Star Wars vs. Homeworld

[Coalition]

You're an idiot. Not only is this even more hilarious game mechanics (and the incredible lameness of the Homeworld writing) but the entire techbase of the whole galaxy is basically common. It's a bit different for them to reverse engineer turbolasers in 90s with a single asteroid.

One idea might be that the research ships are actually using a copy of the original database that the Hiigarans took with them. So when an enemy uses a certain attack, the research crew looks up data related to the attack in their database (which is why research is free). From there, they find the related information about how to build whatever the tech is, and send that to the Mothership.

So the research ship(s) are actually a bunch of people sitting around, surfing a database when needed, and playing WoW when not. That is why the research ships combine together, bandwidth limits.

IMHO, the Taidan ships should have been much more powerful (they have had 4000 years to advance their tech!). Combine that with a different tech base, and you can only repair Taidan ships with a Taidan Support Frigate (as it has the necessary database). When you finally get access to (capture) a Taidan carrier, you can then build Taidanfighters and Corvettes. For Taidan capital ships though, you still have to capture them to use them.

[Stark]

That's what I meant; they quickly moved up to galactic standard tech, then sat around... then got totally raped by the Vaygr.

[Vanas]

As far as I've seen, the closest thing it's logical to compare HW to is nBSG, as the Empire will utterly curbstomp either the Kushan exiles or the HW2 Hiigarans. Weapons-wise the most advanced pre-launch mass driver the Kushan had threw a 1 ton round at 10km/s, which... isn't really up there with SW levels of firepower (I make it about 10tons of TNT). Presumably the weapons they've deployed on their warships after they've had a good poke around the Taiidan ships are more powerful. IIRC Nitram did some calculations in a previous thread which gave a limit on their firepower of a couple of megatons a second at most.

Research-wise, I like Coalition's idea. My thought was that their magic PDA building thing was pretty much a replicator. Providing we've got the ingredients, we can copy one of these... glowy things with the flashy lights. The research team are there to work out how to make the thing work. This wouldn't give them much hope of copying Star Wars tech, which has far more exotic stuff than the Kushan could ever hope to come up with.

[Connor MacLeod]

If you decide to accept it. You're going to have a hard time convincing me to use a literal 'vaporisation' definition for the 'PHOAR SHIT YEAH THIS IS UBBEBRZZZ' fluff in the manual. If we did that, Starcraft would be pretty ridiculous.

Did you bother reading my post, or did you also skip over it? I specified more than just vaporization of the frigate as being capable of analysis. There's the power generation based on thrust (upper limit capability for weapons), th eion cannon firepower based on recoil (also upper limit), and the mass drivers based on recoil as well (since we have at least one value on velocity and recoil will be an upper limit.) There could be other ways to derive lower limits from the available data but since upper limits suit my purposes and those are just off the top of my head. '

[Connor MacLeod]

Completely irrelevant, but here's a vid of the Hiigarans being completely raped by the Empire in a hybrid mod:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdfcdIar ... ature=fvwp

Granted, the hiigarans did nothing but spam carriers for the ISD to target practice, but I have heard that the people making the Warlords (star wars) mod for Homeworld put a lot of effort into accurately scaling Star Wars weapons to the Homeworld 2 universe.

*sigh* You deserve to be flamed for this you know? How is this supposed to be evidence of anything? It's still in-game and the veracity of the mod is totally unproven. We dont know what data its based off of - for all we know its based off game mechanics stuff from the RPGs, or the X-wing vidoe games or whatever. This also assumes the people in question use similar methods as us when it comes to these sorts of topics, which isn't neccesarily given (hell few people on this very BOARD would put any serious effort into sci fi analysis so why expect complete strangers to?)

