You are correct. By the TNG era site-to-site transport had become reliable enough that it could be used as needed, but having a pad at one end or the other (or both) of a transport was still safer. It was also more energy-efficient, though that’s less of a concern.
Always a good idea to make things efficient, but “the transporters take too much power” is a sentence you will never hear on a galaxy class at least. Those monsters had insane power generation capability.
From my understanding, there’s more risk involved in site-to-site than actually stepping on the pad.
Way less if you’re going from pad to pad.
When my atoms are being scattered across space, you bet I’d rather walk to the transporter room. I’d prefer a shuttle though.
something something bones
You are correct. By the TNG era site-to-site transport had become reliable enough that it could be used as needed, but having a pad at one end or the other (or both) of a transport was still safer. It was also more energy-efficient, though that’s less of a concern.
Always a good idea to make things efficient, but “the transporters take too much power” is a sentence you will never hear on a galaxy class at least. Those monsters had insane power generation capability.