White Star vs. SSV Normandy SR-1

[Lost Soal]

If memory serves, we never see White Stars performing firepower feats comparable to Sharlins (like the one that essentially one-shot an entire EA station in In the Beginning), though there are precious few situations where we get good views of the two classes engaging similar things.

I may remember this wrong but didn't a whitestar cut all the way though a shadow vessle while that lady telepath held the shadow vessle in place?
I don't know how tough a shadow vessle is compared to EA destroyer but if memory serves putting "shadow stuff" on a destroyer was considered a upgrade so it might matter that a whitestar was able to do that.

Actually, I recall one episode where the where a Whitestar with Sheriden and Delenn aboard took on a Shadow warship. The Whitestars firepower, even a maximum levels, wasn't enough to kill it one on one. It took blowing a hyperspace gate while running like hell.

Whitestars are horrendously powerful for their weight class, hitting far and away above their throw weight even by Minbari standards. But to take on Shadow (and I assume, Vorlon) vessels, they need to work in groups.

They didn't even attempt to shoot it at that time. They simply ran, with Delenn being surprised that the Shadows missed them the first time.

[Ted C]

Is there a reliable place to find the measurements of a White star - on the net I have found measurements ranging from an even 100 meters to 520 meters and my own rudimentary measurements place it at around 270 meters, Am i missing something here or is there no official source for reliable measurements?

I wouldn't say so. "Official" sources have given lengths of the ship all the way up to 475+ meters, but when we were maintaining BabTech on the Net and scaling only from show images, our lower limit was around 120 meters and our upper limit around 250. The ship just wasn't very big, and that was part of what made it special. This was the smallest ship type built by the Young Races capable of opening its own jump point. A 400+ meter ship would have been as large as a Centauri cruiser.

Seriously, there's one scene where the White Star flies the length of Babylon 5 and casts its silhouette in shadow on the station. If anything, the shadow should be bigger than the ship itself (and it is, in fact, stretched compared to the length of the ship due to the direction of the lighting, but not so much in width). The shadow it casts is barely wider than the docking bay of the station. This is a small starship.

[Ted C]

Where's that 600 metre length from? Most sources I've seen make it 300-400 metres, and as shapes go the White Star is actually more solid than the Vorchan.
Note that I'm not necessarily disputing the 600m figure, it's just one I've never run across before.

I was going from memory but...

http://www.merzo.net/10mpp.htm

No one sources their lengths anymore, I swear. Every page I have found (other than a reference to a B5 computer game that got cancelled in 1998) has its length at 608 meters, and I dont have the time to go in and do the scaling myself. However, everything I have ever seen has it being bigger than a Whitestar in length. Considerably.

Here is a compilation video. To demonstrate some of the scaling issues on screen. You will notice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73fE6H2FUTM

You are kinda left having to say "someone fucked up" or suspending disbelief and concluding that they have pocket vorchans OR another class of small warship that escorts them that is not a Sentri class fighter (which is actually the most reasonable, because in the last scene, we see both said smaller warship, and sentri fighters operating at the same time, but they look very similar).

We pretty religiously provided our sources and scaling methods back in the day.

https://web.archive.org/web/20090428204 ... .html#size

[Ted C]

Actually, I recall one episode where the where a Whitestar with Sheriden and Delenn aboard took on a Shadow warship. The Whitestars firepower, even a maximum levels, wasn't enough to kill it one on one. It took blowing a hyperspace gate while running like hell.

Whitestars are horrendously powerful for their weight class, hitting far and away above their throw weight even by Minbari standards. But to take on Shadow (and I assume, Vorlon) vessels, they need to work in groups.

The battle you're refer to occurs in "Matters of Honor". That Shadow ship was fully operational, and the crew of the Whitestar had no illusions about their ability to take the thing on directly.

It's in "Walkabout" that we seek the Whitestar kill a Shadow ship by itself after Lyta paralyzes it with a telepathic attack on the pilot.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Where's that 600 metre length from? Most sources I've seen make it 300-400 metres, and as shapes go the White Star is actually more solid than the Vorchan.
Note that I'm not necessarily disputing the 600m figure, it's just one I've never run across before.

