Federation shuttle craft vs TIE fighter

[Connor MacLeod]

If ranges have increased and they use computers to compensate for that, I can better accept such manuvers.

Its not a manuver, its a stlye of fighting. Computers would certainly help (they'd be useful regardless of a long range or short range battle.) but what you need for longer range battle are better sensors. If the targget it outside visual range the only way to track him is by other means (active sensors, passive detection of emitted radiation, etc.) But if you know where they are, you could use magnification on visual sensors to compensate for distance (even to the point of manual gunnery) - the only reason that distance increases with velocity is to compensate for reaction times - but the fact they CAN fight at such velocities is implicit proof of those ranges as well.

I think what is going on is more of a middleground between the two types of combat I have listed.

How they fight is largely goign to depend on the type of opponent they face. Much of SW fighter combat occurs at short/visual ranges because of the exceedingly close parity between sensors and EW systems (as established in Han Solo at Star's End) makes total reliance on computers problematic - its considered more reliable for the pilot to trust visual ranges and such. THis is also true to an extent at the start of the NJO, but as the war progresses, their style of combat changes (as they adapt to the enemy and gain advantages. Early on in the war, Coralskippers were not easily tracked by SW targeting computers, which lead to closer-range engagements)

The battleground can affect fighting styles as well. Relatavistic combat is impractical very close to a planet, and many battles are fought over planets (either in defense or invasion.) but that doesnt rule out relatavistic combat when the battle permits. (For that matter they don't always manuver either... stationary or near stationary slugging matches are also quite possible.)

[Connor MacLeod]

I find myself having to repeat this: why is it being neccsearily assumed that beam phasers are somehow intrinsically more accurate across the board (regardless of the scale/power of the beam phaser, the ranges involved, the type of target, the speed/mobility of said target, absence/presence/quality of ECM, etc...) just because they fire this continuous beam (which is ridiculous.). I'm still waiting to hear the justification for such a broad generalization, or if it isn't being treated as such, under what circumstancese this "near perfect" accuracy is supposed to operate under.

[Alyeska]

I find myself having to repeat this: why is it being neccsearily assumed that beam phasers are somehow intrinsically more accurate across the board (regardless of the scale/power of the beam phaser, the ranges involved, the type of target, the speed/mobility of said target, absence/presence/quality of ECM, etc...) just because they fire this continuous beam (which is ridiculous.). I'm still waiting to hear the justification for such a broad generalization, or if it isn't being treated as such, under what circumstancese this "near perfect" accuracy is supposed to operate under.

Beam phasers have observed accuracy rates far above OPFOR counterparts while still retaining similar levels of fire. Infact they have observed accurate rates above every other equal OPFOR weapon and Fed PPCs and torpedoes.

Its assumed because its a known fact.

[Ubiquitous]

"Chewie, jam their transmissions" - ANH

Thank you, come again.

Ok nice.

What the hell? I ask again, how do you know he wasn't pushing it for all it was worth? How does the presence of wingmen preclude his ramming?

I wasn't using his wingmen as evidence precluding ramming Luke. The wingmen instead would have increased the chance of shooting Luke down, especially on manual fire. Three times the firepower, three times the chance of shooting Luke down.

Maybe its not that simple, but IMO Vader made a mistake in not using his wingmen to chase Luke as well. [Obviously, this was done to increase the dramatic tension at the end of the film to make it a 1 vs 1 battle between Luke and Vader - I'm sure if it was a book or a non-character shielded pilot in the X-Wing, Vader would have used his wingmen and shoot the figher down. But I digress].

Oh poor fucking baby

I challenge you to find a single instance of me bashing Trek in my entire stay here. One. You won't find one because I don't fucking bash Trek. Most people here don't, and if you'd come off your whiny-ass wounded bitching you'd see that.

Perhaps you don't bash Trek - I'll accept your view on this as it's similar to my own re: Trek and Wars. But if someone accuses me of trolling in my first fucking post in the forum for months, they'd better have damm good proof to back up their claims, rather than your 'hunch'. Again, if I was a troll, you and everyone else would know about it. Obviously your troll guaging capabilities are quite impressive if you could recognise trolling with ten Vs posts in 20 months at this forum...

I've asked myself that very same question.

