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keezus wrote:@Glory: It sure is a good thing that you cleared things up. So let me understand this:

1. Bolter rounds do not have to travel fast since bolter rounds lethality comes from the explosive charge.
2. Bolter rounds are HE and AP. Since the HE is not terribly effective against armour, the round is understood to have breached the armor before the HE portion does its work.
3. At 0.3kg round (an overestimation) with speeds of 2x speed of sound, a bolt round's AP delivery is: 139kJ - and per your post, this is understood to be able to penetrate power armor.

To achieve similar penetrating power, a particle beam firing projectiles of 0.01mg would need to impart a speed of 3728270 m/s or approximately 0.012C (where C is the speed of light)

Although velocity has been referred to, it is not the total velocity of a closed system that remains constant. If it was, then firing a gun would cause the gun to recoil at the same velocity as the bullet! The gun does recoil, but at a much lower velocity than the bullet. Newton's third law tells us Fgun on bullet = - Fbullet on gun, and assuming a constant force for simplicity, Newton's second law allows us to change this to

mbulletΔvbulletΔt=-mgunΔvgunΔt.

Thus if the gun has 100 times more mass than the bullet, it will recoil at a velocity that is 100 times smaller and in the opposite direction, represented by the opposite sign.
The quantity mv is therefore apparently a useful measure of motion, and we give it a name, momentum, and a symbol, p. (As far as I know, the letter “p” was just chosen at random, since “m” was already being used for mass.) The situations discussed so far have been one-dimensional, but in three-dimensional situations it is treated as a vector.

Let's assume a hand phaser is 3 pounds (1.36kg). At 0.01mg, the projectile is 3x10^8 x smaller than the gun. Thus the recoil is proportionally smaller at 0.00046J. Since a Joule is the equivalent of 1kg moving at 1m/s, the recoil is: 0.00033m/s or 0.3mm/s. Unless red shirted ensigns are of weaker constitution than modern man, -that- is a negligible amount of recoil, while delivering the same penetrative properties as the AP portion of the bolt round.

While one might argue that it is pure (and continuous) penetrative power and lacks the explosive aspect of the bolt round, I'm sure any beam able to defeat power armour would probably defeat the flesh behind it as well.

I admit that I really should've thought my argument through before I opened my mouth. Thank you for the additional information. However, doesn't the phaser fire a continuous beam of energy? Sure, the recoil from a single particle is insignificant, just like a single water in a fire hose. When you crank up the pressure it's another matter though.

The following math is wrong. I calculated the results assuming 1 mg particles, and then my calculator died when I tried to redo the math after noticing my mistake. I'll fix it tonight or tomorrow, depending on when I get the damn calculator working again. Sorry about that


Assume that your 0.1 mg particles have the density of water (they'd probably be denser, right?). 1 liter of water has a volume of 10 cm^3 and weights 1kg. 1 mg of water therefore has the volume of one millionth of a liter. The volume of a sphere V= cubicroot of(4/3 x pi x r^3). (doing this with just text is hard ) In this case, we get a radius of about 0.01 cm, or a diameter of 0.02 cm. (This is in fact for 1 mg particles)

So, if you, for example, press the trigger down for 0.5 seconds, given the starting velocity of about 3.7x10^6 m/s, you've just fired around 9x10^7 particles, assuming a continuous beam. Right? The combined recoil will be quite impressive. (Given that this material is in fact less dense than water, it means that whatever you fire will require more particles per second for the beam.)

Given a denser material you fire even more particles per second to maintain a contiuous beam. Now, I doubt the beam is actually a continuous one, it probably just looks like it to us. How dense the particles are, and how many are fired every second is something I don't know, and I doubt there are any reliable sources. There's also the matter of actually dealing damage to the target. I don't know how stuff acts on that end. Do the particles just drill neat holes through the target, or do they somehow manage to impart all their momentum to whatever they hit?

Also, looking at my numbers I've just realised that my math is wrong. However, I'll still leave it there just so you have some idea of what I'm trying to say. Again, my apologies for the errors in the calculation.

@Glory: Density has no bearing on the matter milligrams or mg are already a measure of weight. You could be using extremely desnse material and all that would do is make for physically smaller projectiles.

I do agree with you that combined, the cumulative effects of 0.3mm/s recoil would be substantial. However... let us look at your number of 9x10^7 particles fired over the course of 0.5s.

At 0.01mg each, that would be a total of 9kg of matter. Which is more than the gun weighs by a factor of 9. Therefore, I must conclude that the beam is high speed but is -not- continuous. The show has examples of phasers being fired in bursts of up to 3-4 seconds. Spaced, 100 particles emitted over the course of a second would result in recoil of 30mm/s... which is, IMO, still insignificant. (note: A typical submachine gun has a 10 round / second rate of fire on auto)

This might also explain why phasers are so crappy at cutting.

With no information on how these weapons actually function, the best that armchair nerd mathematicians can do is assume that they "ideal" and fully follow the laws of conservation of energy. Unrealistic, I know, but the subject matter we are looking at is hardly realistic itself.



