Macross Frontier vs. Galactic Empire Task Force

[Darth Ruinus]

And? Does the name Telos mean anything to you? That took a few years to, so what's the point?

Except Telos was a restoration project backed by a galactic government.

[Darksider]

You're oversimplifying to an extent. SW vessels have high LINEAR accelerations, but that doesn't neccesarily translate into a high turning rate (manuverability will depend on alot of factors, such as design and nature of manuevering systems, their placement, power, etc. EVen the "EM steering" of main engines will not neccearily be as effective as linear thrust due to beam deflection.)

It is quite possible to have a SW ship that could accelerate very quickly in a straight line but turn worth shit.

While I doubt their turn rates will be as good as their linear acceleration, It should at least be enough to keep target locks on macross fighters. Remember, Luke's Proton torpedos did a 70,000 g turn to hit the DS1's exaust port. I doubt SW fighters would have trouble outflying and shooting down Variable fighters.

[tedisbest]

snip Zentradi fleet destroying planet.
This takes place over the course of about 30 seconds, by the by.

This scene occurred during the period where Hikaru, Misa, and Kakizaki were captured by the Zentradi. Boddole Zer showed this video to them to demonstrate that the Zentradi could easily destroy Earth. In other words, this was propaganda used to threaten the captured humans, and could also have been sped up or editted for length.

[Covenant]

You're oversimplifying to an extent. SW vessels have high LINEAR accelerations, but that doesn't neccesarily translate into a high turning rate (manuverability will depend on alot of factors, such as design and nature of manuevering systems, their placement, power, etc. EVen the "EM steering" of main engines will not neccearily be as effective as linear thrust due to beam deflection.)

It is quite possible to have a SW ship that could accelerate very quickly in a straight line but turn worth shit.

While I doubt their turn rates will be as good as their linear acceleration, It should at least be enough to keep target locks on macross fighters. Remember, Luke's Proton torpedos did a 70,000 g turn to hit the DS1's exaust port. I doubt SW fighters would have trouble outflying and shooting down Variable fighters.

A missile and a starfighter are vastly different though, and that's a terrible example. We see turning rates in the original Star Wars trilogy that rest somewhere between glacial and elephantine, especially when they're rolling in space after each other over the deathstar. A much better example is seeing the Millenium Falcon pull a real tight immelman and seeing all the fighters dive down at a RIDICULOUS speed and turning rate into the DSII's vent corridor. By comparison, the prequel dogfight in the asteroid field, which is quite impressive, looks pretty lousy. The flight out of the DSII's exploding reactor core also puts an odd limiter on Star Wars acceleration, but I don't know enough about it.

Suffice to say, there's way better examples than that which would prove that, in an open dogfight, both the big and little Star Wars vessels are capable of safely performing maneuvers that would outclass anything that we've seen out of the standard vertitech airframes. They'd need to drop into their hybrid forms to out-maneuver things even as large as a B-Wing or the Falcon, and they seem to lose a lot of their linear acceleration when they do that, which would make it hard for them. They can either move fast in one direction or dodge around in relatively the same area. A combination of space fire and anti-fighter support weapons from a larger ship would make it rough for them, since none of their form are well suited for that kind of combat. Vertiechs seem best used when engaging swarms of relatively slow-moving units. A target-rich environment of dudes with poor aim is a far cry from being hunted down by well-disciplined formations.

[Ford Prefect]

You're oversimplifying to an extent. SW vessels have high LINEAR accelerations, but that doesn't neccesarily translate into a high turning rate (manuverability will depend on alot of factors, such as design and nature of manuevering systems, their placement, power, etc. EVen the "EM steering" of main engines will not neccearily be as effective as linear thrust due to beam deflection.)

It is quite possible to have a SW ship that could accelerate very quickly in a straight line but turn worth shit.

Even if they can only, for some reason, devote 1% of their engines to non-linear acceleration, that would still make them at least as agile as any variable fighter. I don't know about you, but I find that to be exceedingly implausible.

Star Wars does have positively wonky spaceflight mechanics, of course.

[VF5SS]

Man it's a good thing there's no veritech in Macross Frontier. Now they can't lose.

[Ford Prefect]

Man it's a good thing there's no veritech in Macross Frontier. Now they can't lose.

I'm trying to ignore it, but every time someone says it, I die a little inside.

[Darksider]

Man it's a good thing there's no veritech in Macross Frontier. Now they can't lose.

Yes yes yes. Robotech and macross are two different things, and you don't like robotech. We get it already.

[VF5SS]

I'm trying to ignore it, but every time someone says it, I die a little inside.

Hold me for a little while. I'll make it better.

[DrStrangelove]

**http://www.animesquish.com/2008/02/robotech-11.html

the relevant scene begins at 15:49

EDIT: Read rules on copywritten materials and such not. Thank you, dumbass.

[Vendetta]

Care to explain the discrepancy between that and the bombardment of Earth in Love Drifts Away, which notably does not produce the effects you claim? (Also, links to copyright material, not kosher).

To recap, in Love Drifts Away, the fleet bombards earh for at least 75 seconds (starts at 4:45 and is still visibly occurring at 6:00), and this bombardment leaves the planet's surface safe for unprotected humans not more than a few hours later, and even leaves ruins of surface construction.

[Connor MacLeod]

**http://www.animesquish.com/2008/02/robotech-11.html

the relevant scene begins at 15:49

EDIT: Read rules on copywritten materials and such not. Thank you, dumbass.