I was going from memory but...

http://www.merzo.net/10mpp.htm

No one sources their lengths anymore, I swear. Every page I have found (other than a reference to a B5 computer game that got cancelled in 1998) has its length at 608 meters, and I dont have the time to go in and do the scaling myself. However, everything I have ever seen has it being bigger than a Whitestar in length. Considerably.

Here is a compilation video. To demonstrate some of the scaling issues on screen. You will notice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73fE6H2FUTM

You are kinda left having to say "someone fucked up" or suspending disbelief and concluding that they have pocket vorchans OR another class of small warship that escorts them that is not a Sentri class fighter (which is actually the most reasonable, because in the last scene, we see both said smaller warship, and sentri fighters operating at the same time, but they look very similar).

We pretty religiously provided our sources and scaling methods back in the day.

https://web.archive.org/web/20090428204 ... .html#size

And as I have already made mention, pixel counting scaling methods dont work when you have perspective problems, when there are massive visual effects inconsistencies between episodes, and well-known problems with visual effects in general.

Also, when your size estimate very clearly contradicts something well established in the series (like a Whitestar under 500 meters being able to create its own jump point being a remarkable thing, with Vorchans pre-dating the time frame of the series by at least 10 years and being a front line warship that everyone and their mother has dossiers about, able to form its own jump point), your size estimates are very clearly wrong.

It is possible to use visual scaling, but you absolutely have to be careful with what scenes you use. And when at all possible, go to the production staff or some other source and let them tell you how big they intended a given ship to be.

If it is not obvious to you by now, I dont think Babtech did a very good job with its scaling, because their methods just didnt take into account the limitations of the series they were analyzing. It is like someone trying to use a bayesian analysis on genomic data to estimate the phylogenetic tree and divergence times for an animal lineage. Without the fossil record to use as priors, the analysis has a pretty good chance of running amok.

Babtech did that. And their analysis ran completely amok in this case.

[Anacronian]

I wonder couldn't this just be a matter of perspective? - Sheridan is surprised by the White star having jump engines because he's an Earth force guy and Earth force have nothing as small as the White Star that can make jump points, It might not be so special for other races to have relatively small ships that can jump - same goes for artificial gravity, Sheridan remarks that the White Star has artificial gravity because Earth force doesn't have it but the Minbari does and I think the Centauri as well going from the scene where Londo overlooks the bombing of Narn.

[Alyrium Denryle]

I wonder couldn't this just be a matter of perspective? - Sheridan is surprised by the White star having jump engines because he's an Earth force guy and Earth force have nothing as small as the White Star that can make jump points, It might not be so special for other races to have relatively small ships that can jump - same goes for artificial gravity, Sheridan remarks that the White Star has artificial gravity because Earth force doesn't have it but the Minbari does and I think the Centauri as well going from the scene where Londo overlooks the bombing of Narn.

It is one thing to not know what the life of a crewman is like on another ship. The last time Sheridan was on a Minbari ship, he likely did not know he was on a Minbari ship.

It is another to not have any idea whatsoever about the operational capabilities of other major powers with whom you have over 100 years of contact and extensive trade + diplomatic relations. Especially when the race in question gave you jumpgate tech.

[Ted C]

I wonder couldn't this just be a matter of perspective? - Sheridan is surprised by the White star having jump engines because he's an Earth force guy and Earth force have nothing as small as the White Star that can make jump points, It might not be so special for other races to have relatively small ships that can jump - same goes for artificial gravity, Sheridan remarks that the White Star has artificial gravity because Earth force doesn't have it but the Minbari does and I think the Centauri as well going from the scene where Londo overlooks the bombing of Narn.

Its ability to jump was apparently also a surprise to the Shadows that any of the Young Races had such a thing, resulting in the loss of one of their ships.

