Karen Travis' Army vs the Alpha Quadrant

[Darth Wong]

What makes you think this is possible through jamming? Your thorough understanding of how transporters work?

Well the first thing is it makes sense, because you have to have a perfect lock to transport a person unless you want to take a risk and have pieces of him not materialize which would explain why they're so often useless. IIRC there was a skeletal lock through some kind of jamming.

Not all kinds of interference are the same. They have to send some kind of carrier signal to the right destination in order to transport; if the carrier signal can't get through, then nothing gets transported.

Also they managed to beam a torpedo into a Borg ship. They had Seven, and I don't remember whether they fired on the Borg ship, but I always assumed this was them waking up to the idea that they could beam things through jamming as long as they were willing to risk it. We certainly never see ships beam torpedoes into warp cores once shields are down--tactically once your shields are down you should be dead but that never happened until Voyager (and I don't even think the shields were down in this case).

Who says there was jamming on the Borg ship? They've transported people into Borg cubes during battle before.

At any kind of range, widebeam would be useless against armoured targets because it would degrade to stun, which is useless through full-coverage armour.

That's true, I wasn't thinking that clonetroopers are fully armored.

They do have a continuous beam weapon though, and it seems they don't take advantage of that often enough. TNG The Arsenal has them altering the beam to hit a target and I think that's the only time, but Data and Yar moved their beams slowly. I don't see any reason why they couldn't train their people to fire and move the beam quickly (other than the "steady-cam" idea for a phaser rifle, but if it's so limiting just turn it off).

The continuous beam would eat ammo at a prodigious pace. Really bad idea for sustained combat, as opposed to the occasional police-style brief skirmish which Starfleet personnel would expect during peacetime.

Look at policing. An officer could get away with going on duty with a dozen rounds of ammo. A soldier would normally carry hundreds.

[brianeyci]

Not all kinds of interference are the same. They have to send some kind of carrier signal to the right destination in order to transport; if the carrier signal can't get through, then nothing gets transported.

Well okay, but I would think it would need more than just a transformer for this but a dedicated jamming suite.

Who says there was jamming on the Borg ship? They've transported people into Borg cubes during battle before.

After they beamed Picard they threw up some kind of jamming field, and the shuttle had to get close enough for the rescue. I suppose Voyager could have been really close or the Borg could have "forgotten" their experience in BOBW like how drones forget.

The continuous beam would eat ammo at a prodigious pace. Really bad idea for sustained combat, as opposed to the occasional police-style brief skirmish which Starfleet personnel would expect during peacetime.

Look at policing. An officer could get away with going on duty with a dozen rounds of ammo. A soldier would normally carry hundreds.

I think they should still have the option, especially on phaser rifles. They seem to have gone for pulses on their newer rifles, but that has its own problems. They can't seem to aim the damn things.

They really are missing a phaser LMG and a backpack with a phaser rifle hooked up to it would solve the problem nicely if it's an ammunition problem. It doesn't even take much creativity--if you don't have enough ammunition, make a bigger clip.

Brian

[Darth Wong]

A backpack is a clumsy solution to the ammo problem since it would presumably be heavy. It would also be a tempting target to shoot at, and I don't know how volatile such a thing would be. Could be disastrous.

[SirNitram]

A backpack is a clumsy solution to the ammo problem since it would presumably be heavy. It would also be a tempting target to shoot at, and I don't know how volatile such a thing would be. Could be disastrous.

I'm just gonna pipe up. We're seen phasers overload before. It's not pocket-nuke or anything, but it wouldn't want to have one on my back at the time.

[brianeyci]

Nitpick I don't think we've seen phasers overload--only Worf saying to evacuate the whole deck and disarming one.

Anyway I could think of a backpack that's small and cylindrical so that as long as you don't have your back faced to the enemy you won't present the backpack as a target. And Federation soldiers appear not to carry any kit anyway so increasing their weight wouldn't be such a big deal given their security looks pretty buff, some of the time anyway (look at some early TNG when there's some really tight-shirted goldshirts and you can see the pecs sticking out).

But you're right a backpack is clumsy.

I guess you're right they had to go pulses.

Brian

[Coalition]

Nitpick I don't think we've seen phasers overload--only Worf saying to evacuate the whole deck and disarming one.

Anyway I could think of a backpack that's small and cylindrical so that as long as you don't have your back faced to the enemy you won't present the backpack as a target. And Federation soldiers appear not to carry any kit anyway so increasing their weight wouldn't be such a big deal given their security looks pretty buff, some of the time anyway (look at some early TNG when there's some really tight-shirted goldshirts and you can see the pecs sticking out).

TNG Season 5, Ep# 124: "The Next Phase"

Ro sets a phaser to overload.

For the backpack itself, just put some packing crate armor around the power cell, designed to blow backwards if it gets set off. So you are safe from casual shots, and if something does set it off, it gets directed away from you.

Now the wearer does get flung forward, but better flung forward in one piece than in many pieces.

[Darth Wong]

Nitpick I don't think we've seen phasers overload--only Worf saying to evacuate the whole deck and disarming one.

Anyway I could think of a backpack that's small and cylindrical so that as long as you don't have your back faced to the enemy you won't present the backpack as a target. And Federation soldiers appear not to carry any kit anyway so increasing their weight wouldn't be such a big deal given their security looks pretty buff, some of the time anyway (look at some early TNG when there's some really tight-shirted goldshirts and you can see the pecs sticking out).

TNG Season 5, Ep# 124: "The Next Phase"

Ro sets a phaser to overload.

For the backpack itself, just put some packing crate armor around the power cell, designed to blow backwards if it gets set off. So you are safe from casual shots, and if something does set it off, it gets directed away from you.

Now the wearer does get flung forward, but better flung forward in one piece than in many pieces.

You're assuming that the shockwave won't be strong enough to crack the shell forward. Allowing the back to blow open does not completely eliminate the shockwave heading forward. Not even close.