1189 replies to this topic

[Mason Grimm]

OMG the posts in this thread are simply too long for me to scan every single one!

SO if you find something offensive someone just send me a PM cause I'll be poolside enjoying my youth instead of spending it learning quantum physics, warp travel and whom is the bigger nerd with the biggest brain.

You guys!!! Whew!!! Too much math for me!!!

[Catamount]

Just wait until I have an excuse to break out Ilithi's Sequential Discharge Effect theory post from the Star Trek excalibur forums

I'm notorious for megaposts on more than one forum, but I think it still dwarfs anything I've ever done.

[Ilithi Dragon]

Mason Grimm, on 13 January 2012 - 05:06 AM, said:

OMG the posts in this thread are simply too long for me to scan every single one!

SO if you find something offensive someone just send me a PM cause I'll be poolside enjoying my youth instead of spending it learning quantum physics, warp travel and whom is the bigger nerd with the biggest brain.

You guys!!! Whew!!! Too much math for me!!!

I think this means that we have won the forums.

Catamount, on 13 January 2012 - 07:46 AM, said:

Just wait until I have an excuse to break out Ilithi's Sequential Discharge Effect theory post from the Star Trek excalibur forums

I'm notorious for megaposts on more than one forum, but I think it still dwarfs anything I've ever done.

That was a 10,000-word essay (plus pictures), and I wrote it in a single afternoon... o.o; Not the longest essay I've written (that would be my 14,000-word, 27-page essay on the history of Federation starship design), but one of the longer ones.

Edited by ilithi dragon, 13 January 2012 - 08:06 PM.

[Strum Wealh]

Quote

It's also worth noting that Trek phasers and disruptors would likely have considerably higher effective yields against non-Trek targets, because of the amplifying effect of their NDF effect. Effective yields can easily go up a couple orders of magnitude or more against targets not hardened against the NDF effect.

So, I looked up this "NDF Effect"...

It seems as though there are materials (one of which is apparently commonly used in the construction of packing crates) that are resistant to the disruptive effects of phasers (and disruptors).

What makes such things resistant?
As such, who's to say that the High Guard isn't already using NDF-resistant(/immune) materials and/or technologies ("cold plasma armor" and/or "fullerene composite plating", for instance)?

Quote

Now, Trek torpedoes are a bit more powerful than Andromeda missiles - the M/AM payload of the older TNG-era photon torpedoes is approximately equal to the kinetic energy of an Andromeda missile, though this would be magnified up to 1.5 times by the Lorentz factor of their maximum sublight velocity (0.75c). Late-TNG photon torpedoes are 1.5 times more powerful than a single Andromeda missile in M/AM payload alone, and Quantum torpedoes are 6 times more powerful in payload alone (and most of that payload appears to be delivered to the target, 'shaped' by the torpedoes shields). That alone will partly make up for the RoF difference, though not by 2-3 orders of magnitude (at most one, if every Trek ship is equipped with Quantum torpedoes). More significantly, however, is the fact that Trek torpedoes are shielded, unlike Andromeda missiles, enough that they would be effectively invulnerable to Andromeda point-defenses, where as Trek ships, particularly newer Federation ships, would be able to shout down swaths of Andromeda missiles. Newer Federation ships especially, with their multi-emitter phaser arrays, would be able to shoot down dozens to hundreds of Andromeda missiles at a time (depending on the ship and the array, a phaser array can have dozens to thousands of emitters). Even at lower rates of fire, the XMC would probably be able to overwhelm the defenses of any single new Federation frigate or destroyer, or any of the Federation's older designs that still use the old ball-turret style phasers, and most of the ships of the other powers (disruptors only come in fixed- and turreted cannons, not faceted emitter arrays, so the are limited in how many small targets they can fire on at once, and how accurately they can do so, but they are generally simpler, and more powerful than their phaser counterparts), but the newer Federation cruisers and capital ships, with their big arrays, would be able to swat down dozens to hundreds of missiles at a time. If the XMC can sustain its RoF for any notable amount of time, I would expect that it could overwhelm even the newer Federation Light Cruisers, but very few missiles would slip past the phaser point-defense of the newer Federation Heavy Cruisers and Capital Ships (they can fire out to 2-300,000km with a fair degree of accuracy, and they can target in real-time with FTL sensors and prepare to fire well beyond that range).

If the Federation torpedoes moving at that speed (0.75c) and subject to relativistic effects (the being-subject-to-relativistic-effects being the more critical part of the statement), I take it they're driven by something not-unlike impulse engines (as a system driven by a warp drive - that is, an Alcubierre drive - would not be subject to such relativistic effects)?

Also, precisely how tough are a photon torpedo's shields?
I know that Memory Alpha states that a Photon torpedo is shielded to the point where it can survive inside a star (for a few seconds), but that makes it seem comparable to the average egg shell - it is amazingly strong when placed under a uniformly-distributed load (such as a pressure vessel or the inside of a star) but surprisingly weak under point loads (such as an average sewing needle against an egg's shell, or precise and concentrated weapons' fire directed at a shield).


We know that photon torpedoes can be struck by directed-energy weapons' fire and destroyed by it - the result being a "photonic shock wave".

Also, as of DS9, a group called the Breen apparently had a hand-held weapon called a "CRM 114" that was "guaranteed to penetrate reactive armor in the 6-15 centimeter range and force fields up to 4.6 gigajoules".

