1189 replies to this topic

[guardian wolf]

XD nice

[Ilithi Dragon]

Longsword, on 19 February 2012 - 02:23 AM, said:

Ek, teaches me to argue with a trekky, I get a complete list of every episode in which said event happened of the top of his head.

Ha! Well, in fairness, I did have to look most of those up, I would have only been able to throw out three of them off the top of my head, but I've got enough notes and sites where others have compiled a lot of information like this that I can look it up really quickly.

[Nebfer]

Well the thing about trek is they have a habit of saying they have a range of thousands of km and yet the vast majority of their combat seems to have been done at knife fight ranges... though to be fair most universe that are depicted on film have this issue.

The recent NBG debates have a few things to note...

1: NBGs combat range seem to only be around 100 or so kilometers perhaps a bit more, though a number of scenes seem to indicate less, though missiles can be longer ranged.
2: the 50 megaton nuke is a bit arguable, IIRC the few nukes that where used on the Galactic her self IIRC where stated to be single digit kilotons, the 50 megaton IIRC seem to have been used as strategic weapons, not anti shipping weapons.
3: The weapons on the Vipers seem to be 20 or 30mm weapons based on the size of the weapons (and the fighters are not big enough to handle much bigger easily), also we see the rounds in the show (which also indicate 20 or 30mm rounds) and they have cartridge cases, which rules out electromagnetic weapons (Raiders also are shown to have similar ammo). They also do not last long when hit by these rounds (i.e. minimal armor).
4: Vipers also seem to not have HUDS of any kind, as cockpit views do not show any, Helmet huds are also not indicated, further more Vipers using their KEWs are often are seen walking their shots to the target.
5: Vipers are stated to have at lest 6 or 7 Gs of acceleration in an evasive tactic IIRC, which indicates that their around this rate.
6: Battlestar main guns are simply large "slug throwers" (chemical or electromagnetic is unknown) with maned turrets!, though they also have a number of missile tubes, Basestars use mass numbers of missile tubes over "slug throwers".

B-tech
1: ASFs accelerate at between 4 and 11Gs
2: ASFs can mount a vast array of weapons, including 200mm automatic cannons (if Vipers can be taken out by 30mm rounds, 200mm is going to shred them) and energy weapons.
3: B-tech ASFs can withstand their own weapons
4: B-tech ASF weapons have a range of between 108 and 450km (dropship weapons have the same ranges)
5: B-tech capital weapons have a range of between 216 and 900km
6: Many B-tech fighters and large craft use a large array of energy weapons.

In effect a Vipers KEW is not much better than a B-tech MG (or an AC-2 at best), and yes B-tech MGs have been stated to be as large as 30mm (scorpion tank entry) and theirs a number that are 20mm in caliber.

------------------------------
One universe B-tech can do well against is Heavy Gear, their space craft only have a few dozen Km of range and their ships fuel endurance at 1G is measured in hours, (B-tech it's weeks or months). Though their large military can be a problem at times.

Also Gears are often slower than battlemechs (they top out at around 90kph for the fastest ones, vs 220kph+ for the fastest mechs), and are often armed with 30mm autocannons. Their energy weapons are at best not likely much better than a medium laser as well.

[Zakatak]

I believe the maximum range stated for a Mercury-class Battlestar is 581km (not sure where I found that, sounds about right). I think the 50 megaton statistic came from the line "a 50 megaton device has been dropped on Caprica city". Although from what I saw in "The Plan" (DVD movie with dicks/boobs) that was a MIRV with about 40 different nukes on it. So I guess 1.2 Megatons would be a good estimate? I think I remember seeing a 50 kiloton estimate somewhere.

I wish Mass Effect had some more hard statistics, because they have cool ships and great fluff on starship tactics (read the Codex, good stuff). The only hard fact is that human Dreadnoughts (800-850m long) throws a 38kt shell at 1.2% of lightspeed.

