Name:

Phaser

Rationale for Design:

To defend oneself from opposing forces while on away missions

Operates based on same design for ship's phaser

How the System Works:

The phaser is the standard Federation beam weapon system. This type of weapon came into common use c.2255, replacing the laser weapons then in service. Phaser is an acronym for PHASed Energy Rectification, a term which referred to the original process by which stored or supplied energy was converted to another form for release toward the target without any need for an intermediate energy transformation. Although this term is something of a holdover, it remains true in modern phaser systems. Phaser energy is released by the rapid nadion effect. Rapid nadions are short-lived subatomic particles which can liberate and transfer strong nuclear forces within a class of crystals called fushigi-no-umi.

Strengths:

Smaller phaser weapons are deployed in single emitters, also known as a 'phaser bank'. Larger and more modern weapons group many emitters into linear arrays. These use force coupling to allow the energy of one emitter to be transferred almost instantly to another - a process that can be repeated along arrays of almost limitless size. This confers many major advantages : it allows a large group of emitters to discharge their combined energy from any single emitter in the array. This allows longer sustained beams to be fired, and greatly reduces the recharge and cooling time since the energy is spread over many emitters. In addition, redundant feeds to small groups of emitters within the array increase the systems resistance to battle damage since destroying part of the array will not disable the remaining emitters. A long array can also bring the whole firepower of every emitter to bear within one single beam - a vessel equipped with many separate phaser banks must combine separate beams to accomplish this, something which the firing arcs of the weapons may not allow

Limitations:

Limited charge

Limited firing range