Build:Transporter Systems
8.17 Transporter Systems
Instead of using shuttles and other small craft to travel to and from their ships, Starfleet personnel can take advantage of one of the most miraculous of the Federation’s technological achievements: the transporter. Beginning in 2186, Grahd of Tellar led a team of scientists - including Wu Hsan of Earth and T’pratha of Vulcan – in inventing this wondrous device. Prior to Grahd’s general improvements to shipbased transporters in 2211, such units were much more unreliable. (Add +2 to the Difficulty of any Tests involving them. If a Test fails, a disaster may occur; Dramatic Failure always indicates a horrible death for the person(s) being transported.)
Transporters dematerialize a subject or object, transforming it from matter into energy, use a narrow-focus subspace carrier wave to transport the energy to a designated location, then transform the energy back into the matter which was dematerialized. Thus, a person can transport carrying his equipment without worrying about having a phaser’s atoms mixed in with his, or his hair coming out blonde instead of black, or his tricorder failing to work.
Whenever any person or object is transported, the carrier wave includes a transporter ID trace—a computer record of the entire transport process. In the event of an accident, personnel can review the trace to try to find out what happened and, if possible, correct the situation.
The transport process takes about five seconds (1 full round) when using Federation equipment; other species’ transporters may work a little slower or faster. Problems such as interference or equipment malfunction may slow the process considerably, or pose a risk to the subject. Operating a transporter is often a delicate and complex task, and even the lightest interference can render transport dangerous. Problems can easily result in “losing” a person’s pattern forever or an improper materialization (almost always fatal), or sometimes in even more bizarre fates—individuals duplicated or divided into two separate beings, two persons melded into one, or temporal or dimensional rifts (which cause the subject to end up in a different time or dimension than he transported from), just to name a few horrific examples. Fortunately, such accidents are extraordinarily rare—multiple redundancies and safety procedures ensure that the vast majority of transports are absolutely safe, routine, and uneventful.
A transporter will not work through a shield or through a cloak. However, there are sometimes ways to avoid these restrictions.
There are three types of transporters. The first, the personnel transporter, is primarily designed to transport humanoids and has a range of up to 40,000 kilometers. The second, the emergency transporter, is used to beam personnel away from the ship in evacuation situations; it cannot beam people into the ship, and only has a 15,000 kilometer range. Both of these transporters can also be used to transport objects, provided they fit on the transporter pads.
The third is the cargo transporter, which is mainly used for cargo and other bulky objects; it also has a range of up to 40,000 kilometers. Cargo transporters only work at the molecular level, and so cannot safely transport living beings (they would die). A character can make a Moderate (6) Systems Engineering (Transporter/Replication Systems) Test to reconfigure a cargo transporter for quantum-level operation (sufficient to safely transport living beings); a converted cargo transporter can transport one humanoid person per 400 kg of cargo capacity.
8.17.1 Standard Transporter Systems
Cost: Varies
Available: 2186
Standard transporters have six primary components:
Ship’s personnel use the control station to monitor and control the operation of the transporter. Ordinary uses require no Tests and are very routine, but in case of problems only one of Starfleet’s highly-trained transporter officers can ensure the safety of the transported person.
The transporter pad’s molecular imaging scanners analyze the subject down to a quantum (subatomic) level. Other scanners on the ship’s hull locate the destination for off-ship transports, or persons who are beaming up to the ship (for the latter, they can, by themselves or in conjunction with other sensors, lock on to a combadge signal, life signs, communication signal, or the like).
The energizing and transition coils dematerialize the subject, then materialize him at the destination. The energizing coils generate an Annular Confinement Beam (ACB), which creates a spatial matrix within which dematerialization takes place. An additional field holds the subject within the ACB, since disruption of the ACB field during dematerialization can create a massive energy discharge (which can kill the subject and sometimes bystanders). A transporter operator can boost or reconfigure the ACB in an attempt to overcome interference or other problems.
The subject’s energy pattern is held by the pattern buffer, a magnetic holding tank, before transport begins (all transporters have multiple buffers for safety reasons). This allows the Doppler compensators to adjust for the relative motion between the ship and the destination. A pattern buffer can safely store a pattern for as long as seven minutes; beyond that, or if all pattern buffers experience a minor failure, the subject may begin to suffer from transporter psychosis, a treatable mental disorder which causes hallucinations and delusions (it usually takes several hours to manifest). A highly skilled engineer can preserve a matter stream for a long time by shuttling it from one pattern buffer to another (Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott of the original USS Enterprise kept himself alive for an astonishing 75 years with this trick until the crew of the USS Enterprise-D rescued him). (This requires a Nearly Impossible (15) Systems Engineering (Transporter/Replication Systems) Test; failure indicates pattern degradation, which kills the character.)
The transporter biofilters scan every transported matter stream for the presence of known harmful bacterial and viral agents (and some contraband items). If it finds any, the transporter automatically edits them out of the subject’s matter stream. Similarly, most transporters automatically prevent the transport of dangerous items, such as bombs. (Personnel can use various protocols, to transport persons onto a ship without their weapons or other accouterments if desired.) TOS-era transporters do not have the full-spectrum biofilters present in 24th century models, making it much more likely that a crewmember can bring an alien virus or bacteria onboard and infect the whole ship. If infection or contamination are suspected, personnel beaming onto the ship undergo thorough decontamination procedures roughly as effective as a 24th century biofilter, though the routine can take up to several minutes.
The emitter and receiver arrays on the ship’s hull transmit and receive matter streams to and from the ship to the destination. (The presence or absence of a transporter pad at the destination or beam-up point does not affect the range of any type of transporter. However, it does make transporting safer and easier; when a person or object is transported from one pad to another, any Shipboard Systems (Transporter) Tests receive a +1 bonus to the Test Result.)
TOS-era ships may not buy specialized or variant transporter systems. However, some other civilizations may use them; for example, the transporter beam which sent Gary 7 to Earth originated an astounding one thousand light-years away! Use the systems in Spacedock for more advanced transporters if necessary.
Buying Transporters:
The accompanying table lists the SU costs of transporter components. You must buy three different components to create a transporter. First, buy the transporter pads. The SU cost listed represents one pad (so, to build a six-pad personnel transporter, you’d have to buy six personnel pads at a total cost of 3 SUs).
Second, buy the emitter/receiver array. It determines the range of the transporter.
Third, buy the energizing/transition coils. They determine the transporter’s “strength” and efficiency (its ability to overcome interference and the like).
Thus, to buy an eight-person personnel transporter with a range of 40,000 kilometers and Class H energizing/transition coils costs 18 SUs.
(Cardassian: Cardassian transporters suffer from some technological restrictions that Starfleet models do not. First, they have a maximum buffer storage time of four minutes, slightly more than half that of a Starfleet transporter. Second, their biofilters screen out only about half the substances that a Starfleet model would.)
(Klingon: The Klingons use transporter technology which allows them to more easily convert their cargo transporters into quantum-level personnel transporters, primarily so they can beam as many troops onto the battlefield as quickly as possible. This allows the cargo transporter to safely transport one person per 200 kg of capacity.
(The Klingons do not have access to advanced and alternate forms of transporter technology.)