Yet another "I'm not a Trekkie, but ..." E-mail

[Stark]

Grrr. There's the newbie FAQ thread for a reason. Maybe we should change the signup process so before people can post they must have at least *read the damn site*?? I simply assumed he had.

[Darth Wong]

I don’t totally disregard the ICS books; in fact I even used a quote from Saxton that came from the first ICS about the triple turreted medium cannons. However, I do take into account the Expanded Universe novels as well.

No you don't, otherwise you would not be disputing the ICS figures.

However, there are various sources throughout the EU that demonstrate “terajoules” of energy being a threat to capital ships and stations. Slave Ship places the most powerful Turbolasers in the Gigaton range,

Recoil equivalent to gigaton-level explosions, not gigaton-yield weapons. Don't be an idiot.

the Shield of Lies section on your Turbolasers pages place Light Turbolasers around 3 MT, your own lower estimates for Light Turbolasers are around 5 MT.

And how are low megaton ranges inconsistent with the ICS, dumb-ass? The ICS places LTL firepower at 6 MT!

I said 15-megaton light Turbolasers were my “base, conservative estimate”, base conservative meaning a conservative estimate to start with.

There is a difference between "conservative" and "stupid". You chose to take one of the lowest canon examples of SW firepower, well below that of Slave-1's weapons in AOTC, and use it as the basis of an estimate. Why?

You stated that you assumed this to be my high-end figure; I must say you misinterpreted my post. Your own base estimates started at 3 MT and 5 MT for Light Turbolasers, you moved higher through various official sources, ending with the highest number at 22 GT Heavy Turbolasers (An order of magnitude smaller than the ICS numbers)

Ultra-conservative, old data. Newer pages such as the BDZ pages and the Five Minutes pages clear that right up.

Even compared to your own numbers ICS is much larger than what is required for a BDZ operation as detailed by your site. BDZ operations being of course the highest official situation we have.

Bullshit. Read my BDZ pages.

Sorry for the choppy and short reply, but I’m getting yelled at by my folks.

One last thing, I could not continue on with this reply without addressing your rather quick attack on my character.

How is it "rather quick"? You've had a long time to assimilate the official Lucasfilm policy, yet you refuse to accept it.

In your debate with the other person earlier in this thread you pointed out how such attacks derail a debate. Instead of calling me an idiot twice (once for saying MT instead of MT/sec, which appears to me as trivial) and saying my conservative estimate is based on bullshit, I would rather you detail where my estimate is, in your opinion flawed.

The part where you disregard official published numbers, dumb-fuck.

Your own conservative estimate, as I have shown above, is rather close to mine. It is for this reason that I do not understand your hostility towards me.

My own very old, ultra-conservative estimate which is well out of date in light of more recent information such as AOTC (and not just the ICS; the fucking MOVIE, you blithering idiot).

[Howedar]

Mike, I would be curious to see revised estimates from the AOTC movie, if you've got nothing better to do.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

Your calculations < Canon data from Lucasfilm. I am sorry, but that's how it works. I lack the patience for this game.

Nitpick about this idea. Calculations also include Saxton's scaling of the 11-mile Executor. If he's obliged by Lucasfilm at some point to write in his book Executors are 8 miles long, does that make it true?

It is better to say that low-end calcs do not override statements demanding higher energy levels.

[Lord Poe]

Nitpick about this idea. Calculations also include Saxton's scaling of the 11-mile Executor. If he's obliged by Lucasfilm at some point to write in his book Executors are 8 miles long, does that make it true?

You'll see Darth Vader wearing pink panties in the ultra SEs before you'd every see that. Trust me.

[Ender]

While I have a great deal of respect for Mr. Saxton, and indeed believe his site to be the most objective analysis of Star Wars capabilities on the web, I cannot in good conscience accept power figures simply because they are published in an official source. As I have yet to see how Saxton derived these figures I will reserve final judgment until Episode III.

Scale down the reactor from that of the DS using basic log-log scaling lke applies to modern nuclear reactors. Then ther is the quote from the Imperial Sourcebook that shielding is ~ 25% of total power. Then for weapons fire you get what the ISD needs to preform a BDZ in 1 hour and there you have what your HTLs are.