[Rekkon]

The White Star's main beam seems comparable to those on Omegas/G'Quans. Same with the secondary pulse armament. The bigger ships mount more of those weapons, but the WS (at about a third the length) is a superior platform in terms of mobility and flexibility.

I think 1/3 is a stretch. I don't think the ship is more than 150 meters long (compared to 700+ for a Narn cruiser or 1500+ for an Omega destroyer).

In the show, part of the mystique of the Whitestar was that it could do so much in such a small package.

It is a fraction in any event. I was unaware there were such issues with B5 scaling and just grabbed the lengths from the B5 wiki.

If memory serves, Sheridan says most ships that size cannot make their own jump points, which implies the capability is not entirely unknown.

[Ted C]

If memory serves, Sheridan says most ships that size cannot make their own jump points, which implies the capability is not entirely unknown.

Most ships can't the Whitestar being an obvious exception. I don't think he knew of any other exceptions at the time, but Shadow scouts and fighters also seem to be capable of entering hyperspace on their own.

[bilateralrope]

If memory serves, Sheridan says most ships that size cannot make their own jump points, which implies the capability is not entirely unknown.

I think he was referring to ships built for a singular short-term purpose. Ships missing things considered unnecessary for their purpose. For example if you're testing a new jump drive, you might not want to build an entire ship. Instead, you'd save costs by only including the minimum parts necessary for the test. No need for weapons or armor. The crew can wear spacesuits, saving on the need for life support (if it's not completely automated). Minimal sensors, smaller power source, etc.

Those small ships wouldn't be warships. They probably wouldn't be useful for anything outside whatever they were built to do. But they still exist.

Or the only ships that small he knows of that could make their own jump points were Vorlon ships. While I don't think we ever saw a small Vorlon ship make its own jump point on screen, we do know that they provided tech for the White Stars so it's not a stretch to imagine that they have that capability. So all it takes is a Vorlon ship making its own jump point in a situation that's not important enough to bring up. For example, maybe a Vorlon ambassador to somewhere decided he wanted to leave while the local jump gate was malfunctioning.

[Alyrium Denryle]

If memory serves, Sheridan says most ships that size cannot make their own jump points, which implies the capability is not entirely unknown.

Most ships can't the Whitestar being an obvious exception. I don't think he knew of any other exceptions at the time, but Shadow scouts and fighters also seem to be capable of entering hyperspace on their own.

So can Vorlon personal ships. But these are First Ones. They cheat.

[Balrog]

And as I have already made mention, pixel counting scaling methods dont work when you have perspective problems, when there are massive visual effects inconsistencies between episodes, and well-known problems with visual effects in general.

If there are known problems with the way visual effects were handled in the show, doesn't that cast doubt on calculations based on said visual effects, including your own from earlier in this thread?

[Alyrium Denryle]

And as I have already made mention, pixel counting scaling methods dont work when you have perspective problems, when there are massive visual effects inconsistencies between episodes, and well-known problems with visual effects in general.

If there are known problems with the way visual effects were handled in the show, doesn't that cast doubt on calculations based on said visual effects, including your own from earlier in this thread?

It means you have to be careful, and use appropriate methods.

For example, they used the same camera FOV for most of their external effects shots, as far as I can tell. Which means scaling from subtended angles can work, but in order to do that...

If I want to know range, I have to know subtended angle and size of object.

If I want to know size of object, I need to know subtended angle and distance

If I want subtended angle, I need range and size.

Which is why I went with the dimensions for a Starfury given in the B5 Wars scaling diagrams and the B5 Security Manual. B5 wars in particular, because they collaborated closely with the production staff and JMS gave it his stamp of approval insofar as fluff material is concerned.

"What I'm saying, in this roundabout way, is that if you want the Real Deal, if you want accuracy, canonical authority, and the best of the best when it comes to BABYLON 5 licensing and gaming...you've come to the right place."

The figures they have are the best you are going to get. Even if you only want to consider all that material "official", it is better than the error amplification that comes from using pure visuals to scale one object using pixel counts without accounting for visual perspective very well, then using that object to scale another.