Nice reply, care to cite some examples of 'trolls' like myself who have managed to behave impecably for almost 2 years around the entire forum, but have somehow managed to gain a trolls reputation from 10 posts in a Vs forum?

Don't bother. You won't find any because these 'trolls' dont exist and are just a figment of your paranoid imagination.

You're breaking my balls, bitch. Cry me a fucking river.

I'm breaking your fucking balls? YOU'RE the one breaking balls, regardless of my postcount or affiliations, if you're going to accuse someone of being a troll, you better back it up better than you have been doing so far.

If you were interested in a real discussion, you wouldn't snipe with a comment or three then disappear for weeks.

This is a fair point, I'll grant you that. My internet activity is fairly erratic, especially with regards to this forum, which isn't one I used to frequent too often before I bookmarked it. I can see how my departures can be seen as slightly annoying. But trolling? No, I disagree with you.

I'm not a troll. I'll prove that with my actions in the rest of this thread. If I fuck off and do what you have accused me of, then call me a troll. If I don't, get the fuck off my back and find someone else to have a release on.

This indicates they can jam communications... how does this translate into some sort of combat-EW capable of defeating SW sensors, exactly? ?

I was asked for examples of jamming, any example. To be honest, I'm quite happy to conceed that Wars has far superior jamming. But I don't believe that it will play such a major factor with such minor combatants.

Original Trilogy ICS, EGW&T, Han Solo at Star's End to name a few. Jamming capability is a well-known fact in the Star Wars universe.

By the way, I like how you assume above that we're supposed to take it as granted that the ability to jam communications translates into full-scale Electronic Warfare capability for the Feds, but we need EXPLICIT proof that TIE fighters have jamming even when its known that other fighters (Even obsolete Z-95 headhunters!) have them. I'm guessing hypocrisy doesn't bother you all that much when its to your advantage, does it?

I know that Wars has lots of examples jamming. But this debate is about Tie fighters - small, expendable craft that are so expendable that they don't even have shielding [at least according to some sources, which may be overruled by canon]. At the least I wanted one example of the use of jamming by Ties, just so that the arguement could be put to rest since the idea of jamming is to have a major part in the way this battle goes.

In my view, if the Tie has jamming then it will defeat the Type 9 due to superior evasion and other tactical advantages. If there is no jamming, then the shuttle is going to be my winner as it's been hit by capital ship weapons fire before, around the same power as a Tie fighters guns, and survived - I don't believe that a Tie could function properly if it was hit multiple times by its own weapons to the same extent that the shielded shuttle could.

[q]
The jamming was hampering both sides in terms of detection AND manuvering, as per the canon novelization. Its canon fact that they were reduced to visual detection. Didn't you watch the movie? [/q]

Yeah I did but not recently ... and certainly not as closely as I would have liked to for the purpose of my arguement.

What does this have to do with the presence of or lack of EW, exactly?

Nothing with the main argument ... it was a run-off of an other argument I was having with Howedar.

I don't know whether or not you're a trroll, but your logic needs a great deal more work (especially where you demanded the Wars side explicitly prove something to you and assumed that we should take something on the Trek side for granted.)

I've admitted that I'm not a good debater, but if I don't get involved then I never will be.

[Wild Karrde]

Another thing to take into account is the TIE has a fast refire rate, 16 bolts every second it fires. So that's 16 kilitons a second (minimum).

[Wild Karrde]

Damn lack of edit. Forgot to add the above was taken from ANH.

[Darth Wong]

Beam phasers have observed accuracy rates far above OPFOR counterparts while still retaining similar levels of fire. Infact they have observed accurate rates above every other equal OPFOR weapon and Fed PPCs and torpedoes.

Its assumed because its a known fact.

Define "accuracy rates". If you mean "hit rates", you should know that this is not the same thing as accuracy. It is highly doubtful that there is something special about the Federation's beam phasers which makes them inherently more accurate than any other kind of weapon in use throughout Star Trek. It is much more probable that they are simply designed not to fire unless they have a good target lock. Torpedoes, on the other hand, must be fired with some ambiguity as to whether they will actually strike their targets; they can be jammed en route to the target unlike a beam phaser, and they propagate much more slowly than a beam phaser. Pulse phasers have very limited ability to shoot off-axis if they have this ability at all, so their accuracy is limited by the movement of the spacecraft.

