Star Wars vs Star Trek

**Kittamaru** · 04-08-09, 08:18 AM

Originally Posted by Nasor

I didn't say you could make an infinitely powerful laser. I said you could make an arbitrarily powerful laser.

If you want to argue that plank length is the smallest possible wavelength, you're looking at each photon having the energy of 3 tons of TNT. Even I'm not trying to claim that 40k weapons might be that powerful.

But, in all honesy, WH40K can't give their las-cannon BOLTS the power of half a ton of TNT... otherwise hiding behind TREES wouldn't work for cover

**Nasor** · 04-08-09, 08:36 AM

Originally Posted by Kittamaru

But, in all honesy, WH40K can't give their las-cannon BOLTS the power of half a ton of TNT... otherwise hiding behind TREES wouldn't work for cover

I think it depends on what edition you're playing. Back in the good old days of rogue trader and 2nd edition, there were rules for killing troops hidden in clumps of trees etc. with heavy weapons, even if the troops weren't visible. Then they made the rules progressively stupider and stupider to try to appeal to younger players, and that sort of thing went out the window

As I recall by 3rd edition they didn't even have the concept of overwatch fire any more. God only knows what it's like now, I think they're on the 5th or 6th edition.

**Kittamaru** · 04-08-09, 08:41 AM

Well, you can still use grenades and the like (at least in the PC games) but I haven't really read the latest rulebooks... too expensive for me to get into - I'll stick with DnD thank you lol

**Nasor** · 04-08-09, 08:56 AM

Originally Posted by Kittamaru

Well, you can still use grenades and the like (at least in the PC games) but I haven't really read the latest rulebooks... too expensive for me to get into - I'll stick with DnD thank you lol

As I recall (it's been something like 7 years since I actually played it) there was a rule where you could fire heavy weapons into troops hidden in clumps of trees, rubble, etc and then roll to see whether or not the terrain was destroyed (ie, you reduce the tree to splinters) or any of the troops hiding there were killed.

Of course, there used to be rules for all sorts of cool stuff. If you wanted to have a guy with a jet pack or hawk wings fly up in the air and land on a moving speeder and try to throw the pilot out, there were rules to cover it. There were also rules for all sorts of chemical weapons (these were especially nice against tyranids), blinding effects, lighting people on fire, etc. You would have to make moral checks to see if a squad panicked and ran when they took too many losses in one turn, and rules for restoring the squad to normal by having the commanding officer shoot one of your own troopers as an example to the others.

Now I think it's pretty much all just move and shoot.

**Kittamaru** · 04-08-09, 08:59 AM

*nods* That's why i LOVE the new DnD 4.0... they simplified the BASE rules, making it easier for newcomers, but added in information on how to ADD your own rules, and make them balanced, allowing you to pull some very impressive stunts

**antaran_1979** · 04-08-09, 09:44 AM

Originally Posted by Nasor

I didn't say you could make an infinitely powerful laser. I said you could make an arbitrarily powerful laser.

If you want to argue that plank length is the smallest possible wavelength, you're looking at each photon having the energy of 3 tons of TNT. Even I'm not trying to claim that 40k weapons might be that powerful.

i was going more for the energy "density" of empty vacuum. for every amount of energy per planck lenght that will result in mass above one planck mass you end up with a black hole. the universe as we know it seams to pose uper limits on our abitions.

**antaran_1979** · 04-08-09, 09:47 AM

Originally Posted by Nasor

As I recall (it's been something like 7 years since I actually played it) there was a rule where you could fire heavy weapons into troops hidden in clumps of trees, rubble, etc and then roll to see whether or not the terrain was destroyed (ie, you reduce the tree to splinters) or any of the troops hiding there were killed.

Of course, there used to be rules for all sorts of cool stuff. If you wanted to have a guy with a jet pack or hawk wings fly up in the air and land on a moving speeder and try to throw the pilot out, there were rules to cover it. There were also rules for all sorts of chemical weapons (these were especially nice against tyranids), blinding effects, lighting people on fire, etc. You would have to make moral checks to see if a squad panicked and ran when they took too many losses in one turn, and rules for restoring the squad to normal by having the commanding officer shoot one of your own troopers as an example to the others.

