nBSG Force Sub: Choose a new Galactica

[Darth Onasi]

Of course, if you replace Galactica with Pegasus, the cylons computer-rape it, unless Adama's been going around ripping out networking cables.

It survived well enough until Lee kamikazed it into a Basestar didn't it?
Besides the Galactica wasn't entirely immune to Cylon hacking either.

I got the impression that the cylons überhacking wouldn't have been so über if they hadn't infiltrated them and put backdoors in the software to begin with. From what I remember of the pegasus episodes they where in dry dock for upgrades when the shit hit the fan, which to me suggests they didn't have the time to be compromised with faulty software.

That's how I understood it; the Galactica had the Command Navigation Program but no networked computers, the Pegasus had networked computers but no CNP yet.
In any case the surviving Viper VIIs all had their software retrograded so even if the Pegasus did have it, given enough time they would have purged it.

[tim31]

I thought I recalled lines from Razor in which Kendra Shaw and team have found the backdoor and countered it as per Cain's orders.

[Crazedwraith]

I thought I recalled lines from Razor in which Kendra Shaw and team have found the backdoor and countered it as per Cain's orders.

You did. Pegasus had the CNP but no active networks, they were shut down due to refit.

During the aftermath of the attack Kendra finds the back doors gets rid of the CNP but also recommends Pegasus doesn't bring her networks back online due to possibility of hacking.

[Venator]

^ What Crazedwraith said; all in all, Pegasus got pretty lucky - if they hadn't been down for refit, they'd have gotten slagged. If the Cylon's hadn't sent a Six aboard with their Centurions, Shaw probably wouldn't have realized what was going on... and they'd have gotten slagged.

[Darth Onasi]

Ah yes, got a bit mixed up there.
Pegasus sure was a lucky ship.. till Lee got his fat, grubby fingers on it! Damn you Lee! Damn you straight to Hades! Richard Hatch would kick your butt!!!! AAAHHH!!

... wow I have issues.

[Crazedwraith]

Does "Same Size as Galactica" count for external dimensions or internal? Would using the TARDIS be a bit cheeky? The can probably fit 50 thousand people in its depths somewhere and then just zip them where in time and space they'd like to go. Straight to Earth in a time period of their choosing.

[NecronLord]

Does "Same Size as Galactica" count for external dimensions or internal? Would using the TARDIS be a bit cheeky? The can probably fit 50 thousand people in its depths somewhere and then just zip them where in time and space they'd like to go. Straight to Earth in a time period of their choosing.

I thought of that one, yeah. I was counting its 'moon sized dimensions.' That probably also does for the Xeelee ship. And the Culture one to a lesser degree.

[The Romulan Republic]

I'll agree with everyone who said "World Devestator," with one point of clarification: how big is one of those things? Would it fit withing the sizes allowed?

The ISD seems like an appealing choice, but I agree with whoever pointed out earlier that it would run out of supplies. Its supposed to carry stuff for what, 6 months, if I recall correctly?

Ideal would be a ship that can either win much faster than Galactica, or can go a long time (multiple years) without refuling. Not sure what Star Wars ships, or sci-fi ships in general, if that bill.

What about Voyager? They did ok on their own for seven years in hostile space and the ship seems to be sturdier than the Enterprise D, but with the smaller crew size and poor Federation computer security, I'm thinking any large boarding party will fuck them hard. Also, I doubt a ship that small can supply the colonial fleet nearly as well as Galactica did.

[Darth Onasi]

The thing about Voyager is that it survived entirely due to writer's fiat. The thing should've ended up like the Equinox and not suped up with batmobile armour by the end.

[Batman]

As per WEG's (now obviously defunct) DE source book World Devastators CAN be in the right size range (or at the very least start out there) what with Inquisitor-4 being 1400 by 700 metres. If that has been retconned and/or exceeds the Galactica's dimensions by a considerable margin by all means disregard, but I THOUGHT that was roughly within the bucket's overall size.

[Straha]

The PROBLEM is that I don't think they can support a fleet of 50,000 or so people for a long time. Galactica for example had to recycle most of the fleets water supply for them. While I'm sure Voyagers engineering teams could, eventually, retrofit the fleet with far more efficient life support systems, that will take TIME, time they just don't have.

I don't think it'd take that much difficulty. I'm no Star Trek expert but we've seen the transporter pull off some amazing things in controlled circumstances, why not just beam over the fleet's dirty water and then only beam H2O back to the fleet. It'd take five or ten minutes to do, and you could rotate through the fleet daily making sure they were stocked up on water. Also lets you restock the ships from orbit with fresh water if you ever find a planet with ocean surfaces on it (we know they can beam water out as they did it in ST IV IIRC.)

