Basic principles and a model

[2046]

15% is actually taken directly from "For the Uniform," in which we have the order "15% of plasma to phaser banks." "The Sound of Her Voice" does seem to confirm that.

Oooh, delicious datapoint. I'll have to make use of that.

However, the weapon output of over half of a Galaxy Class seems off. The Defiant is something like 1/100th the volume of a Galaxy, and although she's a stripped down warship compared to a luxury liner like the Galaxy, I can't imagine it's that superior, pound for pound.

Double check that. I put the GCS at 4 exawatts - 4,000 petawatts. That would put the Defiant around 1/6 the firepower...

I was apparently doing a little too much LDS . . . I thought I read 1000 PW for the GCS. My bad.

Really?

Really. The first order model's estimates are that they would chew through Republic attack cruisers like pixie sticks.

Ah, okay. The way I read the original statement it sounded like you were saying the Republic ships can mop the floor with the TF Battleships, which were "clearly outclassed by ships a fraction of its size".

True, cubic meter for cubic meter I don't think the battleships are all they could/should be (Ahsoka's Y-Wing bombers that later destroyed a fleet of Munis were supposed to knock out the battleship in the same episode, but instead Sep fighters took out a Venator!) . . . but I haven't seen anything to suggest that the battleships are anything less than the cock of the walk (save for Malevolence).

[Jedi Master Spock]

Oooh, delicious datapoint. I'll have to make use of that.

Hang on... I found a complication.

It's part of a medley of overlapping lines in the script, and checking quickly on YouTube, I can't be sure whether that line is actually said or not.

I can hear Worf's voice in the background saying something involving the word "phasers," but can't for the life of me confirm that he ordered fifteen percent of plasma to phasers.

The speed boost in "The Sound of Her Voice" does suggest that phaser banks aboard the Defiant carry an amount of power that's significant on the scale of warp drive, and I feel justified in using 15% for the Defiant.

[Mith]

As far as the issue with Voyager having more trouble with the Klingon D7 than seems likely, could it be more probable that the Klingons upgraded their weapons in the hundred years during their stay in the Detla Quadrant? I mean, I highly doubt they went a 100 years without any sort of fighting nor do I believe that they'd go that long without loading up on antimatter. It's just silly.

It's worth noting that Voyager was able to take out the cloak in one shot and after emergency power was put to the shields, Voyager was able to take it down with another (presumably a phaser) shot. I would suspect that the D7 had upgraded its weapons, but its shields and cloak were old, which means it relied heavily upon sneak attacks, which is supported in the episode.

This supports that the Klingons favored hit and run tactics, probably because they discovered over the years of how low their shields register with their neighbors. It also explains why he ordered emergency power to the shields when the shield's hadn't even gone up yet; it was a tactic he was raised with.

Otherwise, if he had been as confident in his ship's ability for a straight up fight, he would have fired after decloaking and kept the shields up, as any other Klingon commander from his time would against a Federation starship. Instead, he played hide and go seek.

[2046]

There's something very important, canonically, that we know about the CCS. Power should actually be proportionate to M, but in the case of all the other ships I cited, we only have V, so I basically didn't include any discussion of mass except to say it's generally proportionate to volume. The CCS is about four times as dense as the Intrepid class - 40% more massive. If Voyager were twice as powerful per unit mass (based on "Flashbacks" giving twice the speed for VOY vs TOS-era ships) we would only expect it to be 40% more powerful than a TOS-era CCS. We might expect the technology gap to be even higher, but it's also quite possible that the CCS is much closer to a warship design than the ICS.

This kinda brings us back to this thread. Interesting idea in any case, but then again, as noted, the Intrepids were built for combat performance per Paris's offhand remark. So in principle, if the Constitution's a warship then so is the Intrepid.

The important piece to highlight is that the GCS is expected to burn through its entire fuel store in less than six hours at maximum warp.

Where does this information come from, by the way? I was assuming you referred to "Booby Trap", but that must not be it. I then considered "Time Squared", but that's not it either. So it's not immediately coming to me.

The model has here produced a peculiar situation, wherein an ISD weapon output is worth 14,000 X-Wings, and could defeat its own shields in 1/100th of a second.

Granted, aim is still bad for Star Wars (ships were missing at point-blank and standing still in RotJ), but I don't think mainliine cruiser battles are usually measured in seconds. And assuming maximum output from the Falcon model, it could defeat an ISD's shields in just under 8 seconds. That seems off.

