I saw this rant/complaint over on Reddit, and it got me thinking a bit.
We know that at least on paper, Federation starships are insanely fast and agile. Data has stated that the Galaxy-class Enterprise was able to achieve Warp 9 from , and some ships, like the Nebula class, don’t seem to use impulse engines at all, favouring the warp engine for sublight speed usage at all.
Despite that, we also know that impulse engines aren’t simple thrusters, and are able to move the ship in a way not directly in line with the output thrust (Relics), and from the same episode, we also know that smaller ships, like the Jenolan, will still run rings around ships like the Enterprise, even though it is nearly a full century out of date.
However, from what the show itself portrays, the ships tend to be fairly slow and sluggish when in combat, sedately drifting along the battlefield, while weapons fire goes every which way. The most recent and active thing we’ve seen a big starship do is maybe the fighter run in Picard.
In my opinion, by trying to keep to the slow and seemingly logical expectations for starships to be slow, hulking metal structures that slowly fly around shooting each other, Star Trek ends up underselling what Federation starships are able to do. They would be more realistically portrayed flitting about the battlefield like dragonflies, instead of being like “real boats” today, that have more of a sense of mass.
It seems wildly unintuitive, but it would also help show Federation propulsion technology being more advanced than what they are now. Starships can instantly stop and reverse course, or move in ways that would be impossible with modern technology, and the show not showing ships capable of doing just that might be to its detriment.
Zipping around the battlefield has virtually no tactical advantage. Can you dodge phaser fire that travels at the speed of light, or photon torpedoes, which are faster than that?
I would argue that although the sub light maneuverability of federation starships is very high, the maneuverability of 24th century weapons is faster relative to those ships, than modern weapons are compared to modern vehicles.
Let’s not waste energy moving that could be diverted to shields and phasers.
undefined> Zipping around the battlefield has virtually no tactical advantage.
This is really the correct answer. If you aren’t moving at warp, you might as well not be moving for all the good it will do you. If you are moving at warp you’re moving in a straight line so quickly that unless the other ship is following you at warp, it doesn’t really matter.