Galactic Empire vs Federation of Planets @ Spacebattles

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Re: Galactic Empire vs Federation of Planets @ Spacebattles

Post by Mith » Sun Nov 07, 2010 4:04 am

Mr. Oragahn wrote:TBH, I don't think Leo put more than ten seconds of thoughts in his example. His point was that it could be anything, so he just threw a silly example. However, he's indeed tried to twist some info.
Oh he didn't. And his argument is outright absurd. It's basically; "That may not be the answer, so we must assume that we can't define it!" which is just him being an idiot.
But there are problems though. First, I agree with Nattuo that it's bad intelligence thought to give your enemy such a detailed information about your fleet count.
No matter how you slice and dice it, they can literally keep a registry of every ship met and knowing when one that's been disabled has returned or not, etc. It's quite absurd to deliver such information from free to any of your enemies.
The US Navy does it. Someone linked to it, but the USN puts registries on all their ships. As far as I'm aware, only Russia has a habit of just giving out random numbers.
The other problem is that it also makes big jumps per year. Do they really have production capabilities that are that high per year?
No, probably not.

1) These ships probably require years of building. It's sorta like a computer. You may have the newest model on the market, but it doesn't mean a more advanced one isn't being built.

Same logic. That NCC-78003 probably took years to build. All the NCC's would show at best, is that roughly that many ships are put into service. I would also like to note that Voyager, without true dedicated facilities, built half a dozen shuttles, and two Delta Flyers while stuck all the way in the Delta Quadrant.

So clearly replicator technology probably takes away much of the lifting work. They probably only have to assemble the ships.

2) Those are registered numbers.

Let's say it takes 5 years to build a five Galaxy class starships. Starfleet orders it and the order puts it as NCC-78005, 78006, 78007, 78008, and 78009. However, 2 years down the line, Starfleet orders another ship, they decided to build ten Defiant class ships. Let's say it takes 6 months to build those ships. Well, let's say the ships were orderd in 2380 with the Galaxies. That means by 2382ish, they'll have ships in active service with the registry of 78010-78019.

Remember, registries are based upon ships ordered, not ships built.
Another one: didn't a shuttle have its own NCC number? And didn't that shuttle belong to a ship that also had its own, exclusive, NCC numbers, differend from the shuttle?
No, you're thinking of the Runabouts, which are considered small starships, not actual shuttles. Shuttles share the same NCCs as their mother ships. Thus, two shuttles belonging to the Enterprise E would be rated as NCC-1701-E/1 and NCC-1701-E/3.

As for Runabouts, while I'm sure there are a very large number of them, they can't make up for the massive NCC numbers since they were just recently put into service by Starfleet. Given the rate at which the Delta Flyers were built, I doubt they were ordered more than a year or so being put into service.
Now, on the 39 ships, I liked the idea that their production rate to recover forces was as an addition to current schedules and rates.
That's also possible.
It's possible that those ships were specially fited for the planetary assault mission, and not meant to engage any enemy forces beyond a few defensive crafts at best. They counted on surprise more than anything else.
A Galaxy didn't hold out much better against three bugs herself. Sans the ramming, they'd taken a fair amount of damage and hadn't managed to destroy a single one of them.

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Re: Galactic Empire vs Federation of Planets @ Spacebattles

Post by Mith » Sun Nov 07, 2010 4:21 am

Jedi Master Spock wrote:The only real oddity of the registries is that there are so many Exelsior and Miranda classes running around with high registries - which neatly dovetails with the oddity of their continued presence. The obvious solution: It's a hull form that was produced again as successful for a given role, much like the D7 and BoP hulls used extensively by Klingons for an incredibly long period of time. EAS has a nice article on it.
It should be noted that while this is probably true, it isn't unheard of for the USN to give a new registry to a ship that's been refitted. This seems unlikely though, given how massive of a modification they did to the Constitution classes and didn't seem to bother redoing their registry.
The truth is that registries don't require the UFP to have built 70,000-odd ships, but if you try to work with Leo1's suggestions and correct for actual data, you're looking at the order of having X0,000 NCCs assigned - somewhere in the tens-of-thousands order of magnitude.
As I keep mentioning, registries are for ships ordered, not for ships built. Ships like the Galaxy may have lower numbers than a Defiant class and come into service years after them. We might also be looking at ships that say, aren't in service but are a reserve force or simply have their frames built.

In the case of a war, perchance.
The Dominion War is far more important - especially when we consider that the scope of Starfleet's operations make it difficult to assemble a fleet in a hurry. (Common pro-Wars claims to 1000c being fast would require eight years to go from one end of the Federation to the other - which means that you really need Starfleet to have around a million warships. Common DS9 examples run a couple months, but much of the fleet is operating outside Federation territory on exploration missions.) The fact that Starfleet had to counterbalance a force of 30,000 ships late in the war, even with help from Klingons and Romulans, when they at best could match the Dominion 1:2 due to their larger ships, really strongly suggests the Alliance was able to field 15,000+ ships against the Dominion. The Klingons were recovering from several other wars, the Federation had ships already spread out over the entire quadrant on various missions, and the Romulans really weren't able to field that much in comparison to the two greater powers - "The Die is Cast" shows us how badly enormous and expensive D'deridexes performed against Jem'Hadar ships in a straight fight.
Actually, it was probably higher. The 30,000 number comes just before the end of the war, maybe a month or two before the final episodes. It was the Romulans joining the war that actually forced the Dominion on the defensive.