You do realize there is nothing calcalbe about that incident, dont you? Removing the atmosphere of a plant requires imparting enough energy that it can achieve escape velocity. This basically means heating it up to very high tempeartures.. basically making it into a plasma. We don't see any superheated plasma escaping the planet.

What's more, even if we handwaved the plasma bit away, we see cratering... and removing a planet's atmosphere via brute force almost invariably is as a side effect of the bombardment, which means we shoudl be seeing a glowing, if not molten, surfacee at a minimum (if it were vaporized, we'd be seeing glowing hot ejecta shooting into orbit.)

And even if it isn't, inefficiencies in removing the atmosphere would still heat the surface of the planet, which would STILL be visible.

I'm not even going to touch on the absence of oceans or superheated steam or removing that (since that weill require far more energy, and which will only make the "lack of surface heating" problem even more glaring.)

so all that really demonstrates is that they may have a way ot technobabble a (inhabited?) planet into uninhabitability in a short time. Quite a viable threat in striking at SW planets, perhaps, but hardly an indicator of extreme firepower.

[Connor MacLeod]

Even if they can only, for some reason, devote 1% of their engines to non-linear acceleration, that would still make them at least as agile as any variable fighter. I don't know about you, but I find that to be exceedingly implausible.

How about the fact that the reaction thrusters that could provide manuvering (or even the retro thrust) are not neccesarily as large as the main thrusters? A smaller thruster cannot neccearily handle as great (or as fast) a thrust as the bigger ones.

Alternately, fi the thrusters have to move in any way, that may also limit how much thrust they can put out (there's a limit to how much bracing you can have on something and have it reasonably mobile - a prime limitation on targeting and point defense systems that alot of sci fi fans tend to ignore.)

Besides which, manuverability is probably among the least important qualities relevant to the debate. Firepower, weapons range, and durability would be bigger ones (They can be as agile as they want, but it won't do them a lick of good if they can be outranged and gunned down before they can close. Manuverability is only of relevance in dogfighting.)

[Ford Prefect]

How about the fact that the reaction thrusters that could provide manuvering (or even the retro thrust) are not neccesarily as large as the main thrusters? A smaller thruster cannot neccearily handle as great (or as fast) a thrust as the bigger ones.

Alternately, fi the thrusters have to move in any way, that may also limit how much thrust they can put out (there's a limit to how much bracing you can have on something and have it reasonably mobile - a prime limitation on targeting and point defense systems that alot of sci fi fans tend to ignore.)

Honestly Connor, I can understand where you're coming from, but we know that Star Wars has the materials technology to more or less render that moot. Obviously there are still limitations, but it's high end enough that I just can't even begin to accept the notion that they would be somehow limited to less than a hundred gees of non-linear acceleration. They're obviously not anywhere near as effective as they could be, given their design and some other weirdness regarding SW spaceflight, but I'm just saying that the chances are that any variable fighter woul still be massively outclassed, which is reasonable given they're limited to under thirty gees at best.



Incidentally, do any SW craft even have reaction control thrusters like Macross or Battlestar Galactica or Babylon 5?

Besides which, manuverability is probably among the least important qualities relevant to the debate. Firepower, weapons range, and durability would be bigger ones (They can be as agile as they want, but it won't do them a lick of good if they can be outranged and gunned down before they can close. Manuverability is only of relevance in dogfighting.)

On that note, what are the sorts of ranges which TIE fighters capable of? Obviously we have the capital ships being able to to engage at light minutes or light seconds (I can't recall from the RotS ICS), I don't think I've ever actually encountered any sort of numbers for fighter ranges.

Strictly speaking ranges in Macross tend to be really short; though their slug guns could basically go forever (because, you know, it's space), but their micro-missiles have to be short ranged due to their size, which consequently translates to a smaller amount of fuel.

[Darth Raptor]

In SW, dogfighting takes place at WWII ranges due to extremely powerful ECM. So the maximum range of any turbolaser-type weapon, regardless of platform, is going to be different than its effective range (assuming rough technological parity with opposing forces), which is within distances short enough to negate lightspeed lag and burn through all the jamming. If the NUNS/SMS can't put out enough electronic interference we're talking light minutes instead of kilometers. Both from starfighters and capital ship guns.

[Covenant]

In SW, dogfighting takes place at WWII ranges due to extremely powerful ECM. So the maximum range of any turbolaser-type weapon, regardless of platform, is going to be different than its effective range (assuming rough technological parity with opposing forces), which is within distances short enough to negate lightspeed lag and burn through all the jamming. If the NUNS/SMS can't put out enough electronic interference we're talking light minutes instead of kilometers. Both from starfighters and capital ship guns.

We also see them doing a lot of wonky stuff that doesn't jive with visual targetting. The use of targetting computers, Vader's etch-a-sketch gun sight, and the commonality of those wierd flakburst lasers seems to lend weight to the idea that there's more than just spray and pray to a starwars ship to ship fight. If it weren't for several instances of extremely good targetting you'd have to wonder what the hell they're doing, but when it does work they can do some great off-axis firing.

Part of the issue is a fighter's guns don't cause a visible pop onscreen when they hit a cap shield in the OT, so the best scenes for judging the maximum effective range of a weapon are out. The Battle of Endor would be a great choice for that if it weren't for the 1980's graphics leaving it ambigious.

Oddly, the same footage also shows some TIEs apparently incapable of making turns several times, with the consequence of repeatedly crashing into ships of various makes and models. Granted, one of those times the TIE was on fire, but a few other ones were just really lousy flying or just extremely poor turning capability on a regular TIE model.