1189 replies to this topic

[Catamount]

Just give them something a little too hard to bang their heads against (preferable something that uses big and potentially confusing words )

Edited by Catamount, 12 March 2012 - 01:11 PM.

[Jack Gammel]

Catamount, on 12 March 2012 - 01:11 PM, said:

Just give them something a little too hard to bang their heads against (preferable something that uses big and potentially confusing words

Or math. I still remember when Quark tried to teach Klingons math.

[Catamount]

I remember one particular novel, where Scotty got the best of a bunch of Klingons by trapping them on a holodeck, on a chicken farm program (rigging it so that for evey chicken they killed, two more would spawn )

[Zakatak]

We've run out of steam I think, but it was good fun for sure.

Where did all the sci-fi's go? Why is it all about spoiled celebrities and their insignificant problems and auction/trading shows? The only "sci-fi" we're getting is shows like... well I was going to say Sanctuary but Amanda Tapping classy and sexy to the max. You know what I mean. Not that I am some space-elitist who wants everything in space with space ships and space monsters and space guns. But... just 1 or 2 would be nice at a time, no?

I'm pretty sure it is because of 2 things. 1, production costs. 2, nobody wants to watch shows about space anymore because doing so makes you a geek and a loser.

[Jack Gammel]

Zakatak, on 12 March 2012 - 03:32 PM, said:

Where did all the sci-fi's go? Why is it all about spoiled celebrities and their insignificant problems and auction/trading shows? The only "sci-fi" we're getting is shows like... well I was going to say Sanctuary but Amanda Tapping classy and sexy to the max. You know what I mean. Not that I am some space-elitist who wants everything in space with space ships and space monsters and space guns. But... just 1 or 2 would be nice at a time, no?

I'm pretty sure it is because of 2 things. 1, production costs. 2, nobody wants to watch shows about space anymore because doing so makes you a geek and a loser.

Because networks like Fox don't support shows like Firefly, and Syfy (shivers...) has forgotten where it came from. Sci-fi shows, even space-operas, are only going to appeal to a limited audience, and frankly, I think that the average television viewer is actually getting dumber. This is probably me just being cantankerous, but I really don't think the kids these days appreciate a good story on t.v. anymore, regardless of what style (fantasy, sci-fi, etc.) it is portrayed in. Networks have a bottom line, and shows like American Idol and "reality" television shows meet that bottom line. While networks SHOULD be exploring new and unique concepts and supporting quality stories, it is safer to shovel out cheap crap that focus groups test positive for. It's debatable whether the networks actually CAUSED this decline (or at least facilitated it) with their terrible programming, or if the deteriorating tastes of the audiences is to blame, but the situation still stands. Crap sells.

Edit: This is not to say that there are no good shows on television anymore. I can think of at least a couple off the top of my head that are pretty darn good, but I think the sci-fi genre is seen as too much of a gamble by most networks considering the special effects/general expense and the limited hardcore fanbase which are involved in that sort of program.

Edited by Jack Gammel, 12 March 2012 - 04:06 PM.

[Strum Wealh]

I'm still holding on to hope for Blood and Chrome (especially since "On February 18, 2012, Battlestar Galactica and Caprica composer Bear McCreary confirmed that he had finished scoring the two-hour pilot")...

[Zakatak]

Not included on this but totally should be:



Skip to about 7:20 if you would like to know why.

Edited by Zakatak, 19 March 2012 - 07:41 PM.

[Jack Gammel]

Mwahahahahaha!!!

[Ilithi Dragon]

[Catamount]

[GDL Rahsan]

EDIT: I think it is a good thing that Mason decided that this thread was too nerdy for him or he would have locked it for Necromancy spam XD

Edited by GDL Rahsan, 21 March 2012 - 05:18 AM.

[Zakatak]

Trollercoaster.

http://www.b5tech.co...ons/weapons.htm < B5 weapons essays
http://www.b5tech.co...cceleration.htm < B5 accelerations
http://www.b5tech.co...rmor/index.html < B5 armor essay
http://www.b5tech.co...hfleetsize.html < B5 fleet sizes

Excalibur accelerates at about 60'000m/s^2, which is very respectable. The secondary beams are in the low-megaton levels, which is also quite good. However, the main weapon clocks around at 800 gigatons of energy, which pretty much means instant death for any ship in any series (although it takes hours to charge this sumbitch).

