www.ditl.org

A lot of it is vague... for instance does "manufactured" mean "replicated in parts and assembled"? Is all the ore they mine so that they have the right materials to use as replicator bulk matter, as implied by the TNG TM?

I don't claim that replication is the only way anybody makes anything, or without limits. But it could certainly be a big factor in revolutionising how things are built.

GrahamKennedy wrote: I don't claim that replication is the only way anybody makes anything, or without limits. But it could certainly be a big factor in revolutionising how things are built.

Well the biggest advantage is that you don't need to standardize so many things on a basic level, since the replicator doesn't care what shape and size your basic screw has.

Scaling things is probably also easily done, building shuttle exactly 1,5 times as big as the previous one, why not, just replicate all parts 1,5x bigger (very crude example I admit).

So the biggest advantage is probably that your designers are completely free of any standardization requirements we now have just because it would be way to expensive and complicated to set up a new production line just because you want to make a car 10cm broader or use a different screw.

Apart from that, the question is only what can and what cannot be replicated. What we see of federation shipbuilding leads me to believe that there are certain things you cannot really replicate, mostly complex materials and alloys. Considering voyager, hull plating is probably not a problem, however the DS9 manual mentions for example, that ablative armor isn't really new, but prohibitively expensive to manufacture and therefore only considered for small production runs. (noncanon though).

Considering the whole replicator technology it does seem strange though that they have relatively long ship-building periods, at least the basic hull and skeleton without any machinery should be ready at the push of a button, considering enough resources are supplied to the process.

Energy demands have to be considered though. Again, we don't know what the energy usage of a replicator is, but I would imagine it would take a hell of lot more energy to replicate several thousand tons of ship skeleton and hull plates than it does to make a cup of Earl Gray, hot.

Back in the old days it used to be a widely accepted in Trekdom that warp coils were exceptionally difficult to make and couldn't be replicated. Rick Sternbach had it that they not only couldn't be replicated but the conventional method of manufacture involved a core with many, many layers of different materials laminated onto it one at a time, each one baked into place and then cooled extremely gradually to allow a different crystal structures to form in the material, before the next layer was added. IIRC he mooted that the production of good quality warp coils was by far the biggest bottleneck in starship production for pretty much any species.

Not at all canon, but these kinds of limits were dreamed up to explain to fans why Starfleet couldn't do stuff like have a gigantic replicator that spat out a complete GCS every couple of minutes!

However they could theoretically have one that made the frame and just install things like the computer and the engines manually afterwards.

GrahamKennedy wrote:A lot of it is vague... for instance does "manufactured" mean "replicated in parts and assembled"? Is all the ore they mine so that they have the right materials to use as replicator bulk matter, as implied by the TNG TM?

I don't claim that replication is the only way anybody makes anything, or without limits. But it could certainly be a big factor in revolutionising how things are built.

DS9 had trading ships stop by. It was cheaper (in terms of resources and/or energy and/or skill required, aka money) for someone to get a part that was made in another system and carried via warp freighter, than to go to the DS9 personnel and request that it be replicated.

Replicating allows a single location to make custom parts easily. The problem is they will have errors, and complex items (such as vaccines) cannot be made with a replicator. So I'd se a replicator being used to make a part, but it will have shorter endurance (or lower stress limits) than a properly manufactured part. Translation - use it as an emergency patch, and either make a better one in the ship's machine shop or get back to a starbase which can make the proper part or has it in storage.

Atekimogus wrote:Well the biggest advantage is that you don't need to standardize so many things on a basic level, since the replicator doesn't care what shape and size your basic screw has.

Scaling things is probably also easily done, building shuttle exactly 1,5 times as big as the previous one, why not, just replicate all parts 1,5x bigger (very crude example I admit).

So the biggest advantage is probably that your designers are completely free of any standardization requirements we now have just because it would be way to expensive and complicated to set up a new production line just because you want to make a car 10cm broader or use a different screw.

Short answer - things don't scale up easily.