I would garner that the Dominion and the Cardassians had perhaps 50,000 starships. Keep in mind, that a GCS went toe to toe with three bugs and they were evenly matched. A single GCS went toe to toe with two Galors, and immediately penetrated their shields and deliver significant damage. Starfleet and the Klingons probably had closer to around 40,000 ships, with more Starfleet ships joining the fight and with shipyards struggling to force out both old (refitted) ships and brand new models.

These would also be issues in a war with the Empire; the Federation would only be able to field Dominion-War scale fleets in tactical actions; but the Federation has a bigger depth of backfield than it is being granted.
This is actually the Galactic Alliance, but the I highly doubt the Empire would ever practically be able to invade the Federation. Their fleet suffers from not being large enough to impose their iron will on systems and stretching it out would only cause greater problems.

Especially when you consider that even if you were to match a GCS and a ISD, an ISD is more of a super warship by SW standards. Tactically, it's rated as being woth its own battle squardon (ie, 8-12 ships in most cases, possibly more) and its cost is immense. The Empire literally could not afford a war with the Federation without collapsing in upon itself.
Then why didn't the moderator warn him? Isn't that against the SB.com rules?
It is, but so long as he pretends to address points and doesn't take it too far, he can avoid scrutiny.

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Re: Galactic Empire vs Federation of Planets @ Spacebattles

Post by Jedi Master Spock » Sun Nov 07, 2010 6:14 am

Mith wrote:It should be noted that while this is probably true, it isn't unheard of for the USN to give a new registry to a ship that's been refitted. This seems unlikely though, given how massive of a modification they did to the Constitution classes and didn't seem to bother redoing their registry.
That, and I point to the D7 and BoP hulls. It really seems perfectly reasonable for new Excelsior-shaped hulls to be in production after the Ambassador has gone out of production.
Actually, it was probably higher. The 30,000 number comes just before the end of the war, maybe a month or two before the final episodes. It was the Romulans joining the war that actually forced the Dominion on the defensive.

I would garner that the Dominion and the Cardassians had perhaps 50,000 starships. Keep in mind, that a GCS went toe to toe with three bugs and they were evenly matched. A single GCS went toe to toe with two Galors, and immediately penetrated their shields and deliver significant damage. Starfleet and the Klingons probably had closer to around 40,000 ships, with more Starfleet ships joining the fight and with shipyards struggling to force out both old (refitted) ships and brand new models.
I've picked out the 2:1 ratio from battles. In many major battles, the Federation is outnumbered 2:1 overall.

Is 50,000 overall for Dominion alpha-quadrant ships that strange from the war? Not really, but that would equate to about 25,000 typical Federation ships in overall fleet strength.

Granted, the Federation has substantial reserves that are either far away or needed to be unmothballed; 30,000 total ships in Starfleet might mean that 15,000 of them saw combat service in the Dominion War. The Klingons have much smaller ships; they might be going 1:1 for numbers with the Jem'Hadar. If the Klingons fielded 20,000 total warships and the Federation 15,000, they should be a match for 50,000 Cardassian and Jem'Hadar warships.
This is actually the Galactic Alliance, but the I highly doubt the Empire would ever practically be able to invade the Federation. Their fleet suffers from not being large enough to impose their iron will on systems and stretching it out would only cause greater problems.

Especially when you consider that even if you were to match a GCS and a ISD, an ISD is more of a super warship by SW standards. Tactically, it's rated as being woth its own battle squardon (ie, 8-12 ships in most cases, possibly more) and its cost is immense. The Empire literally could not afford a war with the Federation without collapsing in upon itself.
The GA has the exact same hyperdrive issues as the GE and roughly the same level of technology.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:TBH, I don't think Leo put more than ten seconds of thoughts in his example. His point was that it could be anything, so he just threw a silly example. However, he's indeed tried to twist some info.
But there are problems though. First, I agree with Nattuo that it's bad intelligence thought to give your enemy such a detailed information about your fleet count.
No matter how you slice and dice it, they can literally keep a registry of every ship met and knowing when one that's been disabled has returned or not, etc. It's quite absurd to deliver such information from free to any of your enemies.
Then why does the US do it?

Think about that for a minute. The reason the US does it is for internal transparency. The UFP in the Alpha Quadrant is similar. Now, that's not to say there might not be secret projects, but you just have to look at the preceding discussion to see how little hard information knowing that registries are sequential contract numbers gets you. You get much more just from the fact that the contracts are open bids, the activities of these starships during peacetime are pretty much public knowledge, et cetera et cetera. Secrecy is rare in the UFP - it happens, but it's rare.

Depending on the service life of the ships, the types of ships involved, their maintenance cycles, and their deployments, going through 75,000 registries could mean a fighting force less powerful than 1000 D7s - or more powerful than 100,000 D7s.
The other problem is that it also makes big jumps per year. Do they really have production capabilities that are that high per year?
In a word? Yes. Oh, there may well be some skipped numbers, and canceled batches. I expect a large number of warships under construction were put on hold or canceled after Praxis blew up. When the Federation went to war with the Cardassians, production probably was ramped up. They may shift between large and small ship sizes.

