I saw that it is a much discussed topic around, we want to try the forum to do some calculations about it too? Obviously it will be pure fandom and nothing canon, for canon we only know that macrocannons are powerful enough to destroy continents, but nothing precise about power.
Let's start by considering the mass of the macrocannon bullets of a cruiser. Projectiles of 1000 tons each accelerated at a fraction of the speed of light, we do not consider the explosive potential of the warhead, but only the energy of the projectile.
What fractions of the speed of light could we consider?
Calcs 40k Macrocannon Power
Moderator: NecronLord
Re: Calcs 40k Macrocannon Power
Why waste our time? Either you accept what this board has to say when it comes to calculations or you don’t, and you clearly don’t.WhiteLion wrote: ↑2019-09-27 07:39pm I saw that it is a much discussed topic around, we want to try the forum to do some calculations about it too? Obviously it will be pure fandom and nothing canon, for canon we only know that macrocannons are powerful enough to destroy continents, but nothing precise about power.
Let's start by considering the mass of the macrocannon bullets of a cruiser. Projectiles of 1000 tons each accelerated at a fraction of the speed of light, we do not consider the explosive potential of the warhead, but only the energy of the projectile.
What fractions of the speed of light could we consider?
I do like your attempt at trying to casually dismiss things like the turbo laser calcs - I guess you figure that if you repeat the phrase often enough, people will believe it? Not gonna happen on this board until you have enough canon evidence to challenge it.
Given that your rebuttals so far amount to stuffing fingers in your ears and yelling that you can’t hear anything... I wish you luck on that.
"I reject your reality and substitute my own!" - The official Troll motto, as stated by Adam Savage
Re: Calcs 40k Macrocannon Power
your speech is not right, I criticized the reasoning on turbolaser because it was flawed. He calculated the power of the weapon based on the mass, composition and size of the asteroid that was vaporized, but assuming all three factors. If he had said that the speech was fandom it was fine, but it was taken as a reference, and used in discussions against canon material, so I feel cheated. If he had said that the power of the turbolasers could be that, I was fine, it would have been objective, but the calculations were taken as absolute without real data.
On the contrary, in the calculation I proposed, I considered the data found in the official BFG regulation, on lexicanum, wikia, all sources which in turn report official sources at the end of the page. It does not seem to me to have failed in objectivity.
We are adults in a scifi forum, I don't think this is a non-objective party forum. As I said, I am a Star Wars fan like the other series, but I can't indulge in flawed arguments that are used as bases in speeches, because in my opinion a fandom speech remains fandom.
In the same way I criticized some fans who attributed to a Retribution class a peteton power for macrocannon, it was a fandom reasoning, they could not pass it off as true, because official sources credit them at 10 gigaton per shot, or 42 exajoules. On other occasions, some StarGate fans have pointed out that hive ships are not as powerful as an SSD Executor, so it is unthinkable that an Asgard beam can have the same effect on the SSD as well.
And in the same way some friends, argued that the Galactica also could sustain a fight with an Eclipse, articulated the reasoning on a series of Discovery-style jumps. Also on that occasion I pointed out that the galactica has a minimum time between a jump and the other, and that their reasoning did not stand.
I am an objective person, even if I have a favorite series I cannot attribute it to skills that it does not have for canon.
If I'm wrong, please let me know my mistake, I don't want to offend anyone. If you notice I am only reporting the facts, we cannot deny this.
On the contrary, in the calculation I proposed, I considered the data found in the official BFG regulation, on lexicanum, wikia, all sources which in turn report official sources at the end of the page. It does not seem to me to have failed in objectivity.
We are adults in a scifi forum, I don't think this is a non-objective party forum. As I said, I am a Star Wars fan like the other series, but I can't indulge in flawed arguments that are used as bases in speeches, because in my opinion a fandom speech remains fandom.
