Your opinions: Minimum phaser setting to affect a stormtrooper?

[NecronLord]

Simple enough question; a goldshirt from the Enterprise D is attempting to shoot a stormtrooper, based on your opinion, what do you think the minimum setting he should use to be certain of affecting the target is?

This page, excerpted from the TNG tech manual lists some information on effects.

[Batman]

Hard to say without knowing how much of the phaser's charge each setting uses up. If I don't have to worry about 'ammo' I'd say 9 should be a safe bet.

[Elheru Aran]

*quietly indicates any number of occasions where packing-crates were sufficient to stop phaser shots*

Ahem, that aside, we can probably safely assume that a stormtrooper *in armour*-- which I will note was not specified-- can probably withstand most of the 'stun' settings. I want to say we've seen some species-- Klingons, maybe Jem'hadar-- take stun shots without effect and they have to turn up their phasers to take them down. 'Heavy Stun' (level 3) might get through. I think it more likely it would take a level 5 or 6 shot.

Of course I don't think we've ever seen phasers used on anybody encased in full armour (Breen?), and the settings actually seen on screen IMO don't correspond that much to this list of 16 (!) settings. More likely there are only 4 or 5 common settings-- Light Stun, Heavy Stun, Kill, and Disintegrate. Possibly a 'Medium Stun' or a 'Killx2'. For situations where people are heating up rocks to stay warm, you could use Heavy Stun or Kill; for blowing through walls, Kill, and so forth. I think it's obvious that the 16 settings are Technical Manual silliness. The hand phaser might be *technically* capable of such fine variation, but most people simply don't have the time or the inclination to fine-tune it that much in between uses.

[Borgholio]

I think it's obvious that the 16 settings are Technical Manual silliness.

Actually in the TNG episode, The Vengeance Factor, we clearly see Riker going through all 16 settings. He skips quite a few but there are 16 little lights and he goes through all of them.

Regarding the OP, I'd say you'd have to go through at least the mid-range phaser settings to punch a hole in Stormtrooper armor. Comparing blasters to phasers, it seems that only phasers in the mid - high settings are able to cause their targets to explode the way they do when a blaster hits.

[Elheru Aran]

And of course that's one episode I've never seen, so

Frankly it does seem a bit silly to me that you get to 'kill' after only 4 or 5 notches on the thing though. At that kind of rate, you'd expect disingeration to happen at like... 8 notches or something and that setting a phaser on 'maximum' is something like setting off a baby nuke... (which, considering that people are disintegrated to nothingness in a matter of split-seconds without corresponding effects on the area around them... might not be a bad comparison).

[Captain Seafort]

Actually in the TNG episode, The Vengeance Factor, we clearly see Riker going through all 16 settings. He skips quite a few but there are 16 little lights and he goes through all of them.

There are also explicit mentions of Level 16 (albeit in Frame of Mind, when Riker wasn't entirely compos mentis - the infamous "destroy half a building" setting) and Level 10 in Aquiel, which Worf describes as "set to kill" and, while not directly seen, can be confidently assessed to have the effect of reducing an individual to a small pool of gloop.

[Simon_Jester]

*quietly indicates any number of occasions where packing-crates were sufficient to stop phaser shots*

Was the phaser in question set to stun, heat, kill, or disintegrate?

Ahem, that aside, we can probably safely assume that a stormtrooper *in armour*-- which I will note was not specified-- can probably withstand most of the 'stun' settings. I want to say we've seen some species-- Klingons, maybe Jem'hadar-- take stun shots without effect and they have to turn up their phasers to take them down. 'Heavy Stun' (level 3) might get through. I think it more likely it would take a level 5 or 6 shot.

If rules of engagement make it acceptable to kill the enemy, I'd say set to a high-energy lethal setting first and try dialing down to see if it works, rather than start at a low setting and dial up. That way, if you err in your setting, you err on the side of high stopping power.