THis is how you get the numbers. But the werid thing is that Saxton's don't match up because he then decided to decrease them from what you actually get from the math to make things more in line with the EU.

Thanks Ender, do you by any chance know what the estimate for the DS reactor is? Taking into consideration possible charge time and all that?

Give me a second to reply to you Wong, computer crash just killed my reply.

1.16E33 low end

[His Divine Shadow]

Actually, while I acknoledge that one on one a Sovvie is no match for an ISD, I also think that Torpedoes are in the megaton range, and the ISD low gigaton range for total output.

How strange, seeing that canon visuals put ships the size of Slave-1 being able to put out dozens of kilotons of firepower in short order from it's energy weapons, and small mines being in the GT range.
Not to mention the other canon visuals of Star Destroyers accelerative abilities showing them to put out something like 1e23watts in engines alone.

I suppose that stardestroyer shields are made weak on purpose then, and that turbolasers dump more than 95% of their firepower into subspace or something equally funky then?

[Ender]

When it comes to official publications in relationship with canon sources I rank Tech Manuals/Sourcebooks lower than the EU novels.
Movies>Movie Novels>EU Novels>Tech manuals/Sourcebooks>Games/Comics
That would be the order in which I consider source material.

I don’t totally disregard the ICS books; in fact I even used a quote from Saxton that came from the first ICS about the triple turreted medium cannons. However, I do take into account the Expanded Universe novels as well.

It is 7:00 at the moment so I can’t go into too much more detail tonight, perhaps around 9:00 I can get back to you.

However, there are various sources throughout the EU that demonstrate “terajoules” of energy being a threat to capital ships and stations. Slave Ship places the most powerful Turbolasers in the Gigaton range, the Shield of Lies section on your Turbolasers pages place Light Turbolasers around 3 MT, your own lower estimates for Light Turbolasers are around 5 MT.

Of course lower weapons can still hurt ships, its basic thermodynamics, the shields will not be 100% effective at redirecting the energy, so it will begin to heat up and eventually burn out the shield generator. This is supported by the TPM visual dictionary

[Master of Ossus]

While I have a great deal of respect for Mr. Saxton, and indeed believe his site to be the most objective analysis of Star Wars capabilities on the web, I cannot in good conscience accept power figures simply because they are published in an official source.

1. The ICS is a canon source. This has been established and confirmed.

As I have yet to see how Saxton derived these figures I will reserve final judgment until Episode III.

If EPIII demonstrates power on this scale from Acclamators or other vessels I will be more than happy to accept the 200 GT number. As for now, I am using my own calculations based off of ESB and a few EU sources.

Why? The ICS reports firepower in line with the estimates that Mike Wong and others have made for years.

BTW, does anyone know of a website that has a picture of the Acclamator’s cannons from the movie?

As for a Federation taskforce being capable of destroying a Star Destroyer without receiving losses or incurring a retaliatory strike…

I know that even at 100 MT the Quantum Torpedoes are still roughly six orders of magnitude weaker than your guy’s shield numbers. However it would seem that both the person Mr. Wong is debating with and I, do not believe that this level of power is actual.

100MT Q torps are from the TM, which are not canon. I love how you accept "mere speculation" regarding the firepower of a ST ship, while completely ignoring canon figures regarding the firepower of SW vessels.

I personally find it more likely for a Star Destroyer’s shields to be around 25 or 30 Gigatons,

In other words, you have no evidence to support your position except that you don't like higher figures.

once again based on much lower yield weapons than those used here. In such a case as this, it would only take around 400 to 500 Photon Torpedoes, or about 200 Quantum Torpedoes to drop the destroyer’s shields, and an unknown number to destroy the vessel.

WTF? It should be fairly easy to calculate how many torpedoes would be required to destroy a planet once you already know firepower.

Using much more conservative numbers than the ICS or BDZ calculations, it would only take 5 Galaxy-class Starships some 10-15 seconds to drop the Destroyer’s shields and blast through to the reactor.

How did you come to that conclusion? Even if your Trek firepower is correct, and the ISD shielding figure you provide is correct, then this works out to nearly a dozen torpedoes per ship every second!

If such a confrontation occurred, and the Federation forcer stayed underneath the ISD, avoiding both Heavy and Medium weapons, it is possible to destroy the vessel without receiving losses.