In the same way I criticized some fans who attributed to a Retribution class a peteton power for macrocannon, it was a fandom reasoning, they could not pass it off as true, because official sources credit them at 10 gigaton per shot, or 42 exajoules. On other occasions, some StarGate fans have pointed out that hive ships are not as powerful as an SSD Executor, so it is unthinkable that an Asgard beam can have the same effect on the SSD as well.
And in the same way some friends, argued that the Galactica also could sustain a fight with an Eclipse, articulated the reasoning on a series of Discovery-style jumps. Also on that occasion I pointed out that the galactica has a minimum time between a jump and the other, and that their reasoning did not stand.
I am an objective person, even if I have a favorite series I cannot attribute it to skills that it does not have for canon.
If I'm wrong, please let me know my mistake, I don't want to offend anyone. If you notice I am only reporting the facts, we cannot deny this.
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Connor MacLeod
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Re: Calcs 40k Macrocannon Power
I honestly don't worry that much about pinning down specific firepower numbers. For one thing it operates on a huge range of variables that literally vary by many orders of magnitude (a factor of millions LITERALLY between the high and low ends easily) and an even greater degree of context (ship to ship firepower and orbital bombardment firepower are not necessarily the same thing. Star Wars debates made this mistake long ago.) For another even without consistency aside alot of different 'canonical' figures have been stated. I can literally state 'kilotons' megatons AND gigatons as canonical starship firepower representations even BEFORE I get into fan made calcing.
Part of it is simply that the scope of evidence you need to deal with (and the contradictions they bring) make it hard to establish an objective 'concrete' standard that doesn't rely on arbitrary filtering (Ie what you 'want' it to be) or even more arbitrary consensus (what everyone thinks is true.) Its much easier to knock down than build up, so its much easier to dispute a calc than it is to defend it. Especially as yields escalate and you find it harder and harder to keep it scientifically 'consistent' (more biggatons = more magic handwaving. Especially in thermodynamics.)
The second (and more personal) reason is that excessive biggatons often lead to a boring debate. If you outmatch your enemy by orders of magnitude in performance, there's nothing really to debate. No interesting tactics to employ. No real thinking to be done. And its also not terribly fair.. its a bit liek bullying in fact.
So I tend to be content noting 'it exists in a range' and letting circumstance pick the yields. If I think firepower is needed I'll go as high as I think is needed to win and no higher (to limit the amount of time I waste in defending that) but if I want an interesting debate I may deliberately go for a lower yield because it leads to a more interesting debate (usually 40K can have an advatnage elsewhere - durability, or range - that may make needing biggaton firepower irrelevant. That it also means I have to do less work to defend the position is an additional plus.)
But even if you're sticking to a purely analytical perspective you'll have problems that lead to time consuming/frustrationg challenges. Like, yields can be tied to macro-shell performance (mass and velocity) and the cee-fractional shit is inextricably tied to biggatons unless you drastically nerf shell sizes. This creates problems. On one hand biggatons mean problem with thermodynamics and recoil (and you can't ignore science completely without invalidating your calcs, but someone can invalidate them by taking a harder stand on science than you do). On the other, we know weapons ranges can extend for tens or hundreds of thousands of kilometers (including for projectile weapons) and if you don't allow for guided munitions it becomes hard for multi-km ships travelling at multiple kilometers per second to hit each other at such ranges with unguided munitions (even if you have proximity explosions or similar 'area effect' weapons.)
So you still want to avoid pinning things down too concretely because it can just mean more work than you need to do. 'Canon' doesn't care whether it conforms to your personal view of what is or isn't right, and if you can't adjust your thinking to compensate you're likely to have alot of frustrations dealing with the overall continuity. Especially in 40K, where canon technically doesn't exist.
Part of it is simply that the scope of evidence you need to deal with (and the contradictions they bring) make it hard to establish an objective 'concrete' standard that doesn't rely on arbitrary filtering (Ie what you 'want' it to be) or even more arbitrary consensus (what everyone thinks is true.) Its much easier to knock down than build up, so its much easier to dispute a calc than it is to defend it. Especially as yields escalate and you find it harder and harder to keep it scientifically 'consistent' (more biggatons = more magic handwaving. Especially in thermodynamics.)