@TheEmperor: The power levels in 40k are awesomesauce. Just don't try to explain how they function. Your head will asplode (not a typo).

Regarding the density of the material being fired, I was merely trying to make the point that denser material means that even more particles must be fired every second, to make the beam continuous, since their individual volumes would be reduced. I quite agree with your point that it wouldn't be particularly feasible, unless the clips weigh 50 kg each.

I enjoy speculating about matters such as this, even though I'm quite aware that I can never really explain how these things work. As I was on my way to the theather tonight, I actually saw a book in a store window called "Physics of the Impossible", written by a professor Michio Kaku. The cover had some blurb about "energy shields, phasers and Death Stars explained". I'll have to get hold of that book and see what an actual physics professor thinks about phaser technology.

First of all I must say that claiming that phasers 'pwn everyfink' is ridiculously OTT. :(


Automatically Appended Next Post:

keezus wrote:

This might also explain why phasers are so crappy at cutting.

With Termie and power armour being amazingly thick, would it be like cutting?

Emperors Faithful wrote:With Termie and power armour being amazingly thick, would it be like cutting?

Oh, I'm not arguing that phasers are powerful, just that power armour doesn't appear to be nearly as tough as everyone is making out - vs other sci-fi weapons. The key here is that bolters are known to be able to penetrate PA, with Kraken rounds ignoring it altogether. Bolters are basically hand held guns firing modern anti-material rounds... Armor that protects the user against these kinds of rounds 1/2-2/3 of the time would be equivalent to modern tank armor, so to say that a phaser is incapable of cutting through modern tank armor seems a bit much, especially since particle beams can be shown to deliver equivalent KE compared to a bolt round. However as a particle beam, however, instead of a HE blast after breaching the armor, it continues to deliver KE at the same intensity to the same point. There might be some KE transfer to TE (Thermal energy) that I can not account for (which may partially explain the on-screen "vaporizing" abilities of the phaser), but this might be a property of the "magic" nadion particles Star Trek weapons fire.

Terminator armour is probably another thing altogether, though, fluffwise, you run into the problems where it takes lascannons to stop terminators, yet this same terminator armour gets owned by a genestealer... so, on the one hand, you have best powered suit in the galaxy... on the other hand, you have "Project Grizzly Lite", YMMV.

I think genestealers aim for the crevices...

...I meant armpits etc. you sick lot of people, you.

Serious: So what is the extent of damage a phaser can do? I'm not really a trekkie as I've only watched the new movie, and it seemed to me that the phaser (while it certainly killed the baddies) didn't disintegrate them like it has been claimed.

TheEmperor wrote:
Dramatic license or not, it's what it is. If it's shown that way on the shows, that's how it works. Or do you want us to discuss the mythical Federation in your head which isn't actually depicted onscreen?

Which is where a lot of the disagreements are coming in. What are the ground rules for this discussion? What is or is not cannon for the purposes of determining the relevant capabilities of the two protagonists?

To give you an example, several times posters have highlighted how slow ST warp drives are. It is was first highlighted in the ST Roleplay system about how slow it actually was. Yet for the purposes of the series, it is sufficiently fast for ships to be where they are needed on time.

If no worthwhile ground troops are depicted, then the Federation has none, period. And yep, they've been depicted in at least two episodes of DS9, and they pretty lame in both cases. Once again, we're discussing what we're actually presented with, and not your mythical version of the same.

As for the Miranda, no idea what you're talking about, so I can't say if the Imperium has "no defence" against it or not.

The ground troops one I believe I actually agreed with you, but going further into the books and games, yes they have effective groiund troops/armour.

The Reliant/Miranda is the research cruiser from Wrath of Khan, and can transport 90 personnel every 5 seconds. Which is why I maintain ground combat is not relevant, and the entire question has to be settled in space.

And once again, all we can discuss is what we've seen. And from what we've seen, phasers are hardly the most impressive weapons in the universe. If I want to burn through a wall or take out something really big and ugly in one shot I'll use a phaser. But if I were going to war? I'd take a lasgun, easy. Or hell, give me an M-16. Because from what we've seen on the various tv shows, the only weapon less useful than a phaser in a wartime situation is a muzzle loader.

Actually I would take the rilfe from DS9 with the bullet teleporter!

"Ship guns have crap range!" It's a TV series, it would look really good firing phasors into nothing. Thats why Federation ships fly in tight formation and wait until the last minute to fire, it's so it looks good on TV.

Once again... eh, you know the rest.

If this were the case, then why don't they "subspace hop" past torpedoes fired at them? Because they can't. It's not a viable tactic. So yeah, BFG munitions can hit them. Especially since some of them, like Nova Cannons, are fired at damn near the speed of light. That's an ordnance blast fired at nearly Warp 1 speed.

They can, it was a plot device used in one of the later TNG series, and it has been shown in other show where ships have 'warped out' to avoid incoming fire.