[Ilithi Dragon]

Nebfer, on 19 February 2012 - 09:27 PM, said:

Well the thing about trek is they have a habit of saying they have a range of thousands of km and yet the vast majority of their combat seems to have been done at knife fight ranges... though to be fair most universe that are depicted on film have this issue.

The thing with Trek is that most powers have about the same effective range - the difference is marginal, and insignificant given their maneuverability and maneuvering speeds. Under such circumstances, when both sides have the same range and so have no inherent advantage in staying at long range, there are a number of advantages to be had in engaging at close range, not the least of which is cutting enemy response time. This applies to all franchises, not just Trek, wherein both sides have a rough parity in effective weapons range and maneuverability.

Zakatak, on 19 February 2012 - 10:02 PM, said:

I believe the maximum range stated for a Mercury-class Battlestar is 581km (not sure where I found that, sounds about right). I think the 50 megaton statistic came from the line "a 50 megaton device has been dropped on Caprica city". Although from what I saw in "The Plan" (DVD movie with dicks/boobs) that was a MIRV with about 40 different nukes on it. So I guess 1.2 Megatons would be a good estimate? I think I remember seeing a 50 kiloton estimate somewhere.

I wish Mass Effect had some more hard statistics, because they have cool ships and great fluff on starship tactics (read the Codex, good stuff). The only hard fact is that human Dreadnoughts (800-850m long) throws a 38kt shell at 1.2% of lightspeed.

The 50-megaton figure actually comes from the new BSG sourcebook. It's an official figure, though it does not sync with the observed yields. Most likely, the 50-megaton warheads are very rare or are special weapons that do not fit in standard missiles. A handful of them might be deployed here or there, but they are not going to be common-usage weapons deployed across the fighter compliment of a single battlestar in a single battle, let alone the entire fleet. Most BSG weapons are KE or chemical warhead projectiles and missiles, with some weapons reaching into the low-kiloton range. Heavy anti-ship missiles include nuclear missile warheads, though fighters seem to only occasionally carry kiloton-range warheads, and most ship-to-ship missiles seem to use conventional explosives or tyllium.

[Polymorphyne]

Quote

The count is not complete. It only goes from the Trinity expansion, which went live on December 5, 2007, though until November 29th, 2011. But in just that time… well… here is the quote:[indent]
In total, 13,540,707 ships or structures were destroyed in this period in PVP, belonging to 1,075,754 characters or corporations. NPCs destroyed 7,559,088 ships belonging to 1,936,205 characters. That makes a total of 21,099,795 ships/structures blown up belonging to 2,251,177 different owners. To be fair a lot of those are rookie ships and such, but either way – that’s a lot of explosions.
From December 5^th, 2007 until November 29^th, 2011, 1,455 days passed. That’s 2,095,200 minutes. So, if you count everything that generated a kill report, how many things blew up per day/hour/minute on average?
14,502 per day.
604 per hour.
10 per minute (roughly one explosion every six seconds).[/indent]

[indent]

That gives you a little bit of a glimpse into just how many eve ships there are.
Oh and guess what? Thats just destroyed player owned ships. Your average player will destroy anywhere from 10-100 pirate owned ships in any given day, meaning that once navies, pirates, npcs, etc are taken into account, you would have to multipy those numbers by 100 or so.

One statistic I do know for certain is the number of titans- there are currently 600 or so player owned titans.[/indent]

[Catamount]

Longsword, on 20 February 2012 - 01:14 AM, said:

[indent]

That gives you a little bit of a glimpse into just how many eve ships there are.
Oh and guess what? Thats just destroyed player owned ships. Your average player will destroy anywhere from 10-100 pirate owned ships in any given day, meaning that once navies, pirates, npcs, etc are taken into account, you would have to multipy those numbers by 100 or so.

