star trek warp chart

Warp factor

• View history

A warp field dynamics monitor displayed the warp factors of the warp 5 engine and their relative faster-than-light speed equivalents

The USS Enterprise at warp 1 in 2259

In the alternate reality, the main viewscreen of USS Enterprise depicted the sublight and faster-than-light speed of the ship in warp factors at a three decimal place accuracy

The USS Titan -A at Warp 9.99 in 2401.

Time-Warp factor , better known as warp factor , was the primary means of measuring speeds attained using warp drive . ( TOS : " The Cage ") The term was often shortened to warp when followed by its value, so that saying "warp six" was the same as saying "warp factor six." Light speed travel began at warp one, whereas lower fractional values sometimes measured sublight speeds or sublight factors . ( Star Trek: The Motion Picture ; Star Trek ; ENT : " First Flight " display graphic )

By the mid- 24th century , warp ten became infinite velocity and thus unattainable by conventional means. ( VOY : " Threshold ") Because of this, extremely high warp speeds mapped to decimal values between nine and ten, such as warp 9.975. ( TNG : " Encounter at Farpoint "; VOY : " Caretaker ") By the early 25th century , warp 9.99 became the max warp speed Starfleet vessels could achieve. ( PIC : " The Next Generation ")

Warp factor was one of the vocabulary words listed on the chart "A Tunnel in the Sky". This chart was seen in the schoolroom aboard Deep Space 9 in 2369 . ( DS9 : " In the Hands of the Prophets ")

• 1 Warp factor vs. average speed
• 2.1 23rd century
• 2.2 Infinite velocity
• 2.3 Alternate timelines
• 3.1 Related topics
• 3.2.1 Variations in relative speed
• 3.2.2 Star Trek: The Original Series
• 3.2.3 Star Trek: The Next Generation
• 3.2.4 Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
• 3.2.5 Star Trek: Voyager
• 3.2.6 Star Trek: Enterprise
• 3.2.7 Alternate reality
• 3.2.8 Apocrypha
• 3.3 External links

Warp factor vs. average speed [ ]

• ↑ Although Tom Paris clearly articulates the distance and time, it is unclear if he was engaging in hyperbole since these parameters indicate that, at warp factor 9.9 as specified, 75,000 light years can be traversed in less than 3.5 years.
• ↑ The Kelvans modified the USS Enterprise to travel at warp eleven through the galactic barrier . They did not clarify whether the same warp factor would have been used for intergalactic travel also.

Warp ten and above [ ]

23rd century [ ].

An Orion scout ship at warp 10

In the 23rd century , warp factors of 10 and higher were known as generally unsafe velocities. ( TOS : " Journey to Babel ") Speeds on the order of warp 15 were called multiwarp speeds. ( TOS : " The Changeling ")

• Warp factor 10 . In 2267 , the USS Enterprise engaged an Orion scout ship capable of warp 10, if not higher speeds, since crew safety was of no concern to them, prompting Spock to remark that it was " interesting. " The ship was too fast for the Enterprise to hit it with phasers or photon torpedoes . ( TOS : " Journey to Babel ") In 2268 , Bele , upon commandeering the engine and directional controls of the Enterprise , propelled the starship faster than warp 10 towards Cheron . ( TOS : " Let That Be Your Last Battlefield ")
• Warp factor 11 . In 2267, the Nomad probe improved efficiency in the antimatter input valve and energy release controls on the Enterprise , allowing the ship to achieve at least warp 11. When this happened, Montgomery Scott was in disbelief. Captain James T. Kirk ordered Nomad to reverse the modifications though, as the structure of the Enterprise was not designed to handle the stress of that much power output. ( TOS : " The Changeling ") In 2268, the Kelvans who commandeered the ship made similar modification. At that time the ship could maintain warp 11 without danger. ( TOS : " By Any Other Name ")
• Warp factor 14 . In 2268, the Enterprise achieved a speed of warp 14.1 when the engine of the ship was sabotaged to overload by a Kalandan planetary defense system . At that velocity the ship came within moments of destroying itself. ( TOS : " That Which Survives ")
• Warp factor 15 . In 2267, the Nomad probe was armed with a weapon system capable of firing energy bolts that traveled at the speed of warp 15. ( TOS : " The Changeling ")