I love how you conclude that the LTL's, which have been shown to be in the low MT range by BOTH the AotC: ICS and calculations from ESB would have no effect on the UFP starships, whose shields have been overloaded by a 400MW cannon, and KT range torpedoes (shown by "Pegasus" and "Nemesis.").

However, I would have to disagree with the “no return fire” part as well.

This debate is really one of weapons calculations, and depending on what numbers you use it may or may not be possible.

Except that your numbers are based on bullshit, whereas the figures used on this site have been extensively analyzed and carefully derived from a number of incidents throughout the SW saga.

[Master of Ossus]

It is true that I would be much more comfortable with the higher-end calculations if we saw something like a BDZ in one of the movies, but I do not discount the Expanded Universe by any leap of logic.

But you dismiss figures provided by the EU?

Nor do I ignore the relationship between canon and official that has been dictated by Lucasfilm.

Sure you do. You claim that the TM's and ICS's are below the EU sources, which is bullshit not only because the ICS series has been declared to be canon, which was later confirmed by Rostoni, and because the ICS's are clearly closer to the movies than almost anything else in the EU, being derived exclusively from movie material whereas other novels and such explicitly expand on that, adding new characters, ships, weapons, etc. etc. etc. Thus, even using the "nuggets of truth" quote you are ignoring the relationship between canon and official.

Although I do not know why you would make the conclusion that I give the books no status at all, when I simply said that I was waiting for Episode III before I make any final judgment. I am assuming that EP III is going to give us a big space battle scene, which is what the rumors are currently supporting. It was my hope that we would get to see some pre-Empire Cruisers taking chunks out of armor and such. Seeing an early ISD blow a hole through another, shieldless; ship would most definitely put the weapon calc debate on its deathbed.

You mean like the HTL blast we see in RotJ, which UTTERLY demolishes an ISD in less than a second?

I was watching “Pegasus” last night and did notice that it would take “almost all of our Photon torpedoes” to destroy the Pegasus. The vessel was 3,000 meters deep in the asteroid, half consumed in rock. To destroy it would have required, at least, the torpedoes to get through 3 km of solid rock plus their own diameter. With the pockets of space throughout the “planetary body” as Data called it, the Photon Torpedoes would be in the 100 KT> range I think.

Right. This is a lot less than your earlier claims of mid-MT range photon torpedoes, and 100MT range q-torps.

Although this is merely a rough estimate, (still not sure if the Enterprise was simply going to vaporize the asteroid to destroy the Pegasus, or simply dig down to it and blast it, etc) it does give us a range, which is useful. It would take some further reasoning and compromise to get a more accepted figure.

Compromise? What compromise?

The calculations I use for Light Turbolasers are those from the Empire Strikes Back, specifically the asteroid scene. Using conservative figures for the sizes of asteroids vaporized, something between 40 and 50 meters in diameter, it would take roughly 0.5 to 1 Megatons to totally vaporize each rock.

Which is... greater than your derived firepower for the "Pegasus" torpedoes. LTL's are thus more powerful than photon torpedoes.

Taking into the account of, I believe it to be 1/15th second work rate; the Light Turbolasers get a yield range from between 7.5 to 15 Megatons.

From there I make some assumptions.
Medium Turbolasers are seen onboard the ISD-I Subclass of Destroyer, in two quad mounts, and according to Saxton there are another three triple turrets of the medium size.

When did Doctor Saxton say that there were three triple turrets?

We know from the films that the quad batteries do exist, but I have yet to see the triple batteries myself. Either way there are no more than 20 medium cannons if Saxton is right. That would place the proportion of Light to Medium cannons at roughly 7 to one.

What? When was there a count taken of the number of LTL's on an ISD? Moreover, if there are "no more than 20 medium cannons," then Saxton must be wrong. This picture:

ISD's dorsal stern

Shows clearly that there are more MTL turrets in this ONE FRAME than you claim exist on the ENTIRE SHIP! When has Saxton ever dismissed such visual evidence?

In order for the Medium weapons to be useful, I would assume that they are at least an order of a magnitude more powerful than the Light weapons, possibly two.