One statistic I do know for certain is the number of titans- there are currently 600 or so player owned titans.[/indent]

I could argue that that metric is a bit absurd, since, if a ship is destroyed, a new ship magically appears as long as the players have credits, and more importantly, because there probably aren't nearly that many active ships flying around at any one time, but let's just use that for a second.


Even a million of those ships would be useless against 10,000, or even 1,000, of anything worth a damn, which EVE ships aren't. Let's take the Avatar in your chart, for instance. Do you know what its total output is? A little bit over a single terrawatt!

That's so little power, you could achieve those levels of power generations with an onboard coal plant! That's vastly below even what nuclear fission would generate!



Do you know how long it would take an Avatar to output as much firepower as one standard yield TNG photon torpedo (267PJ)?

267,000,000,000,000,000J/1,250,000,000,000J/s = 213,600s = 59 hours. It would take an Avatar, a ship that dwarfs pretty much any conventional vessel from any franchise, FIFTY NINE HOURS just to output one photon torpedo. You say there are 600 titans?

All 600 of them would take six minutes just to output a single photon torpedo. A single Galaxy class starship would be probably able to take that bombardment for hours, if not days (they can probably recharge their shields that fast, and EVE weapons wouldn't be powerful enough to cause bleedthrough at such piddling outputs).

Conversely, it means that a couple photon torpedoes would mission kill one of those Avatars, so that single GCS could pop every single one in the EVE universe in a matter of minutes.

That's ignoring the fact that the GCS would never have to get close enough for a titan to fire.

And if a Titan would do that poorly, how poorly would something like, say, a cruiser fare? I imagine that battle would look something like this

In fact, a GCS could probably pop battleships that quickly, given the 9GW output on them.

Now this isn't a Trek-online advantage, of course. Stargate, Star Wars, Andromeda (good lord, Andromeda would CREAM the EVE universe with their missile RoF), doubtless B5, hell even stated and observed 40k ranges and pound-for-pound weapon output (hardly the cream of the crop), would have just a few of their ships decimate EVE.


You see, Longsword, EVE gets its numbers because it's a video game, but it also suffers in the areas you'd expect because it's a video game.

Edited by Catamount, 20 February 2012 - 03:36 AM.

[Vernius Ix]

40k
Babylon 5
EVE

[Zakatak]

The Red October (Typhoon-class) produces 350MW of power. A Russian submarine from 1981, 175m long. That is 6 times more then your average EVE Destroyerr of about equal length. Does that seem right to you?

Cold War > EVE, lawl

[Catamount]

Zakatak, on 20 February 2012 - 02:01 PM, said:

The Red October (Typhoon-class) produces 350MW of power. A Russian submarine from 1981, 175m long. That is 6 times more then your average EVE Destroyerr of about equal length. Does that seem right to you?

Cold War > EVE, lawl

Oh god...


Okay, credit to Ilithi for bringing this up but: The Enteprise D could fire its COMMUNICATION ARRAY at an Avatar, and nearly match its firepower

They could kill it with messages

[Catamount]

EVE Online: the only franchise that's so delicate, you have to set your hailing frequencies to stun

[Ilithi Dragon]

Catamount, on 20 February 2012 - 02:58 PM, said:

They could kill it with messages

*cough*

Edited by ilithi dragon, 20 February 2012 - 03:05 PM.

[Zakatak]

All EVE needs is just one more order of magnitude in most areas, and it would be a fine contender with 22nd century Trek/Halo/Mass Affect (probably above those). The Avatar would then produce 1.3PW, which would put it about half of Asgard power generation (for Beliskner-class ships like Thor's Chariot).

I just thought of way to put absorb the recoil of a 2TJ coilgun in 300'000kg vessel (without killing the crew) that seems plausible by 2200! Just need some bucky wire, free-floating coils, and donut-shaped... things. I was wondering how I was going to explain that part.

Edited by Zakatak, 20 February 2012 - 07:16 PM.