One megaton is a unit of energy equal to 4.184 petajoules.
Each of the High Guard' OKKMs have a 40 megaton (equivalent to 167.36 petajoules) yield.
Each High Guard ELS missile tube can fire 8 missiles per second


And it's demonstrated on more than one occasion that it doesn't seem to take a lot of weapons' fire to take down a starship's shields (though, it is stated that a Constitution-class starship's shields could take the equivalent of 90 TOS-era photon torpedoes (or ~135 Commonwealth OKKMs, to use the quoted 1.5x yield from the Lorentz effect on the photon torpedoes (representing approximately 22593.6 petajoules, or approximately 22.59 exajoules) - equal to approximately 0.4 seconds of fire from the 40 missile tubes of an XMC or a Pride of Kaldera class frigate, approximately 0.3 seconds of fire from a RFoH's 60 missile tubes, or less than one full salvo from a Siege Perilous' 180 missile tubes) at once).
I would think that a mere torpedo's shields would be far less impressive than any starship's (otherwise they would litter the starships' hulls with the same type of shield generators used in the torpedoes).

As the Andromeda stated that it would take "less than" two minutes to completely depopulate a (presumably Earth-sized) planet with her weapons (with her ELS missile launchers being her primary weapons), I would think that she could sustain fire for approximately that long (that is, ~ 2 minutes; I do realize that this means she would be carrying something on the order of 38,400 missiles of varying sorts (and in varying stages of construction-completeness)).

Even if a Federation starship manages a 50% missile shoot-down/confusion/dodge rate (which doesn't seem overly likely), I think about 3 seconds of fire from 40 missile tubes on any High Guard ship (representing approximately 80.33 exajoules) should be enough to dispatch the shields of any Federation starship (and probably the starship itself, depending on how tough Federation hulls are ("tritanium" is 21.4 times as hard as diamond, and would be backed up with a SIF, yes?) and how good Federation EW and point-defense are), and another 0.5-1.0 seconds of fire to address any torpedoes that said Federation ship may have been able to launch (alternatively, the High Guard ship's CAG - 112 slipstream-capable fighters and 24 attack drones for an XMC, 8 attack drones for a RFoH, 16 attack drones for a PoK, or 32 attack drones for a S.P. - can handle the torpedoes).

Also, one interesting set of factors to consider are the combination of speed and acceleration.
According to Memory Alpha's article on impulse drive (which references the "Star Trek: Voyager" episode "Timeless"), the fastest a ship has been shown/stated to go under impulse is warp 0.8c (2.4x10^8 m/s) for an Intrepid-class starship.
By contrast, the Andromeda's maximum safe speed in real-space is 0.4c (1.2x10^8 m/s).
What isn't noted for the Federation ships, however, is acceleration - how quickly can to get up to speed, or reverse direction, or make a 90-degree turn?
For an XMC (specifically, the Andromeda), we know:

Quote

The Andromeda has a max acceleration of approximately 500,000 m/s using her MPDs, which means she can reach her top speed in 239.83 seconds (4 minutes), and reverse direction and reach top speed again in 479.67 seconds, or 7.99 minutes, which is extremely impressive.

The official designation of her engines are "Mark VIII Slipstream Engines."

Although that should read "500,000 m/(s^2)" for the Andromeda's acceleration, but the point is made - High Guard ships may have a lower top-end than Federation ships, but they seem to have a very high rate of acceleration.

Such acceleration is demonstrated well in the YouTube video "Andromeda Battle Montage" at the 1:56 (Let's see a Federation starship do that as quickly! ), 2:09, and 5:28 marks.
(Also, the firing sequences starting at around 9:34 and 10:55 (the first being the better of the two) are good examples of the ~3-second-missile-burst I mentioned earlier in this post... even though the Andromeda is engaging her targets at extremely close range only for dramatic effect. )

-----

And, after all that, there is not only the ship-to-ship comparison, but the political and tactical/strategic angles to consider:

Given that the Systems Commonwealth and the United Federation of Planets seem to be build on many of the same ideals, they may not come to blows at all, but instead come to a mutual understanding and perhaps even an alliance!

Or, failing that...

• The High Guard has timely intergalactic capability, while it seems Starfleet doesn't - they can stage from a set of bases that Starfleet cannot reach.
  
• The High Guard has ~500,000 ships (capital ships and equivalents) to Starfleet's ~30,000 ships (capital ships and equivalents), and both groups' fighting ships seem generally comparable to one another on a ship-for-ship basis (that is, each has their respective arenas of superiority, but neither side seems to massively outclass the other on an overall ship-for-ship basis). Even at 10-1 losses in the Federation's favor (an very generous and unlikely scenario, given how closely match they seem to be on a ship-for-ship basis and both sides likely have more-or-less equal replacement rates), Starfleet would run out of fighting capability with the High Guard still retaining a substantial portion (~40%) of its fighting force.
  
• The Federation has only ~150 member worlds all gathered in a relatively small area, likely with more than one member world per star system. Even if it were only one member world per star system... the High Guard has more - many, many more - than 150 ships (including both slipstream-capable capital ships and slipstream-capable fighters) capable of carrying star-system-killing nova bombs, and it only takes one nova bomb to destroy an entire solar system (with the attacking ships, of course, jumping out of the system before the nova bomb fully takes effect). The High Guard could, if pressed, literally destroy every Federation member world simultaneously in a single strike - can the Federation say the same of the Commonwealth?