Construction may also get backlogged. Et cetera. We don't need to invent anything exotic to explain all the registry oddities; the things Mith has mentioned are enough to handle everything but duplication (which is usually out-of-universe error) or accidental use of multiple registries for the same ship (again, usually taken as a production error).
Another one: didn't a shuttle have its own NCC number? And didn't that shuttle belong to a ship that also had its own, exclusive, NCC numbers, differend from the shuttle?
Runabouts and long range scouts do have their own NCC numbers. However, shuttles proper don't. The E-D had a runabout aboard, though, it is worth noting.
It's possible that those ships were specially fited for the planetary assault mission, and not meant to engage any enemy forces beyond a few defensive crafts at best. They counted on surprise more than anything else.
Possibly. I'm not impressed with the D'deridex as an efficient fighting ship, though. It's too big and expensive of a target. It's no surprise to me that after the Dominion War, the Romulans switched to something smaller and more efficient looking (Valdore type).

The evidence also points to the RSE being small and staying small while the Federation and Klingon Empire expanded around them. They tipped the balance; but I expect that the Federation and Klingon Empire both contributed many more ships to the war over its duration.
Rama wrote:Therefore assuming a circumference of 25,132 ly, would require a speed of just over 100,000c to encompass the distance. Of course this is making a lot of assumptions based on the size, scope, distribution and volume of the Federation in lieu of Picard's claims and treats it as an exact 2D plane rather than simply as a amorphous blob. Thereby making its cruising speed during a training mission significantly faster than even the emergency distress velocities of Warp 9.9 or 9.975 from an Intrepid-class starship.

This is a pretty huge outlier given the entire premise of DS9, VOY and some episodes of TNG are based on trans-galactic velocities as being impossible; one that requires a lot of assumed variables to even create a rather fabricated outcome.
Would someone like to remind Rama that this time to cross the Federation is quite consistent in DS9? You might want to bring in Sisko's love life.

"Outlier" does not mean what he thinks it means. It refers to something that really stands out, not something that fits in perfectly with most similar cases in DS9, TNG, and TOS, and is totally dissimilar to what's going on in VOY (ship in poorly-charted space with no known gas stations nearby and parts falling off).

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Re: Galactic Empire vs Federation of Planets @ Spacebattles

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sun Nov 07, 2010 3:24 pm

Mith wrote:
Mr. Oragahn wrote:TBH, I don't think Leo put more than ten seconds of thoughts in his example. His point was that it could be anything, so he just threw a silly example. However, he's indeed tried to twist some info.
Oh he didn't. And his argument is outright absurd. It's basically; "That may not be the answer, so we must assume that we can't define it!" which is just him being an idiot.
Of course his point was that the Russian had a BS system. Considering that some see the UFP as a communist gimmick in space...
Still, I think his point was just to say it can be anything. But on the other hand, he didn't really show how your arguments were bad.

Perhaps he doesn't like the reality that the UFP may have a greater concentration of firepower over its own territory. After all, a 600 meters long Galxy class seems to be more capable than an ISD: the more we keep going with the higher canon, the weaker the ships seem to be.
The other problem is that it also makes big jumps per year. Do they really have production capabilities that are that high per year?
No, probably not.

1) These ships probably require years of building. It's sorta like a computer. You may have the newest model on the market, but it doesn't mean a more advanced one isn't being built.

Same logic. That NCC-78003 probably took years to build. All the NCC's would show at best, is that roughly that many ships are put into service. I would also like to note that Voyager, without true dedicated facilities, built half a dozen shuttles, and two Delta Flyers while stuck all the way in the Delta Quadrant.

So clearly replicator technology probably takes away much of the lifting work. They probably only have to assemble the ships.
So the large output/commission rate is because they schedule many works at once, even if it's going to take several years to complete them.
2) Those are registered numbers.

Let's say it takes 5 years to build a five Galaxy class starships. Starfleet orders it and the order puts it as NCC-78005, 78006, 78007, 78008, and 78009. However, 2 years down the line, Starfleet orders another ship, they decided to build ten Defiant class ships. Let's say it takes 6 months to build those ships. Well, let's say the ships were orderd in 2380 with the Galaxies. That means by 2382ish, they'll have ships in active service with the registry of 78010-78019.

Remember, registries are based upon ships ordered, not ships built.
That would explain the mismatches.
Another one: didn't a shuttle have its own NCC number? And didn't that shuttle belong to a ship that also had its own, exclusive, NCC numbers, differend from the shuttle?
No, you're thinking of the Runabouts, which are considered small starships, not actual shuttles. Shuttles share the same NCCs as their mother ships. Thus, two shuttles belonging to the Enterprise E would be rated as NCC-1701-E/1 and NCC-1701-E/3.

As for Runabouts, while I'm sure there are a very large number of them, they can't make up for the massive NCC numbers since they were just recently put into service by Starfleet. Given the rate at which the Delta Flyers were built, I doubt they were ordered more than a year or so being put into service.
Well, if those small crafts do have NCC numbers, and since we saw a Galaxy-class have several of such ships as escorts during the Dominion war, probably at the beginning since they were surprised that the Jemmies would be kamikazes, there's still the possibility that those ships, easy to build, represent an appreciable fraction of the total ship count.
On the other hand, we rarely see them in large battles.

