1189 replies to this topic

[Jack Gammel]

Well, BG isn't really my forte, but none of these seem like reasonable fights.

From what I can see both universes have weaponry based on lasers/missles/nuclear weapons. However, these Battlestars appear to be around twice the overall size of the WarShip equivalents listed in this battle with much larger crew compliments. In fact, the Avalon is a cruiser-class WarShip, the Mjolnir is a battlecruiser-class, and the Dante is a frigate-class. None of these three are true battleship-class WarShips. All three Battlestars easily carry more armaments than their BT rivals (with the possible exception of the Valkyrie). These armaments include fighters as the Galactica and the Mercury also carry fighter compliments. Regardless of whether space fighters would be effective in a rl space engagement, both BT and BG exist in universes where small figther craft are apparently effective enough to construct in large numbers. This gives the BG ships a significant advantage within the confines of their respective franchises (that said, I think that BT aerospace fighters probably enjoy an advantage over BG raptors and vipers in terms of weapons and armor). I'm not familiar with the effective weapon and sensor ranges on BG ships, but since they seem to rely on similar levels of technology I would guess they'd be pretty similar to BT ships.

I do agree that BT vs. BG would be an interesting fight, but these particular ships aren't exactly on equal footing. I think that a line-up between Battlestars and battleship-class WarShip designs like the Leviathan and the McKenna would be much more reasonable.

Edited by Jack Gammel, 05 February 2012 - 02:52 PM.

[Wulfbane]

Time for some spaceships. First is a planet killer
.
Fire warheads at a planet which does a planetwide blast. Next Is a super fighter. Carrys two ion beams .

next is frigate classed ships. great aganst corvettes and some destoryers. the firstone is a flak frigate. second a multi beam frigate.
.That all for now. will show more later

[Strum Wealh]

Jack Gammel, on 05 February 2012 - 02:31 PM, said:

Well, BG isn't really my forte, but none of these seem like reasonable fights.

From what I can see both universes have weaponry based on lasers/missles/nuclear weapons. However, these Battlestars appear to be around twice the overall size of the WarShip equivalents listed in this battle with much larger crew compliments. In fact, the Avalon is a cruiser-class WarShip, the Mjolnir is a battlecruiser-class, and the Dante is a frigate-class. None of these three are true battleship-class WarShips. All three Battlestars easily carry more armaments than their BT rivals (with the possible exception of the Valkyrie). These armaments include fighters as the Galactica and the Mercury also carry fighter compliments. Regardless of whether space fighters would be effective in a rl space engagement, both BT and BG exist in universes where small figther craft are apparently effective enough to construct in large numbers. This gives the BG ships a significant advantage within the confines of their respective franchises (that said, I think that BT aerospace fighters probably enjoy an advantage over BG raptors and vipers in terms of weapons and armor). I'm not familiar with the effective weapon and sensor ranges on BG ships, but since they seem to rely on similar levels of technology I would guess they'd be pretty similar to BT ships.

I do agree that BT vs. BG would be an interesting fight, but these particular ships aren't exactly on equal footing. I think that a line-up between Battlestars and battleship-class WarShip designs like the Leviathan and the McKenna would be much more reasonable.

Okay - I'll admit that I wasn't all that familiar with BT warship classes.
The most capable, most famous ship that I could think of was the Lyrans' Mjolnir-class ship, the Yggrasil.
From there, the next step down seemed to be the Avalon-class the Mjolnirs were apparently designed to surpass.
The Dante-class seemed like a good, common "smaller WarShip" (as the Valkyrie-type is described as "...possibly the smallest class of battlestar...") to round out the set (though, looking a bit more, it seems closer in general size and role to the Aegis-class WarShip).

So, how about:
Leviathan-class WarShip vs Mercury-class Battlestar
McKenna-class WarShip vs Jupiter-class/Galactica-type Battlestar
Aegis-class WarShip vs Valkyrie-type Battlestar

Edited by Strum Wealh, 05 February 2012 - 05:36 PM.

