Homeworld versus...

[Datana]

Didn't we discuss the Homeworld vs. Federation scenario earlier? I definitely recall having started such a thread some time back that ended up a bit silly . HW would get smoked by Imps -- no two ways about that.

The game engine actually provides weapon ranges in meters or kilometers, if you read the SHP files; ion cannons, for instance, are a hair under 7 km.

In the case of Kharak, the Taiidani used an "atmospheric immolation" weapon that would raise surface temps to firestorm levels (I think it was 5000 degrees C by the end of the combat footage pulled off the captured Taiidani frigate). These weapons are apparently forbidden by most of the powers in the Council, and public opinion rapidly turned against the Taiidani Emperor after the news of the Burning of Kharak reached the Empire (starting the Rebellion). They are not in common use, and ability to produce such weapons on a large scale is unknown due to the stigma attached to their deployment.

[Alyeska]

That was more game ballance then anything. We learned that the Kuun-Lan had no more then 2000 people total. Yet it was able to use those people to crew its entire fleet. The fleet you could build in Cataclysm was not much smaller then in the original, and in the original you had 500,000 people in cold freeze, so theoretically the HW forces can man thousands upon thousands of ships relatively easy. And all it takes is for them to capture but one ship from either SW or ST and the tides quickly change.

Leap in Logic, the same idea is applyed by Rabid Trekies to the Borg saying that they could get ahold of a ISD and within a week be pumping out fleets of the things

Just because one can copy anothers tecnology does not mean they can copy everything

Or would you like to say that Homeworld ships violat Convervation of Energy and can make anything they want from rocks no matter how complex(Turbolasers and plantary shielding) to extremly rare(Hypermatter)

Then according to you, using ANY game requires use of their supply restrictions. No fleets of Starcraft ships, they have the 200 supply limit. No thousands of Goliaths and Cans (Total Annihilation) the game won't go beyond 500 units. Command & Conquer has a building limit.

Not to mention your example is an invalid one. We have seen no such thing from the Borg, we have seen such things from Homeworld.

[Mr Bean]

Then according to you, using ANY game requires use of their supply restrictions. No fleets of Starcraft ships, they have the 200 supply limit. No thousands of Goliaths and Cans (Total Annihilation) the game won't go beyond 500 units. Command & Conquer has a building limit

And if WEG is to be totaly belive those are Shield domes up there nice and easy for any old Fighters to shoot
Straw-man your talking about an ability to copy ANY Tecnology at will with ease and then turn around and talk about other games?

Not to mention your example is an invalid one. We have seen no such thing from the Borg, we have seen such things from Homeworld.

We have seen similar things from the Borg(And boy don't those Treckys let us Forget it) and we have seen similar things from Home-World but then agian the Tecnology at hand is NOT disimialr to be fair anyone could make an Ion Frigit that quick if you gimiied up a similar looking hull and took the fire and purposional systems right off an existing working one and instaled it

And thirdy this all assumes(As they always do) that they'd get their hands on a ship at all

[Alyeska]

And if WEG is to be totaly belive those are Shield domes up there nice and easy for any old Fighters to shoot
Straw-man your talking about an ability to copy ANY Tecnology at will with ease and then turn around and talk about other games?

WEG is overruled by Canon and Offical information. The supply limit in Homeworld is for game play. It is not to be considered in a debate. What the hell is the point of even debating if your going to keep such things in place? Even if you combine both HW games together your not going to equal the most conservative estimate of a single ST fleet (200 ships). You might as well debate Culture vs SW or ST.

We have seen similar things from the Borg(And boy don't those Treckys let us Forget it) and we have seen similar things from Home-World but then agian the Tecnology at hand is NOT disimialr to be fair anyone could make an Ion Frigit that quick if you gimiied up a similar looking hull and took the fire and purposional systems right off an existing working one and instaled it

I see... You said Trekkies are stupid for claiming the Borg can mass produce ships. I more or less agree with you, then you disagree with me and say we have examples of the Borg mass producing ships... Riiiiiiight.

