Sovereign vs 1 Star Destroyer?

[GStone]

Because they aren't the same. You continue to assume that a superlaser and a turbolaser are the same except for the scale used. All there is in common is the word laser, that it's an energy weapon and the color is green (though energy weapons in Wars have also been red and blue, too). If you want to bring in recent novels, there's the one about the DS that gives evidence that the SL uses a techie method and not plain brute force.

Strawman. I showed that Empire demonstrated the capability to tune it's weapons firepower through many orders of magnitude. I didn't claim they are identical even though EU describes superlaser as a compound turbolaser. Yet another piece of information you like to pretend doesn't exist.

To show TLs can turn down their power a million times, you reference a SL. By assuming that 'because the SL could do it, a TL can, too' you're assuming the same mechanism for both. What I have said is not a strawman. There has never been a successful explanation for how the SL could be DET with the effects seen of the planet. A nonDET method may not necessarily require a difference of a million times when destroying a planet vs destroying a large ship. The difference would depend on the mechanism. Total output and effective output are 2 different things, as are the mechanisms between the SL and a TL.

[Praeothmin]

So does the same firepower limitation apply to all those ships as well?

Honestly?
I'd say so, yes.
I don't see why ST should be treated any different in its analysis as SW is.

The beam was stopped by the Mon Calamari cruiser, that is it didn't go straight through it. So you tell me just how many times the resistance of a ship is smaller than resistance of a planet.

I have to agree in this case, they do seem to be able to control the SL's power levels with an incredible amount of leeway.
But from my experience with Lasers (which is not a Turbolaser bolt, this is just to explain the power control function), it is quite easier to control the intensity of a Continuous Wave then that of a Pulse.
And then there's the possibility of the SL being a CR weapon...

I didn't claim they are identical even though EU describes superlaser as a compound turbolaser. Yet another piece of information you like to pretend doesn't exist.

Just like the SW side of this debate has ignored many times the fact that SW.com describes Turbolasers and Blasters as being the same type of weapon of different sizes (which would put quite a dent in the Lightspeed theory of Turbolasers)...
You see, it seems both sides like to ignore pieces of EU or Canon when it suits them...

Then what is your explanation? That Jem'Hadar weapons are weak? This is what you would've claimed if this was an incident from SW after all. Funny how you don't do that when ST is concerned.

Yes, I'd say that the Dominion weapons are perhaps, at their most powerful, in the Kiloton yields.
Frankly, when looking at both franchises' VFX shots, the main weapons of each franchise appears to be in the same Ballpark to one another.
Yes, I say judge both franchises using the same methods (if applicable), the same observation techniques (if applicable).

If there is a contradiction it must be explained and reconciled, if there isn't then there is no problem either way.

Contradictions:
Lightspeed weapons, Kiloton level weaponry for the Clone Army transports (LAAT), etc, etc...
It doesn't mean we have to thrown out the entire ICS.
Like it was said many times, what doesn't fly in the face of the movies should be considered Canon...

Why should I need to do that? Sure I could show Death Star blowing up Alderaan and then you would whine about how Death Star is "special" but really it's EXPANDED universe. It expands upon the films. You'll notice that there are also cross sections in the Incredible cross section and those are also not "demonstrated" in the films. Should those be discarded also? What the hell is the point of EU then anyway?

Alderaan is a funny thing, because when it explodes, we notice the same type of planar ring that comes from the DS when it explodes too.
Also, depending on which side you're on, Alderaan either had, or didn't have, planetary shields.
This example is a lot trickier than it seems, unlike the asteroid vaporization scenes ('cause I like to think they were vaporized)...

As for the rest of the EU, see my answer above...

[l33telboi]

Which you judge by the "look" of the explosions right? But these fiery explosions come up in almost any sci-fi battle including Star Trek as I have demonstrated a few posts ago. So does the same firepower limitation apply to all those ships as well?

And why does this matter? The problem isn't the explosions themselves. The hull on enemy ships should indeed exhibit some fiery effects when hit by weapons with a high thermal component, although we shouldn't see the cloud like flames we see inside atmospheres. And in some cases the explosive effects come from the weapons themselves (SG for example). The problem is that you have fighter-sized vehicles vaporizing/melting parts of Captial ship hulls. If there really is such a huge difference between fighter and cap-ship fire, then the cap-ships should do more damage (more melted/vaped material). Unless of course the explosive effects are a result of the beams themselves, not the beams impacting on something and causing the impacted thing to vaporized. But then, IIRC, you subscribe to the lightspeed turbolaser theory, so that's not much of an option.

[Kazeite]

And how does the new Death Star book describe superlaser? Is it a turbolaser technology, or something completely new?

