Wow, Joel, a real stickler. Had to make sure we knew that your second post was really you 
Uhm, obviously that was an accident. :wally
That would be the TR-116 rifle, just so’s ya know. And, by the size of the recovered projectile, it appeared (but I could be wrong) to be about a 100-Caliber weapon. :eek:
Ranchoth
(At least the prop guys thought to leave the casing off when they filmed it being dug out of some poor shmoe)
If you liked the juxtaposition of putting a 20th-century weapon in the hands of the Trek guys, imagine giving a Marine fire team a bunch of phaser rifles. They’d be shooting down aircraft or even satellites with them in no time. Phaser weapons have never been shown to their logical potential in the various TV shows, since it suits dramatic purpose to miss every now and then (or, if you’re the bad guy, to miss all the time). One would assume that energy weapons with futuristicky targeting systems would never miss, at least not at the ridiculously short ranges most Star Trek firefights occur.
Of course, the biggest liability with energy-beam weapons is that every time you fire them, you leave this neon trail giving away your own position.
I’d like to know when phaser rifles went from shooting beams to projectiles of energy – or have they always done that?
Unless I’m misunderstanding your question, they don’t. 24th c. Trek has phaser rifles that work just like sourped-up phasers. The Tr-116 was a non-phaser weapon that fired a projectile experiementally developed for use in environments where phasers were non-functional.
–Cliffy
Bryan Ekers, that’s a good point. So what is a science fiction writer to do? How can you make realistic futuristic weapon technology and still have dramatic fight scenes?
You make the fights dramatic exactly by making them realistic. I mean, really, if none of the good guys (or at least, none wearing a non-red shirt) ever dies, and you know that they’ll never die, where’s the drama?
To make battles a little more survivable, you can increase the ranges, and give them some sort of high-tech defenses, as well as offense. Preferably something subtle: For instance, stealth systems which (partially) counter the auto-targeting.