Well, the estimate is more for point failure or bleedthrough than for gross shield destruction, but it seems a little off to me, too, even considering that.

Ah, sorry, I thought the bleedthrough stat was only for Trek vessels.

It is an argument for using the L~V^(1/3) scale of firepower based on the Strike Cruiser's description (and, IIRC, that would probably fit with game mechanics), but I can't justify that one from first principles. It's instead necessary to look back at actual incidents to justify that.

I would think that especially on a first-principles pass, one would wish to avoid the EU. I know I'm picky about that, but still. :-)

[Mike DiCenso]

The important piece to highlight is that the GCS is expected to burn through its entire fuel store in less than six hours at maximum warp.

Where does this information come from, by the way? I was assuming you referred to "Booby Trap", but that must not be it. I then considered "Time Squared", but that's not it either. So it's not immediately coming to me.

I think he's thinking of the fuel consumption statements from the TNG TM, however that places the ship's duration at around 12 hours at warp 9.6. I know of nowhere in the canon episodes or movies where such a thing was ever stated, except for possibly BoBW. But there the ship's fuel supplies were never in question, just the durability of the engines and warp core over several days of chasing the Borg cube to Earth.
-Mike

[Jedi Master Spock]

This kinda brings us back to this thread. Interesting idea in any case, but then again, as noted, the Intrepids were built for combat performance per Paris's offhand remark. So in principle, if the Constitution's a warship then so is the Intrepid.

Yes, but the Enterprise is a million ton warship that visited Space Dock for its last scheduled overhaul before tangling with a D7, while Voyager is a 700,000 ton warship that the Caretaker voided the warranty for.

Where does this information come from, by the way? I was assuming you referred to "Booby Trap", but that must not be it. I then considered "Time Squared", but that's not it either. So it's not immediately coming to me.

It doesn't. So I have one piece of data that I've taken from the sun-skimming incidents - namely, that the E-D can peak close to 400 EW - and then combined that with using 10% of the volume to store fuel at a loose "slush" density of ~158 kg/m^3.

I've taken two pieces of quantitative data straight out of the canon (approximate value of peak warp engine output based on change in GPE, approximate volume of the GCS), combined it with one piece of qualitative data from the canon (deuterium slush) which I've used to estimate fuel density, and then combined it with the basic assumption of the model (10% of storage used for fuel). This gives us the <6 hour duration, which IIRC is nowhere present in the canon.

However, it does fit with the canon reasonably well.

I would think that especially on a first-principles pass, one would wish to avoid the EU. I know I'm picky about that, but still. :-)

Likewise. I didn't want to go one inch outside the movies in building the first order model. Now, it's worth comparing to the EU and TCW, and I've done that, but there's nothing that's based on the EU - just a bunch of "reasonable" assumptions that mostly hang together.

[Mr. Oragahn]

There are assumptions in this model of Star Wars and Star Trek ships that are not "fair." That is, they seem to heavily penalize larger ships. At the same time, all of this makes sense in the EU and in the movies. A Saxtonian model where Star Destroyers wield proportionately similar or even more firepower than fighters simply cannot make sense of small attack craft. It cannot make sense of Rogue Squadron, and such a view also cannot make sense of the battles in ROTJ and ROTS. Or even TPM, for that matter.

I don't think TPM is a problem. They couldn't get through the TF Droid Control Ship anyway.
I also think the Rogues used anti-capital ship torpedoes, and I don't see how it makes sense to have them rated at 1 KT if the X-wing alone can output many terawatts by burning "mundane", while the proton device is designed as a high level explosive on purpose.

That said, even a fraction of the efficiency of a reaction capable of delivering 100 TJ/kg would fit with the special thermal detonator used to collapse Xizor's palace. A detonation in the high gigajoule range would clearly weaken the structure.

I think the arguments about fighters taking down capital ship shields are better found in Zahn's book. I recall Mara Jade old starfighter taking down one of an ISD's sensor suites at the battle for the Katana fleet.

[Mr. Oragahn]

It doesn't. So I have one piece of data that I've taken from the sun-skimming incidents - namely, that the E-D can peak close to 400 EW - and then combined that with using 10% of the volume to store fuel at a loose "slush" density of ~158 kg/m^3.

Mm... what are those cases? I'm surprised you can get exawatt figures, lest high ones, with mere sun skimming operations.

