OT: Revised Edition Star Trek

[Suicide Junkie]

Using the energy they generate efficiently is always a good goal.
And the less they generate from fuel stores, the less they have to store in their hull.

However, entropy prevents you from recycling energy.

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You can easily have different detection methods for romulans or klingons.
The design decision of how to get rid of the heat generated on your ship would turn out differently for both. Internal politics, probably at the forefront.
"Design X was chosen because the company which designed it was located it the home province of the current governor", for example.

[Wolfman77]

They use a warp core to travel FTL, powered by matter-antimatter reaction using dilithium to regulate it. They have artificial gravity, and energy shields. Makes entropy less of a "this won't work" problem, in relation to the rest of it. I do know what you mean though.

[Suicide Junkie]

If they were able to reverse entropy on a closed system like a cloaked ship, they'd have no need for fuel at all...

Also, I don't see any evidence that the "warp core" does anything out of the ordinary...
It just generates gobs of energy via simple matter/antimatter annihilation (with a technobabble reaction mediator).

As far as I can tell, the nacelles do all the FTL work.
The "fact" that the impulse drive and even the computer core use the same type of TB field when running off of simple fusion or emergency battery power is also telling.

[Atrocities]

Stop Picking On Star Trek! Ours is not to question why, it is simply to stare blankly and watch and to think not!

[NullAshton]

What is a TB field? That last sentence that Suicide Junkie said, I did not understand that. What do you mean telling?

The nacelles are powered by the energy from the matter/antimatter reaction system, using the high-energy plasma flow to create the warp field.

And yes, they have to worry about enthropy. Only about a third of power that goes into the warp nacelles actually moves the ship.

[Suicide Junkie]

TB = Technobabble.

And one of the nifty side effects is that you don't absolutely need an antimatter reactor. It is by far the most compact and powerful energy source, of course, but not absolutely critical for limping home.

[NullAshton]

Impulse drive uses the fusion engine like a regular fusion drive... This would be the exhaust, probally. Hmmm. Computer core operates faster than light, using some form of warp field I think.

[Suicide Junkie]

The impulse drive supposedly generates fractional warp fields in order to allow the ship to zoom around without time dilation effects and huge thrust plumes during those 1000g accelerations to significant fractions of c.

[NullAshton]

That's highly energy-inefficient. Why would they have those openings on the rear of the saucer section and battle section, then? They don't use warp fields near planets, because it's not always accurate. A little mistake, and bam, you run smack into a planet.