Earth Alliance vs. Turian Hierarchy (Mass Effect)

[DrStrangelove]

True, but it's a shock the Turians can absorb better than Earthforce can absorb the shock of first meeting Dreadnoughts firing on them from 10000km+ ranges

Based on what? Shadow weapons are also long ranged, and every 4000km of range adds another ssecond of flight time

and weapons that cause their ships to tear themselves apart through gravity manipulation.

quantification necessary

The reason being that the Turians are a much larger polity than Earth Alliance at the time of the Earth Minbari war,

Evidence? the codex gives none. the turians could just as likely have 2 colonies.

and they maintain compulsory service (both civil and military, but with emphasis on the latter) for everyone between the ages of 15 and 30 (Turians have a roughly human equivalent lifespan).

Which without population and demographic figures is fairly meaningless

[/quote]Knife fights are going to be equally bloody for both sides, but the Turians will be able to last longer.[/quote]Evidence? Going by how only dreadnaughts are capable harming dreadnaughts according to the codex, single digit kilotons for cruiser firepower seems rather generous. Also recall how the codex mentions how cruiser and dreadnaught main guns are useless at short range. And just how are turians going to last longer against a weapon their main defense doesnt stop

[DrStrangelove]

No solid range number given. In fact, for the battle in question he says what was seen on screen was a good representation of fighter combat ranges.

And you've seen the numbers on babtech how many times now? Oh well. On the same note, you have no numbers for cruiser of frigate weapon range either, which comprise the vast majority of mass effect fleets

I can't tell exactly what he is talking about here, but it seems to not be in reference to weapons speeds. It'd help if you posted the questions these messages were answering as well.

It's funny how your reading comprehension and deductive reasoning go to shit when debating mass effect so snippets here so I can help you
1." Basically, we're between a
rock and a hard place; if we portrayed motion a la the Space Shuttle, nothing
would seem to move; if we portrayed the pure speed AS pure speed, using some
kind of landmarks or visual cues, it would go by SO fast that you *wouldn't be
able to see it*"......pretty self evident their ships move faster than they appear onscreen
2."I'm
saying that if you showed the missiles at full speed, YOU WOULD NOT SEE THEM
AT ALL"............Also self explanatory missiles move faster than they do onscreen
3."We're going to make the EFX of the guns move as fast as possible, to
match even slightly the real speed that would be involved (which in complete
reality would probably be too fast even to see, but one does what one can)" ....again pretty self-evident, in-universe weapon fire would move too fast to be seen, which given how people can see comets and meteors moving tens of km/s, and relative positions of the opposing fleets in the episode 'severed dreams' (The one you've seen a million times at SB,covered at Babtech with illustrations, yet you still pretend doesnt exist), One could reasonably conclude weapons fire in B5 should move at several hundred km/s to couple thousand km/s

Nothing about interceptors being able to intercept objects moving at thousands of kilometers a second relative to the target.

And no evidence any weapons other than a dreadnaught's main gun have a velocity of thousands of kilometers/second, and as we all know visuals in ME don't support anything remotely implied by the codex

In short, you've just proven a whole lot of nothing.

Come now, this isnt the first time we've done this you've seen the numbers from the B5 sites how many times now. Nothing has changed

[Vendetta]

True, but it's a shock the Turians can absorb better than Earthforce can absorb the shock of first meeting Dreadnoughts firing on them from 10000km+ ranges

Based on what? Shadow weapons are also long ranged, and every 4000km of range adds another ssecond of flight time

The Codex entry for space combat tactics states that dreadnoughts begin engagement at tens of thousands of kilometres.

quantification necessary

Only a few successful torpedo strikes destroys the collector vessel. Actual quantification is impossible without knowing the physics of mass effect fields. Disruptor torpedoes use random mass effect field generators to rapidly and randomly alter mass within a small volume, causing material stress damage to enemy hulls as their masses fluctuate wildly in localised areas.

[adam_grif]

I'll argue until the ends of the Earth (or official confirmation) that the collector ship was never attacked with any disruptor torpedoes

We DO know that they can gut an unshielded Reaper, but unfortunately we have no idea of their strength. Disruptor torps were reportedly powerful enough to destroy significant chunks of a colony, one of the N7 missions in ME2 has two disruptor torps both flying to different locations, one to a spaceport and one to a residential district. It was enough to knock the port out of comission, so badly that the colony would have to be abandoned, and big enough to wipe out a huge portion of the civilian population.