What about the Starfleet fighters? Those seemed to be used in larger quantities during the Dominion war, and if Runabouts and a few Delta Flyers can get their own NCC, why not the fighters?
Now, on the 39 ships, I liked the idea that their production rate to recover forces was as an addition to current schedules and rates.
That's also possible.
It's possible that those ships were specially fited for the planetary assault mission, and not meant to engage any enemy forces beyond a few defensive crafts at best. They counted on surprise more than anything else.
A Galaxy didn't hold out much better against three bugs herself. Sans the ramming, they'd taken a fair amount of damage and hadn't managed to destroy a single one of them.
A Galaxy is a lot of wasted space when you want a purely military ship. But a Deridex? Are those science vessels? I doubt it. All those Talshiar and Obsidian Order ships were clearly going in for an operation of mass destruction, and by default they're warships. OK, Galors may suck a bit, though, but in TDiC, there had to be other mini fleets spread around the planet (no matter how you define the damage, the ships we saw could not have affected 30% of the crust on their own - otherwise we'd have to modify our understanding of the 30% figure).
I can easily imagine some concessions made to shields on multiple points (max strength, plus little power given to them at D-day considering they would put everything in weapons).

Jedi Master Spock wrote:
Mr. Oragahn wrote:TBH, I don't think Leo put more than ten seconds of thoughts in his example. His point was that it could be anything, so he just threw a silly example. However, he's indeed tried to twist some info.
But there are problems though. First, I agree with Nattuo that it's bad intelligence thought to give your enemy such a detailed information about your fleet count.
No matter how you slice and dice it, they can literally keep a registry of every ship met and knowing when one that's been disabled has returned or not, etc. It's quite absurd to deliver such information from free to any of your enemies.
Then why does the US do it?
Because they're not at full war against an enemy? Because the size of the Navy isn't exactly as big as Starfleet's forces?
Because on Earth it's a bit harder to hide your surface ships? Because they're not trying to hide them actually?

The analogy I can suggest is like submarines broadcasting their registry number, along having it strapped to their hulls in full glaring neon. Since navies worldwide don't communicate on their submarines, and even accidents between submarines of opposed forces are quite embarassing and incredible to boot.


Think about that for a minute. The reason the US does it is for internal transparency.[/quote]

Seems pretty external to me.
Nothing forces you to display your name so openly when it's all for insider parperwork.
The UFP in the Alpha Quadrant is similar. Now, that's not to say there might not be secret projects, but you just have to look at the preceding discussion to see how little hard information knowing that registries are sequential contract numbers gets you. You get much more just from the fact that the contracts are open bids, the activities of these starships during peacetime are pretty much public knowledge, et cetera et cetera. Secrecy is rare in the UFP - it happens, but it's rare.
During peace time. But the UFP was at war, and not only against the Dominion, but against the Klingons and the Romulans before that.
Giving free information such as this to your enemy when you could actually hide it, and gain from hiding it, is simply silly.
But then, again, not all militaries in the world are perfect, and the fact that the UFP refused for whiles to develop pure military ships is just going along that road. It's no surprise to me.
Depending on the service life of the ships, the types of ships involved, their maintenance cycles, and their deployments, going through 75,000 registries could mean a fighting force less powerful than 1000 D7s - or more powerful than 100,000 D7s.
The headcount isn't really the only important part of any strategical intelligence. Knowing about the status of a ship you engaged is a great plus. Now imagine the ships have no NCC. Suddenly, your enemy doesn't know if the Nebula it's fighting against is the same one that's been spotted or engaged or even successfully damaged a few days/weeks/months ago.
The other problem is that it also makes big jumps per year. Do they really have production capabilities that are that high per year?
In a word? Yes. Oh, there may well be some skipped numbers, and canceled batches. I expect a large number of warships under construction were put on hold or canceled after Praxis blew up. When the Federation went to war with the Cardassians, production probably was ramped up. They may shift between large and small ship sizes.

Construction may also get backlogged. Et cetera. We don't need to invent anything exotic to explain all the registry oddities; the things Mith has mentioned are enough to handle everything but duplication (which is usually out-of-universe error) or accidental use of multiple registries for the same ship (again, usually taken as a production error).
The gaps in NCC numbers mean ship production capacities around a thousand a year.
The question is if they can build a thousand ship a year, that is, they begin one in 2000 and it's finished in 2001, or if they can order several ships (a thousand across the entire UFP), even if takes several years to build.

Mith seems to think it's the later, if I got it right. Are you saying it's actually the former?
I admit I have no data to work from for either suggestions.

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Re: Galactic Empire vs Federation of Planets @ Spacebattles

Post by Mith » Sun Nov 07, 2010 6:39 pm

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Of course his point was that the Russian had a BS system. Considering that some see the UFP as a communist gimmick in space...
Still, I think his point was just to say it can be anything. But on the other hand, he didn't really show how your arguments were bad.
While that's true, there was a reason for Russia to try and hide its numbers. When it was the USSR, they were locked into a cold war with us, so them switching it up isn't all that hard to understand. And in modern times, they constantly put up a tough poker face. I even pointed that out to Leo1, which he seemed to happily ignore.
Perhaps he doesn't like the reality that the UFP may have a greater concentration of firepower over its own territory. After all, a 600 meters long Galxy class seems to be more capable than an ISD: the more we keep going with the higher canon, the weaker the ships seem to be.
Well, he's kind of a nutter to begin with =p.