[Polymorphyne]

When you talk about eve online having its numbers due to being a video game, you do also have to remember that eve online is unique among video games- its not a representation of a fictional setting, it is the setting. Everything that happens in eve gameplay is Canonical, and eve onlines famous battles are those that got fought between players. All the cinematic events you see (like the carrier crashing into a station) actually were acted out in game.

If eves ship power output statistics were adjusted to what they should be to bring it in line with the eve tech level/ship sizes/etc.... they would dominate everyone else.

The ability to just buy a new ship in eve- every ship in eve, except throwaway rookie ships, was built by another player. Same goes for most weapons/ammo (except drops from pirate ships)

The reason you can build so much stuff so quickly in eve online is because eve online is a massive, highly industrialised setting. They have nanotechnology, self replicating drones and massive station factories that can crank out ships and items at an incredible rate. The same for sheer manpower- non capsuleers are just ants to an eve player/capsuleer. Most ship captains dont even realise their ship has thousands of crewmembers on board- they are just another part of the machinery.



Note: from an ideological viewpoint, I would hope the star trek people win.... but really, compared to eve people......... what, you didd away with money? You negotiate?
This treaty proposal you sent us....... you forgot to send the fine print..... Wait.... theres no fine print? Your not going to try and slip in sub clauses saying you can kidnap our children and use them to make soft drinks? Have you even done this before?

The Federation is so incredibly altruistic, and relitavely naive compared to Eve- the trek federation has outlawed slavery (well, excepts with robots) and tries to find a peaceful solution.
Eve nations and corporations... they harvest corpses from space battles and turn them into soft drink ingredients, and hire people to attack their allies almost openly.

Edited by Longsword, 21 February 2012 - 02:38 AM.

[Tifalia]

And yet you forgot the most important space sci-fi series of them all - Babylon 5.

*sighs* When will people learn...?

[Polymorphyne]

We didn't forget it.... just most of us refuse to admit to having watched the entire collection in one sitting multiple times.

[Tifalia]

Longsword, on 21 February 2012 - 03:27 AM, said:

We didn't forget it.... just most of us refuse to admit to having watched the entire collection in one sitting multiple times.

Oh well, it did take something like 35 years for most star trek fans to come out of the closet and admit to watching it religiously, but hopefully it will not take long for the closet Babylon 5 fans.
Bruce Boxleitner for the win! He could kick Picard's tush any day.

[Ilithi Dragon]

Longsword, on 21 February 2012 - 02:32 AM, said:

If eves ship power output statistics were adjusted to what they should be to bring it in line with the eve tech level/ship sizes/etc.... they would dominate everyone else.

Except that they don't. The official, canon figures put their weapons power levels in the high gigajoule to low terajoule range for most ship armaments, not counting missiles. The Avatar's power grid is 1.25 terajoules, and while that's just the power available for weapons, not the ship's entire power generation capabilities, it still puts a cap on their maximum weapons output. They might have M/AM tech, but their listed energy outputs are pretty low, especially for their size (though they do roughly fit with the yields you would get from most of the weapons they field). If you want to insist that all aspects of the game are cannon, without allowances for the nature of gameplay, you also have to accept the official, canon stats. And the hard-coded 250km maximum targeting range.

Longsword, on 21 February 2012 - 02:32 AM, said:

The ability to just buy a new ship in eve- every ship in eve, except throwaway rookie ships, was built by another player. Same goes for most weapons/ammo (except drops from pirate ships)

The reason you can build so much stuff so quickly in eve online is because eve online is a massive, highly industrialised setting. They have nanotechnology, self replicating drones and massive station factories that can crank out ships and items at an incredible rate. The same for sheer manpower- non capsuleers are just ants to an eve player/capsuleer. Most ship captains dont even realise their ship has thousands of crewmembers on board- they are just another part of the machinery.

So they have economies of scale... Nice. So do most other powers around. Some of them also have pretty fancy engineering and manufacturing tech, like the transporters and replicators of the Federation and the Asgard.