Now I think it's pretty much all just move and shoot.

it is far worse these days. i haven't played the game, but i did some informative readings on the rules and history of races. can you imagine that now all the lasguns are basicly conventional laser in origin (not even x-ray or gamma lasers), or that Necron FTL is acheaved by inertial nulifyers?! common mate, light has no inertia and it still can't get beyond c. but i guess they will go to great lenghts to attract younger audences

**Nasor** · 04-08-09, 09:47 AM

I think it was part of a strategy to have games with bigger armies, which equals more miniatures sold. In 1st edition you might play an entire game with just 10-20 troops on each side, but the fighting, equipment, etc. was very detailed. In 2nd edition you would usually have 30-40 troops per side plus some vehicles, and the rules got a bit simpler so that play could move faster with the increased army sizes. Then in 3rd edition things got even simpler and faster, and armies got bigger. I think 3rd edition was when they really started sucking the life out of it by removing the detail. There was no more "You tried to use your jetpack to jump onto the moving hovertank but screwed up, roll to see if you break your clumsy neck" or "someone just threw a grenade at your commander, roll to see if one of the people in his bodyguard squad throw themselves on it to save him" or "oh, so you want to order your squad to charge through the drifting cloud of chemical weapon? Roll to see if they'll have the nerve to do it, then roll to see how many of them fall over dead as they try to run through."

They also had very detailed rules for psycher powers, and what was basically a psycher card game that ran in parallel to the board game (often jokingly referred to as "psycher poker" to see what sort of magic hellstorms your psychers could unleash on the table. You could mind-control enemy squads, conjure demons, open telepoter gateways around the table, etc., and the other player's psychers would try to stop you and cast their own spells.

Ah, the good old days...

**Nasor** · 04-08-09, 10:09 AM

Originally Posted by antaran_1979

i was going more for the energy "density" of empty vacuum. for every amount of energy per planck lenght that will result in mass above one planck mass you end up with a black hole. the universe as we know it seams to pose uper limits on our abitions.

You realize, don't you, that even if you do put a cap on the upper limit of an individual photon's energy, you can still always just use more photons in the beam. A laser's power is its photon/second times the energy of a photon. There are very powerful IR lasers that cut metal, and weak xray lasers that have little power.

**Lord Vasago** · 04-08-09, 01:52 PM

Originally Posted by Kittamaru

A couple bits of info on Trek Tech: These are taken from sources that extrapolate from cannon information ONLY. They will state (quite plainly) if something is an estimate. This is based on the latest technology for StarFleet, mostly from the Sovereign class Starship.

1) your tractor beams are very usefull at a distance of 2,000 but thats it.
a ds can pull in a ssd easily + a object this massive has a gravitational pull of it's own.

2) the soverign and defiant classes are the only true warships as they are the only ones that have (limited) quantum torps and a warpcore 8. so they can go for 12 hour at warp 9,7.
they are the only ones that can use the regenarating shields. but can't use them in warp because of the powerdrain.
there impulse engines propelle them to .75c

your bio-neural-gel packs can become infected

a Mon Calamari MC80b Star cruiser
a) has multiple backup shield generators, specialy designed for extended battles so they could take a severe beating.
b)allthough they have less tl's and ion-cannons than a ISD all canons are linked in banks of twelve. allowing intense rapid fire on a single target.
c) the Mc80's are specifically build for the Mon Calamari physiology for movements that are perfectly normal for Mon Calamari and impossible for humans. how that for agility of a 1,200m vessel

as you see a ISD or even a ISD2 are not even the best warships around lol

this source is authorised by lucasfilm ltd meaning it is a-connon

**Kittamaru** · 04-08-09, 06:19 PM

Uh... what... DS pulling in an ISD? Since when...

**Lord Vasago** · 04-08-09, 06:26 PM

Originally Posted by Kittamaru

Uh... what... DS pulling in an ISD? Since when...

the ds1 has 700 tractorbeams capable of holding a SSD
the ds2 has 1000 tb
lucasfilm numbers

**Kittamaru** · 04-08-09, 10:41 PM

I'd like a link and/or quote, please...

