Jump to content

Star Wars vs Star Trek vs Battle Tech Space Battles


1189 replies to this topic

Poll: Who is the Ultimate Winner? (700 member(s) have cast votes)

Who will come out on top?

  1. Star Wars (154 votes [22.00%])

    Percentage of vote: 22.00%

  2. Star Trek (118 votes [16.86%])

    Percentage of vote: 16.86%

  3. Star Craft (9 votes [1.29%])

    Percentage of vote: 1.29%

  4. Battle Star Galactica (26 votes [3.71%])

    Percentage of vote: 3.71%

  5. Battle Tech (85 votes [12.14%])

    Percentage of vote: 12.14%

  6. Macross (32 votes [4.57%])

    Percentage of vote: 4.57%

  7. Gundam (24 votes [3.43%])

    Percentage of vote: 3.43%

  8. WarHammer40k (152 votes [21.71%])

    Percentage of vote: 21.71%

  9. Star Gate (12 votes [1.71%])

    Percentage of vote: 1.71%

  10. EveOnline (53 votes [7.57%])

    Percentage of vote: 7.57%

  11. Battleship Yamato (10 votes [1.43%])

    Percentage of vote: 1.43%

  12. Legend of Galactic Heros (7 votes [1.00%])

    Percentage of vote: 1.00%

  13. Halo (18 votes [2.57%])

    Percentage of vote: 2.57%

Convert to Best space ship space battles or keep current format? Choices submissions Extended to 2/11/12

  1. Convert to only space ship naval battles, ignoring civ other traits. (116 votes [25.05%])

    Percentage of vote: 25.05%

  2. Keep current format, full universe as deciding factor. (347 votes [74.95%])

    Percentage of vote: 74.95%

Vote Guests cannot vote

#421 Catamount

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • LIEUTENANT, JUNIOR GRADE
  • 3,305 posts
  • LocationBoone, NC

Posted 20 January 2012 - 05:03 AM

View PostMr Lopez, on 19 January 2012 - 09:18 PM, said:

well im not citing numbers cuz they normally are fluff to buff the power of any series. looking at the actual effects portrayed in movies and shows i see the folowing. phasers cannot destroy rocks effectivly as they are always used as cover..(so much for insta vaporize on organic targets..) blasters also dont destroy rocks. so that would make any show/series whos infantry can destry rocks superior as their larger weapons would have the same destuctive properties but on a much larger scale and possible higher orders of magnitute. telepaths as well would be a massive advantage just sowing fear among your enemies. *flame on
plot armor and weapons are copouts for bad writing. .meh perhaps im an *****


Phasers can't destroy rocks?

http://st-v-sw.net/S...d-newphas1.html


Not a bet I'd place my life on ;)

(note, at the bottom of the page is a link to a second page showing no less than three instances of carving giant holes in rock walls)

Edited by Catamount, 20 January 2012 - 05:56 AM.


#422 Catamount

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • LIEUTENANT, JUNIOR GRADE
  • 3,305 posts
  • LocationBoone, NC

Posted 20 January 2012 - 05:07 AM

View PostZakatak, on 19 January 2012 - 08:56 PM, said:

I'm 100% sure that it is just a typo, because that would make the space station 4 times larger then a cruiser 4 orders of magnitude more powerful then the ship-based railguns. No doubt it meant metres, not kilometres. Your average UNSC cruiser fires 64.4kt per round. If it meant 120'000m/s as oppose to the later, that would put its power around 1.10mt or 17 times more powerful. That estimate seems spot-on, don't you think?

Edit: Almost forgot! Is the 2000-6000G acceleration statistics on Star Wars also EU garbage? I know that ships in the movies are slow, but every sci-fi slows things down for sake of drama and visuals.


I don't think those levels of accelaration are mentioned outside of EU, and certainly never seen, but it wouldn't be unreasonable.


For the Halo figures, I agree that using meters makes it work much more correctly.


Of course, I believe that canonincal figure offered may be 6% of c (I was commenting on the incorrect Halo Wiki figure), so that would still create ridiculous numbers.

#423 Mr Lopez

    Rookie

  • 8 posts

Posted 20 January 2012 - 01:12 PM

View PostCatamount, on 20 January 2012 - 05:03 AM, said:


Phasers can't destroy rocks?

http://st-v-sw.net/S...d-newphas1.html


Not a bet I'd place my life on :)

(note, at the bottom of the page is a link to a second page showing no less than three instances of carving giant holes in rock walls)


i said effectively not that they could not do so. it is a rare case to destroy an obsticle and not standard procedure. If their weapons were truthfully that strong why would federation troops hide behind rocks when fighting equally equiped enemies. the main problem with star trek is their ability to make whatever they have on hand do whatever is needed to advance the story line for that ONE peticular episode and is never mentioned again.. why are seeking torpedoes not standard for example for fighting cloaked ships? (undiscovered country)? why are the effective combat ranges of fleets in the series soo much lower than paper ranges? if you could fire in warp why would fleets need to fight in sublight at all? driveby phasing would be standard operating procedure.