From there, two options exist to get acceleration figures.

1)Assume a stable camera (usually false, but you get under-estimates rather than over-estimates), and calculate acceleration by using subtended angle and known object size to solve for range for a sequence of frames

2) Time-to-location. Usually with a range of elapsed time, because scene cuts and narrative time compression exist.

All of that of course depends on what sorts of assumptions you are willing to make. I am willing to relax assumptions and priors about the technological ability of the EA based on narrative themes more than Imperial Overlord is (and no Overlord, I have not forgotten about you. My response is in production, but I have to go on a B5 binge to answer properly).

[Rekkon]

If memory serves, Sheridan says most ships that size cannot make their own jump points, which implies the capability is not entirely unknown.

Most ships can't the Whitestar being an obvious exception. I don't think he knew of any other exceptions at the time, but Shadow scouts and fighters also seem to be capable of entering hyperspace on their own.

So can Vorlon personal ships. But these are First Ones. They cheat.

Indeed they do. I suspect Sheridan was well aware of other similarly-sized ships that could make their own jump points. Perusing the Fleet Lists for A Call to Arms (for whatever it is worth) shows that most races' ELINT ships carried jump engines. Of course, their job is not front line combat, but every Minbari warship larger than a Flyer is listed as jump capable. This fits with their status as the most advanced of the younger races, and after the war, Earth Force likely has a good idea which Minbari ships can and cannot jump. Most Centauri ships have the capability, just not the smallest ones. League and Narn ships typically do not until you get into cruiser territory, except the Vree who can almost all jump. All Shadow ships, including fighters, can transition at will, and everything Vorlon except their fighters have jump engines. The EA Hermes-class transport is jump capable, but the document does not give us ship sizes for anything.

[Sky Captain]

It could simply be that White Star was first jump capable ship built by younger races that did not sacrifice combat capability for having jump engines in hull so small. Maybe it is hard to miniaturize jump engines further once you pass below certain size and White Star designers managed that and had enough space left for good array of weapons, power plants and sublight engines. It is possible if Earth Force ship designers had to design jump capable ship of White Star size there simply would not be any room for decent weapons and other necessary systems resulting in a ship that would be fairly useless in combat.

[Perseid]

Looking at the numbers for Mass Effect this match up should be a white wash. That is assuming of course that the information about the weapons on the White Star is close to accurate.
Obviously that assumes that the White Star can lock weapons on the Normandy in the first place, though technology differences mean that this is a distinct possibility. Though one shot should be all that's required, assuming that the 100kt+ fire power is accurate.
My assumption about the one hit kill against the Normandy is based on the Secondary Codex entry on the Mass Effect wiki, concerning Reapers. http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Codex/The_Reapers

The main gun on a Reaper capital ship dwarfs that of the Alliance's Everest-class dreadnoughts. No dreadnought has yet survived a direct hit from the weapon. Estimates put its destructive power anywhere from 132 to 454 kilotons of TNT

Emphasis mine.

I'm not 100% certain about the canon of those numbers, but if accurate then anything from B5 would be able to annihilate any non-Reaper ship from ME.



Apologies if 2 weeks classifies as necroing the thread.

[Anacronian]

Well we know a Everest class Dreadnaught can fire a 20 kilo ferrous slug at 1.3% of the speed of light every 3 seconds so it should be easy to calculate the max firepower of the non reaper ships since a Everest is pretty much top of the line.

[Adam Reynolds]

Well we know a Everest class Dreadnaught can fire a 20 kilo ferrous slug at 1.3% of the speed of light every 3 seconds so it should be easy to calculate the max firepower of the non reaper ships since a Everest is pretty much top of the line.

What is the source on this?

If that is the case, it gives a KE of 1.5E14 joules(27 kilotons). Though because they fire physical projectiles it is not exacltly the same type of impact to deal with.

I am not much of an expert on Mass Effect, but given that they otherwise have gravity manipulation technology, is that a major part of their shields? If that is the case, then it could be a rare case in which energy weapons do proportionally more damage to shields than physical impacts would.

