posted
The total system needs to be considered, along with the mass of the ship, RCS, Impulse, and warp....
In Warp the Enginering hull should be more manueverable, but, since I am not a specialist in warp theory....
mmm, I am not an impulse specialist either, but....
If the E-hull doesn't have to feed power to the EPS for the Saucer section the the E-hull would have that extra power... Does the amount of power generated by the impulse system come close to the power from the M/AMR? If so, why bother with the M/AM???
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posted
We got going on about the separation of church and state.... mmmmm, no, mmm, oh yeah The Saucer and Engineering section on the E-D.....
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posted
I'm thinking that since the Borg like to cut into the engineering section so much in hopes of trying to knock the warp core offline, the fusion reactors becomes even more critical as a source of power.
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Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
When the ship is seperated, the engineering hull is far more manuverable than before. The saucer is a sitting duck, with just 2 phaser strips and impulse only. The teo together is not as maunverable as the engineering hull, but I think the secondary impulse engines make her at least somewhat comparable.
The fusion reactors just provide more energy to other weapons and shields in case of an emergency, if phasers are still connected to the warp engines and if those go down so do the phasers.
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Registered: Jul 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Matrix: The fusion reactors just provide more energy to other weapons and shields in case of an emergency, if phasers are still connected to the warp engines and if those go down so do the phasers.
I would have to think it still relates to those fighters.
Sure, the power generation of the saucer might be helpful, but we know that there are goofy labs way in the back of the Enterprise for no apparent reason (the soliton-wave episode), and all the blueprints suggest that there is a computer core on one side engineering hull (behind the navigational deflector) with "ballast" on the other side.
Seems to me that removing the more useless labs, or simply using a big honkin' fusion reactor as ballast, would be more advantageous than carrying around a saucer section which doubles (or more) the ship's profile, shield envelope, mass, et cetera.
Granted, that idea presupposes that the Galaxies were in place as front line combat vessels . . . which, given what we've seen, would seem to be the case. It would make more sense to have the saucer, though, if Galaxies were less front-line and more fighter-carrier/assault cruiser/troop transport vessels.
One thing that occasionally escapes notice is the sheer size of the Galaxy saucer, compared to entire other starships. The outer hull materials of a Galaxy saucer could supply the outer hull needs of an entire Intrepid, Sabre, or perhaps even Akira Class. This ignores the material requirements for all the saucer's innards, from fusion reactors to computer cores.
Granted, big-ole whoop-ass mackdaddies are useful (witness the huge American battleships of WW2), especially given that the Dominion had several big-ole whoop-ass mackdaddies floating around later in the war. Nevertheless, it would seem that more streamlined whoop-ass mackdaddies (Sovereigns) would have been more feasible for front-line combat starship use.
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posted
Where do we get the idea that the Galaxy-class stardrive section is more maneuverable than the Galaxy-class starship in docked mode? To me, the opposite would seem to be true. The stardrive has one impulse engine and would need to depend a lot on its thrusters. Add the saucer section into the mix, and you have two additional engines that are in prime positions to add more thrust into turns than thrusters alone would allow. In addition, the saucer would bring its own thruster system which helps balance out the added mass of the saucer.
There have already been good ideas presented for carrying the saucer. It has a massive shuttlebay that could carry several fighters. Plus, if we are to believe the DS9 Tech Manual is right about large internal portions of the ship being empty, then the bay could have been temporarily expanded. The many fusion reactors housed in the saucer can greatly augment the ship's power output. Plus, the main phasers of the Galaxy-class starship (based on the sheer number of times we've seen those fired over the other arrays) are on the saucer. The array on the dorsal surface of the stardrive doesn't look like it has the degree of range that the saucer's arrays have. Other benefit of having the saucer, if I remember the TNG Tech Manual correctly, then the Galaxy-class starship generates its most efficent warp fields while both sections are docked together.
Then again, do these benefits outweigh the downside of having a larger surface for the enemy to shoot at? That's a tough call, and I'd have to say not really. You probably couldn't have an expanded shuttle area with just bays two and three considering the lack of room in the neck. However, there probably could be enough room to do mass convertions in the stardrive section for quarters, adding in more weapons systems, and adding in more fusion generators.
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Don't forget the saucer's aft torpedo launcher. TNG TM
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quote: Originally posted by Siegfried: Where do we get the idea that the Galaxy-class stardrive section is more maneuverable than the Galaxy-class starship in docked mode?
Gee, I dunno. Maybe from the fact that its impulse engine was designed to move 5 million metric tons of mass on its own, and with the saucer separated a wanking big part of that mass is missing?
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posted
plus shedding half the vessels length and a third of its width significantly decreases the ships turning radius
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In warp the field can be adjusted to fit the new shape, needing less power to push the decreased mass past the c threshold....
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