40 replies to this topic

[Nebfer]

Catamount, on 13 November 2011 - 01:56 PM, said:

That said, considering they can cross star systems at sublight in reasonable time frames, they must be capable traveling pretty quick. Some ships don't even have jump drives in BSG. Many such ships were left behind in a Cylon ambush early on in the attack on the colonies; that was the last of them we saw. Nevertheless, these ships can clearly go pretty quick, so any range advantage not measured in thousands of kilometers should be able to be closed pretty quick.

Their is no hard numbers but every major combat engagement typically has them with in visual range of one another, often what seems to be a few dozen ship lengths.

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I've never seen anything that solidly outlines the range of BSG ships. It's true we often see them engaging relatively close, but we see Star Trek ships engage in relatively close fashion too, yet phasers have ranges in the hundreds of thousands of km. I have no idea what the maximum range of a battlestar is.

This is irrelevant

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I'm also not particularly convinced that such a range advantage even exists. Even missiles fired from raptors were able to fly far enough to make convincing vessels on Cylon sensors, so clearly things can travel pretty far in BSG. The missile fired at Colonial One in the pilot came from so far away that we never even saw the attacker.

Provide more evidence, this is speculation. What may look like hundreds of kilometers my only be dozens (at 100km even a km long ship is quite small). In any case the majority of Viper combat involves using their autocannons, at what we would call dog fight ranges.

Also some of these missiles are likely capital scale, so it's not to surprising thy can have a long range, heck even Battletech allows for capital missiles to be launched at targets tens of thousands of KM away. However the main weapons on a battle star are not it's missile armament, but it's guns which with one screen evidence seems to indicate that they do not have a very long range (even the missile based Base Stars seem to favor close in attacks though...).

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For durability, like I said, it seems to be in the same ballpark for both. I'm sure they're not exactly alike, but a battlestar can shake off one nuke pretty darn easily, basically with no appreciable damage (and remember, bleed-through would occur even with armor still intact). The most damaging impact in BSG's pilot didn't even come from the nuke, iirc, but rather "conventional" ordinance (tylium warheads?).

Out side of kinetic energy warheads I do not know what kind of warheads they use (out side of flak obviously), granted both sides can take at lest a few 50 kiloton nukes, though you do not need a explosive warhead to make a big boom...

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Damage on BT weapons may be able to be spread out, but even if they had the same damage potential, and honestly, I HIGHLY, HIGHLY doubt that they have energetic outputs in the high terrajoule (low petajoule?) range. I could be wrong there, but it certainly doesn't seem like it (and even if they did, the unconcentrated, scattershot nature of that damage would definitely not be a match for a battlestar's ability to concentrate an energetic release in a very concentrated point on another ship's armor.

The thing about B-tech capital weapons is their little fluff for them to get any good info on. A few mention boiling rivers... We know the damage rating of the armor to nukes... if you add up all the damage that is possibly that a capital strike could do and calculate the damage as vaporizing (armor) it one could get a hundred tons or so per capital point. Their is also the rules for high speed engagements, which represent engagements during transits (1,500km/s or faster, at such speeds a NAC-40 will do 160 capital). At 1,500km/s a 500kg Heavy Naval Gauss Slug will have a Ke of 134 kilotons and only dose 120 capital damage, though this is a bit more on the upper edge here.

Zakatak, on 13 November 2011 - 07:14 PM, said:

This is just Leviathan vs. Pegasus, guys. There is no Rasalhague Republic, there is no 12 Colonies, there is no SLDF or Cylons or Master Chief. Just 2 ships and whatever they would be carrying at maximum capacity.

Heh battletech can give Spartans a run for their money... (their better in some areas but not all of them... but that's a debate for another thread).

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To answer a question long ago involving Viper pilots walking their firing arcs being proof to no HUD system. I think a better explanation is that they are just having problems aiming, just like how you don't manage to land every single shot in Mechwarrior/other FPS all the time. Those were Galactica pilots shown in the TV series mostly, and they were usually trained in a couple of days from civilian vessels to fill in for dead pilots. The crew of the Pegasus is generally what it was when it escaped Scorpion Shipyards, and thus, has actual trained pilots.

that may be part of it, but their is no HUD in the ship it self, and they do not seem to use Helmet HUDs due to the fact they look down at their instruments in the show (which they would not be doing if they did). I mean do you see a Hud at all in that clip you provided? Like the Kind a real fighter uses? 32 seconds into that vid gives us a pilots eye view of the cockpit, no HUD at all. Looking at a few forums on NBG they also mention that they do not have a HUD at all, and no evidence for helmet ones as well, as we do have pilots eye view of what they are looking at with no sights present...

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For "little tiny autocannons", these things seem to pack quite a punch. Observe around 1:50 in the video. How often do you see LRM's or PPC's making those kinds of explosions? That is at least on par with NAC/30's, and as previous posters mentioned, missiles in BSG have ranges that are near or exceed 1000km.

Thoughs big booms seen to be from capital weapons, also post evidence for ranges (Calks would be most useful).
PPCs are fairly easily in the double or triple digit megajoule range (tech manual dose mention three PPCs vaporizing nearly two tons of B-tech armor), thats tens and hundreds of kilograms of TNT equivalent (though energy weapons are not exactly equatable to kinetic weapons), LRMs are harder but at the lest not much different from man portable missiles available to day, though in space they have impressive ability's.
Gauss Rifles are hypersonic 125 slugs, that puts them in the range of 14 and 16 inch battleship shells in terms of Ke, though the ranges in space require much much higher velocity's...