#424 Catamount

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • LIEUTENANT, JUNIOR GRADE
  • 3,305 posts
  • LocationBoone, NC

Posted 20 January 2012 - 01:47 PM

View PostMr Lopez, on 20 January 2012 - 01:12 PM, said:


i said effectively not that they could not do so. it is a rare case to destroy an obsticle and not standard procedure. If their weapons were truthfully that strong why would federation troops hide behind rocks when fighting equally equiped enemies. the main problem with star trek is their ability to make whatever they have on hand do whatever is needed to advance the story line for that ONE peticular episode and is never mentioned again.. why are seeking torpedoes not standard for example for fighting cloaked ships? (undiscovered country)? why are the effective combat ranges of fleets in the series soo much lower than paper ranges? if you could fire in warp why would fleets need to fight in sublight at all? driveby phasing would be standard operating procedure.


They can't destroy rocks effectively? Phasers have been shown to be capable of vaporizing a dozen cubic meters or rock or more with ease. Now, it takes some time, but this is not a one-off thing as you claim. Trek weapons have been seen doing this in numerous instances (the page I linked cites four different times), and have been shown doing other equally impressive things.

As for why you'd hide behind rocks with such powerful weapons, it takes a bit for a phaser to be able to get rid of a sizeable rock, and that max-setting shot is probably going to drain the weapon, which means you might not be able to fire again, so given that fact, if there are rocks in the way, would you rather:

A.) Hide behind them for as long as they provide cover?

B.) Hide behind nothing?

Quote



why are the effective combat ranges of fleets in the series soo much lower than paper ranges?


The same reason they are in every franchise, just like observed accelaration and certain other VFX features: limitations of the camera perspective, and dramatic effect


Do you really think the Millenium Falcon crosses star systems at sublight (as in TESB) at its highest observed speeds, which are barely in excess of what modern jet fighters achieve? Of course not.


Quote

if you could fire in warp why would fleets need to fight in sublight at all? driveby phasing would be standard operating procedure.


And what would you hope to accomplish? Trek ships can't one-shot each other, not nearly. You could do a warp pass on a ship and hit it with a single torpedo volley (phasers are out of the question for anything but a uselessly tiny fraction of a second), but you'd only inflict very modest damage, and then you'd have your stern to them while they'd be firing at you, in pursuit, with their forward weapons arc.


That would actually be a decidely terrible strategy.


addendum: There is one exception to this point: when a ship's warp drive is down. You'd think that in that situation, FTL flybies would be standard procedure, and you know what? It is. In TOS this situation occurred.

Edited by Catamount, 20 January 2012 - 01:51 PM.


#425 Mr Lopez

    Rookie

  • 8 posts

Posted 20 January 2012 - 03:01 PM

there is a book series that takes in consideration the problems of near light combat. the series is the lost fleet. and a whole fleet flying past another fleet can effetivly fight in a fraction of a second. however you would need to have a computer firecontrol system and plan the atack vector beforehand as well as focus fire on the projected general area of priority tagets like flagships or stations.

tv shows like star trek and games like 40k are made to be dramatic and interesting and why a firefighta are common between opponents who can annihilate each other on paper outright . imaginary math aside i only pointed out cover and fleet ranges to show that the math behind the figures is dubious at best. and if the actual show is not cannon how can the paper fluff be considered doctrine? you must choose one and almost always the paper fluff > the series in practice, do to camera limitations and our inabilty to conceptualize in practice the ranges or speeds in scifi battles.

as to the rock cover consider this. cover would be a death trap and yes you would one shot the rock even if you could not shoot again for 20 mins if it killed everyone behind it. takin it one step further desintegrations from solid to gase would cause a huge pressure wave due to phase change and would effectivly be a bomb with the expanding gas. And matter anihilation would be even more problematic as it would release energy greater than a modern nuclear detonation, yet none of those problems exist so we need new math to shoehorn in flawed visual mechanics.

it becomes magic and therefore is uncomparable . it becomes vanilla vs chocolate scenario. and stating dogmatically all the properties of chocolate will not make me like it more.

