As for "adapting" to bullets... I don't see how you can adapt to getting hit with a physical object. It could also be that the Borg just don't consider the idea of Projectile Weapons being a threat at all. The technology is backwards. No benefit to the Collective at all. Utterly useless compared to energy weapons, which are far more prevelant and easier to defend against through adaptation. Basically... the perfect weapon to use against a species that easily develops defenses against energy weapons.
Add an extra outer layer of tritanium armoring? Then the people using ballistic weapons need to rework their weapons to penetrate the tritanium armor. Yes, there is canon precedent. In the "save the whales" movie, they piloted the stolen B'rel into the path of a harpoon gun designed to kill 100 ton whales. The harpoon just bounced off the hull.
The thing there is, borg drones, especially elites, use a tritanium frame. And the Federation uses it for bulkhead material for the Galaxy and Intrepid-class, and raven-type ships.
The problem here is, penetrating it. That is still a bit of an impossibility. Since, as of the 24th, the Federation still had no means of melting tritanium, not even with weapons fire. So not only would it work well against ballistic weapons, it would also work extremely well against melee and energy weapons. The problem with it is, like neutronium, it would be so heavy that the person wearing it would just be a statue. This weight of their tritanium frames also explains why borg drones are so slow.
Just aim for the head
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Or a Transporter Mod TR-116. Beam the bullet right to vital organs/components.
Or both to be sure
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Or a Transporter Mod TR-116. Beam the bullet right to vital organs/components.
A bullet is a kinetic-impact weapon. Beaming it into a vital organ would be inconvenient, potentially dangerous, but almost certainly not fatal. Transporters don't appear to transmit kinetic energy (we've seen falling people beamed aboard ships unharmed).
Or a Transporter Mod TR-116. Beam the bullet right to vital organs/components.
A bullet is a kinetic-impact weapon. Beaming it into a vital organ would be inconvenient, potentially dangerous, but almost certainly not fatal. Transporters don't appear to transmit kinetic energy (we've seen falling people beamed aboard ships unharmed).
Yeah. If you were going to beam something inside a person's body, it should be poison or an explosive, not a bullet.
Other than a few one-episode wonders like the TR, they never use transporters offensively either. I mean, logically everyone should be teleporting warheads at enemy ships (inside when possible, outside if necessary), instead of shooting torpedoes that may miss.
Or a Transporter Mod TR-116. Beam the bullet right to vital organs/components.
A bullet is a kinetic-impact weapon. Beaming it into a vital organ would be inconvenient, potentially dangerous, but almost certainly not fatal. Transporters don't appear to transmit kinetic energy (we've seen falling people beamed aboard ships unharmed).
Yeah. If you were going to beam something inside a person's body, it should be poison or an explosive, not a bullet.
Other than a few one-episode wonders like the TR, they never use transporters offensively either. I mean, logically everyone should be teleporting warheads at enemy ships (inside when possible, outside if necessary), instead of shooting torpedoes that may miss.
But that wouldn't look very interesting on TV.
Same reason you can't start the fight by beaming a boarding party into the opposing ship's bridge. Ships typically come with a counter already. Also... that applies to the use of the TR rifle, transport inhibitors inhibit it too.
Or a Transporter Mod TR-116. Beam the bullet right to vital organs/components.
A bullet is a kinetic-impact weapon. Beaming it into a vital organ would be inconvenient, potentially dangerous, but almost certainly not fatal. Transporters don't appear to transmit kinetic energy (we've seen falling people beamed aboard ships unharmed).
Yeah. If you were going to beam something inside a person's body, it should be poison or an explosive, not a bullet.
Other than a few one-episode wonders like the TR, they never use transporters offensively either. I mean, logically everyone should be teleporting warheads at enemy ships (inside when possible, outside if necessary), instead of shooting torpedoes that may miss.
But that wouldn't look very interesting on TV.
Same reason you can't start the fight by beaming a boarding party into the opposing ship's bridge. Ships typically come with a counter already. Also... that applies to the use of the TR rifle, transport inhibitors inhibit it too.
The call for more handguns and projectile weapons is a recurring one. While i can understand that people want to use iconic RL weapons usage of those weapons in today's game presents a bit of a problem.
The projectile weapons bypass shields and the Borg do not adapt to them. If more projectile weapons are added then sooner or later the whole ground based gameplay is going to break down.
I would argue that the shield penetrating damage is reduced and that the Borg learn how to adapt to these ancient technologies.
Thoughts?
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
As a general purpose tool a handheld phaser may indeed be a better weapon, but what about assault rifles? Might a hyperkinetic weapon be more devastating, especially if the ammunition can be customised? Armour piercing v EMP v explosive versus ... Attaching a replicator would allow massive customisation and so long as the ammo storage were full when entering some sort of energy dampening field, and the rounds weren't launched via some sort of energy field ... Such a system strikes me as being more efficient in terms of combat.
