worry about the blast getting them to and that phasers don't have a "shoot through" option.

EDIT: I happened to find this quote

Commenting on phaser firepower, Ronald D. Moore said:

"The weapons are way too powerful to present them in any realistic kind of way. Given the real power of a hand phaser, we shouldn't be able to show ANY firefights on camera where the opponents are even in sight of each other, much less around the corner! It's annoying, but just one of those things that we tend to slide by in order to concentrate on telling a dramatic and interesting story." [1]

[Captain Seafort]

Packing crates are commonly built of ablative armor rated to withstand the explosion of a Quantum Torpedo?

Who said anything about QTs? The entire thread is refering to hand phasers, nothing bigger.

As for why packing crates seem immune, the prevelant theory of the mechanism phasers use is that their chain reaction is far more effective against low density material (ie people) than high density material (ie metal crates.

Body armour is worn by some species (Klingons and Cardassians for example), and used to be worn by Starfleet security (ST1 and ST6), but hasn't been seen in the TNG-era Federation. Therefore it must to at least some degree mitigate the effects of phaser/disruptor fire.

[mlsnoopy]

Federation phaser are set on stun.
How many shots could you get from a phaser if you would use it to vaporise every object the enemy hides behind.
On ships we hav SIF that may limit the effects of hand phasers on the hull.

[Jordanis]

The difference in energy required to kill as opposed to completely vaporise is so staggering (yeah yeah, chain reaction blah blah ) that I would guess you can't have many full-power shots from a hand phaser. Why don't they dial it up for one shot? I can't answer that, except to note that a disintegration shot on a piece of cover would just disintegrate the cover and not the target. It seems like the disintegrate setting takes a moment to finish with things, so that's a moment to dive behind new cover--and soon you've drained your power pack blowing up cover.

That's really easy to argue against, though. It's hard to explain one thing without opening up another hole in this case.

[Mikey]

Body armour is worn by some species (Klingons and Cardassians for example), and used to be worn by Starfleet security (ST1 and ST6), but hasn't been seen in the TNG-era Federation. Therefore it must to at least some degree mitigate the effects of phaser/disruptor fire.

Body armor seems to have been thrown over by the Feds after STVI, and that worn by the Klingons seems to be aesthetic/symbolic in value only - I don't recall an instance of it helping protect the wearer. There is speculation that the black Fed fatigues seen in DS9 incorporate some sort of armoring material, but that didn't seem to help either. Such armor may have value against collateral effects - shrapnel, thermal effects, a/o kinetic impacts - but doesn't seem to help against the actual directed-energy effects.

I can only imagine that Federation doctrine is so wholly opposed to any use of force one iota over that deemed "necessary" that phasers are very rarely set above stun - obviously, such a setting would have little to no effect on a packing crate. This doesn't explain the ability to find hard cover against Klingon or Romulan disruptors or other unknown types of energy weapons.

[sunnyside]

Actually I'm trying to remember phaser affects. Do they ever make things explode or do they just go from scorch/heat to disintegrate?

Also memory alpha mentions "rebounding" of energy. What's that about?

[Mikey]

I don't ever recall something exploding due to phaser fire, except as a secondary effect of heat a/o disruption. And I assume that this disruption is similar to the effects of a charged particle stream comprising high-energy electrons or H ions, causing both bond breakdown in the targets component molecules as well as kinetic and thermal effects from atomic excitement.

[Tsukiyumi]

...other times they seem to do everything except play MP3s.

Who says they don't?

[Blackstar the Chakat]

...other times they seem to do everything except play MP3s.

Who says they don't?

True. Everything has to play MP3s nowadays, except MP3 players. Those play MP4s because MP3s are a dead technology.

[Reliant121]

Yes. All the girls go walking around with their phones blaring Rihanna or something and all th old people swear at them. It's quite comical to watch.

[Mikey]

I like Rihanna. At least, I like watching her videos with the sound turned down.