No, the one on the right. See it here, near the Defiant?:Mike DiCenso wrote:I think I found it. The Miranda let's loose a single torpedo before swerving around and behind the cube.2046 wrote:About 30 seconds in . . . the one on the right that pops in toward the Borg ship, says "oh snap, I was just kiddin', y'all", hangs a hard left, then bugs right slam the hell outta there.
-Mike
Only partially then.2046 wrote:Praeothmin wrote:
2046 wrote:
Only if they close to within spitball range.
You mean like in most of the DS9 fights we saw?
Even though we have heard many times of ST ships having long weapons range, when we do see an engagement, it is always well within SW weapons' range as well...
Your statement is incorrect.
http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSW-WeaponRange-Trek.html
that's a might bit circular.
While the DS9 battles did give us lots of lovely fireball blooms around strike points, most of the time other battles did not involve such effects.
when Ship Phasers are used as weapons, they have the same behavior as SW weapons.
Further, DS9 battles (such as Chin'toka) involved ships showing a little fireball then still having large sections of hull vaporize without any apparent local effect. I also recall a number of strikes against unshielded ships producing no fireball or other similar high-energy-expectation event, such as "Yesterday's Enterprise", "Timescape", et al.
there is no nuclear-style local effect on the environment. You can try to argue that there is more of such an effect in other cases, but by doing so you ignore the full situation.
For a quickie analogy . . . imagine a big white target. Star Wars weapons can only shoot red paintballs, so you see everything that happens to the target, and the red mist around it when hit. But Trek weapons are a mix of red and white paintballs, sometimes more of one than the other. The white paintballs you can't see but for the measurable effect they have.
You're arguing that in combat Trek only shoots red paintballs, despite the fact that we know that in some high-energy cases and in some combat cases white paintballs rule the day, with perhaps a smattering of red here and there.
Only if you assume the Trek captain is a retard who pulls up to spitball range then cannot comprehend that a high volume of wild fire means back off.
Good grief, there are probably a dozen instances from RotS and RotJ of starships sitting almost on top of each other firing broadside.
Praeothmin wrote:Only partially then.
Your very own page mentions the few examples of long range weapons fire in ST, mised with as many examples of very short range fire, as in SW.
You have shown perhaps one or two examples where we do [/b]visually see the ships exchange fire while at those long ranges.
So, let me reiterate my original statement:
Even though we have heard many times of ST ships having long weapons range, when we do see an engagement, it is almost always well within SW weapons' range as well...
Further, DS9 battles (such as Chin'toka) involved ships showing a little fireball then still having large sections of hull vaporize without any apparent local effect. I also recall a number of strikes against unshielded ships producing no fireball or other similar high-energy-expectation event, such as "Yesterday's Enterprise", "Timescape", et al.
Thismay be, except that since we have so many more examples with explosions, they could be considered outliers, or "special events"...
there is no nuclear-style local effect on the environment. You can try to argue that there is more of such an effect in other cases, but by doing so you ignore the full situation.
When are they used in drilling without being first "modified"?
Since we never fully know what these modifications are, we can't really say the Phasers behave normally.
For a quickie analogy . . . imagine a big white target. Star Wars weapons can only shoot red paintballs, so you see everything that happens to the target, and the red mist around it when hit. But Trek weapons are a mix of red and white paintballs, sometimes more of one than the other. The white paintballs you can't see but for the measurable effect they have.
Well, from what we've seen, and considering that Phasers need adjustments to behave in special ways (either by changing settings, or long preparations), I believe it would be better to consider Phasers as being able to fire either red or white paintballs, depending on the settings (or adjustments), but never at the same time.
Heck, we know for a fact that with some adjustments, Phasers can fire nanoprobes (physical objects), so I don't see why my analogy isn't closer to "reality" then yours...
Only if you assume the Trek captain is a retard who pulls up to spitball range then cannot comprehend that a high volume of wild fire means back off.
I don't assume he is a retard at all, I assume he will be going in because his most effective firing range is within spitball range, just like hi SW counterpart... :)
Good grief, there are probably a dozen instances from RotS and RotJ of starships sitting almost on top of each other firing broadside.
