1189 replies to this topic

[Stripes]

The main problem with "pop-fi", if you allow me to use such term, is pathetic range of weaponery and, in most cases, sensor. Star Trek have what, 1k km effective radius for phaser? And we talking about energy weapon system here. And for all that sacred, dont get me started on Star Wars...

[Ilithi Dragon]

Stripes, on 03 March 2012 - 02:02 PM, said:

The main problem with "pop-fi", if you allow me to use such term, is pathetic range of weaponery and, in most cases, sensor. Star Trek have what, 1k km effective radius for phaser? And we talking about energy weapon system here. And for all that sacred, dont get me started on Star Wars...

Regarding Trek weapons ranges... We frequently see them engaging at close range, yes, but we frequently see them engaging at much longer ranges, as well. I mentioned this earlier in the thread (though holy crap, it was back on page 28!)

ilithi dragon, on 19 February 2012 - 12:28 AM, said:

ENT "Fortunate Son" - stated/observed range for civilian-operated plasma cannon, 8km

TOS "The Changling" - observed photon torpedo range, 90,000km

TOS "Journey to Babel" - observed phaser range, 75,000km

TOS "The Deadly Years" - stated Romulan plasma torpedo range, 50,000 - 100,000km

TOS "Patterns of Force" - observed phaser range, ~2,000km

TNG "Arsenal of Freedom" - observed range multiple weapons, >200km (Echo Papa 607's opening shots on the E-D are from beyond visual range)

TNG "A Matter of Honor" - stated disruptor range, 40,000+km (Riker suggested holding fire until that range, implied to be much closer than range they would have engaged at otherwise)

TNG "The Wounded" - observed photon torpedo range, 190,000km - observed phaser range, 150,000km - observed Cardassian weapon range, 200,000km

DS9 "The Search" - stated Dominion weapons range, >100,000km (100,000km stated to be well within weapons range)

DS9 "Return to Grace" - observed Cardassian weapons range, 100,000km

VOY "Non Sequitur" - observed phaser range, 5,000km

VOY "Basics, Pt. 1" - observed phaser range, 2,000km - Observed maximum Kazon-Nistrim torpedo range at least 4.5 million km (5,000 - 20,000 times that range more likely)

VOY "In the Flesh" - stated modified photon torpedo maximum range, ~4,000km

VOY "Equinox, Pt. 2" - observed phaser range, 30,000km


That's quite a few episodes where we see weapons fired at ranges in the tens to hundreds of thousands of kilometers, or here statements that weapons are capable of rangees in the thousands to hundreds of thousands of kilometers. They've closed to visual range on a great many occasions, as well, but they have quite frequently demonstrated much longer ranges, and visual rnages have often been noted to be extremely close.

Star Wars, on the other hand, really does have pathetic weapons ranges... With a number of instances of ships being stated to be outside of weapons ranges while still being well within visual range...

[Stripes]

Great work with ranges, sir!

But still... Good old Apollo leaves it in the dust with its 1AU possibly range (which 125kk km, fot these who not know)...

The main flaw of these kind discussions in simple fact, like in "BTxHaloME": people tends to concentrate attention on single or very few aspects of battle...

[guardiandashi]

honorverse when they get the MDM missiles ya their ranges can get brutal...
mr podnaut fireing salvos of 6 pods containing 9 missiles each every few seconds, with 3 stages of of "drive" that can maintain 96,000 g of acceleration for ~several minutes each, and containing bomb pumped xray cluster heads, with 20,000 km standoff distances, or 200 megaton nuke warheads (200 mt nuke was what was used against the battleship in the first fight in grayson space) and the gunnery officer hit that battleship with at least one in a hull contact and the battleship survived

later on it gets really lethal when the ships start using pods and tossing salvos of thousands and even tens of thousands of those missiles at each other at up to light minutes of range (with no inherant reason they couldn't do it at light hours) especially with the multi drive missiles IE use 1-2 drive stages to accelerate the missiles.... then have them coast in and make terminal attacks on the last stage at full power...

but I will say if you want some seriously scary firepower.. read "path of the fury", or the expanded version "In fury born" where in that empire one of the preferred weapons for cap ships is the "SLAMS" I don't know about you but ANYONE who can weaponize artificial black holes is pretty far up on my holy crud scale.