Actual numbers are not given in either case, but it would seem that they are very low end tactical nuke yields, subkilotonne in terms of ranged effects. Maybe it was just a critical part of the spaceport getting hit, and secondary explosions were going to take care of the rest. Maybe there were 200 colonists all stacked in a single building, and most of the casulaties would come from structural collapse.

They're designed specifically for armor penetration however, and their effectivenesss in this role is totally unquantifiable given what we've seen so far. Reapers might be made of steel, or maybe they're made of a weaker version of the unobtanium Mass Relay materials. Maybe they're densly packed, or maybe they're mostly hollow.

And no evidence any weapons other than a dreadnaught's main gun have a velocity of thousands of kilometers/second, and as we all know visuals in ME don't support anything remotely implied by the codex

The "visuals > dialogue/sup materials" meme that reigns supreme for most TV show cannons isn't necessarily universal. The codex figures for Dreadnoughts are supported by in-game dialogue from a gunnery sergeant on the citadel (giving a lecture to Private Chung, no less )

[DrStrangelove]

I'll argue until the ends of the Earth (or official confirmation) that the collector ship was never attacked with any disruptor torpedoes

Given how the visuals generally dont match the descriptions in the codex, this is true

And no evidence any weapons other than a dreadnaught's main gun have a velocity of thousands of kilometers/second, and as we all know visuals in ME don't support anything remotely implied by the codex

Bolded for relavance

[Stargazer]

Based on what? Shadow weapons are also long ranged, and every 4000km of range adds another ssecond of flight time

Right, and the EA have encountered Shadows by the time of the Earth-Minbari War, is that what you're saying?

quantification necessary

You first.

Evidence? the codex gives none. the turians could just as likely have 2 colonies.

It's based on the fact that we see dozens of human colonies, and the turians should have considerably more and larger colonies, since they've been in space for a millenia. Before they even joined the galactic community, they fought a Unification War with their outermost colonies.

Evidence? Going by how only dreadnaughts are capable harming dreadnaughts according to the codex, single digit kilotons for cruiser firepower seems rather generous. Also recall how the codex mentions how cruiser and dreadnaught main guns are useless at short range. And just how are turians going to last longer against a weapon their main defense doesnt stop

I'd say it's pretty hard to take down a shield that can take fire which, at low-end, is almost 40 times as powerful as your own. Perhaps dreadnoughts are able to recharge their shields faster than cruisers can drain them.

And you've seen the numbers on babtech how many times now? Oh well. On the same note, you have no numbers for cruiser of frigate weapon range either, which comprise the vast majority of mass effect fleets.

Yeah, all Babtech does is establish weapons range as at least 700 km. Not impressive compared to Mass Effect. And if extreme range in Mass Effect = tens of thousands of km and close range = tens of km, is it really that hard to conclude long=thousands of km and medium = hundreds of km? Btw, my ~1000 km/s number for cruiser weapons fits in with thousands of KM ranges.

It's funny how your reading comprehension and deductive reasoning go to shit when debating mass effect so snippets here so I can help you

No need to be rude here.

1." Basically, we're between a
rock and a hard place; if we portrayed motion a la the Space Shuttle, nothing
would seem to move; if we portrayed the pure speed AS pure speed, using some
kind of landmarks or visual cues, it would go by SO fast that you *wouldn't be
able to see it*"......pretty self evident their ships move faster than they appear onscreen

At top speed, sure. A bottle rocket, given enough time and supply of fuel, could reach that speed in the frictionless vacuum of space. This does nothing to speak of their acceleration, however.

