The Garden of Kadesh in the Delta Quadrant

[Junghalli]

Junghalli's calcs are probably about right. It's stated the fighter-caliber guns in HW1 have a velocity of nearly 10 km/s in the manual and larger gauss weapons have higher possible firepower.

I didn't do those calculations, Darth Smiley did.

[MJ12 Commando]

Junghalli's calcs are probably about right. It's stated the fighter-caliber guns in HW1 have a velocity of nearly 10 km/s in the manual and larger gauss weapons have higher possible firepower.

I didn't do those calculations, Darth Smiley did.

Well, whoopsie, and apologies to Darth Smiley.

[Stark]

I'm genuinely curious, Stark. If game mechanics and .shp files can't give you any useful data, and you discount cutscenes because they don't jive with the in-game mechanics, what, if anything, do you use to try and quantify HW? Or are you saying it just shouldn't be tried because of the inherent contradictions?

For me, (with no official standing whatsoever on the issue) I'd put cutscene canon above pretty much anything we see in-game, and work from there.

The .shp files are fine, if verified. Looking at some data files that probably went through a dozen rebalances before shipping and where 'game balance' and 'hitpoint dynamics' were far more important to the coders that 'lol megatonnes' and deciding that is the most valid source for anything is dumb. The example of the hopelessly inaccurate FS2 techroom springs to mind: trumped easily by both cutscene and ingame performance.

Like Nitram says, cutscenes are usually the best indicator, as 'game balance' doesn't detract from them. In HW's case this means they exile people in sublight ships (if I remember the cutscene right) which is pretty retarded, though. You're still left with the sad fact that they're not necessarily consistent enough to analyse.

Smiley, if you think getting figures off explicitly non-newtonian physics is the same as measuring the Death Star explosion, you're an idiot. You can't take something explicitly non-scientific where physics explicitly doesn't apply and then apply science to get the nice big numbers you love. PS, dialog *IS* a worthless source, try again.

Your word-substitution is so obviously stupid it boggles the mind. You clearly didn't understand my point: inconsistent or unscientific sources cannot be analysed, no matter how much you want to wank Homeworld. Ingame data is almost ALWAYS useless, and in a game with fixed top speeds where the engines burn constantly during movement, well...

I'll agree that any calculations are order of magnitude estimates at best. sketchy, but it is the only thing to go on. No movies, no novels, just the game and the manuals. The projectile mass, acceleration, and muzzle velocity are just guesses. But they are what is most supported by the game and the manuals, and in absence of an other information, I think the it is reasonable to conclude that that HW fighter kinetic weapons dish out approximately 1e9 joules, give or take an order of magnitude or two.

I simply can't believe this. They're 'order of magnitude estimates', based almost entirely on 'guesses'?

Any science fiction debate is going to run into contradictory evidence or simply wrong science. Homeworld is no less guilty. I am simply trying to get some kind of standard for comparison in real world units.

Based almost entirely on blind acceptance of .shp files and game mechanics then adding a whole pile of guesses. Excuse me while I doubt this as an accurate approach.

Why can't people just accept than in many cases - ESPECIALLY when we're talking game-only universes - it's just not consistent enough for analysis? This isn't a new thing: arguing comicbook shit is inane for largely this reason. If the source information isn't consistent enough to lead to a conclusion, you can't just paint on guesses until it is.

[SirNitram]

Probably because there's consistancy, Stark. Swarmers do not go from completely dominating Exile fighters to being useless and slower in either cutscenes or game mechanics, to give one example.

[Stark]

SirNitram
Like I said, I'm not saying it's totally unknowable at all - just that distilling assumptions into guesses and getting a neat number is foolish and misleading. The method used was poor. Sure, the swarmers are really agile, short-range fighters. The specific equations used, however, are extremely provisional. From what you say (since I haven't played HW1 in a looong time) some of the swarmer's best acceleration is shown in cutscenes anyway.

Does this mean we can run propulsion analysis based on a game with top speeds? Not really. And the whole firepower estimate was such a stream of guesses (right from 5% volume for ammo) that I can't understand why anyone would accept it. Why not scale the projectiles themselves? I dimly recall the bomber weapons having a yield listed (however much it was incompatible with ingame effects). I think it's a little dishonest to usea pile of made-up stuff with silly game mechanics to get a number which you will then present to someone in debate. Homeworld has the unfortunate combination of heaps of wank and nothing outside the games.

Not saying their wank-tech is bad or wrong, of course: just that it invites lazy analysis. However little sense the story makes in a galaxy with '10 minutes to heavy cruiser' technology...