[firefox117]

I'm putting my money on Halo. Sure, the UNSC has some firepower, and granted those MAC's would pretty much rip though anything, look at it from the point of the Covenant. In terms of their supercarriers, with enough firepower on one ship to glass a whole planet. The firepower from a single Covenant fleet would pretty much level anything on the battlefield. If you take the events from Halo 3 and their latest books, the USNC has pretty much leveled the playing field as well with pinpoint slipspace, and you know theyll be incorporating other Forerunner techs like the shield and plasma/lasers turrets. Not going to go into overkill as other people already have, but I say they got a very good chance of kicking *** against the other players on this list.

[Strum Wealh]

firefox117, on 05 February 2012 - 05:58 PM, said:

I'm putting my money on Halo. Sure, the UNSC has some firepower, and granted those MAC's would pretty much rip though anything, look at it from the point of the Covenant. In terms of their supercarriers, with enough firepower on one ship to glass a whole planet. The firepower from a single Covenant fleet would pretty much level anything on the battlefield. If you take the events from Halo 3 and their latest books, the USNC has pretty much leveled the playing field as well with pinpoint slipspace, and you know theyll be incorporating other Forerunner techs like the shield and plasma/lasers turrets. Not going to go into overkill as other people already have, but I say they got a very good chance of kicking *** against the other players on this list.

Why go second-hand? Why not use the Forerunners themselves?

[Jack Gammel]

Strum Wealh, on 05 February 2012 - 05:35 PM, said:

So, how about:
Leviathan-class WarShip vs Mercury-class Battlestar
McKenna-class WarShip vs Jupiter-class/Galactica-type Battlestar
Aegis-class WarShip vs Valkyrie-type Battlestar

This seems much more reasonable.

Since both franchises seem to rely on similar levels of technology, the fight should come down to ranges, acceleration/speed, and durability.

I don't know anything about BG ranges for either their weapons or sensors. BT ships have decent ranges (though nothing compared to many other scifi franchises). I would find it difficult to believe that either franchise has a significant advantage in sensor or weapon ranges based on their similar levels of technology. That said, once you get into battleship-class WarShips you find a fantastic array of weapon systems, and lots of them. From what I have seen of BG the Battlestars seem to rely heavily on missles and nukes. There's nothing wrong with missles, but such weapons shouldn't be that different from their BT equivalents. Nukes would have limited effect in space battles. Maybe BG lasers are more powerful than their BT rivals, but I find it easier to believe that both have similar ranges and damage potentials. Also, BT ships have NPPCs, and I don't think BG have an answer for these weapons. However, the Galactica and Mercury have fighter compliments, giving them versatility and an advantage over their McKenna and Leviathan counterparts.

Again, I don't know BG, and so I don't know how fast or agile their ships are. The information I read on the Battlestars suggests that they are agile for such large craft, so I'd be willing to believe that they might be more agile than BT ships. As for speed and acceleration: I just coudn't say. I don't know enough about this. I know that BT ships have pretty slow acceleration and limited speed, but I don't know how slow they would be compared to Battestars. Both franshises look like they have similar limits on their FTL technology.

Durability would also be difficult to determine. Apparently, Battlestars are designed to be very hard to kill. They can operate for long periods of time without resupplying, but this skill probably wouldn't help them in a single battle. From what I can see, neither franchise has any kind of shield technology, so they would both have to rely on point-defense-systems and conventional ablative armor.

Anyway, based on all of this I would say:

-The Leviathan beats the Galactica. The Galactica has certain advantages over the Leviathan class, like its fighter compliments, but overall the Leviathan represents the most advanced ship-of-the-line that can be produced by Clan technology. A single Leviathan was capable of crushing IS rival WarShips, and I think that one-on-one the sheer damage potential (it has dozens more capital-ship level weapons than the Galatica) and its size would give it the punch and the survivability to win.

