Indeed, in the episode "Eye of the Beholder" we see a Galaxy class warp nacell from the inside. Plasma is directed along the length of the nacell through the field coils, so the only 'usable' space is in between the bussard collector and the plasma injectors - where the room is located.

The larger the field coils the faster the engine if Trip's comments in "In a mirror, darkly" are to be believed. Thus a larger nacell would indeed mean a faster ship.

A larger nacell in comparison to the ships overall size. Otherwise a Sovereign would certainly do Warp 9.9999999999999999999999999999999999

Perhaps the space is there for a reason?

It could be that the equipment needs to be separated because of interference etc. (Like mobile phones apparently interfere with planes and medical equipment)

It's possible that by VGR times there is a way of decreasing the amount of space you need between the pieces of equipment, which would account as to why Voyager's Nacelles are actually shorter than the design would typically warrant.

Perhaps variable-geometry Nacelles have something to do with this? Voyager was the first ship that we have seen that was so equipped.

It would explain the points we have made thus far if this was true.

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On another point, was the DX-100 designed with Vulcan help? Where else would the circular engine system come from? I don't really know much about it, other than the shape/design of it.

This is all and good, but we did get a bit off point which is the new vulcan ship. As I stated I do love the design. I would be really interested in perhaps a couple views of the interior, i.e command and control, engineering, ect even one or two of the crews quarters. Also speed, weapons, shielding. All of that would be interesting, at least to me.

To continue off-topic, I thought that the Intrepid class was specifically designed to decrease the detrimental environmental effects of warp drive (hence the official reason for the variable-geometry warp engines)

Perhaps the relatively small nacelles have something to do with this as well. Perhaps because the massive (and extremely powerful) warp fields generated by the larger engines produced such negative environmental effects?

One could explain the size of the Soverign warp nacelles as either:
1. fanboyish
2. the extra space is needed to reduce the destructive energy unleashed by such large warp coils. If the theory that the size of the warp field needed is the reason for larger nacelles, and larger warp nacelles create proportionately more damage, then a lot of equipment is probably needed to reduce these effects.

Anyway, our real topic is the Vulcan ship, which I think is very cool. I like the incremental move towards twin nacelles, Starfleet style. Perhaps the Vulcans independently reach the same conclusion that Cochrane did, and are slowly implementing it!

Stupid Vulcans, slow on time travel AND warp dynamics (and parallel universes)

1. Right. It's a s simple as this. Since Star Trek in the cinema means a two-nacelled, elliptical ship called Enterprise, anything other than that having nacelles which would treknologically better, but the audience wants this, so the sovereign *was* dedicated to having big nacelles!

2. Right again. Since the Intrepid-Class was, just like the defiant, some kind of "snapshot" from the Sovereign-project, we can assume Sovereign solves the Intrepid-Problem of the nacelles which need to stand up by using a more streamlined (Treknology: Better warp-geometry^^) saucer after all

Yes, this thread was originally about Jig's ship afterall. A very cool design, and I like the way that the Vulcan design lineages are carried on, but they are also more 'Federation' in design, even though should such a ship actually come into existance, it obviously wouldn't be Federation inspired. (Ie. alternate timeline)

I imagine that slowly, over time, the next stage in the advancement of the Vulcan designs would be lowering the Nacelles onto a Horizontal plane, instead of the vertical one that they currently have.

Then, even further into this possible future, the Nacelles would eventually straighten out, and become longer, until you have a Vulcan design that would look similar to the more familiar Federation designs. (Although it would be accidental)

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What exactly is 'streamlined' for Warp though? We all know elipses are standard design for Federation ships, but what about newer Starfleet Vessels such as the Prometheus?

They typically have a more triangular shape, which even though perhaps represents the next stage in Starfleet design philosophy, why wasn't this used before?

If triangular shapes are more streamlined, why is it that ellipses are found throughout Starfleet design? In fact, why are there any ships with elliptical shapes? Surely Starfleet would have done tests to find which shape is the 'best'?

Perhaps there is simply more to it than that, afterall, if variable geometry Nacelles physically minimise the amount of damage to subspace, are more efficient (Or are simply less powerful resulting in less damage) etc. could it be possible that they do other things as well, like allowing better fine control over the resulting fields? (Which would again decrease the amount of wasted energy, increasing efficiency and minimising damage to subspace)

There must be a reason for all this, although I can't think of one at the moment...[/url]

There is always the option that the designers just liked the style

I would concur that style is/was what the engineers based design on. Well that and the speed they can raise and lower shields. Other then that, as we all know shape means nothing in space.

