I wonder if you guys are forgetting that The Enterprise has the ability to fire multiple phasers from multiple locations on the ship in multiple configurations. for example: Aft phasers full narrow beam, port phasers full wide sweep. This would make the imperial fighters rather...silly.
Although, I think all of this is rather pointless. One or two photon torpedos on a ship with no shields is more than enough to do the job.
for example: Aft phasers full narrow beam, port phasers full wide sweep. This would make the imperial fighters rather...silly.
I had forgotten about this. I just assumed the fighters would be unable to penetrate the shields (laser cannons? laaaaame) and the enterprise would just keep picking them off one by one with advanced targeting scanners.
Although, I think all of this is rather pointless. One or two photon torpedos on a ship with no shields is more than enough to do the job.
Exactly, and the Enterprise-E has quantum torpedoes, which is twice as powerful.
I wonder if you guys are forgetting that The Enterprise has the ability to fire multiple phasers from multiple locations on the ship in multiple configurations. for example: Aft phasers full narrow beam, port phasers full wide sweep. This would make the imperial fighters rather...silly.
Although, I think all of this is rather pointless. One or two photon torpedos on a ship with no shields is more than enough to do the job.
Actually, the Star Destroyer does have shielding, so I'm unsure about this.
Here's another point - Star Wars sensors are just terrible. Combat would almost certainly begin with the Enterprise detecting the destroyer without being detected in return. Plus, the photon torpedo has a range in the millions of kilometres and can be fired at warp speed. That means you can't even detect the torpedo before it hits you. Also, based on the nature of the shield generator mentioned above, it seems like it needs to be focused onto a specific area, so you need to know where to direct the shields beforehand - ain't happening. Hell, I wonder how that can even work against laser weaponry - you know a laser beam is coming precisely when it hits you.
A quick look at the wookieepedia (I love the name) I find a lot of interesting information but no real numbers, all those turbo lasers are powerful enough to destroy a starfighter in one shot but with slow targeting and low rate of fire that they can't actually hit an starfighter.
Where as with StarTrek you can find neat facts like a Phase Canon has an output of 500 gigjoules and Photon Torpedoes having a max yield of 25 Isotons (uuhh i found a site called memory alpha that calculates that to be 64megatons based on a 1:1 ratio of 1.5kg of matter and 1.5kg of antimatter, however it's stated that the warheads are premixed(?) to attain a yield around 690gigatons) and Quantum Torpedoes have a max yield of 50+ Isotons (it should also be noted that in ST:V apparently there was some run away numbers with Janeway having torpedoes modified to up into the 85 and 200Isoton range)
Given that a Turbo laser is apparently only rated at destroying a starfighter in one shot if it can track it and one Photon Torpedo has almost 700gigatons worth of yield i'm going to say Enterprise launches a few torpedoes and warps away.
Game Over.
Also I'd like to give exhibit B: The Galaxy Class Refit from the last episode of TNG where there is a phaser cannon mounted on the lower side of the Enterprise that blows through another ship's shields, hull and out the other side.
Oh snap, a new challenger has entered the battle! Fight!
Pah. A Battlestar might be about as big as a Star Destroyer, but its sensors are also hopeless, and it has no shielding at all. Once again, photon torpedos from far away and you're screwed.
Pah. A Battlestar might be about as big as a Star Destroyer, but its sensors are also hopeless, and it has no shielding at all. Once again, photon torpedos from far away and you're screwed.
Yeah, I figured as much.
Can't people from the Enterprise just beam a team on board of a Star Destroyer to blow up some weak point of the ship to blow it up entirely as the Enterprise team is beamed back in the nick of time?
Can't people from the Enterprise just beam a team on board of a Star Destroyer to blow up some weak point of the ship to blow it up entirely as the Enterprise team is beamed back in the nick of time?
But why bother? Anti-matter weaponry trumps anything that doesn't have energy shields.
Put simply, don't think anything the the Star Destroyer has will be powerful enough to penetrate or even weaken the shields of the Enterprise.
