Theoretical limits of Star Trek technology for warships.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

This is a somewhat straightforward and I hope interesting discussion. On Mike's pages it's suggested that a Galaxy-class starship has an average power output of 900 TW and a peak power output of around 1 x 10 ^ 19 , supported by statements by Data (not necessarily accurate) the effect of power generation of 1.3 x 10^19 for the Enterprise, and the rather inaccurate TNG charts, with other analysis suggesting rather lower capabilities.

So within that power level, what can you actually accomplish if you were to set out to design a real warship? For example, due to the buried position of the nacelles on Klingon Birds of Prey, does it not seem reasonable that a ship's warp nacelles can be integrated into the hull and armoured? What would be the best kind of armour and what sorts of thicknesses would be attainable? How should the weapons be mounted for the greatest efficiency, and what should they consist of?

Assume that you're from some alien species that tasks military operations seriously and you're tasked with developing basic components and specifications for a dreadnought about 3,750 meters long (within the range of the extremely largest warships seen in Trek like that giant Negh'Var and the Dominion super-ships in the DS9 finale), with an empty mass of 60 - 70 million tonnes and a fully loaded mass of 285 - 300 million tonnes. What sort of armour thickness would be suitable and possible, out of what materials? Would distributed multiple shield generators be worthwhile? And what sort of accelerations and warp speeds would you aim for? Assume that the ship, for safety reasons, is to use metastable liquid metallic hydrogen as a fuel for highly efficient fusion reactors, due to the apparent explosive dangers of the anti-matter reactors commonly used, though very limited amounts of anti-matter for short term bursts of power may be acceptable if the power generation sources are highly subdivided between multiple generators and surrounded in suitable amounts of armour. Note that it is expected that you shall heavily subdivide the ship with internal bulkheads and that there should be in excess of 100 reactors collectively producing this power rather than one huge super-reactor, so that the ship is almost impossible to knock out in combat.

So just what sort of firepower could be obtained? Would it be wiser to arm the ship with mass drivers instead of phasers/disruptors, perhaps with nuclear tipped shells? What kind of missile armament should be provided and what accelerations would you expect to obtain from it? How would you, overall, expect this vessel to perform against the typical Alpha/Beta quadrant forces?

Note, assume that power generation scales with mass reasonably well, though the ship's fuel is expected to be sufficient for several days of intensive combat operations before she's required to refuel from a nearby gas giant (this is realistic, as in real life, a warship steaming constantly for a couple days at full speed will completely exhaust her fuel, and many jet fighters can do so in minutes at full power).

[Junghalli]

So within that power level, what can you actually accomplish if you were to set out to design a real warship?

That depends on a bunch of factors. How powerful a beam weapon can the ship support? Can you channel the full power of the reactor into your beam weapons, or are there engineering limitations that prevent this? If you can do it, can it be done in a turreted gun or phaser strip, or do you need a huge spinal mount? And what about bombs? I'm afraid just knowing the power of the reactor isn't a whole lot to go on. Especially as we have no idea how long the peak power can be sustained.

Offhand, one thing I can think you can do is substantially increase the yield of the torpedoes. For some reason point defense seems to be a mostly nonexistant in Trek, so the torpedoes don't have to be particularly fast as long as they're faster than the ships, so you could probably make them a lot bigger. From what we've seen of Trek shields a single big missile is probably going to be more effective than three or four smaller ones of the same cumulative yield, because it'll bring down the ship's shields instantly and vaporize it instead of battering them down more slowly.

Assuming that it's easier to make powerful bombs than powerful beam weapons (and there's every reason to think this would be the case, realistically) the nature of Trek space combat suggests a big missile ship crammed with lots of large high-yield antimatter missiles would be quite effective. Trek is a universe where protection can still compete with firepower, and hence one where maximizing weapons yield is a very good idea.

For example, due to the buried position of the nacelles on Klingon Birds of Prey, does it not seem reasonable that a ship's warp nacelles can be integrated into the hull and armoured?