Karla Five's vessel capable of warp 36

• Warp factor 22 . In 2270 , the Enterprise was accelerated to speeds in the excess of warp 22, while being linked to Karla Five's vessel with a tractor beam . ( TAS : " The Counter-Clock Incident ")
• Warp factor 36 . In 2270, the Enterprise encountered Karla Five's vessel, that was about to enter the Beta Niobe nova. At maximum speed, the ship was traveling at approximately warp 36. ( TAS : " The Counter-Clock Incident ")

Infinite velocity [ ]

USS Enterprise -D accelerated to incredible warp speeds by the Traveler

Shuttlecraft Cochrane accelerating to warp 10

In 24th century warp theory , warp factor 10 had been redesignated to correspond with infinite velocity. A vessel traveling at warp 10 occupied all points in the universe simultaneously. Warp 10 was also known as the transwarp threshold . ( VOY : " Threshold ") Warp 10 had also become a slang term referring to anything extremely fast. Kathryn Janeway made the observation in 2376 that rumors traveled fast on the USS Voyager . Chakotay agreed with Janeway, quipping at "warp 10." ( VOY : " The Voyager Conspiracy ")

• Warp factor 10- . In 2364 , the Traveler used the energy of his thoughts to move the USS Enterprise -D through space at a speed that registered on instruments as exceeding warp factor 10 and going off the warp scale. ( TNG : " Where No One Has Gone Before ")
• Warp factor 10 . Although considered a theoretical impossibility at the time, Tom Paris of the USS Voyager reached the warp 10 threshold in 2372 , using shuttlecraft Cochrane , which was equipped with a transwarp drive and an extraordinarily rare form of dilithium discovered earlier that year. After it was discovered that such travel induced hyper-evolution , this technology was discontinued after the initial test. ( VOY : " Threshold ")
• Warp factor 10+ . It was possible to travel backwards in time by surpassing warp 10. In 2365 , Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Commander William T. Riker speculated on what phenomenon could have thrown the El-Baz back through time. While Riker knew the shuttlepod didn't have warp drive , he still suggested the theory that it could have somehow accelerated beyond warp 10. Picard suggested this could have been achieved by a warp-powered slingshot using the gravitational pull of a star. ( TNG : " Time Squared ")

Alternate timelines [ ]

An alternative future Enterprise -D refitted for warp 13

In the original future , which was changed by Jean-Luc Picard, around the turning point of the 24th century , warp factor values beyond warp 10 were again used to describe extremely fast speeds. ( TNG : " All Good Things... ")

• Warp factor 13 . The Medical Spaceship Pasteur under Captain Beverly Crusher's command traveled at warp 13 in the incident concerning the anti-time eruption in the Devron system . ( TNG : " All Good Things... ")

Appendices [ ]

Related topics [ ].

• Bessel function
• Cochrane equation
• Cruising speed
• Emergency warp
• Maximum warp
• Slingshot effect
• Warp equation
• Time barrier
• Transwarp threshold
• Warp 2 barrier
• Warp theory

Background information [ ]

Variations in relative speed [ ].

Although formulas to calculate a relative speed from a warp factor have existed in the writer's guides, these were rarely used for reference in the episodes and films. To explain the apparent discontinuities of relative speed equivalents for warp factor speeds, reference sources have given several explanations:

• Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual (p. 55) states the actual speed values of a warp factor are dependent upon interstellar conditions, for example gas density, electric and magnetic fields in different regions of the galaxy, and fluctuations of the subspace domain. Also quantum drag forces and motive power oscillation cause energy penalties to a ship using warp drive.
• Star Trek Maps (p. 6) introduced a similar concept as the Cochrane factor, that influences the actual speed by multiplying it. It can be as high as a multiplication of 1,500 to the relative speed within the curvature of space caused by the interstellar dust and gas of a galaxy, and as little as 1 in the empty intergalactic void. In the vicinity of massive objects it is so high that disproportionately high speeds are created when approaching them, and they tend to result in the slingshot effect . Between the galaxies there is only the empty void, so the speed follows only the basic cubic formula. ( see below ) Within the interstellar medium of Federation space the average value for the Cochrane factor has been calculated to be 1292.7238. This value explains, for example, the ball park of the fast relative speed equivalent for warp factor 8.4 from TOS : " That Which Survives ": 8.4 3 × 1,292.7238 = 766,202.57 times the speed of light.