Of course I don't think we've ever seen phasers used on anybody encased in full armour (Breen?), and the settings actually seen on screen IMO don't correspond that much to this list of 16 (!) settings. More likely there are only 4 or 5 common settings-- Light Stun, Heavy Stun, Kill, and Disintegrate. Possibly a 'Medium Stun' or a 'Killx2'. For situations where people are heating up rocks to stay warm, you could use Heavy Stun or Kill; for blowing through walls, Kill, and so forth. I think it's obvious that the 16 settings are Technical Manual silliness. The hand phaser might be *technically* capable of such fine variation, but most people simply don't have the time or the inclination to fine-tune it that much in between uses.

Looking at the actual setting list, we have:

1) Light, Medium, and Heavy "Stun," which are all low-energy beams that have little effect on nonliving objects.
2) Light and Heavy "Heat," which can heat objects rather effectively.
3) Light, Moderate, Medium, Heavy, and Extreme "Disrupt," the high-end settings of which tend to disintegrate humans.
4) Slight, Light, Moderate, Medium, Heavy, and Extreme "Explode" settings, which physically blow apart large, durable objects and can inflict damage through light energy shielding- "Disrupt" can do neither.

The real problem is the excessive number of different "Disrupt" and "Explode" settings. If I were designing the thing, I'd set it so that you have stun/kill as a select fire switch, three intensity settings on a separate switch, and some kind of overload interlock you could deliberately disable to fire on the "Explode" settings. Setting the phaser to "Heat" would require manual reconfiguration of the guts of the weapon somehow.

Now, as soon as I knew I was fighting armored opponents I'd set to a high-end "stun" setting (if I want them alive) or "disrupt" setting (if I want them put down conclusively). Heavy stun setting might or might not work on stormtroopers in armor. I'm pretty sure heavy disrupt settings would, since we see stormtroopers fall to weapons fire that isn't blowing apart huge boulders or anything.

[Elheru Aran]

*quietly indicates any number of occasions where packing-crates were sufficient to stop phaser shots*

Was the phaser in question set to stun, heat, kill, or disintegrate?

That was kinda tongue in cheek, just so you know

Of course I don't think we've ever seen phasers used on anybody encased in full armour (Breen?), and the settings actually seen on screen IMO don't correspond that much to this list of 16 (!) settings. More likely there are only 4 or 5 common settings-- Light Stun, Heavy Stun, Kill, and Disintegrate. Possibly a 'Medium Stun' or a 'Killx2'. For situations where people are heating up rocks to stay warm, you could use Heavy Stun or Kill; for blowing through walls, Kill, and so forth. I think it's obvious that the 16 settings are Technical Manual silliness. The hand phaser might be *technically* capable of such fine variation, but most people simply don't have the time or the inclination to fine-tune it that much in between uses.

Looking at the actual setting list, we have:

1) Light, Medium, and Heavy "Stun," which are all low-energy beams that have little effect on nonliving objects.
2) Light and Heavy "Heat," which can heat objects rather effectively.
3) Light, Moderate, Medium, Heavy, and Extreme "Disrupt," the high-end settings of which tend to disintegrate humans.
4) Slight, Light, Moderate, Medium, Heavy, and Extreme "Explode" settings, which physically blow apart large, durable objects and can inflict damage through light energy shielding- "Disrupt" can do neither.

The real problem is the excessive number of different "Disrupt" and "Explode" settings. If I were designing the thing, I'd set it so that you have stun/kill as a select fire switch, three intensity settings on a separate switch, and some kind of overload interlock you could deliberately disable to fire on the "Explode" settings. Setting the phaser to "Heat" would require manual reconfiguration of the guts of the weapon somehow.

Now, as soon as I knew I was fighting armored opponents I'd set to a high-end "stun" setting (if I want them alive) or "disrupt" setting (if I want them put down conclusively). Heavy stun setting might or might not work on stormtroopers in armor. I'm pretty sure heavy disrupt settings would, since we see stormtroopers fall to weapons fire that isn't blowing apart huge boulders or anything.