[Connor MacLeod]

As far as I've seen, the closest thing it's logical to compare HW to is nBSG, as the Empire will utterly curbstomp either the Kushan exiles or the HW2 Hiigarans. Weapons-wise the most advanced pre-launch mass driver the Kushan had threw a 1 ton round at 10km/s, which... isn't really up there with SW levels of firepower (I make it about 10tons of TNT).

Where did the one ton figure come from? I remember the 10 km/s figure for scout weapons but the nearest I could come to doing calcs based on that was assuming the shells fired were equal to 20-30mm cannon shells (anywhere from 100 grams to maybe a few kg if we are generous and go up to 50mm). That would be a lower limit approximation at best though, since the guns got bigger and drew more power (higher velocities are likely) And the big turrets were frigate sized IIRC. A mass driver shell is gonna rely on more than just KE though to punch through and do damage, since we're talking a physical projectile and not a beam weapon. (not that it matters for SW since they chuck around more powerful projectiles at higher speeds when such weapons ar eused.)

Presumably the weapons they've deployed on their warships after they've had a good poke around the Taiidan ships are more powerful. IIRC Nitram did some calculations in a previous thread which gave a limit on their firepower of a couple of megatons a second at most.

Which would fit in with the upper limits established by power generation.

[Connor MacLeod]

It also just occured to me Stark, that if you are questioning vaporizaiton, do you question SW BDZ calcs when they go "reduce a planet to slag" or SW reactors being like "a small star?" despite the fact they are based on verbal data?

[Crossroads Inc.]

Completely irrelevant, but here's a vid of the Hiigarans being completely raped by the Empire in a hybrid mod:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdfcdIar ... ature=fvwp

Granted, the hiigarans did nothing but spam carriers for the ISD to target practice, but I have heard that the people making the Warlords (star wars) mod for Homeworld put a lot of effort into accurately scaling Star Wars weapons to the Homeworld 2 universe.

*sigh* You deserve to be flamed for this you know?

He DID say "Completely irrelevant" however, the fact that he still posted it, as if it "might" be considered evidence, or some sort of comparison, still speaks volumes of what sort of person we are dealing with... I say this because when the HW2xWarlords mod first came out, and you Couple match up HW2 ships with SW ships... I myself suddenly though "Hey! the ships are relatively properly scaled, and they have all their proper guns, why 'wouldn't" it be a comparable simulation of SW vs HW?"

Of course that was back before I'd learned just how important 'math' was in such debates, and how useless looking at 'game mechanics' can be...

[Theotherguy]

Completely irrelevant, but here's a vid of the Hiigarans being completely raped by the Empire in a hybrid mod:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdfcdIar ... ature=fvwp

Granted, the hiigarans did nothing but spam carriers for the ISD to target practice, but I have heard that the people making the Warlords (star wars) mod for Homeworld put a lot of effort into accurately scaling Star Wars weapons to the Homeworld 2 universe.

*sigh* You deserve to be flamed for this you know? How is this supposed to be evidence of anything? It's still in-game and the veracity of the mod is totally unproven. We dont know what data its based off of - for all we know its based off game mechanics stuff from the RPGs, or the X-wing vidoe games or whatever. This also assumes the people in question use similar methods as us when it comes to these sorts of topics, which isn't neccesarily given (hell few people on this very BOARD would put any serious effort into sci fi analysis so why expect complete strangers to?)

I said it was completely irrelevant.

[Theotherguy]

Completely irrelevant, but here's a vid of the Hiigarans being completely raped by the Empire in a hybrid mod:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdfcdIar ... ature=fvwp

Granted, the hiigarans did nothing but spam carriers for the ISD to target practice, but I have heard that the people making the Warlords (star wars) mod for Homeworld put a lot of effort into accurately scaling Star Wars weapons to the Homeworld 2 universe.

*sigh* You deserve to be flamed for this you know?