The Omega destroyer and Centauri cruiser both have main weapons clocking between 500-900 kilotons of energy, with the Omega carrying 2 megaton nukes. Narn/Earth accelerations are around 50m/s^2 or so.

Edited by Zakatak, 21 March 2012 - 06:37 PM.

[Catamount]

But doesn't that beam leave Excalibur completely powered down and vulnerable for several minutes, or am I remembering that wrong?

[Hakija]

I would've voted for Freespace myself, but not the GTVA. The shivans had hundreds of 6 kilometer+ juggernauts, and they were equipped with a weapon that can destroy stars in a matter of hours. The slow FTL drives would hinder them long term, but there's not much that could win a single battle with them.

Of the choices above though, I'll go with warhammer. Void shields seem more resilient than the shields in other franchises and the Imperial Navy has some impressive weapons to back them up (Nova Cannons, Fusion Beams, Gravity weapons, etc)

[Dirk Le Daring]

GryphonTA, on 28 November 2011 - 06:56 PM, said:

you mean this?


There's just something about the original tho.

Add lasers and you have the best spaceship combat arena.

Deathstar has to be the one.

[Lonner]

Unfortunatelly many don't know "Legend of Galactic Heros" and the massive number of spaceships and tactics involved during battles - Great Anime story gets you hooked from begining to end.

[MechRaccoon]

Y U NO INCLUDE SINS OF A SOLAR EMPIRE!?

[Catamount]

SOMEBODY MADE IT LIVE AGAIN

MechRaccoon, on 08 June 2012 - 01:14 PM, said:

Y U NO INCLUDE SINS OF A SOLAR EMPIRE!?

We discussed them for awhile near the beginning even if they weren't included

[Vohveli]

Whoa, this topic is ridiculously long. I read through some of it, used search button a bit and apparently there is one serious contender that has not been mentioned so far. Total Annihilation.

Even if it lacks starships entirely at the time of game's campaign (because of them being too energy inefficient), very few fictional factions could ever hope to compete with Arm or Core in galactic scale warfare. Industrial capability of TA units in a prolonged conflict would most likely be too much for any of the factions included in the poll; a single unit being capable of reproducing exponentially, turning an entire planet's surface (and crust and mantle) into a military complex in matter of days. Any noteworthy technologies used by opposing forces could be taken over with viral nanobots and replicated. All mass of all fallen combat units would be reclaimed, recycled and sent to wage war again and again in new forms.

All TA units are gravity shielded to some degree (or have anti-gravity suite in case of aerial units) and all feature so called "weak cloaking" which makes them nigh invisible to naked eye and basic sensors, and some have more advanced forms of cloaking and other such electroric warfare. Apart from sensors of Star Trek, their presence could go unnoticed until their numbers become unstoppable. There are no energy shields in TA, but armor is forcefield enhanced so that entire exterior of each unit is very dense and behaves like a single super molecule. "Heavy armor" tends to fail catastrophically if generators are damaged though.

Discounting the implosion device that would "reboot" the entire galaxy, TA only has weapon systems in scale of what can be fit to tanks and kbots. Then again, projectiles are built into barrels by spraying nanobots and antimatter is regularly used for both payloads and energy storage (and freely shared between all units via short range teleporter network.) Spheres of self-containing forcefields packed with dense degenerate plasma and multiple seconds long laser beams "frozen" in tiny grid of space time get shot around just as often. And then there are disintegrator guns that suppress gluons and let their targets rip themselves apart on sub-atomic level.

Main drawback of Arm and Core would be lack of means to quickly leave a system if a need arises. They do have long distance teleportation devices called "galactic gates" which can transport unit(s) instantaneously over distances typically up to 10 lightyears, but they require days or possibly weeks to charge up, and even then only something like several hundred tons of mass can be transported at most.

[sentieus]

A- gundam depending if there using nc-jamers like the freedom and justice.
B-halo ring but I would fire in the safety of a dysonsphere or shield world.
C-death star from starwars.
D-SDF-1 from macross/robotech