#426 Catamount

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • LIEUTENANT, JUNIOR GRADE
  • 3,305 posts
  • LocationBoone, NC

Posted 20 January 2012 - 06:11 PM

View PostMr Lopez, on 20 January 2012 - 03:01 PM, said:

there is a book series that takes in consideration the problems of near light combat. the series is the lost fleet. and a whole fleet flying past another fleet can effetivly fight in a fraction of a second. however you would need to have a computer firecontrol system and plan the atack vector beforehand as well as focus fire on the projected general area of priority tagets like flagships or stations.


That may work in a franchise with absurdly low durability, but for any franchise here, it's not a matter of computing; it's a matter of physics.

If you even travel at c, which is rather slow for all of these franchises FTL systems, then you're going to be in effective phaser range for about two millisecond, flying right at an enemy.


Now, let's say it takes an exajoule to bring down the shields of a ship of equal capability to your ship, then given that amount of time, you'd have to output 500 exawatts from a weapons array just to collapse the shields of a ship. No ship only capable of outputting 500 exawatts would only have a 1 exawatt shield grid. Why? Because then the shields would be useless, because you'd be able to bring them down in two milliseconds.



Put another way, let's say it takes a full minute of maximum firepower to collapse the shield of a ship equivalent to your own. With a window that size, it would take thirty thousand FTL passes to do so.


Now do you see why FTL runs on sublight ships is usually a useless gesture? If a ship is without FTL, you could make repeated torpedo runs on it and eventually kill it (with impunity), but otherwise, the tactic is meaningless.



Quote

tv shows like star trek and games like 40k are made to be dramatic and interesting and why a firefighta are common between opponents who can annihilate each other on paper outright . imaginary math aside i only pointed out cover and fleet ranges to show that the math behind the figures is dubious at best. and if the actual show is not cannon how can the paper fluff be considered doctrine? you must choose one and almost always the paper fluff > the series in practice, do to camera limitations and our inabilty to conceptualize in practice the ranges or speeds in scifi battles.


This argument might hold water, except that it's almost strictly the onscreen canon that we use, both in observed and onscreen-stated capabilies. On other words, this argument doesn't hold water.

Quote

as to the rock cover consider this. cover would be a death trap and yes you would one shot the rock even if you could not shoot again for 20 mins if it killed everyone behind it.




As I said before, it takes phasers a considerable chunk of time to achieve such vaporization, more than enough time for someone to move out of the way. Did you not read that?

Quote

akin it one step further desintegrations from solid to gase would cause a huge pressure wave due to phase change and would effectivly be a bomb with the expanding gas




Maybe, with some weapons, but not phasers since the matter is largely phased out of normal space (no doubt the writers' way to get around troublesome VFX work).

Quote

And matter anihilation would be even more problematic as it would release energy greater than a modern nuclear detonation, yet none of those problems exist so we need new math to shoehorn in flawed visual mechanics.




Except that no weapon being discussed works in the manner you claim here.

Quote



it becomes magic and therefore is uncomparable . it becomes vanilla vs chocolate scenario. and stating dogmatically all the properties of chocolate will not make me like it more.


Then don't participate. There are plenty of other discussions on these forums you can take part in.


I can't think of anything more illogical than taking the time to come into a vs debate just to tell the participants that vs debates have no point. If it want to have such a discussion, then it's our prerogative. If you think there's no value in such a discussion then don't take part.

Edited by Catamount, 20 January 2012 - 06:25 PM.


#427 Ilithi Dragon

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Legendary Founder
  • Legendary Founder
  • 475 posts
  • Facebook: Link
  • LocationWazan

Posted 20 January 2012 - 06:51 PM

View PostMr Lopez, on 20 January 2012 - 03:01 PM, said:

there is a book series that takes in consideration the problems of near light combat. the series is the lost fleet. and a whole fleet flying past another fleet can effetivly fight in a fraction of a second. however you would need to have a computer firecontrol system and plan the atack vector beforehand as well as focus fire on the projected general area of priority tagets like flagships or stations.

tv shows like star trek and games like 40k are made to be dramatic and interesting and why a firefighta are common between opponents who can annihilate each other on paper outright . imaginary math aside i only pointed out cover and fleet ranges to show that the math behind the figures is dubious at best. and if the actual show is not cannon how can the paper fluff be considered doctrine? you must choose one and almost always the paper fluff > the series in practice, do to camera limitations and our inabilty to conceptualize in practice the ranges or speeds in scifi battles.

as to the rock cover consider this. cover would be a death trap and yes you would one shot the rock even if you could not shoot again for 20 mins if it killed everyone behind it. takin it one step further desintegrations from solid to gase would cause a huge pressure wave due to phase change and would effectivly be a bomb with the expanding gas. And matter anihilation would be even more problematic as it would release energy greater than a modern nuclear detonation, yet none of those problems exist so we need new math to shoehorn in flawed visual mechanics.

it becomes magic and therefore is uncomparable . it becomes vanilla vs chocolate scenario. and stating dogmatically all the properties of chocolate will not make me like it more.