And capital weapons are one thing Fighter weapons are another.

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EDIT: I think the reason Battlestars engage enemies at such close range is because that they WANT to be in knife fights. Basestars, and have no point-defenses or guns, relying on fighters and missiles instead. If you are within 50km of your enemy, you don't need to lead your shots, and your gunners have an easier time picking targets.

Possible, however it's just as likely that they can only engage at these ranges, after all much of the time the Galactica was the Hunted and the Cylons still often chosed to attack at close range... If they could so easily attack her at 1000+ km ranges you would think they would of made some effort in doing so? Though If they only use missiles and no point defence but you do... Though technicly attacking at close ranges would suit the Cylons better than the Colonials. As if the battlestar has AMS systems but the base stars do not, it would be better for the battlestar to stand off at range and use it's big guns to fire down range while its AMS defences deal with the missiles, the longer the range the longer the time for the AMS to track and deal with them. And the Base star would be better off geting into closer range where the AA fire has less time to react. Also it would not requite the battlestar to spend a few moments under attack while it gets into range.


Though lets recap
Viper vs Aerospace fighter combat
Speed: both sides are about equal
Armor: Vipers have little armor, Aerospace fighters are tanks in comparison... shrugging off the "AC-2" hits that the vipers throw out...
Weapons: both sides can carry externally mounted missiles, though battletech also can do the Macross missile massacre. They also use 50, 80, 100, 120 and even 200mm autocannons, this is in comparison to the roughly 30mm weapons Vipers use, Not to mention battletech has energy weapons, something viper pilots have no experience with. Also many a Aerospace Fighter have rear firing weapons often a ER small laser.
Combat ranges: while Vipers may be able to engage at considerable ranges with the seemingly rarely used missiles, their main combat weapon only has a range of single digit kilometers, and they consistently get into dogfights in any case.


Capital ships
Speed: the Pegasus may indeed be faster, but it's speed is unknown, though I doubt its all that much faster, as Vipers are mentioned to pull six or seven Gs, and it would be odd for a ship to out run it's own fighters...
Weapons range, battletech is well known, the Pegasus however is largely unknown, though the series seems to indicate that it's main guns only have a range of a few dozen km, as they constantly open fire at targets that are not much more than a few dozen ship lengths a way. Though thy do seem to on occasion attack targets a but further than that, particularly with missiles.

Durability: both ships can take quite a beating.
Firepower: well the Pegasus, defiantly has a large number of powerful cannons, but the Leviathan has some 55 weapons in it's side arcs that the Pegasus has never encountered before, though B-tech capital lasers over all yields is unknown

[Catamount]

Nebfer, the point I was making about Trek ships, which is far from irrelevant, is that apparent engagement ranges usually have nothing to do with actual maximum engagement ranges, in these types of fiction.

VFX crews will always show ships in knife-fight ranges, regardless of their actual weapons ranges, because it makes for a more interesting show. As I stated, I have no idea what the ranges are on BSG ships, but I think it's foolish to try to make even remotely certain judgements just because they *appear* to fly close to each other in the show. Every science fiction franchise suffers this problem.


Stargate vessels can detect each other with pretty much pinpoint accuracy across considerable portions of entire solar systems and can, at the very least, hit a pinpoint target on a planet from orbit (so at bare minimum, hundreds of km), and yet we seldom, if ever see ships engaging outside of a kilometer or two. Star Trek vessels have particle weapons with ranges in the hundreds of thousands of kilometers, and torpedoes with probably ranges in the millions of kilometers and in some circumstances considerably greater, considerably their capability for FTL travel (if launched at FTL), yet we see ships engage at ranges that rarely, if ever, exceed a handful of kilometers. In Mass Effect, it's stated in regard to the Normandy's stealth systems that vessels rarely are able to visually see each other in combat because weapons and sensors operate way into the BVR range, yet sure enough, every battle we see shows ships that are never more than a few kilometers from each other.

I could go on and on.

The ranges we see BSG ships engage at are not conclusive of anything in terms of maximum range, because we never see VFX crews opt to have ships engage outside of absurdly short ranges, almost regardless of the franchise.


If a BT movie or show were to be made and a Leviathan featured, I can almost guarantee that we'd see it only engage at such ranges as well. VFX evidence may be very useful, but there are notable exceptions.





If the Leviathan can manage firepower in the hundreds of terrajoules, that at least puts it in battlestar range for firepower. Sadly exactly figures for BSG weapons just aren't something that would be easily calculated.


The Leviathan also most definitely has a fighter advantage, since, as you point out, aerospace fighters are just massively more powerful and durable than vipers. I don't know how much that'd be a deciding factor, but whatever advantage is there is clearly on the BT side.




EDIT: Forget my comments on your energy figure; it's correct.

Edited by Catamount, 14 November 2011 - 08:59 AM.

[Alizabeth Aijou]

Also, why a Sulla?
Personally, I'd give the Leviathan a mix of OmniFighters, such as the Ostrogoth, Jengiz, Kirghiz, Turk and Bashkir.
If you got room for 300 fighters, only an addle-cove would fill it with only one type.