And thirdy this all assumes(As they always do) that they'd get their hands on a ship at all

Given enough time and resources something like a freighter or a corvette will be captured.

[Master of Ossus]

An ISD can BDZ a planet with time. The Taidanii force were able to BDZ the planet in minutes.

While the DS was impressive, ISDs took time to build. Taidanii Heavy Cruisers are larger and can be built in under a day.

And as for the capturing issue. All it would take is having an ACV light off its EMP pulse to disable an enemy ship. Then all it takes is latching the capturing craft on board.

Lastly. You seem to not understand the advantage of numbers. When the HW forces can build litterally HUNDREDS of ships in a single day from a single carrier, that means in under a week the HW forces can build thousands of craft to use in an attack.

An ISD can BDZ a planet within hours. Demonstrate that the planet's crust was melted to a depth of at least half a mile. You come back and say that Taidanii Heavy Cruisers are larger than ISD's, but you insist that a carrier group is similar to an ISD in terms of resources dedicated to it? That is self-contradictory. Further, you are once again assuming that the ACV can use its EMP effect to the same extent on SW and ST ships as it did in HW. That is another leap in logic. You continue to say "[t]hen all it takes is latching the capturing craft on board." You are assuming they can first disable the ship they are attempting to capture, and then you are assuming that their salvage corvettes would be able to "latch onto" SW and ST ships. While I find it likely that they could, it is possible that they could not (especially since SW hulls are not very reactive to magnetic fields, and ST ships have some countermeasures against such attacks).

I fully understand the advantage of numbers. The point you are missing is that numbers are more or less irrelevent if the side with numerical superiority is vastly out-matched in quality. The qualifying factor for the construction of a fleet is that the HW forces require resources. Resources they would likely be unable to secure, because their ships would be wiped out before they could assume control of a resource field. A single ISD would be able to completely annihilate a carrier group in only a few shots. It is likely that a small task force of ST ships would be similarly effective against HW ships. Further, remember that the mothership took years to construct. The manufacturing technology placed on the ship itself was superior to most of that used in its construction, but it could not have been orders of magnitude more advanced. The Empire built a DS secretly in SIX MONTHS. ISD's require similar times to construct, but most shipyards work simultaneously on several ISD's. Spacedock in ST is clearly larger and quite possibly has a larger manufacturing capability than the Mothership. From this evidence it is obvious that Homeworld has little or no chance. Its ships are qualitatively orders of magnitude less powerful than Imperial ships, and probably at least one order of magnitude less powerful than ST ships. Further, its manufacturing capabilities are considerable, but really not too impressive when compared with the industrial might of either the UFP or the Empire.

[SCVN 2812]

Actually I think the supply limit is a very valid point to argue in a debate. Being able to supply ships is a very real need and not one to be discarded lightly. Without a steady supply of supplies ships eventually stop working altogether.

Even discarding the supply limit, there is still the advantage of numbers and weapon superiority for both Star Trek and Star Wars.

[Howedar]

Consider, if you will, that unit caps are a pre-game option, and therefore are not an integral part of the Homeworld fleet.

[The Nomad]

(Pressed Reply too quickly)

Homeworld depicts a relatively young space-faring race, and as such the quality of their ships reflect this.

Pit a Homeworld vessel against the Akiraprise.

Then I don't understand the interest of a site dedicated to the fictionnal combat between a 300-years space-faring civilisation and a 25000-years one.

[The Nomad]

4 seconds? That planet remains half-destroyed for the entirety of that mission. If it gets completely BDZ-ed, that firestorm moves REAL slow....

What ? They burnt half the planet, plain simple ( all the inhabitable face ). It took them about 5 seconds of bombings ( with huge explosions seen from orbit ). That's a half-BDZ, then.

That is not a BDZ. A BDZ melts a planetary surface to a depth of at least one half of one mile, uniformly. It eliminates ALL life. That's not even close to a BDZ. It barely qualifies as the ST equivalent of a BDZ.

