Attention new Trekkies (Cpt. Zod, PROMETHEUS)

[Master of Ossus]

I had a big reply, but I pressed reload and it all went away, so here's the short version of my response MoO

I was only calculating AVERAGE power output, if 2 ships fire for 22 seconds and put out 60 MT, the AVERAGE is 1.36 MT/ second

I never said that the power ratings were equal.

Okay, but the WhiteStar seems seriously underpowered in head to head combat when compared with the Narn Dreadnaught.

[fgalkin]

START THINKING!! cappy zod u mustve been turned around somewhere. those 200 megawatt "big pulse cannons" those r located on the starfurries, u know those tiny assed FIGHTERS! and most of their "laser" systems r based on x-rays not accelerated light f00l. and as my good friend solidsnake has already mentioned, physical armor has actually been proven to b better than ur trekkie energy shields. and by the way he will b back with more too(solidsnake that is). i mean comon the shields r frequency based! how stupid and pathetic is that?

Wrong. The 200 mw guns were mounted on the STATION!

Proof?

[Shadow]

Proof?[/quote]
It's obviously not an infantry weapon. 200 megawatts is far too powerful to use on ground troops. It is more likely to be used as a fixed weapon mounted the station to defend the cargo bay from attacking ships.

[Dead on Arrival]

Yep, I was agreeing with you here. That was the reason for my stating Ivanova would logically choose to threaten the man with an internal weapon, and not with a glorified SAW.

Ok, as long as we are past the point where people claim the weapon is part of the external main armament. We are past that point, right?

Does it blow people in half with single shots? A 10 MJ pulse would to that and more, you know. I'm assuming a 1/20th second pulse, just FYI.

Said 10 MJ pulse would not blow a person in half, but it would melt a hole straight through and continue going. A normal PPG can almost do that already, being designed to cause massive internal damage. After Garibaldi was shot in the back, he had a shattered spine and a mess of fused organs. On its highest setting said weapon can burn through a metal bulkhead/doorway with repeated pulses, which would require a decent amount of energy per pulse in its own right.

Also, I don't recall if we ever actually saw the weapon fired. I just know it was much larger than any previously seen PPG pistol or rifle.

[Eleas]

Yep, I was agreeing with you here. That was the reason for my stating Ivanova would logically choose to threaten the man with an internal weapon, and not with a glorified SAW.

Ok, as long as we are past the point where people claim the weapon is part of the external main armament. We are past that point, right?

Indeed.

Does it blow people in half with single shots? A 10 MJ pulse would to that and more, you know. I'm assuming a 1/20th second pulse, just FYI.

Said 10 MJ pulse would not blow a person in half, but it would melt a hole straight through and continue going. [/quote]

That is very much debatable; it has to do with bolt cohesion and sheer destructiveness.

The very reason for adopting PPGs in the first place was that Earthforce needed a weapon that wouldn't rupture bulkheads with a stray shot. I've never seen a bolt pass through a living being and continue on on the show.

A near-100% efficiency (in the sense that all of the bolt's energy would be delivered into the target, dumdum style), is also desirable from an ammunition standpoint. Less energy would be needed per shot to accomplish the same thing, which allows greater magazine capacity.

A normal PPG can almost do that already, being designed to cause massive internal damage. After Garibaldi was shot in the back, he had a shattered spine and a mess of fused organs.

A PPG causes third degree burns and deep tissue damage by abandoning bolt containment upon the victim, not by penetrating hard targets. Its armour piercing properties are naturally low, and for a reason.

On its highest setting said weapon can burn through a metal bulkhead/doorway with repeated pulses, which would require a decent amount of energy per pulse in its own right.

Did they burn through a door, or merely burn off the hinges? Note that I'm not disputing their penetrating, just that the weapon had that much penetrative ability.

Also, I don't recall if we ever actually saw the weapon fired. I just know it was much larger than any previously seen PPG pistol or rifle.

Doesn't matter - if an Earthforce PPG had the behaviour you theorize, it would no longer be useful in its primary role, which should be shipboard use.

[consequences]

Doesn't matter - if an Earthforce PPG had the behaviour you theorize, it would no longer be useful in its primary role, which should be shipboard use.

Once again, power settings rear their ugly head. There is no reason for a PPG to not have a variable control on output, because there are times it may be necessary to cut through a bulkhead, and then be able to kill the people on the other side without risking a hull breach.

[Dead on Arrival]

Some relevant JMS quotes in regards to PPGs...

http://www.jmsnews.com/scripts/MsgStore ... &qs=1&qt=0

Re: weapons, we're sticking with the blaster/laser style gun, rather than a projectile weapon, for several reasons: 1) a projectile weapon is MUCH messier, and 2) you can set the intensity on a beam-style weapon so that it can cut through flesh but not the metal of the hull...whereas a projectile fired in a closed, metallic space that MISSES will richochet all over the damned place.

http://www.jmsnews.com/scripts/MsgStore ... &qs=1&qt=0

The PPGs are Phased Plasma Guns, using superheated helium. It
doesn't ricochet like conventional slugs, dissipates quickly after a hit,
can be adjusted to produce surface damage, or cut straight through the
body, or to make a big impact without burning through. At full strength,
they burn straight through any kind of body, causing massive internal
burns and damage to the internal organs. The clothes melt right into the
skin. It's not a pretty thing. Generally they're operated at a lower
or less lethal setting.

http://www.jmsnews.com/scripts/MsgStore ... &qs=1&qt=0

Why use PPGs instead of Uzi-style projectile weapons/automatic
weapons?

