Star Trek: 10 Biggest Differences Between Kirk's Enterprise And Picard's

Surprisingly, the weapons on Starfleet's ships didn't change much at all from the 23rd century to the 24th. Both Enterprises were equipped with photon torpedoes and phasers. It wasn't until the first invasion of the Borg when Starfleet began to develop more destructive weapons like quantum torpedoes and tricobalt warheads. Prior to this, the Federation had been experiencing decades of unprecedented peace.

The Enterprise-D did have one major advancement to its phasers with the inclusion of "phaser arrays," linear arrangements of phaser emitters that could fire from virtually any angle. This was a massive improvement from the traditional phaser cannons of Kirk's time which could only fire in a very limited path.

Upgrades were made to Starfleet's photon torpedoes and phasers over time, such as redesigning the phasers to channel energy directly from the warp core, increasing their damage. However, these changes were very marginal and both ships operated with basically the same weapons systems.