I do believe that would be considered a "check" in the chess sense...

[Ilithi Dragon]

Strum Wealh, on 14 January 2012 - 07:13 PM, said:

So, I looked up this "NDF Effect"...

It seems as though there are materials (one of which is apparently commonly used in the construction of packing crates) that are resistant to the disruptive effects of phasers (and disruptors).

What makes such things resistant?
As such, who's to say that the High Guard isn't already using NDF-resistant(/immune) materials and/or technologies ("cold plasma armor" and/or "fullerene composite plating", for instance)?

Well, we actually don't have any real reason to believe that packing crates have any significant NDF resistance (though undoubtedly some are built with phaser-resistant materials for security purposes), because to my knowledge, we've never actually seen a packing crate hit with a phaser set high enough to induce vaporization there is a threshold for that to start occuring, and there are a few 'kill' settings below that threshold where the thermal effects of the beam are sufficient to cause a potentially lethal injury to most humanoid species, and all shots we've seen of firefights where in crates have been hit have not demonstrated vaporization-level firepower. It's likely that some crates do have phaser-resistant materials in their composition, but whether this is common or not is not something we can determine (nor does the post you linked provide any verifiable evidence that any crates are phaser-resistant, let alone that crates commonly are phaser resistant, since no links or references to actual source material or episodes, etc. are made).

As for whether the Systems Commonwealth would have phaser-resistant materials in their construction, it is not absolutely certain, but it is unlikely that they would. Without phaser-like weapons to armor themselves against, they would have no reason to use semi-rare materials that are resistant to them. Furthermore, a significant portion of the TNG-era NDF resistance comes from the Structural Integrity Field, or SIF, a piece of technology that the Systems Commonwealth does not have, to my knowledge.

Even if by some fluke they do have NDF resistant materials in their ship construction, it is extremely improbable that they would have superior NDF resistance to Trek ships that have been specifically armored and shielded against the effect, so Trek phasers and disruptors would be at least as effective against SC ships as they are against Trek ships, with a good chance of being at least somewhat more effective.

Strum Wealh, on 14 January 2012 - 07:13 PM, said:

If the Federation torpedoes moving at that speed (0.75c) and subject to relativistic effects (the being-subject-to-relativistic-effects being the more critical part of the statement), I take it they're driven by something not-unlike impulse engines (as a system driven by a warp drive - that is, an Alcubierre drive - would not be subject to such relativistic effects)?

They have M/AM-powered rocket engines (unlike the fusion-powered rocket engines that form the core of Trek impulse drives), and probably some form of artificial mass reduction system like the fusion-powered impulse drives on ships, just powered by M/AM reactions instead of fusion reactions. Torpedoes fired at warp have warp sustainers that can 'steal' from the firing ship's warp field and maintain the launched-at warp speed (and maybe plus a tiny bit) for a short span after launch, but at sublight they use M/AM rockets.

Strum Wealh, on 14 January 2012 - 07:13 PM, said:

Also, precisely how tough are a photon torpedo's shields?
I know that Memory Alpha states that a Photon torpedo is shielded to the point where it can survive inside a star (for a few seconds), but that makes it seem comparable to the average egg shell - it is amazingly strong when placed under a uniformly-distributed load (such as a pressure vessel or the inside of a star) but surprisingly weak under point loads (such as an average sewing needle against an egg's shell, or precise and concentrated weapons' fire directed at a shield).


We know that photon torpedoes can be struck by directed-energy weapons' fire and destroyed by it - the result being a "photonic shock wave".

The precise strength of a photon torpedo's shield is not known (and probably varies by model and originating star nation, etc.), but they are generally strong enough to make them not worth bothering to shoot down even by Trek capital ships. We do know that they can be destroyed by a direct hit from a single photon torpedo, but that a direct hit is required and that this is a tricky proposition even with late TNG-era Federation equipment.

Strum Wealh, on 14 January 2012 - 07:13 PM, said:

Also, as of DS9, a group called the Breen apparently had a hand-held weapon called a "CRM 114" that was "guaranteed to penetrate reactive armor in the 6-15 centimeter range and force fields up to 4.6 gigajoules".

Yes, Trek hand-held weaponry can get pretty damned nasty. Federation hand phasers have demonstrated gigajoule-range effective yields on their highest settings. The Breen have demonstrated technology that is roughly comparable to the Federation in the Dominion War.

Strum Wealh, on 14 January 2012 - 07:13 PM, said:

One megaton is a unit of energy equal to 4.184 petajoules.
Each of the High Guard' OKKMs have a 40 megaton (equivalent to 167.36 petajoules) yield.
Each High Guard ELS missile tube can fire 8 missiles per second


And it's demonstrated on more than one occasion that it doesn't seem to take a lot of weapons' fire to take down a starship's shields (though, it is stated that a Constitution-class starship's shields could take the equivalent of 90 TOS-era photon torpedoes (or ~135 Commonwealth OKKMs, to use the quoted 1.5x yield from the Lorentz effect on the photon torpedoes (representing approximately 22593.6 petajoules, or approximately 22.59 exajoules) - equal to approximately 0.4 seconds of fire from the 40 missile tubes of an XMC or a Pride of Kaldera class frigate, approximately 0.3 seconds of fire from a RFoH's 60 missile tubes, or less than one full salvo from a Siege Perilous' 180 missile tubes) at once).
I would think that a mere torpedo's shields would be far less impressive than any starship's (otherwise they would litter the starships' hulls with the same type of shield generators used in the torpedoes).

