Klingons with X-Wings

[Alyeska]

(yawn)

Are you all done blowing hotair up eachothers asses?

My claims of 90% or greater accuracy for Federation capitalships with BEAM phasers (PPCs and torpedoes do not count in this) is not directly tied in the fighter debate. The Federation has a noted accuracy advantage over the OpFor and they make use of it by denying the enemy use of tactical fighters and the Federation uses its own tactical fighters against its enemies.

Where does that leave us in the VS debates? Wel first you have to define phaser accuracy and reliability. Just because a Galaxy or an Excelsior can hit a BoP or Jem'Hadar bug reliably does not mean they can hit a small target really easily.

Believe it or not, but Insurrection actualy has one of the better examples of accuracy for Trek. When the Enterprise-E used the same phaser array to raidly shift targets and fire on the Sona destroyer, you have example of precision in rapid fire situations. Now the issue is of range. Given the size and manueverability of X-Wings, they are going to have an easier time hitting a ship like the Sovereign class at range.

When you get down to it, you have to create a cone of accuracy in which the beam phasers can reliably hit within. Once you have defined that and the disance at which it increases for accuracy, you now have a point at which you can try and determine beam phaser accuracy.

Are Federation beam phasers accurate? Bet your ass they are, in Star Trek that is. Will beam phasers hit X-Wings? Of course. The question is, how often and at what range?

And the flipside of the debate is the firepower issue. It is generaly accepted that the larger Fed ships (Say Ambassador or more powerful) have phasers capable of neutralizing (if not outright killing) most SW fighters short of a Tie-Defender or XJ-Wing in a single shot. Now how long will it take the X-Wings to kill the Trek ships? The longer it takes, the greater the odds that the ships will shoot down the X-Wings.

[SirNitram]

Alyeska, are you ever going to acknowledge that you've been repeatedly told that claiming '90% accuracy' is a meaningless statement, because that's not how accuracy is measured?

[Alyeska]

The statement is not meaningless when its taken into context. I merely use it to point out that the Federation doesn't have the pathetic accuracy that some people claim all of Trek suffers from. Its blatantly obvious this accuracy percentage will change depending on situation. IIRC every instance of misses with beam phasers relate to small ships or issues of stealth/cloaking. This means when you factor in both speed and manueverability, size, and active jamming or stealth, accuracy rates will suffer accordinglyl

[SirNitram]

Dear fucking gods, but it's hard to get through that head of yours.

'Accuracy of ninety percent' is absolutey, unequivocably useless unless we know the range to target, size of target, and relative speed. We'll ignore cover and obscurement since it's space.

[Alyeska]

When the context is average Trek combat, the information is far from being useless.

Stop trying to create a problem that doesn't exist Nitram.

[SirNitram]

When the context is average Trek combat, the information is far from being useless.

Stop trying to create a problem that doesn't exist Nitram.

Stop butchering the goddamn English language when you've been corrected on this several times before. Would it murder you to simply include those parts?

[Alyeska]

I freely admit it. Thats why I don't bother trot out the accuracy issue unless someone else raises it first. Notice that brianeyci quoted me on the issue without fully looking at the facts. When I first posed in the thread I made it very clear this accuracy rating would not apply to the debate and that you have to examine things before making accurac claims.

I've done nothing to cloud the issue and I have not been dishonest Nitram. Again, stop trying to make a problem where none exists. I don't much like people quoting things I've said willy nilly and creating shistorms over it. brianeyci quotes me and helps to create a bit of a shistorm. I attempt to clear things up and point out the real issues behind accuracy, and your suddenly going for my throat. Calm down man, I'm on your side.

[SirNitram]

I freely admit it. Thats why I don't bother trot out the accuracy issue unless someone else raises it first. Notice that brianeyci quoted me on the issue without fully looking at the facts. When I first posed in the thread I made it very clear this accuracy rating would not apply to the debate and that you have to examine things before making accurac claims.

I've done nothing to cloud the issue and I have not been dishonest Nitram. Again, stop trying to make a problem where none exists. I don't much like people quoting things I've said willy nilly and creating shistorms over it. brianeyci quotes me and helps to create a bit of a shistorm. I attempt to clear things up and point out the real issues behind accuracy, and your suddenly going for my throat. Calm down man, I'm on your side.

What 'side'? I'm not here for sides, Alyeska. I'm trying to get this stupid shit of listing accuracies as raw percentages with nothing else to stop; that's my whole purpose in this thread, so that's my side.

