Dalek vs. Phase III Dark Trooper

[ChosenOne54]

This battle pits a single, standard Time War era Dalek against a single Phase III Dark Trooper.

The Dark Trooper has it's standard equipment, as does the Dalek, which also has it's 'maximum extermination' setting as seen in The Stolen Earth. Which one would come out on top?

[KlavoHunter]

Pretty sure this goes to the Dalek. I haven't seen anything they have a problem with vaporizing.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Same. This one goes to the Dalek.

Now, if you had said old who Dalek, rather than Time War, it might have been different - no shields, no spaceflight etc, but Time War era Daleks will kill Dark Troopers no sweat.

[ChosenOne54]

Hm, I thought this would be a fairly even match.

I must admit not know too much about Dark Troopers though.

[Eternal_Freedom]

From what I know of them, Dark Troopers, Phase III are bipedal light tanks deisnged for anti-armour stuff.

Like I said, it most likely would have been a fair-ish match against an old-who Dalek. But not the Time War versions.

[NecronLord]

A dark trooper would smite an old series dalek easily.

Time War ones have an effective range against aircraft of over ten kilometers though, and are at least as fast, at least to the Mk 1 eyeball, which will let them reliably shoot the Dark trooper from beyond its demonstrated range, or that of typical SW guns.

[Ahriman238]

But the Dark Trooper has insane quanities of homing missiles. Am I the only one who remembers how impossible to kill that thing was?

Damn, I feel old now. Were the Dark Troopers ever used/mentioned outside Dark Forces? Game mechanics tend to be a lousy way of quantifying these things.

Hm, I thought this would be a fairly even match.

I must admit not know too much about Dark Troopers though.

It's a war droid meant to replace stormtroopers. Phase I were like metal skeletons with blaster/lightsaber resistant shields and forearm blades. Phase II were like hulked out-stormtroopers with heavy weapons, that could fly. Phase III pulled double-duty as a droid war machine and as power armor for the game's boss, mostly it spammed endless amounts of homing missiles, as I said.

Not much more to know really.

[Darksider]

Time War ones have an effective range against aircraft of over ten kilometers though, and are at least as fast, at least to the Mk 1 eyeball, which will let them reliably shoot the Dark trooper from beyond its demonstrated range, or that of typical SW guns.

In open ground the Dalek would certainly have the advantage, but what about in an urban environment? If the Dark Trooper got the drop on the 'lek, could it's weapons destroy it? Maybe not it's blaster, but what about those missiles it spams?

[NecronLord]

In open ground the Dalek would certainly have the advantage, but what about in an urban environment? If the Dark Trooper got the drop on the 'lek,

How? Individual daleks (the Cult of Skaro, to be sure, but it's a fair bet they're not more than two orders of magnitude better than standard) can scan for 'crude cybernetic constructs' on a worldwide scale (Doomsday) from inside a building. They can certainly be expected to detect a much higher energy robot nearby.

[Cykeisme]

But the Dark Trooper has insane quanities of homing missiles. Am I the only one who remembers how impossible to kill that thing was?

Damn, I feel old now. Were the Dark Troopers ever used/mentioned outside Dark Forces? Game mechanics tend to be a lousy way of quantifying these things.

The final boss (General Rom Mohc in a Phase III suit) was a bitch to put down, yeah.

To answer that question, I believe stats for Dark Troopers (all three phases) are available in the Star Wars RPG rulebooks, and while those are also game mechanics, they allow a loose relative comparison of weapons, mobility and durability to other better-known quantities in Star Wars.

Anyway, iirc, the EU that came out long after Dark Forces that fleshed it out (also partially retconned some parts) stated that in the end they decided to keep the human component in their troops, so the Phase III was intended as power armor to put a cloned or recruited stormie in.
Phase I was just a proof-of-concept prototype for the funky materials, while Phase II was a pretty high-end and fully functional battle droid.

How durable is a Time War Dalek? What's the least that's been shown to be able to harm it?