I guess. I don't see any reason why it couldn't be done, although I believe fanon suggests this may result in a somewhat lower warp speed or less efficient engine. Whether this would be particularly bad or not depends on what your navy's typical mission profile is. I suppose the ideal solution would be retractable nacelles, but this would introduce greater engineering complexities.

What would be the best kind of armour and what sorts of thicknesses would be attainable?

I dunno, can we quantify the sort of armor that's available in Star Trek at all? I suppose you'd be using whatever the Defiant uses, because I can't see anything better that you'd have available. Certainly nothing realistic is going to stand up to a nuclear level contact detonation, which photon torpedoes are supposed to be.

How should the weapons be mounted for the greatest efficiency, and what should they consist of?

Assuming we're fighting the sort of opponents typically seen in Trek I'd go with a missile ship, loaded with large high-yield antimatter missiles (maybe 5X or 10X the yield of a typical photon torpedo), and with a bunch of small phasers/disruptors/lasers for point defense (I have no idea which of the three would realistically be most effective).

Would distributed multiple shield generators be worthwhile?

From what we've seen in Trek, if you had enough volume and mass to play with being able to switch on a second shield when your first one was "worn down" might be a pretty valuable ability. Then again, it's possible it would be easier simply to double the power of your existing generator - it's sort of an engineering question, and I don't think we know enough to answer it. At least one back-up definitely seems like a good idea though, in case the generator fails for some reason.

And what sort of accelerations and warp speeds would you aim for?

What's your fleet's mission profile?

Assume that the ship, for safety reasons, is to use metastable liquid metallic hydrogen as a fuel for highly efficient fusion reactors, due to the apparent explosive dangers of the anti-matter reactors commonly used, though very limited amounts of anti-matter for short term bursts of power may be acceptable if the power generation sources are highly subdivided between multiple generators and surrounded in suitable amounts of armour.

Keep in mind that straight hydrogen fusion is difficult - in Trek they use deuterium, which is easier to fuse. There's no hard evidence I'm aware of either way as to how Trek D-D fusion compares with Trek H-H fusion so it's ultimately a matter of authorial fiat, but it's something to keep in mind.

Note that it is expected that you shall heavily subdivide the ship with internal bulkheads and that there should be in excess of 100 reactors collectively producing this power rather than one huge super-reactor, so that the ship is almost impossible to knock out in combat.

Keep in mind that real life nuclear reactors tend not to scale down all that well, and while there's definitely something to be said for redundancy it's entirely possible that a huge number of smaller reactors will be inferior to a lesser number of larger ones. I don't think this has ever been addressed in the show though so I suppose ultimately it comes down to a matter of authorial fiat and there is in-universe precedent: I believe Borg ships are supposed to be like this.

So just what sort of firepower could be obtained?

2.5 gigaton per second beam weapon if you can channel 1 X 10^19 joules into your weapons. I suspect there are engineering limitations in universe that prevent this, however, as phasers for the most part don't seem to be this powerful. Using the 900 TW estimate, 225 kilotons per second might be achievable. This was the first thing I could find for the mass of the E-D, and scaling up from its mass to the mass of your hypothetical ship gives 395 gigatons and 35 megatons, respectively. Of course, I have no idea how close to reality that actually is, because I have no idea of the engineering limitations of phasers. Lasers, for instance, are often highly inefficient so that the power you can feed into them is only a fraction of the power that will actually go into the beam, and the same could easily be true of phasers for all we know. And there's no reason to assume phaser power can necessarily be scaled up without limit without hitting a diminishing returns curve.

With bombs we're on firmer ground, as the real world energy density of M/AM annihilation is known. It's about 22.5 megatons per kilogram, so taking the TM's 64 megaton photon torpedo it'd be carrying around 2.84 kg of reactant, half of which would actually be antimatter. Scale up to something 10X the size (which is around what I had in mind) and you get 640 megatons.

Would it be wiser to arm the ship with mass drivers instead of phasers/disruptors, perhaps with nuclear tipped shells?

