M/AM Reactors

[Darkwing]

Has anyone seen or made any relative ranking of the reactors? Starship Dynamics Starfleet Officer's Manual depicts the refit E's linear intermix system and KR-13O reactor with 24 magnetic bottles and generating 2.4 petajoules/second. It also shows other reactors, with 8 or 16 bottles. Assuming that the KR-13-series reactors all feed uniformly, and that each bottle contributes enough antimatter to provide 100 terajoules/second, the Saladin refit would then have 1/3 the power of the refit Enterprise. But if the TOS Saladin had the same nacelle as the TOS Enterprise, since the reactors were in the nacelles in that era, then the Saladin would have half the power. I would assume, since the Orions' little trick of running hot wasn't standard, that the KR-series would likely all generate at about the same capacity, but that could be
2.4 petajoules for all models, and the number of bottles determines how long you can keep it up, or it could mean 800 terajoules for the 8 bottle, 1.6 for the 16, and they all have the same duration.

Listings of rated power would be nice, but even just relative rankings would be helpful.

Also, we never see the difference, if any, in power generation between the TOS and TMP reactors. Does the increase from warp 8 to warp 12 come because the new reactor is so much more powerful? Or did moving the reactors out allow the nacelle to be more effective because it's all warp coils now, with no mass lost to the reactor?

Finally, has anyone ever seen anything giving the masses of the nacelles and reactors? The Officer's Manual says the new nacelles are 25,000 tons, FASA gives 40 - 60,000 tons for nacelles that can be used on ships that size, and I know of no other sources for nacelle mass, nor any for reactor mass.

What are your thoughts, and can you suggest sources?

 

[Timo]

Personally, I wouldn't bet that the number of magnetic bottles would be in a linear relationship to output power. Those are just fuel tanks, after all - a car with a big and powerful engine may have a smaller tank than another, much weaker car.

Also, why worry about the number of nacelles? A single nacelle might pack a more powerful reactor than six nacelles of identical outer shape/size if that size/shape is dictated by the warp coils (the "consumer" part of the setup, rather than the "producer") instead.

Nacelles probably have much higher masses than what fandom credits them with - after all, Kirk's ship massed "nearly a million gross tons", and even if that only reads something like 700,000 tons, it's a bit much to assume it would be evenly spread. Putting most of it in one of the "magical" parts of the ship would help immensely. Perhaps most of it is in the nacelles, and specifically in the warp coils? For obscure pseudorealistic nautical-traditional reason X, fandom sources would omit the coil mass from total mass (there are much weirder systems of determining ship mass or draught or length today) - leaving those tens of thousands of tons as the mass of the casing and the reactor (and the ramscoop and whatnot).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Darkwing]

Personally, I wouldn't bet that the number of magnetic bottles would be in a linear relationship to output power. Those are just fuel tanks, after all - a car with a big and powerful engine may have a smaller tank than another, much weaker car.

I did stress "assuming". The Federation did not run engines hot the way the Orions did, or Spock would not have had to figure it out while in surgery.

Also, why worry about the number of nacelles? A single nacelle might pack a more powerful reactor than six nacelles of identical outer shape/size if that size/shape is dictated by the warp coils (the "consumer" part of the setup, rather than the "producer") instead.

In some sources, the Saladin uses the same model of nacelle as the Enterprise. So, if the MJ idea of the reactors being in the nacelle is considered true, for the purpose of this question, then that means it has half as many reactors of the same size and type as the Enterpise, which might help work things out.

Nacelles probably have much higher masses than what fandom credits them with - after all, Kirk's ship massed "nearly a million gross tons", and even if that only reads something like 700,000 tons, it's a bit much to assume it would be evenly spread. Putting most of it in one of the "magical" parts of the ship would help immensely. Perhaps most of it is in the nacelles, and specifically in the warp coils? For obscure pseudorealistic nautical-traditional reason X, fandom sources would omit the coil mass from total mass (there are much weirder systems of determining ship mass or draught or length today) - leaving those tens of thousands of tons as the mass of the casing and the reactor (and the ramscoop and whatnot).