Now, assuming that ships don't just magically appear out of nothing like the do in the game, however, that still puts limits on their ability to manufacture replacements for ship losses, AND their ability to replace the crews of those ships.

Longsword, on 21 February 2012 - 02:32 AM, said:

Note: from an ideological viewpoint, I would hope the star trek people win.... but really, compared to eve people......... what, you didd away with money? You negotiate?
This treaty proposal you sent us....... you forgot to send the fine print..... Wait.... theres no fine print? Your not going to try and slip in sub clauses saying you can kidnap our children and use them to make soft drinks? Have you even done this before?

The Federation is so incredibly altruistic, and relitavely naive compared to Eve- the trek federation has outlawed slavery (well, excepts with robots) and tries to find a peaceful solution.
Eve nations and corporations... they harvest corpses from space battles and turn them into soft drink ingredients, and hire people to attack their allies almost openly.

You know, Longsword, there's this nifty little thing called a Positive-Sum Game that you really should look up. The Federaiton's altruistic society is not a weakness, it's actually a strength. I don't mean that in any kind of wishy-washy feel-good BS, I mean it in hard, practical, pragmatic facts. I actually wrote a paper on this for my philosophy class last semester. An altruistic society is a stronger society because altruistic societies work better. Not only do the people in that society tend to be more loyal to it and strive harder to protect it, it functions better. Altruistic societies maximize the potential contributions of as many people as they can, and maximize the ability for as many people to fulfill their potential as they can. It's the natural result of giving people equal protection and equal access to knowledge and ensuring their ability to compete on a fair playing field, help them back up when they fall down, etc. More people are empowered with more resources, expanding their own ability to contribute back into society, creating a net positive gain for the investment. There is less waste, less corruption, less abuse of power and resources, more error-correction, and far more highly-educated people with vested interests in the continuation of the society.

Altruistic societies function better as an inherent part of their nature. All other things being equal, an altruistic society will beat out any other society, because an altruistic society will be capable of fielding a bigger and better stick, every time, and that capability only improves over time.

Slavery is not an efficient means of production and labor. It's cost-intensive, and the production capacity of a slave is much lower than that of a free person. You also have the added problems of the danger of slave revolts and such. To suggest that the use of slavery in an advanced society with nanotechnology, transporters and replicators would be a boon is absurd at best. There would be absolutely zero logistical benefit to the use of slave labor for the Federation, and the use of slave labor would produce a net penalty in productive capacity from moral and legal issues, not to mention the cost of housing and securing the slaves. Hell, slave labor would be of zero or negative logistical benefit TODAY - automated and semi-automated systems are far more efficient.


The Federation doesn't slip in gruesome clauses like you suggest because it would be against every one of their principles, and it would be of zero benefit to them economically, and it would serve zero point to do so politically. That does not mean that they're going to be hoodwinked by a little fine print, that's just insulting. These people have been dealing with interstellar politics and negotiations and mediation for over two centuries, and many of their member races have been dealing in those things for thousands of years before the Federation, nevermind all the experience every member brings to the table from their own pre-Federation and pre-warp days. Their education and training of not just their politicians and ambassadors, but even their naval officers in the arts of politics and negotiation is renown. To suggest that they would sign a treaty without reading every bit of that treaty, skipping over 'fine print'... Well, as I said, that's just insulting. If anyone tried to do that to the Federation, they'd probably get a good laugh in at the joke and then ask where the real treaty was.

Their negotiation and diplomatic skills are another strength of theirs: they make friends, and they KEEP them because they deal with them honestly (barring the actions of a handful of rogue elements, some of which were disrupted by the subordinates of those leading those actions when they realized what was going on). It ties in with the positive-sum games of altruistic societies. They tend to make friends and keep them, because they all recognize that everyone benefits more when they work together for the advantage of all instead of snarling at each other or stabbing each other in the back for individual advantage.


