Empire Adopting Federation Tech

[Striderteen]

If you, as the Empire, could help yourself to one Federation technolgy, which would it be?

Personally, I'd go with phasers. While they are much weaker than turbolasers, they are more energy-efficient against some targets thanks to the NDF effect, and they might also be more effective against fast-moving fighters since they are steered-beam arrays rather than mechanically tracked guns.

If the latter is true (and I admit it's mostly speculation on my part), trading a handful of an ISD's light turbolaser guns for phaser banks would result in a significant improvement in its antimissile and antifighter defense without trading off too much firepower.

Otherwise, having warp drives as a secondary FTL system might be nice; you could use short warp jumps for in-system tactical maneuvers. Hyperdrive is of course massively superior for travel, but it can't be used for spur-of-the-moment jumps (except in cases of extreme emergency, and in even then it appears to be a near-suicidal, last-ditch trick).

[Kurgan]

advanced Holodeck technology could help keep the masses in line and distract them from my military manuvering... assuming those nasty malfunctions could be dealt with.

They might also have interesting interrogation and propaganda applications...

Some of the medical tech could also be useful for treating minor injuries or cosmetic defects (making aliens look more human?).

Perhaps transporters could be useful for augmenting existing cloning technologies as well, and could be useful in small time cargo shipping and consumer products.

[Kurgan]

*dreams of beaming armies of wardroids into position*

[Keevan_Colton]

advanced Holodeck technology could help keep the masses in line and distract them from my military manuvering... assuming those nasty malfunctions could be dealt with.

They might also have interesting interrogation and propaganda applications...

Some of the medical tech could also be useful for treating minor injuries or cosmetic defects (making aliens look more human?).

Perhaps transporters could be useful for augmenting existing cloning technologies as well, and could be useful in small time cargo shipping and consumer products.

Hm, IIRC isnt there a bit in one novel on coruscant that mentions a holographic zoo type thing? I'll dig through my books later and see if I can find it...
Holodeck technology -> Going wrong and killing people since stardate ____

It isnt on my list of things I'd want....

[Howedar]

I would consider beam phasers for anti-fighter work, although we really don't know how good they are against small and maneuverable targets.

[Keevan_Colton]

If you, as the Empire, could help yourself to one Federation technolgy, which would it be?

Personally, I'd go with phasers. While they are much weaker than turbolasers, they are more energy-efficient against some targets thanks to the NDF effect, and they might also be more effective against fast-moving fighters since they are steered-beam arrays rather than mechanically tracked guns.

If the latter is true (and I admit it's mostly speculation on my part), trading a handful of an ISD's light turbolaser guns for phaser banks would result in a significant improvement in its antimissile and antifighter defense without trading off too much firepower.

Ah...phasers.....hmm.....they have trouble destroying things with protection in the range of magnitude of ST vessels....they would be hard pressed to do much even against fighters with the power levels involved in SW, and the targeting seems to be rather vile if you pay attention to how much they miss hundreds of meters long targets at very close ranges....

Otherwise, having warp drives as a secondary FTL system might be nice; you could use short warp jumps for in-system tactical maneuvers. Hyperdrive is of course massively superior for travel, but it can't be used for spur-of-the-moment jumps (except in cases of extreme emergency, and in even then it appears to be a near-suicidal, last-ditch trick).

Microjumps are far more useful than warp since you could get a good distance from your opponent....besides, the nacell design and the stupid subspace bubble that can be screwed up by all sorts of things....and it becomes more or less moot as to whether it would be of any use in combat due to the added weaknesses to various factors.
The danger in a microjump comes from hitting something that you havent been able to take into account, used carefully it wouldnt be much more dangerous than a visit to the holodeck (though...that's not neccisarily saying a vast amount.)

[Ender]

Warp drive as a secondary drive would be more detramental then good, you'd have to stick out huge, unarmored, volatile engines where they can be easily targeted. Bad idea.

THe area phasers take compared to simple antifighter lasers despite having almost the same yields (using low end Trek numbers) makes the lasers better.

[Death from the Sea]

Warp drive as a secondary drive would be more detramental then good, you'd have to stick out huge, unarmored, volatile engines where they can be easily targeted. Bad idea.

Not really. You don't have to have the nacelles like most trek ship do, look at the defiant class, it is possible to keep them close to or integraged into the body of the ship.

[Ghost Rider]

Given they've gotten most of the tech mentioned one time or another in the EU books, the only thing of real use is Bulk transporters for cargo ship(if they can make them adapt and overcome the many, many, many flaws of the transporters)

Aside from that, not much the Empire would want.

[SPOOFE]

Transporters. If the kinks can be worked out - and I imagine the superior processing power of Imperial computers can aid in this - they'd be useful for delivering munitions on a battlefield.

They'd be unconventional tools, of course, but so would any other aspect of Fed technology.

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

Hockey.

[Ender]

Warp drive as a secondary drive would be more detramental then good, you'd have to stick out huge, unarmored, volatile engines where they can be easily targeted. Bad idea.

Not really. You don't have to have the nacelles like most trek ship do, look at the defiant class, it is possible to keep them close to or integraged into the body of the ship.

The Defiant is better then most, but it STILL has huge, unarmored, volatile engines where they can be easily targeted.

If you can't cover them in armor, or make them out of stuff so tought that armor is pointless, they are a hinderance. Warp drive would be a hinderance.

[Crayz9000]

Well, speaking of phasers, it might be possible to take them and design a model that can take the full output of a SW reactor, thus moving its effectiveness into the turbolaser range.