Wow, just like in DS9, where we have the most Fleet to Fleet battles of any show.
And by the way, if those ST ships were so superior at long range, then why the heck do they engage a 2km wide Borg cube in spitting range when they could engage it at over 4 million km and spread the fleet out more in order to make it harder for the cube to hit?
It's not impossible you just need to have a large point of reference, like a planet. For example we have observed ~10,000km range from Rebel Ion Cannon because we have seen it firing from the surface at a ship seen in high orbit. Most of your examples involve character statements and some are not even conclusive. For example in Equinox Paris reports that they are 30,000km from Equinox and Janeway orders to target their power core. Then the scene shifts to Equinox' bridge and a hit is reported. How much time has passed is unclear.2046 wrote:Correct me if I'm wrong, but did you just dismiss the vast majority of my long-range examples on the basis of us not being able to visually see that the ships were fighting at beyond visual range?
Would that not be a requirement to do what is, by definition, impossible?
I would ask you to provide a single ship to ship battle which shows weapon effects you would call megaton level. Again I refer you to atmospheric battle in Equinox or that DS9 episode where Defiant fights Jem'Hadar ships inside the atmosphere of a planetary giant. There were no multi megaton effects or even multi kiloton ones. So how come examples from SW lacking those effects are immediately singled out while ignoring the ones from ST?2046 wrote:By and large, the examples are going to break based on FX capability and budget . . . but not exclusively. In the olden days, they just couldn't do fireballs, so there were none. As technology progressed and big pretty fireballs were more doable, they were done. There are examples from DS9 and VOY with no fireballs, and some fairly early TNG with fireballs . . . it varies. But suffice it to say, I don't think it is safe to declare the weapons to have similar effects, especially given high-energy examples which directly lack them.
SW capital weapons missed against targets much smaller than average Starfleet ship like Queen's yacht which is no larger than a nacelle of a Miranda class ship. None of those maneuvers seen by Miranda or Nebula will help them against SW capital ship fire due to their size. Ranges at we have seen ST and SW ships engage each other are traversed by turbolasers in a few frames. Miranda won't have time to move out of the way in that amount of time.2046 wrote:But given that longer ranges are also (if not near-equally) effective, why subject oneself to the damage? Remember, we heard of no misses in the long-range combat between the Phoenix and the Cardassian warship, despite evasive maneuvers by both sides. And, whether or not the Mirandas are maneuverable, we know from "Emissary"[DSN1] that the Nebulas are hella-maneuverable.
(Indeed, this brings up another point about Miranda maneuverability . . . Geordi suggests that even a transport like the Jenolan could run circles around the E-D at impulse. Assuming similar maneuverability between Nebulas, Ambassadors, and the Galaxies, this would suggest that a frontline starship like the Mirandas oughta be helluva-nimble, whether we've had opportunity to see it or not.)
Federation seems to be employing their ships like WW2 fighters performing strafing runs. This is best observed by Defiant making a run against the Borg cube. Of course when we take their size and observed maneuverability into account they won't have a chance of evading incoming turbolaser fire any more than the Invisible Hand did. Ultimately the question is not whether Federation ships are more maneuverable than SW capital ships (they are) but whether they are maneuverable enough to evade SW turbolaser fire (they are not). It's like rebuilding the Nimitz class to have 3 times greater maneuverability. It's useless since it would still have no chance of evading enemy missiles and would mean nothing in combat.2046 wrote:Even in the one example you have of ships getting as close as they did in RotS (the two Galaxies that punish the Galor), the situation is a far cry from 18th Century broadsides.
Which of course works both ways: you limit your ability to hurt them. And when you are facing targets that are much bigger and more powerful than you the best course of action is to keep your distance. That way you maximize your advantages: smaller crossection and greater maneuverability. They didn't do it against the Borg Cube, the completely immobile DS9 or even the stationary platforms in Chin'Toka.2046 wrote:Because if you're in close with an equal-range opponent in an era of weapons that can harm the firing ship at close range, you have just limited the enemy's ability to unload on you.
Dialogue is fine on its own unless there's some reason to doubt it. As it is, you could do the reverse of your Ion cannon example when gauging range for ST stuff. A ship in high orbit targetting and firing at a small research station on a planet, for example.Kane Starkiller wrote:Most of your examples involve character statements and some are not even conclusive.