Sssuuurrreee. You know what I love? How people have to outright make stuff up in these discussions to give the Federation any hope. You're bemused by people using stuff from the actual shows, what we've actually seen, to support our arguments, but you think your arguments, which are based off of your fantasy version of the Federation which exists only in your head

No I dont, I'm just trying to highlight some of the absurdities being thrown about here. For example the question of recoil on phasers. In the show their is no recoil, yet there are 40k adherents in this thread arguing that in order to kill PA the recoil would break a red shirts arm.

From what we've seen, we have no evidence that the Federation using "subspace hops" to avoid Imperial munitions fire is anything near a viable tactic.

And you have proof to show otherwise?

Moreover, you're presuming that Starfleet ships can even harm an Imperial Navy ship, much less kill them through the "death of a thousand cuts".

Your missing the point of the statement. Each 'cut' is insignificant it's only when you add them all up do they have a telling effect. Can a ST ship damage the hull of a 40k ship? Yes. Is it significant enough to do a 'one (or 8 shot) shot' kill? I don't know.

Void shielding is incredibly powerful, and you need to direct enough firepower at them to overload them and bring them down. Then you need to repeat the process against the second void shield. And the third. And the fourth. Once you do that, you then need to direct enough firepower to destroy the ship before the tech-priests onboard bring those void shields back up. Starfleet ships simply don't have the firepower for that.

And this is where your fantasy/mythical version of 40k can be shown up. Both ships ST & 40K have been depicted in similar situation, ie close proximity to suns and in both cases their shields were sufficient to withstand the forces/powers exerted upon them. SO from that we can deduce that ST shielding and 40K void shields have comparable damage resistance. And since both have weapons capable of defeating those shields then ST ships have the capability to penetrate/overload Void shields.

And to top it off, the Imperial Navy has a massive numbers advantage. According to Ronald Moore, the showrunners on DS9 assumed that the Federation had a fleet of 30,000 ships. The Imperium, however? It's been stated that each Space Marine Chapter has 2-3 Battle Barges. So that's around 2,500 Battle Barges. Assuming they all have eight Strike Cruisers, as well, as the Ultramarines do, and that's another 8,000 ships, for a total of 10,500 ships, and that's before taking into account the escorts the Space Marines have at their disposal, which can easily triple that number.

And? show me one piece of evidence (barring HH) where all these ships were mobilised into one force? Ditto for ST, I can't.



Love the picture, and I actually think that they've depicted the federation ships too large.

And once again, they've got the sheer advantage in speed. According to Codex: Imperial Guard, 2nd edition, your standard Imperial Navy transport (not even their fastest warship, just their transports), can cover 1,000 light years in 1-4 days. It takes Voyager a year to cover that same distance. The Federation is nearly 1,000 light years across, so think about it. Imperial Navy ships strike at the western end of the Federation, Starfleet marshalls a response. In the time it takes them to arrive, the Imperial Navy could've crossed the entirety of their territory in no less than 4 days and hit them on their eastern front. If the Imperial Navy so chose, they wouldn't even have to see Starfleet. They could devastate half the Federation in days, without running across a single Starfleet vessel, much less any fleets, and there's absolutely nothing that Starfleet would be able to do about it, because they can't catch up to Imperial Navy ships, much less beat them to the punch. In the end, Starfleet would be forced to marshal its forces around its core worlds, and even then, most of them would be days, weeks, or even months away by the time that the Imperium launched its final strike on the Federations founding worlds.

Not knowing the exact quote you are using, make a response difficult, but I would guess that this is a best time figure. From what I remember from the BFG rulebook. a normal trip takes weeks to months 'real time' as opposed to 'warp time'. I disagree with your premise basically because it centres around a comparison from a source already ruled inadmissable by the 40k proponent side.

Someone made the comparison earlier that a Trebuche (Sp?) would damage a tank, while that may be true, I'd like to see it hit one as it sped across a field!

Do trebuchets have servitor assisted targeting arrays? Do they have logic engines calculating firing formulas? Do their munitions have massive blast radii? Do they have munitions that are fired at nearly the speed of light, and which travel over a hundred thousand kilometres nearly instantaneously? If they don't, then it's not a valid comparison.

This one I'd love to see. Do you want to use a computer to calculate a firing trajectory for a trebuchet (thanks for the correct spelling), sling a mortar shell in it, and take a shot at a moving tank? Go ahead, and if it hits, buy a lottery ticket!

So yes, based on what we've seen on screen, as well as what we've seen in the 40k rulebooks and novels, the Imperium takes this easy. And yes, basing it off of what we've seen on screen is a legitimate argument, and is in fact the only legitimate argument in these kinds of discussions. Going by what we've actually been presented with is the only way to make an actual determination, because if we're not discussing what we've seen on screen, read in books, etc, then we're not actually discussing these universes. We're discussing our idealized fanfic versions of these universes. In other words, we're discussing something that exists entirely in your head, and nowhere else. And if that's the case, then what's the point of discussing it at all?

