STL at warp factor 0.x

[Mr. Oragahn]

First Contact: warp field is holding, speed is in the tens of thousands of kilometers per second. Yet the ship was certainly not seen moving that fast some dozens of seconds earlier. Clearly the application of a warp field boosted their speed.
They had not reach lightspeed. They speak of a threshold.

ST:TPM: impulse speeds are slow as hell. The Enterprise moves like a beached whale.
Then it applies a warp field, and begins to move faster, and faster, and faster, and soon leaves the Solar system and goes to full warp 1 and beyond (I think).

The E-D can apply a warp field to a small moon in Deja-Q and reduce its mass considerably, so much that it allows the E-D to nudge it and avoid a collision with a planet.

In DS9, O'Brien applies a warp field to the formerly Cardassian space station, which allows him to move it away at a speed which I estimated 30 times faster (and that's a space station not meant to be piloted like a ship at all).

Nemesis: full impulse is slow as shit. Just like in TMP before they apply a warp field to the Enterprise.

There.
Point: some impulse speeds imply a warp field, and it's up to the pilot to fiddle with said warp field to fit with the captain's objective. When there's no pressure, they won't use it.

Obviously not a perfect explanation, but it's better than nothing.

Bye

(HMBC style)

Very late EDIT: You may want to read this thread first: Impulse vs. Warp

[Kor_Dahar_Master]

First Contact: warp field is holding, speed is in the tens of thousands of kilometers per second. Yet the ship was certainly not seen moving that fast some dozens of seconds earlier. Clearly the application of a warp field boosted their speed.
They had not reach lightspeed. They speak of a threshold.

Can you link the bits you are refering too?.

ST:TPM: impulse speeds are slow as hell. The Enterprise moves like a beached whale.
Then it applies a warp field, and begins to move faster, and faster, and faster, and soon leaves the Solar system and goes to full warp 1 and beyond (I think).

At what point?, they leave space dock on thrusters and as soon as they go to full impulse we get a rear viewscreen shot of them zipping away from Earth and a very high velocity.

In DS9, O'Brien applies a warp field to the formerly Cardassian space station, which allows him to move it away at a speed which I estimated 30 times faster (and that's a space station not meant to be piloted like a ship at all).

Actually it was a LOT faster than that.

The wormhole was 160 million km from bajor and the station got to it in under 12 hours.

That ia roughly 13.5 million kilomiters per hour if they did not need to accelerate or decelerate.....and they obviously did need to accelerate. So a slow acceleration/deceleration curve would mean a higher top speed than 13.5 milliom kph.

Nemesis: full impulse is slow as shit. Just like in TMP before they apply a warp field to the Enterprise.

From what i recall we never have no static point to base a relative velocity on, even during the fight vs the scimitar for all we know they could be traveling at 50% of c in a single direction and all the other manouvers we see are within that and relative to the ships.

Frontier: Elite II was a prime example of that sort of thing as you could be in a dog fight with a ship at a relative speed to each other of a few hundred kph while the both of you would be traveling towards a planet or station at tens or hundreds of thousands of kph.

[Mike DiCenso]

Kor is right, Oragahn. The Enterprise leaves the drydock on thrusters only, then drifts a ways before Scotty gives the okay to use impulse power, and then the ship rockets away at a good deal the speed of light. You might be getting confused with TWoK, which reused the drydock departure scene from ST:TMP, and they used 1/4 impulse power to leave.
-Mike

[Mr. Oragahn]

Mm yes, The Search for Spock has 1/4 of impulse and then full impulse being slow as hell. Like in Nemesis when Picard orders the Scimitar to be rammed with all they have in terms of power. I believe the Enterprise's full warp capability was screwed, no?
In TMP, they move out of starbase with maneuvering thrusters, get impulse once out and then start moving at warp point something, and that allows them zapping across the system before they go to warp 1 and beyond.
For First Contact it's when they launch the Phoenix. We see it leave Earth at a speed nowhere close to the one mentioned later on. In between, a warp field is activated and maintained. The warp is not at 1 yet, and when Riker checks the speed, it's 20,000 km/s and more. They get closer to the threshold, and then hop!

As for DS9 it's between 30 and 60 times faster. The trip would have taken two months, and it was reduced to one or two days (they were arriving before the Cardassians, who'd get there in two days).