[Darth Smiley]

where 'game balance' and 'hitpoint dynamics' were far more important to the coders that 'lol megatonnes'

And how is this different from anything in a movie or a show (and some books, for that matter?). Fictional sources are inherently unscientific.

where 'dramatic effect' and 'the plot'' were far more important to the writers that 'lol megatonnes'

How many places can we find in Star Trek were the writers decided to totally ignore the laws of physics? And yet we keep debating.

inconsistent or unscientific sources cannot be analysed

Of course you can't get real, scientific answers from the few crumbs of data the writers/coders unintentionally drop. And yet analyze them anyway. Out of incredible boredom and nerdiness, its somehow amusing. If you don't want to try and take nonsense numbers and make some sense of them, then please, go find some other thread to troll.

If you do, then come up with a better estimate. I came up with a really rough guess, if you don't like it, come with a better one.

[Darth Smiley]

ghetto edit: and yet we analyze them anyway

[Stark]

And how is this different from anything in a movie or a show (and some books, for that matter?). Fictional sources are inherently unscientific.

So ignore or rationalise the bad data and fall back on the good data. Where is your good data, again? We know (for instance) that the non-newtonian physics are complete bunk, which calls into question everything the game files say about propulsion. Where's the good data?

How many places can we find in Star Trek were the writers decided to totally ignore the laws of physics? And yet we keep debating.

Yeah, we say 'it's unscientific so lets accept it anyway'. Oh, actually, we rationalise around it and refer to the bulk of evidence for a consensus. And not, you know, cherry-picking the biggest numbers and adding enough guesses to plug into an equation and calling that 'analysis'.

Of course you can't get real, scientific answers from the few crumbs of data the writers/coders unintentionally drop. And yet analyze them anyway. Out of incredible boredom and nerdiness, its somehow amusing. If you don't want to try and take nonsense numbers and make some sense of them, then please, go find some other thread to troll.

If you do, then come up with a better estimate. I came up with a really rough guess, if you don't like it, come with a better one.

What? You admit the numbers you generate based on GUESSING and ASSUMPTION aren't good, but oh well who cares? It's dishonest! If you don't have enough information to come to a conclusion, DON'T! Don't say 'aw yeah the guns are x energy' when you actually don't know that at all, and you just manufactured those numbers from your guesses!

It appalls me that you think guessing and making unreliable numbers is a better approach than saying 'there is not enough reliable information'. Solid numbers require solid evidence. Clearly I should manufacture absurdly high power-levels from, say, Blake's 7 - all it takes is a snippet of dialogue or text and a whole pile of guesses!

Thanks for ignoring 80% of my post, and completely cutting out the main thrust. That shows you're much more honest than me. Tentative information *can* be gained from game-only sources, even older games like Homeworld. That *doesn't* mean it makes sense to just fill in the blanks with complete fabrications to get 'numbers'.

[Darth Smiley]

Stark, you seem to think that I'm saying that Swarmer guns definitely dish out 1e9 joules. I'm not. Its a range of possibility. We can be pretty sure that based on the little information there is, a swarmer gun doesn't do 1e12 joules (small nuke) or more, but also not 1e6 joules (hand grenade) or less.

Where did I go and 'cherry pick' the 'biggest numbers'? If you find something in the game or one of the manuals, that gives different numbers for projectile velocity or mass, lemme know.

And there is a point in getting a number. "1e9 joules give or take an order of magnitude or two" gives us a range of damage from 10,000,000 joules (a little more than a 120mm tank gun) to 100,000,000,000 joules (2 MOABs). It gives context. Yes, the exact numbers were BS, but the point of an estimate isn't to give an exact number, its to give us a starting point for comparison.

Back to the OP, does anyone have any info on how well Trek shields and armor do against KE weapons? SirNitram implies that they don't do well, but I haven't seen the show that much, and I can't find anything on how well Trek handles impacts of any kind.

[Stark]

You seemed to be couching your guess-based estimates in pretty definate language. If you're just going for tentative estimates, I don't have a problem with that. I'm still very dubious how taking SOME ingame stuff (ie speeds) and not others (ie unremarkable impact explosions, no model damage) is consistent approach, though.

Homeworld debating in the 90s has clearly damaged my perspecitve.

ST shields have demonstrated extremely poor performance against physical impacts, but this is usually shown in larger impactors. I can't recall anyone in ST who uses HW-style mass drivers (everyone seems to use particle beams). Certainly their hulls don't handle physical impacts very well either (torp overpenetration, cut in half by Jem Hadar ships etc) - in an energetic nebula like the Garden the ST shield probably won't work anyway.

[Adrian Laguna]

Like Nitram says, cutscenes are usually the best indicator, as 'game balance' doesn't detract from them. In HW's case this means they exile people in sublight ships (if I remember the cutscene right) which is pretty retarded, though.

