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Wasteful Uses of Electricity!!!

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
Ok, so we have shields, weapons, auxiliary systems, engines... all of these things use power from the warp core.

Now, look at your ship. Do you see all the windows? Do you notice that ALL OF THE LIGHTS ARE ON?!

Are you aware of how much energy this is draining off the warp core?!

Get the word around to all of your officers: turn off those lights when you leave the room. The next broadside to our starboard shields just might depend upon it.
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on

Comments

  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    I lawled.....
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    the lights are NOT on. I have an all-bajoran crew and they've all just left candles on.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    local.host wrote: »
    Ok, so we have shields, weapons, auxiliary systems, engines... all of these things use power from the warp core.

    Now, look at your ship. Do you see all the windows? Do you notice that ALL OF THE LIGHTS ARE ON?!

    Are you aware of how much energy this is draining off the warp core?!

    Get the word around to all of your officers: turn off those lights when you leave the room. The next broadside to our starboard shields just might depend upon it.

    One step ahead of ya!

    I already ordered my crew to turn off all lights and then got my new ensign (Harry Dim) to go outside and draw windows onto the hull with yellow paint.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    lol Yellow paint
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Ship lighting actually draws power from the ship's fusion reactors.. just FYI..
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Ship lighting actually draws power from the ship's fusion reactors.. just FYI..

    It's still power that we can't stand to lose. Just because the first officer is scared of the dark, he has to leave his light on in the room when he leaves?! Just so he won't come back and a monster will be there in the closet?

    And what about those who are doing it, you know, just for funzies?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Canazza wrote: »
    the lights are NOT on. I have an all-bajoran crew and they've all just left candles on.

    Except candles require higher air recirculation power draws... Fire == bad in space...
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    I just assumed that the lighting system was powered off the impulse engine and the impulse engine was powered off batteries. I can't really explain the stacks of them that I accumulate otherwise.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Except candles require higher air recirculation power draws... Fire == bad in space...

    actually fire is easier to handle in space then anywhere else..ever heard of a vacuum?

    edit: to clarify..in the terms of the lore/universe we play in..of course fire on board say the space shuttle would be a disaster...

    but aboard a star ship in the ST universe that can activate a shield just about anywhere inside of it to "seal" breaches in the hull? Got a fire? evac people and open it up to the vacuum....fire gone
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    local.host wrote: »
    It's still power that we can't stand to lose. Just because the first officer is scared of the dark, he has to leave his light on in the room when he leaves?! Just so he won't come back and a monster will be there in the closet?

    And what about those who are doing it, you know, just for funzies?

    To be fair, did you see the TNG episode where the subspace aliens kept kidnapping Commander riker (and others) for wierd expeirments in the night.

    monsters in the closet are not THAT outlandish. :D
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    As a serious answer. A photonics light strip in a room eats 1-2 watts of power to generate several hundred candle power of light. While not 100% efficient, it is close.

    A phaser designed to drop a shield, drawing power from the warp core, never becomes electricity, and uses millions or even billions of watts of power.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    The lights scare the Klingons.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Battleunit wrote: »
    As a serious answer. A photonics light strip in a room eats 1-2 watts of power to generate several hundred candle power of light. While not 100% efficient, it is close.

    A phaser designed to drop a shield, drawing power from the warp core, never becomes electricity, and uses millions or even billions of watts of power.

    Starships are well lit, though, and very large. If an office building uses tens of thousands of light bulbs to stay lit, a starship would need hundreds, if not thousands, of times that due to the size differences. It's totally possible that you're wasting a phaser bank worth of power on needless lighting.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    There are 4 lights!!
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    There are 4 lights!!

    There are 5 lights.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Pro-tip: Never trust a Cardassian lightbulb salesman.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Suron wrote:
    ever heard of a vacuum?

    I could ask you the same thing. This carpet is filthy. :p
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    In the Traveler RPG, many ships have to dim the internal lights when jumping to FTL for power consumption reasons....
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    NinetyNine wrote:
    Pro-tip: Never trust a Cardassian lightbulb salesman.

    Are you casting aspersions on Madred Lightfittings Incorporated?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    NinetyNine wrote:
    Starships are well lit, though, and very large. If an office building uses tens of thousands of light bulbs to stay lit, a starship would need hundreds, if not thousands, of times that due to the size differences. It's totally possible that you're wasting a phaser bank worth of power on needless lighting.

    I doubt they take that much. Are you in an office? Look up, roughly how many lights do you have above you? I'm in one that's pretty much open all the way across, with cubes. I've got ~350 banks of 3 flourescent tubes. I know the Compact Flourescents I use at home are equivalent to 60watt iincandescent bulbs, and use 13watts, so lets assume these lights are equivalent to 100watt incandescent bulbs and actually pull 25 watts. 3x25 = 75 watts per bank x 350 banks of lights 26250watts.

