posted
Blast me eyes. All I can see is a rather blurry type I Miranda.
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posted
There are two extra impulse engines in the back of the torpedo launchers. They are even bigger than the original two engines found on the type I Miranda.
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posted
Ehhhh, without seeing the ep again, I couldn't really say. With the quality of the photos, it could just be the glow from the aft torp launchers.
Having impulse engines on the roll bar would be a physically stupid thing to do. Regardless of weightlessness, the impulse engines still have to overcome the inertia of the ship to get it moving. So, if there were imp. engines on that rollbar, the connections where the bar meets the main hull would essentially have to bear the mass and inertia of the entire ship as it accelerated (if the other engines weren't being used.) Not very smart.
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posted
Methinks it could just be some random refit Starfleet's done. They could've found a way to cram impulse engines AND forward torpedo launchers into the roll bar. Just think of it as "Type 1 with more impulse engines"
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posted
The torpedo assembly doesn't look quite large enough to contain the launcher, its magazine, and an impulse engine. I suppose it could be using a much smaller engine, but if these smaller engines exist, why not retrofit the ships' main impulse engines to this new smaller design?
Or, along a different line, is the acceleration boost from another engine worth giving up aft torpedo coverage?
posted
To be faster or to be able to fire backwards. Good question!
On another note: The Galaxy Class ships in 'Sacrifice of Angels' are running on three impulse engines instead of just one. So it seems that they were also going for extra speed on the Galaxy's.
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[This message has been edited by Altair (edited June 27, 2000).]
posted
It might be that impulse maneuverability was the biggest weak point of Federation ships early in the war (c.f. the Odyssey against the three fighterlike Jem'Hadar ships). While modern medium ships had sufficient maneuverability, modern heavyweights needed more oomph so Galaxies began using all three engines. (I also speculate Akiras used to fly with two engines previously, and activated the boom engines only when Galaxies began using the saucer engines...)
Perhaps the older de-mothballed Mirandas were hopelessly impulse-deficient, so it was either give them more impulse capability or not reactivate them at all. So Starfleet decided to install the extra impulse engines and get a hundred semi-battleworthy ships, rather than spend the bucks on improving the more modern ships and have to make do with a hundred ships less.
It's not impossible IMHO to have impulse engines up there. There's already antimatter feed for the torps and conduitry for the phasers, so why not fuel leads as well? And the torp launchers must be very compact if the pod originally had four. And none of the blueprints I have seen have depicted the Constitution or Miranda impulse assemblies as larger than the externally distinguishable "engine block" including the nozzles and the blue crystal.
As for the pylons not being capable of taking the loads... The warp nacelle pylons of a Constitution are just as (if not more) spindly, and have to take major loads as well since nacelles supposedly make up a major portion of the ship mass.
posted
Weird. I'd sure like to see the rest of that clip to confirm that there isn't any impulse glow from the rear of the primary hull. Having said that, it looks to me as if there isn't any based upon what's being shown. Do you think the special effects guys were tired when they made this ep, or was this (assuming the rollbar glow is an impulse engine) an intentional modification?
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posted
This miranda variant does the ship have a name (ie is it visible)? Most likely to give the miranda class a bit more speed when attacking the maneverable dominion ships.
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