[Alyeska]

Beam phasers have observed accuracy rates far above OPFOR counterparts while still retaining similar levels of fire. Infact they have observed accurate rates above every other equal OPFOR weapon and Fed PPCs and torpedoes.

Its assumed because its a known fact.

Define "accuracy rates". If you mean "hit rates", you should know that this is not the same thing as accuracy. It is highly doubtful that there is something special about the Federation's beam phasers which makes them inherently more accurate than any other kind of weapon in use throughout Star Trek. It is much more probable that they are simply designed not to fire unless they have a good target lock. Torpedoes, on the other hand, must be fired with some ambiguity as to whether they will actually strike their targets; they can be jammed en route to the target unlike a beam phaser, and they propagate much more slowly than a beam phaser. Pulse phasers have very limited ability to shoot off-axis if they have this ability at all, so their accuracy is limited by the movement of the spacecraft.

And yet beam phasers have a notable accuracy difference compared to enemy beam weapon counterparts. Beam phasers are fired more frequently then torpedoes and score hits more often. Only PPCs are fired more often then phasers and their hits are limited by their arcs.

[Darth Wong]

And yet beam phasers have a notable accuracy difference compared to enemy beam weapon counterparts.

And yet the Federation does not steamroll its enemies. Could it be that they have to close to such range in order to score hits that the accuracy difference is tactically negligible, or that the enemy just fires more eagerly?

[Iceberg]

I just rewatched the Paradise Lost combat video (which makes 20+ times I've seen it now). The Lakota scores 100% accuracy against the Defiant. I also watched the Oddessy Battle. The GCS fires a total of three shots and all three hit.

There are only five examples I can think of when Starfleet capitalship have missed targets. Two of them are examples of blind firing against a cloaked target. Two more are examples are of Starfleet ships firing on stealth capable ships. The last example is when a ship missing its computer core had to manualy target fighters.

I counted at least three times just in the "Yackity Sax" video where Starfleet ships missed a target with beam phasers - two of them were capital ships and one was a Runabout; all three were firing on relatively large or unevasive targets.

[Connor MacLeod]

I just rewatched the Paradise Lost combat video (which makes 20+ times I've seen it now). The Lakota scores 100% accuracy against the Defiant. I also watched the Oddessy Battle. The GCS fires a total of three shots and all three hit.

There are only five examples I can think of when Starfleet capitalship have missed targets. Two of them are examples of blind firing against a cloaked target. Two more are examples are of Starfleet ships firing on stealth capable ships. The last example is when a ship missing its computer core had to manualy target fighters.

I counted at least three times just in the "Yackity Sax" video where Starfleet ships missed a target with beam phasers - two of them were capital ships and one was a Runabout; all three were firing on relatively large or unevasive targets.

IIRC there were two runabout instances, but even then, they'd just say "near-perfect accuracy", or something like that. What's being discussed is why it is assumed that there is some sort of inherent quality that makes ANY beam phaser possess such insane accuracy, and excludes virrtually any other sort of weapon. (because for the purpose of this debate, much like with the Delta flyer, the assumption seems to be that if its a beam phaser its going to hit regardless of situational factors such as power output, range, target type, EW, etc. - just becaues it IS a beam phaser.)

[Darth Wong]

IIRC there were two runabout instances, but even then, they'd just say "near-perfect accuracy", or something like that. What's being discussed is why it is assumed that there is some sort of inherent quality that makes ANY beam phaser possess such insane accuracy, and excludes virrtually any other sort of weapon. (because for the purpose of this debate, much like with the Delta flyer, the assumption seems to be that if its a beam phaser its going to hit regardless of situational factors such as power output, range, target type, EW, etc. - just becaues it IS a beam phaser.)

What really annoys me is their unspoken assertion that the only way to disprove their ability to hit maneuvering one-man fighters is to prove that they routinely miss 100 metre long starships.

[Connor MacLeod]

What really annoys me is their unspoken assertion that the only way to disprove their ability to hit maneuvering one-man fighters is to prove that they routinely miss 100 metre long starships.