Nope - The Enterprises shields are made to stand up to Phasers and the like, which (As usual, using borrowed math) Put out energy roughly equivalent to 7 megatons of TNT per second. The Star Destroyer's Heavy Turbo-lasers hit with the energy equivalent of 2 gigatons of TNT per second, with the smaller guns - which are more numerous - putting out the equivalent energy to 20 megatons per second.
The Enterprise will simply ignore the flys the Empire calls fighters and easily blast a hole through the Star Destroyer with it's technologically superior weaponry.
Technologically superior doesn't mean Harder hitting. A Bushmaster ACR assault rifle is more technologically advanced than, say, a 155 mm Howitzer M1 - but that doesn't mean that the Bushmaster's going to level a small building with a double-handful of shots any time soon.
I'm inclined to agree with Churba with regards to firepower; the numbers suggest the Empire's weaponry is indeed a few orders of magnitude more powerful. However, unless it can withstand photon torpedos indefinitely, it's going to be destroyed, and I continue to hold that it simply won't be able to get within range of the Enterprise.
Can't people from the Enterprise just beam a team on board of a Star Destroyer to blow up some weak point of the ship to blow it up entirely as the Enterprise team is beamed back in the nick of time?
But why bother? Anti-matter weaponry trumps anything that doesn't have energy shields.
Yeah, I definitely don't see a need. The relatively short range of the transporters is the main issue with the strategy; though I agree it would be possible, it's risky and shouldn't be necessary.
I'm inclined to agree with Churba with regards to firepower; the numbers suggest the Empire's weaponry is indeed a few orders of magnitude more powerful. However, unless it can withstand photon torpedos indefinitely, it's going to be destroyed, and I continue to hold that it simply won't be able to get within range of the Enterprise.
Agree. I've never heard numbers for the laser cannons before. Regardless, the Enterprise could snipe at them from the other side of a star system with torpedoes without them able to do a damn thing about it.
Interesting, more StarWars research and I find that the 6 turbo lasers around the C&C of a Star Destroyer apparently have the power to turn the surface of a planet to slag(This from apparent official but non cannon sources)? This brings up a whole host of interesting things like, why didn't the Imperial Fleet just turn the surface of Endor to slag rather than waiting for the Death Star to come into range?
Also there seems to be a great deal of math involved with a ton of unknowns for them to come up with some of these numbers, like using a comparison of the size of asteroids in the chase scene with the Falcon with certain parts of the Star Destroyer and then calculating how much energy it would take to vaporize said asteroids in the number of frames that the asteroid was shown to blow up in. So many "Ifs" it makes my eyes bleed.
Is there no cannon explanation of a turbo laser emits x watts of power?
One or two photon torpedos on a ship with no shields is more than enough to do the job.
So basically what you guys are saying is...
Hey, watch out, those star destroyers have some pretty good shields right there.
Heavy modular shielding(Each layer of shielding is separate, and the power is able to be shifted to various areas)
Jesus christ, fellas, really?
However, Star Wars ships arehopelessat hyperspace navigation. They couldn't use it at all in a combat situation, except to escape, and if they do that they might just get lost. The Enterprise, on the other hand, could repeatedly go into warp without such problems, so it isn't going to get caught.
This is true, But I did say from the very start a Stand Up Fight - Which I said in the second post as, and as I consider it to be - A slugging match, till there is a clear victor, or both teams are dead. I'm not considering playing a chasing game
Here's another point - Star Wars sensors are just terrible. Combat would almost certainly begin with the Enterprise detecting the destroyer without being detected in return.
