Protoss Dragoon

[Balrog]

There was a calculation about the firepower of a Protoss Dragoon's main weapon done here long ago, based off of this cutscene from the original. Unfortunately it seems that thread's been lost to the sands of time, so I'm curious if anyone remembers/saved it themselves. Just from eyeballing the scene, I would guess something in the high MJ range, based on the sergeant being vaporized, but the fact that his skeleton survived seems off.

[NecronLord]

It looks like it's causing substantial parts of his flesh to burn off, but there's probably enough meat on him to resemble a skeleton. Say about 50% vapourisation, something around 100 to 200 MJ, for vapourising that flesh. However, if that were actually happening, the skeleton would surely be substantially disrupted.

There's a big explosion around him, which allows vaporisation to be plausible.

[Balrog]

That explosion also looks a lot smaller than the one that took out the guard tower, and didn't disturb much of the ground surrounding the sergeant. Perhaps they're variable yield?

[JointStrikeFighter]

perhaps it not indicative of anything and was intentionally made that way for comic value.

[Norade]

perhaps it not indicative of anything and was intentionally made that way for comic value.

If all of our analysis went that way we'd still be debating trekkies. So fuck off and let the people that care do the calculations.

[Teleros]

HD version of the cinematic here on YouTube. The Protoss start firing ~1:50 in. Looks like the guy on the ground is vaporised, but not much damage visible on the surroundings. The Starcraft Wiki (because I don't have my manuals handy) claims the Dragoons' "phase disruptor" weapons fire antimatter encases in psychic energy fields... I guess if it was a variable yield weapon and the blue-white effects the psychic energy field that may explain the lack of damage to the surroundings.

[Balrog]

perhaps it not indicative of anything and was intentionally made that way for comic value.

Well, yeah, but you know, this is serious business

[Sarevok]

Indeed. Now where are the calcs using the game itself for megameter sized marines shooting down Terran battlecruisers again ? :p

Starcraft is one of those universes that are hard to quantify or even make sense of. Even in universe the inconsistencies are astounding from moment to moment. Why does the Terrans and UED have same units again ? There are no hard answers beyond "the devs never thought about it" and <insert cringe worthy long essay here>. Unless SC 2 has better plotting and cutscenes I am afraid we may never get a good enough set of numbers on SC universe to use it in a versus debate.

[NecronLord]

Indeed. Now where are the calcs using the game itself for megameter sized marines shooting down Terran battlecruisers again ? :p

Starcraft is one of those universes that are hard to quantify or even make sense of. Even in universe the inconsistencies are astounding from moment to moment. Why does the Terrans and UED have same units again ? There are no hard answers beyond "the devs never thought about it" and <insert cringe worthy long essay here>.

Because the UED aren't making serious progress since they exiled those guys?

You only need silly explanations if you want to make the UED look capable.

[Shroom Man 777]

I really think the UED's invasion was a Rumsfeldian attempt at using an all-special forces to conquer what basically amounted to, in UED eyes, as a Space Afghaniraqistan. Which explains how and why they come in covert stealthy special ops insertion vehicles (so stealthy that we never see them, because their stealth systems allow them to stay "off-screen"! ), rely on a "hearts and minds" operation to convert the locals to their side and gain their manpower and their military assets (BCs from the Dylarin shipyards), and other psi-ops tricks like using psi-emitters and psi-disruptors.

Maybe the UED itself IS incapable of staging a huge invasion. Maybe its ships are better/worse than the Terran ones. But it just never used them and sent in special forces instead.

[Purple]

Now its been quite a while since I last plaid SC and I only plaid SC1 and Brood war but from what I remember was there not some massive human nation called the Terran Confederacy in the beginning? And did it not collapse around the end of SC1?

Than it is possible that the UED is fighting other similar factions as well and who knows what else on other fronts. That would explain a lot of things.

But again, its been a long time and this is all wild speculation. So if I am wrong correct me.

[Guardsman Bass]

Indeed. Now where are the calcs using the game itself for megameter sized marines shooting down Terran battlecruisers again ? :p

Starcraft is one of those universes that are hard to quantify or even make sense of. Even in universe the inconsistencies are astounding from moment to moment. Why does the Terrans and UED have same units again ? There are no hard answers beyond "the devs never thought about it" and <insert cringe worthy long essay here>.

Because the UED aren't making serious progress since they exiled those guys?

You only need silly explanations if you want to make the UED look capable.

My explanation for it is that the UED military forces probably hadn't done anything outside of policing UED space in centuries (since they largely unified Earth before the colonization of the Koprulu Sector), so their own military capabilities and even military technology are wholly inadequate for fighting a large-scale conflict. They might even be stealing military technology over the years from the colonies, which they've supposedly been monitoring the whole time.

[Samuel]

Now its been quite a while since I last plaid SC and I only plaid SC1 and Brood war but from what I remember was there not some massive human nation called the Terran Confederacy in the beginning? And did it not collapse around the end of SC1?

Than it is possible that the UED is fighting other similar factions as well and who knows what else on other fronts. That would explain a lot of things.

But again, its been a long time and this is all wild speculation. So if I am wrong correct me.

Yes, but the Confederacy was replaced by the Dominion (well, the worlds that weren't eaten by the Zerg/torched by the Protoss).

