OMNI SCIFI VERSUS: These Size-Chart ships fight! Who wins?

[lPeregrine]

I think we should maybe go by the 'simulationy' video games when there is a variety of ships in play, like the X-Wing series and any games that kept that level of detail. What is the range of a turbolaser in that game series? Heck, what are the ranges of phasers in Star Trek: Bridge Commander?

Why use Bridge Commander when you have Starfleet Command (or Starfleet Battles, for the pen and paper version) filling the true "simulation" role? In those games they explicitly use the "one range unit = 10,000km" standard, so maximum effective phaser range is about 50-100,000km, maximum photon torpedo range is about 500,000km, and maximum missile range (depending on the target's speed and direction) can be over 1,000,000km.

This of course illustrates the problem with using game mechanics: every game has its own mechanics, and the decisions involved often have very little to do with what is canon.

[SAMAS]

I think we should maybe go by the 'simulationy' video games when there is a variety of ships in play, like the X-Wing series and any games that kept that level of detail. What is the range of a turbolaser in that game series? Heck, what are the ranges of phasers in Star Trek: Bridge Commander?

For Star Wars in particular, in both the old methods of figuring out canon and the new, don't they put things that happen on screen as primary? Like the movies themselves, clone wars, rebels, etc.? And don't those have pretty specifically 'world war II airplanes in space' ranges?

Game mechanics are so very far from canon you need a satnav to find your way back there. The range of phasers in ST Bridge Commander? 45-50 kilometres. maximum speed of a Galaxy class? about eight thousand miles an hour, even though max speed is a non-issue.

As for your comments about SW weapon ranges, please see my earlier post explaining why the exchanges of fire seen in the films et al are not indicative of shall we say, "normal" combat ranges? That they are all set up in-universe as close-range brawls, or chases, or fighter attacks. Even in the old canon structure, lower-tier material was still canon provided it wasn't contradicted by higher-tier canon and it wasn't. We see them fight at close range, doesn't mean thy can't fight at long range.

I would point out that combat ranges in space are just as much determined by the relation between the speed of your weapons and that of the enemy as they are your sensors' targeting range. Light-hour ranges are meaningless to combat, as even the slowest ship will be long gone by the time your shot gets there.

That said, The Clone Wars had some fairly standard fleet battles at ranges much farther than seen in the movies. IIRC, they were exchanging fire at distances around the same range or a little farther out that the Star Destroyers at Endor were sitting before the Rebel Fleet got in their faces.

[Gavinfoxx]

A friend of mine had the following statements that I think are very relevant to this, and I want to quote, with a few edits and notes from me:

"Everyone goes to such and such a system.

Whoever is the final victor thus controls the system

Said system will have toggles to control gates to other universes [and times, -ed] like the ones from which the ships were taken

Aka, this system will become the mother of all junction systems

Further assumptions I am making:

Leaving the system is impossible, FTL or otherwise; let's say this system exists in a bubble universe that is only a few LY across

Suggestion for handling Tactical FTL [and the associated time travel problem -ed]:

1. If your FTL takes you to another dimension (henceforth referred to generically as Hyperspace), your hyperspace is not the same as other people's hyperspace and you cannot see or interact with them unless you can somehow use their technology.
1a. The various hyperspaces are not connected, the only way to go between one hyperspace to the next is by dropping out of it into the real and jumping back into the other hyperspace
1b. This means you cannot shoot into other people's hyperspace even if you can shoot out of yours into the real (unless you have both your and their technology, and both tech bases allow shooting from hyperspace to real and vice versa, and have applied it to the specific weapon you want to use)

2. For FTL that takes an orthogonal dimension that is not an alternate plane of reality (Alpha Band from honorverse is alternate plane, so is the Warp from 40k; Culture hyperspace is an orthogonal dimension [the Culture is not here, -ed]) have been nerfed. The FTL works on the same principles and to the same performance but you remain fully in the real.
2a. This is explained by "reality" being stretched across all orthogonal dimensions so everything is of infinite size along the orthogonal dimension (or said dimension is rolled up really really tiny, which is the same thing) and so interacts fully across orthogonal dimensions