Mr Lopez, you seem to be declaring that all of this is pointless because we can't compare anything because it's all just fluff that isn't worth anything. Obviously, most here disagree, but that still begs the question of why you are here. If you think that all of this is pointless, that none of this can even be compared, then why are you even bothering to post at all? If you think that this is all pointless and that none of it can be compared in any kind of scientific or objective manner, that's fine, that's your opinion and you have every right to it. But most of us here disagree with that, and we enjoy nerding out and comparing them, to varying degrees, because we think it's a fun mental exercise, an interesting gedanken experiment, and some of us also enjoy the whole process of analysis. We don't need you to come in here and insist that we can't do our analyses because the things that we are analyzing can't be analyzed.


I have been doing this sort of thing for a very long time now. I have been analyzing assorted science fiction franchises, and particularly Star Trek, since I was a single-digit child, and I have been discussing and debating those analyses on the internet since my mid teens. One of the constants that I have found in this beloved hobby of mine is that periodically, a person will invariably come up and say as you have, in more or less words, that all of this is pointless and a waste of time and none of it fits together and it can't be analyzed and it's all just silly, pointless fluff that just doesn't make any consistent or cohesive sense at all. This just boggles my mind. It makes no sense to me at all why people would do this, at least not with the frequency and innitiative with which it is done. Perhaps you can tell me? Why do you feel compelled to insist that the analyses that we have done, the many hours upon hours of effort that we have poured into an obviously cherished hobby, are pointless and fruitless and that any further efforts are just inane? It matters not to me if you hold this position - that is your opinion and as I said you have every right to it, and if you do hold that position then I honestly could not care less, because I thoroughly disagree with it. That is not what concerns me. What I take issue with, and what boggles my mind as to why, is that you must come here, to a thread created entirely for the purpose of those very analyses and the great enjoyment to be had from making them, and insist that they are moot and pointless and can't be made. This just... Why?! Why do you feel the need to do this? I do not understand. This thread is here for the purpose of these analyses and those who enjoy them, and regardless of whether or not you think there is any point to them, we obviously obtain much enjoyment from engaging in them. Why do you feel compelled to tell us to stop?!? I cannot comprehend this compulsion. Can you explain it to me?


Furthermore, it is extremely insulting to those of us who have made the examination and analysis of assorted science fiction (and fantasy!) lore into a significant hobby for you to come in and insist that none of our analyses are worth anything, and that the thousands of collective man-hours we have put into these analyses and discussions and debates are meaningless. Some of us have put a lot of effort into building our intricate knowledge of lore, and into piecing together our theories and hypotheses from the various points of data we have collected into our knowledge of the lore. Whether it is your intent or not, to insist that all of this analysis is pointless is very insulting and degrading to at least some of us. If you think all of this is pointless, that is entirely your prerogative, however, if you feel that way, and you are not willing to suspend that opinion for the sake of enjoying the study and analysis of lore, then I must respectfully request that you refrain from posting in this thread. If you have things to add to the discussion, that is great, but if all you are going to do is insist that the discussion itself is pointless, then you are adding nothing at all to the discussion, and are in fact detracting from it by getting in the way of the discussion at hand, and(intentionally or not) insulting and degrading those of us who are trying to participate in the discussion.

#428 Jack Gammel

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPip
  • 205 posts
  • LocationZiliang

Posted 20 January 2012 - 08:24 PM

Well, ilithi dragon pretty much summarized that as well as anyone could.

Of course, all of this is make-believe, but these are franchises that people love. They love studying them and talking about them, and I'd like to think that most of the time those discussions remain amiable (though we all know how often they don't). Furthermore, some of these franchises, especially Trek, have more than enough technical details recorded in the fluff to give someone the ability to work out certain aspects of the technology. Who care's if its fake or not? Everyone on this forum thread is here because we don't care. We think that phasers and lightsabers are cool, and we like to think about what would happen if a lightsaber blade was hit with a phaser beam (and awesome stuff like that).

#429 Ilithi Dragon

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Legendary Founder
  • Legendary Founder
  • 475 posts
  • Facebook: Link
  • LocationWazan

Posted 20 January 2012 - 08:55 PM

As Bertrand Russel said, "There is much pleasure to be had from useless knowledge."

Also, I've said it before but I want to say it again, this thread has largely been one fo the most mature and civil discussions of this sort on a broad public forum that I have ever participated in. That speaks very highly of the maturity of the community.