[Zakatak]

Stargate is maddening me.

Ha'tak Mark II, observed acceleration: 30,000g
BC-304 "Daedalus", acceleration indirecty based from dialogue: 20,000g
Atlantis, observed accleration: 3g
BC-303 "Prometheus", observed acceleration: 23g
X-301 Interceptor, indirectly mentioned acceleration: 7500g
F-302 Fighter, observed acceleration: 20g and 400g on different occasions
Puddle Jumper, observed acceleration: 50g and 1000g on different occasions
Bilskinir-class: stated power output is 4PW, ion cannon power is ~20EJ
Ha'tak: stated weapon power is 200MT, observed power is in low KT

Stargate, Y U NO CONSISTENCY?! Get new VFX guys! And quit making the BC-304 as big as a Ha'tak/O'Neill despite being only 535m in length! Only thing measurable is FTL speeds, which exceed 10 million c for most species, except early Goa'uld and Wraith.

Edited by Zakatak, 03 March 2012 - 03:34 PM.

[Catamount]

Captain Hat, on 03 March 2012 - 12:35 PM, said:

Ultimately, Lucasfilm owns the license as a company, it's not solely GL's property any more: It's the company's canon policy that matters. This has always been the case for disputes of this sort; the franchise is simply too large for any one person to control.

You're confusing Lucasfilm with Lucas Licensing (who is responsible for maintaining the EU).

Lucasfilm's highest authority, it's founder, chairman, and chief executive, has said that Star Wars canon, as in the continuity of the films, is defined by the Films, scripts, novelizations, and radio plays, and nothing else. Unless you can cite an employee of Lucasfilm who overrides that position (which would contradict the very definition of Lucas' position), then that stands. No employee of Lucasfilm overrides Lucas himself as far as deciding the policy of canon Lucasfilm, so there it is.

Lucas Licensing, on the other hand, is the group you're confusing with Lucasfilm in general. Lucas Licensing, who's a subsidiary company, as I understand it (though I could be wrong on that particular specific), specifically maintains the EU, so what they say can certainly pertain to what's canon EU, but they are not going to override the most ranking member of all of Lucasfilm, therefore, the EU, while a well-defined canon, is not the same canon as the films, so says the most ranking member of the entire company, and overall franchise owner.

Edited by Catamount, 03 March 2012 - 04:20 PM.

[Strum Wealh]

ilithi dragon, on 03 March 2012 - 01:50 PM, said:

Gotta love the Honorverse. The Honorverse has some pretty damned impressive weapons ranges, especially late in the series - their late-series missile ranges would make even the Andromeda weapons ranges seem paltry in comparison. And they've got some pretty impressively large ships. That said, they run entirely on fusion power, and maintain yields and endurances and power outputs that are consistent with that. They also have some limitations regarding ship maneuverability that would put them at a serious disadvantage against anything from the Star Trek, Andromeda or Stargate universes, though their ship maneuverability and mobility is still fairly respectable, and the could probably out-maneuver most ships from Star Wars or 40K. Any significant Honorverse power would probably be able to stand toe-to-toe with anything from Halo or Mass Effect or any of the other franchises in that tier, if not dominate them entirely.

Agreed on general praise for the Honorverse (as well as The Apocalypse Troll and the Safehold series).

Though, I would disagree with the statement that "...their late-series missile ranges would make even the Andromeda weapons ranges seem paltry in comparison".

The Honorverse Wiki states:

Quote

The most common weapons of the 20th Century PD were impeller drive missiles. They came in varying sizes: a typical capital ship missile massed 80 tons and could accelerate at 46,000 G for perhaps 180 seconds before its drive burned out, giving it a powered flight range of over six million kilometers. Naturally, in space, it was possible to reach a target beyond powered range, but it was very easy to avoid a missile which could no longer maneuver. Missile drives were frequently adjustable, allowing the acceleration to be "stepped down" in order to increase the powered lifetime, although at a cost of giving the opposing force more time to throw up defenses.