I'm still trying to puzzled out why pulse phasers should be completely ignored for purposes of accuracy. I can't think of a reason why if they had these "near perfect" beam phasers why they could not incorporate the systems into a pulse phaser (insofar as has been presented in this and the prior delta flyer/X-wing discussion, there is nothing to indicate that the pulse phasers should be incapable of such.) - they DO have limited "off-axis" tracking (they can converge and diverge, and in the last discussion I noted a number of such examples, even though they were largely ignored.) - its not even remotely as grgeat an arc as what beam phasers possess (manuverability does still play a larrge factor), but it would be enough to compensate for the observed misses (which are often only by very small margins) This strikes me as very inconsistent.

[Alyeska]

I just rewatched the Paradise Lost combat video (which makes 20+ times I've seen it now). The Lakota scores 100% accuracy against the Defiant. I also watched the Oddessy Battle. The GCS fires a total of three shots and all three hit.

There are only five examples I can think of when Starfleet capitalship have missed targets. Two of them are examples of blind firing against a cloaked target. Two more are examples are of Starfleet ships firing on stealth capable ships. The last example is when a ship missing its computer core had to manualy target fighters.

I counted at least three times just in the "Yackity Sax" video where Starfleet ships missed a target with beam phasers - two of them were capital ships and one was a Runabout; all three were firing on relatively large or unevasive targets.

One of the two capitalship misses is a Nebula missing while firing against a Runabout with stealth capabilities. What was the other capitalship miss? BTW, I excluded smaller craft because they naturaly have less capable systems and they will miss more frequently.

[Alyeska]

And yet beam phasers have a notable accuracy difference compared to enemy beam weapon counterparts.

And yet the Federation does not steamroll its enemies. Could it be that they have to close to such range in order to score hits that the accuracy difference is tactically negligible, or that the enemy just fires more eagerly?

No. Starfleet ships fight at similar ranges and fire similar numbers of times with their beam weapons as to OPFOR ships yet they continue to sustain better accuracy. I've already explained the likely reason and its somewhat supported by onscreen evidence. Beam phasers are less powerful then most OPFOR beam systems. Traditionaly Starfleet ships firing on their enemies appear to do less damage then enemy beams do to the Starfleet ships.

[Alyeska]

I just rewatched the Paradise Lost combat video (which makes 20+ times I've seen it now). The Lakota scores 100% accuracy against the Defiant. I also watched the Oddessy Battle. The GCS fires a total of three shots and all three hit.

There are only five examples I can think of when Starfleet capitalship have missed targets. Two of them are examples of blind firing against a cloaked target. Two more are examples are of Starfleet ships firing on stealth capable ships. The last example is when a ship missing its computer core had to manualy target fighters.

I counted at least three times just in the "Yackity Sax" video where Starfleet ships missed a target with beam phasers - two of them were capital ships and one was a Runabout; all three were firing on relatively large or unevasive targets.

IIRC there were two runabout instances, but even then, they'd just say "near-perfect accuracy", or something like that. What's being discussed is why it is assumed that there is some sort of inherent quality that makes ANY beam phaser possess such insane accuracy, and excludes virrtually any other sort of weapon. (because for the purpose of this debate, much like with the Delta flyer, the assumption seems to be that if its a beam phaser its going to hit regardless of situational factors such as power output, range, target type, EW, etc. - just becaues it IS a beam phaser.)

I make no such claims about the smaller vehicles. We have seen far fewer examples of small craft firing their weapons yet the number of misses shown make up a much bigger percentage. Shuttles and shuttle level craft (Runabouts, Captains Yachts, Delta Flyer, Venture, etc...) have less capable combat systems and show with much worse accuracy. Starfleet capital ships have missed against targets only in situations where the enemy has a distinct advantage (Cloak, Stealth, or the Starfleet ship is heavily damaged). On the other hand the shuttle level vehicles have missed against even large targets in situations where they have no excuse. The conclussion is they are less capable.

[Alyeska]

What really annoys me is their unspoken assertion that the only way to disprove their ability to hit maneuvering one-man fighters is to prove that they routinely miss 100 metre long starships.