[ChosenOne54]

Pre-time war Daleks could be destroyed by bastic bullets. Bastic bullets were specialized bullets designed to penetrate Dalek casings. This is a demonstration of their power:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbjmckc3bP0#t=23s

But Time War Dalek shield and armour advanced so much that they were basically invulnerable to even bastic bullets. As for weaponry, the Daleks standard gunstick was capable of vapourising a line of WW2 era german bombers in rapid succession, at a range of, as people have already stated, a couple kilometres.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RueFey2aPc

A couple seconds in.

Actually, someone over at Spacebattles did the calcs for the Dalek shields and weaponry:

http://forums.spacebattles.com/showthread.php?t=162857

I don't know how reliable they are, though.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Dark Troopers (and General Mohc) turn up in Empire at War: Forces of Corruption as well as Dark Forces.

On the urban environment thing, we have seen what Time Wa Daleks do against enemy power armour units in urban environments, we see it in Dommsday when they battle the Cybermen; they stay high and strafe things on the ground. Granted they started at high-ish altitude but given they can maintain that height apparently effortlessly I see no reason why they would crawl along the streets like an old-who Dalek. We see the same tactics used in Evolution of the Daleks as well.

[NecronLord]

How durable is a Time War Dalek? What's the least that's been shown to be able to harm it?

There's almost nothing calculable; a particular ray gun constructed by Cpt. Jack Harkness and modified cyberman weapons created by the Doctor break them open nicely, but unfortunately we've never seen them used on anything other than a dalek, so it's not possible to calculate their firepower.

They have a shield that (apparently) evaporates bullets before they hit it, and in at least some cases (the cult of skaro definately, other daleks maybe not) a shield that protects them against ray-gun type weapons. A sufficiently large number of (modern or future) bullets is supposed to be able to get through its shield and, if it hits the optics, blind them. This seems to require continuous fire from about a dozen G-36s, and it's not clear if that works by providing too much mass to burn up at once, or by overloading its ability to target and effect incoming projectiles.

Some daleks (those in "The Stolen Earth," "Journey's End," and the smaller type in "Victory of the Daleks") lacked force fields; these were recreated by Davros, said to be from 'The First Year of the Time War' and presumably less developed than those that had such defenses. I'll be labeling these 'Crucible Daleks' for reference.

As for weaponry, the Daleks standard gunstick was capable of vapourising a line of WW2 era german bombers in rapid succession, at a range of, as people have already stated, a couple kilometres.

More impressive is the bit at the beginning of the episode, where people in the Cabinet War rooms deploy one of the two Crucible Daleks they have "our new secret weapon", because they have greater range than existing air defences over London. That means they have a better range than anything the British had in 1941; a QF 3.7-in Heavy Anti-aircraft Gun, one of the standard guns of the time, had a slant-fire range of 12,000m; dalek guns must be capable of at least that range. And these are daleks stated to be low on power, and the less advanced in other areas 'Crucible' type.

[ChosenOne54]

Well, a single Dalek drained the entire US west coast of power simply to reboot it's own systems and get it's weapon and shields working. And we don't even know if it was fully charged. Needless to say, the amount of power required to run it's shielding and weapon systems must be immense.

[Serafina]

Well, a single Dalek drained the entire US west coast of power simply to reboot it's own systems and get it's weapon and shields working. And we don't even know if it was fully charged. Needless to say, the amount of power required to run it's shielding and weapon systems must be immense.

Which, in turn, tells us something about the power generation capabilities of Daleks.

[Enigma]

Well, a single Dalek drained the entire US west coast of power simply to reboot it's own systems and get it's weapon and shields working. And we don't even know if it was fully charged. Needless to say, the amount of power required to run it's shielding and weapon systems must be immense.

Which, in turn, tells us something about the power generation capabilities of Daleks.

Maybe, maybe not. If the power drained was used to power the Dalek then yes. But if it was just to jump start its systems then who knows the Dalek's true power generation?