Well, the overall endurance of a single torpedo's shields is definitely less than a Trek ship's, it is just a torpedo shield, after all. However, because they are not going to be re-using the shield generator, and don't have to worry about keeping the shield up for hours or even minutes (even fired at maximum range for late-TNG era, photon torpedoes only have to keep their shields up at full for the last few seconds at most, since it would only take a handful of seconds at most to cross the maximum range of a Trek ship's phaser or disruptor range), so the torpedo shields can be overloaded far beyond what can be sustained and re-used. We know that the shield generators on Trek ships can briefly spike their output by as much as six orders of magnitude when deflecting incoming fire, torpedo shields could easily match that, and possibly exceed that for the brief span that they have to maintain the shield. Generally, it's enough that Trek ships would have to concentrate too much firepower on each torpedo, in too short a timespan, to make them worthwhile to even try to shoot down in most cases, though it can be done with a direct photon torpedo hit (or ~268 PetaJoules).

Strum Wealh, on 14 January 2012 - 07:13 PM, said:

As the Andromeda stated that it would take "less than" two minutes to completely depopulate a (presumably Earth-sized) planet with her weapons (with her ELS missile launchers being her primary weapons), I would think that she could sustain fire for approximately that long (that is, ~ 2 minutes; I do realize that this means she would be carrying something on the order of 38,400 missiles of varying sorts (and in varying stages of construction-completeness)).

This seems like a reasonable estimation. The Andromeda's arsenal could well even exceed that number by a fair amount. The missiles themsleves don't have to be very big - they're 1kg rocks, basically, glued to a M/AM rocket powerful enough to accelerate them up to 0.90c. We could probably do the math to figure out what mass of fuel would be required to accelerate that 1kg rock (plus the fuel) to 0.90c, and get an idea of how big the rocket would have to be, but it's too late for me to do that right now. Either way, it probably won't have to be a very big rocket, so these things could well be considerably smaller than a photon torpedo, so you could pack quite a lot of them into a fairly small space (you could easily stack 600 photon torpedoes into a basketball court one deck high, with more than enough space to move around and access the torpedoes - with sizes considerably less than a photon torpedo, you could easily squeeze a few tens of thousands or more of OKKMs into the Andromeda). I would say 50,000 - 100,000 missiles of varying ordnance types would be a reasonable range for a Glorious Heritage class.

Strum Wealh, on 14 January 2012 - 07:13 PM, said:

Even if a Federation starship manages a 50% missile shoot-down/confusion/dodge rate (which doesn't seem overly likely), I think about 3 seconds of fire from 40 missile tubes on any High Guard ship (representing approximately 80.33 exajoules) should be enough to dispatch the shields of any Federation starship (and probably the starship itself, depending on how tough Federation hulls are ("tritanium" is 21.4 times as hard as diamond, and would be backed up with a SIF, yes?) and how good Federation EW and point-defense are), and another 0.5-1.0 seconds of fire to address any torpedoes that said Federation ship may have been able to launch (alternatively, the High Guard ship's CAG - 112 slipstream-capable fighters and 24 attack drones for an XMC, 8 attack drones for a RFoH, 16 attack drones for a PoK, or 32 attack drones for a S.P. - can handle the torpedoes).

I would say this greatly depends on which type of ship the HG ship is going against, as noted before. The older Federation ships, the Mirandas and Excelsiors and other "TMP-era" ships that formed the backbone of the fleet for the first half of the 24th Century would be completely and hopelessly overwhelmed, because their old ball-turret phasers just would not be able to keep up with those kinds of salvoes. Newer Federation frigates and destroyers would also be completely overwhelmed, because even though they have the newer, more accurate phaser arrays with several dozen emitters in each array, all capable of firing independently (and they should be able to fire them all when engaging the missiles, since they won't have to fire anywhere near full output to pop them), they don't have enough emitters that can be brought to bear in any one direction to be able to swat down hundreds of missiles a second. Now, the more modern Light Cruisers probably could do that, but as I also noted previously, they would probably not be able to keep that up for very long before being overwhelmed. the newer Federation Heavy Cruisers and especially the Capital Ships WOULD be able to keep up with those salvo levels, however (though the salvoes the Siege Perilous classes are capable of would strain even them, 1v1).

Total shield reserve strength for smaller ships is likely in the hundreds of PJ range, but larger ships easily reach into the several to tens of PJ range. Even the big capital ships would be overwhelmed very quickly by the maximum-rate-of-fire salvoes from a HG ship if no anti-missile defense was engaged, but Federation capital ships would probably be able to throw out enough phaser fire to knock out most if not all of the missiles as they came in, though this would likely tie up most or all of their phasers until they closed to within the OKKMs' minimum effective range.

I am not convinced that the fighters would be able to take out the torpedoes. Trek torpedoes are slower and larger, but they are still pretty quick at terminal velocity, and they are very well-shielded. I don't think a fighter could put out enough firepower to kill a torpedo in the short span it takes to reach the target.