In any case, if we wanted to go with the registry numbers as silly, that wouldn't help him. I could simply point out then, several devistating points:

1) According to him, Voyager, their fastest ship, can only move at 1,000c. Older ships such as Excelsior, Miranda, Ambassador, Centaur, and so forth are probably up to 200c slower.

2) In both the Klingon Civil War and Wolf 359, Starfleet managed to assemble roughly 30-40 ships in a day.

Conclusion: Starfleet would have a massive fleet if spread over 8,000 light years, they can summon dozens of ships to meet with an enemy or a conflicting force. Even with far smaller concentration of ships, the mass of starfleet would be in the hundreds of thousands.
So the large output/commission rate is because they schedule many works at once, even if it's going to take several years to complete them.
Correct, which is probably the case with larger ships like the Excelsior, Ambassador, Nebula, and the Galaxy class. That's probably why the Miranda's are still in service. They're faster and cheaper to build than the much larger ships and because at the time bigger = better, building the Miranda's didn't really hurt them much at all. That's also probably why we have ships like the Akira class, Steamrunner, and Defiant showing up more and more; they're much easier for Starfleet to build.
Well, if those small crafts do have NCC numbers, and since we saw a Galaxy-class have several of such ships as escorts during the Dominion war, probably at the beginning since they were surprised that the Jemmies would be kamikazes, there's still the possibility that those ships, easy to build, represent an appreciable fraction of the total ship count.
On the other hand, we rarely see them in large battles.
We actually don't see them at all throughout the Dominion War in terms of large scale battles. Given that runabouts are typically written off as SOL by the crew against a single Jem Bug, there's probably a reason for it.

I'm sure Starfleet had a great deal of them, but remember that they started around when DS9 started, probably produced a year or so before the show.
What about the Starfleet fighters? Those seemed to be used in larger quantities during the Dominion war, and if Runabouts and a few Delta Flyers can get their own NCC, why not the fighters?
Delta Flyers to my knowledge, did not have registry numbers. As for fighters, again, no. Runabouts and small range craft such as them were made to supplement starships, so that precious resources would have to be wasted on stations who needed a bit more range.
A Galaxy is a lot of wasted space when you want a purely military ship. But a Deridex? Are those science vessels? I doubt it. All those Talshiar and Obsidian Order ships were clearly going in for an operation of mass destruction, and by default they're warships. OK, Galors may suck a bit, though, but in TDiC, there had to be other mini fleets spread around the planet (no matter how you define the damage, the ships we saw could not have affected 30% of the crust on their own - otherwise we'd have to modify our understanding of the 30% figure).
I can easily imagine some concessions made to shields on multiple points (max strength, plus little power given to them at D-day considering they would put everything in weapons).
Supposedly they do have science labs. I can't imagine those take up too much room though.

But do consider that the Romulans are considered to be inferior to both the Klingons and the Federation, even if it's just by a bit.
The analogy I can suggest is like submarines broadcasting their registry number, along having it strapped to their hulls in full glaring neon. Since navies worldwide don't communicate on their submarines, and even accidents between submarines of opposed forces are quite embarassing and incredible to boot.

Seems pretty external to me.
Nothing forces you to display your name so openly when it's all for insider parperwork.
Let's consider for a moment. As I've mentioned before, Starfleet took a great deal of inspiration from the USN. Another thing is that we can probably be sure that Starfleet is a science and exploration power first--defensive force second. Purely from a political standpoint, them trying to hide their registry numbers would pretty much spit in the face of the image that we know Starfleet holds pretty dear to them (ie, Kirk, Picard, Sisko, and Janeway all insisted heavily upon the concept of Starfleet being about science and exploration).
During peace time. But the UFP was at war, and not only against the Dominion, but against the Klingons and the Romulans before that.
Giving free information such as this to your enemy when you could actually hide it, and gain from hiding it, is simply silly.
But then, again, not all militaries in the world are perfect, and the fact that the UFP refused for whiles to develop pure military ships is just going along that road. It's no surprise to me.
Well, the Defiant is a pure military warships--more or less. The Sovereign and the Akira probably aren't that far behind. And the Akira has been around for some time. But they do definantly seem to keep those ships on the back burner most of the time.
The headcount isn't really the only important part of any strategical intelligence. Knowing about the status of a ship you engaged is a great plus. Now imagine the ships have no NCC. Suddenly, your enemy doesn't know if the Nebula it's fighting against is the same one that's been spotted or engaged or even successfully damaged a few days/weeks/months ago.
That's a fair point.
The gaps in NCC numbers mean ship production capacities around a thousand a year.
The question is if they can build a thousand ship a year, that is, they begin one in 2000 and it's finished in 2001, or if they can order several ships (a thousand across the entire UFP), even if takes several years to build.
Both. Ships like the Defiant are about 120 meters long and are cramped. Not very big. The GCS is like 72% larger in length, dozens of times in height, and are spacious and roomy. It probably only takes half a year to complete a Defiant class, where as a Galaxy would require years of building. Hence again, why Starfleet probably built so many bloody Miranda.