I'm sure you'll spin this out into somehow me being evil and irrational, but really, this is what, the third, fourth time someone's had to remind you, yet again, that's not how accuracy is done?

I'm sure you'd love to imagine this is some instance of some frothing cultist banging on a keyboard, but taking ten seconds to say 'Dude. You've been told this over and over. That's not how accuracy is measured' is not a herculean task.

[Alyeska]

What the hell is your problem? Its incredibly obvious that accuracy ratings are situational dependent. Because MOST issues of Trek accuracy raised have to do with how sucky every ship in Trek is with accuracy, the 90% claim is a way of proving that false and pointing out the accuracy levels varry. When it comes to the VS debates anyone with some semblance of inteligence will be able to see that 90% is meaningless outside of the Trek context and that the variables must be examined on a case by case situation of each debate.

For crying outloud, I could have sworn I covered all this in my first post in this thread. I really don't see why your making such a big issue over something so meaningless.

[SirNitram]

Because I cannot fathom how an intelligent person can spew out these decent sized posts, yet acts like I'm on a Jihad for asking for a little more detail in one sentence. When this has been covered with you already.

Yes, Alyeska, you and I know what variables are involved. But this being a forum enviroment, others can read it. So perhaps it would be good if we don't propagate the dumbshit assumptions that come from that shorthand. As we see are being propagated, through Brian.

[Alyeska]

(sigh)

I do believe every thread this has been discussed its been pointed out that accuracy is situational dependent. Hell, I don't think I even posted the accuracy issue since brianeyci joined SD.net. That means brianeyci was looking through the archives, found my quote, but failed to read the whole thread. I shouldn't have to put disclaimers on every post I make on the issue because other people fuck up. I am not responsible for other peoples mistakes. Even still, I did enter this thread and clear up intent and meaning. So give me a fucking break Nitram. You want to rag on someone, rag on the people making the stupid claims. This is getting old. I have no beef with you, but your attitude of blaming me for other peoples fuckups is begining to irritate me.

[Darth Fanboy]

Blowing smoke?

The base of my arguments making an X-Wing more valuable than a BoP lay with hyperdrive. I gave examples of tactics/strategies that could be used and the only response against those was "Its not in the Klingons character to use such an advantage."

[SirNitram]

(sigh)

Yes, dealing with someone who would rather go on and on about how put-upon they are to add a few words to a sentence is a tiresome thing.

I do believe every thread this has been discussed its been pointed out that accuracy is situational dependent. Hell, I don't think I even posted the accuracy issue since brianeyci joined SD.net. That means brianeyci was looking through the archives, found my quote, but failed to read the whole thread. I shouldn't have to put disclaimers on every post I make on the issue because other people fuck up. I am not responsible for other peoples mistakes. Even still, I did enter this thread and clear up intent and meaning. So give me a fucking break Nitram. You want to rag on someone, rag on the people making the stupid claims. This is getting old. I have no beef with you, but your attitude of blaming me for other peoples fuckups is begining to irritate me.

Oh, come off it. This becomes farcical. You are corrected - yet again - on your refusal to list accuracy properly. Why? Because it's fucking obvious to anyone who saw Brian's comment that because you always do this stupid little 'But everyone knows!' whine that noobs don't realize it. Like it or not, yes, your refusal to use the right means of measuring accuracy is at fault.

And what do you do? Do you act like a mature fucking adult and say 'My bad, here's the right way'? Do you make any effort to correct it? Of course not. You launch into a multi-post tirade of how unreasonable people are to expect you to actually correct a mistake you get corrected on over and over.

[brianeyci]

(yawn)

Are you all done blowing hotair up eachothers asses?

Yes very much, I've had a lot of fun.

My claims of 90% or greater accuracy for Federation capitalships with BEAM phasers (PPCs and torpedoes do not count in this) is not directly tied in the fighter debate. The Federation has a noted accuracy advantage over the OpFor and they make use of it by denying the enemy use of tactical fighters and the Federation uses its own tactical fighters against its enemies.

Exactly, which the Maurader hypothesis solves.

If I misused your 90% figure, I apologize and withdraw it. Don't know what you got going on with SirNitram, not my business, but my evidence doesn't only rely on 90% figure from you or I would have conceded long ago. The evidence relies on the fact that two hundred years prior, the predessor of Starfleet encountered highly maneuverable craft from the Romulans and had to develop a countermeasure.

In other words, nailing strike craft in space is old news for the Feds. Very old news.

Where does that leave us in the VS debates? Wel first you have to define phaser accuracy and reliability. Just because a Galaxy or an Excelsior can hit a BoP or Jem'Hadar bug reliably does not mean they can hit a small target really easily.

