www.ditl.org

The blast doors could be made of cargo containers... nothing gets through those.

There's a fair amount of difference between rock and a metal alloy.

Yes, that's what I was trying to point out. That phasers are good against rock does not mean they'll be equaly good against metal.
Indeed, we have canon evidence to suggest phasers suck Vs metal.

Well I still want my damn Marines! Since there isn't a reason for not adding I'm going to use that .02% space and place them.

Kendall - that wasn't me, but thanks.

As far as the marines, I don't think we were talking about a separate service branch, just a convenient term for troops who are actually trained as soldiers ( ) and berthed aboard a ship.

Thats sounds right to me.

Um, Rochey... starship hulls are made of metal, and we have seen phasers destroy ships all the time.

Oh, were you referring to hand phasers?

We've seen a similar effect with starship phasers - they can punch holes several kilometres deep in a planet's crust, and yet look at their effect (or lack thereof) on a starship's hull. They're limited to burning off a few dozen or hundred square metres.

And we have also seen them destroy enormous amounts of metal, such as against the Borg ship in Best of Both Worlds.

stitch626 wrote:And we have also seen them destroy enormous amounts of metal, such as against the Borg ship in Best of Both Worlds.

About 99.9% of which was empty space.

Still, I'd rather have forcefields because they're so much more versatile.

Um, Rochey... starship hulls are made of metal, and we have seen phasers destroy ships all the time.

Oh, were you referring to hand phasers?

I was reffering specificaly to hand-portable phasers, since they're the only thing a boarding party would have with them, but phasers in general have demonstrated that they have a greater effect on rock than on metal. The E-D used a phaser to tunnel down through the crust of a planet in one episode, IIRC, yet we routinely see unshielded ships survive phaser blasts with drasticaly less damage done to them.

And we have also seen them destroy enormous amounts of metal, such as against the Borg ship in Best of Both Worlds

Not a particularly difficult feat, when you consider that the Cube is mostly empty space and completely unarmoured.
It should be noted that against the armoured Cube in FC, it took the combined power of close to a dozen ships to blow a hole through the side of the Cube.

Still, I'd rather have forcefields because they're so much more versatile.

We should use both. Redundancy is always a good thing. In this instance we can have the versatility of a forcefield, combined with a backup system that can't be bypassed by draining it of power or other technobabble sollutions while still being strong enough to resist anything the boarders can bring with them.

I'm having trouble understanding why its even a question... There's no reason not to have the blast doors on board. There's also no reason not to have force fields with them.

I agree, have both, it doesnt hurt the ship any to have them both used.

Mikey wrote:Kendall - that wasn't me, but thanks.

As far as the marines, I don't think we were talking about a separate service branch, just a convenient term for troops who are actually trained as soldiers ( ) and berthed aboard a ship.

Well Marine has a very specific meaning: naval infantry whose primary purpose is amphibous assualt. Maybe I'm just an anal jerk but what you are describing are actually Master at Arms, which is pretty close to what Starfleet Security are. Responsible for internal and external security.

Well, let's have some well trained versions of them, then.

We're not talking about the USMC, or the Royal Marines. I was always under the impression that Deep referred to the original meaning of the term "marine," which was a soldier trained to fight aboard, and berthed on, a ship (probably without the press-gang implication, though.)