I'm not so sure about that - The Hoth base and part of the Imperial fleet scanned each other at a MASSIVE distance away, before Vader was told the ships had dropped out of hyperspace - Not only are they picking them up while they're travelling at several Million C, but they're picking them up at that speed from many Light-hours away. Also, According to the Star Trek Technical manual series, their scanners use subspace technology, whereas the Star Wars Universe had discovered Subspace scanning technology 25,000 years before The Empire's existence, and are generally not used, being considered ancient technology. Further, the empire's combat craft tend to carry and use sophisticated jamming equipment, And as stated in the TM, The enterprise uses both EM and subspace sensors to track targets, however, if the EM sensors are not functioning, they are unable to lock onto targets - the subspace sensors are not accurate enough. Also, The Picard Manuver relies on fooling EM sensors into thinking there are two ships. At one point in the series, LaForge Asks Data if they could re-modulate the Long Range Sensor array so that they'd be able to detect a ship, and Data tells him it's not possible. Lastly - though not relevant in the type of stand up fight I'm speaking of - considering the sensor range of a few light years of the Enterprise's sensors, Wouldn't the Empire's ships be able to simply Outrace the sensor packets of the Enterprise? According to the TM, subspace communication and sensor transmissions travel at Warp 9.9997, which is slower than a Star Destroyer in hyperspace, at average cruising speed.
Also, based on the nature of the shield generator mentioned above, it seems like it needs to be focused onto a specific area, so you need to know where to direct the shields beforehand - ain't happening.
Nope - They're all over. I didn't state it clearly, however, what I was saying was essentially that the shield is Modular, as in, take down one section, you don't take down the whole thing, and that it can be focused to different parts - for example, Moving power from a rear shield, where there are no threats, to the front, where there are, if so desired.
I thought they only had shields for the bridge.
Nope - All over.
A quick look at the wookieepedia (I love the name) I find a lot of interesting information but no real numbers, all those turbo lasers are powerful enough to destroy a starfighter in one shot but with slow targeting and low rate of fire that they can't actually hit an starfighter.
It's my starting point, for ease. If I can't find something there, I go searching, and find something referenced, that either points back to the canon explicitly stating it, or something that the canon provides enough detail about that it can be worked out.
Where as with StarTrek you can find neat facts like a Phase Canon has an output of 500 gigjoules
Cool. But the Enterprise E doesn't have one.
(uuhh i found a site called memory alpha that calculates that to be 64megatons based on a 1:1 ratio of 1.5kg of matter and 1.5kg of antimatter, however it's stated that the warheads are premixed(?) to attain a yield around 690gigatons)
I know about Memory Alpha - it's where I picked up my star trek information. But I'm tricky, and actually cross-checking - For a start, You're automatically assuming 100% efficiency. Even the Canon Suggests that The average yield is only 18 Isotons from a 25 Isoton warhead - which is a meaningless term, but it shows that even in-universe, the warhead is only about 75% efficient. However, I call bullshit on the 690 Gigatons figure, because it pretty much handwaves it's way to the conclusion, however, standard physics gives the much more reasonable result of a 100% efficient antimatter explosion of 1.5 kilos each of Matter and antimatter giving a roughly 64 Megaton yield.
Given that a Turbo laser is apparently only rated at destroying a starfighter in one shot if it can track it and one Photon Torpedo has almost 700gigatons worth of yield i'm going to say Enterprise launches a few torpedoes and warps away.
lolwhut. Maybe you should look a little closer at Wookiepedia, or even just read what I wrote - Most of the weapons on a Star Destroyer are Optimised for Capital ship to Capital ship combat.
Also I'd like to give exhibit B: The Galaxy Class Refit from the last episode of TNG where there is a phaser cannon mounted on the lower side of the Enterprise that blows through another ship's shields, hull and out the other side.
That's Fantastic. We're still talking about the Enterprise E right now, though, sorry. Even if you were given the Consession of the 500 Gigajoule phaser cannon on the bottom of the ship, you're still not getting anywhere with it, since A single shot from a single Star Destroyer heavy turbolaser is about 8,368,000,000 gigajoules, if my maths is right Converting 2 Gigatons of TNT worth of energy into Gigajoules. (4.184 × 109 joules per ton of TNT, Times Two billion tons of TNT, resulting in 8.36800 X 1018, divided by one billion should give gigajoules, I think. I'm pretty shit with math, and had to look a lot of that up and don't quite know if I'm doing it right, so Someone better than me at this please correct me Immediately.)