[Mike DiCenso]

The subject of TL firepower and such was dealt with here over a year ago:

http://www.starfleetjedi.net/forum/view ... 60&start=0


Basically light and medium TLs appear to be in the low single and double-digit kiloton range based on older TL-to-asteroid scalings done on the Strek forum several years ago that put the TESB asteroid at no larger than 14 meters wide, and no smaller than 1 meter. The rough average being 6-8 meters. It also generously assumed that the asteroids were solid spheres of iron that were being vaporized, rather than loose collections of oblong or lumpy shaped rock. Heavy TLs are probably megaton range based on the opening narative description given in the RoTS novelization.

Phasers are at least in the 60 GW range based on statements made in TNG's "A Matter of Time" [TNG-5] concerning a critical output varience of the second largest of the E-D's phaser arrays, but is lkely much, much higher given that ships in the 22nd century in ST:ENT had firepower exceeding the NX-01's phase cannon outputs of 500 GJ/5 terajoules.
-Mike

So lower limits for the federation ship is about 5terajoules.
5tjoules
The yield of a kiloton of tnt to put them on the same level is
kiloton of TNT kt 4.184×1012 J
So the light turbolaser, with a lower limit one kiloton a shot using your calcs has an output of.
4.184tjoules
And this is for one of the many many such weapons they have on an ISD and one of the smaller.
Total combined barrage is orders of magnitude in excess of this when factoring in MTL and HTLs.

Actually, if you read the articles on the thread I linked to, you'll see that I calculated (based on the upper averaging) a firepower of 16 TJ (48 TW) for each shot. I believe it was Robert Anderson who followed up with the conversion of 4.184 TJ = 1 kiloton comments.

An NX class starship's forward phase cannon on an overload of 5 TJ would not be comparable, though the ship's other weapons, the photonic torpedoes, would have firepower that can easily equal or substantially exceed 16 TJ.
-Mike

[Mike DiCenso]

Mike DiCenso wrote:

The subject of TL firepower and such was dealt with here over a year ago:

http://www.starfleetjedi.net/forum/view ... 60&start=0


Basically light and medium TLs appear to be in the low single and double-digit kiloton range based on older TL-to-asteroid scalings done on the Strek forum several years ago that put the TESB asteroid at no larger than 14 meters wide, and no smaller than 1 meter. The rough average being 6-8 meters. It also generously assumed that the asteroids were solid spheres of iron that were being vaporized, rather than loose collections of oblong or lumpy shaped rock. novelization.

Kane Starkiller wrote:

For all the lengthy discussions about this incident people seem to forget that however large the asteroids were it's still a LOWER limit. The asteroids were GONE, no fragments are visible so whether asteroids are 1cm in diameter or 1km in diameter we are still talking about lower limits which in no way contradict ICS numbers which are actually weapon ratings. I shouldn't even comment on your ridiculous claim that TESB asteroids were "loose collections of rock" when we have seen TIE's collide with them with no ill effects to the asteroids and the EU describes them explicitly as nickel-iron.

Except that the asteroid scalings do show that the oft-repeated "lower limits" of the pro-Wars side are nothing of the sort. And I still went with a rather generous 8 meter asteroid, plus I assumed solid iron with a near-perfect spherical shape to it. It was also very generous to assume that what we are seeing with the TESB asteroid was true vaporization. Since you invoke the EU bit about the SL being a compound TL, then given recent information from the Death Star EU novel, I would have to assume that a TL does not really vaporize anything using DET, but rather uses a technobabble mechanism to shunt matter into hyperspace.

Fortunately for you on that matter, the TLs have never demonstrated little planar rings and what-have-you the way the DS SL did at Alderaan.

But that aside, the lumpy shape of the asteroids, probably cuts down the lower limit by about 30% or more. This reduction in return effects what we can realistically expect a light or medium TL's actually overall firepower to be.

What you want is ICS to always be right, and so are willing to except the absurd concept that a light TL is hundreds of thousands of times more powerful than the lower limits.

Heavy TLs are probably megaton range based on the opening narative description given in the RoTS

Kane Starkiller wrote:

Yes about town vaporization. And where does it state how big is the town? What is included in the vaporization? Basements also? Where does it state heavy TLs were referenced instead of light? Assumption upon assumption upon assumption. That is not how you prove contradiction with the ICS.

It's a metaphorical statement. But we do not need to have someone come along and describe the exact size as in the minds of most readers, they will have some idea of what a realisitic small town in size is, and we have seen in SW that a small town pretty much matches what we see in real-life. This has also been discussed in great detail before here, as you well know. Megaton range is quite reasonable for heavy TL batteries, and fits in well with other EU sources, like Darksaber, that shows us that TLs on maximum firepower cannot do anything more destructive than obliterate about an acre of old growth forest on Yavin IV.
-Mike

[Mike DiCenso]

And how does the new Death Star book describe superlaser? Is it a turbolaser technology, or something completely new?

It's a mixed bag of power and technobabble:

http://www.starfleetjedi.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=711

A superlaser shunts part of the target planet into hyperspace in a rather messy manner.
-Mike

[Praeothmin]

that shows us that TLs on maximum firepower cannot do anything more destructive than obliterate about an acre of old growth forest on Yavin IV.