Not for point defense I don't think - targetting speed and endurance should be more important than firepower. For ship to ship weaponry it might be, it would depend on a variety of engineering considerations.

How would you, overall, expect this vessel to perform against the typical Alpha/Beta quadrant forces?

As I envision my missile ship, fairly well, if for no other reason than it could blow apart a typical Trek ship with a single missile, whereas the Trek ship would require several hits to wear down my shields in typical tension-milking Trek fashion. We can also assume that the armor will give it durability on par with or superior to ships like the Defiant, scaled up for greater size. The implementation of point defense should also increase survivability as torpedos would only be effective in massed volleys. Assuming everything scales up well the sheer size of the vessel you're suggesting would probably make it pretty tough as well, and the high degree of compartmentalization should enhance that.

[Mr Bean]

I've said it a dozen times before, if you want to arm a Star Trek Starfleet ship your going to have to take a page from Gene's other work on Andromeda and go missile swarm, missile swarm, missile swarm. If you ship mounts 14 torpedo launchers and it seems eight is sufficient to put down most war birds. Then load twenty four launchers on there, the best armor, and shielding you can and design a good reloading system to pump out as many missiles as possible as accurately as possible.

[avatarxprime]

Offhand, one thing I can think you can do is substantially increase the yield of the torpedoes. For some reason point defense seems to be a mostly nonexistant in Trek, so the torpedoes don't have to be particularly fast as long as they're faster than the ships, so you could probably make them a lot bigger. From what we've seen of Trek shields a single big missile is probably going to be more effective than three or four smaller ones of the same cumulative yield, because it'll bring down the ship's shields instantly and vaporize it instead of battering them down more slowly.

Fandom has suggested the photonic shockwave from Voyager as a reason for not having point defense on ships.

I dunno, can we quantify the sort of armor that's available in Star Trek at all? I suppose you'd be using whatever the Defiant uses, because I can't see anything better that you'd have available. Certainly nothing realistic is going to stand up to a nuclear level contact detonation, which photon torpedoes are supposed to be.

If Voyager's batmobile armor is on the table then certainly that works as armor. Apparently it's supposed to be an upgraded version of the armor on the Defiant and Prometheus class ships.

Would distributed multiple shield generators be worthwhile?

From what we've seen in Trek, if you had enough volume and mass to play with being able to switch on a second shield when your first one was "worn down" might be a pretty valuable ability. Then again, it's possible it would be easier simply to double the power of your existing generator - it's sort of an engineering question, and I don't think we know enough to answer it. At least one back-up definitely seems like a good idea though, in case the generator fails for some reason.

I think regenerative force fields are supposed to function like that. There are also regenerative shields which have proven effective against the beam weapons of every other race in ST assuming they continue to operate the same way. Regenerative shields allowed Prometheus to survive a pounding from 3 Romulan Warbirds long enough to kill them itself while running on a preprogrammed attack pattern.

[B5B7]

Whilst technology is an important basis for the design of any ship, economics is also a factor. So, may be able to produce a reasonably economic excellent tech & combat ability warship for X expenditure, or produce a 15% better ship for triple the cost.
One needs to have objective measures of the tech and the economics involved to be able to make proper assessments of the relative capabilities of ships.

However, I will say that I think a spinal mount weapon is a logical choice for sheer potency. In regard to missiles, it is a matter of how effective they are compared to alternatives. They would tend to be expensive - unless their manufacture is cheaper than the power used by energy weapons.

As a general principle though it is handy to have some weapons that can be used if ship's main power knocked out. Of course, this should be more difficult than it is in ST where they have no concept of decentralized power production on their ships, and the source of their drive power (the warp core) is also the source for their power for all other ship functions, including phasers.

Whilst producing a supership is good, having large numbers of combat capable ships, even if their main function may be other tasks, is also necessary.
One other thing - whilst shields and armor (and compartamentalization and system redundancy) are good general defense (therefore also needed outside of combat), in combat offensive weapons are also good defensively - as the enemy can't hurt your shields/armor if you have already blown him away.