Not a battle per se, but there's an incident in ENT "Sleeping Dogs" where a ship uses the detonations from the photon torpedoes to propel itself into higher orbit.I would ask you to provide a single ship to ship battle which shows weapon effects you would call megaton level. Again I refer you to atmospheric battle in Equinox or that DS9 episode where Defiant fights Jem'Hadar ships inside the atmosphere of a planetary giant.
Nope. It's an event that requires an unknown amount of energy, because we have no idea on how to quantify how much energy it takes to do what phasers do. To say that there's no energy involved would also mean that hand phasers are capable of drilling through the crust of a planet. Or that a hand phaser can make a planet dissapear in short order.Furthermore if an example "lacks high energy effects" then it is simply not a high energy event.
How does that help? You have to dial down your weapons as well.Because if you're in close with an equal-range opponent in an era of weapons that can harm the firing ship at close range, you have just limited the enemy's ability to unload on you.
Considering the safety this range provides, they'd be obviously engaging torpedoes at such ranges all the time.But I mentioned that already, so I don't feel I'm really reaching you. Let's try it another way, with just a general concept (non-SW or ST):
Consider a nuclear detonation against a target hull, which we'll use as a reference point to ghetto-model a point-source of high energy. About half the energy could go back to space in all directions.
For a one megaton shot, at a range of 5000 kilometers, the yield against the firing ship (assuming a simple square profile of 1km) is going to follow the inverse square law. This means the firing ship will only feel about 0.0000000016 megatons, or about six megajoules. That's six megajoules over a square kilometer, or about six joules per square meter, or less than 1/100th the energy from sunlight striking the surface of Earth.
In other words, the firing ship just ain't gonna notice.
While I agree with the effects short ranged battles have, this list does not provide a compelling amount of reason to bother flying close to enemy ships instead of unloading the full torpedo yields over long ranges.But let's say the target ship closes to 5 kilometers. Now it's a different ballgame. If the firing ship lobs a one-megaton shot, then with the same assumptions the firing ship will feel about 1.6 kilotons, or about six-and-a-half megajoules per square meter (about six-thousand times sunlight).
That might not do significant damage to the firing ship, but it might dissuade him from firing full-power shots for a wide variety of reasons.
How does this apply to Trek?
First, we know that torpedo detonations at close range aren't healthy for Trek ships, even considering focused detonation potentials. Second, we know that torpedo yields are wildly adjustable. Third, we know that phasers don't seem to produce the same sort of blowback (e.g. "The Nth Degree"), but also aren't generally viewed to be as powerful as torpedoes.
So by closing in, you've just changed the ballgame. The enemy can't lob full-yield torpedoes at you, for one, and so you've hopefully limited them to phasers. You've also decreased their response time . . . they can't really do much extra defense (such as where they keep their shields focused) or evasion. And so on. Not to mention that you hopefully increase survivability because the enemy won't go all gung-ho targeting your warp core to make it go boom if they're sitting right on top of you.
Now, as seen with the Dominion blowing huge chunks off of a Miranda, this logic doesn't always hold . . . they didn't seem to hold back too terribly much. But at least they were getting some badness right back at them.
Yes both have long range examples but the vast majority are much shorter ranges including all those involving fleet combat. So it's dishonest to claim Federation has established a clear superiority when it comes to weapon ranges.l33telboi wrote:Dialogue is fine on its own unless there's some reason to doubt it. As it is, you could do the reverse of your Ion cannon example when gauging range for ST stuff. A ship in high orbit targetting and firing at a small research station on a planet, for example.
That's the one with the Klingon ship trapped inside a gas giant? I don't remember any megaton level events although I don't recall that episode all that much.l33telboi wrote:Not a battle per se, but there's an incident in ENT "Sleeping Dogs" where a ship uses the detonations from the photon torpedoes to propel itself into higher orbit.