But's thats the point I'm trying to make. 40k adherents are using all available background material to support their position of supremacy while stating that ST adherents may only use what has been depicted on screen, and only if it's commonly seen on screen. So things like the sub space hop past ordinance, Genesis torps, tricobalt warheads, phasing cloaks are all dismissed out of hand.

Cheers

Andrew

@AndrewC: You are misrepresenting the discussion about phasers for the last few pages. I and the other posters agree on the fact that the phasers we know don't break peoples arms. We were simply discussing the theory of a phaser, with the initial starting point of it firing "nadion particle beams" or something like that.

From a practical standpoint, a phaser is about as unexplainiable as las-, plasma and melta guns of the 40k universe. All these weapons belong to the "magical lazor guns" category, sparkly beams that look pretty and kill stuff.

@Glory

If I have misrepresented the argument, then I'm sorry, but some of the conclusions (especially the maths ones) are a bit heavy going. The part about the broken arm just stuck in my mind.

In the same way there was a quote about lances being 'continent leveling', yet games rules wise, a lance has a 75% chance of being ineffective when shot at a planet....

And is inconsistent with the background material. For example, it makes a point in the BFG rulebook that exterminatus can only be carried out by specifically equiped capital ships, yet a simple escort armed with a lance can, according to some, carry out the same task using its lance to level each continent.

Cheers

Andrew

As I am not a reader of 40k fiction, nor a player of Battlefleet Gothic, I can't argue for or against the figures that Lances are "continent levelling".

Upon further inspection, Lances seem to function in the same manner as a secondary battery.

Lexicanum Website - Lance article wrote:A Lance is a large, spaceship mounted weapon, often seen on various Imperial Navy vessels as well as on several Traitor vessels. The ability to efficiently produce long-range lance weaponry by Mars is perfected in late M37.

The principle of such a weapon is an extremely high-powered energy beam; the efficiency of a Lance turret is increased by the incorporation of several smaller beam projectors into a single, focused beam. The resulting weapon is capable of incinerating straight through the armoured hulls of other vessels as if it was irrelevant.

There appear to be different classes of Lances as evidenced by ship armament, where some ships mount Lances as primary weapons and many others use them to supplement the nebulously named "weapons batteries".

As lances are carried by ships as small as a Nova, it is unlikely that this is the same weapon used by a battleship due to its ridiculous power usage (contingent on the continent destroying quote being accurate).

I'm interested to see the entire quote for the continent destroying instance from a lance strike. Was it a single lance strike, or a coordinated strike from a lance battery? A single ship, or multiple ships? The above quote from the Lexicanum would seem to suggest that these weapons are several magnitudes less powerful than I initially calculated.

What you are forgetting when it comes to speed is that the Warp is incredibly unpredictable. A fleet of the Imperium, when luanched, may reach thier intended destination decades or centuries later in 'real time' but it would only have been a few minutes in 'warp time'.
It also workds the other way. An Imperial Ship may have spent years in 'warp time' only to arrive at thier destination moments (or even BEFORE) they left. Now THAT is fethed up.

As for numbers, My Lord TheEmperor, you've only mentioned SM fleets, which are of comparable sizes to ST fleets. The Imperial Navy is the real Space Force behind the Imperium. And it by far outclasses the Star Trekkies.

Emperors Faithful wrote:What you are forgetting when it comes to speed is that the Warp is incredibly unpredictable. A fleet of the Imperium, when luanched, may reach thier intended destination decades or centuries later in 'real time' but it would only have been a few minutes in 'warp time'.
It also workds the other way. An Imperial Ship may have spent years in 'warp time' only to arrive at thier destination moments (or even BEFORE) they left. Now THAT is fethed up.

What he said... that and if the Astronomicon doesn't reach into the Star Trek universe, the Imperium is going to be fethed, since all their navigators and astropaths will be blind and might never find their way out of the Warp to begin with.

Well, technically they wouldn't be entirely blind. Humanity had utilised Warp Travel before the Astronomican had ever existed. As it is they would probably be losing A LOT more ships to the perils of the warp. (Kinda like Dark Lord Seanrons thread)

BTW, does Star Trek have it's own universe? It's own galaxy? Or would the area covered by the Federeation be small enough to fit comforatbly within unexplored 40k space?

Have you ever considered that lances don't level continents in single shot.Maybe it takes a very short amount of time to devastate continent.

Well then wouldn't it work like Covenant glassing planets in Halo?

So the Borg are the assimilated into necrons?

And what about Kharn?

If it came down to it, Picard would get surprise-chainaxe-buttsexed repeatedly if he went against THAT Kharn.

Emperors Faithful wrote:Well then wouldn't it work like Covenant glassing planets in Halo?

I think that it would be like glassing.

I think that lances would melt surface of the planet and turn water to steam.After that planet would be like Venus.

