No plane flies “as fast as it can.” It has a normal cruising speed that’s considerably below its maximum theoretical speed. Cruising speed gives maximum performance with optimum fuel consumption. Exceeding cruising speed, even in emergencies that require you to go faster, can be dangerous.
You might just as well regularly drive your car at 120 mph, rather than around 60.
I guess I need to be more specific.
Jet airliners go as fast as they can. As fast as they can is typical designed cruising speed, appx Mach .84 for a 747 (other models vary). Never exceed veolcity is a bit higher, about Mach .89. Of course this is not a actual speed limit - the plane can go faster, but it is dangerous. They can lose control. Vne is a guide, not a tchnological fact.
The point is, they always go “as fast as they can”, meaning at max crusing speed (weather and other factors permitting). They don’t fly along at 200 knots today. What would be the point? The airplane is no where near as efficient at slower speeds. Plus, schedules are designed to take best advantage of the machinery. Having a plane fly slow means the airline is losing money.
Likewise, if you designed a starship that can go warp 6 confortably, and warp 8 “in emergencies”, the the ship should always go between stars at warp 6. Maybe 5.8. Not 4, 3, 2 and most definietly not 1! If the ship is capable of doing it, it should. Why would anyone want to extend their time between stars?
I would imagine it depends primarily on the parameters of the mission and the space you’re traveling through. Do present-day naval vessels always sail at a predetermined fixed speed?
I think a replicator has to be bigger than the object it’s replicating. Industrial replicators have been mentioned; presumably they’re much bigger than consumer ones, but they’re still something that fits inside a starship’s cargo hold, not something that a starship fits inside.
You don’t have to replicate the entire object though. They could replicate in 3D, you know, like a 3D printer prints.
DeForest Kelley was in the Richard Diamond Private Detective episode I watched last night. His Wife cheated him in a life insurance scam.
In my head canon “warp factors” are more like “gears” than speeds. It is true that higher numbers generally correlate with faster speeds, and in “ordinary conditions” you can even come up with which speed generally correlates with which gear for a given vehicle, but that doesn’t mean that you’ll always be going to same speed in the same gear, or that it is smart to always be in the same gear.
In the Star Trek universe, space-time is full of pot holes and gravelly patches that require different “driving styles”.
Maintenance cycles where they could still go but slower? Easier on the crystals at lower warp speed?
I think our analogy begins to break down at this point. We just don’t know enough about how warp drive works.
With surface ships at sea, fuel consumption can go up rapidly for small increases in speed. Drag really goes up the faster you go. The advantage of speed can be offset by the need to take on fuel sooner. Plus weather is much more of a factor. Star Trek has had “ion storms” and other such parallels to weather, but in an average episode, Kirk never asked for the space weather report before deciding on any speed.
Airplanes are designed to be optimized for the speed and altitudes they spend most of their time in. It’s the reverse of ships - flying slower increases fuel consumption. Jet engines have a very small rpm range where they like to be, and outside of that window specific fuel consumption goes up rapidly. (that was always the problem with turbine powered trucks or cars - airplanes can run at a set speed indefinitely, but cars speed up and slow down constantly.)
Submarines might be the closest analogy. The medium they go through is fairly uniform, and they don’t need refueling. A sub could pick a speed that works for them (whatever it is) and probably go all the way around the world at that speed. Since the navy refused to select me for the sub program, I don’t know the answer, though.
The “gears” analogy given above is a good compromise fanwank. Warp 6 isn’t “XX times the speed of light” but “XX Cochranes of space-bending force”. In flat space between stars maybe it is 300 C, but near a large gravitation source is could be 600 C, or 200C (depending on how it works). So maybe where you are going affects the actual speed. That could be how it takes 300 years to go 2.5 Mly (3600C) in By Any other Name, but takes only 11.337 hours to go 1000 ly (excuse me, 990.7 ly) (765,000 (!) C) in That Which Survives.
FWIW, other franchises seem to have a set fixed FTL speed. Star Wars hyperdrive seems to be one speed (or at least they never talk about it), same as Niven’s Known Space, which has only 2 speeds and the fast one is very expensive.
On the other hand, they are routinely asked to “plot/chart a course” and displayed maps of routes often show circuitous paths being taken. This implies that “space navigation” is often more complicated than “point at the thing you want to go to and hit the throttle” in some unspecified way.
At sub-light,the impulse engine (thermonuclear thruster) must be co-linear (in a straight line behind) the ship’s center of gravity.
To make a warp field propulsive, the field must be a-symmetric (this is canon Treknology).
Since the dual impulse engines are mounted on the warp nacelles, they are flat at sublight and vectored up during warp.
This. And various attempts to adequately describe the “warp factor” effect on speed are doomed to failure because the writers used whatever they wanted to at any given point in time to accomplish the plot (much as communications were at the speed of plot). Since you cannot actually explain how warp factors work (and remain completely consistent with the dialogue of the various shows), there’s little point in trying to have a serious discussion about them.
I have always assumed that: 1) higher warp speeds place stress on the warp engines. This is supported by numerous examples throughout the various series. 2) higher warp speeds probably chew up the required “fuel” at a less efficient rate. There is, to my knowledge, no evidence one way or the other here. 3) higher warp speeds are dangerous to the ship, depending on where in the galaxy the ship is traveling. This is easy to understand in the sense that, while the Star Trek episodes and films aren’t always consistent on what warp travel is like, it IS pretty clear that it does NOT take you out of “normal” space completely (unlike, for example, David Weber’s Honorverse).
I think it would have been nice if, back in 1966, Gene and everyone had sat down before they had gone too far and actually put down in writing the parameters of many of these things, and then required the episode writers to adhere to them, for the sake of consistency. But, oh well.
I laugh, because he did. The first part. It was the second that they had trouble with.
Oh and his speed x c=warp factor cubed was way too slow. So I guess he failed the first part, too. 
Cite? It’s my understanding they’re at the rear of the saucer section.
I find it interesting that in “The Corbomite Maneuver,” Kirk orders Sulu to add impulse power to their warp speed when they’re fighting Balok’s tractor beam. How the hell would impulse engines work inside a warp field?!?
The clearest evidence of this is “Tomorrow Is Yesterday,” where the gravitational field of a black dwarf throws the *Enterprise *back in time.
According to this, for the Intrepid class (of which Voyager is one) Enola Straight’s placement is correct.
[QUOTE=Memory-Alpha]
The main impulse engines on an Intrepid-class starship were located on the aft end of the pylons leading to the warp nacelles. Intrepid-class starships were also equipped with auxiliary impulse reactors. (VOY: “Phage”)
[/QUOTE]
They were on the rear of the saucer section for the Galaxy class, with a separate one on the spine of the secondary hull.
[QUOTE=Enola Straight]
To make a warp field propulsive, the field must be a-symmetric (this is canon Treknology).
Since the dual impulse engines are mounted on the warp nacelles, they are flat at sublight and vectored up during warp.
[/QUOTE]
If true, that only brings of the question of why the impulse engines are mounted on the pylons at all? If the impulse engines are only used on one position, and the warp drive is only used in the other position, why not just have separate mountings that fix each in their appropriate position?
[Kyle Reese]I didn’t BUILD the !@%&T@#%^ thing![/Kyle Reese]
Aha. I thought we were still talking about Constitution-class vessels.