3. For FTL that uses realspace (and those that don't). This is a bubble dimension of only a few LY across, and the physics model here is Newtonian, not Einsteinian [ships which have non-Newtonian movement still do -ed]. There is no relativistic length contraction, time dilation and any of those shenanigans. Light has a fixed speed (of the familiar 300 kkm/s) but its not a special speed limit. The preferred reference frame is at rest relative to the local star at the time when the match begins (the location of the local star may undergo sudden violent changes but that doesn't affect the reference frame).
3a. Drive and weapon specs are corrected to maintain the same momentum/energy of their shot. This means that weapons that were high-relativistic but sublight might suddenly become FTL. Then again, FTL can now also be achieved simply by pushing hard enough by standard reaction (or reactionless) thrusters. Certain reaction thruster types might find their exhaust velocity suddenly becoming FTL, once again this isn't a problem either.
3b. Realspace FTL is still an advantage though since you get there faster than the light (or gravity wave) from you does. Light or gravimetric sensors are suitably lagged due to signal propagation time, but FTL sensors abound here anyway."

[PREDATOR490]

The Andromeda Ascendant is on that list - At the height of her power they carry 40 nova bombs capable of nuking an entire solar system - Some of the contenders may survive but I am guessing a vast majority of the largest fleets are going to be nuked into oblivion.

Star Trek Gomtu - A one shot alien ship that can also cause a shockwave that covers a large area and is allied to noone. I can see the Star Trek side having an instant issue when Gomtu freaks out and kills them all.

Stargate - Two versions of the Replicators from different galaxies.

EVE Online - Titans - If you go with the old system they have AOE doomsday weapons, if you go with the new system those doomsday weapons were turned into targeted weapons like a super laser. I have my doubts that much of the EVE Online forces will survive many of the engagements. As a group, EVE Online is possibly the most versatile though since they actually have a laundry list of ships that fufill many roles from electronic warfare to stealth recon.

Lexx - Will last as long as it takes for opponents to lock weapons and fire. Lexx was only designed to attack planets as a lazy super weapon. Outside of that it has nothing and a crew of 3 misfits.

Farscape - Moya - Unless your going to assume height of power means she has the stolen shield AND the super weapon built by Crighton then she is going to be slaughtered. If the super weapon is used, everyone gets sucked into a universe destroying wormhole.
Command Carrier, Scarrens / Talon - Not seeing much improvement in odds from those for the Farscape side.

The amount of ships in that list that have super weapons is going to make it a hilarious clusterfuck but I can see the AOE versions causing a fantastic amount of cleaning house of the weaker contenders. Also amusing that a good amount of those ships are from completely isolated universes that have no combat functions at all.

Solaris - Icarus - Free kill to anyone that takes the shot

Overall, I think that this situation is going to see in-universe fights being resolved before taking on the unknown parties. I.E Stargate ships are going to start hitting each other just as quickly as Star Trek.

Incidentally, every party being equidistant so that they are outside of weapon ranges - Which ship on that list has the longest weapon range ?

[Gavinfoxx]

Hmmmm, makes sense. That should be "weapon ranges of all but the longest range super-weapons which are capable of firing from one end of the outer limits of a star system to the other".

[Eternal_Freedom]

The Andromeda Ascendant is on that list - At the height of her power they carry 40 nova bombs capable of nuking an entire solar system - Some of the contenders may survive but I am guessing a vast majority of the largest fleets are going to be nuked into oblivion.

While that's true, it would depend exactly when she is taken. If it's pre-Hephaestus then yes, she has her 40 Nova bombs, but she's also commanded by Dylan Hunt, who quite categorically says at that point "we will not use strategic weapons, no matter how many ships we're up against" and was part of a military that saw no problem negotiating with the Magog to avoid a full scale war, so he definitely isn't going to go in Nova-bombs blazing. If it's season 1 then she has one bomb, but a crew of six and a year's worth of sporadic hit and miss repairs. Post season 1 she may have more, I gave up caring past season 3 frankly.