[Imperial528]

Now, this is just pure speculation, but given the context of UED propaganda and the very missions themselves, I wouldn't be surprised if the UED simply didn't send their "bigger and better" warships simply because they didn't know very much of everything that isn't their main target. We know that they are at least slightly more advanced than the Confederacy, since the UED brought medics and valkyries, and several add-ons to existing weapons, such as the goliath's booster rockets among other things. I mean, they knew the Zerg was a threat, but seeing as how they didn't know how the Zerg even worked until the Vice Admiral had to die to prove it (not to mention that I think they barely knew the Protoss existed) then I wouldn't be surprised if they simply sent older warships and equipment (Why send an M1A2 Abrams when an A60 will do the job just fine?) And even then, if we assume that the UED government knew about all these threats, whose to say they simply didn't just send a force which was expendable in the event they failed. It's a lot easier to claim that the fleet died heroically against a superior enemy when you've sent your weakest, when I think that if you send your best simply to get your ass handed to you propaganda doesn't start to shape up too well.

[Serafina]

So you are suggesting that they kept a lot of completely outdated equipment around?
And that, in the face of unknown hostiles and no possibilities of quick reinforcements (thus ruling out that they sent the expendable units for recon) they decided to send their weak and puny forces?

That doesn't really add up. Sure, it's a possibility, but i would deem it rather unlikely. Such a plan would have to stem from immense stupidity.

[Imperial528]

I'm not saying the UED government is sane (They may have even had the nerve to say that the reason why the fleet never returned is because they need to occupy the area.) Anyway, with the propaganda-spawned threat of a massive Zerg invasion looming over the horizon, I wouldn't be surprised if the other reason why any heavy-hitting warships were left home is because they wanted to show their exaggerated superiority to be true. They obviously underestimated the Terran's splintered factions and rebel groups along with the resilience of the Confederacy. The forces they deployed didn't seem to think they were facing any real threat until they had to run with the Zerg hot on their tail.

When I think about it the only reasons I can think of is what I've already stated, that someone in the UED higher ranks screwed up royally, they already were fighting something a bit closer to home, or that they simply didn't advance because they either didn't need to, focused research on the civis, or couldn't.

[Sarevok]

So in other words making SC plot work requires the protagonist be incomprehensibly incompetent. I had been following this thread and the responses. My comment about cringe worthy explanations has certainly proven itself time again. Why not accept that there is no logical explanation and blizzard simply made a mistake ? SC 1 was made in the era of isometric games. Making sprites can be way more difficult than 3D models. Maybe Blizzard could not afford making another separate army so used the same graphics both Terran factions. Its quite understandable given the limitations of the time SC 1 and expansion was made in.

[Serafina]

Sprites are no excuse since they could have given the terran troops slight variations in special abilities, if only for the campaign - it's easily doable with an editor.

So really, the best answer is "they just didn't care".

[Samuel]

We know that they are at least slightly more advanced than the Confederacy, since the UED brought medics and valkyries, and several add-ons to existing weapons, such as the goliath's booster rockets among other things.

Starcraft 2, which takes place 5 years later shows that the Dominion, even with massive devestation, is able to field entirely new units, technologies, capabilities and combat philosophies. All the UEDs "advances" show is that they had toys the Confederacy didn't think of- possibly because they simply weren't useful (combat medics because troops already die so easily when their armor is breached- I'm ignoring the fast heal, valkyries because massed air units were rare before the zerg, booster rockets because fuel was expensive, etc).

[Night_stalker]

My theory regarding the confusion about a Dragoon's power levels is that they can be adjusted. A guard tower or example is could be armored better than a regular footsolider so it makes more sense to use more power on the tower first.

[Connor MacLeod]

There was a calculation about the firepower of a Protoss Dragoon's main weapon done here long ago, based off of this cutscene from the original. Unfortunately it seems that thread's been lost to the sands of time, so I'm curious if anyone remembers/saved it themselves. Just from eyeballing the scene, I would guess something in the high MJ range, based on the sergeant being vaporized, but the fact that his skeleton survived seems off.

From what I observe the Dragoon's weapon is basically acting like a giant flamethrower, cremating most of the flesh off the body in a couple of seconds (the water content in the body would evaporate alongside cremation).

it's possible this weapon is different than the "phase dirsruptor" antimatter weapon, since I dont think it would be nearly as controlled as this one seems to be (EG leaving a mostly intact skeleton or consuming the flesh so totally.)

Edit: NL's calcs are largely spot on, though the human body is 70% water and IIRC the Skeleton also makes up 15% of that mass, so say an 80 kg human would have 68 kg of flesh cremated/vaporized - 170 MJ total roughly, with ~120 MJ of that evaporating the water content of the body (there's actually not much diff between cremation and vaporization in terms of energy input for the purposes of the calc, the specific heat of the human body is around 3-3.5 KJ/kg*K, and typical cremation temps tend to average around 1000+K, though it can be higher since the properties of the human body can vary according ot the type of tissue as well.)

[Guardsman Bass]

So in other words making SC plot work requires the protagonist be incomprehensibly incompetent. I had been following this thread and the responses. My comment about cringe worthy explanations has certainly proven itself time again. Why not accept that there is no logical explanation and blizzard simply made a mistake ? SC 1 was made in the era of isometric games. Making sprites can be way more difficult than 3D models. Maybe Blizzard could not afford making another separate army so used the same graphics both Terran factions. Its quite understandable given the limitations of the time SC 1 and expansion was made in.

People do accept that it was Blizzard making an expansion on the cheap. However, at the same time, it's all in the same universe, so pardon us for trying to come up with an in-universe explanation.