The slowing down effect of moving away from a source of gravity to the relative speed has been well established in canon. For example in Star Trek , the Enterprise is at maximum warp but is not moving in space at all, due to the gravity of a black hole behind it. Similarly, in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home , the HMS Bounty engages warp speed while in the atmosphere of Earth , and it takes over two minutes in the film for the ship to achieve and break out of Earth's orbit, but reaches the Sun's event horizon only a few minutes later. In TOS : " Elaan of Troyius ", a D7-class starship moving away from a star system at a speed better than warp 6 is moving slower than the speed of light. In some areas of space with unstable or disrupted subspace, it is impossible to use warp drive at all, as was established in such episodes as VOY : " Bride of Chaotica! " and " The Omega Directive ".

Many examples of more subtle variations exist. For example, in "By Any Other Name", the Kelvans modified the USS Enterprise to accelerate to a speed of warp 11 in order to safely cross the galactic barrier . If this was also meant to represent the velocity of travel to the Andromeda Galaxy , a travel time of three hundred years would indicate a far greater speed than can be derived from the basic cubic scale from the writer's guide. Warp 8.4 was stated to be much faster in "That Which Survives" than warp 9.9 in "The 37's". In TNG : " Allegiance ", warp 7 was stated to be about 55 times faster than warp factor 2, again confirming that fluctuations in the relative speeds exist that are not covered by the basic formula.

Star Trek: The Original Series [ ]

In his initial draft proposal, Star Trek is... (p. 9), Gene Roddenberry established the maximum velocity of the starship as ".73 of one light year per hour". This would translate to a top speed of 6394.8 c (approximately equivalent to TOS warp 18.56, or somewhere between warp 9.975 and 9.99 as given in the Star Trek: Voyager Technical Manual (p. 13)).

The original warp scale was described in the writer's guide, The Star Trek Guide , (third revision, p. 8) as a set of warp factors and multiples of light speed that can be obtained by raising a warp factor to the third power. [3] This information appeared in widespread print in The Making of Star Trek (1968, p. 191). The book also states a shift in relative time occurs while traveling at warp, an hour might equal to three hours experienced outside the ship. (p. 198) In 1975, the warp scale given a more technical gloss in Franz Joseph 's Star Fleet Technical Manual , now extended to include warp factors below 1. In 1977 Roddenberry again adopted the scale for the aborted Star Trek: Phase II series, but abandoned it for Star Trek: The Next Generation . It was not until the 2003 episode " First Flight " of Star Trek: Enterprise , that the warp factor scale made an official on screen debut. Warp factors from 1 to 5 were depicted with their corresponding relative speed values on a large computer graphic.

The scale used by Starfleet in the 22nd and 23rd century is based on a geometric progression, where the speed of a vessel (measured in multiples of c , the speed of light ) is equal to the cube of the given warp factor. The warp factor was calculated as follows:

• v being the speed of the signal or starship
• c being the speed of light (3.0 × 10 8 m/s) and
• wf being the resulting warp factor

Or, to calculate speed ( v ) in terms of c , the formula would be:

At warp 1, a starship would reach c ; at warp 6, it would reach 216 c . This is a much slower velocity than initially proposed by Roddenberry.

Using this scale:

Star Trek: The Next Generation [ ]

A document dated May 14, 1986 and attributed to Gene Roddenberry places warp 10 at the top of the scale: "Beyond that time-space continuity is disoperative." The corresponding velocity is given as "the speed of light multiplied by the speed of light ten times" , whereas warp 2 is now "the speed of light squared" , implying a general rule of the speed of light to the power of the warp factor. Aside from warp 1 mapping to the speed of light, it is unclear how this was to be applied in practice. There is, however, a clue in the statement that only 34% of the galaxy has been explored as opposed to 18% in TOS, suggesting improvements without major breakthroughs. [4]

The Writers'/Directors' Guide revision of March 23, 1987 confirms that warp 1 remains the speed of light and accepts warp 10 as " the physical limit of the universe – beyond that normal time-space relationships do not exist and a ship at that velocity may simply cease to exist . " As in the classic series, warp 6 is the highest cruising speed, though the stated equivalent of a light year per hour is more in keeping with .73 in the format of 1964 than the 41-hour light year by the cubed scale, or the 22 hours it would take to traverse the distance in the final revision. At this early version of warp 6, however, the Enterprise would need 308 years to travel the 2,700,000 light years it covered in TNG : " Where No One Has Gone Before ", consistent with Geordi La Forge's "over three hundred years" in the episode.

