Re: Tractor beams
Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2009 6:33 pm
I'm not sure that's a fair assessment. For tasks as great as starship construction, they used shipyards/drydocks even as late as the VOY era.
Yes, they called them synthesizers. Maybe it's that those synthesizers used some kind of mechanical process to make the food, and that the use of transporter technology for food replication was a new feature in the 24th century.Rochey wrote:Wasn't there something similar to a replicator in TOS? At the very least, there was a machine in And the Children Shall Lead that could make any type of ice cream you wanted appear in a very replicator-esque fasion.
I agree, i think they could bring some parts with them, replicate some other parts then just assemble those all together and presto: Brand new shuttle. Of course the Delta Flyer is a little bit more compicated but we've starfleet crews making some out of the ordinary thinks before.GrahamKennedy wrote:I reeeealy don't find it hard to believe that they could build shuttles. We have kit cars right now, all it takes is a decently large garage space and a little equipment to assemble one. And I have no problem believing that Voyager could replicate most of the parts required for a shuttle. We know the E-D could replicate a whole computer core from The Next Phase. The only thing I can think of that might be hard to replicate is warp coils, and I can easily see a room somewhere on Voyager with a few hundred of those stacked up like spare car tires.
I don't think anyone's suggesting the replication of any major components in any time period and certainly not something that could replicate large portions of a ship. Its obvious that doing so is not feasible just from seeing the starship's being built in any time period. My own personal take on it being that while smaller bits can be replicated, large metallic items were energy intensive, intensive enough that even starships preferred to just bring along commonly required spare parts instead of replicating them. In a pinch (like say you crash shuttles just for the fun of it, looking at you Voyager) you could replicate things like shuttle parts if needed to help build new ones but on the whole the energy requirements still made it better to make things the old fashioned way.SomosFuga wrote:The way they were constructing the Enterprise in ST:XI looked very traditional to me so assuming they had similar tech in the main timeline i don't think they had "realy big starship/starbase builder replicators" at TOS age.
Doubtful. In ENT they were capable of turning shit into shoes, so they obviously had a primitive version of the tech back then.Lazar wrote:Yes, they called them synthesizers. Maybe it's that those synthesizers used some kind of mechanical process to make the food, and that the use of transporter technology for food replication was a new feature in the 24th century.
Quite true. And thus are unlikely to have everything necessary to build a station just lying around, necessitating that the equipment be brought from elsewhere. More on this later.Lighthawk wrote:Just because they are in the ass end of nowhere doesn't mean they're underdeveloped, it just means they're a really far way away from the federation core worlds.
As others have clarified, they're "Synthesizers". Same principal, however.Lighthawk wrote:No idea, my knowledge of TOS is pretty limited.
I think you're underestimating just how difficult such an undertaking would be.Lighthawk wrote:I'm not saying it's impossible, just impractical, especially with replicators. Prior to the replicators though, I still would argue against it. I'd sooner expect them to have large cargo vessels hauling the raw materials to the location and then putting it together there.
Who says you need dozens? A single ship of sufficient engine strength would be capable of doing it.Lighthawk wrote:...that, or they have some kind of space station rig with warp engines on it that they can slap onto large objects and warp them. It'd probably be slow and fuel hungry, but having the engines on the station moving it directly makes more sense to me then trying to coordinate a dozen or more ships at several times the speed of light. If just one ship veered off by a fraction of a degree for even half a second, it'd open a gap of thousands of miles between itself and the rest of the fleet, and then you'd have a warp speed tug of war.
We have never seen nor heard of anything like those in the fleet.Rochey wrote:Who says you need dozens? A single ship of sufficient engine strength would be capable of doing it.Lighthawk wrote:...that, or they have some kind of space station rig with warp engines on it that they can slap onto large objects and warp them. It'd probably be slow and fuel hungry, but having the engines on the station moving it directly makes more sense to me then trying to coordinate a dozen or more ships at several times the speed of light. If just one ship veered off by a fraction of a degree for even half a second, it'd open a gap of thousands of miles between itself and the rest of the fleet, and then you'd have a warp speed tug of war.
At warp speed, yes you do.Mikey wrote:Yep. Space is pretty empty. You don't need to exert constant thrust to maintain a given velocity.
Begging your pardon, but I have heard of FTL engines in Starfleet.SomosFuga wrote:We have never seen nor heard of anything like those in the fleet.
Do tell? Source, please? You have to maintain a warp field, granted; but you probably don't need a hgih-speed engine to do so.SomosFuga wrote:At warp speed, yes you do.
FTL, yes of course, but we are talking about a starship capable of towing SB 74 through thousands of light years all by herself, so again, we have never seen nor heard of anything like those in the fleet.Mikey wrote:Begging your pardon, but I have heard of FTL engines in Starfleet.SomosFuga wrote:We have never seen nor heard of anything like those in the fleet.
For both ideas, i'm not saying it's impossible, just that i find it very difficult to acomplish to say the least.some kind of space station rig with warp engines on it that they can slap onto large objects and warp them.
We know photon torpedoes have some kind of warp sustainer system that maintain the warp field and allows the torpedo to keep in warp for some time if they were fire at warp speed, but that and maintain a several hundreds meters starship (to say nothing of a starship towing SB 74) at warp through a medium range space travel without a warp engine are two very different things, you could probably need a very powerfull engine to do such a task.Mikey wrote:Do tell? Source, please? You have to maintain a warp field, granted; but you probably don't need a hgih-speed engine to do so.SomosFuga wrote:At warp speed, yes you do.
About the torpedoes, source, I've never heard that they had FTL engines in them, if they did couldn't they speed up before impact to increase damage greatly...SomosFuga wrote:We know photon torpedoes have some kind of warp sustainer system that maintain the warp field and allows the torpedo to keep in warp for some time if they were fire at warp speed, but that and maintain a several hundreds meters starship (to say nothing of a starship towing SB 74) at warp through a medium range space travel without a warp engine are two very different things, you could probably need a very powerfull engine to do such a task.
Plus we have seen Voyager going out of warp immediately when they ejected the warp core in "Day of Honor" hence you probably do need a high-speed engine to do so.
Key point italicized.SomosFuga wrote:We know photon torpedoes have some kind of warp sustainer system that maintain the warp field(sic) and allows the torpedo to keep in warp for some time if they were fire at warp speed
None of this in any way indicates the presence of drag at warp speed. Hence, once the object is at the desired velocity, no thrust is necessary.SomosFuga wrote:you could probably need a very powerfull engine to do such a task.
Plus we have seen Voyager going out of warp immediately when they ejected the warp core in "Day of Honor" hence you probably do need a high-speed engine to do so.
Well you're talking about warp drive as if it's a form of Newtonian propulsion, and it's not. It isn't thrust that gets a ship moving at a given warp factor, it's subspace distortion. From talk of warp sustainers on torpedoes, and stuff like the (non-canon) warp energy scale in the TNG:TM, we can posit that it takes more energy to accelerate to a given warp factor than to maintain it, but still, you need to constantly maintain a warp field and that will require the constant expenditure of energy.Mikey wrote:None of this in any way indicates the presence of drag at warp speed. Hence, once the object is at the desired velocity, no thrust is necessary.