DS9 holding of a group of klingon ships

[Jedi Master Spock]

Quick impressions from "The Way of the Warrior":

It is definitely a case of DS9 providing both torpedos and high-powered phasers. It is, IIRC, after the order to fire phasers that Kira reports eight Klingon ships have been destroyed.

However, the Negh'Var knocks down DS9's shields and sends in boarding parties remarkably quickly, all things considered. The shields are brought back online after not too long either.

The Klingon fleet is interesting in composition. Perhaps I miscounted, but I see on the big comm screen a fleet comprised of:

• 1 Negh'Var capital ship
• 4 Vor'Cha battlecruisers.
• 6 D7 battlecruisers.
• ~30 small birds of prey (the infamous "fighter sized" vessels EAS scales as ~50m relative to the other Klingon ships).

In terms of displacement, this is really interesting. The ~30 or so small BoPs add up to roughly half a D7 cruiser in terms of volume at their miniscule size; in turn, the D7s plus the tiny BoPs add up to not quite one Vor'cha.

It is difficult to gauge the size of the Negh'Var, but it could come close to being equal to the rest of the fleet put together. Strange.

The Vor'cha battlecruisers and Negh'Var are what knock down DS9's shields so quickly... and what DS9 blows up handily are the tiny BoPs and ancient D7s. I can't for the life of me find any cases of one of the few Vor'cha cruisers blowing up.

It's still a very impressive showing; Sisko was threatening to try and hold out for fifteen minutes more of the Klingons trying to capture the station before the cavalry showed up.

Oddly enough, in EoT and apparently in TDM as well, the photon torpedoes cannot be armed or fired with only impulse power available.

I just re-read that, and there are two more things to take into account from TDM.

First, "The Doomsday Machine" can't really be described as a demonstration of torpedos being unable to arm; the doomsday machine in question generated a field that suppressed M/AM reactions, which we know the torpedo warhead (not just the warp core) rely on. The torpdedos' warheads should be inert, making them useless even if they could be armed and fired.

Second, although of limited use, we have a general estimate for the order of output of the impulse engines, which we can contrast with the much better known figures for warp power. One impulse engine being self-destructed is a 99.75 megaton explosion in "The Doomsday Machine," which fits reasonably with the more moderate figures we can calculate for the warp core.

[Socar]

6 D7 battlecruisers.

Actually, I believe those were K't'inga class battlecruisers (the ones from the movies and early TNG). The D7 ones from TOS would almost definitely be all out of service by this point.

[Mike DiCenso]

Torpedo about to hit a Vor'Cha:

http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/display ... 06&pos=470

The same Vor'Cha goes "BOOM!":

http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/display ... 06&pos=471

Jedi Master Spock:

First, "The Doomsday Machine" can't really be described as a demonstration of torpedos being unable to arm; the doomsday machine in question generated a field that suppressed M/AM reactions, which we know the torpedo warhead (not just the warp core) rely on. The torpdedos' warheads should be inert, making them useless even if they could be armed and fired.

Second, although of limited use, we have a general estimate for the order of output of the impulse engines, which we can contrast with the much better known figures for warp power. One impulse engine being self-destructed is a 99.75 megaton explosion in "The Doomsday Machine," which fits reasonably with the more moderate figures we can calculate for the warp core.

I have to question that the energy dampening field so completely supressed the AM in the torpedoes like that. The Enterprise's warp drive, for instance, was not supressed by the planet killer's field, it was knocked out (along with the transporter and communications) by repeated hits from it's anti-proton beam. It is possible, that like with the Constellation, the Enterprise's antimatter was "deactivated" in some part. However we do not know how long it takes for the planet killer's field to accomplish this. So we have no idea one way or the other, really.

In EoT, it is a clear cut statement that the torpedoes cannot be powered on impulse.

One the subject of the impulse engines, it seems that the 97.835 MT blast does not represent the total normal maximum energy output of a single impulse engine. The warp drive ought to be able to sustain that and much more for longer periods of time. In fact, in "True Q", 12.75 billion gigawatts is a little more than 3 gigatons of energy being generated each second. That's some 31 times the energy output of a single overload impulse engine, and we don't even know if that is the maximum power output of a starship warpcore.
-Mike

[Jedi Master Spock]

Torpedo about to hit a Vor'Cha:

http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/display ... 06&pos=470

The same Vor'Cha goes "BOOM!":

http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/display ... 06&pos=471

I stand quite emphatically corrected.

In EoT, it is a clear cut statement that the torpedoes cannot be powered on impulse.

That it is. I wonder why...

One the subject of the impulse engines, it seems that the 97.835 MT blast does not represent the total normal maximum energy output of a single impulse engine. The warp drive ought to be able to sustain that and much more for longer periods of time. In fact, in "True Q", 12.75 billion gigawatts is a little more than 3 gigatons of energy being generated each second. That's some 31 times the energy output of a single overload impulse engine, and we don't even know if that is the maximum power output of a starship warpcore.
-Mike

That's warp power vs impulse power. "True Q" only talks about the warp core, IIRC. Better to say that the full overload of a CCS impulse engine represents 1/31 second's worth of warp power for a GCS at idle.

What's up in the air, IMO, is what the relation between the impulse engine's overload yield and the same engine's normal sustained power levels. How many seconds of power the overload represents, in other words.

[Mike DiCenso]

In EoT, it is a clear cut statement that the torpedoes cannot be powered on impulse.

Jedi Master Spock wrote:
That it is. I wonder why...

We might surmise that the reason is not so much power requirement for arming the torpedoes themselves, but in launching them at or to hyper-light velocities.

One the subject of the impulse engines, it seems that the 97.835 MT blast does not represent the total normal maximum energy output of a single impulse engine. The warp drive ought to be able to sustain that and much more for longer periods of time. In fact, in "True Q", 12.75 billion gigawatts is a little more than 3 gigatons of energy being generated each second. That's some 31 times the energy output of a single overload impulse engine, and we don't even know if that is the maximum power output of a starship warpcore.

Jedi Master Spock wrote:
That's warp power vs impulse power. "True Q" only talks about the warp core, IIRC. Better to say that the full overload of a CCS impulse engine represents 1/31 second's worth of warp power for a GCS at idle.

What's up in the air, IMO, is what the relation between the impulse engine's overload yield and the same engine's normal sustained power levels. How many seconds of power the overload represents, in other words.

Yes, it is a comparison between a GCS warp core at idle and an CCS impulse engine on maximum overload. But the point is that we can clearly see a significant discrepancy between the two, even taking into account the decades more advanced nature of the GCS powerplant. This isn't a simple matter of the warp cores being say, 50% more powerful than the impulse engines, but at least several orders of magnitude. It also explains in at least some part why phasers, torpedoes, full warp drive, full shields, and other high-energy applications cannot always be powered up from just the impulse engines alone.
-Mike