TOS Phasers
Posted: Fri Sep 20, 2013 2:42 am
Been playing with some more phaser designs... first off I drew my own version of the Type 1 phaser
I tweaked the design a little - call this the Type 1 I would have built if I'd worked for Desilu back in the day! The main difference is in the trigger, which I've made rather larger and more obvious. The Type 1 never really struck me as a very safe weapon - waaaay too easy to hit that trigger for my liking. There's really not much you could do about that except to have some kind of lift up flap... actually in TOS we did see a kind of lift up flap on the top, but it didn't serve as a safety that I could see.
One could say that perhaps the weapon wouldn't fire unless you first popped that cover up, releasing an internal switch... that would be a reasonable safety feature, and the cover itself would provide a little protection from accidentally pressing a switch on the top by dropping it, say. But we see the weapons fired often without that flap open, so that doesn't really work.
Here's my Type 2 :
My Type 2 design is about the same as the original. I love this weapon, though if I were to change one thing I'd probably redesign it so that the emitters on the Type 1 and 2 were aligned. I like the idea that the Type 1 is actually firing through the Type 2, with the 2 housing acting as a kind of amplifier. I might give it a go to see how it looks, though my instinct is that it would look kind of odd. I presume that there is a kind of periscope arrangement of deflection mirrors or crystals or whatever just in front of the Type 1, to send the beam down and through the Type 2 emitter.
Now I always intensely disliked the phaser rifle we saw Kirk using in TOS; partly because it just looks so goofy. It has a very "fifties science fiction raygun" aesthetic to it. But beyond that, it really doesn't sit well alongside either the laser pistols we saw used alongside it, or the slightly later Type 1 and 2 phasers. Those look like real weapons, eminently practical, and the rifle just has such a different aesthetic that it always bothered me.
So I decided to ditch this design altogether and draw a Type 3 rifle that would follow the Type 1/2 aesthetic. Here's my attempt :
It's essentially a stretched Type 2 with twin power packs; I've taken the idea of a power pack serving as a handle and made another that serves as a forward grip. I considered attachment points for lights and targeting sensors and so on, but that didn't really seem to match up with the Type 1 and 2. The shoulder stock is adjustable.
Honestly, I'm not sure I like how this one came out. I've considered various things to do to refine it, but I think it looks a bit too much like a simple extension of the 2 rather than a step along the line of a modular weapon. It's a world above the silly thing Kirk used, though. Thought I'd throw it up here to see what people think.
I tweaked the design a little - call this the Type 1 I would have built if I'd worked for Desilu back in the day! The main difference is in the trigger, which I've made rather larger and more obvious. The Type 1 never really struck me as a very safe weapon - waaaay too easy to hit that trigger for my liking. There's really not much you could do about that except to have some kind of lift up flap... actually in TOS we did see a kind of lift up flap on the top, but it didn't serve as a safety that I could see.
One could say that perhaps the weapon wouldn't fire unless you first popped that cover up, releasing an internal switch... that would be a reasonable safety feature, and the cover itself would provide a little protection from accidentally pressing a switch on the top by dropping it, say. But we see the weapons fired often without that flap open, so that doesn't really work.
Here's my Type 2 :
My Type 2 design is about the same as the original. I love this weapon, though if I were to change one thing I'd probably redesign it so that the emitters on the Type 1 and 2 were aligned. I like the idea that the Type 1 is actually firing through the Type 2, with the 2 housing acting as a kind of amplifier. I might give it a go to see how it looks, though my instinct is that it would look kind of odd. I presume that there is a kind of periscope arrangement of deflection mirrors or crystals or whatever just in front of the Type 1, to send the beam down and through the Type 2 emitter.
Now I always intensely disliked the phaser rifle we saw Kirk using in TOS; partly because it just looks so goofy. It has a very "fifties science fiction raygun" aesthetic to it. But beyond that, it really doesn't sit well alongside either the laser pistols we saw used alongside it, or the slightly later Type 1 and 2 phasers. Those look like real weapons, eminently practical, and the rifle just has such a different aesthetic that it always bothered me.
So I decided to ditch this design altogether and draw a Type 3 rifle that would follow the Type 1/2 aesthetic. Here's my attempt :
It's essentially a stretched Type 2 with twin power packs; I've taken the idea of a power pack serving as a handle and made another that serves as a forward grip. I considered attachment points for lights and targeting sensors and so on, but that didn't really seem to match up with the Type 1 and 2. The shoulder stock is adjustable.
Honestly, I'm not sure I like how this one came out. I've considered various things to do to refine it, but I think it looks a bit too much like a simple extension of the 2 rather than a step along the line of a modular weapon. It's a world above the silly thing Kirk used, though. Thought I'd throw it up here to see what people think.