Frontier: Elite II was a prime example of that sort of thing as you could be in a dog fight with a ship at a relative speed to each other of a few hundred kph while the both of you would be traveling towards a planet or station at tens or hundreds of thousands of kph.

From the way you describe it, it sounds like they failed to show how things would actually happen. Any maneuver at such speed would precisely prevent anything like a combat at a relative speed between two ships so much as they'd look like they're fighting normally. That, unless the speed in question was not instantly obtained from thrusters but had much more to do with a drift at a high speed. More like two kids running and jumping in a train: they're certainly not providing sudden impulses allowing to move at 200 km/h in a new direction.

[Lucky]

It's clearly an artifact of Star Trek technology Mr.O. The ships appear to be going much slower then they really are, they are much farther then they appear, and appear to change size and appearance at random. You see it all the time in the series.^_^

[Kor_Dahar_Master]

Like in Nemesis when Picard orders the Scimitar to be rammed with all they have in terms of power. I believe the Enterprise's full warp capability was screwed, no?

Well the first hit dropped them out of warp so id say yes.

The thing about the amming is that we see that shinzons ship is actually moving forwards as well if you watch just after he orders them hard to port.

I always fighured that with the mass lightening and the force of both ships thrusting forwards it any simple KE calculations regarding mass and velocity were pointless.

In TMP, they move out of starbase with maneuvering thrusters, get impulse once out and then start moving at warp point something, and that allows them zapping across the system before they go to warp 1 and beyond.

They move at full impulse that is 0.5c or warp .5 as stated in the movie.

For First Contact it's when they launch the Phoenix. We see it leave Earth at a speed nowhere close to the one mentioned later on. In between, a warp field is activated and maintained. The warp is not at 1 yet, and when Riker checks the speed, it's 20,000 km/s and more. They get closer to the threshold, and then hop!

I dunno about that

As for DS9 it's between 30 and 60 times faster. The trip would have taken two months, and it was reduced to one or two days (they were arriving before the Cardassians, who'd get there in two days).

Kira says they need to be there the next day so depending on the time of day it was when she said it it could be a max of 23mins 59 seconds or a minimum of 1 second, i decided to go for 12 hours to be fair....but that is how quick she wanted to be there not how fast they managed it as it seemed a LOT faster.

The two days comment was in regard to how long it would take the E-D to get back.

O'brien get the station moving and it cuts to the runabout with kira, dax and odo in it at the wormhole area arguing with dukat (kira and crew are two minutes away from the entrace). Dukat enters the worm hole pisses off the prophets and kira and crew see the wormhole disapear. We cut to sisko arguing with the prophets and after that we get this bit of interesting dialog from kiras log.

First officers log suplimental: We have Rendezvous with the space station at the former co-ordinates of the wormhole, unfortunatly our scans have revealed no trace of either the worm hole or dukats ship a few minutes ago 3 cardassian warships crossed the border not doubt on their way to search for dukat.

Now if the runabout met the station at the entrance to the wormhole as she says then it took far less time than a day or maybe even hours to move the station into position because they were only 2 mins away from the entrance when they spoke to dukat.

It is also supported by the comment dax made regarding the thrusters easily being all they need if they alter the mass.

Frontier: Elite II was a prime example of that sort of thing as you could be in a dog fight with a ship at a relative speed to each other of a few hundred kph while the both of you would be traveling towards a planet or station at tens or hundreds of thousands of kph.

From the way you describe it, it sounds like they failed to show how things would actually happen. Any maneuver at such speed would precisely prevent anything like a combat at a relative speed between two ships so much as they'd look like they're fighting normally. That, unless the speed in question was not instantly obtained from thrusters but had much more to do with a drift at a high speed. More like two kids running and jumping in a train: they're certainly not providing sudden impulses allowing to move at 200 km/h in a new direction.

Ok then my explanation sucked then as:

Frontiers style was one based rigidly on Newtonian physics: momentum must first be neutralised to bring the player's craft to a stop, and turning 180° has no effect on the direction of travel until previous momentum has been counteracted. It was even possible to do realistic gravitational slingshots around supermassive stars and large planets.

[Mr. Oragahn]

Like in Nemesis when Picard orders the Scimitar to be rammed with all they have in terms of power. I believe the Enterprise's full warp capability was screwed, no?

Well the first hit dropped them out of warp so id say yes.

