Why Are Phaser Strips This Way?
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- Опубліковано 3 гру 2022
- Phaser arrays, strips or emitters are the go to for Starfleet ships from the 22nd century onwards, even preceded by the Phase Cannon. The phaser on starships are basically the same principle as the handheld versions, just a lot more powerful.
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Star Trek Online developed by Cryptic Studios and Perfect World.
Star Trek Enterprise/Voyager/Deep Space Nine/Discovery and The Next Generation are all owned by Paramount Pictures/CBS and distributed by CBS.
This Video is for critical purposes with commentary.
Phaser strips were a genius invention, both in Universe and as a concept for whichever writer or VFX artist came up with them.
The phaser has to make money somehow.....
The colour is based on frequency. In Best of Both Worlds, when Data starts rotating the Enterprise phaser frequencies the beam also changes colour.
The converging energy before the strip fired is a an under-appreciated effect.
Actually the greatest advantage of the array is the distribution of heat loading. Whilst traditional ball phaser turrets could theoretically fire indefinitely as long as they have power there is a limit to The continuous fire that they can put out before thermal loading forces them to stop and cool off. A Galaxy class starship's phaser system theoretically has 45 minutes of continuous fire before the phasers overwhelm the liquid coolant loops and force the ship to ceasefire to offload heat.
I’ve always thought it was cool how they could have one huge beam or ten smaller ones. Also that shot with the phaser beams searching in the nebula is one of the few redeeming qualities of Nemesis.
I saw a theory once that suggested the reason why phasers were orange then changed to blue then back to orange was because Starfleet struggled to meet demand during the Romulan War so the Andorians supplied weaponry to new ships and their tech just hung around in Starfleet ships until the TOS era
A weapon that can cover an enormous arc around the vessel, fire in multiple directions at once,
"I'm not sorry" - don't be. For some reason this made me laugh.
I've always thought it was weird that they didn't put strips along the outermost-facing regions of the nacelles. Considering the amount of power flowing to them anyway, it seems like a design oversight.
I suspect Andrew Probert and the design team had an understanding, conscious or otherwise, that technology trends towards fewer moving parts. So when it came to weapons, they took the phaser to its logical conclusion - a weapon with no moving parts at all. It's a really cool idea especially at the time, and an example of how early TNG design was futuristic in the purest sense that it really tried to explore how things were going.
I always liked the Phaser Strips of Next Generation Star Trek most, I believe. Especially the "buildup sequence" shortly before it fires. Always seemed to be the smarter weapon.
What I love the idea of the phaser strips because it sets federation ships apart from other ships in the setting, but also from nearly all other ships in media. A beautiful design choice
The adaptability of phasers is closely aligned with the Federation doctrine of non-lethal combat when possible.
Anecdotal note: Star Trek Online used the same engine as Champions online, and Cryptic forgot to disable power customization initially. So with a console/text commands you could change the phaser colour to whatever you wanted. Hot pink neon phasers were sexy.
Phaser strips allowing multi directional fields of fire are excellent as ultimately they give 360 degree fields of fire. Meaning the ship isn't disadvantaged from any direction
One thing I miss from earlier phasers was actually seeing their wider utility. From being able to stun enemy combatants from orbit to the "depth charge" bursts used against the Romulan Bird of Prey (would have been perfect to "paint" the Scimitar's position in Nemesis), it would help to sell phasers as being as multi-utility at the ship scale as at the personnel scale.
The Galaxy class also has strips on the secondary hull. One along the underside arraigned horizontally, and two on the nacelle pylons. I think there are also some shorter ones on the flat bit between the pylons ventral and dorsal. For a exploration ship it was virtually bristling with them.
I always love how the phasers on the Enterprise D first form semi circles and then join together to fire a single beam. I always thought it was cool
I always thought that the phaser banks gave a good sense of power, the repeated volley of phaser energy coming out like a machine gun (kinda like the Defiant's phaser cannons), but there's just something satisfying about phaser strips, how the beam travels across the hull of the ship without having to change which set of banks is firing and just swinging around like a lightsaber to do damage. I'm torn either way :D