Strum Wealh, on 14 January 2012 - 07:13 PM, said:

Also, one interesting set of factors to consider are the combination of speed and acceleration.
According to Memory Alpha's article on impulse drive (which references the "Star Trek: Voyager" episode "Timeless"), the fastest a ship has been shown/stated to go under impulse is warp 0.8c (2.4x10^8 m/s) for an Intrepid-class starship.
By contrast, the Andromeda's maximum safe speed in real-space is 0.4c (1.2x10^8 m/s).
What isn't noted for the Federation ships, however, is acceleration - how quickly can to get up to speed, or reverse direction, or make a 90-degree turn?
For an XMC (specifically, the Andromeda), we know:


Although that should read "500,000 m/(s^2)" for the Andromeda's acceleration, but the point is made - High Guard ships may have a lower top-end than Federation ships, but they seem to have a very high rate of acceleration.

Such acceleration is demonstrated well in the YouTube video "Andromeda Battle Montage" at the 1:56 (Let's see a Federation starship do that as quickly! ), 2:09, and 5:28 marks.
(Also, the firing sequences starting at around 9:34 and 10:55 (the first being the better of the two) are good examples of the ~3-second-missile-burst I mentioned earlier in this post... even though the Andromeda is engaging her targets at extremely close range only for dramatic effect. )

Well, Trek ships have been observed to accelerate at a few thousand km/s^2 on multiple occasions, with Voyager having been observed accelerating at about 4,000 km/s^2, or about 4,000,000 m/s^2. That's about 8 times the acceleration of an XMC, and Trek ships have routinely demonstrated turn rates that are roughly comparable to those demonstrated by the XMC in the linked video. Here is a great thread with a number of different turning sequences analyzed for their turn rates. The Galaxy has demonstrated turn rates of about 12 seconds for a full 360-degree turn, or 3 seconds for a 90-degree turn on multiple occasions, and in in the Wolf 359 battle scene in the DS9 pilot, we see an Ambassador and a Nebula perform at least a 90-degree turn in ~1.75 seconds. They don't seem to be able to quite match the peak observed rotational turn rate for the XMC, but they're fairly close.

Strum Wealh, on 14 January 2012 - 07:13 PM, said:

And, after all that, there is not only the ship-to-ship comparison, but the political and tactical/strategic angles to consider:

Given that the Systems Commonwealth and the United Federation of Planets seem to be build on many of the same ideals, they may not come to blows at all, but instead come to a mutual understanding and perhaps even an alliance!

Oh, most certainly, the SC and the UFP would almost never go to war with each other. They basically represent more or less the same ideals and principals (not surprising, really, since they were both created by Gene Roddenberry!), and both would open up peace negotiations and gladly jump into full-scale alliance and tech exchange in fairly short order. An actual war between the two powers is all but impossible.

Strum Wealh, on 14 January 2012 - 07:13 PM, said:

Or, failing that...

• The High Guard has timely intergalactic capability, while it seems Starfleet doesn't - they can stage from a set of bases that Starfleet cannot reach.
  
• The High Guard has ~500,000 ships (capital ships and equivalents) to Starfleet's ~30,000 ships (capital ships and equivalents), and both groups' fighting ships seem generally comparable to one another on a ship-for-ship basis (that is, each has their respective arenas of superiority, but neither side seems to massively outclass the other on an overall ship-for-ship basis). Even at 10-1 losses in the Federation's favor (an very generous and unlikely scenario, given how closely match they seem to be on a ship-for-ship basis and both sides likely have more-or-less equal replacement rates), Starfleet would run out of fighting capability with the High Guard still retaining a substantial portion (~40%) of its fighting force.
  
• The Federation has only ~150 member worlds all gathered in a relatively small area, likely with more than one member world per star system. Even if it were only one member world per star system... the High Guard has more - many, many more - than 150 ships (including both slipstream-capable capital ships and slipstream-capable fighters) capable of carrying star-system-killing nova bombs, and it only takes one nova bomb to destroy an entire solar system (with the attacking ships, of course, jumping out of the system before the nova bomb fully takes effect). The High Guard could, if pressed, literally destroy every Federation member world simultaneously in a single strike - can the Federation say the same of the Commonwealth?

I do believe that would be considered a "check" in the chess sense...

Strategically, the High Guard definitely has several critical advantages, not the least of which is their FTL speed. They could hit anywhere in Trek space with relative ease, while Trek ships would not be able to reach any HG territory (at least, not at first - as mentioned, the Federation is probably on the verge of developing their own slipstream drive, and if they managed to capture any HG ship or ship hulk with the FTL engines intact, they could probably reverse-engineer the tech fairly quickly). The Systems Commonwealth is also definitely much larger than the Federation, with "1,022,347 planets, drifts, space stations, various orbital habitats, and even entire solar systems," according the Andromeda Wiki (how the stations and orbital habitats are counted into that 1,022,347 figure is not clear to me, though there seem to be some number of them counted in that figure). Now, the Federation has far more than 150 planets. It has 150 Member Worlds, but it has far more than just member worlds. There are also Associate Member Worlds, Colonies and Protectorates. We know that Earth alone had over a thousand colonies in the 2260s, and by the 2360s/70s, the Federation could easily control a hundred thousand inhabited planets between Member Worlds, Associate Member Worlds and Colonies (plus an unknown number of protectorates). Add in the Klingon Empire and assorted minor allies, and especially if the Romulan Star Empire and Cardassian Union could be dragged into the fray (both real possibilities post-Dominion War, with the Romulans having been war-time allies already and the opening of real diplomatic relations after Nemesis, and the Cardassians likely being under a fairly Federation-friendly government after the war), and Trek could probably get pretty close to matching the Systems Commonwealth, and possibly even exceeding it in terms of total number of inhabited planets controlled (the ASC has a rather small number of worlds for an inter-galactic star nation).