Timo Saloniemi

Kirk's ship was 190,000 tons, per TMoST, and FASA uses that scale, which is compatible with what the Starfleet Dynamics Officer's Manual cites for the nacelle, so I mentioned the few data points I've seen. The million ton figure comes from other, later sources, and calculates volumetrics differently.
Also, part of the reason i'm asking is to rewrite the FASA ship construction manual a bit, so if the sources I hope to hear about in this thread use millions of tons, I'll have to figure relative mass conversions. I can just assume the nacelles are superdense, and displace a volume of hydrogen equal to 25,000 tons, for example, so might mass 500,000 tons on a scale. That lets the old scale work while not denying the newer one.

 

[Timo]

The "nearly a million gross tons" thing is carved in stone in dialogue from "Mudd's Women", so the clash with the as such reasonable fandom assumption that an aircraft carrier -sized starship has a mass comparable to an aircraft carrier (or three) is inevitable. Dialogue then stays mum on further starship masses until "700,000 tons" is established for the Voyager, more or less in line with the old TOS statement.

I wonder about the transition from TOS to TMP, too. The refitted Enterprise never seemed to be superfast: in an extreme emergency, she only did warp 7. Perhaps the new engines were more efficient, allowing for sustaining of warp 6+ for longer periods of time, but in fact had a lower dash speed? The fandom sources crediting the TOS ship with warp 8 or 9 dash might be as conservative as Scotty, since the ship did warp 10 a couple of times without major problems - while the sources crediting the TMP ship with warp 12 might be optimistic, stating "she'll do warp 12 in a cinch, she once took warp 14.1 after all, just remember to read your prayers first" rather than "yes, you can pursue the enemy at warp 12 without major risk".

Did any fan source ever give an identity to the refit reactor? Did Starship Spotter believe in "reactors" or did it just list the "engines"?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[David cgc]

Nacelles probably have much higher masses than what fandom credits them with - after all, Kirk's ship massed "nearly a million gross tons", and even if that only reads something like 700,000 tons, it's a bit much to assume it would be evenly spread. Putting most of it in one of the "magical" parts of the ship would help immensely. Perhaps most of it is in the nacelles, and specifically in the warp coils? For obscure pseudorealistic nautical-traditional reason X, fandom sources would omit the coil mass from total mass (there are much weirder systems of determining ship mass or draught or length today) - leaving those tens of thousands of tons as the mass of the casing and the reactor (and the ramscoop and whatnot).

Nacelles being disproportionately heavy is a meme I've seen before in tech fandom. Another bit of evidence for it is the positioning of Voyager's landing legs suggesting the ship's center of gravity is in the middle of the engineering hull. If the ship was evenly dense, it would tip over on to its front (though there's also the concept that the ship makes a "powered" landing that's keeping the legs from snapping and, presumably, the ship from falling over. I don't really buy the idea that Voyager landing was actually an extremely low-altitude hover, it seems like a flaw in the concept if you can park a ship on a planet, but you can't turn it off while it's down there).

Did Starship Spotter believe in "reactors" or did it just list the "engines"?

Just propulsion stats for impulse and warp, no mention of a powerplant. Even on space stations and other stationary objects, it's just listed as "N/A" without any other section for a reactor.

 

[Timo]

The unfortunate thing about assigning the mass of "nearly a million gross tons" or "700,000 tons" to any part of a starship is that a landing necessarily does become "very low hover". Else no matter how big the landing pads, the ship would just sink into the ground...

It's bad in the case of the Voyager. It may be worse with shuttlecraft, assuming they are just scaled-down starships in terms of mass, retaining the density. But perhaps the magic part resides in the landing legs, these being more than they seem? Forcefield-type snow shoes might be a low power application that can be relied upon. OTOH, antigravity is always reliable and low power in Trek, so perhaps the ship runs on batteries for the few months she spends resting on alluvial soils?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Darkwing]

The "nearly a million gross tons" thing is carved in stone in dialogue from "Mudd's Women", so the clash with the as such reasonable fandom assumption that an aircraft carrier -sized starship has a mass comparable to an aircraft carrier (or three) is inevitable. Dialogue then stays mum on further starship masses until "700,000 tons" is established for the Voyager, more or less in line with the old TOS statement.

I had forgotten that one. Still, FASA ship construction is built off the 190,000 tons from The Making of Star Trek, and I can just handwave that the overall mass is one thing, while the displacement is another, and the FASA figures represent displacement.