-----

Advances in warship technology during the First Haven-Manticore War include the development of the MDM (multi-drive missile). First built by Manticore's researchers (see Ghostrider Project), these missiles used the ancient concept of staging. Manticoran designs included three separate drives. Drives could be configured independently, to either fire sequentially, or incorporate "coasting" between stages, to increase their maximum powered envelope. Manticoran designs incorporated a revolutionary compact fusion plant (although launchers needed to be redesigned to incorporate a large energy transfer to initially fire up the plant). Havenite designs were forced to rely on incorporating more capacitor rings into missiles, although this allowed them to avoid the radical launcher redesign. Havenite MDMs were limited to two-stage due to the bulk of the rings. Manticoran MDMs were eventually upgraded to three-stage.

Due to their size and the launcher requirements they could not be carried by smaller starships, but this was a minor limitation. When they were first introduced, they made the Royal Manticoran Navy nearly invincible and contributed greatly to their victory in the First Haven-Manticore War. During the five-year armistice, the Havenites copied the weapon. By the commencement of the Second Haven-Manticore War, the Imperial Andermani Navy had developed two-stage MDMs, and were being refit to accommodate the Manticoran three-stage missiles.

Furthermore:

Quote

The standard two-stage multi-drive missile for combatants beneath the wall of battle, the Mark 16 was used by light units of the RMN to take advantage of the increased range allowed by MDMs by warships that were too small to use the larger three-stage MDMs used in the wall of battle.
Specifications

Mass: 94 tons

Maximum Acceleration: 96,000 G
Maximum powered missile envelope: 15 million km

Half Acceleration: 48,000 G
Maximum powered missile envelope: 63 million km
Terminal velocity: 0.83c

-----

The Mark 23 was the standard three-stage multi-drive missile for combatants in the wall of battle.

-----

The Mark 25 was a four-stage system-defense multi-drive missile.

I'm not so sure that their ranges are quite so great to render those of the High Guard's weapons (which are on the order of 8-10 light minutes, or 143 million to 179 million km for the OKKMs) "paltry".
Also, the OKKMs are faster: 0.90-0.95c versus 0.83c for the Honorverse missiles.

And the ranges of the Honorverse's energy weapons are shorter, albeit not by much - one million km for lasers, 300,000 km for "energy torpedoes" (plasma cannons), and unstated for grasers (gamma-ray lasers; can be reasonably assumed to be generally similar to that of standard lasers), versus four light-seconds (1.19 million km) for High Guard point-defense lasers and anti-proton (AP) cannons.

I'm not certain how effective the Grav Lance or the Crippler (a "gravitic heterodyne") would be against anything other than Honorverse ships, as they were specifically designed to affect the impeller drives/wedges of a target.
Though, it's possible (albeit very remotely so, IMO) that such a weapon might be able (with substantial adjustment or, more likely, a complete redesign) be able to have some effect on a High Guard ship's gravity field generator (making it similar in effect to AG mass-packet warheads).

Defense-wise, it seems that both generally rely on similar concepts - multiple types and layers of armor, heavy use of electronic countermeasures, point-defense using energy weapons, and anti-missile missiles (countermissiles and DKKMs).
Though, the wedge and sidewalls give Honorverse ships a substantial defensive advantage in making them invulnerable to attack through their dorsal and ventral surfaces.

Also, it should be noted that while High Guard ships may have a lower top speed (on the order of 0.40c, versus "near light speed" for Honorverse ships) have higher maximum accelerations - 500,000 m/(s^2) (or 51,020g) for a 96,408-ton Glorious Heritage class heavy cruiser versus 617g (or 6046 m/(s^2)) for a similarly-sized (88,000-ton) Courageous class light cruiser.
Combined with on-screen performance by the Andromeda, we could conclude that High Guard ships are generally far more maneuverable, if somewhat slower in terms of top-end, than similar-displacement Honorverse vessels.

Your thoughts?