Because if those numbers were true, would not the prudent action have been to tractor beam EVERY X/Y/A wing fighter and every capital ship and simply hold them still so their crappy gunners could hit them...

**antaran_1979** · 04-09-09, 01:35 AM

Originally Posted by Nasor

You realize, don't you, that even if you do put a cap on the upper limit of an individual photon's energy, you can still always just use more photons in the beam. A laser's power is its photon/second times the energy of a photon. There are very powerful IR lasers that cut metal, and weak xray lasers that have little power.

and the key is to focus the beam, i know. still there are limits to this again, allthough i would sure like to see a laser based weapon that uses highly focused beams to create unstable mesons, or if you like a meson gun. that would beat the crap out of any laser canon as far as pure damage delivery is at stake.

**antaran_1979** · 04-09-09, 01:38 AM

Originally Posted by Lord Vasago

as you see a ISD or even a ISD2 are not even the best warships around lol

this source is authorised by lucasfilm ltd meaning it is a-connon

but it is a usefull benchmark as is the Galaxy class in UFP.

**antaran_1979** · 04-09-09, 01:41 AM

Originally Posted by Kittamaru

I'd like a link and/or quote, please...

Because if those numbers were true, would not the prudent action have been to tractor beam EVERY X/Y/A wing fighter and every capital ship and simply hold them still so their crappy gunners could hit them...

i have little or no doubt the DSs have 1000s of tractors, however i doubt their usefulness. it's not like they cought anything besides the Falcon in those and even then Han was cought by surprise.

**antaran_1979** · 04-09-09, 01:43 AM

Originally Posted by Nasor

Give me a specific episode where they're shown firing phasors beyond visual range.

err you do realise that visual range or starships is often mesured in thousands perhaps milions of kilometers? not that i have seen a phaser fired at anything more distant then few 1000km far static target.

**Lord Vasago** · 04-09-09, 03:07 AM

Originally Posted by Kittamaru

I'd like a link and/or quote, please...

Because if those numbers were true, would not the prudent action have been to tractor beam EVERY X/Y/A wing fighter and every capital ship and simply hold them still so their crappy gunners could hit them...

The essential guide to vehicles and vessels

this book is authorised by Lucasfilm and published in 1996. before the prequels.

as for the tractorbeams it is very simple. The attack of the xwing fighters on the ds was considered inconsequential by Grand Moff Tarkin. if he launched all tiefighters the rebels wouldn't have had a chance.

as for the DS2 : it wasn't even finished yet. it's superlaser was fully operational, the elaborate trap set by the emperor. he knew the rebels would come in full force because the only way to destroy the ds2 was when he was being build. and he knew the rebels knew that. once finished the ds would be invincible

**antaran_1979** · 04-09-09, 06:03 AM

SW tractors are still problematic. lack of good will might explain why DS1 did not use them against the red and gold squasdrons, but the ISDs don't use them eighter. in ep IV an ISD1 uses the tractor if at all only after a Corelian Corvette is disabled. in ep V a SSD fails to tractor the Falcon escaping Bespin. in ep 6 there is no tractoring at all from eighter side. in the prequels also. which is odd. SW battles are full of small ships that "beg" to be imobilised by large vessels, yet except for the Falcon's ambush and the imobilised corvette in Ep IV no succesfull tractor lock has even been seen.

**Lord Vasago** · 04-09-09, 06:31 AM

Originally Posted by antaran_1979

SW tractors are still problematic. lack of good will might explain why DS1 did not use them against the red and gold squasdrons, but the ISDs don't use them eighter. in ep IV an ISD1 uses the tractor if at all only after a Corelian Corvette is disabled. in ep V a SSD fails to tractor the Falcon escaping Bespin. in ep 6 there is no tractoring at all from eighter side. in the prequels also. which is odd. SW battles are full of small ships that "beg" to be imobilised by large vessels, yet except for the Falcon's ambush and the imobilised corvette in Ep IV no succesfull tractor lock has even been seen.

i know but there's a lot o things mentioned in this threath that is not on screen, on both sides.