Why Are Phaser Strips This Way?

The converging energy before the strip fired is a an under-appreciated effect.

Phaser strips were a genius invention, both in Universe and as a concept for whichever writer or VFX artist came up with them.

A weapon that can cover an enormous arc around the vessel, fire in multiple directions at once, and distribute heat loading to increase operational life is an ingenious weapon. And that's before you get into other neat tricks of phasers, such as rapid frequency changing or enormously variable yield.

The colour is based on frequency. In Best of Both Worlds, when Data starts rotating the Enterprise phaser frequencies the beam also changes colour.

I always liked the Phaser Strips of Next Generation Star Trek most, I believe. Especially the "buildup sequence" shortly before it fires. Always seemed to be the smarter weapon.

I suspect Andrew Probert and the design team had an understanding, conscious or otherwise, that technology trends towards fewer moving parts. So when it came to weapons, they took the phaser to its logical conclusion - a weapon with no moving parts at all. It's a really cool idea especially at the time, and an example of how early TNG design was futuristic in the purest sense that it really tried to explore how things were going. I think if they continued with that trend past TNG era, we might have seen something like phaser hull plating, or multipurpose emitters that work as phasers and sensors or deflectors.

What I love the idea of the phaser strips because it sets federation ships apart from other ships in the setting, but also from nearly all other ships in media. A beautiful design choice

I’ve always thought it was cool how they could have one huge beam or ten smaller ones. Also that shot with the phaser beams searching in the nebula is one of the few redeeming qualities of Nemesis.

The adaptability of phasers is closely aligned with the Federation doctrine of non-lethal combat when possible.

I saw a theory once that suggested the reason why phasers were orange then changed to blue then back to orange was because Starfleet struggled to meet demand during the Romulan War so the Andorians supplied weaponry to new ships and their tech just hung around in Starfleet ships until the TOS era

Anecdotal note: Star Trek Online used the same engine as Champions online, and Cryptic forgot to disable power customization initially. So with a console/text commands you could change the phaser colour to whatever you wanted. Hot pink neon phasers were sexy.

One thing I miss from earlier phasers was actually seeing their wider utility. From being able to stun enemy combatants from orbit to the "depth charge" bursts used against the Romulan Bird of Prey (would have been perfect to "paint" the Scimitar's position in Nemesis), it would help to sell phasers as being as multi-utility at the ship scale as at the personnel scale.

I always love how the phasers on the Enterprise D first form semi circles and then join together to fire a single beam. I always thought it was cool

The Galaxy class also has strips on the secondary hull. One along the underside arraigned horizontally, and two on the nacelle pylons. I think there are also some shorter ones on the flat bit between the pylons ventral and dorsal. For a exploration ship it was virtually bristling with them.

The phaser has to make money somehow.....

Phaser strips allowing multi directional fields of fire are excellent as ultimately they give 360 degree fields of fire. Meaning the ship isn't disadvantaged from any direction

I always thought that the phaser banks gave a good sense of power, the repeated volley of phaser energy coming out like a machine gun (kinda like the Defiant's phaser cannons), but there's just something satisfying about phaser strips, how the beam travels across the hull of the ship without having to change which set of banks is firing and just swinging around like a lightsaber to do damage. I'm torn either way :D

I always enjoyed the strip, quite a clever weapon

Actually the greatest advantage of the array is the distribution of heat loading. Whilst traditional ball phaser turrets could theoretically fire indefinitely as long as they have power there is a limit to The continuous fire that they can put out before thermal loading forces them to stop and cool off. A Galaxy class starship's phaser system theoretically has 45 minutes of continuous fire before the phasers overwhelm the liquid coolant loops and force the ship to ceasefire to offload heat.

The dual banks in ships would have been harder and more intense refits to change over , so built the ship from the ground up with the strip