The second (and more personal) reason is that excessive biggatons often lead to a boring debate. If you outmatch your enemy by orders of magnitude in performance, there's nothing really to debate. No interesting tactics to employ. No real thinking to be done. And its also not terribly fair.. its a bit liek bullying in fact.
So I tend to be content noting 'it exists in a range' and letting circumstance pick the yields. If I think firepower is needed I'll go as high as I think is needed to win and no higher (to limit the amount of time I waste in defending that) but if I want an interesting debate I may deliberately go for a lower yield because it leads to a more interesting debate (usually 40K can have an advatnage elsewhere - durability, or range - that may make needing biggaton firepower irrelevant. That it also means I have to do less work to defend the position is an additional plus.)
But even if you're sticking to a purely analytical perspective you'll have problems that lead to time consuming/frustrationg challenges. Like, yields can be tied to macro-shell performance (mass and velocity) and the cee-fractional shit is inextricably tied to biggatons unless you drastically nerf shell sizes. This creates problems. On one hand biggatons mean problem with thermodynamics and recoil (and you can't ignore science completely without invalidating your calcs, but someone can invalidate them by taking a harder stand on science than you do). On the other, we know weapons ranges can extend for tens or hundreds of thousands of kilometers (including for projectile weapons) and if you don't allow for guided munitions it becomes hard for multi-km ships travelling at multiple kilometers per second to hit each other at such ranges with unguided munitions (even if you have proximity explosions or similar 'area effect' weapons.)
So you still want to avoid pinning things down too concretely because it can just mean more work than you need to do. 'Canon' doesn't care whether it conforms to your personal view of what is or isn't right, and if you can't adjust your thinking to compensate you're likely to have alot of frustrations dealing with the overall continuity. Especially in 40K, where canon technically doesn't exist.
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Connor MacLeod
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Re: Calcs 40k Macrocannon Power
I'll note this doesn't mean doing such calcs are POINTLESS, mind. I'm just saying it doesn't pay to get too fixated on a particular outcome or a particular way of doing it.
Starting on particular assumptions that 'it needs to be continent destroying' for a particular weapon (as opposed to an entire broadside, or over a length of time) or opposed to destroying just a city of indeterminite size (all equally canonical interpretations from existing evidence, I might add.) or that the macro shell is of a particular mass or needs to be a particular velocity (itself assuming that the primary kill mechanism is kinetic as opposed to explosive) all are things that are going to artificially limit the analysis.
If you, for example, assume its a single unitary warhead destroying our hypothetical continent rather than a kinetic munition, then velocity becomes largely irrelevant (you'd only need high velocity to hit something with an unguided shell at long range, but in that situation you probably wouldn't need a continent-destroying explosive warhead, either.)
But you can further change the outcome if the warhead is a cluster munition or MIRV rather than unitary (multiple smaller explosions over the same area typically can require substantially less 'yield' than a unitary warhead. Easily an order of magnitude or more difference, in fact.)
I'm also going to note that getting fixated on absolute yield isn't always useful either. Energy is the potential to do work, but it doesn't tell you how much of that energy IS work. A biggaton weapon that wastes most of the energy will be far less effective than the yield implies. It's the work people really care about in debates, anyhow. But that adds complexity to the analysis because you need to pay attention to how the weapon works and how it interacts with the target and other tedious details.
Starting on particular assumptions that 'it needs to be continent destroying' for a particular weapon (as opposed to an entire broadside, or over a length of time) or opposed to destroying just a city of indeterminite size (all equally canonical interpretations from existing evidence, I might add.) or that the macro shell is of a particular mass or needs to be a particular velocity (itself assuming that the primary kill mechanism is kinetic as opposed to explosive) all are things that are going to artificially limit the analysis.
