Storm Front(s)

[Sonic Glitch]

I agree about the survivability of packing crates. The question is, why don't we ever see anyone wearing suits of TNG packing crate material?

Same reason they don't make planes out of the same material as the black boxes? (whatever reason that is)

[Deepcrush]

I agree about the survivability of packing crates. The question is, why don't we ever see anyone wearing suits of TNG packing crate material?

Same reason they don't make planes out of the same material as the black boxes? (whatever reason that is)

Cost and weight.

[Mikey]

Fine. Read it as "obsolete or unused for no particular reason at all."

[Deepcrush]

Well obsolete doesn't fit and the "no reason at all" is the OOU reason. What's the IU reason?

[Tsukiyumi]

Maybe they couldn't design armor that wouldn't clash with the uniforms?

Seriously, I have no idea.

[Deepcrush]

OOU is easy. The Trek writers are just so stupid that even I couldn't bash them for everything without getting tired of it.

IU, it's just beyond me...

[Sionnach Glic]

I think the simplest answer is that they just don't use body armour because the guys in charge are iduits. You know, the same reason why they don't use inteligently designed weapons, proper ship designs, smart security protocols, armoured vehicles, etc.

[Teaos]

One could argue that since phasers can supposedly be cranked up so high they can blow half a building up, or at least cause serious damage, they could take on any amount of armour you could reasonably wear.

Still retarded to at least not try though.

[Captain Seafort]

One could argue that since phasers can supposedly be cranked up so high they can blow half a building up, or at least cause serious damage, they could take on any amount of armour you could reasonably wear.

Not this again. The worst we've seen a phaser do was cut a three-foot wide, ten-foot deep hole in some rather loose rock in "Chain of Command".

[Teaos]

Its said it can, you cant prove it cant. End of story.

[Deepcrush]

Guy on drugs trying to scare people holding him against his will... Not a reliable source, even IU. Since phasers on overload can't do that kind of damage then a single shot can't do that kind of damage.

[Captain Seafort]

Its said it can

By Riker, while hallucinating and drugged up to his eyeballs, in a building that was a figmant of his imagination, and of unspecified size.

you cant prove it cant.

Yes I can - we saw the effects of Level 16 twice, in "The Vengeance Factor" and "Chain of Command, Part I". In the former the effect was a typical NDFing of a rather slightly built woman, and in the latter it drilled a hole about three feet wide by 10 feet deep (maybe a bit deeper, but not much) in loosely consolidated rock. Neither of these events come close to flattening half a building.

[Coalition]

You could also cite Season 4 "Legacy", where the Ent-D's main phasers were used to drill through granite to beam the Away Team down. Assuming the width was three meters, and given the rate LaForge was counting out the depths, the phasers were chewing their way through granite at about 600 cubic meters per second.

Or Season 7 "Inheritance" - They drill a hole about 2 meters wide, two kilometers long, in about five seconds. That is 1250 cubic meters per second. This was after Geordi modified the phasers to "create the most highly focused particle beam possible".


These were the starship's main weapons, specially modified for drilling. Is anyone going to seriously claim a hand phaser is more powerful, or even within shouting range of those weapons?


For hand weapon power we did have Season 4 "Mind's Eye" where they measured a phaser rifle at 1.05 MW. The Tech Manual states 1.02 GW for the Ent-D's main phaser array. So a hand phaser should be capable of about 1.29 cubic meters per second, if direct power comparison is valid.

Of course we also have the following power levels:
"Battle Lines" - 40 MW (about 40 times more powerful than a phaser rifle)
"Survivors" - 400 GW
"Who watches the Watchers" - 4.2 GW
"A Matter of Time" - TeraWatt range, but it required using all the EPS taps on board

[Sionnach Glic]

By Riker, while hallucinating and drugged up to his eyeballs, in a building that was a figmant of his imagination, and of unspecified size.

Who was also half insane at that point and threatening a bunch of aliens that had probably never seen a Fed phaser before. Hardly a good source of intel.

[Graham Kennedy]

The figure of 1.02 GW for an array is non canon, and over ruled by Who Watches the Wachers, when Geordi says that a gigawatt reactor is enough for only a small phaser bank. And given that the TNG TM rates rifles at a few kW, as opposed to the MW minimum value Mind's Eye gives us, it's not really to be trusted on this.


And regarding those crates. Who said they were "light"?