Yeah, my main issue with the 16 settings is that there are just too many for the actual observed effects IMO. Simplification is a benefit in and of itself. I can understand having variations of 'Stun'-- in Trek you could certainly run into races that might require less or more stun than a baseline human-- but you can only kill someone once, and it's not much going to matter whether you pop a firecracker on their chests, blow them apart, or disintegrate them entirely. And when you consider that only the first 3 settings are 'stun', well, somehow I think having 13 settings' worth of 'Kill' isn't quite what people would think when it comes to Star Trek...

[Batman]

1. The TM assumes the existence of personal shielding, which you'd have to burn through THEN have enough oomph left to kill.
2. The TNG Feds seem to treat the phaser not so much as a weapon but some sort of space swiss army knife that can also shoot people. Wide angle stun, automated fire, overload, turn rock into campfire, make rock go away to free tunnel entrance, welder/cutting torch...Heck by the time of the Dominion War they used the things as active sensors to flush out Founders.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah, my main issue with the 16 settings is that there are just too many for the actual observed effects IMO. Simplification is a benefit in and of itself. I can understand having variations of 'Stun'-- in Trek you could certainly run into races that might require less or more stun than a baseline human-- but you can only kill someone once, and it's not much going to matter whether you pop a firecracker on their chests, blow them apart, or disintegrate them entirely. And when you consider that only the first 3 settings are 'stun', well, somehow I think having 13 settings' worth of 'Kill' isn't quite what people would think when it comes to Star Trek...

It makes sense to have "stun," "kill," and "kaboom." Having "heat" or "weld" or "cutting laser beam" as a utility option makes sense too.

The "kaboom" setting exists for a variety of purposes; killing people is only one of them. But it's too energy intensive and risky for close combat even if it speaks with authority when used there, so you need a lower-level 'kill' setting that won't cause massive explosions.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

IIRC, from the fact files it was said that of the 16 settings, the first 3 were light, medium and heavy stun, lasting 5, 15 and 60 minutes respectively. 5 and 6 inflict burns, with 6 being the highest survivable setting on a humanoid target. 7 will kill- disintegration (of organic targets) only starts at setting 8, with explosive effects against other targets. Effectively what you get is 'stun', 'kill', and 'kill some more'.

[Elheru Aran]

IIRC, from the fact files it was said that of the 16 settings, the first 3 were light, medium and heavy stun, lasting 5, 15 and 60 minutes respectively. 5 and 6 inflict burns, with 6 being the highest survivable setting on a humanoid target. 7 will kill- disintegration (of organic targets) only starts at setting 8, with explosive effects against other targets. Effectively what you get is 'stun', 'kill', and 'kill some more'.

The issue is that 16 settings is, IMO, an over-complication. Trek has so many gadgets that I can't really conceive of a reason why they suddenly decided that a phaser had to do so many different things. I could see it being useful in a TOS environment where you're exploring the galaxy, you might need to be able to do multiple different things with fewer tools, but in a (sort of) post-scarcity environment like TNG? It's a bit silly. Like I said, you can only kill a person once.

[Lord Revan]

Well in TNG you're still exploring the galaxy for the most part just further from home then in TOS. Besides I got feeling that those higher setting are less "kill him more then once" and more "what if he has body armor?"

It's not like the higher settings are that much more powerful the TOS phasers (if at all), I can't remember a single instance of modern phasers (not the Relativity phasers, modern ones used by the 24th century Starfleet) having building leveling firepower, now phasers used by the crew of the Timeship USS Relativity did "vaporize" a minibus with 1 hit but those where 29th century phasers not modern ones.

[Elheru Aran]

Well in TNG you're still exploring the galaxy for the most part just further from home then in TOS. Besides I got feeling that those higher setting are less "kill him more then once" and more "what if he has body armor?"

It's not like the higher settings are that much more powerful the TOS phasers (if at all), I can't remember a single instance of modern phasers (not the Relativity phasers, modern ones used by the 24th century Starfleet) having building leveling firepower, now phasers used by the crew of the Timeship USS Relativity did "vaporize" a minibus with 1 hit but those where 29th century phasers not modern ones.