As for nova bombs, their use as a genocidal weapon being anathema to everything the All Systems Commonwealth is supposed to represent aside, the Federation has a similar weapon, using trilithium as a nuclear inhibitor to induce a supernova (unlike the nova bombs, which cancel out the star's gravity field, releasing the existing energy reactions, a trilithium weapon actually temporarily inhibits the star's fusion reactions, causing it to collapse in on itself for a brief span before the trilithium's effect ends, causing a massive amount of fusion that rips the star apart). It wouldn't be able to deploy them against the ASC, but it does have the technology (and the ships would not likely be destroyed by a star going nova, since the ships and any other warp-capable craft would be able to detect the star's death and jump to warp to escape it).

But, yes, the ASC does have significant strategic advantages that would probably win them the war, if the ASC and UFP somehow ever came to blows.

[Artifice]

The way I see it is:
Star wars beats the tard out of anything, based on the energy of the weapons they use. Star Trek, BattleTech - sorry guys, pwnt.
Out of the three main battlefield advantages, WH40k focuses on the best 2. Firepower and Armor. No matter what the Star Wars empire can throw at the Imperium, Eldar, Orks or Chaos - The 40K will prevail, for better or worse.

40K would totes pwn Battletech - but seeing as the technology is by definition 37,000 years older, then we'll just have to deal with the temporal difference and not compare them. BattleTech still uses the 3rd advantage, speed.

[Zakatak]

Does anybody know what the average engagement range is in Stargate? Because even though BC-304's have 6.4GT shields, 1500MT plasma beams, and 800MT missiles (and a bunch of self-defense railguns that fire at 9000RPM), the range at which ships fight at seems to be no more then 800km or less. Likely for dramatic reasons, sure.

Question: Flood vs. Borg vs. Replicators, which is the most problematic enemy?

Edited by Zakatak, 15 January 2012 - 10:02 AM.

[Strum Wealh]

Zakatak, on 15 January 2012 - 09:58 AM, said:

Does anybody know what the average engagement range is in Stargate? Because even though BC-304's have 6.4GT shields, 1500MT plasma beams, and 800MT missiles (and a bunch of self-defense railguns that fire at 9000RPM), the range at which ships fight at seems to be no more then 800km or less. Likely for dramatic reasons, sure.

From the Stargate wiki article for the F-302:

Quote

F-302s are armed with highly effective dual Railguns and modified AIM 120A air-to-air missiles. The warheads on said missiles have been enhanced with Naquadah and are capable of inflicting heavy damage to the hyperdrive systems of Wraith Hive ships. The F-302 can also carry nukes. This is not a normal feature of the craft, but they can be retrofitted with them. (ATL: "No Man's Land", "Enemy at the Gate")

And from the AIM-120A's Stargate Wiki article (as opposed to the IRL weapon's article):

Quote

AIM 120A air-to-air missiles were missiles installed on the X-301 by the Tau'ri as a countermeasure to Goa'uld attack. The X-301 carried a complement of 2 missiles which were used in a plan to slingshot the craft around Jupiter using the planet's own gravity. Suffice it to say the plan failed as the missile provided insufficient thrust to move the craft. (SG1: "Tangent")

The missiles were then fitted onto the F-302s. Though successful in previous dogfights, they proved ineffective against Wraith Darts during a battle above Area 51, as all missiles were intercepted by enemy weapons fire before a single successful impact. (ATL: "Enemy at the Gate")

The SG range seems identical to the IRL range: 50-70 km (31.07-43.49 miles).
The range of the railguns is stated to be 402 km (250 miles).

Where are you getting the figures you've quoted (shield strength, railgun ROF, strength of the Asgard Plasma Beam Weapons, and so on)?

----------

Zakatak, on 15 January 2012 - 09:58 AM, said:

Question: Flood vs. Borg vs. Replicators, which is the most problematic enemy?

Can the various Flood forms (Flood biomass, specifically) or the Replicators be assimilated by the Borg?
Can the Borg (the organic parts, at least) be effectively assimilated by the Flood?

It seems, from the example of James Marrick, that the Replicators can work with normal organic matter (specifically, a normal human body) to a degree - can the same be said of Flood biomass? How long would it take the Borg to develop a countermeasure (assuming they can develop a countermeasure)?

Can we throw in the Magog and/or the Daleks as well?

Edited by Strum Wealh, 15 January 2012 - 10:57 AM.

[Sanctusice]

beats

[Domoneky]

Warhammer 40K. A squad of Astartes (Space Marines) would take over or sabatoge a Star Destroyer and lets face it....the stormtrooper effect does not hinder the Angels of Death.


Remember kids, the more stormtroopers they have the safer you are.

[Grayson Pryde]

The problem with the stormtroopers in the Star Wars movies is that they die every 5 seconds. These are Stormtroopers and not the Imperial army(yes they exisst in Star Wars too!)!

Edited by Grayson Pryde, 15 January 2012 - 06:25 PM.

[Broccan Mac Ronain]

How about Babylon Five?

[Zakatak]

Broccan Mac Ronain, on 15 January 2012 - 06:33 PM, said:

How about Babylon Five?