[Ted C]

What is the source on this?

A lecture to some recruits in ME2.

If that is the case, it gives a KE of 1.5E14 joules(27 kilotons). Though because they fire physical projectiles it is not exacltly the same type of impact to deal with.

According to the game, more like 38kt per shot.

I am not much of an expert on Mass Effect, but given that they otherwise have gravity manipulation technology, is that a major part of their shields? If that is the case, then it could be a rare case in which energy weapons do proportionally more damage to shields than physical impacts would.

Their shields a force fields generated by mass effect technology that repel approaching high-speed objects. They are next to useless against energy weapons, but ships have ablative armor to help resist those.

[Anacronian]

Well we know a Everest class Dreadnaught can fire a 20 kilo ferrous slug at 1.3% of the speed of light every 3 seconds so it should be easy to calculate the max firepower of the non reaper ships since a Everest is pretty much top of the line.

What is the source on this?

If that is the case, it gives a KE of 1.5E14 joules(27 kilotons). Though because they fire physical projectiles it is not exacltly the same type of impact to deal with.

I am not much of an expert on Mass Effect, but given that they otherwise have gravity manipulation technology, is that a major part of their shields? If that is the case, then it could be a rare case in which energy weapons do proportionally more damage to shields than physical impacts would.

Source

.."This, recruits, is a 20-kilo ferrous slug. Feel the weight. Every five seconds, the main gun of an Everest-class dreadnought accelerates one to 1.3 percent of light speed. It impacts with the force of a 38-kilotomb bomb. That is three times the yield of the city buster dropped on Hiroshima back on Earth. That means Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son-of-a-bitch in space..

Edit : I was wrong, A Everest can fire every 5 seconds not every 3 seconds.

[Adam Reynolds]

According to the game, more like 38kt per shot.

Well that is what I get for rounding off the numbers. I ended up being rather off.

Their shields a force fields generated by mass effect technology that repel approaching high-speed objects. They are next to useless against energy weapons, but ships have ablative armor to help resist those.

How common are energy weapons among forces other than the Reapers? It seems that might be a mechanism by which the Reapers make themselves artificially more powerful by using weapons not common among the major powers.

Source

.."This, recruits, is a 20-kilo ferrous slug. Feel the weight. Every five seconds, the main gun of an Everest-class dreadnought accelerates one to 1.3 percent of light speed. It impacts with the force of a 38-kilotomb bomb. That is three times the yield of the city buster dropped on Hiroshima back on Earth. That means Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son-of-a-bitch in space..

Edit : I was wrong, A Everest can fire every 5 seconds not every 3 seconds.

I remember the Newton quote now that you mention it.

[Anacronian]

Well actually nobody in the Mass Effect universe is supposed to use energy weapons, not even the reapers... it just seem Bioware forgot to tell that to the guys who make the cut scenes.

[Imperial528]

Well, there are some instances of energy weapon use, especially for PD and ground-based anti-ship weaponry. However these weapons (they're just lasers) are usually too heat intensive and require more of a power draw for their effectiveness, so they aren't used much. I believe the Reapers use both particle beams and lasers as primary and secondary weapons, respectively. Particle beams are stated to be more effective than mass drivers against barriers, but they still are affected by them, whereas lasers go right through mass effect barriers.

This is pretty much all paraphrased from the Codex, which IIRC are considered to be a higher level of canon than the visuals in cases where the visuals would contradict them.

[Perseid]

From what I recall the only species that uses energy weapons as anything besides PD is the Collectors/Protheans.

Just a quick google revealed this http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Codex/ ... d_Vehicles

Contrary to popular belief, Sovereign's main gun was not a directed-energy weapon. Rather, its massive element zero core powered an electromagnetic field suspending a liquid iron-uranium-tungsten alloy that shaped into armor-piercing projectiles when fired. The jet of molten metal, accelerated to a fraction of the speed of light, destroys targets by impact force and irresistible heat.

So even the Reapers don't actually use DE weapons except for defence.