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CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:

KingDeath wrote:

CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Durza wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:Why is it we are putting this hypothetical matchup in some place beyond the reach of the Astronomican?

And, FYI, Warp Travel isn't impossable without the Astronomican. Warp Travel functioned just fine in the 10,000 years prior to the Astronomican being created. All it does is help in times and places where the Warp is turbulant, it functions like a lighthouse. In calm/mild weather you don't need it, its only useful during a storm.


And 8 million kilometers of accuracy isn't really important if you consider the speed of IoM ships, if they really are traveling at a significant fraction of the speed of light 8 million Kilometers is going to be nothing.

Also, Chaos worshippers tend to travel through the Warp, and it seems unlikely they'd be using the Astronomican. I suppose the Eye might serve a similar purpose perhaps.

Anyway, surely the Galactic Empire are at a severe disadvantage due to their lack of teleportation tech. They don't have the shields to prevent it, so some Space Marines could just teleport on board and JOTWW the Emperor (Palaptine)

And Eldar. They also use the warp, and they certainly don't use the astrominicon or the Eye of Terror.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

KingDeath wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:I wonder what happens if a IoM ship rams through a formation of Star Destroyers, in their nice tight formations.

its going to be a horrible horrible mess.


Size alone might cause the crew of SW ships to surrender. I mean what else are you supposed to do when a ship 20 times your tonnage, scratch that; a half dozen ships 20 times your tonnage accompanied by 20 or so ships equal to your tonnage, suddenly appearing out of a cross-dimensional gateway with absolutly no warning?(SW sensors wouldn't detect a warp jump)

Shock and Awe FTW!!!

Well, as long as you keep in mind that the firepower of a single stardestroyer is possibly ( as in we have an idea on what a stardestroyer can do but the firepower of Imperial ships varies widely. Of course one could wonder if the standard armement of imperial cruisers could depopulate entire worlds, like a stardestroyer can with relatively little effort, why did the imperium create exterminatus class weapons? ). far above and beyond anything an Imperial ship can muster, i doubt that shock and awe alone will work.

There is a difference between killing all life on a planet, and reducing said planet into a heap of molten slag.

Here's a hint : One is easier than the other.

Well, reducing a planet to a heap of molten slag is exactly what a base delta zero operation is supposed to do.

AFAIK, the Empire didn't have the ability to destroy an entire planet before the Deathstar was created(Han Solo: New Hope)

They could wipe a planet's population out, but not destroy the planet.


The Imperium can actually destroy a planet with a couple of well placed Clyclonic Torpedos, Torpedos that can be launched from just about any ship the Imperium has. Same goes for Virus bombs. All thats required is the Authorization to use said weaponry.

Wait...they can actually destroy planets? Like, into little chunks? I thought they just made it inhospitable and volcanic, like in DoW2 retribution.

You see there are several levels of Exterminatus.

General flow of Exterminatus is as follows.

1) Preliminary Bombardment with conventional weapons to destroy particular hardpoints like underground bunkers and other potential escape routes.

2) Dropping of Virus Bombs. Virus eats away all living matter, causing it to rapidly decompose.

3) Lance Strike to ignite the gas released from the decayed life(Life Eater Virus basically causes a rapid decomposition of living material) which causes a planet wide firestorm which will also blow the atmosphere away.

Then we have an optional 4th step.

4) Fire Clyclonic Torpedos. These Torpedos burrow deep into the crust of the planet, setting off massive melta charges that cause the planet to experience massive teutonic destablization. the destabilization causes the planet to wrench itself apart into an asteroid field. The planet's molten core(if any) will slowly dissapate and cool in the vaccum of space.

Clyclonic Torpedos are usually only used to destroy Necron Tomb Worlds, even a lifeless husk of rock can still be potentially useful.

CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Durza wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:Why is it we are putting this hypothetical matchup in some place beyond the reach of the Astronomican?

And, FYI, Warp Travel isn't impossable without the Astronomican. Warp Travel functioned just fine in the 10,000 years prior to the Astronomican being created. All it does is help in times and places where the Warp is turbulant, it functions like a lighthouse. In calm/mild weather you don't need it, its only useful during a storm.


And 8 million kilometers of accuracy isn't really important if you consider the speed of IoM ships, if they really are traveling at a significant fraction of the speed of light 8 million Kilometers is going to be nothing.

Also, Chaos worshippers tend to travel through the Warp, and it seems unlikely they'd be using the Astronomican. I suppose the Eye might serve a similar purpose perhaps.

Anyway, surely the Galactic Empire are at a severe disadvantage due to their lack of teleportation tech. They don't have the shields to prevent it, so some Space Marines could just teleport on board and JOTWW the Emperor (Palaptine)

And Eldar. They also use the warp, and they certainly don't use the astrominicon or the Eye of Terror.


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KingDeath wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:I wonder what happens if a IoM ship rams through a formation of Star Destroyers, in their nice tight formations.

its going to be a horrible horrible mess.


Size alone might cause the crew of SW ships to surrender. I mean what else are you supposed to do when a ship 20 times your tonnage, scratch that; a half dozen ships 20 times your tonnage accompanied by 20 or so ships equal to your tonnage, suddenly appearing out of a cross-dimensional gateway with absolutly no warning?(SW sensors wouldn't detect a warp jump)

Shock and Awe FTW!!!

Well, as long as you keep in mind that the firepower of a single stardestroyer is possibly ( as in we have an idea on what a stardestroyer can do but the firepower of Imperial ships varies widely. Of course one could wonder if the standard armement of imperial cruisers could depopulate entire worlds, like a stardestroyer can with relatively little effort, why did the imperium create exterminatus class weapons? ). far above and beyond anything an Imperial ship can muster, i doubt that shock and awe alone will work.