Oh, and don't take the Federation's preference for diplomacy to be a sign of their inability to fight, either. The Federation was founded by a war. The Federation arose out of the alliance of powers that united against the Romulan Star Empire in the Earth-Romulan War. The Federation engaged in a decades-long cold war with the Klingon Empire in the 23rd Century, and in the 24th Century the Federation engaged in no less than six different wars in the span between 2347 and 2375. They engaged in war with the Talarians, the Tzenkethi, the Cardassians (that one lasted twenty years), the Tholians, the Klingons and the Dominion, all in less than a thirty-year span, and they also fended off two major incursions by the Borg in that same timespan. The Federation is more than capable of waging war if aroused to it, it just prefers to resolve things diplomatically, through Positive-Sum Games because everyone benefits and they get greater benefits, and because war destroys.

[Kragmore]

Catamount, on 23 December 2011 - 07:34 PM, said:

Really? I'd like you to explain how, considering the fact that by your own franchise's numbers, even large tank-mounted guns are no more powerful than those phaser pistols (to say nothing for the rifles). And while you're at it, would you mind explaining how they'd prevent the ships from just beaming them into space?

One thing that hit me while reading this thread is, Phasers hitting metal.
If we look at a standard firefight in ST we'll see alot of misses and hits on the ship hull etc. The effect of this is usualy just a scorchmark. This leads me to belive that the phasers are a very nasty threat to a non armored individual which usualy is the threat in ST.
But what happends if you fire at an armored target like a Space Marine or even the far more advance (remember that this is lost tech for the imperium) Terminator armor?
If the Phaser would be able to penetrate the inches thick adamantium wouldn't it also pose a very nasty danger to the Ship itself? After all, even imperial lasguns are forbidden in ship combat due to the danger of hull breach.

As for shields, ST have the advantage all hands down. While the void shields are powerfull they aren't very stable and tend to overload the generators way to easy. That's the problem of ancient tech.
Another note,the voids do not protect against the perils of the warp. That's the Geller field (iirc). So anything exposed by the warp without a geller field....or even with a geller field, would be damned. This exposur could happend when an imperial fleet breaks warp or if a warp engine have a critical failiur, basicly riping reality apart and letting the raw stuff of the warp into our reality.

But over all, in a space battle I'd say the federation have the upper hand. But not really as much as has ben stated. If we take a look at some of the battles with borg cubes (First contact ) you can see several photon torpedoes being used with minor damage to the cube. So even with the flimiser Void shields an Imperial warship would be able to hold it's ground for some time.

As for teleportation. ST has the upper hand when it comes to counter teleportation (cheesy tactics ;P). But how do the Imperiums teleporation work, similar to ST or do they simply wrap a small gelelr field around the thing teleported and then send it through the warp? If that's the case I doubt the tech of the Federation can actually prevent it. Counter it surely but not prevent it.

But in a prolonged war I'd say the Imperium would win. The federation controls space, but due to thier limited resources in comparison to the imperium, they just can protect everything at ones. And when it comes to man power the impeirum have no trouble sending billions of people to their death. After all, a planet like Necromunda or Armaggedon have several hivecities containing around 10 billion people, each. That's the current population of the earth, in each city!
And even with technological superiority, they federation would be worn out. Even if a phaser is a deadly weapon it still need to hit, and the soldier firing it need to be avoid getting hit. And that's something that could be a problem when a planetary landing force of gaurdsmen and Space marines are firing at you.

[Polymorphyne]

Quote

And when it comes to man power the impeirum have no trouble sending billions of people to their death. After all, a planet like Necromunda or Armaggedon have several hivecities containing around 10 billion people, each. That's the current population of the earth, in each city!

and there are billions of such planets in the Imperium Despite peoples arguments against it, Quantity does have a Quality of its own. (Which is how the imperium is the dominant power in a galaxy full of incomphrehensably powerful and advanced aliens) (Also because there are few powers greater than human hatred and intolerance)