[Oskuro]

Regarding the ship design for proper space combat, if Warp nacelle position is not an issue, I'd go with a perfect spherical shape for the ship, allowing a better distribution of weapon emplacements, stress due to rotation, and better armor angling, not to mention it'd be less obvious for attackers where to hit. And I'd bet it would take less energy to have a perfectly spherical shield, rather than have it adapt to a more convoluted ship design.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Regarding the ship design for proper space combat, if Warp nacelle position is not an issue, I'd go with a perfect spherical shape for the ship, allowing a better distribution of weapon emplacements, stress due to rotation, and better armor angling, not to mention it'd be less obvious for attackers where to hit. And I'd bet it would take less energy to have a perfectly spherical shield, rather than have it adapt to a more convoluted ship design.

Warp field geometry does seem to rely on shape, and the next best shape is that of a cigar or dirigible hullform, so assume you're working with that, with bulges as required for weapons and nacelles.

Consider it, gentlemen, that you are working for a highly militarized power like the Soviet Union of the 1960s in terms of outlook and organization, which has a practical and ethical culture rather than a stereotypical Star Trek one, and the build plans call for the construction of 19 ships of 50 - 60 million tonnes empty weight as part of a buildup in primary fleet combatants; twenty-two ships of nearly this size already exist in the fleet.

[Terralthra]

Gene Roddenberry's ship design rules, as I recall it, were that the nacelles needed to be in pairs, symmetrical across the axis of travel, and have a line of sight on each other. The Romulan D'Deridex, Klingon Bird of Prey, and Federation fuselage with pylons are all very different solutions to get around these constraints.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Gene Roddenberry's ship design rules, as I recall it, were that the nacelles needed to be in pairs, symmetrical across the axis of travel, and have a line of sight on each other. The Romulan D'Deridex, Klingon Bird of Prey, and Federation fuselage with pylons are all very different solutions to get around these constraints.

The obvious solution on a ship like this is to mount them in armoured blisters forming an X along the hull. The design would end up looking like a more symmetrical version of Home One. The clever thing is that any nacelle has the line of sight to any other TWO, so you don't need to use the same pair if one of each pair gets knocked out, so even if you lose half your nacelles you'd have a 50/50 chance of still being able to go to warp under those constraints.

[Stark]

I bet carrying all that redundancy would be really efficient too.

Oh wait, thanks to Voyager ships can have diminutive pop-out nacelles. Nevermind.

[Terralthra]

Gene Roddenberry's ship design rules, as I recall it, were that the nacelles needed to be in pairs, symmetrical across the axis of travel, and have a line of sight on each other. The Romulan D'Deridex, Klingon Bird of Prey, and Federation fuselage with pylons are all very different solutions to get around these constraints.

The obvious solution on a ship like this is to mount them in armoured blisters forming an X along the hull. The design would end up looking like a more symmetrical version of Home One. The clever thing is that any nacelle has the line of sight to any other TWO, so you don't need to use the same pair if one of each pair gets knocked out, so even if you lose half your nacelles you'd have a 50/50 chance of still being able to go to warp under those constraints.

Something like the Defiant, then, only with 2 matched pairs of nacelles? The Defiant had some of the most defense-minded placement of warp nacelles, to my mind.

The Niagara-class shows a take on another concept, of three nacelles, with each one having a line of sight on the other two. The Freedom-class is purported to be a ship with only one nacelle. Both of these two were constructed as explicitly blown-to-shit, though, so whether either had an even number of nacelles when whole is up for grabs. Memory Alpha seems to indicate that the Kelvin's upper pylon did not house a nacelle, but again, the veracity of that is questionable.

[Stark]

'Defence-minded placement' = 'wrapped in armour'? LOL.

Kelvin pretty clearly only had one, but it was standard huge clearance positioning.

How often to ST ships take crippling nacelle hits without exploding, anyway? Isn't this just a game thing? They can already do pinpoint strikes to knock out whole systems; how is adding nacelles going to change that?