*shrugs* I'm of the 'less is more' school of thought. 'Stun' 'kill' and 'kill a LOT' are simple enough, IMO. Note that the Klingons and Romulans at least don't seem to bother much with settings-- their guns just kill. On the one hand, that's "barbaric" by Trek standards... but on the other, it does mean that if you shoot someone, you mean business, and (useless warrior culture bullshit aside) it's less likely that you might unnecessarily shoot someone. Having a 'stun' feature is useful for non-lethal attacks, but there's so many ways they could make a stun-only gun for that purpose. Hell, they even have a forcefield aboard their ships that blocks the use of 'kill' settings in ST:TUC... though they seem to conveniently forget about that in the *rest* of Trek...

Of course, as was mentioned in another thread, the mindset of the Federation seems to have tended towards needless over-complexity in many ways. Having a fully tacticool'd phaser/plastic Swiss Army Knife would seem to fit in with that ethos.

[Lord Revan]

Actually both Klingons and Romulans have at least "kill" and "vaporize" settings possibly "stun" as well.

[Elheru Aran]

Actually both Klingons and Romulans have at least "kill" and "vaporize" settings possibly "stun" as well.

The first two being redundant I think it was explicitly said in either TOS or TNG that Klingons don't use stun, but there's plenty of material for them to have changed that somewhere along the line.

[darthy2]

Simple enough question; a goldshirt from the Enterprise D is attempting to shoot a stormtrooper, based on your opinion, what do you think the minimum setting he should use to be certain of affecting the target is?

This page, excerpted from the TNG tech manual lists some information on effects.

Probably the lowest setting. Stormtroopers are even affected by a couple of rocks thrown at them by Ewoks like in return of the jedi. It doesn't take much.

[Simon_Jester]

Darthy child, you're an idiot. I can back that up but I suspect you're trolling so I'll wait to see if anyone else cares.

*shrugs* I'm of the 'less is more' school of thought. 'Stun' 'kill' and 'kill a LOT' are simple enough, IMO.

Part of it is that there are a lot of lifeforms out there. A stun heavy enough to stop the toughest lifeforms that exist without killing them is probably intense enough to kill other lifeforms. When I set my phaser to "stun" I probably specifically do NOT want to kill my target- so I need multiple stun settings and use my judgment as to which is appropriate. Charging rhinoceroses or Klingons on PCP get a higher setting than little old ladies.

I'd say the realistic minimum of practical options to do what a phaser can do is to have settings for:
a) Stun
b) Heat-ray
c) Kill, and
d) Disintegrate

'Heat-ray' and 'kill' might be the same setting, I suppose.

Within those options you want at least three settings for power level: 'light,' 'heavy,' and 'all-out.'

'Light' is for cases where conserving battery power is important or you don't want gross overkill or collateral damage. Firing a phaser set to 'heavy disintegrate' while standing in a cave might well trigger a cave-in on your head, so you need a setting that 'only' disintegrates chunks the size of, say, a football. Likewise, the maximum yield 'heat ray' setting might be overkill for, say, warming up some rocks so you don't freeze to death on an ice planet.

'Heavy' is for cases where power is moderately important and you want an intense punch, with some risk of overkill being acceptable.

'All-out' is for cases where you want a LOT of power and don't much care if you get a second shot from the same phaser. Say, if you want to stop a charging rhino in its tracks without killing it, or melt a hole through the side of a tank, or disintegrate enough of a masonry structure to wreck it before anyone can stop you.

So at a minimum you wind up needing nine to twelve possible settings- it would be most practical to control that through two separate select-fire switches, say, on the opposite sides of the weapon.

Correction, there should be a last setting, "safe," which should either be yet a third switch or should be another option on one of the other select-fire switches, one that can somehow be locked in place.

Note that the Klingons and Romulans at least don't seem to bother much with settings-- their guns just kill. On the one hand, that's "barbaric" by Trek standards... but on the other, it does mean that if you shoot someone, you mean business, and (useless warrior culture bullshit aside) it's less likely that you might unnecessarily shoot someone. Having a 'stun' feature is useful for non-lethal attacks, but there's so many ways they could make a stun-only gun for that purpose.

