Reaction to phaser hits

[Questor]

Here's the write-up of the TNG data:

Phaser Reactions

By Jason L. Miles

In Star Trek: The Next Generation and its spin-offs, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager, the primary hand weapons that we see are Starfleet phasers. Phasers can have a number of effects on their target, ranging from no effect at all to “phasorizing,” or making the target disappear. These effects can contain a kinetic component, but do not always. The phasers never exhibit any recoil.

There are seven major categories of reactions exhibited by the targets: No Effect, Drop, Phasorize, Stagger, Stagger/Fall, Push, and Throw. When a target exhibits “No Effect,” there may be some kind of visual effect, but the target is not rendered unconscious, nor does the target appear to receive any kinetic energy from being hit by the beam. When a target is “Dropped,” they immediately lose consciousness and fall to the ground, but the beam still does not apply any kinetic energy to the target. A “Phasorized” target disappears, once again without exhibiting any kinetic effects. A “Staggered” target is simply pushed a little bit. When a target “Stagger/Falls,” they stagger, as in the previous reaction, but then they fall to the ground, they may not necessarily lose consciousness. When a target is “Pushed,” they are knocked to the ground, but not with enough force to lift them very far off the ground, again, they may or may not lose consciousness. A “Thrown” target is knocked back with a large amount of force, usually lifting them off the ground in a spectacular manner, like the previous reactions, the target may not lose consciousness.

In Star Trek: The Next Generation, phaser beams hit a non-superalien humanoid target 63 times. Of those 63 times, 55 of them, or 87.3%, cause some sort of kinetic effect. Of the other shots, 3 of them (4.8%), are phasorizations, 4 shots (6.7%) cause no effect, and 1 (1.6%) is a drop. Of the 55 shots that exhibit kinetic effects, 10 (18.2%) of them cause the target to stagger, 5 (9.1%) cause the target to stagger/fall, and 40 (72.7%) cause the target to be pushed. Overall, 63.5% of the shots caused their target to be pushed.

The Type-I phaser hits a non-superalien humanoid 3 (4.8% of the total) times. Of those 3 times, 2 (66.7%) of them result in phasorizations, with the remaining shot having no effect.

The Type-II phaser, or the hand-phaser, hits a non-superalien 47 (74.6% of the total) times. 42 (89.4%) of those times the target receives some kinetic energy. Of those, 9 (21.4%) staggered their target, 4 (9.5%) caused their target to stagger/fall, and 29 (69%) pushed their target. 61.7% of the shots with a Type-II phaser caused the target to be pushed.

Although it was first introduced in TNG, the Type-III phaser rifle never hits a humanoid target in the entire series.

The Type-IIIa pulse phaser rifle, introduced in Star Trek: First Contact, is used on humanoids a total of 13 (20.6% of the total) times, and all 13 of those times the target receives kinetic energy. Out of those 13 times, the target was staggered 1 (7.7%) time, the target stagger/fell 1 (7.7%) time, and the target was pushed 11 (84.6%) times.

A copy of my notes for Star Trek: The Next Generation can be found here.

I didn't want to create a whole new topic for more information on this, so here it is.

[Edit - 11/30/04 11:49 (Pacific): Added percentages to paragraph on Type-II phasers, thanks to drachefly for telling me that they were left out.]