2."I'm
saying that if you showed the missiles at full speed, YOU WOULD NOT SEE THEM
AT ALL"............Also self explanatory missiles move faster than they do onscreen
3."We're going to make the EFX of the guns move as fast as possible, to
match even slightly the real speed that would be involved (which in complete
reality would probably be too fast even to see, but one does what one can)" ....again pretty self-evident, in-universe weapon fire would move too fast to be seen, which given how people can see comets and meteors moving tens of km/s, and relative positions of the opposing fleets in the episode 'severed dreams' (The one you've seen a million times at SB,covered at Babtech with illustrations, yet you still pretend doesnt exist), One could reasonably conclude weapons fire in B5 should move at several hundred km/s to couple thousand km/s

Reasonably conclude? Nonsense. Sure, JMS thinks that it would be more scientifically accurate to put the weapons at full speed. However, no time frame or area is given for how the weapons would be too fast to see- zoom out enough, and one should still be able to see the weapons bursts. We do not know what "enough" is. There's no quantification for this statement, not even one that can be calculated indirectly. Thousands of km/s is too great a claim for such flimsy "evidence". Hundreds of km/s- that may be possible, given the stated lower-limit maximum range of 700 km.

And no evidence any weapons other than a dreadnaught's main gun have a velocity of thousands of kilometers/second, and as we all know visuals in ME don't support anything remotely implied by the codex.

Being willingly ignorant, are we? It's funny how you reference Babtech, without bothering to post just what you are referencing, while ignoring the calculations I've posted in this thread.

Come now, this isnt the first time we've done this you've seen the numbers from the B5 sites how many times now. Nothing has changed

Indeed, nothing has changed, meaning Mass Effect still far outranges B5.

[Vendetta]

The reason being that the Turians are a much larger polity than Earth Alliance at the time of the Earth Minbari war,

Evidence? the codex gives none. the turians could just as likely have 2 colonies.

Missed this one. The UNC: Turian Insignia quest in the first game names the 17 Unification War colonies, it's codex background states when the war was.

[Stargazer]

Really? Good find, Vendetta. I will note again that the Unification War happened before the turians even joined the galactic community.

[Balrog]

I blame my friends Mr. Daniels and Mr. Morgan for my delayed reply, so take up your objections with them

Do you have proof the station was beyond light lag distance? Otherwise "coming from the anomaly as it happened" proves nothing. And communications =/= sensors.

Yes, considering the anomaly was stated to be about three hours traveling distance away. And if you know the history of Radar you know how communications and sensors are quite interrelated.

That initial codex entry was in error; it had a 2 kg slug going at 283 km/s for a 38 kiloton yield. In reality, that would only be a 19 ton yield. The error was pointed out to the developers, who retconned it to a 20 kg slug accelerated to 4025 km/s, which does add up to a 38 kiloton yield. The codex entry for dreadnoughts in Mass Effect 2 has the correct numbers. (If you don't have the game, you can still read the codex on the Mass Effect wiki. They have verbatim copies of most entries.)

Still, you did not answer the question, of why specifically you chose the figures that you did, whether they are based on something you found in-universe or something you came up with personally.

A bunch of internet dwellers can think of the transporter bomb, does that mean Starfleet does it?

See, there is a difference between what, for example, Trektards will arguing about regarding some one-off superweapons, and what a person or power's actual capability is. "Open a jumpoint inside an enemy" isn't lost tech, doesn't require some fancy new physics or inventions to work, and has actually been done before. The only reason we see the Minbari do it and not the Humans during the EM war is because their system is more precise; yet again, you don't need precision when your target is larger than B5.

At a few thousand kilometers the EA ships would only have a couple seconds to accelerate or change course. I don't see larger EA ships like Hyperions and Novas having that kind of maneuverability. And it's likely the slugs are two fast for the interceptor grid to catch, unless they have intercepted things going at a thousand kilometers a second before.

In 'Severed Dreams' we saw a two Omegas complete a 90 degree turn in less than a couple seconds. If the Turians are engaging at range, that gives them plenty of time to alter their course and throw Turian aiming off. Plus, eventually they're going to run out of ammo, especially if they try to match the rate of fire we've seen from B5 ships.

Knife fights are going to be equally bloody for both sides, but the Turians will be able to last longer.

While the Turians might have more bodies and potentially more ships, they are going to be taking damage at a much higher rate (no barriers + weak armoring; because 10km range does not speak highly for GARDIAN firepower, yet it is a viable weapon).

[Stargazer]

Yes, considering the anomaly was stated to be about three hours traveling distance away. And if you know the history of Radar you know how communications and sensors are quite interrelated.