-The Mercury beats the McKenna. Both ships look very similar to me, but the Mercury has fighter wings to back it up.

-The Aegis beats the Valkyrie. The Aegis is better than the Valkyrie in practically every way, and the Aegis even carries fighter escorts which the Valkyrie does not.

Edit 1: I took another look at the Leviathan and it appears to have fighter escorts as well, so this fight is solidly in BT's favor. Also, the McKenna has fighter escorts too, so its fight with the Mercury would be very close.

Edit 2: In my previous post I said that the Avalon and the Mjolnir have no fighter escorts. That was not completely accurate. Both have fighter escorts, but they are limited in comparison to BG Battlestars. The Avalon in particular has such limited fighter coverage that its hardly worth mentioning, but in the name of accuracy I will.

Edited by Jack Gammel, 05 February 2012 - 07:36 PM.

[Garth Sender]

Half-Life anyone? Gordon Freeman for the win!

[guardian wolf]

Mandalorians for the win. Our Kaldabe's will block out the sun, LONG LIVE CLAN ORDO!!!!

[Strum Wealh]

Jack Gammel, on 05 February 2012 - 06:43 PM, said:

This seems much more reasonable.

Since both franchises seem to rely on similar levels of technology, the fight should come down to ranges, acceleration/speed, and durability.

I don't know anything about BG ranges for either their weapons or sensors. BT ships have decent ranges (though nothing compared to many other scifi franchises). I would find it difficult to believe that either franchise has a significant advantage in sensor or weapon ranges based on their similar levels of technology. That said, once you get into battleship-class WarShips you find a fantastic array of weapon systems, and lots of them. From what I have seen of BG the Battlestars seem to rely heavily on missles and nukes. There's nothing wrong with missles, but such weapons shouldn't be that different from their BT equivalents. Nukes would have limited effect in space battles. Maybe BG lasers are more powerful than their BT rivals, but I find it easier to believe that both have similar ranges and damage potentials. Also, BT ships have NPPCs, and I don't think BG have an answer for these weapons. However, the Galactica and Mercury have fighter compliments, giving them versatility and an advantage over their McKenna and Leviathan counterparts.

Again, I don't know BG, and so I don't know how fast or agile their ships are. The information I read on the Battlestars suggests that they are agile for such large craft, so I'd be willing to believe that they might be more agile than BT ships. As for speed and acceleration: I just coudn't say. I don't know enough about this. I know that BT ships have pretty slow acceleration and limited speed, but I don't know how slow they would be compared to Battestars. Both franshises look like they have similar limits on their FTL technology.

Durability would also be difficult to determine. Apparently, Battlestars are designed to be very hard to kill. They can operate for long periods of time without resupplying, but this skill probably wouldn't help them in a single battle. From what I can see, neither franchise has any kind of shield technology, so they would both have to rely on point-defense-systems and conventional ablative armor.

Anyway, based on all of this I would say:

-The Leviathan beats the Galactica. The Galactica has certain advantages over the Leviathan class, like its fighter compliments, but overall the Leviathan represents the most advanced ship-of-the-line that can be produced by Clan technology. A single Leviathan was capable of crushing IS rival WarShips, and I think that one-on-one the sheer damage potential (it has dozens more capital-ship level weapons than the Galatica) and its size would give it the punch and the survivability to win.

-The Mercury beats the McKenna. Both ships look very similar to me, but the Mercury has fighter wings to back it up.

-The Aegis beats the Valkyrie. The Aegis is better than the Valkyrie in practically every way, and the Aegis even carries fighter escorts which the Valkyrie does not.

Well, the Leviathan wouldn't be fighting the Galactica - as the top-of-the-line big-bad-battleships, the Leviathan would be taking on a Mercury-class, like the Pegasus.

Likewise, the Galactica is big, but still the the old bucket of the group - like the McKenna.