So that places them in the 50MT range, or thereabouts--dozens of times more powerful than the torpedo calculations derived from "Pegasus."
That is my reasoning for placing MTL yields around 75 MT or 150 MT.

Heavy Turbolasers are arrayed in six dual turrets aboard the ISD-I subclass, and eight octuple turrets onboard the ISD-II subclass. These bolts are much longer than the other Turbolasers, over 500 meters by most accounts, and are much more powerful. On the ISD-I subclass the light to heavy weapons ratio is exactly 10 to 1. Once again, in order to be effective the Heavy cannons would have to be two to three orders of magnitude more powerful than the standard LTL.
That places their yield around 750 MT to 1,500 MT.

Note: I am assuming that the LTL armament for an ISD-I subclass is 120 cannons arrayed in 60 dual turrets.

This is totally baseless. There are far more LTL's than that, and there are far more MTL's than you give the ship credit for having.

Also, the 1.5 Gigaton HTL yield would seem to be supported by the Slave Ship quote that the ISD Heavy mounts had to withstand recoil “explosions measured in the giga-tonnage range”.

These estimates were my base, conservative, calculations. I almost always use those when debating.

Right, and they show your earlier statements that a UFP armada could destroy an ISD in 10-15 seconds as being totally baseless. We know that a Mon Calamari Cruiser can withstand at least one of these HTL blasts without having its shields flattened. "400-500" torpedoes in the 100KT range are not that powerful.

[Master of Ossus]

When it comes to official publications in relationship with canon sources I rank Tech Manuals/Sourcebooks lower than the EU novels.
Movies>Movie Novels>EU Novels>Tech manuals/Sourcebooks>Games/Comics
That would be the order in which I consider source material.

Unfortunately for you, this disagrees with the LFL policy. According to LFL, the closer something is to the movies, the more accurate it is. This means that the ICS is more accurate than almost all EU material. This is, of course, completely disregarding the fact that the ICS books are canon materials.

I don’t totally disregard the ICS books; in fact I even used a quote from Saxton that came from the first ICS about the triple turreted medium cannons. However, I do take into account the Expanded Universe novels as well.

How did you manage to conclude that an ISD can perform a BDZ in less than an hour with the firepower you attribute to it, then? Either you are lying about using EU accounts, or you are cherry-picking which parts of the EU to include and which ones to exclude (which, actually, we KNOW you are doing, since the ICS calcs you're ignoring are part of the EU).

It is 7:00 at the moment so I can’t go into too much more detail tonight, perhaps around 9:00 I can get back to you.

However, there are various sources throughout the EU that demonstrate “terajoules” of energy being a threat to capital ships and stations. Slave Ship places the most powerful Turbolasers in the Gigaton range, the Shield of Lies section on your Turbolasers pages place Light Turbolasers around 3 MT, your own lower estimates for Light Turbolasers are around 5 MT.

Exactly in line with the estimates from ICS. What's your point?

I said 15-megaton light Turbolasers were my “base, conservative estimate”, base conservative meaning a conservative estimate to start with. You stated that you assumed this to be my high-end figure; I must say you misinterpreted my post. Your own base estimates started at 3 MT and 5 MT for Light Turbolasers, you moved higher through various official sources, ending with the highest number at 22 GT Heavy Turbolasers (An order of magnitude smaller than the ICS numbers)

This was always a ridiculously conservative estimate. You apparently failed to grasp that.

Even compared to your own numbers ICS is much larger than what is required for a BDZ operation as detailed by your site. BDZ operations being of course the highest official situation we have.

Except that the BDZ operation that Mike set up wasn't a good measure of the amount of energy a BDZ would truly take. It did all sorts of things to artificially lower the amount of energy required (ie. assuming that the planet has no oceans, assuming that it melted only to a piddling depth, even though to wipe out all life on a planet you would need to slag the crust to a depth of at least half a mile). The ICS figures are a far more realistic estimate for the true power required for a BDZ.

Sorry for the choppy and short reply, but I’m getting yelled at by my folks.

One last thing, I could not continue on with this reply without addressing your rather quick attack on my character. In your debate with the other person earlier in this thread you pointed out how such attacks derail a debate. Instead of calling me an idiot twice (once for saying MT instead of MT/sec, which appears to me as trivial) and saying my conservative estimate is based on bullshit, I would rather you detail where my estimate is, in your opinion flawed.