Then you have to carry two guns, and drawing the wrong one results in Bad Things happening. Either you disintegrated the rowdy drunk you wanted to incapacitate... or you just fired a feeble 'stun' beam at the shielded killing machine rolling toward you.

Of course, as was mentioned in another thread, the mindset of the Federation seems to have tended towards needless over-complexity in many ways. Having a fully tacticool'd phaser/plastic Swiss Army Knife would seem to fit in with that ethos.

Well, it's debateable whether this is needlessly complicated, given that the Federation regards "disable people without killing them" as a fundamental mission requirement for its personal weaponry.

[phred]

Hell, they even have a forcefield aboard their ships that blocks the use of 'kill' settings in ST:TUC... though they seem to conveniently forget about that in the *rest* of Trek...

I don't recall this forcefield. I do remember there being sensors that would sound an alarm if a phaser was fired above a certain setting.

[applejack]

Of course I don't think we've ever seen phasers used on anybody encased in full armour (Breen?), and the settings actually seen on screen IMO don't correspond that much to this list of 16 (!) settings. More likely there are only 4 or 5 common settings-- Light Stun, Heavy Stun, Kill, and Disintegrate. Possibly a 'Medium Stun' or a 'Killx2'. For situations where people are heating up rocks to stay warm, you could use Heavy Stun or Kill; for blowing through walls, Kill, and so forth. I think it's obvious that the 16 settings are Technical Manual silliness. The hand phaser might be *technically* capable of such fine variation, but most people simply don't have the time or the inclination to fine-tune it that much in between uses.

In Brian Young's third ICS video, he has a clip at 30:37 where Tuvok shoots two armored hirogen using a hand phaser at full power and it only hurts them. Young magnifies the phaser control panel and shows the (16?) power levels all lit up green.

Of course, I don't think that stormtrooper armor is anything close to hirogen armor since I recall the lone hirogen in the VOY episode "Prey" bragging that his armor protected him from the effects of being near or on a neutron star.

[darthy2]

Darthy child, you're an idiot. I can back that up but I suspect you're trolling so I'll wait to see if anyone else cares.

*shrugs* I'm of the 'less is more' school of thought. 'Stun' 'kill' and 'kill a LOT' are simple enough, IMO.

Part of it is that there are a lot of lifeforms out there. A stun heavy enough to stop the toughest lifeforms that exist without killing them is probably intense enough to kill other lifeforms. When I set my phaser to "stun" I probably specifically do NOT want to kill my target- so I need multiple stun settings and use my judgment as to which is appropriate. Charging rhinoceroses or Klingons on PCP get a higher setting than little old ladies.

I'd say the realistic minimum of practical options to do what a phaser can do is to have settings for:
a) Stun
b) Heat-ray
c) Kill, and
d) Disintegrate

'Heat-ray' and 'kill' might be the same setting, I suppose.

Within those options you want at least three settings for power level: 'light,' 'heavy,' and 'all-out.'

'Light' is for cases where conserving battery power is important or you don't want gross overkill or collateral damage. Firing a phaser set to 'heavy disintegrate' while standing in a cave might well trigger a cave-in on your head, so you need a setting that 'only' disintegrates chunks the size of, say, a football. Likewise, the maximum yield 'heat ray' setting might be overkill for, say, warming up some rocks so you don't freeze to death on an ice planet.

'Heavy' is for cases where power is moderately important and you want an intense punch, with some risk of overkill being acceptable.

'All-out' is for cases where you want a LOT of power and don't much care if you get a second shot from the same phaser. Say, if you want to stop a charging rhino in its tracks without killing it, or melt a hole through the side of a tank, or disintegrate enough of a masonry structure to wreck it before anyone can stop you.

So at a minimum you wind up needing nine to twelve possible settings- it would be most practical to control that through two separate select-fire switches, say, on the opposite sides of the weapon.

Correction, there should be a last setting, "safe," which should either be yet a third switch or should be another option on one of the other select-fire switches, one that can somehow be locked in place.