One half one one mile ? Can you provide evidence other than Wong's speculation ? I would have thought it was merely some ]meters

[Cpt_Frank]

Usually we take one meter as an extremely conservative estimate for the BDZ depth.
Considering that in spectre of the past Caamas or what it's called was BDZed and 40 years later it was easier to terraform another planet as the new Caamas homeworld, one and a half mile BDZ depth seem more likely than mere meters. If it was several meters, the planet would have long cooled down.
Again, someone who greatly underestimates the true power of the ISD.

[Cpt_Frank]

(Pressed Reply too quickly)

Homeworld depicts a relatively young space-faring race, and as such the quality of their ships reflect this.

Pit a Homeworld vessel against the Akiraprise.

Then I don't understand the interest of a site dedicated to the fictionnal combat between a 300-years space-faring civilisation and a 25000-years one.

Sounds like the old 'this fight is unfair, give the federation several thousand years to develop' argument.
A fair fight, and that is what every half way intelligent person will tell you, is when both sides play within certain rules. Nothing more.
If you go and make the Federation artificially as strong as the Empire, it's not a fair fight anymore since you changed conditions in favour of one side. And the fight would end with a draw.

[SirNitram]

A very relevent question. How much KE would a kinetic projectile measuring 3 meters long, and travelling at 21 Km/s inflict? Because according to the game's code, that's the specs of a Heavy Cruiser's mass drivers.

I'm not sure how much it would weigh as a metal slug... But I'm gonna try some rudimentary calc's using the shell weight of the German gun Dora, whose shells were nearly 3 meters tall.

Most sites conclude the shell's weight was 7100kg, a pretty heavy shell. Then again, these, like the Heavy Cruisers guns, were the most ridiculously big shells fired in WWII.

Borrowing a KE calculator(Because I am a lazy bastard), gives an answer of 1.56555 TW.

And ion beams inflict more damage than that. Granted, these guns are not what could be called... Accurate, but they are in use.

[SirNitram]

me == STOOPID

Replace TW with TJ in my above post.

[Cpt_Frank]

oh well doesn't matter anyway since watt and joules are the same

[SirNitram]

oh well doesn't matter anyway since watt and joules are the same

Back! Back! Foul demon of stupidity!

[Howedar]

Ion cannons are not truly inaccurate, they are just not very good on a fixed-axis mount on a capital ship (as would be expected, they can hit other capships and nothing else). However, turret-mounted ion cannons on Destroyers and Heavy Cruisers can hit corvettes fairly reliably.

[SirNitram]

Ion cannons are not truly inaccurate, they are just not very good on a fixed-axis mount on a capital ship (as would be expected, they can hit other capships and nothing else). However, turret-mounted ion cannons on Destroyers and Heavy Cruisers can hit corvettes fairly reliably.

And the helix-generated ion beams of a Somtaaw Ion Frigate are Gods against fighters.

[Master of Ossus]

What ? They burnt half the planet, plain simple ( all the inhabitable face ). It took them about 5 seconds of bombings ( with huge explosions seen from orbit ). That's a half-BDZ, then.

That is not a BDZ. A BDZ melts a planetary surface to a depth of at least one half of one mile, uniformly. It eliminates ALL life. That's not even close to a BDZ. It barely qualifies as the ST equivalent of a BDZ.

One half one one mile ? Can you provide evidence other than Wong's speculation ? I would have thought it was merely some ]meters

Of course I can. In fact, I was being extraordinarily generous when I said that it would require a planet's surface to be melted to such a depth. A BDZ is designed to terminate all life on a world. On Earth, life has been found as deep as a FULL mile beneath the surface, and possibly exists even deeper.

Incidentally, I have no idea where you got the idea that I got that from Wong. Wong's calculations are always lower limits, and his unreasonable lower limit was that a BDZ would require a planet's crust to be melted to a depth of one meter. That is not consistent with data on life earth, and by extension not consistent with life on other, Earth-like planets (Caamas).

