They can teleport from the transporter room to another spot and from another spot to the transporter room.
But they also don’t need to immediately rematerialize people immediately (the pattern buffer).
My theory is that they eventually learned that they can teleport people from within the ship, to the transporter room, not materialize them, and then send them from the transporter room to wherever they need to go.
So the room is still important in a lot of ways but once they learned they don’t have to walk there they stopped bothering.
That’s the in universe head canon but as for what actually happened it’s more likely to be what the other person said about it just being nicer for the story.
The teleporter pad is also a stationary location relative to the ship that doesn’t move around. The teleporter probably has its coordinates hardcoded. A teleporter tech who isn’t as much of a wizard as O’Brien is probably relies on that pretty regularly.
O’Brien just happens to be capable of teleporting people to and from arbitrary locations because he’s a master of his craft. But if you get your calculus wrong in an emergency you’re going to teleport your captain and away team halfway through a bulkhead, or collect a thousand pounds of loose dirt alongside them and only half an ensign.
In my personal head cannon…
They can teleport from the transporter room to another spot and from another spot to the transporter room.
But they also don’t need to immediately rematerialize people immediately (the pattern buffer).
My theory is that they eventually learned that they can teleport people from within the ship, to the transporter room, not materialize them, and then send them from the transporter room to wherever they need to go.
So the room is still important in a lot of ways but once they learned they don’t have to walk there they stopped bothering.
That’s the in universe head canon but as for what actually happened it’s more likely to be what the other person said about it just being nicer for the story.
Memory Alpha basically says this is actual canon and cites TNG Brothers as its source.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Site-to-site_transport
LETS GOO
The teleporter pad is also a stationary location relative to the ship that doesn’t move around. The teleporter probably has its coordinates hardcoded. A teleporter tech who isn’t as much of a wizard as O’Brien is probably relies on that pretty regularly.
O’Brien just happens to be capable of teleporting people to and from arbitrary locations because he’s a master of his craft. But if you get your calculus wrong in an emergency you’re going to teleport your captain and away team halfway through a bulkhead, or collect a thousand pounds of loose dirt alongside them and only half an ensign.