Transporters

There are three types of transporters. These are the normal crew transporters, cargo transporters and emergency evacuation transporters.

The differences between them are that the crew and emergency evacuation transporters work at the quantum level allowing the transportation of complex organisms, the cargo transporter works at the molecular level which prohibits transporting complex life forms but allows for the transport of objects of far greater mass. If required the cargo transporters can be altered to work at the quantum level, but with a much reduced payload capacity.

Because transportation requires massive amounts of energy, transporter units  contain battery banks that are charged up from normal ships systems so that if the power is cut the transportation is not effected. 

The emergency evacuation transporters can only beam out of the ship and have a much shorter range, however they usually maintain a much higher charge capacity and can therefore transport much larger quantities of people without being recharged.

The table below shows the differences between the transporters. 

The power usage of the transporter is calculated by kg per km transported.

So to transport 6 people (weighing a total of 500kg) 10,000km would take 500 * 10,000 MW = 5 TerraWatts per second. 

Transportation normally takes 5 seconds, so the transporter would have to have at least 25 TerraWatt seconds of charge in it before it attempted the transportation.

Because the emergency transporters can hold up to 200 TW/sec, if they were beaming to a location 5,000 km away they could transport 96 people over the space of approximately 160 seconds without needing to be recharged.

Each transport needs a target. This target can be identified as the people/items on the transporter pad (for beam out), a crew member (from their comm badge), items in the cargo bays or people/items detected by a resolution 5 short range scan (including smaller items floating in space).

Transports can also be given destinations, either for beam outs or for site to site transports. Destinations can be selected from within the ship (Sick Bay, Engineering etc.), from local ships that have their shields down, to scenario locations (on planets, starbases etc.).

The emergency beam out transporters only need to be given a destination, they will select crew members for evacuation based on age (youngest first).

Transport at warp speed can only occur if both ships are travelling at the same warp speed (to within 2 decimal places).

The biofilter will prevent dangerous pathogens from being transported up (the transport will still go ahead, only the pathogen will not be dematerialized).

In addition to the normal use of the transporters, there are other functions that they can perform. These are:
- Hold in pattern buffer: The transport can be stopped from dematerializing for up to 420 seconds. This might be enough time to get security to report to the transporter room if the subject being transported is a threat. Note: the ship must be able to maintain this constant power draw of 1MW per kg in the buffer or the subject will materialize automatically as a safety feature.
- Dispersal: Do not dematerialize the subject, but disperse the atoms. This might be used to defuse a bomb. This cannot be used on a living creature due to safety features.
- Override: Attempt to transport even if the transporter lock isn’t 100%. This would be used in an emergency. There is a chance that the transport will fail commensurate with the lock value. i.e. A transporter lock of 78% means that there is a 78% chance per individual being transported that it will work.

Upgrades

Research can be used to improve the speed of the transport and to increase the efficiency.

Dev Notes

Each transport takes 5 second. After 2.5 seconds, the subject is in the transport buffer (and safe if they are beaming into the starship and their origin point is destroyed). Each transporter requires 30 seconds of cool down time before it can transport again, with the exception of the emergency transporters which are designed to operate in quick succession. 

Without comm badges it will be difficult to differentiate between crew members using just the short range scanner. Therefore a targeted ship or structure would report back the number of people, their sex and race, but not anything else. This will work if you are looking for a Vulcan among a bunch of Ferengi.

The scanners will also be able to detect power sources (such as androids, bombs etc.).

 The system will calculate a transporter lock percentage. This lock percentage would normally be 100%, however it might be affected by natural phenomenon – for example if the away team is in a cavern deep underground. The transporter will not normally initiate a transport if it does not have a 100% lock (see “override” below).

Each transporter is made up of a number of different components. These are the Transport chamber (1 per person at quantum capacity), the pattern buffer (1 per 2 persons at quantum capacity) and the biofilter (one per transporter). Each of these needs to be operating above its minimum health for the whole transporter to operate. Because the transporter is such a complex device it constantly needs maintenance. The table below shows the rate of deterioration of each component in the transporter. Each time there is a reduction in health (through deterioration) the health of that component drops by 0.1%

Because of the lack of cool-down time, emergency transporters deteriorate at 1% on all systems every time they are used. This effectively means they can only be used 20 times before they need to be repaired.

These damage rates may seem drastic; however the transporter is one of the most complex systems on the ship. It requires constant maintenance to keep it running. On average, without maintenance the transporter would fail after 14 days. This is in keeping with the spirit of Star Trek, where it always seemed a bit hit or miss if the transporter would be working each week.