Most of the walls inside B5 are metal.

Does the term "ricochet" ring a bell...?

http://www.jmsnews.com/scripts/MsgStore ... &qs=1&qt=0

PPG = Phased Plasma Gun, and yes, the settings work about the way you describe. At full settings, it burns right through the body (and you can see this in some shots, albeit briefly and discreetly). We also deal with the reality of what such a weapon *does* to you...internal burns, clothes melting into the skin, that sort of thing. We don't get gross about it, but we try to stay with the reality of what we're creating.

http://www.jmsnews.com/scripts/MsgStore ... &qs=1&qt=0

PPG fire through an HVAC tube wall

This is substantially correct. The PPG blast is extremely hot, and will
melt through the plastic coating and the metal lining inside the tube.
The entire energy of a PPG will not come through the tube (unless by
some coincidence the exact same area is hit twice or three times), and I
believe that this was propoerly portrayed in the sequence. Even if it
isn't the entire energy blast, it will hurt like hell and de-mobilize an
individual meat packet (person) for the bad guys to come get later.

It did take a *very* long time to burn through the bulkhead door to
allow them access to the hallway, and said door did mildly glow in the
affected areas prior to melting through. The station hull is even more
heat resistant.

[Dead on Arrival]

Doesn't matter - if an Earthforce PPG had the behaviour you theorize, it would no longer be useful in its primary role, which should be shipboard use.

I am not sure I understand this. A PPG being able to penetrate through a soft target such as a person shouldn't invalidate its primary role, as that is exactly what it was designed to do. As the above JMS quotes show, there are many reasons for the use of PPGs over slug-throwers. Richochets, less messy (cauturized wounds vs bloody exit wounds), and not requiring heavy and spacious magazines. The 'caps' used to reload the PPGs are small, and a person can carry a bunch on him. They are also rechargable for use later.

As to how a PPG would compare to a 200 MW pulse cannon, let's run some figures (loaded with assumptions, but that cannot be helped.) If we accept that a PPG can do what it is stated to do, an energy per bolt of ~20 kJ (4.78 grams of tnt, or roughly 1/12th of the explosive found in current day grenades) seems reasonable. I would expect the energy per bolt to be greater, but for now this will serve my purpose. If each pulse travels at 100 m/s (slow compared to most modern day small arms) and is 1 meter in length (to decrease the duration, though the actual length will likely be a few cm at most) it will deliver its energy in .01 seconds. This gives us a power rating for the PPG of 2 MW, and remember this is the rating of a pistol-sized small arm. The number of bolts fired per second (2-3 seems right from visuals) won't change this power output, as that is the power rating of each pulse fired. Hence why you shouldn't rate a non-continuous weapon system in watts instead of joules...

[Eleas]

Never mind, I see that I got into trouble by assuming things. My source for this was the Babylon Project RPG, which is the only printed B5 "manual" I own. Even though it's decidedly non-canon, I thought it could be trusted.

The weapons data, however, would tend to be faulty. I knew it was wrong on ammo capacity, but not on weapon damages. It also IIRC heavily stressed the fact that normal firearms were still in use, and that PPGs only were developed because of their tendency not to rupture ship hulls. I guess I leapt to the wrong conclusion.

Concession granted.

[PROMETHEUS]

Like i already said, Prometheus, dense armor is better than Trek Sheilds. Voyager took quite a pounding from several Borg Cubes with only its batmobile armor up.

Yeah, but that was 25th century armor. Who knows what they've come up with?

Omega Class Destroyers are estimated to have 8-10 meters of sweet, sweet armor. Yes, and if you read up on phasers on Mike's main page, you will see that phasers suck against dense armor.

Even if phasers suck against armor (as you say) torpedos don't.

Another thing...... Trek ships really get screwed up with physical impacts. Getting hit by an asteroid is no where near as bad as getting hit by a nuke. So you could nuke up a SF ship and rock and roll it just as good as pelting it with asteroids.

there's a bif difference between a Jem hadar attack ship and a tiny nuke. The Jem' hadar ship has an antimatter reactor, which can put out a lot more power than some nuke. It aslo can impact with much more force.

And Starflet dropped nukes back in the 22nd century, after the Romulan war (according to TOS). wouldn't it make sense that they dropped them because antimatter warheads were more eficient?

As for those lasers.... The low end output of those lasers are at least 179 terrawatts. So, in a few low powered bursts, lasers would slice n dice a sharlin good. Which means a Sharlin is tougher than most people give them credit for, because the EA got its ass kicked by the Minbari.

A sharlin isn't a Galaxy.

[greenmm]

Proof?

It's obviously not an infantry weapon. 200 megawatts is far too powerful to use on ground troops. It is more likely to be used as a fixed weapon mounted the station to defend the cargo bay from attacking ships.[/quote]

As someone else already pointed out, power ratings are useless unless you know how long the pulse is.

Just for comparison, though, remember that the Terminator asked for a 50 MW plasma rifle in the gunshop. A 200 MW gun would have a power rating only 4 times larger...