Flare Sci-Fi Forums: Two quick Miranda questions

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Posted by Identity Crisis (Member # 67) on :

Has any Miranda/Avenger class vessel ever been seen to fire its rollbar phasers apart from the USS Reliant in ST II?

And, has any rollbar-less Miranda ever fired photon torps? I think the Saratoga's captain ordered them fired but we never saw where on the hull they were fired from, is this right?

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-->Identity Crisis<--

Posted by Aethelwer (Member # 36) on :

They were fired from the side thingies on the Saratoga, IIRC.

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Posted by Michael Dracon (Member # 4) on :

No they weren't. They were fired from the lower 'dome' in the middle of the saucer.

'Sacrifice of Angels' showed us forward phaser fire from one of the saucer phaser nodes. Look HERE for a picture of that.

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[This message has been edited by Altair (edited January 05, 2001).]

Posted by Identity Crisis (Member # 67) on :

They fired torps from the lower sensor dome? I was afraid that it might be something like that.

But no sightings of phaser fire from the rollbar phasers other than in ST II?

Any other cases of Mirandas firing torps or phasers from odd places?

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-->Identity Crisis<--

Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :

The Saratoga's captain ordered his ship to "load torpedo bays", but none were fired. I'm guessing that the sensor doodads on the sides also contained tubes.

And no, no other Miranda has ever used the rollbar phaser emitters.

Mark

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Posted by Identity Crisis (Member # 67) on :

My reasons for asking were due to a debate I've been having with Steve Long over on the forums at trekrpg.net.

I'm attempting to design a more accurate Miranda using Steve's Spacedock rules for the LUG RPG. The rollbar phasers are a pain - are they normal phasers or are they 'mega-phasers'. But then I realised that they had never been fired after ST II. So I got to wondering if, with the improvements on torpedo technology in the 24th century they're no longer needed and that those pods on the corners of the rollbars contain sensors (moved out of the main pod to make room for newer torpedo systems) instead of phasers.

The Saratoga I was planning to ignore for the moment. Steve has the bits sticking out the sides as pulse phasers and has torp tubes on the saucer in all versions of the ship. :P

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-->Identity Crisis<--

Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :

I go by what I've always said - that the phasers in STII were basically normal, they were just easier to use - be it recharge time in exchange for higher power output, or whatever - fired in pulses. After all, between then and the start of TNG - ie, for the rest of the TOS movies - we never saw a lot of phaser fire, it was all torpedoes; maybe ALL phasers were like that until the strips were invented.

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Zoe: "Imagine taking your bottom lip and pulling it over the top of your head. You get used to it but it does hurt."

Posted by Constellation of One (Member # 332) on :

Altair,

I think the image you referenced is of the Majestic being hit by a Dominion energy beam, not of her firing. However, you're right that DS9 Mirandas have tended to fire from their sensor domes. Sisko's Saratoga did that in Emissary, I believe. There is a brief clip of her from behind firing from her dome. I just checked it on my ST CD Encyclopedia.

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Posted by Aethelwer (Member # 36) on :

"They were fired from the lower 'dome' in the middle of the saucer."

Are you sure? I can check the tape later, I suppose...

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Posted by Matrix (Member # 376) on :

Another possibility is that the reason why the those "megaphasers" never fired was becuase they were obsolete by the time of the Dominion War. I think the ship had to manuever itself to fire those phasers. Also there probably just easier to fire from the ball phasers. About the Saratoga, I am guessing that she was different and had maybe her "mgeaphasers" on the sensor dome instead.

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Posted by Dat (Member # 302) on :

The Saratoga's phaser fire was a VFX error, plain and simple.

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Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :

here is what you're looking for:
http://www.uq.net.au/~zzarayfi/mir46.jpg http://www.uq.net.au/~zzarayfi/mir48.jpg

PLUS this little error from "Darmok" [TNG] http://www.uq.net.au/~zzarayfi/g97.jpg

Andrew

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[This message has been edited by AndrewR (edited January 06, 2001).]

Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :

Aaarrggh! Don't tell me that's a phaser coming OUT of the Ent-D!

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Posted by Michael Dracon (Member # 4) on :

Oh, my... Uhm... I made a big mistake. Sorry!

I meant that phasers were fired from the lower dome.

Of course we saw torpedos being fired from the rollbar in the second movie, and I believe also in 'First Contact'.

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"That's your plan? Wile E. Coyote would come up with a better plan than that!"
- Crighton, Farscape.

Posted by Michael Dracon (Member # 4) on :

Oh, and the Majestic is firing, just watch the tape again.

Or check here:
http://www.shiporama.org/battle.htm
and then here:
http://www.shiporama.org/battle1.htm
for the events in the right sequence.

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"That's your plan? Wile E. Coyote would come up with a better plan than that!"
- Crighton, Farscape.

[This message has been edited by Altair (edited January 06, 2001).]

Posted by Aethelwer (Member # 36) on :

Hey...this image is one of mine...

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Frank's Home Page
"Brave New World: 'The future sucks. Or does it? Hell if I know. Ooh, LSD!'" - Simon Sizer

Posted by Michael Dracon (Member # 4) on :

Oh, and another thing. I just watched both 'Sacrifice of Angels' and 'First Contact'. In Sacrifice on of the Mirandas shoots lots of torpedos from the roll-bar just as they enter the gap. Watch closely to the top of the sceen.

Also a Miranda class shoots a torpedo from the roll-bar in the scene where the Defiant is firing at the Cube. You can see it in between the Cube and the Akira class on the left, just before the Oberth class which fires a phaser.

It seems like the location of the forward torpedo launcher on the Miranda class has always stayed the same.

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"That's your plan? Wile E. Coyote would come up with a better plan than that!"
- Crighton, Farscape.

Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :

Hey Frank, sorry... I just have a heap of pics that I keep for mucking around with in art programs and posting for discussions like this etc. I just loaded it up from my HD, cause I didn't have the pic's location off the net.

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"This is cooling, faster than I can..." Tori Amos "Cooling"

Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :

The roll bar phasers have always seemed a bit redundant to me (unless they are qualitatively different from the saucer phasers, that is). Perhaps they aren't actually more powerful than the saucer phasers, but LESS so - perhaps Khan used them because he wanted to wound, not kill? Their destructive effect was the same as that of Kirk's pitiful battery-powered shots, or of the later shots in the nebula where both ships were low on power.

Or perhaps Khan simply hadn't deciphered the whole weapons system yet, just the aft torpedoes and the roll bar phasers...

Then again, all the DS9 Mirandas apparently either had impulse engines up on the pod, or didn't display the rear end of the pod. Perhaps somebody did some innovative conduit-rerouting to get those engines working, and the roll bar phasers were left without power?

Timo Saloniemi

Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :

Or perhaps they were just used because they were passing the Enterprise and needed a broadside shot. After all, Kirk & Co might have twigged if the Reliant had been flying directly at them.

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Luke Ford: "What's it like having a dick in your ass?"

Zoe: "Imagine taking your bottom lip and pulling it over the top of your head. You get used to it but it does hurt."

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

But the Reliant, like the Enterprise, had phaser arrays on the side to handle that. One would presumably think that these would do a better job than a weapon pointing more or less straight ahead.

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Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :

Curiously enough, Khan fired the roll bar phasers well off-boresight, suggesting they have almost full hemisphere coverage - just like the ball turrets on the saucer do.

If I were placing phaser emitters on a ship, I'd probably go for some sort of a pylon mount similar to that roll bar, instead of mounting the emitters directly on the hull and thus reducing their firing arcs to just one hemisphere...

Timo Saloniemi