That is true up to a point. No we can't quantify how much energy it took to actually drill the tunnel and how much was some kind of phaser reaction but we can set up certain upper limits based on the fact there was no aerial shockwave, fireball etc.l33telboi wrote:Nope. It's an event that requires an unknown amount of energy, because we have no idea on how to quantify how much energy it takes to do what phasers do. To say that there's no energy involved would also mean that hand phasers are capable of drilling through the crust of a planet. Or that a hand phaser can make a planet dissapear in short order.
I did not dismiss it as much as averaged it.2046 wrote:Correct me if I'm wrong, but did you just dismiss the vast majority of my long-range examples on the basis of us not being able to visually see that the ships were fighting at beyond visual range?
I do because the majority of weapons attacks ahve displayed such effects.Short of a full survey being performed (as opposed to the small sample we're discussing), I don't think you can dismiss contrary data as being composed of outliers.
And these examples are not as numerous as the ones whish do display such fireballs...There are examples from DS9 and VOY with no fireballs, and some fairly early TNG with fireballs . . . it varies.
Which are much rarer then the events displaying a fireball, so when we mention averages, or events that are in majority, fireballs are there, which can let us beblieve that Phasers act as Turbolaser Bolts in the majority of events...But suffice it to say, I don't think it is safe to declare the weapons to have similar effects, especially given high-energy examples which directly lack them.
Which would be one of the few examples of this nature."Galaxy's Child"[TNG4], IIRC, though that's low power and barely counts in context.
Again, given the rare nature of these events, it is not so unsafe to say it...But it's also unsafe to say they were behaving abnormally, given that instances of starship combat have shown no impact fireballs as well.
Majority of times, Phasers need adjustment to behave in any ither way the as a DET weapon.Because you have yet to provide evidence for the dichotomy you're arguing for.
And yet we regularly see misses a short range from ST ships, such as in this video:we heard of no misses in the long-range combat between the Phoenix and the Cardassian warship, despite evasive maneuvers by both sides.
That was at the time the GCS was as "nimble" as the Tantive-IV, and the Jenolan is a much smaller ship then a Miranda.Geordi suggests that even a transport like the Jenolan could run circles around the E-D at impulse. Assuming similar maneuverability between Nebulas, Ambassadors, and the Galaxies, this would suggest that a frontline starship like the Mirandas oughta be helluva-nimble,
Even in the one example you have of ships getting as close as they did in RotS (the two Galaxies that punish the Galor), the situation is a far cry from 18th Century broadsides.
As Oragahn said, this is ridiculous.Because if you're in close with an equal-range opponent in an era of weapons that can harm the firing ship at close range, you have just limited the enemy's ability to unload on you.
you maximize your advantages: smaller crossection and greater maneuverability.
Which is why a smart Captain would unload all his most powerful weapons at long range, then close in at shorter ranges when he no longer has any long range weapons.2046 wrote:Consider a nuclear detonation against a target hull, which we'll use as a reference point to ghetto-model a point-source of high energy. About half the energy could go back to space in all directions.
For a one megaton shot, at a range of 5000 kilometers, the yield against the firing ship (assuming a simple square profile of 1km) is going to follow the inverse square law. This means the firing ship will only feel about 0.0000000016 megatons, or about six megajoules. That's six megajoules over a square kilometer, or about six joules per square meter, or less than 1/100th the energy from sunlight striking the surface of Earth.
In other words, the firing ship just ain't gonna notice.
But let's say the target ship closes to 5 kilometers. Now it's a different ballgame. If the firing ship lobs a one-megaton shot, then with the same assumptions the firing ship will feel about 1.6 kilotons, or about six-and-a-half megajoules per square meter (about six-thousand times sunlight).
That might not do significant damage to the firing ship, but it might dissuade him from firing full-power shots for a wide variety of reasons.
Except that in fleet engagements such as in DS9 or in ST:FC, when so many weapons are fired your way, it doesn't matter how good you are at evasion, you'll get hit by one weapon eventually, because there are so many angles of attack and they cannot all be covered.You've also decreased their response time . . . they can't really do much extra defense (such as where they keep their shields focused) or evasion.
Exactly: The Dominion were blowing huge chunks out of the Fed ships, and vice-versa.Now, as seen with the Dominion blowing huge chunks off of a Miranda, this logic doesn't always hold . . . they didn't seem to hold back too terribly much. But at least they were getting some badness right back at them.
