Warp Speeds List

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2046
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Re: Warp Speeds List

Post by 2046 » Wed Dec 05, 2012 5:05 am

Chide all you like, but I loathe warp highways and would seek and prefer any explanations which avoid weird regions of space that affect one's speed by thousands of times or more.

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Re: Warp Speeds List

Post by Lucky » Wed Dec 05, 2012 7:25 am

2046 wrote:Chide all you like, but I loathe warp highways and would seek and prefer any explanations which avoid weird regions of space that affect one's speed by thousands of times or more.
It's not hard to picture some ares being more suitable for travel at higher speeds then others. Warp is a real space FTL method.

You need to be careful to not crash into things, and that ignored the negative space wedgies that seem to be everywhere. Some ares are going to be more empty then others. We know bad stuff happens if you hit something.

Then you have those absurdly common negative space wedgies.

On top of that gravitational waves may effect warp speeds as well given you are warping space/time to travel faster then light.

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Re: Warp Speeds List

Post by 359 » Thu Dec 06, 2012 2:49 am

Lucky wrote:It's not hard to picture some ares being more suitable for travel at higher speeds then others. Warp is a real space FTL method.

You need to be careful to not crash into things,
Space is mostly empty space, and while there may be some difference in effective routs (ie: routs in which you don't hit anything, or the best way to avoid a solar system) there isn't any reason for warp to be significantly faster, certainly not hundreds or thousands of times faster, in one region vs another.

Along with that, one cannot have better data increase one's speed very much either. Otherwise the many times we see Voyager, or other ships, running around after each other, the local one would have a distinct "home field advantage" and the chase would be over in minutes or seconds.
Lucky wrote:Then you have those absurdly common negative space wedgies.
Anomalies are not quite as common as one might think, they only happen in a few dozen episodes and those episodes are the interesting points in time. Not just the standard transit.

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Re: Warp Speeds List

Post by Mike DiCenso » Thu Dec 06, 2012 3:34 pm

359 wrote:Space is mostly empty space, and while there may be some difference in effective routs (ie: routs in which you don't hit anything, or the best way to avoid a solar system) there isn't any reason for warp to be significantly faster, certainly not hundreds or thousands of times faster, in one region vs another.

Along with that, one cannot have better data increase one's speed very much either. Otherwise the many times we see Voyager, or other ships, running around after each other, the local one would have a distinct "home field advantage" and the chase would be over in minutes or seconds.
Gravity fields, dust clouds, subspace anomalies, etc all can make a difference. And yes, in the long history of warfare, a ship with the knowledge of the "local terrain" should have a major advantage over the one that is foreign, unless they're both very familiar with it.

Not to mention, the other problem is, this is what we're stuck with because it is canon that many years can be slashed off a long distance journey when improved navigational data is applied, and it can be done at any point along the way.
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Re: Warp Speeds List

Post by Lucky » Thu Dec 06, 2012 8:39 pm

One thing to keep in mind is that travel times may be extended do to political entities not wanting you in their space.
Lucky wrote:It's not hard to picture some ares being more suitable for travel at higher speeds then others. Warp is a real space FTL method.

You need to be careful to not crash into things,
359 wrote:Space is mostly empty space, and while there may be some difference in effective routs (ie: routs in which you don't hit anything, or the best way to avoid a solar system) there isn't any reason for warp to be significantly faster, certainly not hundreds or thousands of times faster, in one region vs another.
Except we do have examples of ships running head first into things like in "Tomorrow is Yesterday", and know those nasty dust clouds can be very dangerous to travel through.
359 wrote:Along with that, one cannot have better data increase one's speed very much either. Otherwise the many times we see Voyager, or other ships, running around after each other, the local one would have a distinct "home field advantage" and the chase would be over in minutes or seconds.
As I recall there were huge natural barriers that caused problems for Voyager as well as political entities they needed to avoid.
Lucky wrote:Then you have those absurdly common negative space wedgies.
359 wrote:Anomalies are not quite as common as one might think, they only happen in a few dozen episodes and those episodes are the interesting points in time. Not just the standard transit.
Let's assume you are correct and there is only a total of 12 NSW encountered by Kirk, Picard and Sisko combined.

TOS takes place in a 5 year period.
TNG takes place in a 7 year period.
DS9 takes place in a 9 year period.

That makes 12 NSW randomly found in 21 years that nearly destroyed three ships, and one of those captains was stationed on a space station operating in explored space most of the time!

No one considers the numbers of negative space wedgies encountered by Sisko, Kirk, and Picard to be abnormally high. That means other captains are running into their own Negative space wedgies about as often, and the UFP has at least 10,000 ships running around.

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Re: Warp Speeds List

Post by 359 » Thu Dec 06, 2012 11:08 pm

Mike DiCenso wrote:Gravity fields, dust clouds, subspace anomalies, etc all can make a difference. And yes, in the long history of warfare, a ship with the knowledge of the "local terrain" should have a major advantage over the one that is foreign, unless they're both very familiar with it.