There where does Warp geometry come from?

You make a bubble of subspace around the ship, the more closely it 'fits' around the ship, the less energy you waste, and the more efficient the system.

If you make a shape that is easy to make a bubble round, then this is gonna make your ship faster at Warp, since your system will be more efficient.

However, if you make difficult shapes, then it is harder to do this, and you eventually lose efficiency and speed.

Bubbles typically tend to make spherical shapes, which would explain the elliptical design of Federation ships. However, if more angular designs have become favourable, then does this mean the Federation has learnt how to create triangular bubbles?

That's the only way I can imagine it, Trekwise. (Of course, there is then the idea that as you said it just makes the ships look cooler)

Matress,

Interesting, but how then do the borg move at warp speeds? I have not seen much as far as there power plants go, or shielding for that matter.

Am I kinda reaching here??

Nice vulacan ships...

Say, does anyone know if the Vulcan ship from BOTF 1 will be in BOTF2? I found it way cool...

As a model, I like Jig's TOS Vulcan ship. As a vulcan ship, I do not. (Sorry Jig)

It seems to me that the Vulcans continue to like the warp-ring idea all the way up to the DS9 era, if nothing else because of what Ex Astris Scientia calls the "T'pau" class: it's a civilian ship with a squarish warp ring. You see it in DS9 and in TNG.

What I suspect is that wrapping the ship in a warp ring creates a more efficient ship to warp-bubble interface... This kinda makes sense. I mean, if you're engulfing the ship in a warp bubble to go FTL, having the warp nacell engulf the ship too may make the whole subspace/warp thing easier to do.

However, I would also suspect a warp ring would be far harder to build and run. If nothing else, getting the warp plasma to the segments of the coils still hot and with the right timing has to be a serious engineering challenge on a warp nacell 190 meters in diameter � such as on the D'kyr. Let alone on the tripple-ringed future dreadnaught seen on Danials PADD in ENT.

Furthermore, the ring on such a ship represents an huge portion of the mass of the ship! That has to change the warp dynamics, not to mention the build cost.

I conjecture that the Vulcans made the engineering decision that more efficient warp coils were more important than ease of build; trading a lower operating cost for a higher build cost, in effect.

In the case of the more squarish rings found on the T'Pau, I speculate it's somehow easier to build or maintain square rings than circular ones.

Now, looking at the future dreadnaught from ENT, it seems to me for a TOS ship the size Jigs seems to be, a segmented nacell is simply not where the Vulcans designs would evolve; multiple rings would be more likely. (Obviously, this is just my opinion.) This is my main objection to this design. Indeed, it's my main objection to the idea that the Vulcan designs would tend towards nacells over time. If anything, considering the Vahklas type ship � the double half-ring ship found in ENT and known to be extremely old � their designs may have evolved *from* nacells *to* rings.

Again, I see the vulcans deciding to make the warp field simple and the warp coils difficult to build; where as the rest of the galaxy decided to make the coils simple and the field complex.

I have conjecture as to how this may have evolved, but I'll keep it to myself this time around.

I didn't know about this Vulcan Dreadnought, ZDarby, if what you say is true, then your theory sounds better.

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Winterhawk, the Borg do things in a totally different way to the rest of the Galaxy as far as we know - they technically don't even use Warp, they use 'Transwarp' instead. (Whatever that is meant to be in Treknobabble, from what i've heard, it's impossible!)

Just using structural integrity fields as an example, the Borg project a single, massive field ahead of the vessel whilst it is at Warp/Transwarp. Apparently because of the extreme speed (Or whatever) the fields essentially 'wrap' themselves around the ship.

As far as we know, the Federation simply use many small fields inside of the ship. They project between the internal spaces (And possibly inside the walls themselves, although I have no evidence to support this)

This is one of the reasons why the Borg could essentially do anything - they just do it differently. We know the Borg are similar to the Cardassians in that they want to be efficient. Perhaps they use a method that not only results in cheap build costs, but also results in cheap use costs as well?

We simply don't know, although we have seen the coils in some Voyager episodes. From my memory, (Remember it's as good as that of a Goldfish) they were relatively quite small pieces of tech, so they must work differently (Or be more advanced) than those of the Federation.

