Star Trek and Fighters

[Uraniun235]

That's out of context though. Rogue 9 was suggesting that Federation technology has a hard time landing a torpedo on a Warbird, therefore it would follow from that that locking onto a fighter would be even harder.

Now, unless we're talking cloaking fighters, instances of being unable to lock onto cloaked Warbirds are irrelevant, because that's not what's at issue here.

[Lancer]

That's out of context though. Rogue 9 was suggesting that Federation technology has a hard time landing a torpedo on a Warbird, therefore it would follow from that that locking onto a fighter would be even harder.

Now, unless we're talking cloaking fighters, instances of being unable to lock onto cloaked Warbirds are irrelevant, because that's not what's at issue here.

Hmm, did you totally ignore the humor on purpose or are you humorless enough that I should mark any humor [humor][/humor] from now on out?

[Kamakazie Sith]

Can you provide a couple of those lines?

Embarrassingly, no. There's the old Voyager line from Dragons Teeth - TUVOK: "Their vessel is highly maneuverable. It is difficult to get a phaser lock." - but I remembered these situations being more common. Regardless, given the (slight in modern weapons) firing delay, the slow ROF (nothing compared to modern AA), and the difficultly in doing whatever it is you do to point a phaser at a moving target, I'm not convinced they're as effective vs fighters as Alyeska suggests. The torp idea isn't any better, however (particularly since at short range, to keep flight time down you'd need to orient the ship directly towards or away from your fighter targets; fighters approaching from the beam and jinking would have a higher survival rate)

For a good idea of what a phaser array can do when employed against fighters you should take a look at TNG "Conundrum". Note that all seven fighters were destroyed in less than two seconds.

However, the range was pathetic but I was addressing ROF.

[Darth Wong]

Rate of fire is only important in isolation if you're willing to resort to spray 'n pray tactics. At that range, a man with a rifle could have easily hit those ships (except for that "death by asphyxiation in vacuum" thing, of course).

[Kamakazie Sith]

Rate of fire is only important in isolation if you're willing to resort to spray 'n pray tactics. At that range, a man with a rifle could have easily hit those ships (except for that "death by asphyxiation in vacuum" thing, of course).

True, and I already mentioned that. However, could a person with a rifle hit all seven in under two seconds?

I've always wondered whether the battles in Star Trek were accurately portrayed as Gene saw them or were they simply victims of a small budget and greedy executives.....

[Stark]

*grin* I appreciate the example, but its not 100% applicable here, since the Conundrum aliens were incredibly weak by ST standards. Alyeska has a good point, tho; although Klingons usually fire two weapons at once, and Rom Warbirds have (sometimes) fired their green bolt things rapidly, so power could be a limitng factor, although this is likely true for the Feds as well.

Alyeska, I've not seen any DS9 - during the large battles there, do the Feds show a consistently higher fire rate than the other powers?

[Kamakazie Sith]

*grin* I appreciate the example, but its not 100% applicable here, since the Conundrum aliens were incredibly weak by ST standards. Alyeska has a good point, tho; although Klingons usually fire two weapons at once, and Rom Warbirds have (sometimes) fired their green bolt things rapidly, so power could be a limitng factor, although this is likely true for the Feds as well.

Alyeska, I've not seen any DS9 - during the large battles there, do the Feds show a consistently higher fire rate than the other powers?

True, maybe against modern fighters they would have to allocate more power to the beam in order to destroy them thus their ROF would be lower.

[Alyeska]

Alyeska, I've not seen any DS9 - during the large battles there, do the Feds show a consistently higher fire rate than the other powers?

Starfleet ROF is relatively equal to all other races. ROF can flucuate, but they all fall within the same range.