Depends. Are we talking the Young Races or the First Ones?

I quit watching about 10 episodes in (the acting, oh my gawd) so I don't really know. But from the clips I scene, Whitestars are basically Defiant's with less power and more manoevrability. Considering like a million ships are lost each episode, numbers can't be a problem.

Edited by Zakatak, 15 January 2012 - 07:10 PM.

[Jack Gammel]

Zakatak, on 15 January 2012 - 07:09 PM, said:

Depends. Are we talking the Young Races or the First Ones?

I quit watching about 10 episodes in (the acting, oh my gawd) so I don't really know. But from the clips I scene, Whitestars are basically Defiant's with less power and more manoevrability. Considering like a million ships are lost each episode, numbers can't be a problem.

The First Ones, pretty much by definition, are there to represent the pinnacle of what sentient life can achieve technologically and culturally (though they all took different paths to achieve this and arrived at different conclusions). Therefore, I would suggest that First Ones could go up against any other scifi franchise and at least have a chance (maybe not against the Q or the Chaos gods for pure fluff reasons, but then we really don't know what the limits of Lorien's power is either).

Also, I would strongly advise you to give the series another shot. The first season is pretty painful in a lot of ways, but the second season introduces Bruce Boxleitner as the new captain and the other actors get much more comfortable with their characters. Also, the overarching storyline is incredible.

Edited by Jack Gammel, 15 January 2012 - 10:25 PM.

[Patrio Sioux Daltum]

Battlestar Galactica would win. It's the only one that's mostly reasonable.

Reimagined, of course.

[Zakatak]

Patrio Sioux Daltum, on 16 January 2012 - 03:00 PM, said:

Battlestar Galactica would win. It's the only one that's mostly reasonable.

Reimagined, of course.

Instantaneous jumps of 30LY.
Magical gasoline called Tyllium.
Somehow fitting 3600 rounds of 30mm, Tyllium fuel, 2 or 4 missiles, and a pilot in a frame a third the size of an F-15.
Pretty much no explanation (fluffy or otherwise) for... anything.

Not even close to being as ridiculous as the 100 million GW reactors of Star Wars, or the better-than-antimatter Naquada of Stargate, or the beaming from Star Trek. But certainly by no means "reasonable" if your definition of unreasonable is not being able to understand it with modern science.

Alot of these sci-fi technologies are only 1 breakthrough away.

[Strum Wealh]

Patrio Sioux Daltum, on 16 January 2012 - 03:00 PM, said:

Battlestar Galactica would win. It's the only one that's mostly reasonable.

Reimagined, of course.

Well... considering the hacking ability of pretty much everyone else (R2-D2 from Star Wars, Cortana from Halo, Sam Carter from Stargate, Lt. Cmdr. Data from Star Trek, various Gundam pilots, the Andromeda Ascendant's AI, and so on), the sheer number of ships other groups have, and the firepower the other 'verses individual vessels can bring to bear (see the last couple pages of the thread for what Star Trek and Andromeda have got, for example), I'm not imaging that the Colonial Fleet would fare so well in most fights...

Your thoughts?

----------

Zakatak, on 16 January 2012 - 03:56 PM, said:

Instantaneous jumps of 30LY.
Magical gasoline called Tyllium.

Those are no more ridiculous than, say, what Stargate has to offer, and both SG and BSG are, for the most part, pretty heavily outclassed by comparison to what the likes of Starfleet or the High Guard can field, so for certain values of "reasonable" (taken to mean "closer to currently-realized/realistic technologies by 21st-century Earth standards"), (RDM-)BSG and SG would indeed be "the most reasonable", yes?

Zakatak, on 16 January 2012 - 03:56 PM, said:

Somehow fitting 3600 rounds of 30mm, Tyllium fuel, 2 or 4 missiles, and a pilot in a frame a third the size of an F-15.
Pretty much no explanation (fluffy or otherwise) for... anything.

Specs for a Viper Mk.II

Quote

Race: Colonial
Type: Military
FTL: No

Propulsion:
1 x Voram VM2-D15 upper turbo-thrust engine
2x Voram VM3-D22 turbo-thrust engines
2x reverse thrust motors
RCS points

Crew: 1 pilot

Role: Space superiority fighter

Armaments:
2 x MEC-A6 30mm Thraxon forward-firing kinetic energy weapons (KEW) mounted in the wing roots with 800 round magazine
Dorsal storage bay for 8 x HD-70 Lightning Javelin missiles (optional 50 megaton nuclear warhead).
Weapon hardpoints for mounting missiles / munitions pods, etc. under the wings

Dimensions
Length: 27.6 feet (~8.4m)
Height: 8.9 feet (~2.7m)
Wingspan: 15.5 feet (~4.7m)

While significantly smaller than the F-15 and most other modern combat aircraft, the Vipers (more specifically, the "classic" Viper Mk. II) seem much more similar in armament and size to (though, still smaller than) the Brits' Harrier II.

The fluff (it does exist!) pretty clearly states that the Viper Mk. II carries an 800-round magazine (implied to be split between both guns, giving it a similar ammo load to most modern, real-life fighters and ground-attack aircraft). Where did you get the "3600 round" figure?

Zakatak, on 16 January 2012 - 03:56 PM, said:

Not even close to being as ridiculous as the 100 million GW reactors of Star Wars, or the better-than-antimatter Naquada of Stargate, or the beaming from Star Trek. But certainly by no means "reasonable" if your definition of unreasonable is not being able to understand it with modern science.

