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NX Warrior subclass

With the advent of the Romulan war, UESPA became the de-facto military of Earth and its colonies. Amongst the other preparations
for war, the NX class underwent a crash militarisation program. The idea of a warship variant of the class had been proposed during
the original design process, and plans for this had been drawn up but held as a reserve to be implemented in case of emergencies.
The unexpectedly high threat level that Enterprise, Columbia and their sisters had encountered had led to a revision of these
plans in 2155, and some chief engineers had implemented elements of the plans on their own initiative - most notably
Commander Tucker on Enterprise. In 2157 UESPA initiated a fleetwide upgrade of all nine NX class ships.

The main changes were : The number of laser cannon increased from six to nine; the boosted throughput system initially developed
by Commander Tucker for Enterprise was adopted as standard. A pair of 580 GW heavy fixed laser cannon was fitted in the bow.
The missile magazine was increased in size, boosting capacity from 96 to 192. An additional four launchers were installed, doubling
the fire rate. The usual fit of nuclear warheads was boosted from 6 to 124, reflecting their change from "special weapons" to the
standard weapon of choice. The thermal reservoirs were upgraded to a new model, increasing their capacity fivefold. Additional
barracks rooms were installed to house a platoon of MACOs and their equipment and weapons.

The upgrades greatly increased the combat capabilities of the class, though not without a cost. Much internal space had to be
given over to the new weapons systems; the already cramped crew quarters became even more cramped, while over one
half of the ship's cargo space was lost along with most of the scientific research facilities. The NX class became ineffective as
research vessels, and their ability to conduct long range unsupported missions was somewhat curtailed by these changes.

Very nice. Stylized yet simple. I could see that being a star ship. (the militerized version at least)

I've already mentioned my appreciation for the design, as well as defended the chubby little nacelles.

As far as the ludicrous placement of bridges on the most visible and vulnerable part of the ship, wasn't that another of Roddenberry's goofy design "rules" (which have been discusses relating to nacelle numbers elsewhere?)

Just out of interest, Wouldn't they have developed plasma cannons by that point? The J & Y class freighters had them.

Reliant121 wrote:Just out of interest, Wouldn't they have developed plasma cannons by that point? The J & Y class freighters had them.

In Enterprise, yeah. But according to TOS continuity lasers were the weapon in use in 2260, so that's what I go with.

thankyou for clearing that up

In "The Cage," Pike's away team uses both sidearms and an artillery piece which are explicity referred to as "lasers." However, go BACKWARDS a hundred years and B&B have the NX-01 crew using plasma weapons - arguably more advanced than lasers - and then, of all things, the predecessors to the phaser!

And people wonder why so many of us get sick of things like that in ENT...

Indeed.

I suppose you could argue that in Trek plasma weapons are more primitive than lasers. But then the Rommies had a plasma weapon as some sort of super-weapon in Balance of terror and plasma torps have been mentioned in DS9 as current Rommie weapons I think.

Yet another thing Enterprise did wrong.

Wrong in terms of continuity, but I'd actually agree with plasma weapons being more primitive than phasers without that.

Hard to say. We are working on laser weapons right now, they are practically ready to deploy. But plasma weapons, not really. So if
anything it is actually *going* to go laser then plasma.

GrahamKennedy wrote:Hard to say. We are working on laser weapons right now, they are practically ready to deploy. But plasma weapons, not really. So if
anything it is actually *going* to go laser then plasma.

That's fine, plasma weapons being better than lasers I can see. I just can't see plasma weapons being some sort of minor superweapon in the phaser age, as they turned up in TOS and DS9.

So I guess what I'm saying is that, this is one ENT continuity error that I think actually makes more sense than the original continuity.

lot of ENT errors do. Like the Ferengi.

Far as Plasma super weapons we know plasma is super heated gas. Maybe the plasma of the later shows is just really really hot.

I have a theory that the Balance of Terror ship had a plasma cannon that basically vented the warp plasma system in one big pulse. So what it fires is a few seconds worth of full power output from the engines, way above any normal weapon. So it's not that a plasma weapon is inherently powerful or effective, it's that this particular one was the mother of all plasma cannon.

This would also explain why the ship lost cloak to fire - blasting all the plasma out disabled the power system for a few seconds.

That's a good theory. It's a good theory because it matches my pet ideas.

It unfortunately does not explain why current Romulan ships (Scimitar excepted) still have to de-cloak to fire, even though they don't use plasma weaponry.

However, the plasma weapon in "Balance of Terror" does follow one inclination which seems to have been forgotten by every other plasma-based weapon (mostly in ENT, IIRC.) A plasma is very similar in properties to a gas. The BoT one was the only one we've seen dissipate over distance/time as one would expect a gas to.