As for demonstrated maneuverability and durability, see the first 10 seconds (maneuverability) and the 3:45-5:10 segment (durability) of this video.
And that's the Galactica - the old ship that was stripped of most of its armor (that's why so much ribbed structure is visible) and was in the process of being retired from service when the series started, then spent the following couple of years constantly on the run while being shot at with no shipyard to execute proper repairs.

Newer ships like the Pegasus (Mercury-class) and Valkyrie, in mint condition, would be expected to be about as durable, if not more so.
How durable are the BT ships? Where might one find specific canon demonstration of their durability?

Also, the newer BSG series' battlestars and their smaller vehicles (fighters and such) don't have directed-energy weapons (lasers and PPCs) - it's all KEWs and missile tubes.
(Though, the bright blue bolts launched at the Galactica in the video above look like they could be some form of PPC-like directed-energy weapon... )

I would think it fair to think that the ranges of BSG weapons (and the sensor systems that guide those weapons and their targeting systems) are generally similar to those of their BT counterparts.

Also, why wouldn't nukes be effective against spacecraft? I would imagine that intense heat and radiation - not to mention the shock wave - of any fairly-high-yield nuke would not go wholly unnoticed...

I think there's actually a fairly good chance that BSG could go toe-to-toe with equivalent BT ships... and maybe even come out on top.

[Jack Gammel]

Strum Wealh, on 05 February 2012 - 07:43 PM, said:

Well, the Leviathan wouldn't be fighting the Galactica - as the top-of-the-line big-bad-battleships, the Leviathan would be taking on a Mercury-class, like the Pegasus.

Likewise, the Galactica is big, but still the the old bucket of the group - like the McKenna.

Ah, guess I got that mixed up. I would still give the win to the Leviathan just based on how big it is and how many weapons it has. Of course, the Galactica vs. the McKenna class would probably go in the Galactica's favor. Basically, I think the Leviathan probably wins regardless.

Quote

As for demonstrated maneuverability and durability, see the first 10 seconds (maneuverability) and the 3:45-5:10 segment (durability) of this video.
And that's the Galactica - the old ship that was stripped of most of its armor (that's why so much ribbed structure is visible) and was in the process of being retired from service when the series started, then spent the following couple of years constantly on the run while being shot at with no shipyard to execute proper repairs.

Newer ships like the Pegasus (Mercury-class) and Valkyrie, in mint condition, would be expected to be about as durable, if not more so.
How durable are the BT ships? Where might one find specific canon demonstration of their durability?

Wow. What I got from that video is that either Cylon weapon systems are starship equivalents of Imperial Guard lasguns, or the Galactica is built of ineffabletanium. That was...bizarre. Pinpoint FTL exit to point-blank range with a significantly larger enemy vessel, and then a ramming attack. I think scifi franchises should leave the ramming attacks to 40k (they actually build rams on the front of their ships for heaven's sake).

Its a shame the video doesn't give a good example of range capabilities since the firefight is at such close quarters.

Quote

Also, why wouldn't nukes be effective against spacecraft? I would imagine that intense heat and radiation - not to mention the shock wave - of any fairly-high-yield nuke would not go wholly unnoticed...

I think there's actually a fairly good chance that BSG could go toe-to-toe with equivalent BT ships... and maybe even come out on top.

Didn't mean to say that nukes wouldn't be effective. What I meant to say was that they would be less effective against ships in space than ground targets (but then I suppose that this could be taken for granted?). This is simply based on the basic lack of atmosphere. BT uses nukes as well in space. I think the point I was trying to make is that missles and nukes are weapons that BT can deal with because they have equivalent systems.

And I agree that BG could probably hold their own just fine against most BT ships. With these specific line-ups I just have to give the Leviathan the sure win due to its overwhelming firepower.