Edited by Alizabeth Aijou, 14 November 2011 - 07:36 AM.

[Nebfer]

Catamount, on 14 November 2011 - 07:00 AM, said:

Nebfer, the point I was making about Trek ships, which is far from irrelevant, is that apparent engagement ranges usually have nothing to do with actual maximum engagement ranges, in these types of fiction.

VFX crews will always show ships in knife-fight ranges, regardless of their actual weapons ranges, because it makes for a more interesting show. As I stated, I have no idea what the ranges are on BSG ships, but I think it's foolish to try to make even remotely certain judgements just because they *appear* to fly close to each other in the show. Every science fiction franchise suffers this problem.


Stargate vessels can detect each other with pretty much pinpoint accuracy across considerable portions of entire solar systems and can, at the very least, hit a pinpoint target on a planet from orbit (so at bare minimum, hundreds of km), and yet we seldom, if ever see ships engaging outside of a kilometer or two. Star Trek vessels have particle weapons with ranges in the hundreds of thousands of kilometers, and torpedoes with probably ranges in the millions of kilometers and in some circumstances considerably greater, considerably their capability for FTL travel (if launched at FTL), yet we see ships engage at ranges that rarely, if ever, exceed a handful of kilometers. In Mass Effect, it's stated in regard to the Normandy's stealth systems that vessels rarely are able to visually see each other in combat because weapons and sensors operate way into the BVR range, yet sure enough, every battle we see shows ships that are never more than a few kilometers from each other.

I could go on and on.

The ranges we see BSG ships engage at are not conclusive of anything in terms of maximum range, because we never see VFX crews opt to have ships engage outside of absurdly short ranges, almost regardless of the franchise.


If a BT movie or show were to be made and a Leviathan featured, I can almost guarantee that we'd see it only engage at such ranges as well. VFX evidence may be very useful, but there are notable exceptions.

Graphics errors or lazy writers is an out of universe explanation and is irrelevant (unless noted in canon).

It's not to hard to make a space fight look to take place at long ranges it has been done before. Babylon 5 did it a few times, you can make the target ship not visible on the firing ships screen and jump to a shot of it hitting, or even just a small speck off in the back ground...

As for trek, sure we have instances where thy get into combat at tens of thousands of KM, however we also have insistence's where no ranges are stated and their also in knife fight ranges, and a number of these the situation and events kinda make it hard for their to be vast distances involved. But in this topic the ranges of Star trek, Star wars and what naught and their issues are not very relevant to us.

Are their ranges presented in NBG? If so what are they?

In all of the debates on NBG that I have seen (and I just spent about two hours looking up) and been in, with a few of them dealing with battletech, none of them mention the NBG ships having better combat ranges than battletech or even that they can engage targets out side of what we typically see in the show. No one even mentioned any range quotes from the show either, which seems to indicate that their either obscure or non existent which then means the visuals have nothing to contradict them. And the forums these debates take place on are much more specialized in debates than these forums are (spacebattles, SDN &, ect...).

Vipers always use their MGs in visual ranges, which for them is single digit kms, this puts them a significant disadvantage to B-tech fighters, their Missiles when they do use them are also often used in similar circumstances (their also seem to be small, almost nonexistent until fired -Vipers are only like 10m long), though their ranges are a bit more varied.

Due to the fact that they have little to no armor protection, and their weapons do not seem to be all that much different that real life 20/30mm cannons (interestingly theirs an instance where a raider fires on colonial "personnel" and the effects are not much different than what we see with MG fire... even when they hit some one...).

The Biggest advantages the battlestar has over battletech is better acceleration, and FTL. Durability is also quite good...

[Catamount]

Nebfer, you can make proclamations about what you think is relevant until you're blue in the face, but it doesn't do much for you unless you can do the following: Give one single, solitary reason as to why we should consider VFX evidence as an even remotely definite measure of maximum weapons ranges in BSG, when that relationship seldom, if ever, holds true in any science fiction franchise, anywhere. Give one single, solitary reason as to why we should consider this generally unreliable form of evidence to be more reliable in BSG than it is elsewhere.

Do you have any evidence that apparent ranges in VFX are a reliable indicator in BSG, when they aren't in general?

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Are their ranges presented in NBG? If so what are they?

In all of the debates on NBG that I have seen (and I just spent about two hours looking up) and been in, with a few of them dealing with battletech, none of them mention the NBG ships having better combat ranges than battletech or even that they can engage targets out side of what we typically see in the show. No one even mentioned any range quotes from the show either, which seems to indicate that their either obscure or non existent which then means the visuals have nothing to contradict them. And the forums these debates take place on are much more specialized in debates than these forums are (spacebattles, SDN &, ect...).

I hope you're not expecting credibility from citing SDN
That place may be the epitome of internet vitriol, but that doesn't necessarily translate to sound scientific analysis.


In principle, I agree with you, as I am usually a big fan of using VFX, and believe me, I've gone into it in no less depth at times than those who participate in your "specialized forums", and have taken part in debates with many of the most skilled people at VFX dissection anywhere on the internet, so I wholly believe in the method you're using here, again, in principle.


The problem is that I only accept VFX evidence precisely because it's generally very consistent with other evidence, at least in shows/movies where thought was put into VFX (meaning David Stipes didn't get his hands on the visuals).


