Type VIII Phasers Banks

These phasers are usually to be found mounted on older starships, such as the Constitution, Excelsior, and Miranda classes. It only provides a marginal improvement over the type-VII, and is left quite a way behind the type-IX. Progressive refitting of Bravo Fleet vessels with type-IX is now occurring where power supply permits.

Ship Borne Phasers

Type IX Phaser Array

Type-IX phasers are carried aboard Ambassador-class, upgraded Intrepid-class and similar starships. They are a big step above the type-VIII, and are currently used on starships with a limited power supply -- either due to age or high velocity capability. Some starships with type-IX phasers (for example the USS Ark Royal) have been upgraded to type-X capability -- this has resulted in improved power per emission, but has decreased the rate of firing in a trade off for the power.

Ship Borne Phasers

Type X Linear Array

Individual emitter segments are capable of directing 5.1 Megawatts.  By comparison, the small personal hand Phasers issued to Starfleet crewmembers are Type I and II (One and Two), the latter being limited to 0.01MW.  Certain large Planetary defense emitters are designated as Type X+, as their exact energy output remains classified.

In cross-section, the Phaser array takes on a thickened Y shape, capped with a trapezoidal mass of the actual emitter crystal and Phaser-transparent hull antierosion coatings.  The base of an array segment sits within a structural honeycomb channel of Duranium 235 and supplied with supersonic regenerative LN2 cooling.  The complete channel is thermally isolated by a high number of link struts to the vehicle framework.

The first stage of the array segments is the EPS submaster flow regulator, the principal mechanism controlling Phaser power levels for firing.  The flow regulator leads to the Plasma distribution manifold PDM, which branches into two hundred supply conduits to an equal numbers of prefire chambers.  The final stage of the system is the Phaser emitter crystal.

Ship Borne Phasers

Type XI Linear Array

The type-XI phaser was developed as a rapid-fire version of the type-XII phaser before the introduction of the type-U pulse phasers. As a result of this faster rate of firing, it does not have the individual bursts power of the type-XII, but the weaker power is balanced out by the firing rate.

With the advent of the type-XII, it has largely fallen out of use, except with lightly-armed frigate-type vessels with one exception, the Kelvin

Ship Borne Phasers

Type XII Linear Array

Previously designated as the 'Type 10+' for security reasons, the Type 12 phaser has been used in dedicated planetary defense arrays and as the main armament of heavy fortified starbases since 2263. It was considered that the Type 12 was unsuitable for use on a starship platform because the energy requirements of the array where too high and the supporting hardware too bulky. However, by 2268 the power plant of the Galaxy class dreadnought and Sovereign class had grown large enough to support Type 12 arrays in place of the planned Type 10 models; technical improvements had also allowed for considerable shrinkage in the size of the equipment. The main phaser armament of the new Sovereign class starship, Galaxy class Dreadnought, and Prometheus class therefore comprises Type 12 phaser arrays. These are the most powerful phaser weapons currently in use by the Federation.

Ship Borne Phasers

Type XV Linear Array

The newest armament currently used in the Federation, the Type-XV array was designed for the Galaxy Class Dreadnought, this array is also employed on the Raptor Class as well as starbases and ground-based installations. Type-XV's are as powerful as type-XII, but have a more rapid rate of fire,each strip can lock onto and fire up to a maximum of ten beams at ten different targets. Similar to the type-XI, it is a rapid-fire version of the type-XII array.

Ship Borne Phasers

Type XX Fixed Focus bank cannon

Also known as the "Borg-buster" cannon, this can be found on Galaxy-class Dreadnought, Nebula-class Dreadnaughts, Carrier, Europa, and Backman classes of ship. This weapon is slightly more then four times as powerful as a type-XII phaser shot, yet it has a slightly shorter range. The weapon is also an immense drain on the warp cores of the ships on which it is carried. Thus, power for firing is automatically transferred from the secondary fusion reactors when the ship is joined, and is limited to a ten-shot reserve when the ship is separated. An additional requirement is a Trelinium warp core, which creates higher temperature and thus more powerful reactions. However, the core is much more complex to run and this has led to a need for Starfleet's most experienced Engineers to be stationed on these vessels. Furthermore, the power consumption reportedly causes minor fluctuations in the crystal matrix, and therefore extended use will lead to fractures, as seen on the USS Europa during space trials. As a result, Starfleet recommends replacing the Trelinium crystals twice as often as their dilithium counterparts. Good thing Trelinium is replicable. This weapon can be fired as a beam or pulse.

Ship Borne Phasers

Type U Pulse Cannon

It has long been recognized that the initial impact of a phaser strike on a shield system is the most damaging part of the firing sequence.  Many cultures have sought to increase weapon effectiveness against shields by developing pulse cannons - that is, weapons which fire large numbers of tightly packaged bursts rather than a continuous stream.  Early Federation vessels such as the Constitution class where equipped with such pulse cannon, but the weapon is not without its drawbacks; the hardware involved tends to be very difficult to manage precisely, resulting in much poorer control over the beam characteristics.  The Federation's starship design ethic has always stressed that full control must be maintained over all weapons at all times, in order to allow non lethal force to be used in starship combat situations; in addition, many scientific experiments use weapon systems to apply energy in controlled amounts to external phenomena in order to study reactions.  Given this, the Federation gradually moved away from pulse cannon.  The refit given to the Constitution class vessels removed the pulse firing feature from that class, equipping them with a 'rapid burst mode' which was something of a compromise between pulse and continuous phaser beams.  Further designs continued to de-emphasize the pulse firing feature, although all basic phaser hardware is capable of firing relatively short bursts and this has remained a feature of Federation combat tactics.

With the development of the USS Defiant, the pulse phaser cannon was finally reintroduced to Starfleet.  Defiant is a warship, pure and simple; her designers had no real interest in conducting experiments, and the attitude towards the level of lethality of her armament could perhaps best be summed up by the phrase 'take no prisoners!' Defiant's main armament comprises four heavy pulse cannon which fire very tightly confined bursts of phaser energy for maximum impact on shielding systems.  High overall energy delivered over a very short period combined with a high firing rate to produce a performance against modern shield systems which can best be described as devastating.

On her first active mission the Defiant faced a group of Dominion Attack Ships; these vessels had successfully withstood several minutes of fire, fighting with a Galaxy class starship, but Defiant's phaser cannon cut through their shields within moments.  Subsequent combat experience has shown the value of this weapons system, which has also been developed for use in other vessels.

The development of the Pulse Phaser Cannon applies a number of lessons learned at the Starfleet Tokyo R&D facility, where large, nearly flawless emitter crystals had been grown in ground-based microgravity chambers.  The new crystals, combined with with rapid-discharge EPS capacitance banks and high-speed beam-focussing coils, allowed the Phaser discharge to be stored temporarily (up to 2.3 nanoseconds) within the coils and then released as a layered pulse.  The emerging pulse is structured something like an onion and is able to land a target contact that is more difficult to disperse than a standard Phaser beam.