Except ships were blowing up all over the place, and nobody seemed to mind.Not to mention that you hopefully increase survivability because the enemy won't go all gung-ho targeting your warp core to make it go boom if they're sitting right on top of you.
Well, Kane, I have to only partially agree here.Kane Starkiller wrote:Ultimately the question is not whether Federation ships are more maneuverable than SW capital ships (they are) but whether they are maneuverable enough to evade SW turbolaser fire (they are not).
Agreed!At the very least one should conclude that weapon range advantage is unclear due to all the conflicting examples.
Except that, as I stated earlier, we see ships blow up all the time in DS9's fleet engagements, right next to enemy or allied ships, and not one time do we see a ship threatening explosion.Oragahn wrote:I'd rather consider the other explanation, in that every single ship exploding would be a potential bomb of greater magnitude than its own weapons. Therefore, if it goes down, with a bit of luck, it can take down the other one, while at longer ranges, it's more a question of who snips first.
Personally, I'd rather go with option 2. It gives more time to react, and comes down to who has the better weapon design.
Situation with Tantive IV is analogous to that of the Queen's Yacht in TPM: the attacker wanted to disable the ship and used it's fire to bracket the ship's movement. Both times the attacker was able to hit a much smaller target: the main reactor on Tantive IV, hit the yacht at the exact spot that will disable the shields while causing minimal damage to the ship itself, pick off the droids. That is difficult to explain as simple luck. Secondly just because Tantive IV appears to move in the straight line that doesn't mean it's not evading by changing it's acceleration and velocity. Finally Tantive IV is 150 meters long and probably 30 meters wide. When you compare that to the 200 meters wide Miranda and look at how near the misses were you can see that all of the shots would have been hits if Miranda was placed there instead of Tantive IV.Praeothmin wrote:Well, Kane, I have to only partially agree here.
They don't really have to evade the shots, all they ahve to do is to evade, and considering how difficult it was for the ISD in ANH to hit the straight-moving Tantive IV, it is clear that only by saturating an area with fire can they hope to hit (like they did vs the Tantive IV, although it would be harder vs a maneuvering ship).
Well they do have a superiority. While I agree that they don't always display great range, they do display it more often then the SW counterparts, which display it... never.Kane Starkiller wrote:Yes both have long range examples but the vast majority are much shorter ranges including all those involving fleet combat. So it's dishonest to claim Federation has established a clear superiority when it comes to weapon ranges.
Moving the goalposts won't help you. You said kiloton to megaton, and this was most definitely above kiloton, though there was a thread on this recently which had the figure somewhere in the single digit megaton region. But that was based on the kinetic energy being transferred perfectly, which needless to say, isn't going to be the case.That's the one with the Klingon ship trapped inside a gas giant? I don't remember any megaton level events although I don't recall that episode all that much.
Shockwaves and fireballs are produced because of the target being heated immensely. In this case the target simply disappears with no apparent heating (or if there was heat it disappears with the material). Given the strangeness of this weapon, it'd be pretty impossible to claim that it should have tangible effects with any certainty.That is true up to a point. No we can't quantify how much energy it took to actually drill the tunnel and how much was some kind of phaser reaction but we can set up certain upper limits based on the fact there was no aerial shockwave, fireball etc.
Like this?Kane Starkiller wrote:It's not impossible you just need to have a large point of reference, like a planet.2046 wrote:Correct me if I'm wrong, but did you just dismiss the vast majority of my long-range examples on the basis of us not being able to visually see that the ships were fighting at beyond visual range?
Would that not be a requirement to do what is, by definition, impossible?
We get the reverse in TDiC.For example we have observed ~10,000km range from Rebel Ion Cannon because we have seen it firing from the surface at a ship seen in high orbit.
Oh, hours, clearly.Most of your examples involve character statements and some are not even conclusive. For example in Equinox Paris reports that they are 30,000km from Equinox and Janeway orders to target their power core. Then the scene shifts to Equinox' bridge and a hit is reported. How much time has passed is unclear.