Alot of these sci-fi technologies are only 1 breakthrough away.

Understanding sci-fi tech via modern science is one thing. Replicating sci-fi tech with modern (or near-future) science and technology is something else altogether. Wouldn't you agree?

Take, for example, Star Trek's warp drive.
A physicist figured out the bulk of the math and science behind how a similar device would actually nearly 18 years ago (~1994).
Current science is apparently still missing some of the key elements (as seen in the critiques to said physicist's work.)
Yet... even if the understanding of the math is resolved, actually building the device and making it work is another set of challenges.

Another example is the space elevator - we as a society know pretty-much everything we need to know to build one, but we just don't have the tech (and/or the will) to actually go about doing it.

Your thoughts?

[Catamount]

Strum Wealh, on 16 January 2012 - 08:11 PM, said:

Understanding sci-fi tech via modern science is one thing. Replicating sci-fi tech with modern (or near-future) science and technology is something else altogether. Wouldn't you agree?

Take, for example, Star Trek's warp drive.
A physicist figured out the bulk of the math and science behind how a similar device would actually nearly 18 years ago (~1994).
Current science is apparently still missing some of the key elements (as seen in the critiques to said physicist's work.)
Yet... even if the understanding of the math is resolved, actually building the device and making it work is another set of challenges.

Another example is the space elevator - we as a society know pretty-much everything we need to know to build one, but we just don't have the tech (and/or the will) to actually go about doing it.

Your thoughts?

Well you can posit potential explanations, but it's not necessarily understanding, not in the sense of "That could really work in the real universe, like this!".

For instance, the Alcubierre drive works on paper, under certain conditions, but those conditions aren't necessarily possible in the real world. For instance, it relies on the existence of hypothetical exotic particles that aren't known to exist in reality (they may, but they don't necessarily). You can make anything work on paper if you're allowed to make up particles that can do anything.

For that matter, we're not even really sure that space is anything, which means it might not be pliable in the first place, because it might really just be empty nothing. Now, most physicists disagree with that assertion as I understand it, and accept the general relativity model, but there's really no certainty there at the moment, not that I'm aware of. One of the big things that will help determine that will be better understanding gravity. Does gravity actually bend space, as GTR suggests, or is it a purely particle-interaction force, like the other fundamental forces (magnetism, strong/weak nuclear force)?

If gravity proves to just be a particle interaction force, then suddenly curveable space isn't necessarily required to explain anything, which creates a big problem for FTL (in other words, cross your fingers and hope they don't find the Higgs).


Of course, I'm hardly an expert here, I can't get Sol Exastris over here for anything (Marik pilot, not active on the forums ). Any other actual physicists who can help the poor bio major out here with better specifics? (or correct anything wrong?)

Edited by Catamount, 17 January 2012 - 10:50 AM.

[Catamount]

Also, you shouldn't dismiss Stargate so easily.


They actually have some of the highest observed energy outputs of anyone (possibly THE highest). The Asgard have a stated output on one of their ships of only 4PW (which is still quite respectable), but aside from the fact that there are possible extenuating circumstances in the case of the Biliskner (spelling?), the ship that figure comes from, the Asgard also have absurd exotic tech. At one point, they also had an empire (meant in a good way; the Asgard are nice) that spanned at least three galaxies, before the Replicators beat their entire civilization down to basically nothing, until nothing but their homeworld remained, and then even that was taken from them. Beyond them, however, the Ancients match or outstrip nearly anyone. Their experimental power generation, when toyed with by an Earth scientist (a very arrogant one), accidentally blew away half a solar system, with a reactor not much bigger than a sedan, as I recall.

The full power of the ancient fleet probably would have wiped out most major scifi powers, if not any of them, which is why I guess we should be fortunate that:

A.) They went extinct (sort of) 10,000 years before the start of the primary SG canon

B.) They were very altruistic beings, highly advanced, and highly respectful of life.

On the Tauri (Earth) side, Naquadria enhanced gate buster nukes, which are not normal ordinance, but are still existant, have outputs in the very low gigatons, in a package comparable to a photon torpedo in size. Their 304 class starship (Daedalus type), is not very big (not tiny, just not big), but pound for pound, can probably compete with anything out there from other franchises. The biggest deficiency is just that we/the Tauri don't have many of them, because the Stargate program only procured that level of technology a few years ago, in the mid 2000s.

Zakatak, on 16 January 2012 - 03:56 PM, said:

Not even close to being as ridiculous as the 100 million GW reactors of Star Wars

Star Wars is not capable of those outputs outside of the Expanded Universe (which is a different canon than Star Wars ™ ), and to my knowledge, we are not discussing EU material, which is why we're not bringing up, say, Trek novels or offscreen Stargate information (and as we discussed near the beginning of those thread, even for EU material the Curtis Saxton ICS books really shouldn't enter consideration; there's just too many enormous problems with them).


That isn't to say Star Wars is weak, far from it. Wars capability is very considerable, especially if you go from the Empire (who seem... engineering challenged with war machines) to the heyday of the Old Republic (who are engineering awesome ).

Edited by Catamount, 17 January 2012 - 11:08 AM.

[Elpeo Ple]

Pretty evident that I'm a Gundam fan. But I'm gonna have to go with 40k, man, that tech is ridiculous.