Their current problem seems to be not enough power... *cue Tim Allen*

[Striderteen]

THe area phasers take compared to simple antifighter lasers despite having almost the same yields (using low end Trek numbers) makes the lasers better.

The advantage, though, is that a phaser bank is a conformal array, kinda like the new AGP-77 radar unit on the F-22 Raptor fighter -- a matrix of small emitter elements which work together to produce a electronically steered, frequency-agile beam.

If you have good targetting computer systems behind it (and the Empire most definitely does), you can pull some truly nasty tricks with such an array -- for example, you can easily have the computer split up a single array's emitters into several smaller sub-arrays, which can be used independently against multiple targets, or you could alter the focussing to produce a shotgun-like spread pattern of dispersed wide-angle blasts.

A stock Federation phaser bank isn't powerful enough to scratch a Wars capital ship, but it's on roughly the same order of magnitude as fighter weaponry and potentially much more versatile. The ability to split fire alone would make it a potent antimissile defense weapon; instead of having to mount numerous small point-defense weapons, you can simply mount a handful of phaser arrays.

A pumped-up phaser in the power range of a heavy turbolaser would be truly nasty; although it could never replace HTLs due to the inherent limitations of a frequency-dependent, chain reaction-based beam weapon, it would make a very nice addition to any capital ship's arsenal.

[Kurgan]

Hm, IIRC isnt there a bit in one novel on coruscant that mentions a holographic zoo type thing? I'll dig through my books later and see if I can find it...

Are you just here to stop down all responses? LoL
The topic was if you were the Empire, not would the Empire do it in character. ; )

Anyway, I'm well aware of the reference from Mike's page, but the difference between those and top of the line Trek holodecks is the symbiotic relationship the technology has with replicators (allowing you to not only experience the world, but take items out with you or, eat/drink them, etc).

[Enforcer Talen]

*dreams of beaming armies of wardroids into position*

how does beaming affect droids? Im told they have toruble with metals.

[Kurgan]

Since when? They beam metal stuff all the time... despite the "rare ore in the hills" random occurence.

Fine, build the droids of out "plasteel" or something then.

[Keevan_Colton]

Hm, IIRC isnt there a bit in one novel on coruscant that mentions a holographic zoo type thing? I'll dig through my books later and see if I can find it...

Are you just here to stop down all responses? LoL
The topic was if you were the Empire, not would the Empire do it in character. ; )

Anyway, I'm well aware of the reference from Mike's page, but the difference between those and top of the line Trek holodecks is the symbiotic relationship the technology has with replicators (allowing you to not only experience the world, but take items out with you or, eat/drink them, etc).

Lets not forget kill you too!


The joys of visiting the Holodeck.....see exotic locales, taste alien cuisine....get shot by code shoddier than microsoft....

[Death from the Sea]

Warp drive as a secondary drive would be more detramental then good, you'd have to stick out huge, unarmored, volatile engines where they can be easily targeted. Bad idea.

Not really. You don't have to have the nacelles like most trek ship do, look at the defiant class, it is possible to keep them close to or integraged into the body of the ship.

The Defiant is better then most, but it STILL has huge, unarmored, volatile engines where they can be easily targeted.

If you can't cover them in armor, or make them out of stuff so tought that armor is pointless, they are a hinderance. Warp drive would be a hinderance.

How are the engines of a defiant class starship any less protected than that of an ISD ? I am not saying warp drive would be better than hyperdrive, I am just saying it would not be a hinderance to use it IF you wanted to.

[Darth Negation]

More % surface area=engines on Defiant. Therefore Engines more vunerable than on ISD (where enemy ships are able to strike at the engines). In fact, it might be possible to argue that it's more dangerous to have you nacelles closer as the enemy is less likely to direct fire at them (which can be easily missed) and more at the body of you main craft (where the weapons discharge, if it misses the engine, will strike the main hull) (not that I'm taking that arguement).

[Mad]

Well, speaking of phasers, it might be possible to take them and design a model that can take the full output of a SW reactor, thus moving its effectiveness into the turbolaser range.

Their current problem seems to be not enough power... *cue Tim Allen*

Basically. Phaser technology, as described in the TM, seem to work on a chain-reaction that allows the weapon to do more damage for the energy input into the weapon than a turbolaser would. Since the de-officialization of the TMs, I dont think this viewpoint has changed much. So, if phaser technology can be improved to make use of the same input as a turbolaser, then the result would be a much stronger weapon.

The weapon probably wouldn't have much added usefulness against the shields of other SW vessels, but it could be possible to allow lighter ships to cause much more hull damage on ships that have had their shields overloaded than otherwise.

[Striderteen]

Pulse phasers would be an ideal armament upgrade for snubfighters...imagine an X-Wing packing the firepower of the Defiant. You'd have to miniaturize them, though -- an X-Wing can supply as much power to its weapons systems as the Defiant, but it's much smaller.

[Crazedwraith]

You dont really need nacelles for warp drive. Look at Kingon Bops or Cardassian vessesls. The nacelles just allow it to be more effcient.

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

Pulse phasers would be an ideal armament upgrade for snubfighters...imagine an X-Wing packing the firepower of the Defiant. You'd have to miniaturize them, though -- an X-Wing can supply as much power to its weapons systems as the Defiant, but it's much smaller.

Are you an idiot? An X-Wing can't put out the power the Defiant could, other wise it's fucking lasers would have the same yield!

[Admiral Johnason]

For me, probably just transporters. We could do with what we have in all other areas.