By the creation of Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual , the warp factor scale used by Starfleet in the 24th century was based on a recalibration of the scale used in the Original Series . Rather than a simple geometric progression based on relative speed, warp factors were established to be based upon the amount of power required to transition from one warp plateau to another. For example, the power to initially get to warp factor 1 was much more than the power required to maintain it; likewise warp 2, 3, 4, and so on. Those transitional power points rather than observed speed were then assigned the integer warp factors. These transitional points were established to apply to the original warp scale as well in the canonical warp chart presented in "First Flight".

According to an article in Star Trek: The Magazine  Volume 1, Issue 6 , p. 44 by André Bormanis , this scale change occurred in 2312 . A term was added to the above equation that caused the speed to rise slightly at lower warp factor, but to become infinite at warp 10. The ratio v / c at a given warp factor is equal to the corresponding cochrane value that describes the subspace distortion.

Gene Roddenberry stated that he wanted to avoid the ever-increasing warp factors used in the original series to force added tension to the story, and so imposed the limit of warp 10 as infinite speed.

For warp factors up to 9, the revised formula became:

Or, to calculate speed in terms of c (up to warp 9), the formula would be:

In this case, warp 1 is equivalent to c (as it was in the 23rd century scale), but above warp 9 the speed increases exponentially, approaching infinity as the warp factor approaches 10.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine [ ]

According to DS9 : " Emissary " and " Battle Lines ", the Bajoran Wormhole connected the Bajoran system to a region in the Gamma Quadrant 70,000 light years away. In "Battle Lines", Sisko stated that it would take Starfleet's fastest ship over sixty-seven years to cross the distance, suggesting the fastest ship in 2369 could travel at approximately 1,044 times the speed of light on a flight of that duration. The figure was further explained in the series bible, that it is more specifically a sixty-year journey at warp 9, [5] suggesting warp 9 would be about 1,167 times the speed of light.

In " The Sound of Her Voice ", the USS Defiant , traveling at warp 9, is three days away from a planet. Increasing speed to warp 9.5 took almost a full day away from the travel time. This indicates that warp 9.5 is almost 50% faster than warp 9.

Star Trek: Voyager [ ]

In Star Trek: Voyager Technical Manual (pp. 12 & 13) several other speed equivalents are established: Warp 9.6 is 1,909 times the speed of light. Warp 9.99 is 7,912 times the speed of light, which in turn is nearly three times the speed of warp 9.9. Subspace communication signals travel at warp 9.9999, a hundred times faster than warp 9.6, 199,516 times the speed of light.

In the pilot episode of the series, VOY : " Caretaker ", it is established that "at maximum speeds" it would take seventy-five years for Voyager to reach Earth, which was at that time approximated to be 75,000 light years away. This would mean that the maximum speeds of the Voyager were around approximately 933-1,000 times the speed of light. According to the Star Trek: Voyager Technical Manual , this calculation was meant to be based on an unrealistic non-stop direct journey at the speed of warp 9.6 (p. 14) or at warp 9.99 (p. 36). A realistic estimate, according to the manual, was that the journey would last somewhere between two and four hundred years when taking into account the required engine cooling time needed on such an extended journey.

According to Star Trek: Voyager Technical Manual (pp. 4 & 27), a sector (about twenty light years) took four days to cross at warp 9.6, five days at warp 9 and about nineteen days at warp 6. However, in VOY : " The Voyager Conspiracy ", the ship cuts three years off its journey by crossing thirty sectors, implying that they expected to travel more than a month (or approximately 36.5 days) to cross a sector.

In the episode VOY : " Flashback ", Captain Kathryn Janeway stated that the current Starfleet starships in 2373 were twice as fast to what the USS Enterprise -A and the USS Excelsior were in the 2290s . According to Star Trek: Voyager Technical Manual , (p. 13) the maximum rated speed of the ship was warp 9.975 or 3,053 times the speed of light. According to the Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology (p. 180) and Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise (p. 14), the maximum speed of ships like the Enterprise -A was warp 12 in the old scale, or 1,728 times the speed of light.

