Vulcan Ring Warp Nacelles...

[Weerd1]

Please forgive me if this has been gone over before, but I wanted to get some takes on the Vulcan Nacelles.  Are they still matter/anti-matter based engines?  Is the ring the nacelle itself, and therefore where the warp field is generated from?  Any reason a ship would have the ring AND linear nacelles?  If the design was more efficient than human nacelles, why didn't they stick when the Federation formed?

Thanks to anyone who has ideas...
Dan

[Stoo]

Looks like it's one big coil instead of an axial row of small coils.

As for why they're not used later on, we just have to assume the Vulcans had stagnated in development while the Plucky Humans came up with awesome new ideas.

[Weerd1]

Well, see my nefarious purpose here is I have scratched together a model that looks great (I know, that's subjective) using a TMP style saucer and nacelles and adding a ring structure.  So, I am trying to retrofit a reason a ship would have standard nacelles, AND a Vulcan style ring- separate power generation for systems perhaps?

[Stoo]

Eh a sign of non-human influence on starfleet design is cool anyway - they do tend to come across very much as Earth Fleet.

[Diegoba]

It could be a one-of-a-kind ship. Originally with just one of the systems, but retrofitted to test the other one.
I would keep the original engines as a safeguard, like it's done when a proven plane has one of it's engines replaced by one of a new technology..
http://www.flankers-site.co.uk/moscow_2007_files/day03_004.jpg

[Weerd1]

It could be a one-of-a-kind ship. Originally with just one of the systems, but retrofitted to test the other one.
I would keep the original engines as a safeguard, like it's done when a proven plane has one of it's engines replaced by one of a new technology..
http://www.flankers-site.co.uk/moscow_2007_files/day03_004.jpg

Good thought, thanks!

[Weerd1]

I was also thinking, if I remember correctly the old FASA RPG said the TMP style warp nacelles were of a Vulcan design from the Shuvinaaljis yards...  Perhaps that's why they have the lack of big red Bussard Collectors on the front- they are the circular warp coil arrangement simply laid out linearly?

UPDATE: Nope- cracked the books, according to FASA Shuvinaaljis made the standard red capped nacelles, and the TMP versions were done by Leeding Industries.  Oh, the pain of senility and forgetfulness....

[Stoo]

I thought alll linear nacelles were a row of circular coils anyway....

[ZardoZ]

I believe that the reason that Starfleet not uses ring warp drives, are that are BIGer that  warp nacels, and need a bigger dock space, plus less turn ratio (more inertial mass to the ship)

[lt ponytail]

^ also, the big ring is easy to damage, and since Earth warp ships have had the two nacelle layout forever, they know how to do it really well. with warp "blades" or rings or wings, they don't have as much experience or knowledge with them.

[Stoo]

But other races do have experience.

It's a topic worth it's own thread really - starfleet being so heavily dominated by earth.

[Jimi James]

I imagine if Starfleet wanted some ships with rings, they could bug the Vulcans about it, since the Vulcans have been using that style likely since before humans even had warp drive.  Starfleet may be Earth centric, but they have enough member races that have the experience of using other styles and technologies that it really shouldn't be an issue of "this is the only way we know how to make ships travel warp speeds."

To me, this suggests that there is some sort of performance issue that makes the twin nacelle design more efficient then rings, or blades, or whatever else might be in use.

In the case of blades (and perhaps rings as well) like the Cardassians use, it may be a case similar to what Kira explained to Tora Ziyal about the differences between the Federation Phaser rifle and the Cardassian equivalent.  The Starfleet rifle had lots of fancy bells and whistles and outclassed the Cardassian rifle in most categories.  The more features it had packed into it, also meant that more could go wrong with it.  Where on the other hand, the Cardassian rifle was more simplified and rugged.  It had one job to do and did it well, but that one job was all it could do.

Perhaps in the case of warp drive technology, the Twin Nacelle design is like this.  It's highly advanced and beats out the competition in most every respect, but at the same time, it's difficult to maintain and a lot of things can go wrong with it if you don't have a team of engineers that can routinely perform miracles.  There are certainly easier ways to achieve Warp Speeds, with Rings and Blades, but they don't offer the higher performance in speed and duration and all the bells and whistles that a twin nacelle design offers.

We saw during TNG that the Enterprise-D was pretty much the fastest kid on the block.  She could not only outrun most other ships, but she could maintain higher speeds for longer then most other ships, even when compared to ships with nacelles, blades, and a host of other configurations....did we ever seen any ring-nacelle ships during TNG?

[Weerd1]

I think the closest we came to ring nacelles in TNG were the Vulcan ships in "Unification."  In those cases even, they had been flattened: http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/scans/other/tpau-model.jpg

Indeed, it seems somewhat reminiscent of the shape of the Romulan Warbird hull... Though that ship does specifically have nacelles.  Is it possible the singularity drive is a cross between ring and nacelle based warp tech?

[Jimi James]

The singularity was an artificial blackhole or some such thing, serving as the power source for regular warp drive, rather then using a matter anti-matter reaction to generate the necessary power.  So whether it's rings or nacelles, the singularity is still just a power source and not the actual driving force.

[Argosy Special Ops]

I would think that the simplest explanation would be (based on the visual evidence alone) that the material cost of making that one big ass toroidal coil vs. making a bunch of small ones would be the reason why.  At a glance there does seem to be a lot more verterium & cortenide used in the construction of the Vulcan nacelle vs. its counterpart of Earth origin.

[Indefatigable]

It's possibly something like this.  The ring nacelle is the 'paddle wheel' approach (metaphorically, not literally) whereas the cylindrical nacelle is the 'screw propeller' approach.  Cochrane just happened to hit on a very effective design, and the early Federation Starfleet copied it.  The Andorians were already using something similar.  If you look at Shran's Kumari, she had something that looked remarkably like nacelles in pods on either side of the aft hull, and of course the Klingons had nacelle-like structures as well.  People generally copy the best designs.  If it works, they use it.