The thing about the amming is that we see that shinzons ship is actually moving forwards as well if you watch just after he orders them hard to port.

I always fighured that with the mass lightening and the force of both ships thrusting forwards it any simple KE calculations regarding mass and velocity were pointless.

They still took at hell of a time to even touch.
If the Scimitar was moving forward, which I doubt since it's barely visible and it had no reason to do so and was seen standing firm one minute before right in front of the Enterprise, it means that the Enterprise's impulse was even more sluggish.
I think it makes a ton of sense for warp fields to allow for greater maneuverability, and allows for ships built in a way that's totally counter intuitive to basic structural integrity principles not to snap under the momentum of their own different segments, like for the Connie. The Connie, frankly, is a total disaster in the waiting.
Only magic SIF - and now warp excuse - allow for nice maneuvering.

One reason why I think SIF is actually useful is that if we assume SIF scales up and down depending on the ship's impulse, then a ship with zero impulse will have minimal SIF, while a ship on the move will have the SIF up to prevent snapings. Thus you have the Enterprise plowing through the Scimiar like butter, and that could explain the various Jemmie rammings and why they cut through Klingon ships like a hot knife through butter. But that's irrelevant to warp.

In TMP, they move out of starbase with maneuvering thrusters, get impulse once out and then start moving at warp point something, and that allows them zapping across the system before they go to warp 1 and beyond.

They move at full impulse that is 0.5c or warp .5 as stated in the movie.

They're slowly increasing warp, and to me it's very obvious that there's a warp field on while they're still flying at a slower than light speed.
I also don't see why one would speed of fraction of warp to gauge a STL speed, as it's counter intuitive since you can't scale down linearly from higher warp factors above 1. Anyone would give a speed in kilometers per second, AU per hour, or simply a multiplier of c.

For First Contact it's when they launch the Phoenix. We see it leave Earth at a speed nowhere close to the one mentioned later on. In between, a warp field is activated and maintained. The warp is not at 1 yet, and when Riker checks the speed, it's 20,000 km/s and more. They get closer to the threshold, and then hop!

I dunno about that

It's probably the most telling and one of the most satisfying examples. It explains things nicely.

As for DS9 it's between 30 and 60 times faster. The trip would have taken two months, and it was reduced to one or two days (they were arriving before the Cardassians, who'd get there in two days).

Kira says they need to be there the next day so depending on the time of day it was when she said it it could be a max of 23mins 59 seconds or a minimum of 1 second, i decided to go for 12 hours to be fair....but that is how quick she wanted to be there not how fast they managed it as it seemed a LOT faster.

The two days comment was in regard to how long it would take the E-D to get back.

O'brien get the station moving and it cuts to the runabout with kira, dax and odo in it at the wormhole area arguing with dukat (kira and crew are two minutes away from the entrace). Dukat enters the worm hole pisses off the prophets and kira and crew see the wormhole disapear. We cut to sisko arguing with the prophets and after that we get this bit of interesting dialog from kiras log.

First officers log suplimental: We have Rendezvous with the space station at the former co-ordinates of the wormhole, unfortunatly our scans have revealed no trace of either the worm hole or dukats ship a few minutes ago 3 cardassian warships crossed the border not doubt on their way to search for dukat.

Now if the runabout met the station at the entrance to the wormhole as she says then it took far less time than a day or maybe even hours to move the station into position because they were only 2 mins away from the entrance when they spoke to dukat.

Why? I don't see anything there saying when the station arrived. Only that Kira, Dukat and else were there, Dukat went away in the wormhole. Kira waits, and waits. Nothing happens, and at some point, like 3 minutes before her log, there's three Cardassian ships scouting around.
I don't recall the episode well though so perhaps I'm missing something. Was Sisko on DS9?

Still, the factor isn't important. It's the fact that they did it that matters.

Ok then my explanation sucked then as:

Frontiers style was one based rigidly on Newtonian physics: momentum must first be neutralised to bring the player's craft to a stop, and turning 180° has no effect on the direction of travel until previous momentum has been counteracted. It was even possible to do realistic gravitational slingshots around supermassive stars and large planets.

Yes, so ships were drifting. And then, in theory, you could even make your ship spin by 180° and shoot on a ship chasing it?

