Warp Speed Scale Change

[Ithekro]

Starships are more commonly associated with sea going vessels as they don't have quite as limited a range as aircraft when discussing cruising abilities in terms of days, weeks, months, or even years when it comes to the nuclear powered vessels. Most are "in theory" or by design, because very few people are going to test an expensive warship to see if it can run as a sustained cruising speed for years at a time.

 

[STR]

It is for starships, which is what we are discussing here. "Supercruise" is a similar concept for aircraft and is related to the concept of "cruise" which is ALSO a thing in aviation.


"Supercruise" is concept that relates to the F-22's ability to maintain supersonic velocity in level flight without the use of an afterburner; the fact that it is able to do this for almost its entire flight range is implied in the definition of the term, but is not necessarily a factor (although I can't think of a scenario where it wouldn't be). So when someone tells you "the F-22 can supercruise at up to Mach 1.7" then that means the F-22 can travel at Mach 1.7 without an afterburner. If, on the other hand, an F-22 pilot comes back from a seven year deployment and tells you "Even on full afterburner the thing can barely hit Mach 1" then you know the first person was probably full of it.

In Voyager's case, "maximum sustainable cruising velocity" is one of those terms that has a specific definition, but it doesn't appear to be the one Stadi is alluding to.

It is for starships, which is what we are discussing here. "Supercruise" is a similar concept for aircraft and is related to the concept of "cruise" which is ALSO a thing in aviation.


"Supercruise" is concept that relates to the F-22's ability to maintain supersonic velocity in level flight without the use of an afterburner; the fact that it is able to do this for almost its entire flight range is implied in the definition of the term, but is not necessarily a factor (although I can't think of a scenario where it wouldn't be). So when someone tells you "the F-22 can supercruise at up to Mach 1.7" then that means the F-22 can travel at Mach 1.7 without an afterburner. If, on the other hand, an F-22 pilot comes back from a seven year deployment and tells you "Even on full afterburner the thing can barely hit Mach 1" then you know the first person was probably full of it.

In Voyager's case, "maximum sustainable cruising velocity" is one of those terms that has a specific definition, but it doesn't appear to be the one Stadi is alluding to.

"Supercruise" really isn't an aviation term either. It's really a marketing term invented by Lockheed to impress gullible congresscritters. The difference between the supersonic endurance of a F-22 vs say a F-15 is on the order of about 10 minutes. The difference in fuel consumption between military thrust and stage 1-2 AB is negligible at the speeds in question.

And, as has been pointed out, aircraft in general are a lousy comparison. Fuel consumption is paramount in aircraft. Ships, and outside of an episode or two of TOS, starships do not have that kind of limitations. High warp has *explicitly* been cited as a strain on the engines, which require additional service work. Warp speed is proportional to maintenance time.

 

[BadMoonRising]

This was one of Gene's dumber ideas, as Gene is dead this concept should die too. Along with the nacelle line-of-sight-with-saucer, even-numbed-nacelles and the concept of strict canon and other now-decades old shlock. The fanbase needs to evolve rather than stubbornly adhere to the ramblings of a man who was losing control of the IP he created.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

"Supercruise" really isn't an aviation term either. It's really a marketing term invented by Lockheed to impress gullible congresscritters.

That's a distinction without a difference when it comes to military aviation. Defense contractors love their jargon...

The difference between the supersonic endurance of a F-22 vs say a F-15 is on the order of about 10 minutes. The difference in fuel consumption between military thrust and stage 1-2 AB is negligible at the speeds in question.

That depends on the amount of bullshit involved in the creation of that term (there WAS a certain amount of bullshit, we just don't know how much). Doesn't change the fact that supercruise is a concept with a well defined meaning and requires an aircraft to be able to achieve sueprsonic velocity in level flight without an afterburner. If it CAN'T do this, it's not capable of supercruise, and whoever told you it was is wrong.

Same in Voyager's case. Stadi is saying the ship can sustain a cruising velocity of up to warp 9.975. She's obviously wrong about this; Voyager can barely even REACH that velocity, let alone "sustain" it.

 

[Ithekro]

Sort of like the Galaxy-class reaching speeds of Warp 9.6 for 12 hours, but it is considered extremely risky. Voyager was probably designed to be able to reach Warp 9.975 and hold that speed for several hours, but in practice it probably can't after its rough trip to the Delta Quadrant.