He DID say "Completely irrelevant" however, the fact that he still posted it, as if it "might" be considered evidence, or some sort of comparison, still speaks volumes of what sort of person we are dealing with... I say this because when the HW2xWarlords mod first came out, and you Couple match up HW2 ships with SW ships... I myself suddenly though "Hey! the ships are relatively properly scaled, and they have all their proper guns, why 'wouldn't" it be a comparable simulation of SW vs HW?"

Of course that was back before I'd learned just how important 'math' was in such debates, and how useless looking at 'game mechanics' can be...

I love how I post something that I say is completley irrelevant, which I thought was amusing, and on topic, even and I'm accused as being some "sort of person," as if this were evidence for my incompetence in some way.

Yes, I am that sort of person. I am a game developer. I take a lot of pride in balancing the mechanics of my game, and have a great deal of respect for people working in a similar field.

However, that doesn't mean that I think a game is "evidence" for any debate about such nonsense (even though we are talking about a race as is depicted in a VIDEO GAME versus a race that is depicted in a FILM), and indeed, I did say it was completely irrelevant.

[Ghost Rider]

I love how I post something that I say is completley irrelevant, which I thought was amusing, and on topic, even and I'm accused as being some "sort of person," as if this were evidence for my incompetence in some way.

Yes, I am that sort of person. I am a game developer. I take a lot of pride in balancing the mechanics of my game, and have a great deal of respect for people working in a similar field.

However, that doesn't mean that I think a game is "evidence" for any debate about such nonsense (even though we are talking about a race as is depicted in a VIDEO GAME versus a race that is depicted in a FILM), and indeed, I did say it was completely irrelevant.

Thank you for repeating it.

Connor has a point, but here's another.

IT IS FUCKING SPAM.

So anything else to add, or do I press the lock button because this is yet another attempt to get a debate but never do the research behind said opponents.

[fgalkin]

I love how I post something that I say is completley irrelevant, which I thought was amusing, and on topic, even and I'm accused as being some "sort of person," as if this were evidence for my incompetence in some way.

Yes, I am that sort of person. I am a game developer. I take a lot of pride in balancing the mechanics of my game, and have a great deal of respect for people working in a similar field.

However, that doesn't mean that I think a game is "evidence" for any debate about such nonsense (even though we are talking about a race as is depicted in a VIDEO GAME versus a race that is depicted in a FILM), and indeed, I did say it was completely irrelevant.

There is an entire forum here for Games, including computer games. You are more than encouraged to contribute there. Here, however, is not the place for that.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Simon_Jester]

Since this debate has apparently happened before, does anyone have a link to one of those earlier threads?

[Samuel]

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... +homeworld

That help? Otherwise:
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/search.php ... t&start=25

[Stark]

It also just occured to me Stark, that if you are questioning vaporizaiton, do you question SW BDZ calcs when they go "reduce a planet to slag" or SW reactors being like "a small star?" despite the fact they are based on verbal data?

There's a difference between picking a single source of questionable reliability (manual fluff vs ingame vs cutscene is pretty much personal choice for 90% of games) with non-specific language that flies in the face of other sources, and a statement that agrees with other sources, inferences, analysis, etc. Frankly, SW reactors being like 'a small star' is a) meaningless and b) not necessary to establish SW power generation.

Saying 'the manual is correct and my interpretation of this commonly misused word is correct and everything else in HW is wrong' is just bullshit. It might be an irreconcilable mess, but that doesn't mean we say '100% vaporised = xyz meganumber'. If you're down to relying on such things, it's not looking good for meaningful analysis especially in a vs context.

It doesn't help that ships in Homeworld are literally made of dirt.

[Vanas]

Where did the one ton figure come from? I remember the 10 km/s figure for scout weapons but the nearest I could come to doing calcs based on that was assuming the shells fired were equal to 20-30mm cannon shells (anywhere from 100 grams to maybe a few kg if we are generous and go up to 50mm). That would be a lower limit approximation at best though, since the guns got bigger and drew more power (higher velocities are likely) And the big turrets were frigate sized IIRC. A mass driver shell is gonna rely on more than just KE though to punch through and do damage, since we're talking a physical projectile and not a beam weapon. (not that it matters for SW since they chuck around more powerful projectiles at higher speeds when such weapons ar eused.)