Star Trek: Enterprise [ ]

Officially and according to the large warp chart featured in " First Flight ", the warp drive of Enterprise NX-01 used the TOS scale. Speeds in ENT : " Broken Bow ", which were mentioned as traveling at 30,000,000 kilometers per second and going to "Neptune and back in six minutes", fit well into the ballpark of cubic warp factors between 4 and 5. In ENT : " Regeneration ", Trip Tucker states that warp 4.8 (approximately 111 times the speed of light in the TOS scale) is double the speed of warp 3.9 (approximately 59), which is also a close enough margin of error considering it is an offhand comment made without navigational implications.

In the episode ENT : " The Expanse ", a location was given to Jonathan Archer as to where to look for the Xindi inside the Delphic Expanse. The location was stated to be a three-month trip away from Earth at warp 5. In the next episode, ENT : " The Xindi ", when Enterprise had arrived to look for the Xindi in that region, it was said they were fifty light years away from Earth. This indicates warp 5 would equal to a speed of approximately two hundred times the speed of light. This would fall closer to the TNG scale figure for warp 5 instead of the TOS scale figure of 125 times the speed of light estimated in the canonical chart.

There are, however, instances in "Broken Bow" that do not appear to be compatible with any of the basic scales. Zefram Cochrane notes in his recorded speech that the warp five engine would allow a ship to travel a hundred times faster than what they could in 2119 . Warp 2 was later on established to be the maximum warp ships in the early 22nd century had achieved in ENT : " Horizon " and " First Flight ". Warp 5, however, was only sixteen or twenty-one times faster than warp 2 in the scales. The journey from Earth to Qo'noS in four days was another instance. In either scale, Enterprise wouldn't even reach the closest star to Earth in four days.

In ENT : " Fortunate Son ", it is stated that a warp three engine would allow a ship to travel ten times faster than warp factor 1.8. This doesn't work out in either of the basic formulas, unless we interpret the statement to indicate that a warp three engine would allow a speed of warp factor 3.9 in the TOS scale or 3.6 in the TNG scale. Warp factor 3 would be only around five times faster in either scale.

Alternate reality [ ]

The alternate USS Enterprise at warp in Star Trek

In the alternate reality seen in Star Trek , the USS Enterprise traveled from Earth to Vulcan at maximum warp. According to ENT : " Daedalus ", Vulcan is located slightly over sixteen light years away from Earth. According to background sources maximum warp of the ship was Warp factor 8. [6] Directly after the ship had accelerated to and attained maximum warp, Captain Christopher Pike ordered Pavel Chekov to give an announcement of the mission to the crew. At the end of the broadcast, Chekov stated that the ship would arrive within three minutes.

However, there was an unknown amount of time the ship spent accelerating to maximum velocity, so there is no accurate way to ascertain the total travel time of the Enterprise from Earth to Vulcan beyond the obvious implication that it was not an especially lengthy trip. By comparison to the prime reality, in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home , when the crew was returning to Earth from Vulcan on board the HMS Bounty , Sulu reported they would arrive in 1.6 hours.

In Star Trek Into Darkness , the Enterprise and the three-times-faster USS Vengeance were capable of traveling from the Sol system through the Neutral Zone to the edge of Klingon space and back in less than a day. Co-writer Roberto Orci acknowledged Montgomery Scott 's line about his time away from the Enterprise should have been something like "one week" rather than "one day". [7] As a comparison, in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country , the internal clock of the USS Enterprise -A read 08:27 as the ship left Spacedock One and 16:12 when it arrived to the edge of Klingon space to meet up with Kronos One , for a trip of a little under eight hours.

Apocrypha [ ]

In the 25th-century timeline of the video game Star Trek Online , the warp speed scale appears to have been re-calibrated yet again to allow for the spread of new technologies such as a transwarp conduit network and quantum slipstream drive systems. Warp factors higher than 10 appear in the game, but only when a ship is using a quantum slipstream drive or exotic equipment such as Borg-enhanced "Assimilated Subtranswarp Engines". Speeds higher than warp 10 are classified as "transwarp factors", with higher numbers equating to faster speed. Borg subtranswarp engines allow ships to travel at an average speed of "warp 15", while activating quantum slipstream gives a temporary speed boost of up to warp 35.

The relation between warp factor and speed is s(F) = (F/20) light-years per second, F being the warp factor.