If you, for example, assume its a single unitary warhead destroying our hypothetical continent rather than a kinetic munition, then velocity becomes largely irrelevant (you'd only need high velocity to hit something with an unguided shell at long range, but in that situation you probably wouldn't need a continent-destroying explosive warhead, either.)
But you can further change the outcome if the warhead is a cluster munition or MIRV rather than unitary (multiple smaller explosions over the same area typically can require substantially less 'yield' than a unitary warhead. Easily an order of magnitude or more difference, in fact.)
I'm also going to note that getting fixated on absolute yield isn't always useful either. Energy is the potential to do work, but it doesn't tell you how much of that energy IS work. A biggaton weapon that wastes most of the energy will be far less effective than the yield implies. It's the work people really care about in debates, anyhow. But that adds complexity to the analysis because you need to pay attention to how the weapon works and how it interacts with the target and other tedious details.
Re: Calcs 40k Macrocannon Power
Connor finds me in agreement, as I have already written, in fact, this is a fandom reasoning, for pure conversation between fans, it has no canon value, for fun, in fact the values that I have taken as reference, even if canon, are partial , in fact there are heavier and smaller bullet than those of 50 meters (for example those of the Battleship, of the Gloriana, of the Abyss and of the Ark Speranza), moreover some bullet are cables to host the explosives, and not knowing the thickness of the bullet cable we cannot deduce the mass.
Mine is a fandom speech, I specified it in my first post. If I wanted to have canon data, for example, I would refer to the official power of 42 exajoules - 10 gigatons per hit, cit .:
"The yields provided for these weapons can range from 42 exajoules (about 5,297 times more powerful than the most powerful earthquake ever recorded; an earthquake of 42 exajoules would be approximately magnitude 9.98) up to the paltry 15 tetrajoule ... * sigh * Games Workshop never surprises us. Believe us seriously, we know that tetrajoules are not an official unit of measurement, but since the tetra is Latin for four, this essentially gives us ... 4 joules of power .... which is weaker than a human fist ... Don't you think so? We got it from Rogue Trader rpg: BattleFleet Koronus pages 31 and 20.
https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Autogun
Or I would refer to the quotations of novels or various wikias that report continental destruction by a single broadside of macro-batteries of a retribution class, or the quote from Garro: Sword of Truth, that claims a Retribution battleship can cause a deathstar-like explosion of a planet with a single broadside
But the purpose of the thread was a discussion to make 4 small talk, a bar talk, so as not to always take ourselves seriously, as for canon speeches, otherwise we do nothing but report sentences on sentences full only of canonical quotations. Sometimes it is also nice to travel a little with the imagination.
Mine is a fandom speech, I specified it in my first post. If I wanted to have canon data, for example, I would refer to the official power of 42 exajoules - 10 gigatons per hit, cit .:
"The yields provided for these weapons can range from 42 exajoules (about 5,297 times more powerful than the most powerful earthquake ever recorded; an earthquake of 42 exajoules would be approximately magnitude 9.98) up to the paltry 15 tetrajoule ... * sigh * Games Workshop never surprises us. Believe us seriously, we know that tetrajoules are not an official unit of measurement, but since the tetra is Latin for four, this essentially gives us ... 4 joules of power .... which is weaker than a human fist ... Don't you think so? We got it from Rogue Trader rpg: BattleFleet Koronus pages 31 and 20.
https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Autogun
Or I would refer to the quotations of novels or various wikias that report continental destruction by a single broadside of macro-batteries of a retribution class, or the quote from Garro: Sword of Truth, that claims a Retribution battleship can cause a deathstar-like explosion of a planet with a single broadside
But the purpose of the thread was a discussion to make 4 small talk, a bar talk, so as not to always take ourselves seriously, as for canon speeches, otherwise we do nothing but report sentences on sentences full only of canonical quotations. Sometimes it is also nice to travel a little with the imagination.