What he said... that and if the Astronomicon doesn't reach into the Star Trek universe, the Imperium is going to be fethed, since all their navigators and astropaths will be blind and might never find their way out of the Warp to begin with.

Not at all. They need the Astronomicon because of how tempestuous the warp is in their own universe. But if they were to go to the Star Trek Universe? Well, assuming there is a warp (which is a fair assumption, as we'd likewise be assuming that Star Trek warp drive and such works in the 40k universe), then the warp there must be utterly calm and harmless. In which case, not only do they not need the Astronomicon,as it'll be smooth sailing throughout, but they won't have to worry about showing up late, or early, as they'll be moving at best speed all the time. That's actually a huge bonus for the Imperium, not a negative.

Which is where a lot of the disagreements are coming in. What are the ground rules for this discussion? What is or is not cannon for the purposes of determining the relevant capabilities of the two protagonists?

For Star Trek, what's canon is what's considered canon by the people who run Star Trek. Therefore the movies and tv shows. As for 40k, it's the novels and rulebooks.

To give you an example, several times posters have highlighted how slow ST warp drives are. It is was first highlighted in the ST Roleplay system about how slow it actually was. Yet for the purposes of the series, it is sufficiently fast for ships to be where they are needed on time.

Obviously for the purposes of this discussion we're going to be using the actual speeds we know about, not the "I can get there when I need to be there" drive.

The Reliant/Miranda is the research cruiser from Wrath of Khan, and can transport 90 personnel every 5 seconds. Which is why I maintain ground combat is not relevant, and the entire question has to be settled in space.

How would that affect ground combat, though? So it can transport 90 people every 5 seconds? It has to have its shields down to do that, in which case it's inviting its own destruction. So unless it wants to get shot out of orbit by a Titan's defense laser or annihilated by fighters, it's gonna keep those shields up. In which case its transporter will play zero role in any ground combat. So yeah, ground combat will be a huge factor.

Actually I would take the rilfe from DS9 with the bullet teleporter!

Yeah, that was cool. A shame we haven't seen more high-tech kinetic weapons in Star Trek. Especially given that the Borg can't seem to mount a defense against kinetic weapons. But still, that's not a good weapon for war, either, as it's still a single-shot weapon. As a snipers weapon it's great, but as a standard infantry weapon? Not so hot.

They can, it was a plot device used in one of the later TNG series, and it has been shown in other show where ships have 'warped out' to avoid incoming fire.

It's not a regularly used tactic, though, because under normal combat conditions, it's not really a viable tactic. The Picard Maneuver, for instance, is no help whatsoever against an opponent who's throwing up a massive hail of close range fire.

No I dont, I'm just trying to highlight some of the absurdities being thrown about here. For example the question of recoil on phasers. In the show their is no recoil, yet there are 40k adherents in this thread arguing that in order to kill PA the recoil would break a red shirts arm.

As someone else said, they were just discussing the science of the phaser, and not making an actual argument. If they were making that argument, though, then I'd agree with you 100%. If a phaser doesn't break your arms in the show, then it doesn't because of some reason, and that's that. It works exactly as it does on the tv shows and movies.

From what we've seen, we have no evidence that the Federation using "subspace hops" to avoid Imperial munitions fire is anything near a viable tactic.

And you have proof to show otherwise?

Do you have proof that it is? Because from what I've seen, that was only ever done in the odd corner case example, and not as standard combat doctrine in Star Trek battles. You never saw Dominion, Cardassian, Romulan, Klingon, or Starfleet ships making tiny warp jumps in all the countless battles they were engaged in during DS9. And if you didn't see them do that, then that's because under normal circumstances it's not a viable tactic. It's something that only works in corner case situations.

Your missing the point of the statement. Each 'cut' is insignificant it's only when you add them all up do they have a telling effect. Can a ST ship damage the hull of a 40k ship? Yes. Is it significant enough to do a 'one (or 8 shot) shot' kill? I don't know.

It's not touching the hull of a 40k ship. It's hitting a void shield. And void shields require an insane amount of firepower directed at them to bring them down. At which point you then have to tear through the other void shields surrounding the ship before you can even get at the hull. And in that time, you have to hope that the ships crew don't get the void shields back up and force you to start the process all over again. Death of a thousand cuts doesn't work, here, because you simply can't nickle and dime 40k ships to death. You have to hit them with ridiculous amounts of firepower, and you have to do it quickly.

And this is where your fantasy/mythical version of 40k can be shown up. Both ships ST & 40K have been depicted in similar situation, ie close proximity to suns and in both cases their shields were sufficient to withstand the forces/powers exerted upon them.

You're presuming because they can meet bare minimums, that their maximum tolerances are similar. That's not the case. A 40k ship activated its shields while in a planetary atmosphere once. Do you know what happened? The void shields cut through the planets surface and split it in two. I don't recall any Star Trek ship doing the same.

SO from that we can deduce that ST shielding and 40K void shields have comparable damage resistance.

