Just saw Nemesis (finally)

[Alyeska]

And I think it was a good movie, fun to watch. Sure, it wasn't epic like TWOK or had as indepth a plot as UC, but it was fun to watch. I rank it similar to First Contact. It was for the most part well done and a very enjoyable movie. The plot was good, not overly hyped really. You know there is the main conflict between Picard and Schizon, but it doesn't really start untill Picard is kidnapped.

Yeah, I think there could have been some plot changes, but I still loved the movie. The wedding scene was just fine, Wesely had a non speaking role. Infact, I can live with Wesely being a Starfleet officer. He had Picard as a role model long before anything else controlled his life. Given that he was only a Ensign, that actually fits the continuity. Wesely traveled around a bit with the Traveler, but found it lacking and decided to go back into Starfleet. That explains his low rank for what was a senior cadet last time we saw him.

I was quite impressed with the space battle, quite well done. The Valdore's proved themselves to be decent cruisers. The Sovereign class showed its full colors as a Battle Cruiser and the Scimitar acted as a Battleship. The tactics in the battle were straight forward and Riker showed himself to be competent. He always changed aspect from the Scimitar once shields were downed in a section.

I also rather like the new phaser rifles. Thats right, I call them new. It has the targeting array, a new phaser emition point, a new flashlight, acts differently, and sounds differently. The new rifle seems to have manual targeting point because it sacrafices auto targeting for increased refire rate. We saw the rifle used to fire as many as three shots in a single second. So untill further notice I will refer to this rifle as the Type-3c. The new hand phasers were interesting as well.

Anyway I will have a detailed technical anylsis of the technology sometime in the future. The movie was fun to watch, and that is whats most important for me.

[Captain Jack Frank]

I didn't think it was as much fun as First Contact, though I can see how you drew the comparison.

[FaxModem1]

I also found Nemesis really enjoyable, its pretty much as good as a TNG film is gonna get, and it was a good long space battle, which they have coped-out on in previous films.

[Master of Ossus]

Anyway I will have a detailed technical anylsis of the technology sometime in the future. The movie was fun to watch, and that is whats most important for me.

I look forward to this immensely. Will you be posting it here, or on a website, or what?

[Howedar]

I agree with Alyeska on all counts.

Incidently, since the outer casing of the potentially new phaser rifles is identical to the old ones, a defective or damaged casing still seems to be the most likely candidate for the one Picard busted.

[Alyeska]

Anyway I will have a detailed technical anylsis of the technology sometime in the future. The movie was fun to watch, and that is whats most important for me.

I look forward to this immensely. Will you be posting it here, or on a website, or what?

I haven't decided yet. Darkling likes the idea of a analysis, and I think that Chris would do it as well. I will probably write up the essays one at a time posting them, then they will be put together on a site with captioned pictures at a later date.

[Alyeska]

I agree with Alyeska on all counts.

Incidently, since the outer casing of the potentially new phaser rifles is identical to the old ones, a defective or damaged casing still seems to be the most likely candidate for the one Picard busted.

Agreed. Newer components and capabilities can still be contained within the same package. Classic examples would be variants of the M-16 with multiple opperational and cosmetic differences but still using the same structural build for the outer casing.

[Gil Hamilton]

To be honest, Alyeska, I'm not with you on your comment about the Valdores. From where I was sitting, they didn't look very good at all. They had a horrible design and fell apart in battle. Think that one Valdore's wing wouldn't have fallen off if the Romulans didn't use those goofy paper thin wings? They weren't capable, they got their asses handed to them, and they deserved it too.

[Alyeska]

To be honest, Alyeska, I'm not with you on your comment about the Valdores. From where I was sitting, they didn't look very good at all. They had a horrible design and fell apart in battle. Think that one Valdore's wing wouldn't have fallen off if the Romulans didn't use those goofy paper thin wings? They weren't capable, they got their asses handed to them, and they deserved it too.

The first Valdore took reasonable levels of damage, but once its shields were out it was destroyed easily. The second Valdore took damage and managed to stay intact. Given design histories on the Romulan ships and what we know about them, altered designs would do relatively little. Romulans ships traditionally have relied on their shields and use relatively little armoring. Just about any combination of superior designs would still have fallen prey to the weaponry. That is a fault on their engineering for not having good armor, but it comes with their design philosophy.

Remember when your looking at it, you partially have to look at it from the perspective of being a good design in the Trek universe. And in comparison to past capabilities the Valdore seems a fine ship for the Romulans.

[Howedar]

Armor isn't the question; structural soundness is. From an engineering standpoint, the Valdore is a horrible design. You can make something with silly wings and such much stronger: consider the D'deridex.

Structurally, the Valdore may very well be the worst design we've seen in any Star Trek to date.

