Adding a third nacell?

[Jordanis]

"An elegant weapon, for a more civilized fleet."

Wait, uh, I think I'm in the wrong place...

[Captain Seafort]

"Not as clumsy or random as a disruptor."

[Mikey]

And, for no apparent technical reason, phaser emitters may be linked into arrays while disruptors may not. Perhaps the arc from which phaser arrays can fire, rather than the point of fire of disruptors, has something to do with accuracy. Certainly, the old-style phaser banks didn't seem to have superior accuracy to anything else.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

That doesn't explain the Defiant's pulse phaser cannon, though.

[sunnyside]

The defiant misses too. And a lot of its hits are against large ships, at point blank range, while flying straight at them. It would be hard to miss if they were trying to in those cases.

[Blackstar the Chakat]

That doesn't explain the Defiant's pulse phaser cannon, though.

My guess is brute force method gives it an advantage in power, finishing off the Borg, and later Jem'Hadar faster. Or Maybe it was originally made to be too primitive for Borg to adapt to, much like many suspect physical weapons are too primitive for them. It was designed as an anti-borg ship originally after all.

[mwhittington]

[quote="mlsnoopy"][That just shows us that plasma is in the necells. They may have a storage tank in every section that stores an amaunt of plasma so that a section can have limited warp capabilities. As far as we have seen on screen each section has only minutes of warp capability./quote]
Warp cores can be compared to batteries in this case. When you have a flashlight that requires 3 D-cell batteries, those 3 batteries must be used together for the flashlight to work, but 1 D-cell battery would be able to power a smaller flashlight. If some company were to make a flashlight that had the ability to come apart and become 3 independant flashlights, those flashlights can cover 3 times the area of just the one flashlight, and each flashlight has its own power source from which to draw power, they don't share until they're linked.

[Jordanis]

Warp cores can be compared to batteries in this case. When you have a flashlight that requires 3 D-cell batteries, those 3 batteries must be used together for the flashlight to work, but 1 D-cell battery would be able to power a smaller flashlight. If some company were to make a flashlight that had the ability to come apart and become 3 independant flashlights, those flashlights can cover 3 times the area of just the one flashlight, and each flashlight has its own power source from which to draw power, they don't share until they're linked.

Sure, it can cover more area, and it can do it at 1/3 power. Hopefully you don't need to see down any dark holes. Or blow up any bigger ships. My metaphors are mixing.

My guess is brute force method gives it an advantage in power, finishing off the Borg, and later Jem'Hadar faster. Or Maybe it was originally made to be too primitive for Borg to adapt to, much like many suspect physical weapons are too primitive for them. It was designed as an anti-borg ship originally after all.

The Borg have been seen adapting to physical attacks, IIRC. As for the pulse phasers, I'm pretty sure that it is a brute force kind of attack. It's back to Trek shields being subject to burn-through. The pulse phasers pound the shileds on one very tight point with a serious packet of energy. Array phasers often rake across the shields as an enemy maneuvers.

[mwhittington]

Warp cores can be compared to batteries in this case. When you have a flashlight that requires 3 D-cell batteries, those 3 batteries must be used together for the flashlight to work, but 1 D-cell battery would be able to power a smaller flashlight. If some company were to make a flashlight that had the ability to come apart and become 3 independant flashlights, those flashlights can cover 3 times the area of just the one flashlight, and each flashlight has its own power source from which to draw power, they don't share until they're linked.

Sure, it can cover more area, and it can do it at 1/3 power. Hopefully you don't need to see down any dark holes. Or blow up any bigger ships. My metaphors are mixing.

But in this case, 1/3 size doesn't mean 1/3 power. Compare the Defiant and GC. The Defiant can fit between the nacelles of the GC, but roughly the same amount of power. Like the difference between using alkaline and lithium ion batteries.(by the way, I work at Radio Shack, so I know my batteries.) The Prommie has a newer warp core(s) than the GC, therefore, each section can have more energy in a smaller package.

[Jordanis]

Warp cores can be compared to batteries in this case. When you have a flashlight that requires 3 D-cell batteries, those 3 batteries must be used together for the flashlight to work, but 1 D-cell battery would be able to power a smaller flashlight. If some company were to make a flashlight that had the ability to come apart and become 3 independant flashlights, those flashlights can cover 3 times the area of just the one flashlight, and each flashlight has its own power source from which to draw power, they don't share until they're linked.

Sure, it can cover more area, and it can do it at 1/3 power. Hopefully you don't need to see down any dark holes. Or blow up any bigger ships. My metaphors are mixing.