Let's see, we know that the Sovereign was built between 2370 and 2373. Let's assume one year was spent on research, planning, and so forth. That gives us say, 5 years of construction for the Sovereign, assuming that the Enterprise E had just been released.

Let's look at what Starfleet was looking at. In mid 2366, the Enterprise D encountered a hostile and powerful enemy. Logically, they'd start ramping up production. We'll assume this is all started by 2366.8. Assuming it takes five years to build a GCS, these ships wouldn't see service until late 2371. And then of course, the scare Starfleet got in 2367 no doubt sent the orders for ships skyrocketing.

However, we're also told that Starfleet stopped mass production when the threat died away. So let's assume a 2.5-3 year freeze, until the growing Dominion threat. Therefore, Starfleet would only have continued production in 2372.5ish and 2373ish, during the growing Dominion threat.

Let's assume the following:

Defiant: .5 years
Miranda: 1 year
Excelsior: 2 years
Akira: 3 years
Nebula: 3.5 years
Galaxy: 5 years
Sovereign: 5 years
Runabout: 1 month

Let's also assume Starfleet made the following orders:

15 Defiants in 2371 and 10 more in 2372 and 25 more in mid 2373
300 Miranda in 2366 and 150 more in 2367
150 Excelsior in 2366 and 100 more in 2367
150 Akira in 2366 and 200 more in 2367 (assume a 3 year freeze, 80%)
100 Nebula in 2366 and 50 more in 2367 (assume a 3 year freeze 90%)
50 Galaxy in 2366 and 50 more in 2367 (assume a 3 year freeze 90%)
500 Runabouts in 2369, 500 more in 2370, 1,000 more in 2371, 500 more in 2372, and 200 more in 2373 (freeze due to Dominion-Federation Cold War)

2367.5

300 Miranda are put into service in preperation of the Borg threat

2368
150 Excelsior ships are finished.
150 Miranda ships are finished

2369
100 Excelsiors finished
500 runabouts built and comissioned
100 Akira finished
100 Nebula finished

2370
500 runabouts finished
40 Akira are finished
10 Nebula are finished

2371
Mid year, Starfleet produces 15 new Defiant class ships.
1,000 runabouts finished
5 Galaxies are finished

2372
10 Defiants finished
500 Runabouts finished
5 Galaxies are finished

2373
25 Defiants finished
Remaining hulls continued

2374
Remaining hulls completed


Mith seems to think it's the later, if I got it right. Are you saying it's actually the former?
I admit I have no data to work from for either suggestions.
I think he's suggesting more of a mixture.

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Re: Galactic Empire vs Federation of Planets @ Spacebattles

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sun Nov 07, 2010 9:11 pm

It's quite funny that TOS, supposed to be the Cold War in space, would have Starfleet rely on an Northern American standard. :)
A missed opportunity.
Clearly, it's where ideology hurts pragmatism imho.

As for the Romulans, I always thought they were superior to the UFP, with their singularity cores and all that.

The Defiant is a pure military ship, and it's cramped. It's firepower and power concentrated. But again, are Deridexes massive wastes of space or what?

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Re: Galactic Empire vs Federation of Planets @ Spacebattles

Post by Mith » Mon Nov 08, 2010 5:29 am

Mr. Oragahn wrote:It's quite funny that TOS, supposed to be the Cold War in space, would have Starfleet rely on an Northern American standard. :)
A missed opportunity.
Clearly, it's where ideology hurts pragmatism imho.
*shrug*

Yes, but it's right in character with Starfleet, all things said and done. I mean, they gave up cloaking technology for decades when they probably would have wasted the Romulans in a full blown war.
As for the Romulans, I always thought they were superior to the UFP, with their singularity cores and all that.
In some aspects, the Romulans are similar in technology, but for the most part, they're on par. The problem with the Romulans is their methodology to warefare. For them, it's political and based on the psychological. Ie, the 'shock and awe' method.
The Defiant is a pure military ship, and it's cramped. It's firepower and power concentrated. But again, are Deridexes massive wastes of space or what?
It isn't so much a massive waste of space within the actual structure of the ship, so much as it is that the warbirds have a massive hole in the middle. Look at my avatar and think back to the shielding methods they employ; bubble shield and hull forming. The warbird has a great deal more hull space to cover with their shields either by forming a second skin or by creating a bubble shield or a "wall" to keep the inside of that hanger looking area safe from cheap shots. It's either a massive waste of energy or it's a weak point.

That's not even pointing to the fact that the warbirds are not nearly as manuverable as other warships, which further gives them that jaw of glass problem. And going with a design perspective, it seems logical to me that the Warbirds were designed with short and small engagements, not large fleet engagements where they would be required to engage a massive enemy.

Then again, if we had to go with a logical means of explaining the rather strange design, we could assume that it was because of the singularity that the Romulans built it like that. For example, if the tail is where the core is, then in the event of a breach, blowing off that small section (possibly with detonators or just unlatching it) may be more preferable than a design like the Galaxy where you'd basically be SOL if a singularity core lost containment.

Then again, it may also be that the opening itself might serve as a core dump if there were a breach. Ie, if we assume that the core is located on the bottom of the ship and they lost containment, then there would be a great deal of a greater chance of the core eating its way out and not devouring the guts of the ship and killing everyone.