Also, I do not know of any credible canon example of WarShip durability, at least not in a visual medium. Are they as durable as a Battlestar? Frankly, I couldn't say. In that video the Galactica took an absurb amount of fire and seemed to be ok. That officer was saying that they couldn't take much more of a beating, but I couldn't see much surface damage on the vessel itself. I know that the Cylons are--fluffwise--more advanced than the Colonies, and that made the video even stranger to me. I started to wonder how the Colonies could have lost if they had the ability to build ships that could repel enemy firepower like that? Maybe in BG the old military scales have shifted and defenses have surpassed offensive abilities? Or were we looking at Cylon point-defense-systems? I don't know BG so I couldn't say.

[Harrow]

Not only did you leave out wing commander but you left out Babylon 5 as well... what is the world coming to.

[Zakatak]

The problem with Battletech is the weapon outputs. I think even Battlestar tops them.

If a Heavy Gauss Rifle does 25 damage, and a Heavy Naval Gauss does 300 damage, the HNG does 12x more damage. The HGR is 4 rounds per ton, so each slug is 250kg, and I would use 2500m/s per second as a high-end estimate. That is 62.5 megajoules of energy, so a HNG would do 750 megajoules. To be nice, let's just triple that number for no apparent reason. Because energy/missile/kinetics are all balanced, the HNL/HNPPC can't be far off. Considering that a half-strength Battlestar ate a 50 kiloton (210'000'000MJ) nuke, as well as fire from weapons that threw the 2 million ton ship around like a ball (see the last episode). it is safe to say that nothing short of a Peacemaker will damage Galactica. I don't believe the Inner Sphere has too many lying around, them being heavily frowned upon.

So, ya, sorry Battletech. You suck at literally everything in space. A Leviathan warship might be able to take on a Valkyrie-class Battlestar, but that is pretty much the best it could do.

--------------

EDIT: actually, because the HNG weighs 7000 tons, I look at that 750MJ estimate and it seems off. So I just divided 7000 tons by 18 tons (for the HGR) and got 389. So actually it would be closer to 24 Gigajoules which seems a little more fair. I'm still giving it to Battlestar, but BTech could win this one.

Get some estimates on the Pegasus weapons and see if we can get some comparisons. Also, Aerospace > Vipers by a long shot.

Edited by Zakatak, 05 February 2012 - 10:24 PM.

[Jack Gammel]

Zakatak, on 05 February 2012 - 10:03 PM, said:

If a Heavy Gauss Rifle does 25 damage, and a Heavy Naval Gauss does 300 damage, the HNG does 12x more damage. The HGR is 4 rounds per ton, so each slug is 250kg, and I would use 2500m/s per second as a high-end estimate. That is 62.5 megajoules of energy, so a HNG would do 750 megajoules. To be nice, let's just triple that number for no apparent reason. Because energy/missile/kinetics are all balanced, the HNL/HNPPC can't be far off.

It's very late. I should probably be getting sleep and not hanging out on the internet. However, I was under the distinct impression that the HNG was 2 tons per round. I'm no math guy, so I couldn't say how that effects the numbers, but the difference between 250 kg and 2 tons should be a big boost.

Quote

Considering that a half-strength Battlestar ate a 50 kiloton (210'000'000MJ) nuke, as well as fire from weapons that threw the 2 million ton ship around like a ball (see the last episode). it is safe to say that nothing short of a Peacemaker will damage Galactica. I don't believe the Inner Sphere has too many lying around, them being heavily frowned upon.

Like I said, based on that episode you have to wonder how the Colonies ever lost. A single Battlestar that's been stripped down to bare bones is able to take what appears to be an infinite amount of damage until the terrible stroke of narrative device demands that they can't take much more. That's some stern stuff they must be made of (or the Cylons replaced all their guns with flashlights as a joke).

Edit 1: Ok, so I was really tired last night. Its actually 2 HNG rounds per ton giving each slug a weight of 500 kg. Apparently the HNG achieves 12x the damage output while only doubling the overall weight of each round.

