Somebody check my warp math, plz

[StarSword]

I'm trying my hand at Foundry mission writing in Star Trek Online, and there's a bit where you do a warp microjump deeper into a star system (you're patrolling near one planet and you get a distress signal from a ship near another). Because I like consistency (yeah, I know: Star Trek + consistency = oxymoron) I went to the trouble of looking up the warp speed equation from the TNG Technical Manual and I wanted to make sure I was doing the math right.

The equation for speeds up to warp 9 is ...

... where wf is warp factor and c is the speed of light (3E8 m/s). I worked from there assuming a 2 minute jump averaging warp 3 and got 9.37 astronomical units. Is that right?

[NecronLord]

Warp 3 on that scale is 38.9c which is:

38.9 light minutes per minute ∴ 77.8 light minutes in two minutes. 77.8 light minutes = 9.3 AU

So, yes, you're correct.

The question is, why is your captain dawdling along at warp 3? Is there something wrong with the engine? Is it a shuttle? A modern Federation ship can go to high warp almost immediately (Q Who has for instance, "Warp 9, any heading, engage!" to attempt to escape the borg).

[StarSword]

The question is, why is your captain dawdling along at warp 3? Is there something wrong with the engine? Is it a shuttle? A modern Federation ship can go to high warp almost immediately (Q Who has for instance, "Warp 9, any heading, engage!" to attempt to escape the borg).

Well my reasoning was, I figured even accelerating to high warp takes time, as does decelerating (notice I said "average of warp 3"; I would imagine she hit about warp 6 for a brief interval). Still, I suppose there's really nothing keeping me from cutting down the time. Lemme see what 30 seconds does to the math.

[StarSword]

Ended up cutting it to twelve seconds, same distance, and got just under warp 6.

[Captain Seafort]

The question is, why is your captain dawdling along at warp 3? Is there something wrong with the engine? Is it a shuttle? A modern Federation ship can go to high warp almost immediately (Q Who has for instance, "Warp 9, any heading, engage!" to attempt to escape the borg).

Warp inside a star system has generally been depicted as a bad idea (the inevitable exceptions like TVH notwithstanding), the most obvious being in BoBW II, when the E-D slowed to impulse through the solar system even when they were racing to try and catch up with the cube before it reached Earth. While it's obviously not impossible, it equally obviously is not standard practice, and a low-warp intrasystem jump might be considered a reasonable compromise.

[Batman]

When has insystem Warp been depicted as a bad idea? During TOS Kirk routinely warped out of orbit, and even in the TNG+ era, starships curiously enough fail to spend dozens of hours on impulse getting to whatever planet they're heading for. Even the BoBWII example is somewhat dubious because for the E-D to travel the distance it traveled in the time stated would require her to go FTL (you can probably weasel your way out of that by claiming it was ship's time and relativity comes into play but we all know that's a copout).
Unless I'm very much mistaken, even the TNG Big E would routinely go to Warp shortly after leaving orbit rather than impulsing her way to the edge of the star system.
From my memory the only time they actually said insystem Warp was dangerous was The Motionless Picture, and that was with the Big E's completely new and completely untested Warp drive.

[StarSword]

This discussion sure went in an interesting direction.

The question is, why is your captain dawdling along at warp 3? Is there something wrong with the engine? Is it a shuttle? A modern Federation ship can go to high warp almost immediately (Q Who has for instance, "Warp 9, any heading, engage!" to attempt to escape the borg).

Warp inside a star system has generally been depicted as a bad idea (the inevitable exceptions like TVH notwithstanding), the most obvious being in BoBW II, when the E-D slowed to impulse through the solar system even when they were racing to try and catch up with the cube before it reached Earth. While it's obviously not impossible, it equally obviously is not standard practice, and a low-warp intrasystem jump might be considered a reasonable compromise.

I was thinking about that but I couldn't remember any specific examples to back it up that weren't of dubious canonicity and use for my purposes.* And as Batman pointed out it's more than a bit inconsistent.

Is there any evidence for drop-out accuracy (i.e. going back to sublight where you wanted to be) being reduced at higher warp factors?

* I thought of the novel Star Trek: Federation, where early human-built warp drives can't be engaged too close to a stellar gravity well or bad things happen. STO does consider parts of the Star Trek EU to be canonical, but that detail is contradicted by First Contact IIRC and it's obviously no trouble for a warp drive of 350-some-odd years later anyway (even invoking gameplay and story segregation to exclude player characters, ships in STO warp in and out of high orbit all the time).

[Steve]

Honestly in-game it's mostly just a mechanism for moving from one space map to another, but the idea is more like a warp jump as seen in DS9 when the Defiant warp-jumped toward the Bajoran sun to stop the Bashir-changeling from making it go nova. I would suppose that for in-system "warp jumps" you wouldn't use higher warp speeds for safety reasons.