Long answer: multiplying by a number is only good in simple mathematics. When you get into engineering, architecture, chemical reactions that have cube-square issues, you will have problems.

I.e. Take a shuttle design and double the length, width, and height. This is a simple multiplier to the overall dimensions that seems easy, but then you get into fun. The shuttle will be 8 times larger (three dimensions doubled), but the structural elements will only be 4 times stronger (strength is based on cross section area). So the shuttle's structure is only half as strong as before. You either need to redo the structural members (leading to other things that have to be redone) or accept half the strength.

Heat dissipation, power distribution, redoing the shuttle so it has two decks instead of one, are other issues that will happen.

If you use purely replicated items, then it won't be as much of a problem. But dealing with the replicator's limits means lower quality products.

alexmann wrote:However they could theoretically have one that made the frame and just install things like the computer and the engines manually afterwards.

We do know they can replicate complex working machines - functioning weapons, computer systems, that kind of thing. So it should certainly be possible to replicate chunks of a ship that you bolt together. The only real question is, how big a chunk?

GrahamKennedy wrote:We do know they can replicate complex working machines - functioning weapons, computer systems, that kind of thing.

When? The only example I can think of is the disruptor the Cardassian COIN programme produced, and that might simply have been beamed in from somewhere.

By todays standards? Very big.
Relative to one of those ships? Probably not that big.

Captain Seafort wrote:

GrahamKennedy wrote:We do know they can replicate complex working machines - functioning weapons, computer systems, that kind of thing.

When? The only example I can think of is the disruptor the Cardassian COIN programme produced, and that might simply have been beamed in from somewhere.

Don't remember the episode, but in Voyager they had to configure the replicator so it could not make weapons one at least one occasion.

Captain Seafort wrote:

GrahamKennedy wrote:We do know they can replicate complex working machines - functioning weapons, computer systems, that kind of thing.

When? The only example I can think of is the disruptor the Cardassian COIN programme produced, and that might simply have been beamed in from somewhere.

Well they replicated the whole projectile weapon which name eludes me at the moment for Ezri Dax (you know the one which would beam the bullet through walls).

Also, in the episode where there is a clone of O'Brien running around, Jake replicated some subspace-technobabble-thingy for a school project, so yes, they can make pretty niffty machines with replicators.

What says the TNG Tech manual about them? Well lets see....:

There are two main replicator systems onboard the Enterprise. These are food synthesizers and the hardware replicators.The food replicators are optimized for a finer degree of resolution because of the necessity of accuratly replicating the chemical composition of foodstuffs.................. A number of specially modified food replicator terminals are used in sickbay and in various sciencelabs for synthesis of certain Pharmaceuticals and other scientific supplies...................

Replication vs. Storage

The use of replicators dramatically reduces the requirement for carrying and storing both foodstuffs and spare parts. The limiting factor is the energy cost of molecular synthesis versus the cost of carrying an item onboard the ship.

It then goes on how it is mostly efficient with foodstuffs and other perishable items considering even moreso the recycling process, whereas common used spare parts are better stored as finished product instead of replicated.

Atekimogus wrote:

Captain Seafort wrote:

GrahamKennedy wrote:We do know they can replicate complex working machines - functioning weapons, computer systems, that kind of thing.

When? The only example I can think of is the disruptor the Cardassian COIN programme produced, and that might simply have been beamed in from somewhere.

Well they replicated the whole projectile weapon which name eludes me at the moment for Ezri Dax (you know the one which would beam the bullet through walls).

It was the TR-116

alexmann wrote:...
It was the TR-116

Don't say that name!!!!!!



Oh sorry... you don't know the joke...

stitch626 wrote:

alexmann wrote:...
It was the TR-116

Don't say that name!!!!!!



Oh sorry... you don't know the joke...

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!?

Captain Seafort wrote:When? The only example I can think of is the disruptor the Cardassian COIN programme produced, and that might simply have been beamed in from somewhere.

Beamed into an actual replicator? Seriously?

As for the computer, in The Next Phase the disabled Romulan ship asked for one and Riker said Worf should replicate one for them.