I wonder about the transition from TOS to TMP, too. The refitted Enterprise never seemed to be superfast: in an extreme emergency, she only did warp 7. Perhaps the new engines were more efficient, allowing for sustaining of warp 6+ for longer periods of time, but in fact had a lower dash speed? The fandom sources crediting the TOS ship with warp 8 or 9 dash might be as conservative as Scotty, since the ship did warp 10 a couple of times without major problems - while the sources crediting the TMP ship with warp 12 might be optimistic, stating "she'll do warp 12 in a cinch, she once took warp 14.1 after all, just remember to read your prayers first" rather than "yes, you can pursue the enemy at warp 12 without major risk".

Eh, I'll stick with the Kimble blueprints saying warp 12 is fine, but remain skeptical of starship Prototype's warp 18. V'Ger wasn't that far away. Warp 7 was a practical high speed to intercept. Had they known the threat early enough to intercept V'ger while it was at the Klingon border, they probably would have gone warp 12. Also, as I recall, warp 12 fit mathematically the distance to wherever Vulcan was thought to be then (Epsilon Eridani?) in the 4 days Scotty suggested. I don't think he'd have said it so enthusiastically if he'd have to break out his rosary and medicine bag to nurse them for 4 days.

Did any fan source ever give an identity to the refit reactor? Did Starship Spotter believe in "reactors" or did it just list the "engines"?
Timo Saloniemi

Starship Dynamics Starfleet Officer's Manual calls it a KR-13-series reactor. AFAIK, that's the only such reference. FASA goes with the power in the nacelles, as MJ speculated, even for the refit era tech.

Nacelles being disproportionately heavy is a meme I've seen before in tech fandom. Another bit of evidence for it is the positioning of Voyager's landing legs suggesting the ship's center of gravity is in the middle of the engineering hull. If the ship was evenly dense, it would tip over on to its front (though there's also the concept that the ship makes a "powered" landing that's keeping the legs from snapping and, presumably, the ship from falling over. I don't really buy the idea that Voyager landing was actually an extremely low-altitude hover, it seems like a flaw in the concept if you can park a ship on a planet, but you can't turn it off while it's down there).

Well, what else is there that should reasonably be so dense, while not requiring the very hull plates to be neutronium? If you really care to square the dialog, assuming ridiculous density to the nacelles and maybe the magnetic bottles lets you assume total mass is very high, while displacement mass is more easily accepted (and lower!) numbers.

Just propulsion stats for impulse and warp, no mention of a powerplant. Even on space stations and other stationary objects, it's just listed as "N/A" without any other section for a reactor.

I don't have Starship Spotter.


QUOTE="Timo, post: 12017431, member: 2277"]The unfortunate thing about assigning the mass of "nearly a million gross tons" or "700,000 tons" to any part of a starship is that a landing necessarily does become "very low hover". Else no matter how big the landing pads, the ship would just sink into the ground...

It's bad in the case of the Voyager. It may be worse with shuttlecraft, assuming they are just scaled-down starships in terms of mass, retaining the density. But perhaps the magic part resides in the landing legs, these being more than they seem? Forcefield-type snow shoes might be a low power application that can be relied upon. OTOH, antigravity is always reliable and low power in Trek, so perhaps the ship runs on batteries for the few months she spends resting on alluvial soils?

Timo Saloniemi[/QUOTE]

That might explain why Intrepid is the first class that large to be able to land, and why Starfleet avoided letting anything larger than a shuttlecraft land for so long.

 

[Timo]

Then again, there was nothing in VOY to suggest the hero ship was the first one capable of landing, or the first one performing landings on regular basis, or anything of the landing sort. And the assorted prequels make a visual point out of what was always inherent in the basic specs of starships: their powerful engines make it trivially easy to operate out of one-gee worlds.

So trivial indeed that things like landing gear would appear completely superfluous. But there's nothing to say Kirk's ship lacked such gear, or the ability to land on planets. Many an ability was omitted from consideration altogether despite existing, and we should trust our heroes' professionalism if they don't consider a specific option an option for the particular adventure (no shuttlecraft discussed in "Enemy Within", say).

But I digress. A lot. Specifications of warp cores and antimatter reactors are a thing of very select few fan publications, but they're often mentioned in online specs of fan starships (both those made up by fans and those made up by Desilu/Paramount/CBS). It's just that there's no consensus there, or even attempt at such.