Any further arguments, Gimme a break here - I've been mathing and checking and all this shite for quite a while now, and I'm not good at this shit. I'll catch up later.
Edit - Except these two -
Is there no cannon explanation of a turbo laser emits x watts of power?
Not really, only what can be observed and deduced from canon information. However, to be fair, your own figures on the power of Star Trek torpedos come from the Technical Manual - A Non-Canon source.
Torpedo sniping
At a long enough range to make this viable, the Star Destroyer could easily move fast enough to outrun even the sensor pulses of the enterprise, let alone their torpedos at warp. From Across the solar system, That's a short range jump, easy enough to make, and considering the sublight velocity of the torpedos not fired at warp, and the superior sensors of the Star Destoryer, one would expect that they could easily mitigate the threat of the torpedos. I mean, it's a(Roughly, from memory) Five meter projectile, throwing off all sorts of energy signatures, coming in at sublight velocity from across the solar system, along a predictable path. Blow it out of the sky.
If you mean the two ships just sit still and shoot one another, then the Star Destroyer most definitely wins. Still, the Star Wars movies give the impression that that's pretty much the only thing a Star Destroyer is good for. However, the scenario is much more interesting if we consider a confrontation where all options are on the table.
If you mean the two ships just sit still and shoot one another, then the Star Destroyer most definitely wins. Still, the Star Wars movies give the impression that that's pretty much the only thing a Star Destroyer is good for.
I'm figuring an area of combat big enough to manuver(The Enterprise is more nimble, certainly, so why not let them use it?) but small enough that it doesn't lend itself to hyperspace drive/Warp Drive usage for anything more than smaller tactics(Thus avoiding the dual problems of the Warp-speed Torpedo Sniping tactic, and the problem of that the Star Destroyer outruns even the enterprise's ability to detect it, let along catch it or fire upon it.)
Though, the movies do give that impression that's all they're good for, because capital ship combat is hardly exciting in a movie, they want you to focus on the nimble, fast fighters, narrowly dodging hails of ship-to-ship fire. However, A star destroyer can still boogie pretty hard, though it's certainly not as agile as the Enterprise at sublight speeds, and I doubt it would accelerate as fast - It is more than twice the size and mass, however, it's that much more to get moving, or change the direction of it moving, so of course, that comparison is like Putting a Feral Pig next to a Ballerina in a contest of balletic skill.
However, the scenario is much more interesting if we consider a confrontation where all options are on the table.
Even Better - The whole Federation Vs The entire Empire.
Also, Cheese, I'm pretty sure you're better at math than me, Please do tell me if I've fucked anything up too drastically - I'm laughably bad at math.
I'm going to wonder about this 2gigatons of TNT/s (I were pretty sure the TNT was assumed when you're speaking about weapon yields) output and correlate that with the statement from stardestroyer.net (which seems to have most of the math worked out for the power of the turbo lasers) that the heavy turbo lasers can turn the surface of a planet to slag.
If so why does this not happen anyways? What is the need for a Death Star to destroy planets when you can just melt the surface of a planet with one of any number of lasers on any given Star Destroyer of which there can be hundreds floating above any planet? 2 Gigatons should be more than the entire nuclear arsenal of the entire world, and I do recall hearing it stated that we ourselves have enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world several times over.
So as a point of logical consistency, granted I am derailing the subject and probably falling into a logical fallacy here however, why build the Death Star? Why not just turn Endor into slag so the rebels don't have a chance to fight back?
If so why does this not happen anyways? What is the need for a Death Star to destroy planets when you can just melt the surface of a planet with one of any number of lasers on any given Star Destroyer of which there can be hundreds floating above any planet? 2 Gigatons should be more than the entire nuclear arsenal of the entire world, and I do recall hearing it stated that we ourselves have enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world several times over.
One assumes Psychological Impact. Glassing a world is Much, much slower, and gives time to escape. The Death Star's laser Destroys a planet close enough to instantly that there is no chance to escape. It's a weapon Psychological domination over physical domination.