[Alyeska]

Armor isn't the question; structural soundness is. From an engineering standpoint, the Valdore is a horrible design. You can make something with silly wings and such much stronger: consider the D'deridex.

Structurally, the Valdore may very well be the worst design we've seen in any Star Trek to date.

Yet somehow it managed to take reasonable levels of damage. It was only torn apart after its shields were down, which would have happened even to a D'Deridex.

[Gil Hamilton]

The first Valdore took reasonable levels of damage, but once its shields were out it was destroyed easily. The second Valdore took damage and managed to stay intact. Given design histories on the Romulan ships and what we know about them, altered designs would do relatively little. Romulans ships traditionally have relied on their shields and use relatively little armoring. Just about any combination of superior designs would still have fallen prey to the weaponry. That is a fault on their engineering for not having good armor, but it comes with their design philosophy.[/i]

The fault is on them because they made their ships with really thin sections. This leads to having a bare minimum volume for maximum surface. This is a bad from not only a engineering and structure point of view, not to mention for living and working space, but from a defense point of view as well. It means that you've got to have your shields cover a much greater area for less volume. Even the D'Deridex was better about this, since it was far more compact, despite it's hollowness. In context, the Romulans need to stop designing their ships to look like local water fowl and design functional starships (and Paramount art directors need to learn to convey a bird like form without sacrificing functionability).

Remember when your looking at it, you partially have to look at it from the perspective of being a good design in the Trek universe. And in comparison to past capabilities the Valdore seems a fine ship for the Romulans.

It's a bad design, no matter what universe its in. The Valdore is a badly designed ship even in Trek. As a general role, water fowl do not make good models for starships, ever.

[Howedar]

Yes, the Valdore performed well in the engagement with the Scimitar, but it would have performed better were it better designed, and it would perform better in other engagements were it better designed.

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

Um, haven't Romulan ships always had strong hulls? Because their liking of cloak tactics, and until recently the lack of shields for cloak.

[Alyeska]

Um, haven't Romulan ships always had strong hulls? Because their liking of cloak tactics, and until recently the lack of shields for cloak.

Not that I know of. I have never seen anything to indicate this. Furthermore the Scimitar and Valdores both portrayed much weaker hulls then the Enterprise. The Enterprise remained much more intact in the ramming then the Scimitar. The Enterprise took torpedo damage with much smaller impact damage points then the Valdores.

[Darth Wong]

Their physical shape is not indicative of a designer who had strength on his mind.

[Alyeska]

Their physical shape is not indicative of a designer who had strength on his mind.

Which falls in line with their having weaker hulls then Federation ships. It seems clear that Romulan ships rely on heavier shielding. This is especially the case with the Scimitar. It was starting to loose systems even when its shields were only down in the 70-80% range. The E-E was opperating at damned near 100% combat capability even with low shields, asside for its warp core having been damaged in the begining of the battle.

[Master of Ossus]

Their physical shape is not indicative of a designer who had strength on his mind.

Which falls in line with their having weaker hulls then Federation ships. It seems clear that Romulan ships rely on heavier shielding. This is especially the case with the Scimitar. It was starting to loose systems even when its shields were only down in the 70-80% range. The E-E was opperating at damned near 100% combat capability even with low shields, asside for its warp core having been damaged in the begining of the battle.

The fact that their hulls were shown to be considerably weaker than UFP hulls in "Nemesis," coupled with the fact that their designs call for thin structures, indicates that they are NOT compensating for their lack of hull strength through increased armor. They seem to have sacrificed hull strength for some other advantage. If you have a weaker hull than your enemies (whom you intend to combat), you try to make up for that by increasing the thickness of the material. The fact that the Romulans did not do so indicates that hull strength was not their priority in designing the Valdore class, which (based on that evidence) I would classify as a battlecruiser.

[Gil Hamilton]

The fact that their hulls were shown to be considerably weaker than UFP hulls in "Nemesis," coupled with the fact that their designs call for thin structures, indicates that they are NOT compensating for their lack of hull strength through increased armor. They seem to have sacrificed hull strength for some other advantage. If you have a weaker hull than your enemies (whom you intend to combat), you try to make up for that by increasing the thickness of the material. The fact that the Romulans did not do so indicates that hull strength was not their priority in designing the Valdore class, which (based on that evidence) I would classify as a battlecruiser.

It's clear that ships looking like giant metal ducks in flight is the top design priority of Romulan shipwrights, not silly stuff like favorable volume-to-surface-area ratios and structural strength.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Romulans have often had fairly weak designed ships, I think they prefer intimidation and stealth tactics to outright solid fighting vehicles like say the Klingons.

[Admiral Valdemar]

the klingons don't have that much different designs than the romulans

I'd say overall that they were more durable, the Negh'Var seems a damn sight better than the Valdore class.

Either have it heavy, slow and solid or small, fast and light.