You do but you don't. The Exile ships are shown in a sub-light convoy. However, the ship that arrived at Kharak had a working hyper-space drive, which was reversed engineered for the Mothership. We also know that their method of FTL can only go so far before it needs to drop to STL and recharge. Thus, the Exiles did have the ability to move supra-light and the cut-scenes show them moving along at sub-light while their drives charge.

[Stark]

Yeah, I just remember the bit of the cutscene where the Kharak guys' ship turns off from the convoy. I know they had a hyperdrive, but many, many games have convoys in settings where it doesn't make sense (like FreeSpace).

[Vanas]

I'm never very coherent in a debate, so bear with me.

A thought regarding speed: Kushan fighters and frigates are presumably capable of getting to orbit and back. Which means that they must be capable of over 11,000m/s IIRC. Swarmers are notably faster.

Weapons-wise, the larger ships can't be discounted. I recall Nitram having estimated a conventional Ion cannon as delivering the equivalent of 3 megatons a second. The Needleships mount at least two of these a piece and there are at least four of them. The multi-beams have beams at about 2/3 of the power, but about three times the firing time. They'd make a nice cookie cutter effect on large blocks of flying tinfoil.

As well as the nebula's sensor wibbling effect, the Needleships have their own hyperspace disrupting field (Gravity? Quantum™? Technobabble?), which, given Trek sensors noted ability to crap out whenever the detect something odd, might have an effect.

Nitram: The Swarmer might not have left a thruster trail when circling the ambassador corvette, but if the ports on the 'wing' aren't manoeuvring thrusters, I'll eat my hat.

Stark: Correct me if I'm wrong, but the majority of HW weapons appear to be designed to pierce armour, whether they be bombs, rail-rounds or missiles. That might explain the lack of large explosions and the fact that a heavily damaged ship bursts out in fires and leaks all over. Just a thought.

[MJ12 Commando]

Vanas-from what I recall of the HW1 manual, gravitic generators were the method of choice for stopping hyperspace jumps.

Thus it's probably a gravity generator like the one in the gravwells.

[Darth Smiley]

And I might add: the Kadesh have multibeam frigates... 4 ion cannons ftw!

[Darth Smiley]

Ghetto edit: sorry, didn't see the part where Vanas talked about MBFs.

[Vanas]

Vanas-from what I recall of the HW1 manual, gravitic generators were the method of choice for stopping hyperspace jumps.

Thus it's probably a gravity generator like the one in the gravwells.

Possible, but Fleet Intelligence only tells us that

The enemy Mothership appeared to be equipped with a powerful field generator. This field deformed our quantum wavefront and prevented us from making a hyperspace jump.

They're capable of working out if it's got a gravity field, as we see with the Ghost Ship later. Might be sensor interference, might be a different kind of field on the Kadeshi Needle.

[SirNitram]

I doubt the Field Generator is gravitational, but that really doesn't matter. Consider the chaos that powerful EM and other fields cause on Treknology.

[Teleros]

A few quotes from the HW1 manual on my CD. Be warned: some of it is... silly...

The next step was to construct the orbiting Scaffold where the Mothership would be built. This framework took 10 years to complete, and is the single largest structure ever built. New disciplines in macro-engineering had to be created and put into practice just to complete this construction yard. The Scaffold runs 25.6 kilometers long, and is stationed in middle orbit around our world. Easily visible from the planet’s surface...

Images here, with the Mothership docked in one screenshot. I wouldn't be surprised if this doesn't quite match up with in-game visuals though...

The massive honeycomb of storage shells, (almost 3 cubic kilometers of storage space) lies just under the surface of 65% of the Mothership’s hull.

The storage space for raw materials used in constructing ships.

With the technology tested and perfected, engineers began filling the cryonic hold with the 600,000 pods that would be required for the voyage.
...
In the event of a total power failure in the hold, and spontaneous malfunction of all auxiliary fusion pylons, this system will still support its frozen occupants for six months if the insulated walls of the hold are not breached.
...
The cryonic vault stretches for three kilometers and is almost a kilometer across.

Details of the cryogenic suspension used in the Mothership.

All small vessels are based on the same ducted fusion torch drive which moves the Mothership through normal space, but on a much smaller scale. Fighter and Corvette drives are so small that they must carry onboard reactive mass to be passed through the fusion torch and ejected as relativistic plasma.

Starship STL drives.

These Ion Beam weapons, as they have come to be known, are currently based on the principle of firing streams of positive ions from a particle accelerator.

Pretty much speaks for itself.

The lack of atmospheric friction allows for high speed projectiles to be fired by magnetic acceleration. Currently, space-based cannons use cylinders of heavy elements, covered in a superconductive shell and fired from a fairly simple magnetic accelerator known as a mass driver. Speeds of almost 10,000 meters per second are possible...

The speed of mass driver projectiles. Ten times the top speed (urgh!) of a scout, the fastest in-game unit.