[Kor_Dahar_Master]

They still took at hell of a time to even touch.
If the Scimitar was moving forward, which I doubt since it's barely visible and it had no reason to do so and was seen standing firm one minute before right in front of the Enterprise, it means that the Enterprise's impulse was even more sluggish.

After shinzon told them to go to port the screen shifts to a external view and the scimitar is clearly moving forwards and it banks to the left.

I think it makes a ton of sense for warp fields to allow for greater maneuverability, and allows for ships built in a way that's totally counter intuitive to basic structural integrity principles not to snap under the momentum of their own different segments, like for the Connie. The Connie, frankly, is a total disaster in the waiting.
Only magic SIF - and now warp excuse - allow for nice maneuvering.

Yea they use subspace fields all the time its part of impulse.

One reason why I think SIF is actually useful is that if we assume SIF scales up and down depending on the ship's impulse, then a ship with zero impulse will have minimal SIF, while a ship on the move will have the SIF up to prevent snapings. Thus you have the Enterprise plowing through the Scimiar like butter, and that could explain the various Jemmie rammings and why they cut through Klingon ships like a hot knife through butter. But that's irrelevant to warp.

I always figured it was a combo of that, directing SIF forwards to you are like the tip of a spear so to speak as well as the fect that under normal conditions a ship would be set to being stationary or in a certain direction and as such it would naturally compensate against any force trying to alter its heading. So simply put its not like ramming a ship that is going to be pushed backwards but rather like hitting a imobile object or at least one that resists being pushedwith as much force as its able.

In TMP, they move out of starbase with maneuvering thrusters, get impulse once out and then start moving at warp point something, and that allows them zapping across the system before they go to warp 1 and beyond.

They move at full impulse that is 0.5c or warp .5 as stated in the movie.

They're slowly increasing warp, and to me it's very obvious that there's a warp field on while they're still flying at a slower than light speed.
I also don't see why one would speed of fraction of warp to gauge a STL speed, as it's counter intuitive since you can't scale down linearly from higher warp factors above 1. Anyone would give a speed in kilometers per second, AU per hour, or simply a multiplier of c.

I thought they always used a subspace field when at implse if they could and that upto warp 1 all fractions of warp refered to were percentages of c.

For First Contact it's when they launch the Phoenix. We see it leave

It's probably the most telling and one of the most satisfying examples. It explains things nicely.

I just watched it at even before the 20,000 comment we lose sight of earth and by the time they say they are approaching c we have not seen it for quite some time, the only referance point is the E-E and it will obviously be matchig speeds.

Why? I don't see anything there saying when the station arrived. Only that Kira, Dukat and else were there, Dukat went away in the wormhole. Kira waits, and waits. Nothing happens, and at some point, like 3 minutes before her log, there's three Cardassian ships scouting around.
I don't recall the episode well though so perhaps I'm missing something. Was Sisko on DS9?

Still, the factor isn't important. It's the fact that they did it that matters.

Sisko was arguing with the prophets.

Anyway its in the order of events.

1. Kira leaves ds9 on a runabout.
2. O'brien gets the stationmoving.
3. Kira argues with dukat 2 mins out from the wormhole.

4. We go to kiras log that states that they rendevous with the station that was ALREADY AT the position of the worm hole entrance.

Si it must have got there sometime during or soon after her argument with dukat and the wormhole entrance closing.

Yes, so ships were drifting. And then, in theory, you could even make your ship spin by 180° and shoot on a ship chasing it?

Yes.

[Lucky]

I think it makes a ton of sense for warp fields to allow for greater maneuverability, and allows for ships built in a way that's totally counter intuitive to basic structural integrity principles not to snap under the momentum of their own different segments, like for the Connie. The Connie, frankly, is a total disaster in the waiting.
Only magic SIF - and now warp excuse - allow for nice maneuvering.

Yea they use subspace fields all the time its part of impulse.

Do they use subspace fields as part of impulse? Things like altering the mass of an object seem to be talked about as rare, and unusual.

[Mr. Oragahn]

After shinzon told them to go to port the screen shifts to a external view and the scimitar is clearly moving forwards and it banks to the left.

Well that's most negligible really. It still takes well above ten seconds for the ships to make contact.

Yea they use subspace fields all the time its part of impulse.

That's actually my point. I'd be surprised if this was established as a fact though. Where do we find this confirmation in canon?

For First Contact it's when they launch the Phoenix. We see it leave

It's probably the most telling and one of the most satisfying examples. It explains things nicely.

