Agreed. It's funny sometimes what writers will overlook in order to make a plot point happen. "We need Ryker to be held captive, injured, in the alien hospital to build drama and tension. No sub-cutaneous communicators!"

And so he can have sex with Frasier Crane's wife, don't forget that!

I think if I were on a mission scouting out a planet for "First Contact" purposes like Ryker, my utility belt would have a built in, mini transporter unit that would zap me to a hidden base of operations and a personal force field generator at least. Not to mention phasers and comms units. Come on, man - "be prepared."

I suppose the Prime Directive would not allow them to have anything that might alarm the natives.

Ryker had a phaser. One of the aliens tried to frame Ryker with it.

Could be that a command officer - who presumably would only be planet-side for a short time while the Enterprise was there - might be allowed that, but the people who had been there for YEARS (according to the script) wouldn't.

Bad luck, Riker.