[Steve]

I'm trying my hand at Foundry mission writing in Star Trek Online, and there's a bit where you do a warp microjump deeper into a star system (you're patrolling near one planet and you get a distress signal from a ship near another). Because I like consistency (yeah, I know: Star Trek + consistency = oxymoron) I went to the trouble of looking up the warp speed equation from the TNG Technical Manual and I wanted to make sure I was doing the math right.

The equation for speeds up to warp 9 is ...

... where wf is warp factor and c is the speed of light (3E8 m/s). I worked from there assuming a 2 minute jump averaging warp 3 and got 9.37 astronomical units. Is that right?

As a writer, I have to say you're better off not mentioning actual warp factors. Simply have the dialogue say something about preparing an in-system warp jump.

[StarSword]

As a writer, I have to say you're better off not mentioning actual warp factors. Simply have the dialogue say something about preparing an in-system warp jump.

Maybe, though I didn't do it as an infodump. Basically, comms officer says we picked up a distress signal from a ship x number of AUs (or light-minutes, or pick a unit) sunward. After hearing it your tac officer says you can be there in y number of seconds, map transition button says, "Conn, warp z. Engage!"

[Prometheus Unbound]

When has insystem Warp been depicted as a bad idea?

Star Trek The Motion Picture
"in order to intercept the Intruder at the earliest possible time, we must now risk engaging Warp drive while still within the solar system"


Star Trek TNG: Best of Both Worlds
Not said out loud, but both the Borg ship and the Enterprise dropped out of warp at Saturn and carried on at full impulse power


Star Trek: nearly every series
Helm: "Now approaching XYZ system"
Captain: "Slow to Impulse"


Star Trek Deep Space Nine: By Inferno's Light
Dax: We're too far away.
Kira: Wanna bet? Take us to warp.
Dax: Inside a solar system?
Kira: If we don't, there won't be a solar system left.

[Skywalker_T-65]

Then again, didn't Enterprise have them testing the NX-drive inside the Solar System? I distinctly remember the test craft being shown in a flashback where it warped to Jupiter.

[Batman]

When has insystem Warp been depicted as a bad idea?

Star Trek The Motion Picture
"in order to intercept the Intruder at the earliest possible time, we must now risk engaging Warp drive while still within the solar system"

That couldn't possibly have had anything to do with it being a completely new, completely untested,and, as it turned out, completely unstable Warp drive.

Star Trek TNG: Best of Both Worlds
Not said out loud, but both the Borg ship and the Enterprise dropped out of warp at Saturn and carried on at full impulse power

Is it me or is 'at Saturn' already pretty damn deep within the Solar System?

Star Trek: nearly every series
Helm: "Now approaching XYZ system"
Captain: "Slow to Impulse"

And yet they never seem to spend hours upon hours limping towards their destination on impulse, they always conveniently come out of Warp a comfortably short flight time to orbit.

Star Trek Deep Space Nine: By Inferno's Light
Dax: We're too far away.
Kira: Wanna bet? Take us to warp.
Dax: Inside a solar system?
Kira: If we don't, there won't be a solar system left.

And yet, the vast preponderance of evidence seems to suggest that at least Warping into or out of a star system (and ending up/starting out close to your destination planet to boot) is no big deal, and I fail to see why Warping from one point in a system to another should be a big deal either.

[Enigma]

Don't forget that warp scene in Voyage Home. They did it while still in Earth's atmosphere.

[tim31]

Man you're not supposed to go full burn in atmo

Hey remember in ST6? "Slow to impulse power for Khitomer approach." And they rocket past the camera within a million kilometres of the planet.

[Prometheus Unbound]

When has insystem Warp been depicted as a bad idea?

Star Trek The Motion Picture
"in order to intercept the Intruder at the earliest possible time, we must now risk engaging Warp drive while still within the solar system"

That couldn't possibly have had anything to do with it being a completely new, completely untested,and, as it turned out, completely unstable Warp drive.

Star Trek TNG: Best of Both Worlds
Not said out loud, but both the Borg ship and the Enterprise dropped out of warp at Saturn and carried on at full impulse power

Is it me or is 'at Saturn' already pretty damn deep within the Solar System?

Star Trek: nearly every series
Helm: "Now approaching XYZ system"
Captain: "Slow to Impulse"

And yet they never seem to spend hours upon hours limping towards their destination on impulse, they always conveniently come out of Warp a comfortably short flight time to orbit.

Star Trek Deep Space Nine: By Inferno's Light
Dax: We're too far away.
Kira: Wanna bet? Take us to warp.
Dax: Inside a solar system?
Kira: If we don't, there won't be a solar system left.

And yet, the vast preponderance of evidence seems to suggest that at least Warping into or out of a star system (and ending up/starting out close to your destination planet to boot) is no big deal, and I fail to see why Warping from one point in a system to another should be a big deal either.

You asked when has it been stated as a bad idea, I gave examples. I didn't say they made sense.

The only one that outright states it's a stupid idea for general warp in a solar system is the DS9 example. If we think maybe Dax meant "that close to a star" (cos they dropped out of warp VERY close to it - another split second and they'd have come out of warp inside the star), then you can disregard the rest.

[Batman]

Fair enough.