Presently, combat vessels are equipped with an initial ablative layer designed to vaporize instantly at the point of contact with either kinetic or beam weapons. The high-speed cloud of vapor serves to either deflect the rest of an armor piercing round, or cause interference with a particle beam and dissipate its power. Beneath this ablative layer is a thin, power absorbing layer. And finally, the last layer protecting a ship is a thick Crystal polymer composite, interwoven with advanced ceramics. This armor is the strongest material we have yet developed, but it is capable of flexing under extreme impacts. Cockpits are double layered with this kinetic armor.

The armour used on the Mothership etc. Haven't played the game so can't remember quite how things are upgraded though.

While researching electromagnetic ram-scoops, a Kushan scientist stumbled across a process by which intense fields could wrap photons around an object and render it invisible. Because the ratio between the size of the field and the mass of the generator kept the effect minimal, it was considered nothing more than a scientific curiosity. This was until a research team discovered that a generator large enough to emit electromagnetic fields just strong enough to render a Fighter invisible could be mounted on a Fighter chassis.

How the Kushan cloaking field works. Not exactly foolproof, given that you can detect cloaked ships with powerful enough sensors in-game. Dunno how effective it'd be against Trek sensors though: they rely on more than just EM effects, but at the same time they've proven easy to fool, upset and whatnot...

The defense field is actually an extremely low frequency EM transmitter - ‘mass wave’ being the common name for extremely low frequency, high amplitude EM radiation. To broadcast waves with enough energy to block a cannon round, but at a low enough frequency to match that of the round's mass wave required extensive research and testing by Taiidan scientists. The system that was devised is so bulky that it could only be fitted on a Frigate chassis. It is never built into larger ships because of interference with other ship’s systems. Special modification needed to be made to the drive systems of the Frigate chassis to make it possible to bear the distinctive white drum of the transmitting antenna.

The technobabble behind the defence field the Taiidan use.

One of the benefits of a larger Fighter frame is the ability to modify a Strike Craft to carry powerful directed energy payloads. The plasma bomb system draws high-energy plasma from the Fighter’s fusion torch drive and vents it into a small magnetic containment sphere mounted aboard a direct fire missile. The plasma venting occurs in the split second between the pilot firing the bomb and the bomb actually leaving its cradle. Upon impact with the target, the bomb’s containment sphere ruptures and releases the near-fusion plasma in a single massive burst. While the missile is unable to accurately target fast-moving Strike Craft, it can be devastating to slower-moving Capital Ships.
...
When scientists tried applying plasma bomb launcher technology to the larger Corvette hulls, they accessed a more powerful fusion drive that allowed them to experiment with the size of the plasma bomb containment field and new deployment methods. The development of super-dense plasma injectors made it possible to create a mine dispenser that would fit inside a Corvette hull and still be able to produce dozens of small plasma warheads designed to detonate on near contact with enemy hulls.

How the plasma bombs and mines work - solid projectiles containing plasma from the ship's engines.

And saving the best for last... ship masses & top speeds...

Name: Mass (tons); max speed
Scout: 40; 1000m/s
Interceptor: 60; 875m/s
Bomber: 90; 700m/s

Light Corvette: 400; 575m/s
Heavy Corvette: 750; 350m/s
Minelayer Corvette: 900; 425m/s

Assault Frigate: 45,000; 325m/s
Drone Frigate: 60,000; 325m/s
Defence Field Frigate: 53,000; 325m/s

Destroyer: 185,000; 315m/s
Carrier: 600,000; 300m/s
Heavy Cruiser: 800,000; 190m/s

Mothership: 5 million; 50m/s

Whilst some of the descriptions of the technologies might be useful for this, I'm tempted to simply ignore most of the actual figures given half the time, because they're just ridiculous - a ship that supposedly dwarfs the Executor is weighing in at just 5 million tons !

[Ryan Thunder]

I've measured the mothership using the game's movement system, and its barely a kilometre and a half tall. How the hell is it supposed to dwarf the Executor?

[Stark]

Remember the Total Annihilation manual? How it said they froze lasers in time, then shot the frozen space-time at the enemy? Yeah.

[MJ12 Commando]

I've measured the mothership using the game's movement system, and its barely a kilometre and a half tall. How the hell is it supposed to dwarf the Executor?

He measured it using the Scaffold, which was stated to be 25 km tall in the manual.

[Stark]

And how big does that make the fighters again?

Then again, Starcraft guys say scaling ingame is messed, so maybe everything in Homeworld 'looks' a different size to it's 'real' size!

[Ryan Thunder]

I haven't measured it, but its unlikely that there's a significant difference.

Mind you, this was the HW2 Mothership.

[Ryan Thunder]

Then again, Starcraft guys say scaling ingame is messed, so maybe everything in Homeworld 'looks' a different size to it's 'real' size!

That's... possible...