    Now, going from the numbers theorized above, and that each strip pulls 1-2 watts of power, you would get at least 13125 strips out of that same amount of energy. (or power or... whatever the heck a watt is, I hated physics in school :P) Say one strip iis equivalent to th light that runs along the corner of one room in a ship, so, about 10' of light strip. That turns out to be 131250 feet of lighting for the equivalent to one(1) floor of an office building, and my floor has about 400 people working on it at any given time.

    Now consider, we're up to T3 ships before we get even close to that many people, so it's not exactly a monumental drain on a ship's power systems.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    You know what happens when ships have no lights?

    Space Madness ! :eek:

    no lights and no holodecks make Bridge Officer go crazy.....

    For Q's sakes let them have some R&R, only the craziest of captains would get mad about the lights wasting energy and credits.......

    must be an engineer, they are always so anal about squeezing more power out of the core
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    One step ahead of ya!

    I already ordered my crew to turn off all lights and then got my new ensign (Harry Dim) to go outside and draw windows onto the hull with yellow paint.

    You, Sir, made my day! :D
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Actually we keep all the lights on to foil Reman infiltrators.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    NinetyNine wrote:
    Starships are well lit, though, and very large. If an office building uses tens of thousands of light bulbs to stay lit, a starship would need hundreds, if not thousands, of times that due to the size differences. It's totally possible that you're wasting a phaser bank worth of power on needless lighting.

    The difference: an office building uses gas tubes that light because of high frequency electrical discharge. Relatively inefficient at around 12% light generated for energy supplied, made worse because heat generation by these instruments is on the order of 50%. Lighting in the 24th Century is incredibly efficient, probably on the order of 500 luminous efficacy, maybe 80%, which is possibly 50 times as efficient when heat load is added into the equation (since in closed environments heat dissipation costs more electricity than light generation.)

    A phaser according to the garbage science of STO (which we might as well use) projects a rapid nadion particle that is so energy hoggish that it requires a significant routing of power from the massive anti-matter reaction engines that power star flight at faster than light speeds. There is no way to convert this to a common measure of electricity (watts) but the assumption is that billions of watts are needed to fire these weapons. In other words, the power needed to light the city of Tampa with enough left over to run Disney World.

    (Running replicators are where the real power saving could occur. The amount of power that replicators suggest is staggering. Running one to make even the smallest item, if it contains a significant change in matter, would be difficult to imagine, and might be on the order of shooting a phaser.)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    In the Traveler RPG, many ships have to dim the internal lights when jumping to FTL for power consumption reasons....

    This is a habit that comes from the pre-TL8 days of Vilani space travel. Past TL8, when FTL becomes widely available, the lights are only dimmed due to tradition.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    The lights should definitely flicker or something when you're under attack.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Most of the time after someone calls for red alert in an episode, the ambient lighting does dim.

    But we all know the reason for that is because the starship needs more power to ensure all the red lights flash, force steam to start escaping from unknown ducts, make consoles explode only when there is someone working on them so the crewmember goes flying over the top of the captain's chair, and have an excuse to say things like "switch to auxiliary power", or "compensate", or "full power to forward shields", and make it more plausible.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    local.host wrote: »
    Ok, so we have shields, weapons, auxiliary systems, engines... all of these things use power from the warp core.

    Now, look at your ship. Do you see all the windows? Do you notice that ALL OF THE LIGHTS ARE ON?!

    Are you aware of how much energy this is draining off the warp core?!

    Get the word around to all of your officers: turn off those lights when you leave the room. The next broadside to our starboard shields just might depend upon it.

    I thought it was going to be another "this game is a waste" thread, but with enough creativity in the title to get me to at least look.

    Instead I got a chuckle. Good job!
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Intricated wrote: »
    Most of the time after someone calls for red alert in an episode, the ambient lighting does dim.

    But we all know the reason for that is because the starship needs more power to ensure all the red lights flash, force steam to start escaping from unknown ducts, make consoles explode only when there is someone working on them so the crewmember goes flying over the top of the captain's chair, and have an excuse to say things like "switch to auxiliary power", or "compensate", or "full power to forward shields", and make it more plausible.

    lol Hilarious
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    We actually set our ship to "Mask Energy Signature" and were sneaking into a Klingon contested area. all was going well as we slipped past thier defences. When we were about to clear the last patrol of six birds of prey and four cruisers ... Ensign Bomeranz turned on his bedroom light on the starboard side.

    We keelhauled him in space after the battle.
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