Not at all, because once again, you're presuming that just because they both meet a minimum tolerance, that their maximum tolerances are the same. That'd be like taking a scrawny 5' tall man, and a 6' tall body builder, and saying that because they can both bench press 50lbs., that the small scrawny guy must therefore be able to lift the same maximum amount of weight that the bodybuilder can lift.

40k ships fire weapons that deal damage in the teraton to petaton range, and so their shielding has to be able to resist that sort of damage. Star Trek weapons, on the other hand, are what, in the megaton to gigaton range? If their shields were anywhere near as strong as void shields, then Star Trek ships would be utterly impervious to each other.

BTW: Star Trek ships can't survive to close to a sun. We saw this in the Klingon civil war two-parter, when two Klingon Birds of Prey were eaten up by a solar flare, and later in DS9, when they used that solar flare trick to destroy a Dominion base of some sort (shipyards, I think). The only way they can survive in the corona of a star is thanks to metaphasic shielding courtesy of that Ferengi scientist. And that shielding doesn't make a ship more durable against weapons fire. So as it turns out, Star Trek ships don't meet the minimum threshold that 40k ships do, as they die in situations where 40k ships can survive.

And since both have weapons capable of defeating those shields then ST ships have the capability to penetrate/overload Void shields.

Faulty logic as shown above.

And? show me one piece of evidence (barring HH) where all these ships were mobilised into one force? Ditto for ST, I can't.

This is a vs. thread, and in a vs. thread, we're presuming each side throws everything they have at them. Whatever the case, the Imperium doesn't need its full navy, as a fraction of what it has can do the job.

Not knowing the exact quote you are using, make a response difficult, but I would guess that this is a best time figure. From what I remember from the BFG rulebook. a normal trip takes weeks to months 'real time' as opposed to 'warp time'. I disagree with your premise basically because it centres around a comparison from a source already ruled inadmissable by the 40k proponent side.

As I stated before, it's from Codex: Imperial Guard, 2nd edition, page 6. Here's the exact quote:

"Ten thousand light years can be traversed within 10-40 days by warp-capable spacecraft. By the time ships have been moved into position, munitions collected and troops assembled, the response time over this distance is in the order of between 30 and 120 days. typically about 75 days. This is the standard response time for the raising of Imperial Guard armies, though for prolonged conflicts troops may be brought in from much further away.

It is the speed of space travel that has shaped the way in which the Imperial Guard operates. The distribution of the fleet and settled human worlds is such that armies can be assembled only slowly. This process is to slow to guarantee the safety of any individual world at any moment. Fortunately, the Imperium has other forces which can react more rapidly, such as the fleets and Space Marine Chapters."

So nope, not best time, as it's explicitly stated that the Imperium has faster forces. That's likely the slowest time, too, as this section describes the Imperium's SOP when it comes to planetary invasions, so that any world attacked has a good idea of when they can expect Imperial Guard reinforcements. And the Imperium would obviously base their plan on the lowest common denominator, as opposed to assuming each of their worlds has the fastest ships available. Nor does that contradict the BFG book. The Milky Way Galaxy is 100,000 light years across. It'd take that ship 100-400 days to cross the galaxy. In other words, "weeks to months of real time". And say what? A Codex is ruled inadmissible? Since when? That's a canon source. That'd be like declaring TNG inadmissible in this discussion. It's just as valid.

But's thats the point I'm trying to make. 40k adherents are using all available background material to support their position of supremacy while stating that ST adherents may only use what has been depicted on screen, and only if it's commonly seen on screen. So things like the sub space hop past ordinance, Genesis torps, tricobalt warheads, phasing cloaks are all dismissed out of hand.

Of course they are, because we're discussing a conflict between the two as they are. Everything the Imperium is getting it's getting because it actually has it, unlike the Federation, which does not have Genesis devices, phase cloaks, etc. Just because a device EXISTS in the Star Trek universe doesn't mean the Federation gets it for the purposes of this discussion, just as the Imperium doesn't get the Primarchs, full strength Space Marine Legions, a fully-function STC, or the Emperor, himself. See that? The road goes both ways. The Imperium's not getting anything and everything that's ever appeared as part of their side. They're ONLY getting what they currently have. Likewise, the Federation is ONLY getting stuff they actually currently have, as opposed to technology like the Genesis Device (does anyone even know how to make them), or Phase Cloaks (even if they didn't destroy all the data on them, it'd take them months to years to create enough for their fleets then install them). That's a consistent argument. Claiming that the Federation should get to have all sorts of oddball stuff it doesn't actually use in the shows/movies, however, isn't consistent nor legitimate.


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As for numbers, My Lord TheEmperor, you've only mentioned SM fleets, which are of comparable sizes to ST fleets. The Imperial Navy is the real Space Force behind the Imperium. And it by far outclasses the Star Trekkies.