[Terralthra]

'Defence-minded placement' = 'wrapped in armour'? LOL.

Kelvin pretty clearly only had one, but it was standard huge clearance positioning.

How often to ST ships take crippling nacelle hits without exploding, anyway? Isn't this just a game thing? They can already do pinpoint strikes to knock out whole systems; how is adding nacelles going to change that?

I actually meant "not out on the end of matchstick pylons" and "sheltered by the bulk of the ship from a good number of angles."

And Kelvin had an upper pylon in a perfect position to be a match for the lower pylon, which did have a warp nacelle. The only reason to think it wasn't a warp nacelle was that it housed a shuttle bay at the rear. Is there any reason it couldn't hold both a warp nacelle and a shuttle bay? The glow at the rear of the bottom pylon could be the impulse exhaust.

[Stark]

In nST, the nacelles appear to flare under impulse on all ships. Anyway, the upper shuttle nacelle has a nav deflector on the front. How is it going to work, anyway, if the upper nacelle is half the length or les? Since there's no evidence it's a nacelle, why try to force the issue?

[Oskuro]

Oh wait, thanks to Voyager ships can have diminutive pop-out nacelles. Nevermind.

Actually, Nacelles with the ability to retract into an armored compartment prior to combat wouldn't be such a bad thing, specially for ships meant to take a beating. Nacelles have always looked like a prominent weak spot in ST ships, and I dinstinctly recall an episode of TNG (the one with the ship on a time loop) where destruction of a nacelle meant the ship blew up.

If the recomended shape is that of a cigar, I'd go with something like this (with appropiate turret/gear placement and all that, of course):

[The Duchess of Zeon]

In nST, the nacelles appear to flare under impulse on all ships. Anyway, the upper shuttle nacelle has a nav deflector on the front. How is it going to work, anyway, if the upper nacelle is half the length or les? Since there's no evidence it's a nacelle, why try to force the issue?

is there any flare on the Klingon Bird of Prey? I don't believe so.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Oh wait, thanks to Voyager ships can have diminutive pop-out nacelles. Nevermind.

Actually, Nacelles with the ability to retract into an armored compartment prior to combat wouldn't be such a bad thing, specially for ships meant to take a beating. Nacelles have always looked like a prominent weak spot in ST ships, and I dinstinctly recall an episode of TNG (the one with the ship on a time loop) where destruction of a nacelle meant the ship blew up.

Heh, that's about right.

But it's pretty obvious that nacelle damage DOESN'T invariably cause a ship to explode, and that was just the horrible design of the Galaxy class, because we have a contradictory example in the extreme:

Three Dimensional Thinking, You Know.

Reliant survived having the nacelle blown out by one shot, and then blown off, without any signs of reactor damage--in fact Kirk judged her still in good enough condition to be boarded.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I bet carrying all that redundancy would be really efficient too.

Oh wait, thanks to Voyager ships can have diminutive pop-out nacelles. Nevermind.

Well, if the criterion is to "survive massive firepower", then redundancy is well worth the loss in efficiency. considering the power generation is to be distributed through more than a hundred reactors, that should tell you something important right there about actual redundancy. And they should be in at least two dozen separate engine rooms.

[Stark]

is there any flare on the Klingon Bird of Prey? I don't believe so.

What Klingon Bird of Prey is seen in nST?

Well, if the criterion is to "survive massive firepower", then redundancy is well worth the loss in efficiency. considering the power generation is to be distributed through more than a hundred reactors, that should tell you something important right there about actual redundancy. And they should be in at least two dozen separate engine rooms.

Oh so you mean 'let's design ST ships like they're predreadnoughts, disregarding the different setting? Do you have examples of warp failure related to nacelle damage on a ship that wasn't either immediately destroyed or heavily damaged? These ARE the ships that can lose warp to totally superficial damage, so what's the point in having redundant nacelles unless there's a pattern of failure?

And seriously, a hundred reactors? Two dozen engine rooms? Just like in ST where power generation scales that way!

[Starglider]

And seriously, a hundred reactors? Two dozen engine rooms? Just like in ST where power generation scales that way!