The Romulans are probably more like the modern Russians for Trek. They prefer to be more deceptive and go for the bang over substance methodology.

As for advancement, I consider Starfleet and the Romulans to be neck and neck in technological advancement, with the Klingons being in third. I would however, suggest that before the Dominion War, that the UFP and the Klingons were top dogs, despite Klingons ships being older and having a more clunk-based designed approach.

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Re: Galactic Empire vs Federation of Planets @ Spacebattles

Post by Jedi Master Spock » Thu Nov 11, 2010 8:38 am

Leo1/Vympel wrote:LOL, out of how many hundreds of hours of Star Trek? Yeah, the "many" examples. This is my favorite delusion - you lot have absolutely no cogent explanation for why every single engagement we see is at spitting distance, you just wave your arms frantically and jump up and down about That One Time In The Wounded. Please, enough.
I'm wondering how long it is going to take for Vympel to realize this is a circular argument. We can only see - visually - engagements that are at spitting range.

Just in case anybody's forgotten, the canonical list of ranges derivable from what's said on screen, including only ship-to-ship combat, is:

ENT: "Fight or Flight" 1500 meters.
"Silent Enemy" 5-9 km, 10 km, then 200 km
"Extinction." 700 km (Urquat)
"Cold Station 12," 5,000 km range stated but not fired at
"The Aenar," 100 km

TOS:
"Changeling," 90,000 km
"Obsession," 0.04 light years is out of range.
"The Tholian Web," 90,000 km
"Spectre of the Gun," 45,000 km
"Spock's Brain," 43,000 km
"Journey to Babel," 75,000 km
"The Deadly Years,"50-100,000 km

TNG:
"A Matter of Honor," 40,000 km (is short)
"The Best of Both Worlds," 40,000 km
"The Wounded," 300,000 km
"New Ground," 20 km (at warp).
"Hero Worship," 3 km (cloaked vessel).

DS9:
"The Search" 100,000 km (well within range)
"Return to Grace" >200,000 km; targeting sequences 400,000-500,000 km
"Once More Unto the Breach" 300m (cloaked)

VOY:
"Caretaker" 400 km
"Ex Post Facto" 4,000 km (lock) 1,500 km (after firing)
"The Swarm" 100,000 km (lock), 7,000 km (after firing)
"Non Sequitor" 5,000 km
"Equinox" 30,000 km

There are, of course, numerous incidents of precision orbital targeting from well outside of what would be visual range for a ship, and "Half a Life" and "Emissary" both show that photon torpedoes have very extensive theoretical ranges. Also interestingly, I think there aren't more than a half dozen episodes total which ever describe a moving target as being out of weapons range at a point where it can even be displayed on screen.

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Re: Galactic Empire vs Federation of Planets @ Spacebattles

Post by Praeothmin » Fri Nov 12, 2010 1:23 am

JMS wrote:I'm wondering how long it is going to take for Vympel to realize this is a circular argument.
How about never?
Leo1/Vympel is the worst Warsie there is.
He criticizes Trek's ranges, but ignores the fact that no fights in the SW movies are even within the ranges stated in ST, or the fact that the Tie fighter in ANH were out of range of the MF even though it was easily seen through the cockpit window...
Anyways, not really surprizing from Leo... :)

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Re: Galactic Empire vs Federation of Planets @ Spacebattles

Post by Lucky » Fri Nov 12, 2010 9:32 am

Jedi Master Spock wrote:
Leo1/Vympel wrote:LOL, out of how many hundreds of hours of Star Trek? Yeah, the "many" examples. This is my favorite delusion - you lot have absolutely no cogent explanation for why every single engagement we see is at spitting distance, you just wave your arms frantically and jump up and down about That One Time In The Wounded. Please, enough.
I'm wondering how long it is going to take for Vympel to realize this is a circular argument. We can only see - visually - engagements that are at spitting range.

Just in case anybody's forgotten, the canonical list of ranges derivable from what's said on screen, including only ship-to-ship combat, is:

ENT: "Fight or Flight" 1500 meters.
"Silent Enemy" 5-9 km, 10 km, then 200 km
"Extinction." 700 km (Urquat)
"Cold Station 12," 5,000 km range stated but not fired at
"The Aenar," 100 km

TOS:
"Changeling," 90,000 km
"Obsession," 0.04 light years is out of range.
"The Tholian Web," 90,000 km
"Spectre of the Gun," 45,000 km
"Spock's Brain," 43,000 km
"Journey to Babel," 75,000 km
"The Deadly Years,"50-100,000 km

TNG:
"A Matter of Honor," 40,000 km (is short)
"The Best of Both Worlds," 40,000 km
"The Wounded," 300,000 km
"New Ground," 20 km (at warp).
"Hero Worship," 3 km (cloaked vessel).

DS9:
"The Search" 100,000 km (well within range)
"Return to Grace" >200,000 km; targeting sequences 400,000-500,000 km
"Once More Unto the Breach" 300m (cloaked)

VOY:
"Caretaker" 400 km
"Ex Post Facto" 4,000 km (lock) 1,500 km (after firing)
"The Swarm" 100,000 km (lock), 7,000 km (after firing)
"Non Sequitor" 5,000 km
"Equinox" 30,000 km

There are, of course, numerous incidents of precision orbital targeting from well outside of what would be visual range for a ship, and "Half a Life" and "Emissary" both show that photon torpedoes have very extensive theoretical ranges. Also interestingly, I think there aren't more than a half dozen episodes total which ever describe a moving target as being out of weapons range at a point where it can even be displayed on screen.
Isn't there an example of what is considered dangerously close to an exploding ship in DS9? Something like 500 meters or something?