External links [ ]

• Warp factor at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• Warp 10 at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• Warp Speed Anomalies at DITL
• 1 Daniels (Crewman)
• 3 Calypso (episode)

Warp Speeds Chart

Note: warp 10 is meaningless -- a starship traveling at warp 10 would occupy all points in the universe simultaneously.

Have you ever wondered how long it would really take the Enterprise to travel from Earth to Vulcan at warp 5? Or how far the Defiant could possibly get at warp 9 in just five days? What about figuring out how fast Voyager ’s maximum speed (Warp 9.975) is in multiples of the speed of light? The Warp Speed Calculator is designed to answer these questions. Simply input two of three variables (speed, distance, and time), and the form will calculate the third for you. It will even convert equivalent units, like years to days, light-years to parsecs, or warp factors to multiples of c . And you, too, can sound like a Treknology expert!

Personal page

Star Trek Warp Calculator

27 August 2017

Select warp scale: The Original Series (before 2312) The Next Gegeration (after 2312)

Description

For Star Trek: The Original Series, the warp equation is generally accepted to be (\(v\) — velocity through space, \(c\) — the speed of light (\(3·10^8\) m/s) and \(w\) — the warp factor):

For Star Trek: The Next Generation, the warp scale has changed. Gene Roddenberry stated that he wanted to avoid the ever-increasing warp factors used in the original series to force added tension to the story, and so imposed the limit of warp 10 as infinite speed.

Scale change occurred in 2312. Warp factors were established to be based upon the amount of power required to transition from one warp plateau to another. For example, the power to initially get to warp factor 1 was much more than the power required to maintain it; likewise warp 2, 3, 4, and so on. Those transitional power points rather than observed speed were then assigned the integer warp factors.

Star Trek : Warp (2380)

This page provides a chart with warp factor, speed, power requirements, etc.

In 2380, a team of Federation scientists and engineers (including Commander LaForge and Lieutenant Crusher) developed revolutionary new warp field configurations, calculations, and technology which have redefined Warp travel and necessitated a new warp scale.

Behind the Scenes

The new scale is a more standard exponential equation with no theoretical limit, each warp factor being several times faster than the previous factor.

The standard warp scale seen in TNG, DS9, and VOY for the purposes of travel in RPGs is rediculously slow when compared to the size of the Federation. The Federation at it's greatest diameter is between 8,000 ly and 10,000 ly. If we were to assume a crusing speed of warp 8, it would take a ship a little less than 8 years to traverse federation space.

In "All Good Things" we saw Federation ships using an alternative warp scale, so there is prescedent.

Using this new scale, a cruising warp factor of 8 would take a starship about two years to travers the federation. In addition to the warp factor and relative speed, I've included the power requirements for use with the Star Trek Adventures RPG. Speeds with a power requirement of 0 are considered cruising speeds, do not cost additional energy to sustain, and do not generate significant wear-and-tear on the warp engines. According to Memory Alpha the time a ship could maintain maximum warp varied from days to months ( Source ).

In the Star Trek Adventures RPG, have the crew/ship perform skill checks probably (Engines + Engineering). Each sucess "buys" a challenge die. (May need to take into account ship / crew talents to augment this roll). Roll challenge dice equal to the number of sucesses. The rolled challenge dice score is the number days the ship may maintain maximus warp. Each effect counts as a month.

• explore Travel Time Calculator Distance (Light Years) Warp Factor Travel Time: Power Requirement: Calculate
• border_all Table Engines Score Calculate

Warp Speed Chart

The use of warp speed is commonplace in the 24th century, and is the major form of travel within the Federation. This chart identifies the relationship between Warp speeds and 20th century standard units of speed. With the discovery and deployment of the Warp XV project across the fleet after Project Capstone , a new warp factor chart was introduced.

Below is a Chart linking Warp Factor to energy and speed.

• Flight Control Articles
• Additional Trek Technologies

Navigation menu

Not logged in

Techmemo:warp speed chart, page actions.

• View source

Home | Star Fleet Library | BuPers | SF Engineering | SF Intelligence | SF JAG | SF Marine Corps | SF Medical | SF Records | SF Sciences UFP Dept. of Colonial Affairs | UFP Educational, Scientific and Cultural Org.