[Master of Ossus]

A very relevent question. How much KE would a kinetic projectile measuring 3 meters long, and travelling at 21 Km/s inflict? Because according to the game's code, that's the specs of a Heavy Cruiser's mass drivers.

I'm not sure how much it would weigh as a metal slug... But I'm gonna try some rudimentary calc's using the shell weight of the German gun Dora, whose shells were nearly 3 meters tall.

Most sites conclude the shell's weight was 7100kg, a pretty heavy shell. Then again, these, like the Heavy Cruisers guns, were the most ridiculously big shells fired in WWII.

Borrowing a KE calculator(Because I am a lazy bastard), gives an answer of 1.56555 T[J].

And ion beams inflict more damage than that. Granted, these guns are not what could be called... Accurate, but they are in use.

That's not REALLY relevent, since the slugs are supposed to be made of a very dense metal that did not appear to explode upon impact, but it could not be orders of magnitude more energy than that.

[SirNitram]

A very relevent question. How much KE would a kinetic projectile measuring 3 meters long, and travelling at 21 Km/s inflict? Because according to the game's code, that's the specs of a Heavy Cruiser's mass drivers.

I'm not sure how much it would weigh as a metal slug... But I'm gonna try some rudimentary calc's using the shell weight of the German gun Dora, whose shells were nearly 3 meters tall.

Most sites conclude the shell's weight was 7100kg, a pretty heavy shell. Then again, these, like the Heavy Cruisers guns, were the most ridiculously big shells fired in WWII.

Borrowing a KE calculator(Because I am a lazy bastard), gives an answer of 1.56555 T[J].

And ion beams inflict more damage than that. Granted, these guns are not what could be called... Accurate, but they are in use.

That's not REALLY relevent, since the slugs are supposed to be made of a very dense metal that did not appear to explode upon impact, but it could not be orders of magnitude more energy than that.

So you admit this is a usable low-end estimate? I seek only low-ends from usable data, I cannot extrapolate on more. And this is pure KE from weight, no explosion factored in

[Master of Ossus]

So you admit this is a usable low-end estimate? I seek only low-ends from usable data, I cannot extrapolate on more. And this is pure KE from weight, no explosion factored in

Why wouldn't I accept that? It seems reasonable as a low end calculation.

[Howedar]

The hit effects in Homeworld IIRC indicate some level of explosion, but how much I cannot tell.

[Master of Ossus]

The hit effects in Homeworld IIRC indicate some level of explosion, but how much I cannot tell.

That proves squat. The ships in HW have hulls that are designed to "explode" when hit with something, to help lessen the impact.

[SirNitram]

So you admit this is a usable low-end estimate? I seek only low-ends from usable data, I cannot extrapolate on more. And this is pure KE from weight, no explosion factored in

Why wouldn't I accept that? It seems reasonable as a low end calculation.

Just checking. Nothing more.

Now, from reading the game files again, I've pulled up more data on those guns.

They are described as having a damage of '100-150'. This is applied on impact of the strike.

The ion beams are described as '30-50', but I'm not sure if that's per-second or per-frame. I think it's per-frame. If I'm right, and it's run at 30fps, the ion beams do about 10TW(I mean watts, this time) and fire for six second bursts. This is just directly scaling of damage, but I see no real reason it would be wrong.

If I'm right, the frontal arc of the Heavy Cruiser doles out about 72TJ with every forward volley. I've forgotten how many kt/MT/GT that would translate into.. Anyone know?

Oh, some important notes on these vessels. They are 1.6 kilometers in length, can be built internally within the Mothership in under eight minutes. This is not a small advantage: This demonstrates industrial capacity that very, very, very few sci-fis can match.

[SirNitram]

See, I keep making stupid, stupid mistakes. 72TJ? But there's four ion cannons. I'm so stupid sometimes, I despair...

10TW for six seconds, times four guns is 260TJ.

Times 1.5TJ times six mass drivers is ~9TJ.

~270TJ per volley.

Where can i put my face...