I think you mean hoth, but yeah why didn't the empire just annihilate them from orbit?
I have no idea. They had the Capability, but they decided to do otherwise - Though, to give them credit, they learned their lesson, and decided to wipe their main base on Dantooine out with the Death Star Laser, from as far away as possible. Too bad it didn't quite work out, but if not for the one bit of crucial intel the rebels gained, and on top of that, a lucky/force assisted shot with a photon torpedo, they would have succeeded.
No, Seriously, I'm done for a little bit now. I need a smoke, and my tea's gone cold.
Comments
Although, I think all of this is rather pointless. One or two photon torpedos on a ship with no shields is more than enough to do the job.
Here's another point - Star Wars sensors are just terrible. Combat would almost certainly begin with the Enterprise detecting the destroyer without being detected in return. Plus, the photon torpedo has a range in the millions of kilometres and can be fired at warp speed. That means you can't even detect the torpedo before it hits you. Also, based on the nature of the shield generator mentioned above, it seems like it needs to be focused onto a specific area, so you need to know where to direct the shields beforehand - ain't happening. Hell, I wonder how that can even work against laser weaponry - you know a laser beam is coming precisely when it hits you.
Where as with StarTrek you can find neat facts like a Phase Canon has an output of 500 gigjoules and Photon Torpedoes having a max yield of 25 Isotons (uuhh i found a site called memory alpha that calculates that to be 64megatons based on a 1:1 ratio of 1.5kg of matter and 1.5kg of antimatter, however it's stated that the warheads are premixed(?) to attain a yield around 690gigatons) and Quantum Torpedoes have a max yield of 50+ Isotons (it should also be noted that in ST:V apparently there was some run away numbers with Janeway having torpedoes modified to up into the 85 and 200Isoton range)
Given that a Turbo laser is apparently only rated at destroying a starfighter in one shot if it can track it and one Photon Torpedo has almost 700gigatons worth of yield i'm going to say Enterprise launches a few torpedoes and warps away.
Game Over.
Also I'd like to give exhibit B: The Galaxy Class Refit from the last episode of TNG where there is a phaser cannon mounted on the lower side of the Enterprise that blows through another ship's shields, hull and out the other side.
Can't people from the Enterprise just beam a team on board of a Star Destroyer to blow up some weak point of the ship to blow it up entirely as the Enterprise team is beamed back in the nick of time?
Also there seems to be a great deal of math involved with a ton of unknowns for them to come up with some of these numbers, like using a comparison of the size of asteroids in the chase scene with the Falcon with certain parts of the Star Destroyer and then calculating how much energy it would take to vaporize said asteroids in the number of frames that the asteroid was shown to blow up in. So many "Ifs" it makes my eyes bleed.
Is there no cannon explanation of a turbo laser emits x watts of power?
/gamesetmatch
Granted, there's no guarantee Q would bother.
Borg v. Jedi would be interesting.
EDIT: So yeah... The Empire is FUCKED!!!
Further, the empire's combat craft tend to carry and use sophisticated jamming equipment, And as stated in the TM, The enterprise uses both EM and subspace sensors to track targets, however, if the EM sensors are not functioning, they are unable to lock onto targets - the subspace sensors are not accurate enough.
Also, The Picard Manuver relies on fooling EM sensors into thinking there are two ships. At one point in the series, LaForge Asks Data if they could re-modulate the Long Range Sensor array so that they'd be able to detect a ship, and Data tells him it's not possible.