#430 Catamount

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • LIEUTENANT, JUNIOR GRADE
  • 3,305 posts
  • LocationBoone, NC

Posted 20 January 2012 - 09:01 PM

You know, if someone wanted to claim that vs debates were a sign of having nothing good to do with one's time (in other words, having no life), I suppose it'd be a legitimate opinion, if one I'd disagree with, but I can't think of anything that shows having nothing good to do with one's time than running around and popping into other peoples' forum discussions and going

"LULZ THIS DISCUSSION IS TEH POINTLESSES!!ONE1!"

I can't possibly think of a more self-defeating activity than running around, telling people that the discussions they're having are pointless, that, in itself, being the epitome of pointless exercises.


Frankly, I'm not even sure why one would bother registering to be part of a forum if that's what they're going to spend their time doing.

#431 Catamount

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • LIEUTENANT, JUNIOR GRADE
  • 3,305 posts
  • LocationBoone, NC

Posted 20 January 2012 - 09:01 PM

View Postilithi dragon, on 20 January 2012 - 08:55 PM, said:

I've said it before but I want to say it again, this thread has largely been one fo the most mature and civil discussions of this sort on a broad public forum that I have ever participated in. That speaks very highly of the maturity of the community.


This.

This has hands down been the best community I've ever had this discussion in, all in all.

#432 Mr Lopez

    Rookie

  • 8 posts

Posted 21 January 2012 - 04:48 AM

i am not trolling, im just saying i feel like im atacked whenever i post an opinion thats not pro star trek.

my last comment about fleets. flying by another fleet with all the ships in that fleet shooting thier torpedos would be devestating and as earlier stated and i agree phasers and other contunious directed energy weapons would be near useless for flyby tactics due to low time on target. and i said fleet not 1 ship..(i believe there was an episode when they fired a torpedo in warp).

i did not say it was useless to have discussions of fictional scenarios or equipment . i would be in effect insulting myself as well as anyone who posted in this thread. if that is how you took my post i apologize. i was saying i have a hard time swallowing the startrek lore in its totality as internally logical because it takes itself so serious. the reason i picked 40k is because they make little attempt to make any sense for the most part as most of the creatures that inhabit its universe have absolutly no idea how anything works, just that it does.

#433 Catamount

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • LIEUTENANT, JUNIOR GRADE
  • 3,305 posts
  • LocationBoone, NC

Posted 21 January 2012 - 08:40 AM

View PostMr Lopez, on 21 January 2012 - 04:48 AM, said:

my last comment about fleets. flying by another fleet with all the ships in that fleet shooting thier torpedos would be devestating and as earlier stated and i agree phasers and other contunious directed energy weapons would be near useless for flyby tactics due to low time on target. and i said fleet not 1 ship..(i believe there was an episode when they fired a torpedo in warp).


Except that you apparently missed my point.

A single volley of torpedoes is not devestating. Ship-to-ship it would achieve almost nothing, but shall we extend it to fleets? Combined weapons fire can collapse shield grids and destroy ships, obviously, but Trek ships are very durable most of the time (Chin'Toka being the biggest exception; those weapons platforms were devestating), so it takes a lot of fire to actually bring one down. The Enterprise C, at the battle of Narendra III, took over two hundred hits that reached her hull, and while she was savaged, she was still restorable to partial working order in only about a day, without the aid of a starbase. Unless you're talking gross size or tech differences (which is common in many combat instances), Trek ships really just don't go down that easily, nor should they. Even when weapons reach the hull, either from shield bleedthrough, or shields collapsing, there's considerable armor to go through, and more importantly still, structural integrity fields which bolster up the ship with an effective second shield grid (albiet one that works slightly differently).

Further, torpedoes are rarely especially effective on shields on their own, but honestly we can set that fact aside for our purposes here, even if it should be noted. Let's say we're talking about a fleet of 100 ships, each with an average torpedo volley of 10 torpedoes, so that's 1,000 torpedoes. A middling ship, like a mid-sized cruiser, would probably lose her shields and be destroyed by maybe 30 torpedoes. This is inline with what we typically see. At the Battle of Kitomer, the Enterprise A took 7 hits from torpedoes before actually taking the first significant damage, and even then, the overall ship was laregely not damage besides having her shields begin to collapose (she also lost the aid of auxiliary power, but main power stayed online). She probably would have gone down in another half dozen to a dozen hits or so, but it's hard to say exactly. In that same battle, a scout BoP, a very tiny ship, took 7 hits to destroy without any kind of shields. Fast forward 50 years, and ships get a lot bigger, SIF systems get added to better contain damage, and torpedo yields go up more through numbers than bigger warheads. The Enteprise C is a lot bigger than the Enteprise A, more than twelve times bigger in fact, and is a beast of a ship in her day (as opposed to just a heavy cruiser by size/capability), and takes 200 such hits at Narendra III. She's bigger than an average Starfleet cruiser, however, a lot bigger, so that number needs to be knocked down enormously.