As for melee weapons, what of say the staffs used in Andromeda, or the more primitive version in Babylon 5? They pack into a cylinder about the height of a can of Coke but telescope out.
Perhaps it's just me but Trek seems to have created some hurdles for itself by restricting its graphics to family friendly content - disintegrated bodies are less disturbing than bullet riddled corpses, but they have managed to do it in the odd episode or movie so there's no reason those limits need to be retained in STO. Then again if the focus is on a paramilitary force than a military one ...
in terms of 'bang for buck' the Phaser is a better over-all tool and device, as well as being a better weapon in 99% of situations that require a weapon, including but not limited to police as well as military situations.
The effectiveness of the Phaser isn't in question, nor was my post meant to call their effectiveness into question. All of the reasons you've stated for why Starfleet would prefer a Phaser in most cases are indeed valid reasons, and we both agree that in most cases a Phaser will give more bang for your buck than a modern gun will. My post was simply to say that just because a weapon is considered outdated it doesn't necessarily have to be rare. The Bat'leth was just the example I chose. Having a melee weapon like a Bat'leth in addition to their standard weapon(s) guarantees the user will have a weapon that can work no matter what.
We both agree the Phaser is a better choice in most cases, however for those situations where the Phaser is ineffective or flat out doesn't work, what does the officer do then? The Borg are the primary example here. They typically adapt fairly quickly to energy based weapons, yet we've not seen a single case where they have adapted to projectile based weaponry or melee weaponry. An example being during the First Contact film where Worf took off the arm of that Borg using his Mek'leth. It's also in this same movie we get the infamous Tommy Gun scene. Although modern guns require ammo and are little more than clubs once that ammo runs out, a 24th century variant doesn't have to suffer from those same weaknesses if a few modifications are made to it. The Tr-116 we saw on DS9 had a micro-transporter on the weapon meaning it could hit anyone anywhere on the station. We also know micro-replication technology exists as we see Borg Nanites and other types of machines do it in Trek. A micro-replicator could easily be installed on a 24th century variant of a Tommy Gun or similar thus negating or virtually negating the ammo requirement and extra weight. I would venture to say weapons like that wouldn't be too difficult to whip up in a pinch if needed.
Since we're already mixing game logic and real world logic, I have a hard time believing someone somewhere in Starfleet or other galactic power wouldn't recognize the value of having weapons similar to a modern gun, even if they're rarely used.
"(inside when possible, outside if necessary)"[/quote]
As I recall they don't do this because you have to drop shields to use the transporter, dropping your shields to transport a warhead in the middle of a heated battle wouldn't be a very tactically sound option.
Now if you had a Q-ship (Not those Q though) it would make sense to use a transporter to beam a warhead right beside or into an unsuspecting warship.
As I recall they don't do this because you have to drop shields to use the transporter, dropping your shields to transport a warhead in the middle of a heated battle wouldn't be a very tactically sound option.
Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. Voyager in particular was very inconsistent on that rule.
Voyager actually did transport a warhead into a borg ship in one episode.
Comments
Just aim for the head
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Or a Transporter Mod TR-116. Beam the bullet right to vital organs/components.
Or both to be sure
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Maybe that's why Starfleet doesn't deploy slug-throwers - they've forgotten how bullets work!
Other than a few one-episode wonders like the TR, they never use transporters offensively either. I mean, logically everyone should be teleporting warheads at enemy ships (inside when possible, outside if necessary), instead of shooting torpedoes that may miss.
But that wouldn't look very interesting on TV.
My character Tsin'xing
"(inside when possible, outside if necessary)"
The projectile weapons bypass shields and the Borg do not adapt to them. If more projectile weapons are added then sooner or later the whole ground based gameplay is going to break down.
I would argue that the shield penetrating damage is reduced and that the Borg learn how to adapt to these ancient technologies.
Thoughts?
As for melee weapons, what of say the staffs used in Andromeda, or the more primitive version in Babylon 5? They pack into a cylinder about the height of a can of Coke but telescope out.
Perhaps it's just me but Trek seems to have created some hurdles for itself by restricting its graphics to family friendly content - disintegrated bodies are less disturbing than bullet riddled corpses, but they have managed to do it in the odd episode or movie so there's no reason those limits need to be retained in STO. Then again if the focus is on a paramilitary force than a military one ...
"(inside when possible, outside if necessary)"[/quote]
As I recall they don't do this because you have to drop shields to use the transporter, dropping your shields to transport a warhead in the middle of a heated battle wouldn't be a very tactically sound option.
Now if you had a Q-ship (Not those Q though) it would make sense to use a transporter to beam a warhead right beside or into an unsuspecting warship.
Voyager actually did transport a warhead into a borg ship in one episode.