Aside from the technical issues, that sounds like it would require a ridiculously large crew to maintain. Now I imagine Duchess wants lots of crew for 'damage control' (despite the fact that spaceships don't sink and firefighting is usually as simple as decompressing the compartment) and to give the ship that overcrowded archaic feel (screw luxury quarters, we're having three crewmen per bunk!). Realistically though that's just going to limit operational range due to the consumables requirements, impose huge training/recruitment demands and ensure massive casualties when one of these things does get blown up.

Also, is armor actually useful at all in Trek? Defiant and Endgame-Voyager are the only ships that seemed to benefit from it - both hero ships with plot armor anyway. When rank-and-file ships lose shields they tend to explode in short order, which is consistent with no normal material being able to withstand multimegaton proximity bursts. Unless you can replicate Doomsday Machine ('neutronium') hull material, I doubt a heavily armored hull is worth the mass penalty (unless mass lightening somehow ignores that).

The 'photonic shockwave' was utter stupidity, but I seem to recall the Cardassian super-cruise-missile from Voyager having reasonably effective point defences.

[Oskuro]

Reliant survived having the nacelle blown out by one shot, and then blown off, without any signs of reactor damage--in fact Kirk judged her still in good enough condition to be boarded.

Guess they don't make them like they used to.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

With the level of artificial intelligence technology in Star Trek I think you could get the crew down to a few thousands, in line with a much smaller modern carrier.

As for the issue of armour, even being directly exposed to the fireball isn't necessarily going to cause any damage. There was a steel sphere suspended right next to I think it was Ivy Mike with a layer of graphite over it, which was completely undamaged with just graphite ablation despite being directly exposed to the fireball. Granted it was something like ten feet in diameter but armour 4 meters thick would not be that difficult to accomplish I think, nor would alternating it with graphite filled spaces. Void spaces would also add in protection against fire, and it's been established that the heavier the atomic mass of a substance is, the harder it is for phasers/disruptors to vapourize, that's covered on the main site here. That implies that depleted uranium would be really quite effective in stopping them, and that's probably what duranium is. If tritanium is some sort of exotic titanium alloy, that would provide the rest of the hull structure, and with graphite coatings could provide a reliable degree of protection.

Regardless the actually useful thing is in fact massive subdivision because it simply means that you can isolate damaged sectors and continue to fight the ship reliably.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

is there any flare on the Klingon Bird of Prey? I don't believe so.

What Klingon Bird of Prey is seen in nST?

Well, if the criterion is to "survive massive firepower", then redundancy is well worth the loss in efficiency. considering the power generation is to be distributed through more than a hundred reactors, that should tell you something important right there about actual redundancy. And they should be in at least two dozen separate engine rooms.

Oh so you mean 'let's design ST ships like they're predreadnoughts, disregarding the different setting? Do you have examples of warp failure related to nacelle damage on a ship that wasn't either immediately destroyed or heavily damaged? These ARE the ships that can lose warp to totally superficial damage, so what's the point in having redundant nacelles unless there's a pattern of failure?

And seriously, a hundred reactors? Two dozen engine rooms? Just like in ST where power generation scales that way!

The goal is to avoid having them lose warp capability to totally superficial damage, and basic conceptions of internal subdivision aren't going to disappear in usefulness. Energy is rapidly dissipated burning its way through thick steel, let alone the more apparent exotics of the Star Trek universe, and massive internal subdivision will probably be even more effective than armour. Power generation being that distributed is in fact already done in Star Trek by the Borg, so accusing me of just trying to focus this toward making the ships "retro" is ridiculous, and in fact, the Borg already have massively redundant ships with exception subdivision and distributed power generation.

So really we're designing a borg ship for a non-borg crew based on these criteria, and once you start thinking about it that way I'm sure it won't seem so much in the late you claim.

And of course you're still ignoring the Reliant.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Also, from the TNG Episode The Chase:

RIKER
The power boost to the structural
integrity field protected the
nacelles. We used the inertial
dampers to simulate a complete
shield failure.