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Re: Galactic Empire vs Federation of Planets @ Spacebattles

Post by Picard » Fri Nov 12, 2010 1:00 pm

Yes and no. 500 meters you are referring to is from DS9 episode "The Die is Cast" when we have following dialogue (taken from memory, so it might be sligtly out of line with actual episode):
Sisko: "Hold fire until we are at 500 meters." (distance from 3 Jem'Hadar "bugs" attacking)
Kira: "It could get little singe at that range."
Sisko: "Not as singe as they're going to get!"

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Re: Galactic Empire vs Federation of Planets @ Spacebattles

Post by Lucky » Sat Nov 13, 2010 5:44 am

Picard wrote:Yes and no. 500 meters you are referring to is from DS9 episode "The Die is Cast" when we have following dialogue (taken from memory, so it might be sligtly out of line with actual episode):
Sisko: "Hold fire until we are at 500 meters." (distance from 3 Jem'Hadar "bugs" attacking)
Kira: "It could get little singe at that range."
Sisko: "Not as singe as they're going to get!"
But it tells use that 500 meters is considered dangerously close range. The Defiant is a warship, and the characters were talking about the ship being damaged because the other ship exploded. Any combat we see must normally be taking place at much greater ranges.

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Re: Galactic Empire vs Federation of Planets @ Spacebattles

Post by Mike DiCenso » Sat Nov 13, 2010 6:31 am

Here's the actual dialog from "The Die is Cast":

SISKO: Attack pattern omega four. Full impulse power. .
Hold your fire until we're within five hundred metres

KIRA: We might get pretty singed at that range.

SISKO: Not as singed as they're going to get. Engage.

DAX: Fifty thousand metres and closing. Two thousand metres. Five hundred!

SISKO: Fire!


Sisko clearly orders that weapons' fire be held until 500 meters, even though firing at the far longer range of 50 kilometers was possible.
-Mike

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Re: Galactic Empire vs Federation of Planets @ Spacebattles

Post by Lucky » Sat Nov 13, 2010 6:35 am

JC-Interrupted Post 354
Because a Star Destroyer can only slag the surface of an unshielded planet, whereas a wealthy industrialized planet like Alderaan has powerful planetary shields capable of withstanding such bombardments. It's a simple matter of size scale; a Star Destroyer is a very big ship, but it's tiny compared to a planet -- by virtue of its size, a planet can put vastly more energy into its defenses than any starship has available to it, as long as the planetary economy is sufficient to pay for defenses of such magnitude.
The problem is that there is no such thing as a true planetary shield in Star Wars.

They take time to turn on, or are often not turned on when a planet is under attack. In the G and T canon they have actually landed armies before the shields are up.

Planetary shields only cover a tiny area, and less then a gigaton blast next to the shield would be very damaging to the things under the shield.

Given many if not most planets are not self-sufficient the planet can't just sit under their shields forever.

You can easily send solid objects through planetary shields.

Most places don't have planetary shields. It is not until well after the clone wars that coruscant got shields, and an important and wealthy planet like Alderaan never even had shields (Dark Empire Sourcebook, p.125).

The planetary shields only cover the lowest part of the atmosphere. If the Empire wanted to blast a planet that had fallen to the rebels to the point the Empire lost control of the shields then the Empire could just poison the atmosphere, and have the planet trapped below the shields forever.

There is no canon evidence that the Republic and the Empire could bombard planets with turbolasers on their ships. They have had ample reason to do so, but never even try.
Because the Death Star can penetrate planetary grade shields with a single ultra-concentrated weapons blast. The Death Star was not the first battlemoon, but it was the first battlemoon equipped with such a weapon.
If the Death Star was intended to take out shieled planets which there seem to be very few on then why was Alderaan used as a test?

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Re: Galactic Empire vs Federation of Planets @ Spacebattles

Post by Mith » Sat Nov 13, 2010 9:12 am

*sigh*
Because a Star Destroyer can only slag the surface of an unshielded planet,
They can't slag planets at all. Not unless you have a very loose definition of what 'slag' means. In fact, their LRTLs clearly have a yield that falls short of a kiloton from longer ranges. And even with HTLs, their weapons are at best, a handful of kilotons. Even the argument that Leo1 clings to so hard only gives them .5 megatons.
whereas a wealthy industrialized planet like Alderaan has powerful planetary shields capable of withstanding such bombardments. It's a simple matter of size scale; a Star Destroyer is a very big ship, but it's tiny compared to a planet -- by virtue of its size, a planet can put vastly more energy into its defenses than any starship has available to it, as long as the planetary economy is sufficient to pay for defenses of such magnitude.
This is just all sorts of stupid.

First off girl, learn the difference between the size of the battery and the output of your shield. It doesn't matter if your battery has a storehouse of 80 exawatts if your shield emitter only has an output of 25 watts. Because any substantial bombardment by something of say, 500 gigawatts would punch through it like a hot knife through butter.

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