There is a difference between killing all life on a planet, and reducing said planet into a heap of molten slag.

Here's a hint : One is easier than the other.

The webway's a bit silly though.

Webway? What?

AlmightyWalrus wrote:
And Eldar. They also use the warp, and they certainly don't use the astrominicon or the Eye of Terror.

The webway's a bit silly though.

Ah sorry. I didn't see that in the quote pyramid.

Why would it be silly?

Here's another LOLWUT moment brought to you by 40k.

Novacannon calculated yield from Spacebattles.com: 661 teraton.
Torpedo stated yield: 600 gigaton.
Batteries caculated yield: Low teraton range - we'll go with 10x torpedo power per battery.
Cyclonic Torpedo caculated yield: Planetbusting (shatter): 46 petatons (using handy: http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Science/Asteroids.html)

Described fact: Cyclonic Torpedos can destroy a planet. (Used Earth's radius in above)
Stated fact (BFG rulebook and otherwise): Shields don't stop torpedoes.
Stated fact (BFG rulebook and otherwise): Torpedoes can kill capital ships.
Calculated fact: Novacannon is reduced by void shields.
Stated fact (BFG rulebook and otherwise): Weapons batteries can kill capital ships AND are reduced by void shields.

These can't all be true. The novacannon is 1000x more powerful than torpedoes, and 100x more powerful than batteries. If cumulative torpedoes are enough to kill a capital ship, then the shields must be sufficient to block at least 99% of the damage, meaning that battery firepower should be entirely soaked.

Even more baffling, an Ork Rok 20km across can only sustain around 40 gigatons in damage, and that's assuming the entire thing is made of solid nickel-iron. These things are known to survive the IoM's orbital defense batteries, which are supposed to repel enemy ships - Ork Fields are non starters, as they ignored by torps and a single torpedo would one shot the damned thing, yet somehow Orks are considered competitive against the Imperium - and Ork Roks are KNOWN to land on planets, even considered the most fortified... such as Armageddon and Cadia. They would have to have some sort of "structural enhancement field" which increases their durability by 100-1000x for this to make sense.

Cyclonic torpedos ignore shields as well - if these things are readily available, you'd think that the IoM would have curb-stomped everyone by now.

GW's fluff basically consists of each side having super weapons with power levels and effects described for juvenile "wow" factor, and plot armor as durable as necessary. There's an old Chinese proverb where there's a guy selling weapons and armor, advertising the weapons as being able to pierce any armor and the armor as being proof against every weapon. A clever customer asked him which would break first if he put his weapon against his armor... Either way, you're going to find one of the items not as advertised.

Clyclonic Torpedos are NOT used against space targets as a general rule, only the Necron World Engine was large enough to warrent their use.


We can't rely on GW's stated power yields because they have no clue how they are under-powering their weaponry. We must instead go off of the described results and toss the stated yields.

GE has way more ships then the Imperium. 200 sectors in the Imperium from what I found (think I'm wrong). Each sector is 50-75 capital ships along with a possible seven squadrons of fast attack ships. While GE sectors are over thousand (+84) with 24 ISD I/II with 2400 additional warships assigned to a sector.

2 things,

1) Size Matters

2) We arn't given exact strengths for Imperial Battlefleets, only "typical" numbers. a Battlefleet near Cadia is going to be WAY larger then a Battlefleet stationed somewhere out in the boonies.

keezus wrote:
Regarding the forces of Chaos, considering that for them, it is like travelling inside your own house, I doubt that they'd have any issues.

Tell that to the Death Guard, Iron Warriors, and the Emperor's Children... it's more likely traveling in the mansion of horrors with your 4 drunk, PO'ed uncles coming off a bender while they're fighting over the same girl.

Grey Templar wrote:We can't rely on GW's stated power yields because they have no clue how they are under-powering their weaponry. We must instead go off of the described results and toss the stated yields.

Let me get this straight. The stated 600GT canon yield on torpedoes is under powered because the writers are wrong - The canon yield is already 10-100x more powerful than should be needed to one-shot an Ork Rok. Based on described results, all weapons should be orders of magnitudes weaker, unless they are called on by the storyline to destroy a planet etc.

Let's use your described results approach:

Novacannon shot = 661 Terraton - If we go by described results, this weapon is at least 100 000x more powerful than torpedoes, since Torps are now power limited due to described ship-to-ship actions vs inferior xenos technology (but are also effective vs. Imperial technology). Ergo, shields must be able to absorb almost all the blast.

661 Terraton = 2.5104x10^24 J

As shield output is considered to be constant output, we'll consider the void generators to be outputting this number continuously during combat operations, and we'll also assume that it's the pooled output of all void generators - in actual fact - the full amount would probably be at least 5x that amount.

The SUN has a per second output of 3.86×10^26 J/s. So, that means the ship's plasma reactor is putting out 1% the sun's output for shields alone. GW uses Plasma and Fusion interchangably.

The SUN is a fusion reactor.

40k's power levels don't become any less nonsensical even if you go only by described results. You are just moving the goal posts around by disallowing print material just because it seems to contradict your POV. At least with the stated 600GT torpedo yield (which actually HELPS your arguement), you have a basis on which to structure everything else around.


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Lobukia wrote:

keezus wrote:
Regarding the forces of Chaos, considering that for them, it is like travelling inside your own house, I doubt that they'd have any issues.

Tell that to the Death Guard, Iron Warriors, and the Emperor's Children... it's more likely traveling in the mansion of horrors with your 4 drunk, PO'ed uncles coming off a bender while they're fighting over the same girl.

Well... I didn't say that the house was a safe place to be. Only that it affords some familiarity, meaning that they are less likely to get lost.