Star Fleet Engineering Bureau of Starship and Starcraft Technology

Warp Speed Table

This table is based on the Star Trek:Voyager Technical Guide v1.0 which is copyrighted material of Paramount Pictures, Inc . Do not use for other than creative and non-commercial purposes unless you are under contract with them. Since the scale has not been altered since TNG it should still apply. I am providing this as is and without permission. If anyone has a problem with this, please contact me.

†Pi band of d-warp is well above anything that is survivable by an inhabited vehicle, but hyperwave pulse generators can now push a data stream through this band of hyperspace, allowing vastly improved communications times between bases separated by large distances. Because of the targeting needed, delays for starships using hyperwave radio are correspondingly longer since they need to transmit to a known fixed point and then allow that fixed point to transmit to another fixed point which can establish a link with another moving target. In practice, this means that vessels at distances of greater than 20 LY from each other can never have real-time conversations.

Note: "Full impulse" usually refers to an acceleration, not to a fixed speed. The term has been changed to "impulse cruise" above from the original text. The value can be used as a reference for quarter lightspeed which would be achieved after some time under impulse acceleration and with only minor relativistic effects (and those you'd find messy).

Second Note: This is technobabble. Do not use this in physics exams.

Third Note: Thanks to Michael Okuda and Rick Sternbach for figuring this out. Jari Makela for replacing miles with kilometers. Jeffrey Jenkins for expanding the chart to include more warp values and hyperspace values specific to ASR. Graham Kennedy for his Daystrom Institute Technical Library page where Henning Rogge's warp formula, which was used to make these calculations, was located.

• Star Fleet Engineering
• Star Fleet Engineering Technical Memoranda
• USS Yorktown
• SB Serenity
• Free Threads
• New Players
• Recent changes
• Random page
• Special pages

User page tools

• What links here
• Related changes
• Printable version
• Permanent link
• Page information

• This page was last edited on 6 April 2005, at 17:37.
• Privacy policy
• About StarFleet Bureau of Information
• Disclaimers
• Mobile view

Memory Beta, non-canon Star Trek Wiki

A friendly reminder regarding spoilers ! At present the expanded Trek universe is in a period of major upheaval with the continuations of Discovery and Prodigy , the advent of new eras in gaming with the Star Trek Adventures RPG , Star Trek: Infinite and Star Trek Online , as well as other post-57th Anniversary publications such as the ongoing IDW Star Trek comic and spin-off Star Trek: Defiant . Therefore, please be courteous to other users who may not be aware of current developments by using the {{ spoiler }}, {{ spoilers }} OR {{ majorspoiler }} tags when adding new information from sources less than six months old (even if it is minor info). Also, please do not include details in the summary bar when editing pages and do not anticipate making additions relating to sources not yet in release. THANK YOU

Warp factor

• View history

A warp factor is a term indicating velocity in the subspace realm where faster-than-light (FTL) speeds are possible. Starfleet and the Federation has used a scale using cochrane units to measure the distortion potential of a warp drive. An original (OCU) scale was used up until the early 24th century , whereupon a revised scale (MCU) was put into effect when a more complete understanding of the nature of subspace was reached. ( ST reference : Starship Spotter )

• 1 Original cochrane unit
• 2 Modified cochrane unit
• 3 Speed comparison
• 4 Background

Original cochrane unit [ ]

In the 22nd and 23rd centuries , the relationship between warp factor ( WF ) and speed in multiples of the speed of light (X c ) was defined as:

This gives a speed of 1 c for Warp 1, 512 c at Warp 8, 1000 c at Warp 10, and so on.

Modified cochrane unit [ ]

In the 24th century , the relationship between warp factor ( WF ) and speed in multiples of the speed of light (X c ) was defined as:

This gives a speed of 1 c for Warp 1, 1024 c at Warp 8, and speeds above 1516 c at Warp Factors between 9 and 10. Warp 10 is understood to be infinite speed and thus theoretically impossible to achieve.

The relationship between Transwarp and high Warp Factors is ambiguous.

Speed comparison [ ]

The table to the right compares speed in multiples of the speed of light for the two scales.

Background [ ]

The production crew behind The Next Generation simply used a hand-drawn curve for decimal Warp Factors between WF 9 and 10, and thus there is no correct formula for those speeds in the TNG/DS9/Voyager era.

• 1 Cheronian
• 2 Ferengi Rules of Acquisition
• 3 Eclipse class