But honestly, unless and until Andromeda observes some of the massive clusterfuck of a firefight that's probably going to be going on in short order he and she will try and stay out of it as long as possible. But Rommie doesn't have FTL sensors or comms, and short-range slipstream is extremely questionable at best, so by the time they decide to go "oh fuck this" and deploy the Nova bombs, it may well be too late.

[Gavinfoxx]

Who tries to blow up the star first?

I also mean, 'who on the field is capable of blowing up the star'?

[Gavinfoxx]

Wow. What I really, really want to see happen, is someone with encyclopedic knowledge of all of these shows and a good amount of writing skill and the understanding of 'taking reasonable versions of the numbers' and 'going with versions that make the story interesting' and with 'a good understanding of each setting's style and 'a good sense of humor.' I mean, I can try, but I'm not good at it...

[biostem]

The Andromeda Ascendant is on that list - At the height of her power they carry 40 nova bombs capable of nuking an entire solar system - Some of the contenders may survive but I am guessing a vast majority of the largest fleets are going to be nuked into oblivion.

While that's true, it would depend exactly when she is taken. If it's pre-Hephaestus then yes, she has her 40 Nova bombs, but she's also commanded by Dylan Hunt, who quite categorically says at that point "we will not use strategic weapons, no matter how many ships we're up against" and was part of a military that saw no problem negotiating with the Magog to avoid a full scale war, so he definitely isn't going to go in Nova-bombs blazing. If it's season 1 then she has one bomb, but a crew of six and a year's worth of sporadic hit and miss repairs. Post season 1 she may have more, I gave up caring past season 3 frankly.

But honestly, unless and until Andromeda observes some of the massive clusterfuck of a firefight that's probably going to be going on in short order he and she will try and stay out of it as long as possible. But Rommie doesn't have FTL sensors or comms, and short-range slipstream is extremely questionable at best, so by the time they decide to go "oh fuck this" and deploy the Nova bombs, it may well be too late.

Andromeda is a weird setting - no energy shields, but has robots to supplement their crew and pilot fighters. I really loved how they could go to an asteroid and use on-board production facilities to manufacture more warheads/replacement parts.

[NecronLord]

The Andromeda Ascendant is on that list - At the height of her power they carry 40 nova bombs capable of nuking an entire solar system - Some of the contenders may survive but I am guessing a vast majority of the largest fleets are going to be nuked into oblivion.

Unlikely to use them, and can't survive dalek firepower.

Star Trek Gomtu - A one shot alien ship that can also cause a shockwave that covers a large area and is allied to noone. I can see the Star Trek side having an instant issue when Gomtu freaks out and kills them all.

Cannot survive dalek firepower.

Stargate - Two versions of the Replicators from different galaxies.

Cannot survive dalek firepower.

EVE Online - Titans - If you go with the old system they have AOE doomsday weapons, if you go with the new system those doomsday weapons were turned into targeted weapons like a super laser. I have my doubts that much of the EVE Online forces will survive many of the engagements. As a group, EVE Online is possibly the most versatile though since they actually have a laundry list of ships that fufill many roles from electronic warfare to stealth recon.

What's their maximum firepower?

Lexx - Will last as long as it takes for opponents to lock weapons and fire. Lexx was only designed to attack planets as a lazy super weapon. Outside of that it has nothing and a crew of 3 misfits.

Agreed. It might go unnoticed for a while as they try to run away.

Farscape - Moya - Unless your going to assume height of power means she has the stolen shield AND the super weapon built by Crighton then she is going to be slaughtered. If the super weapon is used, everyone gets sucked into a universe destroying wormhole.

The daleks have wormhole units that fit in a robot's chest unit that do the same thing. And, cannot survive dalek firepower.

Command Carrier, Scarrens / Talon - Not seeing much improvement in odds from those for the Farscape side.

The amount of ships in that list that have super weapons is going to make it a hilarious clusterfuck but I can see the AOE versions causing a fantastic amount of cleaning house of the weaker contenders. Also amusing that a good amount of those ships are from completely isolated universes that have no combat functions at all.

Solaris - Icarus - Free kill to anyone that takes the shot

Overall, I think that this situation is going to see in-universe fights being resolved before taking on the unknown parties. I.E Stargate ships are going to start hitting each other just as quickly as Star Trek.