Lastly - though not relevant in the type of stand up fight I'm speaking of - considering the sensor range of a few light years of the Enterprise's sensors, Wouldn't the Empire's ships be able to simply Outrace the sensor packets of the Enterprise? According to the TM, subspace communication and sensor transmissions travel at Warp 9.9997, which is slower than a Star Destroyer in hyperspace, at average cruising speed. Nope - They're all over. I didn't state it clearly, however, what I was saying was essentially that the shield is Modular, as in, take down one section, you don't take down the whole thing, and that it can be focused to different parts - for example, Moving power from a rear shield, where there are no threats, to the front, where there are, if so desired. Nope - All over. It's my starting point, for ease. If I can't find something there, I go searching, and find something referenced, that either points back to the canon explicitly stating it, or something that the canon provides enough detail about that it can be worked out. Cool. But the Enterprise E doesn't have one. I know about Memory Alpha - it's where I picked up my star trek information. But I'm tricky, and actually cross-checking - For a start, You're automatically assuming 100% efficiency. Even the Canon Suggests that The average yield is only 18 Isotons from a 25 Isoton warhead - which is a meaningless term, but it shows that even in-universe, the warhead is only about 75% efficient. However, I call bullshit on the 690 Gigatons figure, because it pretty much handwaves it's way to the conclusion, however, standard physics gives the much more reasonable result of a 100% efficient antimatter explosion of 1.5 kilos each of Matter and antimatter giving a roughly 64 Megaton yield. lolwhut. Maybe you should look a little closer at Wookiepedia, or even just read what I wrote - Most of the weapons on a Star Destroyer are Optimised for Capital ship to Capital ship combat. That's Fantastic. We're still talking about the Enterprise E right now, though, sorry. Even if you were given the Consession of the 500 Gigajoule phaser cannon on the bottom of the ship, you're still not getting anywhere with it, since A single shot from a single Star Destroyer heavy turbolaser is about 8,368,000,000 gigajoules, if my maths is right Converting 2 Gigatons of TNT worth of energy into Gigajoules. (4.184 × 109 joules per ton of TNT, Times Two billion tons of TNT, resulting in 8.36800 X 1018, divided by one billion should give gigajoules, I think. I'm pretty shit with math, and had to look a lot of that up and don't quite know if I'm doing it right, so Someone better than me at this please correct me Immediately.)
Any further arguments, Gimme a break here - I've been mathing and checking and all this shite for quite a while now, and I'm not good at this shit. I'll catch up later.
Edit - Except these two - Not really, only what can be observed and deduced from canon information. However, to be fair, your own figures on the power of Star Trek torpedos come from the Technical Manual - A Non-Canon source. At a long enough range to make this viable, the Star Destroyer could easily move fast enough to outrun even the sensor pulses of the enterprise, let alone their torpedos at warp. From Across the solar system, That's a short range jump, easy enough to make, and considering the sublight velocity of the torpedos not fired at warp, and the superior sensors of the Star Destoryer, one would expect that they could easily mitigate the threat of the torpedos. I mean, it's a(Roughly, from memory) Five meter projectile, throwing off all sorts of energy signatures, coming in at sublight velocity from across the solar system, along a predictable path. Blow it out of the sky.
However, the scenario is much more interesting if we consider a confrontation where all options are on the table.
Though, the movies do give that impression that's all they're good for, because capital ship combat is hardly exciting in a movie, they want you to focus on the nimble, fast fighters, narrowly dodging hails of ship-to-ship fire. However, A star destroyer can still boogie pretty hard, though it's certainly not as agile as the Enterprise at sublight speeds, and I doubt it would accelerate as fast - It is more than twice the size and mass, however, it's that much more to get moving, or change the direction of it moving, so of course, that comparison is like Putting a Feral Pig next to a Ballerina in a contest of balletic skill. Even Better - The whole Federation Vs The entire Empire.
Also, Cheese, I'm pretty sure you're better at math than me, Please do tell me if I've fucked anything up too drastically - I'm laughably bad at math.
If so why does this not happen anyways? What is the need for a Death Star to destroy planets when you can just melt the surface of a planet with one of any number of lasers on any given Star Destroyer of which there can be hundreds floating above any planet? 2 Gigatons should be more than the entire nuclear arsenal of the entire world, and I do recall hearing it stated that we ourselves have enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world several times over.
So as a point of logical consistency, granted I am derailing the subject and probably falling into a logical fallacy here however, why build the Death Star? Why not just turn Endor into slag so the rebels don't have a chance to fight back?
No, Seriously, I'm done for a little bit now. I need a smoke, and my tea's gone cold.