[Zakatak]

I was doing a little bit of Googling on the "Alcubierre Drive" (which is basically our only decent FTL theory that doesn't rely on the existence of hyperspace), and found this.

http://io9.com/58896...killer-downside

You have an invasion force that wins by arriving . I suppose this would limit actual spacecraft using this technology to short jumps of 5LY or so. But it also gave me an idea for a weapon, and should totally put in sci-fi! Make a big missile, do some calculation, stick a warp drive in it, and fire it at a planet 100LY away. It exits warp right in front of the planet, and throws trillions of trillions of trillions of spacedust at the planet and burns a city-sized hole in the crust.

I think they have made some modifications to this theory recently, so creating 10^42 energy shouldn't be necessary (aka, converting all of Jupiter into pure energy).

Edited by Zakatak, 03 March 2012 - 04:37 PM.

[ChuiKowalski]

Catamount, on 02 March 2012 - 06:14 PM, said:

Hmm, I still have to go through the Uplift series. I have most of it here, but it won't be gotten to for time time yet

So I can't comment there. Still, kudos to someone for bringing up some real written scifi.

"Startide Rising" is really one of my most favorite SciFi books. Like an olde Space Opera on Steroids, just with a believable background (Well, it's really off the reality scale, ... way, way off ..., but if you suspend your disbelief it all falls into place VERY nicely, which most other Universes fail at). And it shows that the author is a scientist. Plus a Storyteller. I would read "Sundiver" and "Uplift War" as second and third book, you pick.

Ah. I have one other believable SciFi Spacebattle System.
That of http://www.schlockmercenary.com/

[Polymorphyne]

Trying to remember the name of a particular sci-fi book series- The Hydrogues, seed-ships and various other powerful alien races could probably give alot of the races in this thread a run for their money.

[Catamount]

ChuiKowalski, on 03 March 2012 - 05:36 PM, said:

"Startide Rising" is really one of my most favorite SciFi books. Like an olde Space Opera on Steroids, just with a believable background (Well, it's really off the reality scale, ... way, way off ..., but if you suspend your disbelief it all falls into place VERY nicely, which most other Universes fail at). And it shows that the author is a scientist. Plus a Storyteller. I would read "Sundiver" and "Uplift War" as second and third book, you pick.

Ah. I have one other believable SciFi Spacebattle System.
That of http://www.schlockmercenary.com/

Well it's next on my list once I finish Earth (another of Brin's, of course).

The problem is that school makes my reading schedule terrible. I'll go and read 100 pages in a day, and then it's half a month before I pick up any books again. Thankfully, my schedule has just let up.

And yes, I like David Brin a lot. Do you ever visit his blog, by chance?

[Ilithi Dragon]

ChuiKowalski, on 03 March 2012 - 05:36 PM, said:

"Startide Rising" is really one of my most favorite SciFi books. Like an olde Space Opera on Steroids, just with a believable background (Well, it's really off the reality scale, ... way, way off ..., but if you suspend your disbelief it all falls into place VERY nicely, which most other Universes fail at). And it shows that the author is a scientist. Plus a Storyteller. I would read "Sundiver" and "Uplift War" as second and third book, you pick.

Ah. I have one other believable SciFi Spacebattle System.
That of http://www.schlockmercenary.com/

It shows that the author is a scientists because Dr. Brin is a real scientist - his doctoral thesis basically predicted and hugely contributed to our current understanding of 'dark' or 'tarry' comets, the comets that have had all their ice and other volatiles sublimated away in the close-range portions of their orbits around the Sun.

I own most of Dr. Brin's books, in one form or another, and highly recommend all of his works. He's a great author, and one of my principle role models (I'm hoping to be a PhD sci-fi author myself). In addition to the entire Uplift Saga, I also recommend his novel Earth (written over twenty years ago looking at what life would be like in 50 years, and it's been bang-on in so many ways - I read it last year and felt that they could still be accurate predictions going forward from today), and Kiln People, and his short story, The Loom of Thessaly, is my favorite sci-fi short story, and short story in general, of all time (it even tops out A Sound of Thunder, which holds a special place for me as the first sci-fi short story I've ever read).