Incidentally, every party being equidistant so that they are outside of weapon ranges - Which ship on that list has the longest weapon range ?

Possibly the Lexx. It fires from Earth orbit to destroy Pluto on one occasion.

[Simon_Jester]

There are a lot of ships on that list which cannot survive Dalek firepower. For all I know, the Daleks themselves cannot survive Dalek firepower; if there was any race in all the multiverse likely to focus on raw EXTERMINATING firepower at the expense of defenses, I'd bet on the Daleks.

The main limit on that is, the Daleks have an extremely target-rich environment, and it may not be possible to tell by casual inspection which ships are the biggest threat (other than the Time Lord ship, which is known to the Daleks from of old). And since the Daleks are almost certain to fire first, on like everyone, it is possible that they will simply get mobbed and that one of the factions with planet-cracking firepower will actually manage to take them out before they're even engaged by Dalek weaponry.

For example, the Daleks are fairly likely to flip out and start launching a huge barrage of fire at the Time Lord ship (even if it's not the Doctor they're up against, the Time Lords are the only race they've ever known to be that much of a threat). And while the Time Lords may or may not have offensive firepower on the scale of the Dalek ship by themselves, I am quite sure their defenses are up to par.

So killing them would take time, time for the Time Lords to frantically broadcast "Everyone, these are Daleks, they are going to kill us all if you do not stop them, please shoot them. A lot." to all and sundry.

Also, this thread now has caused Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny to be stuck in my head. With Daleks cast as Chuck Norris. Go cheesy Youtube videos...

[NecronLord]

Yeah, the Lexx could potentially sucker-punch the Dalek ship, it looks pretty puny, has no shields, and may not have particularly large energy emissions in normal operation.

The Time Lord ship is ten million years out of date though, and I would assume it's defences are weaker.

On the flip side, bowships were used in the Time War, so maybe it's had a refit or perhaps it was actually superior in some respects.

[Elheru Aran]

Man there's a lot of EVE ships there... they could win out of sheer numbers. Pure firepower wise, of course Time Lord/Dalek technology is just made of ridiculous. Power level wise Trek is pretty inconsequential compared to most of this stuff, frankly.

Though now I'm having a mental image of a Dalek ship tractor-beaming a Honorverse ship around to use its sidewalls like an axe...

[Tribble]

It's highly unlikely that everyone would gang up on the Daleks right away. The Daleks may be the first to start firing, but as others have noted they wouldn't be the only ones. The Daleks are likely to target the other ships of their universe first as they would see them as the biggest threat. Even if the other Dr. Who ships get off a warning (or depending on the Time lord ship's capabilities put up a fight) everyone else is probably going to be too busy to pay attention at first, let alone coordinate their actions. Plus the Dalek ships are always capable of retreating to pretty much anywhere in the system within seconds if they feel they are being overwhelmed (OPs rules would allow for the Daleks to use the time vortex to travel anywhere within the area provided that they remained in the same time period).

They also are allowed to use "minor" time weapons which... well, what exactly is minor in this example? Would the Daleks or Time Lords be able to do things like suspend weapons/ships/people in time? Slow down/speed up time so that weapons miss them? Emergency temporal shift? Jump forward 1 second relative to the rest of the universe, and remain completely out of sight? The Daleks and Time Lords were literally ripping all of space and time apart with their weapons, and all of the things listed here would seem pretty minor to them!

Bonus Question: Assuming the Independence Day ship isn't immediately blown apart, which ship do you think could hack it the quickest? I assume most of the ships here have post-1990s MacBook technology.

[OmegaChief]

Bonus Question: Assuming the Independence Day ship isn't immediately blown apart, which ship do you think could hack it the quickest? I assume most of the ships here have post-1990s MacBook technology.

My bet would be on the nBSG Cylons, they have a habit of starting engagements by trying to hack things after all.

Speaking of things that could withstand Dalek firepower though, what about the Doomsday Machine? Isn't it made of pure neutronium or something? It strikes me that if anything could survive extermination class firepower it'd be that.