So at, 30 torpedoes, you'd knock out three middling ships out of 100, and maybe scratch the paint on one more. You wouldn't even be able to take down a proper capital ship. So you'd inflict about 3% losses, give or take. In short, you'd do nothing to the other fleet, and then what?

It's even possible that, based on the Narendra III incident, I'm underestimating durability here, but like all fictional franchises, there's high and low instances, something I try to keep in mind (which is why I presented one of both).


Quote

i did not say it was useless to have discussions of fictional scenarios or equipment . i would be in effect insulting myself as well as anyone who posted in this thread. if that is how you took my post i apologize. i was saying i have a hard time swallowing the startrek lore in its totality as internally logical because it takes itself so serious. the reason i picked 40k is because they make little attempt to make any sense for the most part as most of the creatures that inhabit its universe have absolutly no idea how anything works, just that it does


There's just too problems I see with this:

A.) It's not actually an argument

B.) I don't think we particularly care if you like Trek, or our perceptions of Trek, anymore than you should care what I think of 40k, not for the purposes of this discussion (we can discuss that another time). I don't particularly like Warhammer 40k; storywise I think it's a childish franchise that acheives little beyond packing explosions and violence into a pseudo-scifi background, without any kind of attempt to make a story relevant to the modern day, which idolizes and attempts to make cool a downright evil cast of fictional characters, who in any other universe, would be the enemies of mankind, and are honestly arguable such even in the 40k universe (which isn't to comment on them as games qua games; the PC games are actually fairly fun, and I bet the TT game are too).

What I think, however, does not amount to addressing the topic of the discussion, which is who would win in a battle, a topic which you have not addressed.


If it's an ancillary comment, you can say whatever you want about any franchise; it's not my thread, and I can't stop you. However, you really should address the topic at hand as your primary reason for being here.



Edit: There is also a "Welcome to the forums" due for you here somewhere. I'm not trying to be mean, honest.

But please, do stick to the topic at hand. Address franchises and how powerful they appear to be, not how much you like/dislike them.

Edited by Catamount, 21 January 2012 - 09:07 AM.


#434 Ilithi Dragon

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Legendary Founder
  • Legendary Founder
  • 475 posts
  • Facebook: Link
  • LocationWazan

Posted 21 January 2012 - 08:53 AM

View PostMr Lopez, on 21 January 2012 - 04:48 AM, said:

i am not trolling, im just saying i feel like im atacked whenever i post an opinion thats not pro star trek.

my last comment about fleets. flying by another fleet with all the ships in that fleet shooting thier torpedos would be devestating and as earlier stated and i agree phasers and other contunious directed energy weapons would be near useless for flyby tactics due to low time on target. and i said fleet not 1 ship..(i believe there was an episode when they fired a torpedo in warp).

i did not say it was useless to have discussions of fictional scenarios or equipment . i would be in effect insulting myself as well as anyone who posted in this thread. if that is how you took my post i apologize. i was saying i have a hard time swallowing the startrek lore in its totality as internally logical because it takes itself so serious. the reason i picked 40k is because they make little attempt to make any sense for the most part as most of the creatures that inhabit its universe have absolutly no idea how anything works, just that it does.



Ah, I see. Well, as I said, that's how you were coming across, but if it's not what you intended, then we can just chalk the misunderstanding up to the limitations of text-only communication.

Also, it is not Catamount's nor my intention to attack anyone who does not adopt a pro-Trek position. We are, however, very firmly confident of our conclusion that Trek and the Federation has vastly superior technological capabilities to most other franchises (and rough parity with factions like the Taur'i and Asgard from Stargate or the All Systems Commonwealth from Andromeda (stronger in some areas, weaker in others, some of which may be or are strategically decisive), and in some cases even inferior to factions like the pre-Wraith Alterans from Stargate). We have both been doing this for quite a while, and have come to our conclusions after examining a lot of data across most franchises. We aren't going to attack others for disagreeing, that is your prerogative, but we will gladly debate anyone who disagrees with us on the subject, because that's half the point of this thread, and we really, really enjoy nerding out in these sorts of debates and discussions.