Not to mention, the other problem is, this is what we're stuck with because it is canon that many years can be slashed off a long distance journey when improved navigational data is applied, and it can be done at any point along the way.
Yes, but what I mean is that just because you have better data does not increase your top cruising speed, it allows you to plot and follow a more efficient path to your destination thereby decreasing travel time. And that relates to my point about ship pursuit, neither ship travels much faster then the other, but the local vessel can plot a shorter and more efficient course.

Lucky wrote:Except we do have examples of ships running head first into things like in "Tomorrow is Yesterday", and know those nasty dust clouds can be very dangerous to travel through.
That's what I mean by "effective routes", a ship which is familiar with the area will know to plot a course around such obstacles in advance, therefor making their path of travel more efficient.

Lucky wrote:Let's assume you are correct and there is only a total of 12 NSW encountered by Kirk, Picard and Sisko combined.

TOS takes place in a 5 year period.
TNG takes place in a 7 year period.
DS9 takes place in a 9 year period.

That makes 12 NSW randomly found in 21 years that nearly destroyed three ships, and one of those captains was stationed on a space station operating in explored space most of the time!

No one considers the numbers of negative space wedgies encountered by Sisko, Kirk, and Picard to be abnormally high. That means other captains are running into their own Negative space wedgies about as often, and the UFP has at least 10,000 ships running around.
I only meant to point out that that is a tiny amount of their time compared to what is off screen. Also I'm fairly sure TOS was three years and DS9 was seven.

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Re: Warp Speeds List

Post by Mike DiCenso » Fri Dec 07, 2012 7:23 am

359 wrote:Yes, but what I mean is that just because you have better data does not increase your top cruising speed, it allows you to plot and follow a more efficient path to your destination thereby decreasing travel time. And that relates to my point about ship pursuit, neither ship travels much faster then the other, but the local vessel can plot a shorter and more efficient course.
I see what you're saying. I would also point out that during the time the Kazon were chasing Voyager throughout the first three seasons, they always managed to keep up with her, even thought their ships were generally inferior. The only reason we stopped seeing the Kazon was because they essentially gave up after the events of "Basics, Part 2". But almost always it was the same group of Kazon that hounded Voyager during that time.

So in light of what we now know, it makes better sense.
-Mike

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Re: Warp Speeds List

Post by Lucky » Sat Dec 08, 2012 5:46 am

Lucky wrote:Except we do have examples of ships running head first into things like in "Tomorrow is Yesterday", and know those nasty dust clouds can be very dangerous to travel through.
359 wrote: That's what I mean by "effective routes", a ship which is familiar with the area will know to plot a course around such obstacles in advance, therefor making their path of travel more efficient.
Those routes can be notably shorter/faster from what we see of the Kazon.
Lucky wrote:Let's assume you are correct and there is only a total of 12 NSW encountered by Kirk, Picard and Sisko combined.

TOS takes place in a 5 year period.
TNG takes place in a 7 year period.
DS9 takes place in a 9 year period.

That makes 12 NSW randomly found in 21 years that nearly destroyed three ships, and one of those captains was stationed on a space station operating in explored space most of the time!

No one considers the numbers of negative space wedgies encountered by Sisko, Kirk, and Picard to be abnormally high. That means other captains are running into their own Negative space wedgies about as often, and the UFP has at least 10,000 ships running around.
359 wrote: I only meant to point out that that is a tiny amount of their time compared to what is off screen. Also I'm fairly sure TOS was three years and DS9 was seven.
Which makes the Star Trek Milkyway seem like a death trap. Heck, we only see the interesting thing which mean there could be a large number of NSW we never hear about.

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Re: Warp Speeds List

Post by 2046 » Sat Dec 08, 2012 9:07 pm

In addition to 359's exquisite point about foreign territory, we know warp velocity is at least locally constant from anytime a ship in foreign territory and a native ship or person describe velocities with the same warp factor. I can think of the warp cloud from "Catwalk", the Dominion battleship vs. the Valiant, and examples from Voyager.

Unless we want to argue that a ridiculously variable system is being converted into a static sounding system for us on the fly by the same wascally wabbit who gives us sound in space.

In any case, though, I think the best approach is to figure out the most reliable velocities from the total of all, make the best fit line possible,, and from there point to outliers (faster or slower) and figure them out. But the trick to that is to collect as much data as possible before drawing the line to avoid redraws.

I think I will try to start doing a spreadsheet (instead of the in-page chart build I was doing). At least that way sorting and such is easier, and presumably there is a way to graph ranges easily enough.

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Re: Warp Speeds List

Post by 2046 » Mon Dec 10, 2012 8:24 pm


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Re: Warp Speeds List

Post by Mike DiCenso » Mon Dec 10, 2012 9:27 pm

Speaking of charts, here's the "In the Hands of the Prophets" map from our old "How far away is the Romulan Neutral Zone from Earth?" thread from many years ago.