[Netko]

Another vote for the Kuun-Lan - unlike most of the mentioned ships, it is explicitly designed to be a fleet support ship (among other functions), and even if we dial down the build speeds to cutscene times (days for frigate-level ships, weeks at most for destroyers and up), its still a case of "Oh look an asteroid field! Oh look a new capital ship group escorted with heavy flak frigate escort!". What's more, it can offer something most other proposed ships can't - a new civilian fleet for the rest, so that they can spend the trip in comfort or in stasis, depending on choice - that should mitigate the need for a luddite ending.

About the only thing that is a potential downside is that Homeworld ships employ extreme automation (which is also a good thing in that it mitigates the need for crappy jobs). Although realistically, the Cylons shouldn't be able to just hack something with a completely different computer architecture even with their magic-hacking abilities, there is that concern.

It's also a nice conceptual replacement in that it isn't that horrendously overpowered (aside from the build-times of course) then the nBSG universe - other good replacements like Andromeda (also a case of "Oh look, an asteroid field! Oh look, lots of new goodies!", but on a more limited scale) or anything from the Cultureverse simply employ hilariously-overkill firepower compared to nBSG.

[Bounty]

The size of the big G:
From http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/Galac ... battlestar

Length 4640 feet (1414m)
Width 1821 feet (555m) [pod to pod while extended]
Height 581 feet (177m)

I tried scaling from the launch tubes on the Zoic render and those figures just don't add up. 2 km is closer to what's needed to make the Vipers fit with the least bit of clearance. Of course, if thos numbers are official, so be it.

[Vanas]

I mean, even without the stupidly awesome research capabilities, the sheer industrial power of the Kuun-Lan (without game-balance limitations) means that within a couple months (Ha! Weeks more likely!) the Colonials will be kicking in the door with a shiny new fleet of dreadnoughts.

The Kushan also have convenient cryo-tech. Save resources and evade angst by freezing your rag-tag crews and recycle their ships into block of armour with enough room to fit a limited crew section in it.

IIRC, Homeworld fusion missiles are about ICBM sized, so I doubt they'd get past the raiders, which means Somtaaw's Dreadnoughts would be lacking a bit in firepower. Then again, the paper-thin basestar armour probably won't stand up to the Ions well, though I'd be worried about Kushan railguns going through them compared to Galactica's apparent explosive shells.

The main problem I see there is that compared to Raiders, Homeworld fighter craft are huge and unmanoeuvrable (though possibly having higher acceleration?), though the Sentinels/Defenders would be quite nasty there as they pull of the same 'turn on the spot' thing frequently.

EDIT: Considering the Kushan's prolictivity for Salvage Corvettes which do, amongst other things, pump the other ship's computers full of viruses, I'd imagine that even if the Cylons did know about Kushan computers, they're better defended than the Colonials.

[Hawkwings]

Presumably, the Hiigaran's (and other factions) computer firewalls and whatnot got so good that in HW2, they went back to boarding ships with marines because the viruses weren't working.

As for fightercraft... Trawling the Relic forums has turned up an answer of about 20 meters long for the HW2 interceptor. Here is some scaling.

[Crossroads Inc.]

As for fightercraft... Trawling the Relic forums has turned up an answer of about 20 meters long for the HW2 interceptor. Here is some scaling.

Wow does that bring back memories! I remeber that thread.. The consensus was basically the "Units" of HW-1 were "feet" and th measurements of HW-2 were in meters.

[Grasscutter]

I must confess, I wasn't a big BSG fan. B4 is 7.5km long, so if that makes it too big, I capitulate and submit for your approval The SDF-1

I'll see your SDF-1 and raise you a dedicated fleet defender: the New Macross-class transformable battle carrier.

The SDF-1 would probably perform better than a New Macross class in Galactica's place. We know for certain that the SDF-1 has dedicated manufacturing facilities while the New Macross fleets seemed to rely on Three Star factory ships. More importantly, the SDF-1 has capacity to house the ENTIRE Colonial population and then some (at its height the SDF-1 was home to 58,000 civilians plus 20,000 crew. Hell, they even had room for a small stadium).

Plus, according to some fan estimates I've seen the SDF-1 has significantly more firepower than a New Macross since its primary role is a battleship as opposed to a fleet command/carrier. Not sure how they compare in terms of fighter wings but they both outstrip the number of Vipers Galactica held (SDF-1 had 300+ fighters, in addition to whatever the ARMDs/Daedalus and Prometheus held).

[Vanas]

As for fightercraft... Trawling the Relic forums has turned up an answer of about 20 meters long for the HW2 interceptor. Here is some scaling.