If you feel that you are under attack, we apologize, for that is not our intent. We will pick apart your posts and refute them, but that is part of the debate, we mean no ad hominem attack against you (or anyone), and we encourage anyone to do the same in return. If you disagree with our position or our posts, please, separate them into individual points and refute the ones you disagree with, preferably with evidence or data to back up your refutation. Don't expect us to yield immediately, we both have a lot of evidence and data to back up our position, and we will go through it all, but if you can prove that our conclusions are wrong through flawed analysis, or provide data that we had not previously considered, we will at least modify our conclusion (Catamount and I are both in training to be scientists, him to be a conservation biologist, me to be a professor of physics and philosophy, and it is inherent to that training to change or modify your conclusion if errors in your methodology or new data are discovered that would change your conclusion, it's a huge part of how science works). As I said, we won't change our mind just because someone tells us to (and we may get a little scornful of people insisting that we change our mind on their word alone, because we have had to deal with such people so often in the past, across all sorts of debates and discussions and subjects), you will have to convince us with data and evidence, but we will change our minds if that is what all the data indicates, and the whole process of the debate to try is crazy fun. We wouldn't be here if it wasn't (this thread has maintained a pretty mature and civil discussion/debate of this subject, but anyone familiar with the general debate knows how bitter and vitriolic and full of ad hominem attacks as a matter of course these sorts of threads can get).


As for the consistency of Trek, as I've said, I've been doing this for a very long time, and there is a LOT more consistency to Trek than many people give it credit for. The producers and writers and VFX guys did a fairly solid job of maintaining a remarkably high level of consistency across twenty-eight seasons of five different series, partly because, as Catamount noted, they put together writers manuals that were used by mostly the same people, or at least mostly the same core of people, across all of the series. And, even when the writers and producers were not being consistent, or being apparently inconsistent, there is still a remarkable level of consistency across all the series, upon full examination (which is a huge part of my enjoyment in this hobby - figuring out consistency in apparent inconsistency).

For example, Worf's statement that GigaWatt range energy blasts were collapsing the E-D's entire shield grid in TNG "The Survivors" is not actually inconsistent with Data's statement that the E-D's reactor was currently outputting "Twelve-point-seven-five billion GigaWatts per-" or 12.75 ExaWatts per something in TNG "True Q", despite being an apparent major discrepancy between stated power generation capabilities and the energy output of the shield grid.

In this case it's important to listen to the surrounding context. The E-D's shield grid is being easly collapsed, and Worf is having trouble getting the shields back up. We also here reports of thermal heating of the hull. So the shields are going completely down and the hull is starting to get a little warm. For an energy weapon so powerful that it can bring the entire shield grid down, isn't it a little suspect that it's only causing a little heating to the ship's hull?

Fortunately, we do have another example of a powerful series of shots overwhelming the E-D's shield grid. In TNG "Timescape" the E-D is conducting a power transfer to a Romulan D'Deridex class warbird disabled by an exotic lifeform that laid its larval young in the warbird's artificial black hole main power core. During the power transfer, the D'Deridex suffers an energy overload and the aliens that laid their young commandeered the D'deridex and tried to stop the energy transfer by firing their big honking nose gun at the E-D (and that's the biggest, most powerful disruptor cannon we ever see fielded in Trek, btw). In the time-freeze we see when Picard and Data and Troi return from their jaunt in a runabout, we get to see a prime example of a really big gun punching through the E-D's shields to the hull:
Posted Image

Now that is quite a bit more than a little thermal heating. There is a massive hull breach with extensive internal damage, which was sufficient, in concert with the power transfer operations the E-D was then undertaking, to cause an immediate overload and main reactor core breach.

So if a shot powerful enough to rip through the E-D's shields should also be inflicting very significant damage to the E-D's spaceframe, why was she only suffering from thermal heating in TNG "The Survivors"? The answer is simple: The Husnock vessel she was engaging was not real. It was an illusion created by Kevin Uxbridge, a Douwd with incredible powers that could potentially rival that of even the Q. Kevin's intent was not to destroy the Enterprise, but rather scare it off so that he might continue in his self-imposed purgatory with the illusion of his dead wife. Kevin had just recently obliterated the entire Husnock species (from the sounds of it, a star power comparable to the Cardassian Union at the very least), so he had more than sufficient capability to create an illusion of a ship and force the E-D's shield grid into collapse. He had no desire to harm anyone on the Enterprise, so the illusionary bolts of energy fired by the Husnock ship were low enough in power to not be sufficient to cause any real damage to the Enterprise. Worf's shock at the stated energy yields can then be assumed to be shock at how much such low-yield blasts were doing to the E-D.

Edited by ilithi dragon, 21 January 2012 - 09:11 AM.