But in this case, 1/3 size doesn't mean 1/3 power. Compare the Defiant and GC. The Defiant can fit between the nacelles of the GC, but roughly the same amount of power. Like the difference between using alkaline and lithium ion batteries.(by the way, I work at Radio Shack, so I know my batteries.) The Prommie has a newer warp core(s) than the GC, therefore, each section can have more energy in a smaller package.

Yeah, but the argument was never about the Prometheus beating the Galaxy. The advancements in technology and the differences in building philosophy make that a useless comparison. The argument was about a Prometheus designed to be solid vs a Prometheus in three pieces.

[Captain Seafort]

The Borg have been seen adapting to physical attacks, IIRC.

You recall incorrectly I'm afraid - while Borg ships have been seen with KE shields, their drones never have, although that isn't because they're more "primitive", but simply due to conservation of momentum.

As for the pulse phasers, I'm pretty sure that it is a brute force kind of attack. It's back to Trek shields being subject to burn-through. The pulse phasers pound the shileds on one very tight point with a serious packet of energy. Array phasers often rake across the shields as an enemy maneuvers.

Agreed - another point against MVAM, since if hitting widely spaced points on the enemy's shields were advantageous the Defiant would be a very poor design - it's concentrated fire is the antithesis of the concept.

[Jordanis]

The Borg have been seen adapting to physical attacks, IIRC.

You recall incorrectly I'm afraid - while Borg ships have been seen with KE shields, their drones never have, although that isn't because they're more "primitive", but simply due to conservation of momentum.

I could have sworn that in one of the Borg episodes a drone blocks one of Worf's hand-to-hand attacks with a shield. Excuse me while I investigate via watching some stuff.

[mlsnoopy]

Warp cores can be compared to batteries in this case. When you have a flashlight that requires 3 D-cell batteries, those 3 batteries must be used together for the flashlight to work, but 1 D-cell battery would be able to power a smaller flashlight. If some company were to make a flashlight that had the ability to come apart and become 3 independant flashlights, those flashlights can cover 3 times the area of just the one flashlight, and each flashlight has its own power source from which to draw power, they don't share until they're linked

Let us say that a Prommi has 9 point of power to spend on weapons shilds and engines. If we take that logic than neach section has 3 points to spend on weapons shilds and engines. That means that each section has shilds and weapons that are 3 times less powerfull than the whole ship.
And the idea in battel is to take down shilds over one section and get to the hull not bring shilds on 3 sides to 50%. You can aslo take the armor that you put on every section and so increse the overall armor of the single ship 3 times.

Yeah, but the argument was never about the Prometheus beating the Galaxy

Prometheus will allway beat the Galaxy.

The Defiant can fit between the nacelles of the GC, but roughly the same amount of power

From where did you get that. Remember the battle to retake DS9, Defiant lost it shilds in a few minuts where the Galaxy survived a 2h battle. And the were in the front rows.

The defiant misses too. And a lot of its hits are against large ships, at point blank range, while flying straight at them. It would be hard to miss if they were trying to in those cases

that may explain why SF does not use pulse fire weapons. They are more inacurate than beam weapons.

[Jordanis]

that may explain why SF does not use pulse fire weapons. They are more inacurate than beam weapons.

Actually most internally consistent 'firm' Sci-Fi uses pulse-fire weapons. Fighting at light-second distances means that there is a lag between when you fire and when the beam passes the enemy ship even for lasers, so fire control becomes a predictive business. Basically, you seed the area which you figure the enemy ship will be in with lots of pulse shots and hope you hit.

However, energy lances look way cooler.

[Mikey]

Additionally, since much ship-to-ship combat in sci-fi appears to be an attempt to overload or "burn through" shields, remember that for a similarly powerful beam weapon and pulse weapon, the pulse weapon would execute a greater amount of work against the shields - same power over far less time.

Let us say that a Prommi has 9 point of power to spend on weapons shilds and engines. If we take that logic than neach section has 3 points to spend on weapons shilds and engines. That means that each section has shilds and weapons that are 3 times less powerfull than the whole ship.

Going backwards and getting more basic, I think that many of us are unconvinced that this is the case. As each section seems more than likely in possession of its own core, the reduction in power upon separation (if any!) would be MUCH less than arithmetical division.

And while firing from multiple quadrants may not help overload shields in one area, it eliminates the usefulness of many evasive maneuvers; it disallows the possibility of shunting shield power from one section to another; it forces the bogey to split its fire a/o ignore two targets. Very useful things indeed.