Note that the Klingons and Romulans at least don't seem to bother much with settings-- their guns just kill. On the one hand, that's "barbaric" by Trek standards... but on the other, it does mean that if you shoot someone, you mean business, and (useless warrior culture bullshit aside) it's less likely that you might unnecessarily shoot someone. Having a 'stun' feature is useful for non-lethal attacks, but there's so many ways they could make a stun-only gun for that purpose.

Then you have to carry two guns, and drawing the wrong one results in Bad Things happening. Either you disintegrated the rowdy drunk you wanted to incapacitate... or you just fired a feeble 'stun' beam at the shielded killing machine rolling toward you.

Of course, as was mentioned in another thread, the mindset of the Federation seems to have tended towards needless over-complexity in many ways. Having a fully tacticool'd phaser/plastic Swiss Army Knife would seem to fit in with that ethos.

Well, it's debateable whether this is needlessly complicated, given that the Federation regards "disable people without killing them" as a fundamental mission requirement for its personal weaponry.

You can't really back it up. The sources that people would point at to suggest that Ewoks have some kind of mega strength are no longer canon sources. Just going by what we see, Ewoks throwing rocks at storm troopers knocks them out. You could look at the velocity of the rocks and see how weak of a force this is. Poking at them with sticks incapacitates them too. Plus we know that a storm trooper's armor as weak as it is, also has weaknesses at the joints.

[Elheru Aran]

Hell, they even have a forcefield aboard their ships that blocks the use of 'kill' settings in ST:TUC... though they seem to conveniently forget about that in the *rest* of Trek...

I don't recall this forcefield. I do remember there being sensors that would sound an alarm if a phaser was fired above a certain setting.

You may be right. I just know there was something aboard Federation ships that precluded the use of kill settings. It might have been an alarm. It's been a while since I watched TUC.

[darthy2]

Hell, they even have a forcefield aboard their ships that blocks the use of 'kill' settings in ST:TUC... though they seem to conveniently forget about that in the *rest* of Trek...

I don't recall this forcefield. I do remember there being sensors that would sound an alarm if a phaser was fired above a certain setting.

You may be right. I just know there was something aboard Federation ships that precluded the use of kill settings. It might have been an alarm. It's been a while since I watched TUC.

No forcefield is triggered from a kill setting on star trek 6, just an alarm that sounds when an "unauthorised phaser" is fired.

CHEKOV: Why not simply vaporise them?
VALERIS: Like this?
KLAXON: Wails.
VALERIS: At ease. As you know, Commander Chekov, no one can fire an unauthorised phaser aboard a starship. ...Suppose when they returned they threw the boots into the refuse?
SPOCK: I'm having the refuse searched. If my surmise is correct those boots will cling to the killers' necks like a pair of Tiberian bats. They could not make their escape without them, nor can they simply throw them out a window for all to see. Those boots are here, somewhere.
UHURA: Did someone fire a phaser?

[Simon_Jester]

You can't really back it up. The sources that people would point at to suggest that Ewoks have some kind of mega strength are no longer canon sources. Just going by what we see, Ewoks throwing rocks at storm troopers knocks them out. You could look at the velocity of the rocks and see how weak of a force this is. Poking at them with sticks incapacitates them too. Plus we know that a storm trooper's armor as weak as it is, also has weaknesses at the joints.

Indiscriminate reply to my entire post after you read, specifically, the first sentence... wow.

Still think you're trolling. Still happy to make reply if anyone who isn't an idiot wants me to.

[Elheru Aran]

You can't really back it up. The sources that people would point at to suggest that Ewoks have some kind of mega strength are no longer canon sources. Just going by what we see, Ewoks throwing rocks at storm troopers knocks them out. You could look at the velocity of the rocks and see how weak of a force this is. Poking at them with sticks incapacitates them too. Plus we know that a storm trooper's armor as weak as it is, also has weaknesses at the joints.

Indiscriminate reply to my entire post after you read, specifically, the first sentence... wow.

Still think you're trolling. Still happy to make reply if anyone who isn't an idiot wants me to.

Never mind that Ewoks throwing rocks is *kinetic* energy at work. Phasers don't use that at all (random people getting thrown about aside, that's always been a puzzle).