Fine, suppose that Federation can hit their own Peregrine, combine with the accuracy they needed to defeat the Maurader threat, and you have more likely than not Federation ability to hit the X-Wing.

Believe it or not, but Insurrection actualy has one of the better examples of accuracy for Trek. When the Enterprise-E used the same phaser array to raidly shift targets and fire on the Sona destroyer, you have example of precision in rapid fire situations. Now the issue is of range. Given the size and manueverability of X-Wings, they are going to have an easier time hitting a ship like the Sovereign class at range.

Sure, never denied the X-Wings would score a shitload of hits. In fact, never really discussed X-Wing accuracy at all, mostly focused on shields on the Fed side and Fed firepower, and most recently Maurader hypothesis.

When you get down to it, you have to create a cone of accuracy in which the beam phasers can reliably hit within. Once you have defined that and the disance at which it increases for accuracy, you now have a point at which you can try and determine beam phaser accuracy.

Are Federation beam phasers accurate? Bet your ass they are, in Star Trek that is. Will beam phasers hit X-Wings? Of course. The question is, how often and at what range?

How exactly do you do this, is it difficult? Do you mean taking a shitload of pics, scaling them and seeing how often they hit within a cone of fire?

And the flipside of the debate is the firepower issue. It is generaly accepted that the larger Fed ships (Say Ambassador or more powerful) have phasers capable of neutralizing (if not outright killing) most SW fighters short of a Tie-Defender or XJ-Wing in a single shot. Now how long will it take the X-Wings to kill the Trek ships? The longer it takes, the greater the odds that the ships will shoot down the X-Wings.

Of course, and plus I have brought evidence of Federation theatre and colony shields 30 - 100 times stronger than a GCS, and evidence that Federation archaeological outposts are armed meaning most Fed colonies are armed.

Thanks for taking a look Alyeska,

Brian

[Robert Walper]

In fact, we get a demonstration of Klingon honor right in the exact same episode as the one about Klingon shore leave. Gowron and Martok decloak their fleet outside the range of DS9's weapons, and try to negotiate their way to get the Cardassian council members. Now why would Gowron and Martok have done this, when their ships were stated in "attack formation" and they could have just taken what they wanted by force? I believe by now, Martok is a changeling, and the Founders wanted war between the Klingons and Federation, so Martok could have convinced Gowron to attack first, talk later. But he doesn't. Klingon honor.

Then they attack. They do not decloak and sneak attack DS9, they decloak far away and fly their way into DS9 weapons range.

That could be interpreted as Klingon honor, but I'm sure the preferred conclusion would be Klingon stupidity.

[brianeyci]

Blowing smoke?

The base of my arguments making an X-Wing more valuable than a BoP lay with hyperdrive. I gave examples of tactics/strategies that could be used and the only response against those was "Its not in the Klingons character to use such an advantage."

I never denied that they would not use hyperdrive, only that the Klingons not using cloak in this way heaps a ton of problems believing that the Klingons would use hyperspace this way. Think about it.

1. Way of the Warrior - Martok docks. Decloaks and recloaks his ships while docked with DS9 to keep his numbers hidden. Later in the episode, Martok and Gowron come with a huge fleet to kick DS9 ass. They do not decloak right in front of the station, but out of weapons range. By now, Martok has been replaced by a changeling. So the changeling would take every action possible to make the Fed and Klingon go to war with one another. Instead they come into DS9 sensor range not even cloaked, and have to fly into transporter range during the battle. Why the hell would they do this? If you're smart enough to cloak and decloak your ships to keep your numbers hidden, you're smart enough to decloak your ships point blank at DS9's face and fire as soon as they give a hint of raising defenses. But they didn't do this. Klingon honor.

2. ST:V. Klingon decloaks right in front of Enterprise, attacks. But, he does not attack and destroy the Enterprise. Rather, he demands that Kirk be handed over and he will spare the lives of the crew. This is unprecedented. Maybe the Klingon commander wants Kirk as a trophy, and will destroy Enterprise after getting Kirk. But Klingon honor would compell him to kep his word. So we get a case when an exception is made to the decloaking and attacking rule, because Kirk is viewed as a "renegade" and thus dishonorable. Now if Klingon honor was not in effect, why wouldn't he have insisted on getting Kirk anyway, rather than obeying the orders of his superior officer? He could have gotten him and Kirk, killed the fat Klingon, and become a hero for capturing Kirk. He did not.