Which, incidentally, only requires a few Kilotons to do that...

[Mike DiCenso]

That's correct, and single to double-digit firepower is exactly what we see displayed in the highest canon of the movies.
-Mike

[Kazeite]

So, superlaser isn't simply scaled up turbolaser. That's it.

(Well unless Kane would like to argue that every turbolaser bolt shunts the target into hyperspace :D)

[Jedi Master Spock]

Destructive effects like these:

That's Scimitars disruptors hitting the bridge. Looks no more powerful than any of the fighter attacks on the Death Star. And no more fiery.

Actually, I would not describe the picture you posted as a particularly "fiery" explosion; everything we see relating to the explosion is brilliantly incandescent, as it should be. No grey or black smoke, no orange, no red, just a hint of something bluish.

The presence or absence of mitigating factors can also substantially alter the "seen" yield, of course; we have little data on Death Star hull material, although we know that, say, a GCS hull is incredibly thermally resistant and reinforced with "structural" (internal) force fields. This is why we turn to asteroid shots for actual benchmarking of the yields, as the MOE is several orders of magnitude for direct (rather than "exploding console") internal damage.

Except we know that Death Star can withstand a planet blowing up in it's face from the films and recent novels. And we know Dodona explicitly states Death Star's defense is centered around large scale attack which means fighters most likely passed through "seams" in the shields like that "magnetic" field they were talking about.

Most important is that fighters make similar attack runs on capital ships. And what a fighter can pass through, a torpedo can as well. A handful of gigaton yield torpedos could carve a hole in the Death Star similar to the superlaser dish after passing through the shield.

This is a problem; not simply in seeing how the Death Star would hold up against attack by Trek ships (which make extentsive use of long range torpedos), but also in considering the possibility of high yield torpedos existing in Star Wars.

Again I could mention much worse problems in Star Trek. Like how come several shots on effectively unshielded runabouts fired by Dominion attack ships in "The Jem'Hadar" didn't cause any visible damage to them? Are main weapons on Jem'Hadar fighters also limited to below kiloton range?

"Effectively unshielded" is a term that requires quite a bit of definition.

IMO, given the displayed durability of tritanium and duranium, shrugging off hits from kiloton weapons without any hits is quite theoretically feasible. In fact, I suggest it takes a significant fraction of a megaton per cubic meter to blast through typical Trek hulls.

[mr.dark]

Most important is that fighters make similar attack runs on capital ships. And what a fighter can pass through, a torpedo can as well. A handful of gigaton yield torpedos could carve a hole in the Death Star similar to the superlaser dish after passing through the shield.

This is a problem; not simply in seeing how the Death Star would hold up against attack by Trek ships (which make extentsive use of long range torpedos), but also in considering the possibility of high yield torpedos existing in Star Wars.

For the first, i'd point out that federation torpedo weapons go in pretty much straight predictable lines. do you know what happens to things that are small and go in straight predictable lines near the deathstar? they get shot down. Remember that pilot losing the ability to manouver momentarily due to damage? the deathstars surface guns locked on in seconds and killed him. They'd have longer to track startrek torpedoes so could probably swat them down all day.

Also when have starwars fighters done attack runs on capital ships which had their shields up and did anything of note?

As for the second bit? use long range torpedoes when? lets have some examples please cause what i remember of trek combat is all short ranged with phasers distinctly used as primary weaponry and torpedoes secondary.

"Effectively unshielded" is a term that requires quite a bit of definition.

IMO, given the displayed durability of tritanium and duranium, shrugging off hits from kiloton weapons without any hits is quite theoretically feasible. In fact, I suggest it takes a significant fraction of a megaton per cubic meter to blast through typical Trek hulls.

[/quote]
And where are these displays of durability, out of curiousity?

[Mike DiCenso]

So, superlaser isn't simply scaled up turbolaser. That's it.

(Well unless Kane would like to argue that every turbolaser bolt shunts the target into hyperspace :D)

I doubt it. ;-)

However, if you think about it, you could make an argument that what we are seeing with the TESB asteroid destruction is really the shunting of the asteroids into hyperspace....
-Mike

[mr.dark]

So, superlaser isn't simply scaled up turbolaser. That's it.

(Well unless Kane would like to argue that every turbolaser bolt shunts the target into hyperspace :D)

I doubt it. ;-)

However, if you think about it, you could make an argument that what we are seeing with the TESB asteroid destruction is really the shunting of the asteroids into hyperspace....
-Mike

And you could argue the same thing for every occasion of any destructive feat on both sides of the debate. So suddenly there's no way to say how powerful either trek or wars weapons are when they use what amounts to magic to do the things they do.

Which is fine if you want to declare the entire versus arguement a waste of time i suppose.

On the assumption though the arguement is not a waste of time i suggest the 'mysterious shunt to hyperspace' box is locked up and buried in a deep hole somewhere.

[Mike DiCenso]

Not at all since you can derive at least what the equivalent firepower is for either phasers or turbolasers.
-Mike