When you cite a form of VFX that in basically every, single verifiable instance, is starkly contradictory, inconsistent, and unreliable, why then, should it be accepted, just because VFX in general is worthwhile?


That's like saying that because mathematics is well-founded and works, that we should take a mathematical model that consistently fails to give meaningful results, and accept it because math is right. I don't think it works that way.


VFX evidence may be a useful tool, and may be canon, but that doesn't mean that using a bit of good sense isn't helpful. When I see the USS Defiant or the IKS Rotarran magically change size dozens of times over Star Trek: DS9 (curse you, David Stipes), am I supposed to believe that ships spontaneous gain and lose volume over the course of the show? Neither is even given a canonical size, and technically, it's never said that that size doesn't magically shift up and down, so by your logic that anything not expressly contradicted elsewhere in canon should always be accepted, does that mean that suddenly becomes a reasonable conclusion?
I think we'd both agree that the answer is no. Likewise, I don't consider it reasonable to ever assert a relationship between observed weapons ranges and maximum ranges of ships, because that relationship basically never, ever works out, a fact that is franchise agnostic.

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It's not to hard to make a space fight look to take place at long ranges it has been done before. Babylon 5 did it a few times

The operative words there are "few times". You're only making my point for me.

If B5 shows long engagement ranges, then clearly the ships are capable of long engagement ranges, and yet:

http://www.youtube.c...5Oupj1RI#t=2m0s






If we accept your premises as true, namely that:

1.) Weapon range is solidly established by VFX maximums

2.) Ships will always engage at or near their maximum range

Why are these B5 ships knife fighting?

As I said, the VFX -> weapon range relationship basically never holds up.


If what you say about Leviathan class weapon outputs is true, then I still think it'd outstrip a battlestar for combat ability, not even taking the fighter advantages into account.

That said, I see no reason to assume short weapons ranges for BSG. Don't like the out-of-universe explanation for the fact that we almost always see knife fights in space, regardless of the franchise? Come up with an in-universe explanation. Maybe they just have good reason to prefer short-range fights. Who knows.

I'm not even claiming that BSG necessarily has weapon ranges beyond what we see.

I'm just saying that there's awfully scant evidence to unequivocally claim the contrary.

Edited by Catamount, 14 November 2011 - 01:37 PM.

[Zakatak]

I love these kinds of conversation.

Question #2 (optional): Leviathan vs. Pillar of Autumn.

Cortana not included, since with that advantage, PoA would win any fight with any ship in any series in an instant.

PoA has huge acceleration, can have 95% of the armor plating pierced yet still work with 100% efficiency, and has a 192kT railgun with 600 pound slugs, 7200 missiles that are basically LRM's. Besides that? Only a couple fighters not on par with BTech counterparts.

Edited by Zakatak, 14 November 2011 - 05:39 PM.

[Grafix TM]

Catamount, on 14 November 2011 - 01:32 PM, said:

If we accept your premises as true, namely that:

1.) Weapon range is solidly established by VFX maximums

Guess you did not read the Update I posted on the Mercury Class BattleStar (ie Pegasus)

Grafix™, on 12 November 2011 - 07:24 PM, said:

Update November 13, 2011 with data Specs:

Mercury-Class Battlestar Specifications

CLASS: Mercury
RACE: Colonial
TYPE: Military
FTL PROPULSION: At least 2 FTL drives, 8 x sublight engines, 6 individual engine pods (2 on main hull between engine pods), 40 x maneuvering engines (in 10 clusters of 4 apiece)
CREW: Maximum 4200, Standard 2800, Minimum 350
ROLE: Carrier/Battleship Hybrid
WEAPONS: 24x Heavy Batteries (8x forward, 8x dorsal, 8x ventral), 196x Light Twin-Turrets (across flight pods, port & starboard main hull, forward turrets), Decoy Drones, Hunter Class programmable missiles, Heavy Class D warheads, Tactical Nuclear Weapons, Fighters, Raptors
STATUS: Active
RAPTORS: The number of Raptors available to Mercury-Class battlestars is assumed to have a maximum of thirty Raptors.
The Mercury Class Battlestars were the top of the line class before the fall of the Twelve Colonies. Firepower of the Mercury class is far greater than on older classes. As well, they had many other improvements over older Battlestars, such as the Columbia Class; include far more automation and automatic sliding doorways. This allows a Mercury class Battlestar, which is much larger than older Battlestars, to require far less crew than previous ships of her type. The Mercury requires a crew of between 2,450 and 3,000 compared to around 5,000 or more for older Battlestars. As a result, the Mercury class has far more spacious crew quarters than older Battlestar classes.
With the increased size of the Battlestar, the Mercury class has a larger fighter wing than the Columbia class. A total of two hundred Vipers can be embarked along with about eight Raptor craft.
Mercury class has the ability to fabricate all components for embarked Viper Mark VII fighters. This equipment is so extensive that the Battlestar can actually build new Viper fighters from raw components.

Like with the Columbia Class and unlike Cylon designs, the Mercury class almost completely relies on kinetic energy weapons instead of missiles. Missiles carried onboard are mainly used by Vipers and Raptors. The kinetic energy weapons are electromagnetic weapons and are extremely powerful. As might be expected, ordnance carried onboard the Mercury class is greater than the Columbia Class. The amount of damage which a Mercury class Battlestar can withstand is immense and the class carries extremely heavy armor.