Klingons would use hyperspace yes. But they would use hyperspace to attack defended military targets, like those colonies with theatre shielding and phaser arrays, or Federation fleet concentrations. They might not use hyperspace in the way you suggest, to attack, then run, then reinforce their lines before the Federation can strike back. Sparingly, hyperspace might be used by glory-seeking Klingons, who would attack targets military defended because that's honorable. No decision would be made in the upper command to use thousands of X-Wings, concentrate them, and attack in force together with them against soft targets. And plus, they wouldn't drop out of hyperspace "in yo face", they would drop out a little aways, hail, and say "Today is a good day to die" like Martok and Gowron did, and allow whatever they are attacking to raise shields and arm weapons just like Martok and Gowron allowed DS9 to raise shields and arm weapons.

Brian

[Alyeska]

After getting an objective outside opinion on the "debate" that SirNitram and I got into (thanks Durandal), I've come to the conclussion that this mess is nothing more then a lack of communication. It appears I've mastered the art of vague communication and what I thought should have been obvious wasn't nearly so.

Nitram, I will attempt to reword my original post as a means of response to show you clearly what I was referring too. Perhaps then you will see that I've been trying to say things very similar to what you've been wanting me to say all along.

[brianeyci]

That could be interpreted as Klingon honor, but I'm sure the preferred conclusion would be Klingon stupidity.

Maybe, but stupidity is the last resort. For example, Picard didn't replicate thousands of projectile based weapons because he was stupid? Please. There are many other explainations, from the replicators being turned off because the main computer was locked out, to the replicators not having the patterns to create such weapons.

Klingon honor is a perfectly acceptable reason why Martok and Gowron didn't do this. If you're smart enough to use cloak to hide your numbers, you're smart enough to use cloak to attack.

Brian

[SirNitram]

After getting an objective outside opinion on the "debate" that SirNitram and I got into (thanks Durandal), I've come to the conclussion that this mess is nothing more then a lack of communication. It appears I've mastered the art of vague communication and what I thought should have been obvious wasn't nearly so.

Nitram, I will attempt to reword my original post as a means of response to show you clearly what I was referring too. Perhaps then you will see that I've been trying to say things very similar to what you've been wanting me to say all along.

Good. That's all I wanted.

*Plinks you* No SG-1 until you learn to be less vague.

[Alyeska]

Ok, lets try and reword my first post in this thread.

My claim on 90% accuracy for Starfleet has several conditions. One, this accuracy only pertains to beam phasers. Torpedoes and pulse phaser cannons are not counted in this percentage. All examples pertaining to cloaked ships are discounted due to natural loss of accuracy when attempting to fire on cloaked targets. This 90% accuracy is only in regards to the Star Trek franchise Opposition Forces of the Federation.

Now, the known examples of Starfleet ships missing that I know of are the following.

1: Danube Runabout firing phasers at a Jem’Hadar attackship and missing.
2: Nebula class ship firing on a experimental upgrade Danube Runabout
3: Voyager firing on one of the organ stealer ships in the first season.
4: Venture Scout firing on Type-10 shuttle and missing (Insurrection)

There are actually three more examples I can think of that relate to Starfleet, but they are usually not included.

5: Deep Space Nine firing on Klingon ships
6: Enterprise-D firing on cloaked Echo Papa 607 drone
7: Enterprise-E firing to locate cloaked Scimitar

Number 1 is inexcusable. That is a clear miss and it can not be taken as anything else.

Number 2 has the possibility of the Danube Runabout having stealth technology making it harder to hit. It should be noted the Nebula class ship was firing from beyond visual range (as in the Nebula class ship was not visible while we saw it miss the Runabout). So we have a very close miss at substantial range, but still a miss. The situation might have involved stealth, but that is unknown.

Number 3 involves Voyager firing on an enemy ship with stealth features. The lower accuracy rating is not entirely unexpected.

Number 4 is similar to number 1. They should have been able to hit, but it seems there was a miss.

Number five is a situation where Cardassian computers were being used to fire Federation weapon systems. The volume of fire was considerable, and there were several clear misses. A possible explanation is that over use of weapons were used knowing reinforcements were coming. Later when the Dominion attacked DS9, far less weapons were fired and far higher accuracy was attained. Either way, the situation is not directly comparable to Starfleet ships due to the stations computer system being Cardassian.

Number six is the Enterprise-D attempting to find a cloaked ship through random firing of its weapons. This can obviously be excluded.

Number seven is similar to number six.

What we are left with is the vast majority of weapons fire in Trek in regards to Starfleet shows hits against ships. I estimated 90% accuracy as a conservative number, but this number is situational purely for Trek.