I'm still trying to puzzled out why pulse phasers should be completely ignored for purposes of accuracy. I can't think of a reason why if they had these "near perfect" beam phasers why they could not incorporate the systems into a pulse phaser (insofar as has been presented in this and the prior delta flyer/X-wing discussion, there is nothing to indicate that the pulse phasers should be incapable of such.) - they DO have limited "off-axis" tracking (they can converge and diverge, and in the last discussion I noted a number of such examples, even though they were largely ignored.) - its not even remotely as grgeat an arc as what beam phasers possess (manuverability does still play a larrge factor), but it would be enough to compensate for the observed misses (which are often only by very small margins) This strikes me as very inconsistent.

Because pulse phasers have demonstrated differences and show a clear difference in accuracy compared to beam phasers. The fact of the matter is the ONLY phaser examples of misses against ships with no other factors involved (cloak, stealth) come from pulse phasers. All other examples of standard combat show beam phasers scoring perfect accuracy in these very same situations. When PPCs get 50-75% accuracy on average and beam phasers get 99% accuracy on average, it becomes imediately obvious PPCs do not act the same way.

[Alyeska]

IIRC there were two runabout instances, but even then, they'd just say "near-perfect accuracy", or something like that. What's being discussed is why it is assumed that there is some sort of inherent quality that makes ANY beam phaser possess such insane accuracy, and excludes virrtually any other sort of weapon. (because for the purpose of this debate, much like with the Delta flyer, the assumption seems to be that if its a beam phaser its going to hit regardless of situational factors such as power output, range, target type, EW, etc. - just becaues it IS a beam phaser.)

What really annoys me is their unspoken assertion that the only way to disprove their ability to hit maneuvering one-man fighters is to prove that they routinely miss 100 metre long starships.

Other people might have said that, but I didn't.

[Iceberg]

I just rewatched the Paradise Lost combat video (which makes 20+ times I've seen it now). The Lakota scores 100% accuracy against the Defiant. I also watched the Oddessy Battle. The GCS fires a total of three shots and all three hit.

There are only five examples I can think of when Starfleet capitalship have missed targets. Two of them are examples of blind firing against a cloaked target. Two more are examples are of Starfleet ships firing on stealth capable ships. The last example is when a ship missing its computer core had to manualy target fighters.

I counted at least three times just in the "Yackity Sax" video where Starfleet ships missed a target with beam phasers - two of them were capital ships and one was a Runabout; all three were firing on relatively large or unevasive targets.

One of the two capitalship misses is a Nebula missing while firing against a Runabout with stealth capabilities.

And? The Runabout was in visual range and not evading at all. I find it less than impressive when a ship misses a perfectly visible, unevasive target.

What was the other capitalship miss?

During the sequence where Defiant is rolling about looking for a target, there's a brief flash of a beam phaser missing a Cardassian warship.

BTW, I excluded smaller craft because they naturaly have less capable systems and they will miss more frequently.

Or perhaps they're simply captained by younger and more aggressive officers who are willing to fire before the firing solution presents a 100% guaranteed hit. At any rate, this sounds more like excluding a particular category of results because you don't like what it does to your hypothesis.

[Alyeska]

And? The Runabout was in visual range and not evading at all. I find it less than impressive when a ship misses a perfectly visible, unevasive target.

Actualy the Runabout was not in visual range IIRC. We see the Runabout and the phaser miss, THEN the Nebula comes into view. And as I stated before, the Runabout had stealth capabilities.

During the sequence where Defiant is rolling about looking for a target, there's a brief flash of a beam phaser missing a Cardassian warship.

Can you be more specific on the example, or perhaps give the time frame that it occurs so I can verify this?

Or perhaps they're simply captained by younger and more aggressive officers who are willing to fire before the firing solution presents a 100% guaranteed hit. At any rate, this sounds more like excluding a particular category of results because you don't like what it does to your hypothesis.

I am excluding the group because these ships have natural weaknesses and have an observed hit ratioa below that of capitalships. Besides, two of the examples of the misses come from having the DS9 cast in one shuttle and Data in the Insurrection Scout. Those aren't young warmongernig captains.

[Stark]

For the sake of fairness, shouldn't every instance of 'Can't get a phaser lock Captain' be treated as a miss? Klingons wouldn't care, Borg don't care, but the Feds have an issue with appearances, and delay firing until circumstances change. Isn't it odd to claim 99% accuracy when they sometimes can't fire at all because their accuracy would be so poor?