The heavy gun batteries on the Mercury class are arranged very differently from Columbia Class. They use the same projectiles for ease of logistics. While the Columbia Class’ main batteries are on her top and bottom side with additional turrets under the chin of bow, the Mercury class carries most of her gun mounts along the sides within the valley created by the top and bottom halves of the ship. Four are mounted on the underside of the upper hull on the ship's bow, two more turrets are mounted on the front and back of each flight pod, with others scattered along the length of the hull and flight pods. Also the Mercury class mounts a total of thirty heavy gun turret compared to twenty-four for older Battlestars such as the Galactica.

Supplementing these turret mounted weaponry, the Mercury class mounted eight forward firing fixed kinetic energy weapons. These are mounted under the chin of the bow of the Battlestar. Like the heavy turrets, these cannons fire high density projectiles electromagnetically. These have the ability to badly rake another vessel although the flexibility of the mounts is limited due to being fixed.

Statistical Data Length: 5,120 feet (1,652 meters) for main hull / 2,769 feet (843 meters) for flight pods
Height: 1,086.8 feet (331.26 meters) for main hull / 408 feet (124 meters) for flight pods
Width: 2,226 feet (678 meters) including flight pods / 513 feet (156 meters) for flight pods
Weight: 66.14 million tons (60 million metric tons)

Power System: The Ship is powered by 4 Tylium Fueled reactors that will provide effectively unlimited power for the ship and her systems. However, it was recommended that the drive and power system have routine maintenance every 5 years. Also, the ship only carries about an eight month supply of reaction mass / fuel for Jump drives.
Cargo: 440,920 tons (400,0000 metric tons) of cargo. As well, each enlisted crew member has a small locker for personal items and uniforms. Ship's officers have more space for personal items. Most of the ship's spaces are taken up by extra ammo, armor, troops, weapons, engine, reaction mass, equipment,
Market Cost: 45 billion Cubits to construct.

Weapon Systems:
Eight (8) Fixed Super Heavy Kinetic Energy Weapon Mounts: Mounted to fire forward on the Battlestar and weapons can fire individually or in groups. The weapons are in the bow of the ship under the "chin” of the forward section. Instead of firing bursts, the weapon fires a single high density round at extremely high velocities and inflict incredible damage. Cannons have standard penalties for heavy starship weaponry when used against small targets.
Maximum Effective Range: 480 miles (772.5 km) in space and 24 miles (38.6 km) if fired into an atmosphere.
Rate of Fire: 2 rounds per cannon per melee (a total of 16 rounds can be fired per melee)
Payload: 100 rounds per weapon mount. Additional ammunition carried in the ship's main magazines (Takes 6D6 minutes to reload)

Thirty (30) Heavy Kinetic Energy Weapon Turrets: Main batteries of the Battlestar in turrets. Each turret has two barrels which normally fire together. Four are mounted on the underside of the upper hull on the ship's bow, two more turrets are mounted on the front and back of each flight pod, with others scattered along the length of the hull and flight pods. Each mount can rotate 360 degrees and has a 90 degree arc of fire. Each mount fires rounds at extremely high velocity and inflict heavy damage upon their target. Cannons have half standard penalties for heavy starship weaponry when used against small targets.

Maximum Effective Range: 320 miles (515 km) in space and 16 miles (25.6 km) if fired into an atmosphere.
Payload: 2,000 rounds (200 bursts) per weapon mount. Additional ammunition carried in the ship's main magazines.
Point Defense Kinetic Energy Mounts (322): These act as the Battlestar's main point defense weaponry and are in twin mounts. They are similar to the mounts carried on Vipers and are used against both fighters and missiles. The Battlestar has these mounts on the main hull and flight pods. Each mount can rotate 360 degrees and has a 90 degree arc of fire. These electromagnetic weapons fire high-density projectiles at incredible velocities.
Maximum Effective Range: 4,000 feet (1,200 meters) in an atmosphere and 32,000 feet (9,600 meters) in space.
Payload: 8,000 rounds (800 bursts) per weapon mount. Additional ammunition carried in the ship's main magazines (Takes 1D4 minutes to reload)

Speed Space Propulsion: The starship does not have an effective top speed but is limited by acceleration. The Battlestar can reach a top acceleration of 4 G but due to high fuel consumption and extra strain on the engines, the ship will normally travel at 0.5 G for any extended trips. Top acceleration is only meant for emergencies and combat maneuvers.
Because the Battlestar is mostly unshielded from the effects of radiation and hypervelocity atomic particles (It is not completely unshielded), the vessel is not operated at speeds exceeding 20% of the speed of light.
FTL Drive A "Mercury" class Battlestar has a FTL Jump Drive which enables the vessel to disappear in one location and appear at another location, potentially many light years distant, instantly. This drive requires extensive calculations and consumes fuel each time the ship "Jumps." The system can also make short-range jumps.
Maximum Range Conditionally unlimited, while the fusion rector gives power for a decade of service, the ship's propulsion is limited by the ship's reaction mass (The ship uses Tylium which is likely some hydrogen or helium isotope which has to be mined)

The vessel carries eight months of reaction mass for travel at 0.5 G of acceleration. Double the consumption of fuel for 1.0 G of acceleration and double the consumption again for every 1.0 G of acceleration beyond 1 G. This means the ship will burn the fuel 16 times faster than at 0.5 G of acceleration at maximum acceleration (4 G).
Other Systems Hardened Circuitry and Electromagnetic Shielding: All electronics and computers on the Battlestar are constructed with hardened circuitry and the ship itself is built with shielding to prevent EMP and jamming from damaging circuitry. The effect is that jamming and EMP will not damage any system.
Command and Control Facilities: The Battlestar carries extra communications equipment and command facilities, to enable the ship to operate as the flagship for a Battle Group.
Jamming System: This system scrambles all electronic signals for a range of 10,000 miles (16,100 km) in space and will penetrate an atmosphere for a distance of 100 miles (161 km). The system can also confuse missiles. It has a 55% chance of confusing missiles but some missiles can home on jamming signals.