What this means for the VS debates is that 90% number is WORTHLESS. It has no relative meaning. Instead you have to take examples from Trek and try and estimate the accuracy.

In regards to firing on X-Wings, these are factors that must be considered. Each will negatively or positively affect accuracy.

Range
Speed
Maneuverability
Size
Predictable course
Active jamming
Active stealth
Passive stealth
Cloak

Once you have examined each of these as they pertain to the debate, you can begin to look at the possible accuracy that beam phasers may achieve against the X-wings.

[Alyeska]

Now lets try and define accuracy for Trek.

In Insurrection the Enterprise-E fired on specific systems on the Sona destroyer from a range of ~50 meters. One of these systems was life support IIRC. Since life support is actually a ship wide system, one can conclude the target was a computer that controlled life support. Previously shown in Voyager, an Intrepid class computer core is roughly comparable in size to a turbo lift car. For the sake of comparison I will assume the Sona computer is approximately the same size. Also for the sake of argument I will assume the Enterprise-E had to hit the target dead on to ensure that it was totally destroyed rather then rely on shock damage that might not work.

A turbo lift is approximately 1.5 meters wide and 2 meters tall. This works out to 3 square meters.

This means we have an accuracy of 3 square meters at 50 meters. Expanding the cone outward we get 6 square meters at 100 meters. 60 square meters at 1000 meters. A Runabout class ship has a frontal and back surface area of 74 square meters. This is its smallest target profile. So according to Insurrection, we know that a Sovereign class ship can theoretically hit a Runabout at 1 km with perfect accuracy.

I know I am making some assumptions and I am trying to fit rectangular surface areas into spherical slices of a cone. The math doesn’t totally fit, so error rates are to be expected.

Now the incident where a Nebula class ship misses a Runabout is potentially far more interesting. The last time I saw that clip on Trek Miss, I recall the Nebula being beyond visual range. I also recall it missing the Nebula missing the Runabout by scant meters. If my recollection is correct, we have a minimum size of the cone at a minimum distance (the point where a Nebula class ship becomes invisible at distance) and we have a conservative estimate we can use to determine phaser accuracy at this range.

[Alyeska]

Here is some quick and dirty calculations on the accuracy rating of the Nebula.

Assuming it fired at a range of 200km (this is a conservative number, a Nebula should still be visible at this distance). Assuming it missed by 5 meters (I really don’t know how far it missed). Assuming it missed to either port or starboard so I can make a clean distance calculation with the center of the Runabouts aft profile being the center of a circle.

Beam 13.7 meters

13.7 meters divided by 2 gives 6.85 meters.

6.85 meters plus five meters. This gives the circle a radius of 11.85 meters.

Pi R squared.

3.14159 * 11.85^2 = 441.15

This means at an assumed distance of 200km (conservative), beam phasers are accurate within a surface area of 441 square meters. For comparison, a cube 20x20x20 meters has a surface area on just one side of 400 square meters.

If I goofed the math, sorry.

If someone can give me a better distance on the Nebula missing by, I can factor that. If someone can give me more concrete evidence on the distance of the Nebula, I can factor that.

[Vympel]

One more example- Equinox, where Voyager is chasing the Equinox through the atmosphere of a planet and misses from practically directly astern at a distance of a few hundred metres at best.

[Alyeska]

One more example- Equinox, where Voyager is chasing the Equinox through the atmosphere of a planet and misses from practically directly astern at a distance of a few hundred metres at best.

That would be absolutely the worst example. You can't argue its a shuttle and has shitty targeting sensors. You can't argue that they were firing on a smallship. No, its one capitalship firing on another, and missing terribly.

Then again, the entire crew was incompetent.

[brianeyci]

Thanks Alyeska.

If I am understanding this correctly, take your 3 square meter figure at 50 meters, and use 13 m by 1 m side profile of X-Wing, then phasers can hit X-Wings on side with 100% accuracy at around 200 m. Is this correct?

This would mean death for X-Wings. X-Wings routinely close to point-blank range of capitals. If TIE's have the same range of X-Wings, and taking ANH to represent range... well X-Wings are fucked. Is this what you mean?

Of course, if the phaser targets the orthogonal view front and back, smallest profile, lets say 1 m by 1 m, phasers have 100% accuracy from around 17 m hitting directly fore and aft. But the chances of phasers locking on directly orthogonal to the front and b ack is remote I think, except on the initial attack run. After that, X-Wings piloted by Klingons will be strafing and expose their sides to phaser lock.

Brian