Ah, after digging out the disc, the 1 ton figure's not mentioned, my apologies. It's been a while since I've looked. Here's the exact passage from the manual:

In space, the principles remain the same but the implications are far deadlier. The lack of atmospheric friction allows for high speed projectiles to be fired by magnetic acceleration. 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, and there are plans for larger ship’s guns that could fire much larger projectiles. Currently, fighters carry small rapid-fire mass drivers in a multiple rotating barrel configuration

The accompanying picture appears to show the Mothership's point defence guns. While I wouldn't attempt to quantify the size of them, they look to me to be on a similar scale to the Death Star turbolasers.

May not be useful, makes for a nice look at the guns though.

[Simon_Jester]

Size matters not; a World War-era heavy AA emplacement is also about the same size as the Death Star turbolasers, but many orders of magnitude less destructive.

Re: Links Samuel posted
Thank you.

[Surlethe]

Wait, why are we allowed to dismiss every single bit of in-game visual in every game as "game mechanics"? That may be fine when it's Starcraft and you have gigantic battlecruisers that are in length only four times the height of Marines, but it seems to me that you ought to make a new determination as to what's arbitrary and what's consistent for each game you examine. Are the in-game visuals in Homeworld really so inconsistent and nonsensical as to make them entirely worthless for analysis?

[Stark]

Wait, why are we allowed to dismiss every single bit of in-game visual in every game as "game mechanics"? That may be fine when it's Starcraft and you have gigantic battlecruisers that are in length only four times the height of Marines, but it seems to me that you ought to make a new determination as to what's arbitrary and what's consistent for each game you examine. Are the in-game visuals in Homeworld really so inconsistent and nonsensical as to make them entirely worthless for analysis?

The first (and often impossible) task in analysing a game is to determine what is reliable. Most people just pick and choose, which isn't really the best way to go about it.

For instance, I have no problem with the idea that in HW 'fighters' are much bigger than you'd imagine if thinking of aerospace fighters; others prefer to think the 'fighters' are made larger ingame for clarity. Who's right? How do you determine this? Fluff text? Since fluff is generally written early and doesn't reflect the final state of game mechanics (like in Freespace where almost all of it is totally wrong) is this more or less valid?

[Darth Smiley]

Previous thread on a very similar topic here, with some order of magnitude calculations for the Swarmers about halfway down the page.

Net summary for out purposes: Homeworld gets its ass kicked in the capital ship department. Fighters would probably be worse off because they lack anything that could penetrate SW capital ships shields, though they might be capable of damaging SW fighters.

[Ace Pace]

Completely irrelevant, but here's a vid of the Hiigarans being completely raped by the Empire in a hybrid mod:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdfcdIar ... ature=fvwp

Granted, the hiigarans did nothing but spam carriers for the ISD to target practice, but I have heard that the people making the Warlords (star wars) mod for Homeworld put a lot of effort into accurately scaling Star Wars weapons to the Homeworld 2 universe.

How is mentioning a fan made mod made for HW2 relevent?

One of the methods possibly used to scale the entire universe is disabling model scaling (I can't recall which of the two HWs offered this, possibly both). Then define a single stat we decide is baseline (such as a scout) and try to measure everything relative to that. I'm not sure that works with the level of accuracy defined in the HW engine (either one).

[Connor MacLeod]

There's a difference between picking a single source of questionable reliability (manual fluff vs ingame vs cutscene is pretty much personal choice for 90% of games) with non-specific language that flies in the face of other sources, and a statement that agrees with other sources, inferences, analysis, etc.

I'm curious about a.) how you justify this supposed distinction and b.) on what basis you claim the source is of "questionable reliability." Usually you need an actual justification to dismiss something under SoD (and no, I don't see it as being a "personal choice."))