Yeah, I know. I was just using them to illustrate a point, seeing as how those're the only ships we have any hard numbers on. It's been explicitly said that every Chapter has 2-3 Battle Barges, so that's 2,500 Battle Barges. A Chapter will also always have enough ships to transport the full Chapter with room to spare, so at least four Strike Cruisers per Chapter, though six is more reasonable (A step down from my initial assumption of 8, which is the number of Strike Cruisers that the Ultramarines have), for 8,500 ships. And once again, that's not mentioning their escort ships. My point was that, if one of the smallest fighting branches of the Imperium has a fleet size equalling one-third of the entirety of Starfleet, then how many orders of magnitude larger is the Imperial Navy fleet? It's going to be incomprehensibly vast by comparison.

BTW, does Star Trek have it's own universe? It's own galaxy? Or would the area covered by the Federeation be small enough to fit comforatbly within unexplored 40k space?

Do you mean for the purposes of this vs. discussion? Well, the Federation could fit into unexplored space, somewhere, in all honesty. But for the purposes of this thread, let's assume the following scenario:

After another lively discussion with Picard about the greatness of humanity Q, being Q, decides that incurring galactic armageddon is a perfectly legitimate debating technique by bringing the entire 40k galaxy into the Star Trek universe. He then places the 40k galaxy directly on top of the Star Trek galaxy, and preventing any gravitational forces or whatnot from wreaking havoc. So essentially the Milky Way galaxy doubled in thickness from 1,000 light years to 2,000 light years. As a result, the Segmentum Solar is pretty much right on top of the Federation. And for the sake of argument, let's say that Federation worlds exist on the "top" of the galaxy, while Imperial worlds exist on the "bottom" of their galaxy, so they're practically right next to each other (In other words, when travelling, Star Trek ships don't have to go very far vertically to reach 40k worlds). Likewise, the warp continues to function as normal for 40k ships in both galaxies, but doesn't affect Star Trek ships in the slightest. That, IMO, seems like a half-decent scenario to discuss things around.

And on and on and on we go....

What is canon for the purposes of Star Trek is everything that was ever printed/shown under the heading of Star Trek. It was just until Paramount got their hands on a the Film rights that they then forced all other publications/firms out of their respective contracts(?) that there was then a huge disconnect. They can't recognise what has went before without being hit by copyright action.

I'm sorry to say that you are cherry picking what you want to accept and discarding what is counter to that without accepting that there is evidence to the contrary.

You said it your self,

This is a vs. thread, and in a vs. thread, we're presuming each side throws everything they have at them.

so why deny the Federation it's capabilities, just because they're not commonly visable in the series?

For example, you said about the use of transporters not being a viable tactic. One ground defence weaponry does not have the range/cpability to hit a ship at 40,000 km Diffraction(sp?) in the atmosphere, plus the relative speeds involved makes that a poor proposition. Plus what is/may be on the ground (ie tranporters on the planet) makes transporters a huge weapon of war for the federation. Boots on the ground need to reach the ground first, and that makes this discussion one about space.

Reaction times.

The distribution of the fleet and settled human worlds is such that armies can be assembled only slowly. This process is to slow to guarantee the safety of any individual world at any moment. Fortunately, the Imperium has other forces which can react more rapidly, such as the fleets and Space Marine Chapters.

You have completely misread this statement. Reaction time and travel time are completely different. And it is best time in that it takes no account of delays in the warp nor of the common vagaries encountered. Just one point, ST warp drive is closer to Tau/Necron drives, in that it warps space around them, BFG Warp enters a different dimension. I also ruled out the warp drive speeds as inadmissable as non canon, not the IG codex. Remember we are discussing the series, in which ships reached the speeds of warp 13 which, according to the same series is impossible.

While getting stuck in a rut here, you're very guilty of the same crime you accuse me of. A ship cutting a planet in two using void shields? Who cares, it only happened once and so therefore inadmissable as evidence. Also can you please provide proof of a BFG ship surviving a solar flare on a regular occurrence? I don't think you can, since a book is equivalent to an episode and one episode is not sufficient proof of existence according to your premise.

And metaphasic shielding is a poor argument, as that particular shuttle had to be rescued byt eh Enterprise without the benefit of those shields (I think?), ditto the original enterprise going back in time to the 1960s and The Voyage Home in the S11 (Bird of Prey).

And so your evidence that Klingon and Dominion ships can't survive has no reflection on Federation Ships. And also has the net effect of being redundant as the 40K ships can't survive the same phenonimum(sp?).

Since your view on this is unlikely to be swayed, much in the same way a die hard trekkie wouldn't be swayed on a ST forum, I think that we will have to disagree on many things and let this thread die a natural death.

Cheers

Andrew

PS Live long and Prosper

Emperors Faithful wrote:BTW, does Star Trek have it's own universe? It's own galaxy? Or would the area covered by the Federeation be small enough to fit comforatbly within unexplored 40k space?

Not unless it has a duplicate of the same solar system with Earth, Mars etc.