I just watched it at even before the 20,000 comment we lose sight of earth and by the time they say they are approaching c we have not seen it for quite some time, the only referance point is the E-E and it will obviously be matchig speeds.

We lose sight of Earth mainly because he Phoenix flies in front of the camera and the camera rotates. The main thruster was cut off, and the design of the ship certainly does not allow for such speeds solely on that kind of engine. I guess the maneuvers were chiefly completed with a mix of warp and maneuvering thrusters.

Why? I don't see anything there saying when the station arrived. Only that Kira, Dukat and else were there, Dukat went away in the wormhole. Kira waits, and waits. Nothing happens, and at some point, like 3 minutes before her log, there's three Cardassian ships scouting around.
I don't recall the episode well though so perhaps I'm missing something. Was Sisko on DS9?

Still, the factor isn't important. It's the fact that they did it that matters.

Sisko was arguing with the prophets.

Anyway its in the order of events.

1. Kira leaves ds9 on a runabout.
2. O'brien gets the stationmoving.
3. Kira argues with dukat 2 mins out from the wormhole.

4. We go to kiras log that states that they rendevous with the station that was ALREADY AT the position of the worm hole entrance.

Si it must have got there sometime during or soon after her argument with dukat and the wormhole entrance closing.

Is there, beyond any director time-cut, any clue about when Kira had her argument?

Do they use subspace fields as part of impulse? Things like altering the mass of an object seem to be talked about as rare, and unusual.

On the other hand, for ships, if it were normal, they wouldn't need to point it out every time, or even at all. Besides, it's probable that the largest occurrences of ships flying are of ships moving at dumb-Hollywood speeds. So that alone would make the intrasystems zipping speeds rare.

[Praeothmin]

Problem is, there are many instances of the Warp-Engines being offline and yet the ship still has impulse, so if it was that common, then everytime the Warp Drive or Engines were damaged/offline, we'd have heard how "the damage we have means we have no mass lightening, so impulse will be slower"...

[Kor_Dahar_Master]

Is there, beyond any director time-cut, any clue about when Kira had her argument?

They reduced speed to 1/3 impulse speed at 2 mins out and kira hailed him, it did cut to sisko a few times inbetween scenes but it still indicates that the station was capable of moving at simular speeds to the runabout if it arrived roughly at the same time.

[Mr. Oragahn]

Problem is, there are many instances of the Warp-Engines being offline and yet the ship still has impulse, so if it was that common, then everytime the Warp Drive or Engines were damaged/offline, we'd have heard how "the damage we have means we have no mass lightening, so impulse will be slower"...

Why? Are Starfleet so dumb that they need to be told that the magic moves are locked as long as warp is down?
Starfleet Academy would logically teach scholars that in their first years, so much that the knowledge of super speeds on impulse being impossible without warp would be as intuitive as the idea that fire burns, or as intuitive a sugar being sweet.

[Lucky]

Problem is, there are many instances of the Warp-Engines being offline and yet the ship still has impulse, so if it was that common, then everytime the Warp Drive or Engines were damaged/offline, we'd have heard how "the damage we have means we have no mass lightening, so impulse will be slower"...

Why? Are Starfleet so dumb that they need to be told that the magic moves are locked as long as warp is down?
Starfleet Academy would logically teach scholars that in their first years, so much that the knowledge of super speeds on impulse being impossible without warp would be as intuitive as the idea that fire burns, or as intuitive a sugar being sweet.

If reducing the mass of an object to make moving it easier was common they would not make a big deal out of it beyond perhaps scale, and in the case of DS9 said systems would have been noted as off line, broken, or not there.

[Kor_Dahar_Master]

Problem is, there are many instances of the Warp-Engines being offline and yet the ship still has impulse, so if it was that common, then everytime the Warp Drive or Engines were damaged/offline, we'd have heard how "the damage we have means we have no mass lightening, so impulse will be slower"...

Why? Are Starfleet so dumb that they need to be told that the magic moves are locked as long as warp is down?
Starfleet Academy would logically teach scholars that in their first years, so much that the knowledge of super speeds on impulse being impossible without warp would be as intuitive as the idea that fire burns, or as intuitive a sugar being sweet.

They do not need warp engines to do it they can use the subspace field output of the deflector generators to create a low level subspace field.