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Trashman, I really don't think that the Vulcan ship from BOTF will be in BOTF2, at least not as an 'official' ship. Don't worry though, i'm sure someone will mod it in eventually.

Matress,


Very interesting views. Another thing I'm interested in, will we be able to say actually send troops into another ship thusly stealing the ship.

Now I know they have that in Armada, but i was thinking it would be a lot of fun to be able to do that here also.

what do you think?

ZDarby -

I wonder if the Vulcans were thinking about the damage warp fields cause to subspace already in the 2100's?! It would be interesting, and make sense: How do you get a moving object to not tear the surrounding air/water up really badly? Streamline the form so the 'fluid' flows around it easily....Sounds a bit like the simple, efficient and streamlined warp field a ring nacelle might create...

Also, what about warp efficiency? Perhaps Vulcans are actually ahead of everyone in warp field dynamics, but have a less powerful type of reactor. So rather than develop dangerous new technologies, they increase speed by increasing the efficiency of their warp drive!

I still think it's mighty presumptious and jingoistic to have the wet-behind-the-ears humans suddenly know more about high warp speeds than a species that has been exploring for millenia If anything, the Warp 5 drive should have been given as a test for humanity, and after the NX 01's success, the humans would have been allowed to develop it further, however they wanted to as a reward, and a sort of weaning off of Vulcan dependence! That makes more sense to me, but I'm not B and/or B

But if the Vulcans already had a grasp of the damage that was being done, why didn't this knowledge get passed on to the Federation?

Ok, it's entirely possible that it was, and the other founding races didn't believe them, but surely over time, they would have trusted each other enough for the other races to begin to listen?

Then later on, why was it that the Enterprise (And the Federation as a whole) found it so hard to believe the damage that Warp was doing, that it took the Hekaras corridor catastophe to 'open their eyes?' it was almost as though they had never even heard of these claims before!

Yes, Warp travel is pretty much the only way the Federation has of getting around at Warp speeds, (Ignoring Transwarp, that Wave thing, and later on Quantum Slipstream) so they would be keen to defend it where possible, but surely the great, caring Federation would have listened to any such concerns over the safety of the system?

In light of these events, it could be possible that the Vulcans did have some grasp of the damage, but they may not have had any actual evidence of it.

Over time, the ideas may have been forgotten, and then by the time of the Hekaras corridor catastrophe, it would be like the claims were being made anew.

A Warp 5 'Speed limit' is imposed throughout the Federation, (Except in emergencies) and it's only with the development of the more efficient and environmentally friendly Variable Geometry Nacelle coils that the ban is lifted on ships so equipped.

Why is it that such Nacelles are not round though?

If Vulcan design philosophy is correct, then Variable Geometry Nacelles would need to be round themselves. of course, we are talking about a philosophy that by Voyager times would be almost 200 years old.

Technology has improved since then, and new philosophies have been adopted, but the fact remains - wouldn't they have used the simplest method?

This is why I can't see the ring Nacelles as being the best answer. Of course, if you guys can see a flaw in my ideas, then say so, but otherwise I simply can't see rings as being better than straight Nacelles.

Well, what I know about the ship comes from some trek website (cant even remember which one at this point ), and also from ne of the better ST books I own, The Eugenics Wars: The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh. First off, I know book arent cannon, but you should also know I couldnt care less. Since most of the books I've read are far better than a majority of the ST episodes, I tend to not care as much. Anyways, the DY-100 class was launched in 1996 (lol) and was in service until about 2018. Before you start thinking the date is too early, remember Khan was born in the 1970's, and doesnt look any lder than late 20's or 30's by the time Kirk finds the crew of the Botany Bay in suspended animation. No one was certain how Khan's ship wound up in the Mutara sector, since the DYs were sublight vessels, but in ST universe, anything is possible (wormholes, quantum filaments, etc). I could go into more detail but no one probably cares.

Anyways, interesting discussion. Does anyone else think its funny how everybody seemed to ignore the 'speed limit'. I suppose Voyager has an excuse, and maybe the Soverign (although those are big ass nacels). The one ship that seemed to break the speed limit all the time was the Defiant. Sure, many of their episodes involve battle/emergency situations, but even in those that didnt, they always seemed to be cruising everywhere at warp 8.

Again, I speculate the ring warp coil is a more efficient design for making a warp bubble but harder to run.