#435 Zakatak

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Elite Founder
  • Elite Founder
  • 1,673 posts
  • LocationCanadastan

Posted 21 January 2012 - 10:21 AM

Didn't the Daedalus already go up against a Star Destroyer in its own show? :) Did anybody see "The Daedalus Variations"?

Posted Image

It managed to do some damage against the ship, despite having 1/100th of its original crew, severe damage to everything and minimal shields. I guess travelling through like 1000 parellel universes with infinite possibilites does that.

Edited by Zakatak, 21 January 2012 - 10:24 AM.


#436 Catamount

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • LIEUTENANT, JUNIOR GRADE
  • 3,305 posts
  • LocationBoone, NC

Posted 21 January 2012 - 10:31 AM

View PostZakatak, on 21 January 2012 - 10:21 AM, said:

Didn't the Daedalus already go up against a Star Destroyer in its own show? :) Did anybody see "The Daedalus Variations"?

Posted Image

It managed to do some damage against the ship, despite having 1/100th of its original crew, severe damage to everything and minimal shields. I guess travelling through like 1000 parellel universes with infinite possibilites does that.


Ah, yes, that episode :)

Just when you thought the prime universe had ticked off the wrong aliens...

#437 Patrio Sioux Daltum

    Member

  • PipPipPip
  • 54 posts
  • LocationFrankfurt

Posted 21 January 2012 - 12:23 PM

Hell, the Battlestar Pegasus could pwn all day through an attempt at realism.

#438 Catamount

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • LIEUTENANT, JUNIOR GRADE
  • 3,305 posts
  • LocationBoone, NC

Posted 21 January 2012 - 12:57 PM

Tylium, FTL jumps, and diety-guided prophecy/destiny are realistic? :)

#439 Zakatak

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Elite Founder
  • Elite Founder
  • 1,673 posts
  • LocationCanadastan

Posted 21 January 2012 - 01:10 PM

Here's a new one. Speculate away, whose your money on? Both are refit to the maximum.

http://masseffect.wi...i/Normandy_SR-2
http://en.memory-alp...ise_%28NX-01%29
Posted Image
Posted Image

Hawtest ships in sci-fi for sure.

Edited by Zakatak, 21 January 2012 - 01:18 PM.


#440 Ilithi Dragon

    Member

  • PipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Legendary Founder
  • Legendary Founder
  • 475 posts
  • Facebook: Link
  • LocationWazan

Posted 21 January 2012 - 01:28 PM

Damnit, Zakatak, you just reminded me that ME3 doesn't come out for another month and a half again...


As for ME v Earth-Romulan War Era Trek, that's an interesting match-up. ME definitely has the advantage in FTL tech. Weapons, hard to say. They probably have a significant advantage, at least in weapons yield. Bear in mind that the E-R War was fought with 'primitive' atomic weaponry. Photon or Photonic torpedies were not used as a primary weapon in the war. Standard warhead yields were probably in the hundreds of kilotons to a few megatons, depending on the particular warhead. The maximum output yield of one of the NX-01's phase cannons was 500 GigaJoules, or the energy equivalent of about a 120-kg / 264-lb. bomb. They typically fired two at a time, and you're talking about delivering all of that energy into a single, concentrated point vs a spherical explosion, but that still puts an upper cap on the endurance of these ships. Typical weaponry appears to have been an assortment of GigaWatt-range laser, plasma and particle weapons supporting high-kiloton to low-megaton range nuclear warhead missiles that could damage or kill a ship without a direct hit. Generally, I'd say ME would have the advantage until around the turn of the 23rd Century or so, where they would be roughly matched.


As for aesthetics.... Ugh, the NX-01 is not a pretty ship. She's an Akira with inverted and retro-ized nacelles. No, really, that literally is what the NX class is. Berman and Braga were originally just going to use the Akira class without any modification because it was a popular design with the fans and they apparently did not think the fans would notice, and we only got the NX class because the VFX guys knew better and put in a lot of extra hours to make it. The Galaxy class isn't sleek, not like the Sovereign (one of my three favorite Trek ship classes), but she's BIG. Like the Ambassador. They're not meant to be sleek designs, they're meant to be big designs. The Galaxy is the biggest ship in the Federation fleet, alongside its sister class, the Nebula, and it is most definitely a very potent and capable Battleship when the role is required. The Galaxy has its own grace, the same sort of grace and appeal that the Iowa class has. It's not slim and trim like the Sovereign or Intrepid, it's BIG, and it will steamroll over just about anything in its way (as we see many Galaxies do in the Dominion War). The only ships built on this side of the Bajoran Wormhole that can directly compare to it, besides the Nebula, are the D'Deridex and the Negh'Var.



9 user(s) are reading this topic

0 members, 9 guests, 0 anonymous users