Edit 2: Since the HNG is one of the most powerful capital-class weapons in BT (the NAC/40 deals more damage but sacrifices around half the range) it could be helpful to look at the actual damage the HNG can do within the confines of the BT universe. It's been awhile since I played Aerotech, so bare with me (and I could get some of this wrong).

Basically, the 300 damage output of the HNG is translated into 30 damage against capital ships. The Leviathan itself has a structural integrity of 150 (with no armor tonnage listed on sarna), meaning that without its armor it could accept 4 hits from the HNG. The Leviathan itself has 2 HNGs, giving it incredible damage potential within the BT universe. Consider that the Farragut battleship has a structural integrity of 95 (also with no armor tonnage listed), the Atreus has 80 with 1,753 tons of armor, and the classic Dreadnought has only 60 with 1,147.5 tons of armor (making it effectively useless in the face of Clan HNG technology...even the Aegis, a much smaller class, has a hull integrity of 75 with 597.5 tons of armor). The Heavy NPPC has a capital damage rating of 15, making it precisely half as strong as the HNG but with increased range and no ammunition restrictions. The NAC/40 has a capital damage rating of 40, but is limited by its range. So basically in BT the classic offensive capability>defenisive capability structure holds true. Even the most heavily armored battleship-class WarShip can only take so much damage from heavy capital-ship grade weapons, but they are capable of surviving extended firefights.

Edited by Jack Gammel, 06 February 2012 - 08:44 AM.

[Lima Zulu]

Harrow, on 05 February 2012 - 09:34 PM, said:

Not only did you leave out wing commander but you left out Babylon 5 as well... what is the world coming to.

Lack of good sci-fi in this thread is disturbing, especially Babylon-5.

There were nice starship designes along with fighters moving not like WWI biplanes but much more realistic

Edited by Lima Zulu, 05 February 2012 - 10:36 PM.

[Strum Wealh]

Harrow, on 05 February 2012 - 09:34 PM, said:

Not only did you leave out wing commander but you left out Babylon 5 as well... what is the world coming to.

Lima Zulu, on 05 February 2012 - 10:28 PM, said:

Lack of good sci-fi in this thread is disturbing, especially Babylon-5.

There were nice starship designes along with fighters moving not like WWI biplanes but much more realistic

B5 (along with Crusade) was mentioned in one of the first posts in response to the announced thread revamping...

[Strum Wealh]

First, two reference videos:
1.) "Storming New Caprica"
2.) "Battlestar Galactica - Ragnar"

Jack Gammel, on 05 February 2012 - 08:27 PM, said:

Wow. What I got from that video is that either Cylon weapon systems are starship equivalents of Imperial Guard lasguns, or the Galactica is built of ineffabletanium. That was...bizarre. Pinpoint FTL exit to point-blank range with a significantly larger enemy vessel, and then a ramming attack. I think scifi franchises should leave the ramming attacks to 40k (they actually build rams on the front of their ships for heaven's sake).

Colonial FTL sysems are shown to be relatively precise...

One of the most prominent examples of this is "the Adama Maneuver" - the Galactica enters the solar system of human-colonized, Cylon-conquered/occupied planet New Caprica, jumps from in-system (less than 1 AU) into New Caprica's atmosphere, scrambles fighters while in freefall (battlestars don't have atmospheric flight capability), and jumps again before hitting the ground (comes close to about the ship's own length - 4720ft - above said ground before said jump), arriving in orbit around New Caprica to engage a trio of Cylon Basestars.

The Adama Maneuver can be seen at the 2:13-3:07 of "Storming New Caprica" (linked at the top of this post).
The same video also shows several civilian ships lifting-off from the ground and almost-immediately jumping away at 5:20-5:33 segment.
Also, an overview of BSG propulsion systems.

Jack Gammel, on 05 February 2012 - 08:27 PM, said:

Its a shame the video doesn't give a good example of range capabilities since the firefight is at such close quarters.

Yeah - I blame the supposed "need" for dramatic effect.