Done and done.

Your own conservative estimate, as I have shown above, is rather close to mine. It is for this reason that I do not understand your hostility towards me.

Be back later.

Mike's conservative estimate is a lower-limit calculation that is based on information that is years old. Your "base conservative estimate" indicates that the firepower of the Slave-1 is greater than the firepower of an HTL blast.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Actually, Ossus, some people here (including myself) believe those "dorsal batteries" in that one image might actually be some kind of mechanical or electronic mechanism that's part of the engine baffel system...

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

Actually, Ossus, some people here (including myself) believe those "dorsal batteries" in that one image might actually be some kind of mechanical or electronic mechanism that's part of the engine baffel system...

Didn't someone identify them as turrets from a model of the KGV?

[Illuminatus Primus]

Shows clearly that there are more MTL turrets in this ONE FRAME than you claim exist on the ENTIRE SHIP! When has Saxton ever dismissed such visual evidence?

Uh, those aren't turrets. No barrels. They're steering vanes or something for the exhaust wash.

[Vympel]

Uh, those aren't turrets. No barrels. They're steering vanes or something for the exhaust wash.

Yeah, they look almost like space flaps

[nightmare]

Closeup

Another closeup

I'm with Ossus on this one. If that isn't double barreled turrets, I don't know what is.

[Master of Ossus]

In this image and and this oneyou can clearly see that there are barrels on these features, indicating that they are in fact turrets. Their size is consistent with double-barrelled MTL cannons.

[nightmare]

Yeah, and the barrels are obviously designed to go up and down. Plus there's bracings at the back of the turrets. There seem to be some kind of extra flap on the end of the barrels, but that's nothing to raise an eyebrow over.

[nightmare]

I correct myself. I noticed after further study that the "flaps" are twin circular bracings in front of the turrets. I have no doubts left.

[Vympel]

Yeah, they do look like turrets now- they have a very huge range of fire it seems (designed to fire straight up as well looks like). Looks like they can really defend themselves from behind with them.

But are they MTLs? When we say MTLs, are we thinking of weapons the size of the Acclamator's main guns? Becuase the Acclamator ones are bigger than that, surely ...

[Master of Ossus]

Purely subjectively, they seem to be slightly smaller than Acclamator turrets. They also have two barrels rather than four per turret, which would also lower their relative firepower, but I daresay that would be enough weapons to be able to cover the ISD as it pitched upwards to bring its HTL turrets to bear on a starship that dared to attack it from the rear.

[nightmare]

Yeah, they do look like turrets now- they have a very huge range of fire it seems (designed to fire straight up as well looks like). Looks like they can really defend themselves from behind with them.

But are they MTLs? When we say MTLs, are we thinking of weapons the size of the Acclamator's main guns? Becuase the Acclamator ones are bigger than that, surely ...

Dunno, but I'm interested. I scale these turrets to 7,84 m lenght with barrels included with a 20% margin of error downward. Any picture of the Acclamator to compare with? There's more turrets of what seem to be similar size in the trench at a casual glance, plus larger weapons than these. For example in this picture.

[Master of Ossus]

Dunno, but I'm interested. I scale these turrets to 7,84 m lenght with barrels included with a 20% margin of error downward.

Cool. That's about the size of an Acclamator cannon, but of course it's only got two barrels and they seem to have a smaller diameter.

Any picture of the Acclamator to compare with? There's more turrets of what seem to be similar size in the trench at a casual glance, plus larger weapons than these. For example in this picture.

Out of curiosity, is that a secondary hangar that's sitting in the trench, there? That's a pretty interesting feature that I'm not sure I've seen before.

[nightmare]

I have speculated in that before. It's hard to say, but it just might be. The overlaying strip vertically across it suggests not, but I think it might be some kind of door. It's perhaps a stretch to call it a docking bay though, it could have a different function. It also look like a gunturret to the right-downward side of it, but it doesn't have any barrels in it.

The ISD1 has the large quad tower instead, of course.

[Drooling Iguana]

A docking port, perhaps, to mate with other ships? Where on the ship is that feature located?