You assume that Janeway was forced to follow, in opposition to the context of the episode. The only damage received was from the rapid charge into the atmosphere, since Equinox had weapons offline.Furthermore later in the episode Ransom takes his ship inside the planetary atmosphere and Janeway is forced to follow it but later disengages from pursuit after receiving damage.
Per the context of the episode, she was not at her most rational in her pursuit of Ransom, who was known as a slippery little devil.Why would Janeway take her ship inside the atmosphere if Federation ships could accurately target another ship under combat conditions at ranges of 1000km or more?
He didn't evade Voyager's weapons. His apparent hope was to cause Voyager to have to pull away.Why would Ransom, correctly, think they can evade Voyager's weapons by going inside the atmosphere?
What do you mean never? Didn't I just point out the example with Ion Cannon which establishes 10,000km range? And I was only using the movies so obviously there won't be as many examples as in Star Trek. Not to mention that almost all of Star Trek examples involve stated ranges unlike the aforementioned SW example from which you can actually observe the range. Again Star Trek didn't establish any clear advantage in range.l33telboi wrote:Well they do have a superiority. While I agree that they don't always display great range, they do display it more often then the SW counterparts, which display it... never.
Actually I asked that 2046 provides the evidence of a single ship to ship battle which shows kiloton to megaton firepower. So even though this is not ship to ship combat I will take it however I still stand by my request to be shown that it has those effect.l33telboi wrote:Moving the goalposts won't help you. You said kiloton to megaton, and this was most definitely above kiloton, though there was a thread on this recently which had the figure somewhere in the single digit megaton region. But that was based on the kinetic energy being transferred perfectly, which needless to say, isn't going to be the case.
The target will inevitably get heated if you hit it with sufficient energy regardless of whether it is kinetic or electrical etc. The fact that the target didn't get heated enough to create such effects limits the phaser energy.l33telboi wrote:Shockwaves and fireballs are produced because of the target being heated immensely. In this case the target simply disappears with no apparent heating (or if there was heat it disappears with the material). Given the strangeness of this weapon, it'd be pretty impossible to claim that it should have tangible effects with any certainty.
The simple fact of the matter is that we don't know the energy needed to phasorize something. We don’t even know what exactly happens.
Well not really. We need two scenes, one that establishes one of the ships to be visibly closer to the planet which itself is on the order of 10,000km wide. That would prove ranges on the order of thousands of km like the Ion Cannon. Furthermore the episode "Arsenal of freedom" actually proves that the alien ship did not in fact have high ranges. Enterprise's crew comes up with a plan of entering atmosphere to nullify the probe's cloaking device after it follows them. Again if the probe was capable of hitting Enterprise at ranges of 1000km there would be no need to follow them into the atmosphere and expose itself.
This isn't the reverse of the Ion Cannon example since a planet is 10,000 km wide and practically immobile so the difficulty of hitting an ISD facing you and a planet are not remotely comparable.2046 wrote:We get the reverse in TDiC.
Well as long as it isn't weeks. :)2046 wrote:Oh, hours, clearly.
Seriously, that claim is just ridiculous in the context of the episode. The entire point was that Voyager was catching them by surprise, and the Equinox people had just learned that it was so.
Well you just said it yourself. Voyager received damage from the atmosphere and yet Janeway ordered the ship in. Why if they have the ranges to simply pounce on Equinox from high orbit?2046 wrote:You assume that Janeway was forced to follow, in opposition to the context of the episode. The only damage received was from the rapid charge into the atmosphere, since Equinox had weapons offline.
She was certainly angry at Ransom but this doesn't explain why she would suddenly forget her ship is capable of hitting Ransom's ship from beyond the atmosphere, why Ransom would think his trip to atmosphere would avail him anything, why nobody on Voyager's crew thought to remind Janeway of Voyager's weapon ranges.2046 wrote:Per the context of the episode, she was not at her most rational in her pursuit of Ransom, who was known as a slippery little devil.
Then he obviously assumed that Voyager will be forced to either pull away or keep pursing them through the atmosphere. The possibility of Voyager simply staying above him beyond the atmosphere never even occurred to him and neither did it occur to Janeway.2046 wrote:He didn't evade Voyager's weapons. His apparent hope was to cause Voyager to have to pull away.
More later.