DRADIS: This system can detect jamming systems at one quarter of the systems normal range allowing the system to work well against targets that are jamming. The system has a range of 120,000 miles (193,000 km) in space and can penetrate the atmosphere up to 1,200 miles (1,930 km). The system can track and identify 5,120 targets at on time. Can also target each individual missile to a separate target at up to 1200 targets.

[Nebfer]

Catamount, on 14 November 2011 - 01:32 PM, said:

Nebfer, you can make proclamations about what you think is relevant until you're blue in the face, but it doesn't do much for you unless you can do the following: Give one single, solitary reason as to why we should consider VFX evidence as an even remotely definite measure of maximum weapons ranges in BSG, when that relationship seldom, if ever, holds true in any science fiction franchise, anywhere. Give one single, solitary reason as to why we should consider this generally unreliable form of evidence to be more reliable in BSG than it is elsewhere.

First off is not VFX not canon? I do not believe NBGs canon policy dose not mention that only audio is canon. Also do we no have indications that their is issues with the VFX here?

If no one has any other evidence for longer ranges, then with the only canon evidence pointing to them having short combat ranges...
We see the MV of their shells and they do not indicate long ranges, which is what we see in the show no?

The fact is VFX is the only thing we have that indicates range, if their is other evidence from the shows that specify other ranges then present them. The fact that no one has and that your whining about VFX shows that their is none.

If the VFX is noted as being inconsistent yet canon, well one will just have to study the data much more closely and accept that they may not have a definitive calculation, particularly if the numbers are all over. One can look at the events and note what they result was and compare them with others, if the majority indicate short ranges then one could say that they prefer that. Now if the dialog mentions ranges in the thousands of KM and mentions this more than a few times, yet the VFX always shows short range well then you can say well theirs a contradiction, with one of these sources.

Though the problem with VFX being inconsistent is the fact that the dialog can be inconsistent as well.
Such as forgetting basic math (Data from Star trek has done this a few times -was off by an order of magnitude with that Dyson sphere), or forgetting about an event that happened "last episode", that would of been quite useful the issues going on in the current episode, or even saying one thing and yet in another episode completely contradicts it (like in the startrek first contact movie, Troi mentions that disease has been eradicated, yet their are quite a number of episodes that mention diseases, and I can go on...).

In any case I do not only use Visuals for these things, if their is collaborating dialog sure I will use that or at lest take it into consideration, however no one has presented any.

[Catamount]

Grafix, that is quite the impressively detailed post, but I'm not entirely certain where you're getting the range information there.

I don't recall a mention of specific ranges in the show, admitting it's been awhile since I've gone through it. Or is there some backstage source or licensed technical manual that has that information?

[Nebfer]

Grafix™, on 14 November 2011 - 06:40 PM, said:

Guess you did not read the Update I posted on the Mercury Class BattleStar (ie Pegasus)

Might I ask where dose this info come from?

looks like some sort of RPG?

Is it canon?

Edit:
If so then the quad Main guns has a range of 772km (43 B-tech hexes), the turret guns are 515km (29 hexes) and the Flak guns only 9.6km (same hex).

If true that is hard evidence for the range of a battlestar, and confirms that a battletech dose in fact out range them, as Naval lasers, particle cannons, and Gauss rifles all have a range of some 900km.

It also confirms that the battlestar is faster but not significantly so at 4Gs vs 2.5Gs (or 5/8 over 3/5).

Though the only question what is NBG canon policy?

Edited by Nebfer, 14 November 2011 - 07:26 PM.

[Catamount]

Nebfer, on 14 November 2011 - 07:13 PM, said:

First off is not VFX not canon? I do not believe NBGs canon policy dose not mention that only audio is canon. Also do we no have indications that their is issues with the VFX here?

If no one has any other evidence for longer ranges, then with the only canon evidence pointing to them having short combat ranges...
We see the MV of their shells and they do not indicate long ranges, which is what we see in the show no?

The fact is VFX is the only thing we have that indicates range, if their is other evidence from the shows that specify other ranges then present them. The fact that no one has and that your whining about VFX shows that their is none.

If the VFX is noted as being inconsistent yet canon, well one will just have to study the data much more closely and accept that they may not have a definitive calculation, particularly if the numbers are all over. One can look at the events and note what they result was and compare them with others, if the majority indicate short ranges then one could say that they prefer that. Now if the dialog mentions ranges in the thousands of KM and mentions this more than a few times, yet the VFX always shows short range well then you can say well theirs a contradiction, with one of these sources.