About the best examples I have for ranged engagements are the 4:45 mark of "Storming New Caprica" and a scene at 1:50 in "Battlestar Galactica - Ragnar" (both linked at the top of this post).
In the latter, and knowing the sizes of the ships, I would make a very rough estimate of the ships - the Galactica and a Basestar - being on the order of about 7 miles apart.
I don't know if that represents an optimal or maximum engagement range (or both, or neither) for either or both ships.

Jack Gammel, on 05 February 2012 - 08:27 PM, said:

Also, I do not know of any credible canon example of WarShip durability, at least not in a visual medium. Are they as durable as a Battlestar? Frankly, I couldn't say. In that video the Galactica took an absurb amount of fire and seemed to be ok. That officer was saying that they couldn't take much more of a beating, but I couldn't see much surface damage on the vessel itself. I know that the Cylons are--fluffwise--more advanced than the Colonies, and that made the video even stranger to me. I started to wonder how the Colonies could have lost if they had the ability to build ships that could repel enemy firepower like that? Maybe in BG the old military scales have shifted and defenses have surpassed offensive abilities? Or were we looking at Cylon point-defense-systems? I don't know BG so I couldn't say.

Well, the Cylons won at the Fall of the Colonies due to literal hax...
And the damage to Galactica following the Battle of the Colony is much more evident in this video.

As for Cylon armaments: they tend to favor missile boats with very large fighter contingents in contrast to the Colonials' favoring of autocannon/missile/fighter combinations.
Unfortunately, there is very limited information for what weapons are used by the Colony itself.

-----

Also:
Sarna lists the HNG as having an ammo weight of two rounds per ton (in comparison to five shots pet two tons for the MNG and five shots per ton for the LNG).

For ranges, I found in Total Warfare (pg. 76):

Quote

Space turns—those where the aerospace action does not occur in atmosphere—represent one minute of “real time,” meaning that six ground turns occur between each space turn. Each hex on a space map represents roughly eighteen kilometers.

So, then... does that mean that the range of a HNG - 48 hexes as the upper limit of extreme range - is on the order of 864km/536.86mi?


That would give BT a substantial range advantage over BSG, but could they engage effectively at those ranges with anything other than Naval Lasers and Naval PPCs (lightspeed/relativistic weapons) given the travel times involved for projectiles over that distance?
Would they even need to do so?
For that matter, would they even be able to do so, as BSG ships, with their accurate FTL capability, could jump into proverbial knife-fighting distance (and perhaps even use the spatial distortion from the jump itself - analogous to but much more limited than the tidal stresses produced by the K-F drives of BT) as a weapon)?

[Jack Gammel]

Zakatak, on 05 February 2012 - 10:03 PM, said:

EDIT: actually, because the HNG weighs 7000 tons, I look at that 750MJ estimate and it seems off. So I just divided 7000 tons by 18 tons (for the HGR) and got 389. So actually it would be closer to 24 Gigajoules which seems a little more fair. I'm still giving it to Battlestar, but BTech could win this one.

Get some estimates on the Pegasus weapons and see if we can get some comparisons. Also, Aerospace > Vipers by a long shot.

Had to edit my own post pretty heavily. That's what you get for trying to type after taking a bunch of benadryl (still trying to get over a nasty cold).

What's driving me crazy is the Santa Ana variant of the Killer Whale missle specifically carries a 50 kiloton thermonuclear warhead. The regular Killer Whale deals 4 capital damage with its conventional explosive warhead, but I can't find any numbers which would allow me to directly compare the capital damage of the conventional Killer Whale and the Santa Ana (or capital damage for the Santa Ana). This alone would go a long way to figuring out BT damage potentials against Battlestars.

From what I've read, the main Battlestar capital-class weapon is the kinetic energy weapon. According to the entry I found on the Battlestar Wiki page (I have no experience with this site and couldn't say how accurate or innaccurate it might be), the kinetic energy weapon has never been fully explained. While many fans believe the weapon to be a railgun-type weapon (making it similar to a BT gauss rifle?), some of the writing team pushed to make them conventional slugs with chemical propellants (basically making them autocannons). I just don't see either option as completely overpowering BT defensive technology. The kew actually looks like its relatively similar to its BT equivalents.