Wow does that bring back memories! I remeber that thread.. The consensus was basically the "Units" of HW-1 were "feet" and th measurements of HW-2 were in meters.

Using the measurements in feet, a Kushan Interceptor's about 17 and a half metres long, about twice the BSG wiki's stated length for either the Raider or Viper. The Somtaaw Acolyte from what I recall is a little shorter than the Interceptor, but significantly bulkier. They'll certainly be big, rather unmanoeuvrable targets for Raiders. On the other hand, they've got the armour to take a fair bit of fire and 30-odd G of acceleration compared to the Viper and Raider's apparent lower acceleration. (Anyone got numbers for that? I don't really recall Vipers appearing to ever move or accelerate that fast relative to their motherships.)

[NetKnight]

On the other hand, they've got the armour to take a fair bit of fire and 30-odd G of acceleration compared to the Viper and Raider's apparent lower acceleration. (Anyone got numbers for that? I don't really recall Vipers appearing to ever move or accelerate that fast relative to their motherships.)

IIRC, Adama mentions a figure of 7 g for the Mk 2 Viper in the weight room scene of "The Hand of God".

[Darth Onasi]

Here's a thought: How would the original Battlestar Galactica and it's Vipers fare in the nBSG scenario?
Are there any official numbers/calcs on it's firepower?

[Crazedwraith]

On the other hand, they've got the armour to take a fair bit of fire and 30-odd G of acceleration compared to the Viper and Raider's apparent lower acceleration. (Anyone got numbers for that? I don't really recall Vipers appearing to ever move or accelerate that fast relative to their motherships.)

IIRC, Adama mentions a figure of 7 g for the Mk 2 Viper in the weight room scene of "The Hand of God".

6 G. And that was from a hard turn to avoid missiles rather than just acceleration.

[NetKnight]

On the other hand, they've got the armour to take a fair bit of fire and 30-odd G of acceleration compared to the Viper and Raider's apparent lower acceleration. (Anyone got numbers for that? I don't really recall Vipers appearing to ever move or accelerate that fast relative to their motherships.)

IIRC, Adama mentions a figure of 7 g for the Mk 2 Viper in the weight room scene of "The Hand of God".

6 G. And that was from a hard turn to avoid missiles rather than just acceleration.

My mistake. Thanks for the correction.
Regardless, that dialogue seems to indicate that Colonial artificial gravity technology isn't scaled down to serve as 'inertial dampeners' in the Vipers. Simple considerations of pilot survivability would thus make it unlikely that the Vipers commonly pull double digit gravities, much less 30.
Of course, the Raptors do have artificial gravity. I can't recall any stated numbers for them offhand, but they were able to kill their forward velocity and keep ahead of Raiders at the Battle of New Caprica, and given how Scar didn't out-accelerate Starbuck's Viper in the titular episode, it would seem reasonable to conclude that their accelerations are at least comparable to those of fighters (ie, single digit Gs.)

[Solauren]

World Devestators size is quite variable, as they upgrade themselves as they 'grow'. I believe they start out the size of a Corellian Corvette. The largest one, Silencer-7, was big enough to swallow full sized Star Destroyers.

I was thinking; How big is Atlantis? Or an Aurora Class "altarian' starship? (Stargate Atlantis)

How about the Nemesis from the original (+ Beast Wars) Transformers cartoon? That think had shields, and look at what the Arks weapons were capable of doing to an asteroid field.

[Hawkwings]

The drone fighters from the Somtaaw drone control frigate looks to be roughly half (or a bit smaller) the size of the acolyte. Considering that Somtaaw multibeam frigates swat Taiidan and Beast fighters like flies, and have only a bit more trouble tackling hostile drone fighters, all of which have the roughly 30G acceleration, the Cylon fighters are hosed. When the Colonials spot a fighter swarm coming, all they'd need to do is send out a squadron of multibeam frigates with Sentinel escort (for swatting incoming ordinance) and then watch the fancy light show.

Ooh, what about Mimics and Leeches? Those were fun to play with. I kinda doubt Leeches would be too useful, since they do rely on squelching alarms, and they wouldn't necessarily know how to do that in the Cylons' ship systems, but the Mimics could be used to do all sorts of fun stuff.

[NecronLord]

I was thinking; How big is Atlantis?

I've seen it scaled to something like four kilometers, roughly - it started out quite a bit smaller, and then they adjusted the scale to make it seem bigger, though.

Or an Aurora Class "altarian' starship? (Stargate Atlantis)

Unsure. I've seen claims of about 2km, but I'm not sure how they arrived at that figure.