[Alyeska]

For the sake of fairness, shouldn't every instance of 'Can't get a phaser lock Captain' be treated as a miss? Klingons wouldn't care, Borg don't care, but the Feds have an issue with appearances, and delay firing until circumstances change. Isn't it odd to claim 99% accuracy when they sometimes can't fire at all because their accuracy would be so poor?

Why the fuck would you count not firing as a miss? You of course ignore the fact that the Feds fire their phasers just as often as the enemy fires its beams so this also shoots your theory full of holes.

[Stark]

For the sake of fairness, shouldn't every instance of 'Can't get a phaser lock Captain' be treated as a miss? Klingons wouldn't care, Borg don't care, but the Feds have an issue with appearances, and delay firing until circumstances change. Isn't it odd to claim 99% accuracy when they sometimes can't fire at all because their accuracy would be so poor?

Why the fuck would you count not firing as a miss? You of course ignore the fact that the Feds fire their phasers just as often as the enemy fires its beams so this also shoots your theory full of holes.

You'd count it, because it suggests their accuracy is not 100% all the time, under any circumstances, with beam phasers. Your argument is that Federation phasers almost always hit; I'm pointing out that there's more to it than just the weapon system. If you could point me at something that establishes that Federation fire rates are the same as everyone else's that'd be nice, I've hardly watched DS9 and VOY.

Also, since this is a debate about fighter combat, this is OT. ST and SW ideas of 'evasion' are somewhat different, and while the Feds have had success against unpowered drones, or small vessels on predictable flight paths, this is somewhat different to the crazy dogfights in SW.

If I might be allowed to make an observation, Alyeska, I've lurked on the board since it started, and you've shown yourself a conscientious debater, willing to go the hard yards on research, and you've also got the balls to run your own site. This is all worthy of a great deal of respect, particularly from a sideliner like myself. However, I've seen you take certain debate topics very personally, and you can get pretty worked up sometimes. I'd like to just point out that I don't agree with you, but I haven't seen your evidence, so there's no need to be so aggressive on this any other topics, okay?

[Alyeska]

You'd count it, because it suggests their accuracy is not 100% all the time, under any circumstances, with beam phasers. Your argument is that Federation phasers almost always hit; I'm pointing out that there's more to it than just the weapon system. If you could point me at something that establishes that Federation fire rates are the same as everyone else's that'd be nice, I've hardly watched DS9 and VOY.

You can not count NOT FIRING as a fucking miss. When the choose not to fire, THATS IT. And once again you ignore the fact that Feds fire their beam weapons as frequently as the enemy. This means they have MORE accuracy then anyone else. Thats the whole fucking point. I never claimed they have perfect accuracy and that they will have perfect accuracy against unknown enemies.

Also, since this is a debate about fighter combat, this is OT. ST and SW ideas of 'evasion' are somewhat different, and while the Feds have had success against unpowered drones, or small vessels on predictable flight paths, this is somewhat different to the crazy dogfights in SW.

No shit. I already adressed that earlier on.

If I might be allowed to make an observation, Alyeska, I've lurked on the board since it started, and you've shown yourself a conscientious debater, willing to go the hard yards on research, and you've also got the balls to run your own site. This is all worthy of a great deal of respect, particularly from a sideliner like myself. However, I've seen you take certain debate topics very personally, and you can get pretty worked up sometimes. I'd like to just point out that I don't agree with you, but I haven't seen your evidence, so there's no need to be so aggressive on this any other topics, okay?

The evidence I point out is of every single example of beam phasers being fired since the start of TNG, there is a grand total of 5 examples of them missing compared to OPFOR ships missing quite frequently (as Wayne shows clearly in his video). Furthermore you can observe the battles and note that the Federation uses their phasers just as frequently as the enemy. This means they are not holding back to get more accuracy, they have a natural accuracy advantage over their enemies.

Thats the whole damned point about what I am talking about in regards to phaser accuracy.

[Darth Wong]

You can not count NOT FIRING as a fucking miss.

You can when you're engaged in a Twilight Zone debate where someone uses hitrates as a basis of accuracy estimates without regard to size of target, range, or movement. And don't tell me you weren't doing that; this "100% accuracy" statement is a complete red-herring in any thread where TIE fighters are the target unless you think it actually applies.