There can be no "better" answers when it comes to engineering. I don't care how advanced your civilization, all designs are compromises. You get this by sacrificing that. This must also be true for nacells vs. rings. I think Vulcans got better speeds for less energy and higher warp effiency by sacrificing coil simplicity, ease of use and coil-to-ship mass ratio.

If the ring design didn't hurt the subspace environment, I doubt the advantage was purposefully designed. As Matress said, if Vulcans new about the damage done by warp, the Federation would know. They did not, so niether did the Vulcans, IMHO.

Awful heavy discussion here.


Ring vs horizontal/vertical nacells. Following the basic rules reguarding nuclear power, the ring configuration would Almost eliminate a large use of coils. I cannot conceive any real losses to gains. A Ring configuration would be 1000% more efficent all the way around. Thnk in the 4 to 6 dementions. Example start a tunnel, after so many meters in all soil is filled in behind you as you move forward, leaving almost no void or wave type reaction. You follow what I'm saying?

Winterhawk7: Sorry. Not following you. Try again, please. I'm interested.

While traveling in any mode a vessel leaves a wave, be it air, energy whatever. This is using 4 dementions (how we live now) Using A circular nascell you form a tube around your vessel. With this tube you travel through through space without disturbing the elements around you. like a slipstream effect but without negative interferance. Does this make sence?

Yes... and no. In effect, *all* spaceships using the typical Cochrane warp-engine (it's called this way as in earth physics we always call a somewhat milestone after the one who "found" it. Though there are other species which may have found this warp-engine before Cochrane, their engines would be specified as Cochrane-engines as well ) create a "warp-bubble", which is from the physical point of view nothing else but a local and temporal modulated wave, thus a "moving tube"

I follow you! I was dropping my own theory as to why the new vulcan ships nacelles functioned better then the normal setup used by the Federation or other races. (Ex milatary mimrod here! ) lol

Excellent cover Winterhawk! No-one would suspect an ex-military guy was a spy!

I'm not denying the fact that the ring Nacelles may have been more efficient, but what about the damage caused itself?

We don't really know exactly how the damage is caused, whether it is due to the fact that the energy lost to higher Warp thresholds, or the fact that as you push space away behind you, it isn't put back 'properly', or whatever. (In layman's terms, Warp works by pulling your destination closer to you, whilst pushing your point of origin further away, effectively wrapping or 'Warping' space around you. In Warped space, all the physics and knowledge of space as we know it is turned on it's head, allowing you to do the impossible, ie. travelling with technically infinite acceleration, resulting in FTL travel)

If the damage is thus caused by the leakage of energy into higher Warp thresholds, (Which is the main reason why 100% efficiency at Warp is nearly impossible) all you have to do is limit this leakage, and use that 'gained' energy to pentrate into a higher Warp threshold. (Allowing higher Warp factors to be achieved)

However, if the damage is caused by subspace being 'put back improperly', then you need a system which is able to fine-tune subspace. I imagine this is how the Variable Geometry Coils work; subspace doesn't stay the same throughout the Universe, it changes and shifts constantly.

'Standard' Warp likely has a 'one size fits all' system, where subspace is put back with little or no thought to these changes, resulting in damage to the fabric of subspace. The more that subspace is then used, the more the damage builds up, until the inevitable happens - subspace collapses, resulting in a Hekaras corridor-type catastrophe.

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Oh Winterhawk, could you explain the Vertical Nacelles to me? I've never seen a ship so-equipped!

*Edit 1200 posts and counting! This is turning out to be quite a good day...I just got a new PC as well... *

Then please check your eyes and your knowledge of basic geometry.

Hence we know there are ships with horizontally aligned warp-nacelles, it's the same as we turn a vertically-aligned system around 90 degrees. Examples are Romulan ships (R-o-m-u-l-a-n, Matress ), which always seem to have a horizontal alignment directly incorporated into the primary hull.

To the subspace, it's pretty irrelevant if a ship warps in a 90-degree turn, since this has no meaning in [sub]space. The human "top-bottom-left-right-front-back"-thinking is somewhat a limitation to proper imagination of warp-dynamics

I know that ftranschel!

I'm just saying that i've never seen a ship with vertical Nacelles before!

If people were looking for a unique design, that would certainly grab people's attention! 8O

An whyfor would I need to know how to spell the name of my own people? Long live Romlamn Star Empire!