NU'DAQ
It is fortunate that your Engineer
discovered Gul Ocett's attempt to
tamper with your defensive
systems.
(touches COM)
Maht-h'a. Status.

KLINGON VOICE
Minor damage to starboard nacelle.
We will be operational in less
than one hour.

NU'DAQ
(to COM; furious)
What? You incompetent Toh-pah.
You were supposed to be prepared.

This suggests that field modifications to overcharge the structural integrity fields to the nacelles can in fact protect them from fire--it doesn't just suggest it, but proves it, as the E-D takes repeated nacelle hits and is completely intact. Furthermore, the Klingon ship in question sustains only minor damage.

So there's two more cases of ships surviving direct fire to the nacelles, one of which retains warp capability afterwards by the simple expedient of increasing power to the structural integrity fields.

[Starglider]

With the level of artificial intelligence technology in Star Trek I think you could get the crew down to a few thousands, in line with a much smaller modern carrier.

Isn't it par for the course on this board to complain about over-reliance on automation in Trek, with comparisons to the woeful performance of current US Navy 'smart ship' efforts and references to the failure of the Enterprise-Nil in ST3?

IMHO, Trek automation is primarily limited by their inexplicable lack of SW-style mobile robots. Ok their AI tech isn't as cheap or compact, but it wouldn't need to be for ship maintenance bots. Automated maintenance based on their holoemitter (and where applicable, replicator) technology would be even better; it doesn't need to be ridiculous 'holo crewmen', you simply need the ability to manipulate tools and objects.

As for the issue of armour, even being directly exposed to the fireball isn't necessarily going to cause any damage. There was a steel sphere suspended right next to I think it was Ivy Mike with a layer of graphite over it, which was completely undamaged with just graphite ablation despite being directly exposed to the fireball.

The viability of the Orion nuclear pulse propulsion design indicates that appropriately designed hardware can survive a small fireball in relative proximity, but PTs are much higher yield (assuming 1.5 kg AM warhead and fairly high annihilation efficiency) and a ship presents a much larger cross-section to a proximity burst. A PT burst at 50m standoff will still irradiate a Galaxy-class ship with at least 40 petajoules worth of hard gamma (ignoring the neutrinos). In theory that's enough to vaporise a slab of hull 250m x 250m x 10m thick, if it has the thermal properties of steel. In practice the outer layer will be superheated and total energy transfer will be somewhat lower, but still, a 4m hull is unlikely to offer any real protection, especially considering the massive shock effect of the flash vaporisation (remember, Orion needed massive shock absorber columns to deal with much smaller blasts). Hull-contact hits and tactical missiles with larger AM payloads will be even worse.

Void spaces would also add in protection against fire

Void spaces are good against the pressure waves explosions produce in an atmosphere. In vacuum they have some value against kinetic penetrators (e.g. current micrometeoroid shielding) and perhaps shaped charge jets from very low yield warheads. They are useless against significant AM/nuclear warheads or even significant beam weapons. This is why SW ships do not have void spaces.

and it's been established that the heavier the atomic mass of a substance is, the harder it is for phasers/disruptors to vapourize, that's covered on the main site here. That implies that depleted uranium would be really quite effective in stopping them, and that's probably what duranium is.

Well maybe, Trek beam weapons are such an inconsistent mess it's hard to say, but if the effective yield is substantially worse than a small antimatter torpedo then they should be tactically irrelevant for real warships except as point defence.

Regardless the actually useful thing is in fact massive subdivision because it simply means that you can isolate damaged sectors and continue to fight the ship reliably.

Ironically, the thing that helps most against massive gamma bursts is distance. Not as in a 5m void space, that won't do much, but having major sections of the ship over 100m apart. Strangely enough, this is exactly what we see in pylon-happy Federation designs! Stronger internal bulkheads might help against the pressure waves created by flash-vaporisation of huge amounts of hull material, but they may actually make the shock problem worse, as the more rigid frame will transmit it better.