Frankly, SW reactors being like 'a small star' is a) meaningless and b) not necessary to establish SW power generation.

A fair bit of SW analysis would fall apart under the claims you make (EG BDZ has tradtionally hinged on nitpicking of the defintiions of the requirements. And not just the "molten slag" bit, it can include things like "natural resources" and whatnot." So again I fail to see how you are making distinctions.

Saying 'the manual is correct and my interpretation of this commonly misused word is correct and everything else in HW is wrong' is just bullshit. It might be an irreconcilable mess, but that doesn't mean we say '100% vaporised = xyz meganumber'. If you're down to relying on such things, it's not looking good for meaningful analysis especially in a vs context.

No, I'm doing what was done pretty much for the TESB asteorid calculations. you konw, where the asteroid was assumed 100% vaporized. That works well enough for a "back of the envelope" calc (IE its going to be in the same ballpark whether you assume its 90%, 50%, or even 10% vaporized), especially when you consider that its actually a lower limit due to various things (inefficiencies, etc.) Or are you telling me the TESB asteroid figures now are arbitrary simply because they incorporate the 100% vaporization assumption too?

[Stark]

I'm curious about a.) how you justify this supposed distinction and b.) on what basis you claim the source is of "questionable reliability." Usually you need an actual justification to dismiss something under SoD (and no, I don't see it as being a "personal choice."))

So you're saying the HW sources are consistent then? Sorry, analysis based solely on 'they said vapourise' is lame unless it fits with other evidence, and there's basically no way of determining what evidence is valid. Yes, I know you make giant threads based on analysing language, but in 40k there's at least a semi-consistent framework to extrapolate from, determine outliers, validate assumptions etc.

For instance, by accepting this piece of manual fluff you basically disregard all ingame and cutscene (and even story I believe) evidence to use one word literally. This is exactly what I mean when I say it's a personal choice due to a lack of consistency or canon policy. If I decided the manual was obviously innacurate because it doesn't reflect anything else we see (like the Total Annihilation manual), how would you respond?

A fair bit of SW analysis would fall apart under the claims you make (EG BDZ has tradtionally hinged on nitpicking of the defintiions of the requirements. And not just the "molten slag" bit, it can include things like "natural resources" and whatnot." So again I fail to see how you are making distinctions.

Fuck off. You used it as an example of language-based 'analysis' and I pointed out it's totally different because of the other pre-existing evidence that supports it (ie, all of SW). Thus, there is a difference between using a single piece of language evidence to disregard a bunch of other evidence and using a piece of language evidence that dovetails with a large corpus of evidence.

No, I'm doing what was done pretty much for the TESB asteorid calculations. you konw, where the asteroid was assumed 100% vaporized. That works well enough for a "back of the envelope" calc (IE its going to be in the same ballpark whether you assume its 90%, 50%, or even 10% vaporized), especially when you consider that its actually a lower limit due to various things (inefficiencies, etc.) Or are you telling me the TESB asteroid figures now are arbitrary simply because they incorporate the 100% vaporization assumption too?

Wrong. What you're doing is a) assuming the language is accurate (ps in-universe) and b) that it reflects the 'true' state of the HW universe. You make no effort to support either of these assumptions, instead falling back on obvious red herrings about SW. Again, I think the manual is obviously wrong and doesn't reflect the 'true' state of the HW universe, based on the same personal preference that drives you to accept a single word over everything shown on a computer. Without consistent evidence or a canon policy, it will be very difficult for you to show your interpretation is 'correct', which is the whole point re: videogame 'analysis'.

What's sad is that using the whole of evidence, the statement is acceptable because things in HW explode from within and leave fuck-all debris. Thus, two xyz can vaporise an abc, but this doesn't directly reflect weapon effectiveness. Uh oh, rationalising evidence!!!!