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TNGTM says: "The multimode sustainer engine is not a true warp engine due to its small physical size, one-twelfth the minimum matter/antimatter (M/A) reaction chamber size. Rather, it is a minature M/A fuel cell, which powers the sustainer coils to grab and hold a hand-off field from the launcher tube, to continue at warp if lauched during warp flight by the starship...[blablabla]...[the engine] cannot add more than a slight amount of power to the original hand-off field. The maximum cruising velocity will follow the formula Vmax=V1+0.75V1/c, where v1 is the launch velocity. Other flight modes are triggered according to initial launch conditions. If launched druing low-impluse flight, the coils will drive the torpedo up to a 75% highter sublight velocity. If launched at high sublight, the sustainer will not cross the threshold into warp, but will continue to drive the torpedo at high relativistic velocities. If requred, the maximum effective range can be extended, but with a loss of detonation yield, as the sustainder engine draws reactants from the M/A tanks."
TSN: The torpedo launcher uses compressed gas to propell the torpedo to its initial velocity which would give the 75% something above 0 to accellerate from.
------------------ "If I get lost, I'll just follow the ship infront of us."-Ensign Nog
posted
Also, things moving at high relavistic speeds and warp flight are affected by time distortions. In reality, all ships and all torpedoes are operating in their own seperate reference frame of time from one another, and where a ship or torpedo appears to be may not neccesarily be that torpedo's or ship's actual place. Firing a phaser through a ghost image does no good.
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Cargile: I wonder whether FTL sensors are able to track objects moving at high sublight with time dilation. It would be a bit ironic if the sensors detect ships moving at warp, but not a slow torpedo. Nevertheless, it could be possible.
Registered: Mar 1999
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