• @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    75 days ago

    Does a higher warp factor use more dilithium or something? I have wondered, when a captain orders “take us to warp one”, why not choose warp two?

    • Miles O'Brien
      link
      fedilink
      English
      115 days ago

      The higher the amount of energy you require from the dilithium, the quicker it fractures. In newer starships they recrystallize whioe still in use, but in older federation ships like when Those Old Scientists were roaming the stars, it was a real danger that you’d break the only dilithium crystals on the ship and be more or less stranded if you pushed them too hard.

      Of course you still have to deal with warp core stress and heat dispersion on newer ships.

      So when a sovereign class goes to warp 6, that’s more or less cruising speed. When she goes to warp 9.975, she needs to haul ass to get somewhere right the fuck now

      Especially with subspace damage at higher warps with less streamlined ships/warp bubbles, starfleet limited travel in general to warp 6 and some areas the speed limit is warp 3.

      /uMO So in other words… Whatever the plot currently demands, that’s what they go with. It’s just a show of “we need to be there quickly” or “we have some time to kill” more or less.

        • Miles O'Brien
          link
          fedilink
          English
          55 days ago

          un-miles-obrien, basically a cheeky way of saying unjerk my role play… Yeah not very clever mind you, but I work on transporters not words.

    • @Thebeardedsinglemalt
      link
      8
      edit-2
      5 days ago

      Dilithium only regulates the matter/anti-matter reaction to keep the flow consistent. The core itself is powered by the matter anti-matter reaction, which has always been shown to be fueled by deuterium.

      I can’t remember if it was stated onscreen, but I always understood it to be that the cruising speed of a starship is where they find the maximum efficiency of fuel use vs speed as well as wear-and-tear on the nacelles and warp coils.

      • Shawdow194
        link
        fedilink
        35 days ago

        Makes sense since most ships cruise at warp 6-7 which I like to imagine is a nice cool 55mph on the highway

        • NerfHerder
          link
          fedilink
          15 days ago

          I assumed they cruised under impulse power and only went into warp when they needed to cross larger distances.