[2046]

I hope the recent revisions to Star Wars values do not break the model:

http://www.starfleetjedi.net/forum/view ... 641#p20641

[Jedi Master Spock]

It doesn't. So I have one piece of data that I've taken from the sun-skimming incidents - namely, that the E-D can peak close to 400 EW - and then combined that with using 10% of the volume to store fuel at a loose "slush" density of ~158 kg/m^3.

Mm... what are those cases? I'm surprised you can get exawatt figures, lest high ones, with mere sun skimming operations.

Well, you're probably thinking about the shield end of the sun-skimming operations.

However, what gets you exawatts is the transportation problem. Take Relics. The E-D is parked at a mere +150,000 kilometers above a sun. We're talking about being generously up to 10^9 m from the center of mass of something that should mass at least 10^30 kg, and being able to go to +100,000,000 km away in 100 seconds.

Gravitational potential is -mMG/r; -7x10^10 joules per kilogram of ship mass. With Voyager-like densities, the mass is around 6x10^10 kg. That would be a change of roughly +4x10^21 joules between parked at +150,000 km and flying away at +100,000,000 km. Divide by 100 seconds and you get an average rate of change in the gravitational potential of 40 exawatts.

This is actually one of the reasons why my figures have usually run higher than 2046's for Star Wars power generation; in order to launch a Republic attack cruiser from one planet, land it on another planet, and then take off again, you need a lot of energy. I consider the drive mechanics to be the dominant factor for both franchises' power technology; 2046 has been more concerned with actual observed firepower.

I suppose I may update this using the new models' information, rework some numbers, see what falls out.

[Mr. Oragahn]

I don't pay too much attention to escape velocity.
I may have done it once for Stargate, just to see what it would take for a hiveship to hover above the surface of an Earth-like planet, and that's all, really.
I reckon that the numbers usually shoot up very fast in such cases, but generally all SF ships seem to rely on anti-grav tech to some extent. Surely, they almost always lack the adequate newtonian vertical thrusters to take off like they do. From there, whatever they use is technobabble, and although they shouldn't be able to screw with conservation of momentum, sometimes it seems all ships do.
Besides, don't UFP ships have the capacity to partially exploit warp even when flying at STL speeds?

Now, 60 million tonnes for Voyager? Puh-wah, what do they build those things with?

[Jedi Master Spock]

Sorry, that should be 6x10^9 - 6 million tons - for the Galaxy class based on Voyager's density, for 4 exawatts average output.

That's not assuming Newtonian thrust and taking into account the kinetic energy on leaving; we're assuming magical subspace-based displacement, and this is 60% impulse power. The energy needs to come from somewhere.

[Mike DiCenso]

Oooh, delicious datapoint. I'll have to make use of that.

Hang on... I found a complication.

It's part of a medley of overlapping lines in the script, and checking quickly on YouTube, I can't be sure whether that line is actually said or not.

I can hear Worf's voice in the background saying something involving the word "phasers," but can't for the life of me confirm that he ordered fifteen percent of plasma to phasers.

The speed boost in "The Sound of Her Voice" does suggest that phaser banks aboard the Defiant carry an amount of power that's significant on the scale of warp drive, and I feel justified in using 15% for the Defiant.

At what point in the episode is this dialog supposed to be spoken by Worf? I've scanned through the transcript at Chakoteya, and can't find anything that directly corresponds to such a line.
-Mike

[Mike DiCenso]

I don't think TPM is a problem. They couldn't get through the TF Droid Control Ship anyway.

It was only a few fighters, and you would be right except for that one scene of the Naboo N-1's managing to blast the antenna dish on the TF droid control ship, and one of the droid fighters a bit later on appearing to collide and cause a little bit of damage to it as well.
-Mike

[Mr. Oragahn]

I don't think TPM is a problem. They couldn't get through the TF Droid Control Ship anyway.

It was only a few fighters, and you would be right except for that one scene of the Naboo N-1's managing to blast the antenna dish on the TF droid control ship, and one of the droid fighters a bit later on appearing to collide and cause a little bit of damage to it as well.
-Mike

Nah, the dish's still there. It's hard to spot, but it can be verified thrice.





Notice that on the second animation, it appears they had "mirrored" the battleship, but not the rest of the crafts, since the lighting is totally different there, and I doubt the battleship was spinning on itself. So eventually this one is not so reliable.

As for the impact, it didn't leave any damage as far as I can see.