[Catamount]

Zakatak, on 03 March 2012 - 04:35 PM, said:

I was doing a little bit of Googling on the "Alcubierre Drive" (which is basically our only decent FTL theory that doesn't rely on the existence of hyperspace), and found this.

http://io9.com/58896...killer-downside

You have an invasion force that wins by arriving . I suppose this would limit actual spacecraft using this technology to short jumps of 5LY or so. But it also gave me an idea for a weapon, and should totally put in sci-fi! Make a big missile, do some calculation, stick a warp drive in it, and fire it at a planet 100LY away. It exits warp right in front of the planet, and throws trillions of trillions of trillions of spacedust at the planet and burns a city-sized hole in the crust.

I think they have made some modifications to this theory recently, so creating 10^42 energy shouldn't be necessary (aka, converting all of Jupiter into pure energy).

10^42...

That's more like making a solar system sized hole in the planet you're aimed at!

One thing that's worth mentioning is that Alcubierre's precise proposal really only works on paper, because, iirc, he makes the whole thing work by inventing nonexistent particles (or at least particles we have no reason to believe exist). When your warp drive proposal works be saying "well there are these particles that just make my ship go FTL", you might as well say pixidust makes it work

That doesn't mean his work is useless, but it means you'd have to heavily modify it to make it actually work (or discover that his hypothetical particle actually exists). I think his work was more meant to show how FTL might work, hypothetically, less than to actually demonstrate real-world workable physics. But this is really good news in a sense, because it means that if there really is a way to achieve FTL travel, by the time we do it, the method might differ enough from Alcubierre's to not suffer this problem.

In the meantime, I like your idea; it'd be a cool scifi story idea. Who uses it as a weapon? (or is it part of the plot to find out?) How does the group on the receiving end develop a counter to it (or is the whole story about preventing the launch of such a weapon?). If they are attacked how do they respond? What if they have no idea who sent it? I could see that going all sorts of interesting places.

ilithi dragon, on 04 March 2012 - 08:05 AM, said:

and his short story, The Loom of Thessaly

Seconded.

I loved where he went with that.

Spoiler

Humanity finally outgrowing ancient notions of mystical fate, not just figuratively, but literally... by killing the fates

Edited by Catamount, 04 March 2012 - 10:37 AM.

[Zakatak]

I'd like to see how other universes would fight the Tribble menace.

[Catamount]

Star Trek does it by sending... The Sisko

[Catamount]

Posted in reply to this post, here, which was continuing to derail that thread

WhiteTigger, on 06 March 2012 - 03:53 PM, said:

Hrm, things deteriorate rapidly. So, "I don't believe it, therefore I won't even consider your facts" is now a valid argument? Population in a starfaring civilization would include more than just the population of planets, which is indeed considerable. Remember, our own 3rd rock from the sun is fairly small as celestial bodies go. But if each ship supported populations numbering in the billions, each would then be considered it's own world in some respects. Just more mobile. Remember, the Emperor of Man inside his "golden throne" requires the sacrifice of "thousands of psychics per day" just to keep sustaining him. Population of the empire would have to be about that big just to manufacture that many psychics per day.

However, with all that being said, no I'm not saying that the numbers are exactly accurate. Just that your imagined "my borg cube is bigger than your imperial battleship" estimate was off according to published 'fluff' that I had seen.

As for HORRIBLY, HORRIBLY inconsistent, so is each and every Sci-Fi franchise that has more than one author, as well as some that do only have one author. Which only lends credence to my argument that arguing the 'who is better' is relatively pointless. It's all based on opinion, conjecture, and emotion.

That's a nice strawman, but no, that's not remotely what was said. Try reading it again, and maybe you can gather the meaning of my post. Or maybe I'll just say it again, slightly differently.

Your "source" isn't a source at all. The Battlefleet Gothic rulebooks list no such figures for starships, which means your site is either just pulling those figures out of its rear end, or getting them from some place they aren't citing. Don't take my word for it; go find those figures http://www.games-wor...jsp?aId=4300022

You can't, of course, because they aren't there.
Additionally, it still doesn't fit the canon. The "maybe the Imperium has TRILLIONS OF TIMES more people living in space than on planets" is about the weakest justification I've ever heard, nor does it explain the inconsistency with the rest of the canon.