Though the problem with VFX being inconsistent is the fact that the dialog can be inconsistent as well.
Such as forgetting basic math (Data from Star trek has done this a few times -was off by an order of magnitude with that Dyson sphere), or forgetting about an event that happened "last episode", that would of been quite useful the issues going on in the current episode, or even saying one thing and yet in another episode completely contradicts it (like in the startrek first contact movie, Troi mentions that disease has been eradicated, yet their are quite a number of episodes that mention diseases, and I can go on...).

In any case I do not only use Visuals for these things, if their is collaborating dialog sure I will use that or at lest take it into consideration, however no one has presented any.

Funny how your post makes my point for me.


Canon material, spoken, visual, or textual, can all be completely contrary to any kind of reason. I can think of instances far more egregious than yours.


If you want to be the type of person who accepts things like magically changing ship sizes, you can be my guest, but I'm not inclined to agree.


For the rest, you've basically just completely failed to address arguments once they've become inconvenient for you. Funny how I don't hear the "it's easy to make long-range fights, therefore VFX evidence is completely conclusive" argument anymore.

It's also funny how you never bothered to answer my question about B5.


Despite you trying to imply that VFX canon says that maximum ranges are outlined in BSG by what you consider visual evidence, that's not even really your argument.


Your argument is that these observed instances must represented maximums because you, personally, can't think of any reason for ships to fight inside of their maximum weapon ranges, since it's never canonically stated that these instances do represent the upper limits of BSG range.


Since that logic has never remotely held for any kind of analysis, in any franchise, and since you can't hide behind canon since no explicit statement is made one way or the other, I see nothing but a big assumption and an expectation that everyone must agree with you. You'll forgive me if I don't jump up to do just that.

Edited by Catamount, 14 November 2011 - 07:25 PM.

[Catamount]

"I personally can't think of a reason for a ship to not always engage at its maximum range" is hardly a conclusive argument, especially when you dodge questions about how poorly that assumption seems to work out, in a franchise that was brought up by you as an example.

I don't necessarily disagree that there's some measure of logic there, but your treatment of such an assumption as unequivocal is hardly warranted.

[Grafix TM]

Nebfer, on 14 November 2011 - 07:15 PM, said:

Might I ask where dose this info come from?

looks like some sort of RPG?

Is it canon?

Edit:
If so then the quad Main guns has a range of 772km (43 B-tech hexes), the turret guns are 515km (29 hexes) and the Flak guns only 9.6km (same hex).

If true that is hard evidence for the range of a battlestar, and confirms that a battletech dose in fact out range them, as Naval lasers, particle cannons, and Gauss rifles all have a range of some 900km.

It also confirms that the battlestar is faster but not significantly so at 4Gs vs 2.5Gs (or 5/8 over 3/5).

Though the only question what is NBG canon policy?

This comes from the Battle Star Online Game.



Below is a link to one of the sites:
http://www.battlesta...battlegroup.htm

[Catamount]

Grafix, generally games, even licensed ones, are not considered canon.

I wouldn't consider those details to be entirely unreasonable, but by all indications, it's completely non-canonical.

It looks like a http://ditl.org/ type site, lots of information, but nearly all of it conjecture.

Edited by Catamount, 14 November 2011 - 07:49 PM.

[Grafix TM]

Catamount, on 14 November 2011 - 07:43 PM, said:

Grafix, generally games, even licensed ones, are not considered canon.

I wouldn't consider those details to be entirely unreasonable, but by all indications, it's completely non-canonical.

It looks like a http://ditl.org/ type site, lots of information, but all of it conjecture.

The game which is developed from the re-creators of BSG which was aired on the SyFy network (http://www.syfy.com/battlestar/) are the ones that created the game (http://www.syfygames.com). Isn't that where you get the cannon from...the show or creation/re-creation of the lore?

[Catamount]

Grafix™, on 14 November 2011 - 07:51 PM, said:

The game which is developed from the re-creators of BSG which was aired on the SyFy network (http://www.syfy.com/battlestar/) are the ones that created the game (http://www.syfygames.com). Isn't that where you get the cannon from...the show or creation/re-creation of the lore?

Hmm, that depends on the franchise.

Again, many times such licensed works are not part of canon, but things vary greatly. I believe in Star Wars, such material is considered canonical, but canon Expanded Universe, as goes for all novels excluding the film novelizations. In Trek, only what's on screen was considered canon, with the possibility that the technical manuals may now be considered canon as well by Viacom. Even the Animated Series was only very recently canonized.

For BSG? I have no clue, not definitively, but my gut feeling is that this game's information, where not provided from the show, is not part of the canon of the show.

[Nebfer]

Catamount, on 14 November 2011 - 07:24 PM, said:

It's also funny how you never bothered to answer my question about B5.

It was an example of a series that did show long range attacks being done with it's VFX a few times, in other words they actually went the trouble of having a few time where the FX actually did have long range combat, I never did say B-5 fought at very long ranges. Most debates I have read on B-5 typically has them at a few thousand KM at best. However not all of the combat sequences where of long range attacks as evidenced by your vids.

Quote

Despite you trying to imply that VFX canon says that maximum ranges are outlined in BSG by what you consider visual evidence, that's not even really your argument.