Three hours by spacecraft, not by light. Unless you can prove the speed at which the distance would be crossed in three hours, this still doesn't prove anything.

Still, you did not answer the question, of why specifically you chose the figures that you did, whether they are based on something you found in-universe or something you came up with personally.

It was derived from facts in-universe. The power of a mass accelerator is directly tied to its length: "The primary determinant of a mass accelerator's destructive power is length. The longer the barrel, the longer the slug can be accelerated, the higher the slug's final velocity, and therefore the greater its kinetic impact." (Codex (in Mass Effect 2), Ships and Vehicles, Mass Accelerators). Thus, it should be possible to determine the power of mass accelerators of varying lengths from the one given in the codex: 800 meter mass accelerators launch 20 kg slugs at 4025 km/s. However, simply changing the amount of time accelerated gives a 400 meter accelerator one-fourth the yield of an 800 meter accelerator, which is contrary to the stated large superiority of dreadnoughts over everything else. So I adjusted for the rate of acceleration as well as for time accelerated.

See, there is a difference between what, for example, Trektards will arguing about regarding some one-off superweapons, and what a person or power's actual capability is. "Open a jumpoint inside an enemy" isn't lost tech, doesn't require some fancy new physics or inventions to work, and has actually been done before. The only reason we see the Minbari do it and not the Humans during the EM war is because their system is more precise; yet again, you don't need precision when your target is larger than B5.

Very well. It's still up to you to prove that the tactic can put enough stress on a mass relay to break it.

In 'Severed Dreams' we saw a two Omegas complete a 90 degree turn in less than a couple seconds. If the Turians are engaging at range, that gives them plenty of time to alter their course and throw Turian aiming off. Plus, eventually they're going to run out of ammo, especially if they try to match the rate of fire we've seen from B5 ships.

Mind posting video proof? And I doubt turian ships are going to run out of 20 kg slugs- plenty of space to store them, and they shouldn't be expensive to stockpile. (BTW, the given firing rate for a dreadnought's mass accelerator is once every 2 seconds. For the more advanced Thanix cannon, which fires a jet of hyperaccelerated molten metal, it's once every 5 seconds.)

While the Turians might have more bodies and potentially more ships, they are going to be taking damage at a much higher rate (no barriers + weak armoring; because 10km range does not speak highly for GARDIAN firepower, yet it is a viable weapon).

GARDIAN is said to be viable for wearing away at armor, but not for actually inflicting serious, threatening damage on the ship.

[Vendetta]

See, there is a difference between what, for example, Trektards will arguing about regarding some one-off superweapons, and what a person or power's actual capability is. "Open a jumpoint inside an enemy" isn't lost tech, doesn't require some fancy new physics or inventions to work, and has actually been done before. The only reason we see the Minbari do it and not the Humans during the EM war is because their system is more precise; yet again, you don't need precision when your target is larger than B5.

I haven't seen In The Beginning, but do the Minbari ships actually open jumppoints inside solid objects, or simply in empty space between closely packed ships.

[lord Martiya]

They opened a jump point in the middle of the flotilla, with the jump point shredding whatever it touched.

[Vendetta]

So not inside a solid object like a mass relay then. So that's not going to be an effective attack on a relay unless they can open jump points with sufficient precision that they can touch the surface of the thing (and part of the reason the Minbari can do this and Earthforce can't is that they have high precision jump engines), and even then they're going to be nibbling away at a 15km object for weeks before they do any damage.

If they could open one on top of a Turian fleet they might be able to use the vortex as a weapon, but they simply don't have the precision of Minbari jump engines at this time, so it's not a guaranteed tactic.

because 10km range does not speak highly for GARDIAN firepower, yet it is a viable weapon).

GARDIAN systems are designed for reliability not firepower. They are designed to shoot down fighters and disruptor torpedoes at very close ranges, they are designed with enough power to do that job and to continue doing it for a long time, because just like B5 interceptor systems their limiting factor is heat management, the longer the system has to fire, the more it is going to overheat and fail.

Salarians design their GARDIAN systems with higher power UV lasers and get six times the range, but they sacrifice reliability to do it.