Defiant was supposedly a fast ship, but in practice seems to be fairly slow compared to even a Galaxy-class ship.

 

[C.E. Evans]

The Defiant had powerful engines for a ship of her size, but otherwise they may be comparable to mid-sized ships, IMO.

 

[Spot261]

I don't recall it ever being stated that she was particularly fast, I think the closest line was "over powered for her size" which need not mean the same thing.

She certainly punched above her weight in terms of weaponry, which would require a commensurately large source of available power, but translating that power into high speeds would also require the correct systems (nacelles etc). I'm not sure anything on screen ever showed her doing this beyond what one would expect from a SF vessel of the era.

In fact one might speculate that she was actually under equipped in this regard given the rather small and retracted nacelles which make sense tactically but do not fit with the pattern seen elsewhere on fast SF vessels.

 

[BadMoonRising]

I had that argument with someone about the Defiant class recently. Star Trek Online is not the most "pure" venue to discuss and compare ships given it's "kill them all with damage-per-second" mentality.

My argument was the Defiant and her type was designed to dish it out and take it in return, not to be ultra-nimble "fighters" like the BOP. Nimble and fast compared to a Borg Cube or a larger cruiser maybe but not intended to dogfight by any means.

More like the A-10 in terms of design theory -- a flying punishment device... basically "we built this cannon now we need a starship to get it to the battlefield."

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I had that argument with someone about the Defiant class recently. Star Trek Online is not the most "pure" venue to discuss and compare ships given it's "kill them all with damage-per-second" mentality.

My argument was the Defiant and her type was designed to dish it out and take it in return, not to be ultra-nimble "fighters" like the BOP. Nimble and fast compared to a Borg Cube or a larger cruiser maybe but not intended to dogfight by any means.

More like the A-10 in terms of design theory -- a flying punishment device... basically "we built this cannon now we need a starship to get it to the battlefield."

It certainly seemed like they started with a package of weapon systems and then attached a starship to it, so the A-10 analogy is apt. No frills, no bells and whistles, just a big fucking gun and wings.

 

[MAGolding]

That, plus Voyager has NEVER been able to sustain that maximum velocity for any length of time in all the years Voyager was on the air. lf Janeway's "twice as fast" is based on that, then she's wrong either way.


There is no "official" warp scale other than "speed of plot."

The official TOS warp scale is the one mentioned in the offiical writers guide for the use of you know, writers writing scripts to submitt to TOS, and also in The Making of Star Trek 1968 and also in "To Make a Star Trek" in Analog magazine in 1968.

 

[Idran]

The official TOS warp scale is the one mentioned in the offiical writers guide for the use of you know, writers writing scripts to submitt to TOS, and also in The Making of Star Trek 1968 and also in "To Make a Star Trek" in Analog magazine in 1968.

And the TNG writer's guide said that Data was built by mysterious highly advanced aliens, had the emotions of the dead colonists where he'd been found, and had a name that rhymed with "that-a", that Picard talked about France the way Chekov talked about Russia, that 24th century EVA suits were skin-tight bodysuits wiith helmets, and that Wesley wasn't a nerd.

Writer's guides are just there to give writers a foundation to start from so as to better fit into the episodes that other writers are working on and what's been worked out either before a show starts or so far on what's been seen on screen. But those sorts of technical details aren't paid any attention unless they want to throw in color, and they're tossed out if it would get in the way of the story they want to tell.

See, for example, the direct contradiction to that formula in "That Which Survives", where Spock quoted a travel time for 990.7 light years at warp 8.4 of 11.337 hours; unless you can show me some memos or something to the contrary, I'm certain that there wasn't any conversation behind the scenes about how to justify that, or about how it contradicted their warp formula, because it didn't matter for the story. They just made up some numbers out of nowhere without caring about the math, because the exact values of the numbers didn't matter, what mattered is that a) the distance was really big, and b) Spock is overly precise in his quoting like all Vulcans. The specific values that illustrated that were irrelevant to the writers, and it's up to fans to justify it. Or throw it out if they don't want to bother fitting it together.

If it's not on screen, it's not official, because the writers can change anything they want until they show it to the audience. Just like in every work of fiction ever.

 

[MAGolding]

My argument was the Defiant and her type was designed to dish it out and take it in return, not to be ultra-nimble "fighters" like the BOP. Nimble and fast compared to a Borg Cube or a larger cruiser maybe but not intended to dogfight by any means.