Then you are misinterpreting my arguments, I am not a guy who is only beholden to just visuals (unlike what you seem to think) I will use dialog or written if they are applicable and known to me, however do you know of any of these other sources that mention ranges at all? From what I have gotten thy do not, hence the focus on the visual, as that's what we have to work with. Or do you have sources that say other wise. If the ranges presented on that game site are indeed canon I would happily use them (though it seems it's not from what I can find, "official" is a possibility though).

Quote

Your argument is that these observed instances must represented maximums because you, personally, can't think of any reason for ships to fight inside of their maximum weapon ranges, since it's never canonically stated that these instances do represent the upper limits of BSG range.

Actually I have argued more for their typical ranges not their maximums, if I have come off suggesting that this is their maximum then I apologize.


On the other hand You also have not provided evidence that they can indeed fire further than ~100km or so. If that is your position. Even when I asked for it. Again the focus on the Visuals is not some obsession of that particular aspect but due to the extreme lack sources that provide the required information from the other parts of the show, as the dialog makes little indication in that field. And yes I will point out that missiles do seem to be able to attack targets from longer ranges than their guns however they seem to prefer the guns rather than use missiles... And even the cylons seem to prefer close combat even though their missiles should be more than capable of crossing large distances.

lets put it simply

The visuals in the show are canon is that not correct? as is the audio? Yes or no?
Dose the Audio contradict the Visuals in regards to range? If so then how is it contradicted?

Dose not the visuals seem to indicate at the lest for their main guns a range of roughly 100km or so? If not then what contradicts this view? As the visuals do show that the opposing ships are in clear view of each other quite often.

Dose not the dialog make little to no mention of combat ranges in the show? if they do mention ranges where is it and what dose it indicate?
Is their a doctrine stated in the show, or a personnel preference in part of the commander? Yes or no? If so how dose it interfere with the ranges that the show commonly depicts?

Also if the visuals are unreliable then how are they unreliable (in universe), when nothing in this case seems to indicate that they are in fact unreliable?

Furthermore how can we be sure that the visuals are in fact not what was intended when the dialog makes no known contradictory remarks, like it dose in star trek, and when no other sources indicate other wise as well (the fact that this is an issue in a number of series dose not inherently mean this is a problem here, particularly on the topic of combat ranges).

[Ulfsarkr]

There is something everyone here is forgetting. The reason the Battlestar doesn't use as many computerized systems is due to the Cylon threat. A Battlestar and it's complement in a prime configuration would have autonomous weapons systems and advanced fire control.

This is explained numerous times in all three series (the original, the 1980, and the reboot).

And as has been explained before, close range fights with the Cylons are preferable, but more to the point: without computerized fire control long range fighting might as well be impossible. Visual range is a must for direct/manual targeting that cannot be interfered with.

It's safe to assume that this would change entirely with fire controls engaged.

[Catamount]

Nebfer, that isn't an unreasonable position. I apologize for misunderstanding.

I certainly agree with your treatment of visuals, and yes, I agree, typical combat ranges in BSG are definitely on the extreme short side of things.


With that said, it's also my experience that that's the nature of combat in all of science fiction, regardless of actual combat capability in ships. I'm not saying BSG ships can fire any further than we see, I certainly have no evidence that they can.


I'm just saying that this is one case where absence of evidence is definitely not evidence of absense, because of how VFX is almost always treated (especially keeping in mind that Trek's supervising producer, Ronald D Moore, is the person who developed NBG).

It's kind of like when we see ships travel at absurdly slow speeds. We know why it's done, but of course it's absurd to assert that, say, BSG ships really only travel a few hundred KPH, and yet travel hundreds of thousands or millions of kilometers in a matter of hours, which is what we see. Remember the pilot? Boomer and Helo were out a considerable ways from Caprica, with ships fighting in orbit between them and the planet (so clearly further than typical orbit), and yet at sublight, flying what was clearly only a few hundred kph, and powered down (no FTL), they reached the planet in what was clearly only a few hours. Even if they had managed that in a few weeks it would have been unrealistic.


The point is I'm not saying "BSG ships can fire at X range"; I'd never make such a statement, beyond what maximum we see. I'm just saying that we almost certainly don't know, because maximum observed ranges never, or almost never, correlate to maximum ranges.


I suppose it's neither here nor there anyways; if your numbers on weapon yields are true, then there's little reason to doubt a Leviathan would have a decisive advantage in combat. I'm pretty sure it would win pretty handily.



While we're on the topic of range, if naval PPCs (which the Leviathan carries a large complement of) are in any way similar to typical scifi particle weapons, they might actually be capable of absurd range, especially in a vacuum. Do they dissipate with distance? How fast do they travel?

Edited by Catamount, 15 November 2011 - 06:31 AM.

[Alizabeth Aijou]

How fast they travel?
The Medium and Heavy ones have a minimum velocity of at least 900km/m, or 54.000km/h.
Which would equate to Mach 43.6-ish, assuming that the N-PPC is fired at the start of a space-scale AeroSpace battle's turn, and impacts at the last moment of the turn (one turn is 60 seconds). Given how unlikely that case would be, we're probably looking at speeds of at least Mach 50, or 61.800km/h.

Simply arithmatics based on the given knowledge.
Range = 50 hexes.
1 hex = ~18km.
50 hexes = ~900km.
1 turn = 60 seconds.

Light N-PPCs would have a minimum velocity of Mach ~34.9, using the same calculations.