Side note: Given Macross 7 is there, how will the various forces deal with the incredible J-Rock powers of Fire Bomber

[Tribble]

Speaking of things that could withstand Dalek firepower though, what about the Doomsday Machine? Isn't it made of pure neutronium or something? It strikes me that if anything could survive extermination class firepower it'd be that.

While the Doomsday machine was immune to a Constitution-class's weapons, that's not saying much when you compare it to many of the ships here. And the Doomsday machine has a huge weakness; all it takes to completely disable it is a 97 megaton fusion explosion in its mouth. Suffice to say a Dalek planet-destroying missile has a more than sufficient yield to accomplish that task, even if the outer hull for some reason can't be penetrated.

[Simon_Jester]

Be interesting to see a 'fully armed' Doomsday Machine. My impression based on what I've read in the commentary is that the Doomsday Machine was originally supposed to have all sorts of secondary weapons and stuff attached to its hull, the implication being that this particular Doomsday Machine was very old and had lost all this equipment and been badly damaged prior to the events of Star Trek.

It's highly unlikely that everyone would gang up on the Daleks right away. The Daleks may be the first to start firing, but as others have noted they wouldn't be the only ones. The Daleks are likely to target the other ships of their universe first as they would see them as the biggest threat. Even if the other Dr. Who ships get off a warning (or depending on the Time lord ship's capabilities put up a fight) everyone else is probably going to be too busy to pay attention at first, let alone coordinate their actions. Plus the Dalek ships are always capable of retreating to pretty much anywhere in the system within seconds if they feel they are being overwhelmed (OPs rules would allow for the Daleks to use the time vortex to travel anywhere within the area provided that they remained in the same time period).

I honestly think the Imperium ships from 40k would at least stop to try and figure out which of the ships have humans aboard, or work out some kind of a threat evaluation. Yes, purge the xenos, but they don't always purge xenos before finding out who and what those xenos are.

I'm not sure which other factions would open fire instinctively and rapidly. The key point is that the Daleks would very obviously be the nastiest ship to open fire instinctively, and that the Time Lord ship is presumably survivable against them and would at least have time to yell a warning.

Bonus Question: Assuming the Independence Day ship isn't immediately blown apart, which ship do you think could hack it the quickest? I assume most of the ships here have post-1990s MacBook technology.

One of the AI ships, definitely. Not sure which. Are there any from Schlock Mercenary? Petey would think that was... deeply cute.

Second bonus question: which of the ships couldn't hack the Independence Day ship.

[Batman]

The ISS.

[Enigma]

The ISS.

Good thing it isn't a ship.

[Batman]

It's on the chart therefore it's in

[Enigma]

It's on the chart therefore it's in

Still, if Jeff Goldblum could hack it with his MacBook, the folks in ISS should be able to with more powerful laptops.

[Gavinfoxx]

Petey from Schlock Mercenary, like a ROU or LOU from The Culture or a warship from the Galactic Patrol from The Lensmen, are thankfully not on the chart.

[Ahriman238]

The timeship from Voyager's "Year of Hell" is there, the first things they fire on will be erased from existence. Hopefully the Daleks or the Borg. Mind, one of those Super Star Desroyers has a superlaser of it's own that will pretty much end anything it's pointed at.

[Simon_Jester]

A Patrol ship from Lensman isn't going to be hacking anything; its electronics are vacuum tube-based.

Although don't count them out because of that; they have a nasty habit of grappling you with tractors and hitting you over the head with a broadside of gigaton-range primary beams. And if you don't grapple them with tractors right back you can't hit them worth a damn with anything other than FTL weapons, because the momentum transfer will bat their ship away before it has time to penetrate the shields while they're under inertialess drive.

[NecronLord]

The timeship from Voyager's "Year of Hell" is there, the first things they fire on will be erased from existence. Hopefully the Daleks or the Borg. Mind, one of those Super Star Desroyers has a superlaser of it's own that will pretty much end anything it's pointed at.

If there's anyone that will recognize the danger, it's the Time Lords.

But if there's two people that will recognize the danger it's the Time Lords and the Daleks.