IMHO opinion it is way past time for people to forget the silly idea that smaller spaceships are either faster or more nimble than larger spaceships.

Suppose that space ship A has dimensions B, volume of B cubed and mass C. Suppose that Space ship D has dimensions of 2 B and thus a volume of 8 times B cubed and mass of eight times C. If the engine of space ship D has twice the dimensions and 8 times the volume and mass of the engine of space ship A, the engine power of space ship A and space ship D should be the same proportional to their relative mass. Thus space ship D should be exactly as fast as space ship A.

Suppose you make the engines of space ship D 2.2 times the dimensions of the engines of space ship A. Thus they will have 10.648 times the volume, mass,and energy of the engines of space ship A while space ship
D has only 8 times the volume and mass of space ship A. Thus space ship D will no have relatively more powerful engines than space ship A and will be faster.

At least for sublight engines.

If a faster than light engine creates a warp field that makes every object in it travel x times the speed of light no matter what the mass of the objects within the warp field is, then space ship A and space ship D can use engines of he exact same size to travel x times the speed of light, even if space space ship D has 8 times the volume and mass of space ship A. But if space ship D has a faster than light engine proportional to its volume, and thus 8 times the volume and mass and energy of the faster than light engine in space ship A, space ship D could travel e 8 times as fast in warp as space ship A.

So bigger space ships can be much faster than smaller space ships.

As for smaller space ships being able to turn faster than bigger space ships, that idea comes from smaller Earthly vehicles being able to turn and change course faster than bigger Earthly vehicles. But that is largely a result of the resistance of the air and water mediums to the turning motions of vehicles. Space vehicles in a vacuum do not have to fight that resistance when they turn.

On Earth small airplanes from aircraft carriers are much faster and more nimble than aircraft carriers or battle ships, but that is only because the much thinner air they are in offers so much less resistance than the much denser ater the ships float on. In space there is no resistance from the vacuum and the higher powered large space ships are faster and more maneuverable than he smaller ones.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

The official TOS warp scale is the one mentioned in the offiical writers guide for the use of you know, writers writing scripts to submitt to TOS

Which they ignored pretty consistently, and in at least two episodes, EXPLICITLY. Not that the writing guide itself -- or anything in it -- is actually canon, or that everyone writing for TOS even bothered to read it.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

IMHO opinion it is way past time for people to forget the silly idea that smaller spaceships are either faster or more nimble than larger spaceships.

Why? That's exactly the way it works in the REAL WORLD. It's not a stretch to imagine it would be the same for science-fiction vessels.

Suppose that space ship A has dimensions B, volume of B cubed and mass C. Suppose that Space ship D has dimensions of 2 B and thus a volume of 8 times B cubed and mass of eight times C. If the engine of space ship D has twice the dimensions and 8 times the volume and mass of the engine of space ship A, the engine power of space ship A and space ship D should be the same proportional to their relative mass...

It's not. In conventional rocketry, engine power doesn't scale in a linear relationship with the size of the engine. Because of the increased mass of propellant and tanking to maintain a ratio of engine size, the engine must also be eight times as powerful to have the same acceleration and also 8 times the propellant to have the same Delta-V.

This can be achieved by simply adding eight times as many engines to the larger ship as the larger one. The new engine wouldn't be proportionately larger, since the engine structure is only increasing size in a single dimension (along the rear surface of the craft) and not getting longer as well. So the larger vessel will have the same performance as the smaller one with a proportionately smaller engine.

The real problem is, as I said, engine power doesn't really scale with size. The old rocketdyne J-2 engine was actually LARGER than the SSME used on the space shuttle despite the fact that it produced about half as much thrust, the modern Merlin rocket engine produces about half the thrust of the old J-2 engine despite being LESS than half its size and one-third its weight. And then there's the RD-180, which produces about 4 times the thrust of the J2 while being almost the same size but also 4 times heavier. So it's entirely possible that adding an engine twice as large in every dimension as the previous design would result in a tenfold or twentyfold increase in thrust, or -- depending on the design -- only double thrust and require you to add a lot more of them than you normally would.