[Darth Tedious]

IIRC, none of the Phase III Dark Troopers were droids, they were all piloted. Not that it really makes a shred of difference. Saving some kind of extreme dumb luck, smart money is on the Dalek.

[Darth Hoth]

Well, a single Dalek drained the entire US west coast of power simply to reboot it's own systems and get it's weapon and shields working. And we don't even know if it was fully charged. Needless to say, the amount of power required to run it's shielding and weapon systems must be immense.

Did it have Culture-style effectors that just magically sucked the energy out of the air? Because if it, instead, plugged into some power station, I doubt the power lines could survive having half the US's worth of wattage routed through them into the Dalek. The upper limit would be lower, even if it caused a wide-scale blackout through damage to the power grid.

Not that I am debating against the Dalek. Debating against Doctor Who is like debating against superhero comics. Just saying.

[ChosenOne54]

No, it sticks an R2D2-like arm into a panel and drains everything in a couple seconds.

Though Daleks do seem to have effector-like tech in later episodes ("Override roof mechanism!")

[Shroom Man 777]

It sticks a toilet plunger, and while it did so it also downloaded the entire internet and scanned outer space using Earth's radio-telescopes and shit. Somehow.

That same toilet plunger can also suck people's brains out to gain their knowledge.

[Sela]

Magic is the best explanation. Either that, or we're going to find ourselves inventing new methods, reasons, and Dalek powers out of thin air just to try to keep up to that scene. Put it this way: There isn't enough bandwidth on the internet to download the internet in a minute. As such, you'd literally have to IMPROVE the quality of the networks remotely (ie: magic + telekinesis) in order to begin to think about downloading it.

Either that, or Van Statten has the entire internet archived in his base. Or the Doctor was wrong, and the Dalek was bluffing. Bluffing about the power drain, bluffing about the internet download, and using the tools he had to make it seem like that's what he was doing. A process that the plot and episode (Dalek) does *NOTHING* to lead us to believe.


But with all that power . . . he still can't blast his way out of an underground bunker!

[Sea Skimmer]

More impressive is the bit at the beginning of the episode, where people in the Cabinet War rooms deploy one of the two Crucible Daleks they have "our new secret weapon", because they have greater range than existing air defences over London. That means they have a better range than anything the British had in 1941; a QF 3.7-in Heavy Anti-aircraft Gun, one of the standard guns of the time, had a slant-fire range of 12,000m; dalek guns must be capable of at least that range. And these are daleks stated to be low on power, and the less advanced in other areas 'Crucible' type.

Effective range of heavy anti aircraft guns in that period is not more then about two thirds of max range. You also still needed about ten thousand rounds per kill in 1941.

[Big Orange]

But with all that power . . . he still can't blast his way out of an underground bunker!

It did when it got closer to topside (it punched a dinner plate sized hole through several inches of rock and concrete, with the daylight sky shining through). Another implication of the identical looking Crucible/Davros Deleks being somewhat weaker on a individual level than the Time War/Emperor Daleks is a scene where hundreds of Daleks from the Crucible taskforce having to swamp the UNIT sky carrier Valiant in order to destroy it. Time War/Crucible Daleks are also practically space craft. I can imagine a Phase III Dark Trooper having more of a chance against a Crucible Dalek, one to one, but can't fly as well as either Dalek model.

[Darksider]

so crucible Daleks outgun and outrange Dark Troopers, but what about spacetroopers. Those have micro-torpedo launchers, and we know that SW can pack kiloton level firepower into a hand grenade sized weapon. (Class-A thermal detenators from SOTE)

How about the following scenario?

An Imperial battle group has managed to disable a Crucible-Dalek saucer, and is sending in a boarding party consisting of two platoons of 100 spacetroopers each. The Dalek saucer has been completely disabled by Ion cannon fire, so internal defenses are offline, as is the self destruct. The Daleks have only their travel machines to fight back.

[avatarxprime]

Does anyone know the crew complement of a Dalek saucer? If it's close to even force sizes then the troopers end up dead.