Also, as I recall, warp 12 fit mathematically the distance to wherever Vulcan was thought to be then (Epsilon Eridani?) in the 4 days Scotty suggested. I don't think he'd have said it so enthusiastically if he'd have to break out his rosary and medicine bag to nurse them for 4 days.

In light of later evidence (and indeed in light of TOS itself, if we assume Vulcan is just 16 ly from Earth), 4 days would be crawling speed - perhaps warp 2.3 or somesuch. After all, in TOS, Kirk traveled from star to non-neighboring star in a matter of hours on occasion, without giving Scotty a heart attack yet.

Mathematically the "TOS formula" never applied to anything show in Star Trek - until the ENT pilot episode, where it arguably could have worked for about one-third of that episode.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ithekro]

The Warp 18 from the Starship Prototype book was the speculated speed increase of having transwarp drives on the Enterprise-A. The DC Comics Star Trek series set between Star Trek III and Star Trek IV had the transwarp equipped USS Excelsior travel at least up to Warp 20 during the Mirror Universe crisis.

 

[Ronald Held]

All craft that land need antigravs on while on the ground?

 

[Darkwing]

Then again, there was nothing in VOY to suggest the hero ship was the first one capable of landing, or the first one performing landings on regular basis, or anything of the landing sort. And the assorted prequels make a visual point out of what was always inherent in the basic specs of starships: their powerful engines make it trivially easy to operate out of one-gee worlds.

It's the first that had the typical primary and secondary hull arrangement that we ever saw land. Defiant was a small, single-hull ship that looked like it could land. TMoST stated that Kirk's ship (after separation) could land once, as an emergency measure, but not be rejoined. Not sure if it was supposed to be able to take off again, but it should have been able to.

But I digress. A lot. Specifications of warp cores and antimatter reactors are a thing of very select few fan publications, but they're often mentioned in online specs of fan starships (both those made up by fans and those made up by Desilu/Paramount/CBS). It's just that there's no consensus there, or even attempt at such.

Sadly, yes, which is why I hoped other fen here might know of sources I didn't that might be stitched together even somewhat.

In light of later evidence (and indeed in light of TOS itself, if we assume Vulcan is just 16 ly from Earth), 4 days would be crawling speed - perhaps warp 2.3 or somesuch. After all, in TOS, Kirk traveled from star to non-neighboring star in a matter of hours on occasion, without giving Scotty a heart attack yet.

Mathematically the "TOS formula" never applied to anything show in Star Trek - until the ENT pilot episode, where it arguably could have worked for about one-third of that episode.

Timo Saloniemi

Yes, but despite the lack of internet at the time, word got out that they had calculated it by the formula for that line, based on whichever star Roddenberry thought it should be then. There were a couple, I want to say 40 Eridani and Epsilon Eridani.

 

[Darkwing]

The Warp 18 from the Starship Prototype book was the speculated speed increase of having transwarp drives on the Enterprise-A. The DC Comics Star Trek series set between Star Trek III and Star Trek IV had the transwarp equipped USS Excelsior travel at least up to Warp 20 during the Mirror Universe crisis.

Which is cool, if that's how it worked, but the display in the movie showed warp speed available up until warp 17, then being able to engage transwarp.

So the Excelsior doing warp 20, okay( I don't have to shift to second gear as soon as I'm fast enough; I can shift at higher speeds, too), but transwarp should not be seen, IMO, as just a couple factors higher. Warp factor to the 4th or 5th power, sure, Warp factor up to warp 17 or 20, then switch to transwarp drive which is simply a flat 10,000C or maybe 20,000C. Warp 20 by the TOS formula would have been 8,000C, so that would still be a notable improvement.

 

[Ithekro]

Considering the fastest ships prior to the supposed transwarp ships in the Starfleet Prototype book and its kin was I believe Warp 13. Most newer TMP style starships in the books can make up to Warp 12 (though not all of them).

I think the exception was the perimeter action ships from a later book, but their warp nacelle design and design philosophy is quite different from the other Starships in the other related books. The Perimeter Action Ships were designed to go all out in relatively short bursts to chase down intruders, shove all power into the weapons on arrival and act as quick response units until larger more resilient starships can arrive from I think Tac Fleet or something like that. These ships may also have been transwarp capable since they didn't start to come into production until after USS Excelsior and the USS Enterprise-A are in service. Around a year or three before Praxis explodes.