So there's two factors to this:
1) A ship that is twice as large won't actually BE 8 times as heavy, in fact it's likely that a vessel 8 times as massive would simply be eight times as large (take eight spacecraft of identical size and bolt them all together). A good example of this is the Apollo and Soyuz spcecraft: Apollo's CSM is is 4 meters wide and 11 meters long, where the Soyuz is about 2 and a half meters wide and 7 meters long. Even ignoring the fact that more of Apollo's internal space is machinery, the CSM is about 4 times the volume of the Soyuz-TMA. Except the unfueled Apollo CSM weighs about 11 tons, while the unfueled Soyuz weighs just a little under 7 tons. So you can actually get a massive increase in spacecraft size for relatively little weight; Incidentally, Apollo also manages to carry about 18 times as much propellant as the Soyuz, which, combined with a larger engine, gives it better acceleration and better delta-V.

2) Engine power doesn't scale with size, and it's possible for a very small engine to have more power than a larger one if it is engineered correctly. More powerful engines do tend to be HEAVIER, but they don't tend to be BIGGER in terms of actual dimensions.

In space there is no resistance from the vacuum and the higher powered large space ships are faster and more maneuverable than he smaller ones.

This is unlikely, since a space craft doesn't actually have to BE larger in order to carry a more powerful engine, or for that matter, more propellant. This is the other problem with your analysis: maximum acceleration is less important than total delta-v, and a spacecraft that can reach a higher maximum velocity is actually more useful than one that can reach a slower velocity more quickly.

 

[Idran]

But inertia is still a factor in space. More massive ships would require more powerful engines to turn at the same rate, which would require a stronger hull to be able to take the increased acceleration without deforming, and while you could thicken the hull to make up for it, you can only do that so far. You can't just directly scale everything up, it's a lot more complicated than that. And while it is possible that SIFs could make up for that, I think the fact that smaller ships do tend to be more maneuverable in Star Trek is itself evidence that SIFs don't scale with volume either.

Also, are we sure that the power of warp drives is directly proportional to volume and that they can scale as much as you might need? I could have sworn that there was a reference on Voyager once to more massive ships not being able to sustain the speeds a lighter ship could (pretty sure it was a briefing room scene and the line was Seven's), though my barrage of search terms on Chakoteya isn't having any luck.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

But inertia is still a factor in space. More massive ships would require more powerful engines to turn at the same rate, which would require a stronger hull to be able to take the increased acceleration without deforming,

But it's not increased acceleration, because the more massive ship will accelerate at the same rate as the smaller one. You may need a stronger support structure for a more powerful engine -- or more support structure mass if you're using a lot more of the same small engine -- but the forces on the hull overall are about the same. This is different when it comes to turning rate and maneuverability; the more massive ship is at a disadvantage because it will require larger and heavy maneuvering thrusters than a smaller vessel and will use proportionately more propellant just turning around than the smaller vessel would. So while it may be very fast in absolute terms, it still maneuvers like a drunken cow with three broken legs.

What's significant is that larger ships do not scale up their mass proportionate to their volume under all but the most unusual circumstances. If, for example, you're building starships by simply bolting smaller ones together. Or if your ships have very dense structures such that huge sections of their interiors are actually solid blocks of metal.

Also, are we sure that the power of warp drives is directly proportional to volume and that they can scale as much as you might need?

Actually, I'm pretty sure that they're NOT. Warp engine nacelles and warp cores seem to keep getting smaller and smaller era after era without sacrificing power, so there seems to be an upward trend of increasing power density on those things.

It's really a matter of engineering and technology, and also the type of engine being used. Some warp drives may not actually be built for speed anyway, but need to be very large in order to maintain long-range efficiency.

 

[Idran]

But it's not increased acceleration, because the more massive ship will accelerate at the same rate as the smaller one. You may need a stronger support structure for a more powerful engine -- or more support structure mass if you're using a lot more of the same small engine -- but the forces on the hull overall are about the same.

Ah, yeah, you're right; didn't think that through properly.

 

[at Quark's]

Regarding the differences between the TNG-era scale (warp 10= infinity), and the All Good Things scale (factors > 10) I once read an explanation I liked. I don't know exactly where anymore, could have been DITL.

It went something like this:
There is the classical subspace domain, which allows to circumvent the light speed barrier of normal space-time (that would conventionally require infinite amounts of energy) by going into subspace. In this subspace domain (or set of subspace domains), there are 9 'optimal' speeds, warp 1..9, where the effective speed is equal to the cube of the warp factor (TOS scale) plus an asymptotic term that goes to infinity for warp 10. (which is the TNG era scale).