For instance, the BF Gothic Imperium Fleet text states the following about the Armageddon class (bold mine)

Quote

Power relays were re-routed from the ship’s main plasma reactors to provide a substantial increase in efficiency for the existing weapons batteries, whilst long-ranged lance turret arrays were built upon a modified dorsal spine. This alone gave the ship a much greater punch at medium ranges and the ability to engage at distance. An immediate drawback became obvious as nearly three and a half thousand extra crewmen had to be drafted in simply to man the additional weapons and to maintain the short-lived relays that powered them.

If these ships already had billions of crew, why would adding a ten thousandth of a percent or so more be a "drawback"? Why the phrasing, "nearly three and a half thousand", as if that were a big number?

Your cited figures are not canonical, and there is absolutely zero reason to put any stock in them. The talk page on your very cited page even chides the page author for such absurd figures.

The site isn't even consistent! If the page you cited claims billions of crew, why does this page, from the same site, claim millions? Did they just magically forget three orders of magnitude?

Edited by Catamount, 06 March 2012 - 05:16 PM.

[Strum Wealh]

I would agree with Catamount, in that the other site seems to be outright incorrect.

The (other) 40k wiki (which does cite its sources) states:

Quote

The current population of humans in the Milky Way Galaxy in the 41st Millennium AD numbers in the tens of trillions.

-----

Imperial Battleships can have crews of anywhere between 25,000 to 3,000,000 men or more depending on the source consulted, including large numbers of Imperial Navy armsmen (marines in modern parlance) to defend against enemy boarding assaults. Battleships can be up to 8 kilometres from prow to stern and displace billions of tons.

-----

Cruisers can carry a crew complement of anywhere between 10,000 and 1,000,000 crewmen (including Imperial Navy armsmen and military police squads), depending on the sources consulted. While Cruisers are still particularly technologically complex, it is not uncommon for them to be constructed on smaller Forge Worlds or any Civilised World that has an orbital shipyard suitable for constructing vessels of their large size. Of particular note was the Lunar-class Cruiser Lord Daros, constructed in orbit above the Feral World of Unloth in 11 Terran years by relying on the forced labour of most of that planet’s population for materials.

-----

The Fury Interceptor is the most common starfighter used by the Imperial Navy for space combat. With some variants reaching 60 to 70 metres in length, the more common patterns of the Fury are significantly larger than most fighters designed for atmospheric operations, and it carries a three-man crew, including a pilot, navigator and gunner. On occasion, an Astropath psyker will also be aboard, to provide greater communications capability.

Unfortunately, there seem to be no figures regarding the crew complement of escort-type ships (destroyers and frigates), but they are likely significantly smaller than those of the cruisers.

Also, I wrote up a bit of an analysis on the IoM's Imperial Navy a while back, using material from the same wiki.
From that, we have reasonable (IMO) estimates of the IoM's total ship strength and offensive and defensive capabilities...

[Catamount]

Yeah, I remember you writing up that analysis, and putting up a couple more big posts since then.

It should be noted that the Armageddon Class is a battlecruiser, so it should be absolutely no less than around half the size of a battleship ( much smaller than that, and you no longer have a battlecruiser ). So the quote I gave does definitely support the idea of crews in the tens of thousands, to maybe a maximum of low hundreds of thousands, if the ships are cramped.


It's not definitive, but it's something that definitely points to the same numbers suggested elsewhere.

[Zakatak]

I haven't played it before (mainly because I hate being scared), but I thought I'd mention it. Dead Space? In the second version, humanity broke Titan into little chunks and built artificial gravity metropolises on each shard. And as far as I'm concerned, any "planet cracking" race is one worth taking into considering.

Also, since this IS a space battles forum...



Apparently ME ships are so advanced they go faster-than-light... at sublight . The relay is at Pluto, and even if it is greatly time-lapsed, it obviously didn't take them long to reach Earth. Judging by how fast they pass Jupiter, that is at least 40PSL. Anyway, cool battle. I'll look for an extended version with in-game sounds.

Edited by Zakatak, 07 March 2012 - 06:40 PM.

[Zakatak]

And this Honorverse... it takes place in the 20th century? Wat?!

Is this a reality in which the dark ages never happened or something?