Edited by Jack Gammel, 06 February 2012 - 11:50 AM.

[Jack Gammel]

Strum Wealh, on 06 February 2012 - 09:09 AM, said:

Also:
Sarna lists the HNG as having an ammo weight of two rounds per ton (in comparison to five shots pet two tons for the MNG and five shots per ton for the LNG).

For ranges, I found in Total Warfare (pg. 76):

So, then... does that mean that the range of a HNG - 48 hexes as the upper limit of extreme range - is on the order of 864km/536.86mi?

I know about the weight mistake. I already edited my post. It's never wise to take cold medicine while internet surfing late at night (don't do it kids).

I seem to recall reading somewhere that extreme ranges in BT are approx. 500 miles. Mass Effect dreadnoughts can engage at thousands (plural) of kilometers (the main gun on a dreadnought firing a 20 kg projectile at a velocity of 4025 km/s), and I know that BT is much more limited in terms of range. Anyway, around 500 miles sounds right. And remember that those ranges would be at the far end of the spectrum, and it limits the accuracy of those weapons significantly.

However, I was obviously mistaken to think that BT and BSG FTL technology were similar. BT ships simply can't jump like the ships I was watching in those videos. Therefore, I don't see any reason why a Battlestar couldn't jump into close-quarters ranges to remove BTs range advantage. That would also assume that BSG ranges are limited to under 10 miles, which I have trouble believing. I was interested in the computer screens on the Galactica in Caprica video. It looked like their "radar screen" was limited to detecting Cylon basestars in orbit around the planet itself. That would be an oddly limited sensor range, considering rl equivalents.

Anyway, if we assume that Battlestars can use their FTL technology to negate any possible range advantages enjoyed by BT, effectively placing both ships within optimum weapon ranges, then it would all come down to mobility and weapon strengths. BT WarShips aren't the most manuverable boats in space, but I haven't seen anything in those videos to suggest that Battlestars are significantly more adroit. Maybe they are (and certainly their ability to hop around like rabbits would come in handy). I really believe that comparative weapon strengths are going to be the clincher in this vs. match.

At least when it comes to fighter vs. fighter, BT absolutely wins, which would give BT WarShips with larger fighter compliments a major advantage over BSG ships. I would give the win to BT here based on what I saw in those videos. Both the vipers and Cylon raiders seemed to carry rather limited ordinance (and were really really small...I would think a space fighter would be at least as big as a modern day jet fighter). Those BSG fighters might be of a relative size and have similar firepower of a BT light aerospace fighter (light aerospace fighters having about the same number of weapons and probably similar speed and acceleration capabilities), but medium and especially heavy aerospace fighters would completely outgun their BSG rivals.

Edited by Jack Gammel, 06 February 2012 - 12:35 PM.

[NameTheftVictim]

I'm not familiar with all of these settings, but I'm going to go with Warhammer 40,000, seeing how as that setting has built up a reputation for having the most absurd, over-the-top weaponry imaginable. The Empire of Star Wars may have a Death Star that can destroy entire planets, but the Imperium has entire fleets of ships that can do this and perform exterminatus on a daily basis.

[Zakatak]

Lima Zulu, on 05 February 2012 - 10:28 PM, said:

Lack of good sci-fi in this thread is disturbing, especially Babylon-5.

There were nice starship designes along with fighters moving not like WWI biplanes but much more realistic

Babylon ship design and dogfights are awesome, as was the storyline. But simply couldn't stand that awful, unbelievable dialogue. That and aliens look too much alike (OMG Centauri!). THAT SAID, I would love a modern reboot of the show, with less 90's rainbow music and some new writers.

Edited by Zakatak, 06 February 2012 - 06:04 PM.