Warp 10 itself would be an insurmountable barrier (I suppose ignoring threshold), because it would cost infinite energy to sustain, even though it would 'yield' infinite speed as well.

However, sometime after TNG, it was discovered that this warp 10 barrier could be circumvented in a similar way as the original lightspeed barrier was, by going into an even deeper subspace domain (or set of subspace domains). Again, here new optimal points were found. This would then be the meaning of warp factors 11, 12, 13, and so on, and could be aptly named 'transwarp'.

In that vision, warp 9.95 and warp 12 (just pulling some random numbers) could very well be the same effective speed, and even exist both in the same scale that is in use by the time of All Good Things, but these are achieved differently. Warp 9.95 would be by a conventional (TNG-era) warp engine, requiring tremendous amounts of energy and put enormous stress on the hull and such. Warp 12 would be the same speed, but this time achieved by an 'next-next generation' engine that can dive into that deeper set of subspace domains, utilizing far less energy and putting far less stress on the hull. (I believe the theory was that warp 20 was asymptotic again, after which a third set was discovered, named, warp factors 21, 22, and so on)

So, that would allow for warp factors 11, 12, etc, while still having the warp 10 =infinite speed barrier. It would require though, that we see warp not as a function of speed, but as a function of subspace distortion, primarily.

 

[MAGolding]

But it's not increased acceleration, because the more massive ship will accelerate at the same rate as the smaller one. You may need a stronger support structure for a more powerful engine -- or more support structure mass if you're using a lot more of the same small engine -- but the forces on the hull overall are about the same. This is different when it comes to turning rate and maneuverability; the more massive ship is at a disadvantage because it will require larger and heavy maneuvering thrusters than a smaller vessel and will use proportionately more propellant just turning around than the smaller vessel would. So while it may be very fast in absolute terms, it still maneuvers like a drunken cow with three broken legs.

The more massive ship is not at a disadvantage because "it will require larger and heavy maneuvering thrusters than a smaller vessel and will use proportionately more propellant just turning around than the smaller vessel would". Maneuvering thrusters are relatively small on starships. So increasing the size of maneuvering thrusters on larger ships so they can turn as fast as smaller ships is a relatively minor design process. Suppose that a ship with twice the dimensions of a smaller one has eight times the volume of the smaller one but only needs a crew twice as large. That ship will have crew quarters and life support space twice as large as the smaller ship, and thus will have unused space equal to six times the crew quarters and life support space on the smaller ship that can be used for other things such as maneuvering thrusters, etc.

And why would a starship need maneuvering thrusters to change its course? That implies that a ship's engines can only make it travel in one direction relative to the ship's orientation. Thus the ship has to be turned so that it's engines point in the right direction. That makes a lot of sense for a spaceship with large rocket engines.

But a space opera starship with advanced STL and FTL drives might not need to point itself in the direction it wants to travel. Possibly it's engines are mounted on gimbals for spherical suspension and can be turned in any direction to send the starship in any direction without changing the orientation of the starship's hull.

Or possibly the entire engines don't have to be turned to change course either. Possibly moving comparatively small valves or devices inside the engines, or turning internal force fields on or off, etc., might change the direction of movement without turning the engines as a whole.

Kirk's TOS era Enterprise actually can do that to a limited degree. Kirk's Enterprise has two travel directions, forward and reverse.

In "Balance of Terror":

(The Romulan ship has become visible)
KIRK: Full astern! Emergency warp speed!
(A red plasma blast is heading towards them)
KIRK: Do we have emergency warp?
SULU: Full power, sir. It's still overtaking us. If we can get one phaser working, sir, one shot might detonate it.

So if warp engines can quickly turn from forward to reverse, and if the two nacelles can operate in opposite directions simultaneously, Kirk's Enterprise could use that ability to quickly turn in any horizontal direction while using warp drive without using maneuvering thrusters. Starships with three or four nacelles could use the warp engines to turn up or down at warp speed.

So maybe starships don't use maneuvering thrusters often to change course.

 

[Idran]

and if the two nacelles can operate in opposite directions simultaneously

That's a pretty huge "if", though. Is there any reason to think that they can? I've never even heard that suggested.