The locations of various real-life stars with relation to the Earth and Sol are very messed up and make things highly contradictory, but at least this gives us a good idea of the Federation's shape and where the Romulan and Klingon Empires are located in relation to it. Bajor is very far outside the Federation, and on the side of it completely opposite from the Romulans and Klingons. This indicates that even taking the shortest distances possible, you still have to travel hundreds of light years to get there and since we know it only takes days or a few weeks for starships to traverse these distances, it still results in impressive speeds.

So for example, in DS9's "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges", the Intrepid-class U.S.S. Bellerophon takes less than a week to travel from Deep Space Nine/Bajor to Romulus. At the minimum 400 light years, that means a speed of no less than 20,857c. Around the upper end of the possible distances that can be derived; across 6,000 light years would mean 312,857.14c.
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Re: Warp Speeds List

Post by Praeothmin » Tue Dec 11, 2012 5:20 pm

I went and read that thread again, and I found what my main issue was with calculated speeds in DS9...
In DS9, we saw the Defiant take 4 days to go to Earth...
The DS9 TM says Bajor is 50 LY from Earth...
Yet on this map, a map we've brought up before, Bajor is located approximately 1/3rd of the Federation's length away from Earth...
We know canonically, from FC, that the Federation is spread out over 8000 LY...
So the map's scale would not be correct, and should read 700 to 800 LY instead of the 20LY it does...
Since we know the Federation territory is not round, I take the 8000 LY figure as representing the longest side...
Thus 1/3rd of that distance is at least 2350LY...
To travel that distance in 4 days would mean traveling at about 214 437c, for a ship that is far from being the fastest in the fleet...

We have the same issue with FC, since the E-E traveled from the Romulan Neutral zone to Earth very quickly, lest say in an hour...
The same map places the RNZ at one and a half scale, or in this case, between 1050 LY and 1200LY away...
This distance in one hour means traveling between 9 198 000c and 10 512 000c...



If anyone has a more accurate map of the ST galaxy, can he share it with us?

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Re: Warp Speeds List

Post by Mike DiCenso » Tue Dec 11, 2012 6:33 pm

The problem is that you provided links to Geoffrey T. Mandel's Star Trek Maps, which while very nicely done, is very much non-canon as is almost any map and information from the the DS9 TM. The only canon map of the Federation is the one graphic that was seen in TNG's "Conspiracy" and "In the Hands of the Prophets". Anything else is suspect. As for the Star Trek version of the Milky Way, we have this from TNG's "The Chase":

Image
Image

When the HD version of this comes out, we'll be able to get a better look at the map, and we might be able to compare it to the "Conspiracy" map's gradation numbers to see where the Federation is located in that overall galaxy map, and if any of those weird shapes are really the political borders for the Federation and other powers, or something else entirely since there are a lot of overlapping lines there.
-Mike

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Re: Warp Speeds List

Post by Praeothmin » Tue Dec 11, 2012 6:49 pm

Ah, I see...
Bummer then, I thought this map was at least partly reliable...

in "Trial and Tribulations", they mention they are almost 200 LY from DS9:
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - [104] Trials and Tribble-ations

"The distance to our previous location [near Cardassia] is almost 200 ly [...] We're orbiting K-7, one of the old deep space stations near the Klingon border."
So, from DS9, the Federation is only 200 LY wide between the Cardassian Union and the Klingon Empire...
While the map I linked shows it to be twice as far as the scale, so the map would mean 1600LY... :(

Although:
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - [075] The Visitor
"Therefore he appeared somewhere near you, even if you were hundreds of light years away from the place the accident happened."
In relations to Earth, DS9 seems to be "hundreds of LY" away...
So, Bajor could be 200LY away from Earth, up to 999LY (the same ballpark figure we use for the Endor-Sullust run), meaning for the Defiant to make this in 4 days means going from 18 500c to 91 250c...

In Valiant, they were supposed to travel around the Federation in 3 months, a impossible feat if Starfleet vessels are so slow:
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - [146] Valiant

"The training mission should last 3 months [...] It was our mission to fly around the entire Federation [...]"
And here's the Star Trek online Map which seems to support the earlier one, also supporting the two DS9 episodes, as Bajor-Earth and Bajor-K7 appear to be of similar distances...

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Re: Warp Speeds List

Post by Mike DiCenso » Tue Dec 11, 2012 8:22 pm

The problem with the "Trials and Tribble-ations" quote is that we again have no relationship of where K-7 is to work from. The problem is the amount of contradiction here. The "Conspiracy" map shows the Romulan and Klingon empires on the far side of the Federation, however it does not give us their shape and structure, nor their full extent, just the positions of Romulus and Remus and Qo'nos. It can be that the two empires wrap around or under (or over, depending on what your relative perspective is) the Federation's territory. Well, the Klingon Empire can do that, the Romulan Star Empire seems much more constricted, though even the Romulans seem to have ways of getting around beyond having to go through the Neutral Zone as seen in episodes like "Tin Man" and "The Pegasus".
-Mike

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