TheEmperor wrote:It's not touching the hull of a 40k ship. It's hitting a void shield. And void shields require an insane amount of firepower directed at them to bring them down. At which point you then have to tear through the other void shields surrounding the ship before you can even get at the hull. And in that time, you have to hope that the ships crew don't get the void shields back up and force you to start the process all over again. Death of a thousand cuts doesn't work, here, because you simply can't nickle and dime 40k ships to death. You have to hit them with ridiculous amounts of firepower, and you have to do it quickly.

I'm not convinced... especially after reading that:

Lexicanum wrote:Weapons Batteries is a catch-all name for the majority of weapons present on star ships. Most vessels (especially Imperial ones) are pock-marked with gun ports and weapons housings. Within each one is a range of weaponry including plasma projectors, laser cannons, missile launchers, rail guns, fusion beamers and graviton pulsars. Batteries tend to be fired in one concentrated blast or following a pattern determined by the captain for maximum effect.

This suggests that instead of having hugely powerful individual weapons, a weapons battery is merely a huge collection of weaker weapons (the first four - definitely, the latter two have no basis in science). As weapons batteries are equally effective at collapsing void shields - especially as some warships only carry batteries - I think that your arguement that void shields are impervious to "weak" weapons is faulty as it is clear from the description that shields can be disabled by volume of fire.

Without concrete evidence of how much "quantifiable" damage Imperial starships are able to deliver, it is difficult to quantify the energy absorption characteristics of a void shield.

Gentleman curb your nerd rage.This thread isn't Imperium vs star trek this is 40k vs star trek and that includes necrons,nids,chaos,eldar,tau and orks.

so why deny the Federation it's capabilities, just because they're not commonly visable in the series?

Nobody's denying the Federation any of its capabilities. One-shot deals, though, don't count. Genesis devices aren't part of the Federations capabilities because the Federation doesn't have any. I don't think they even have the knowledge to make any. Phasecloaks aren't part of the Federations capabilities because out of the thousands and thousands of ships we've seen in Star Trek, not a one save for the Pegasus had a phasecloak, and they're explicitly forbidden by treaty from making any. A treaty which the Federation apparently takes very seriously. Nobody's taking away any of their capabilities, because they'd have to have those capabilities in the first place to see them taken away. You, on the other hand, are trying to add in capabilities that they don't possess.

For example, you said about the use of transporters not being a viable tactic. ne ground defence weaponry does not have the range/cpability to hit a ship at 40,000 km

Defense lasers on Titans do. They're specifically designed to shoot down orbiting ships trying to target them. An unshielded Starfleet ship would be easy pickings for that gun. And troops on the ground aren't the only threat to those ships. Once again, the Imperium has ships of its own. Even the smallest of which, like the Fury Interceptors, would tear right through a Starfleet ship in a heartbeat if its shields were down.

Plus what is/may be on the ground (ie tranporters on the planet) makes transporters a huge weapon of war for the federation. Boots on the ground need to reach the ground first, and that makes this discussion one about space.

Reaction times.

Reaction time doesn't matter diddly when your ground forces are utterly overwhelmed. Even if they could transport their troops all over planets willy nilly, and their ships were perfectly safe in orbit despite having their shields down during this operation, that's hardly any guarantee of a victory, as the Imperium has astronomical numbers of ground troops, as well as superior weaponry. The Federation doesn't stand the slightest chance against the Imperium on the ground, under any circumstances.

Either way, it doesn't matter, because it's not a viable tactic against the Imperium for the same reason it's not a viable tactic in Star Trek. Because you have to take down your shields to move anything with your transporters, and if you do that, then you're leaving your ship utterly defenseless and are just begging to be destroyed.

You have completely misread this statement. Reaction time and travel time are completely different.

Yes they are, but quicker ships, surprise, react more quickly, too. And you completely ignored my argument, which that those ships are clearly the slowest of the lot, as the Imperium wouldn't build its standard defense doctrine around assuming that your average backwater world has the fastest ships in the galaxy. Are you seriously claiming that every world has the fastest ship in the galaxy, while the elite of the elite have the slowest? It's ludicrous to claim that those are the fastest examples, while trying to argue that vessels like Space Marine Strike Cruisers are somehow slower. That flies in the face of all logic. That the troops being carried by the fastest ships would have the slowest reaction time.

And it is best time in that it takes no account of delays in the warp nor of the common vagaries encountered.

It does take it into account. That's why it's "10,000 light years in 10-40 days". 10-40 days is pretty vague. You're making far to much of the vagaries of the warp, though. If the Imperium lost fleets every other day in the warp, or never made it to a warzone intime, then it would've died ages ago.

Just one point, ST warp drive is closer to Tau/Necron drives, in that it warps space around them, BFG Warp enters a different dimension. I also ruled out the warp drive speeds as inadmissable as non canon, not the IG codex. Remember we are discussing the series, in which ships reached the speeds of warp 13 which, according to the same series is impossible.

Incorrect. Tau drive works nothing like that. It's closer to Imperial warp technology (who they got it from), except that instead of entering the warp, they "skip" off of it. As for Necron FTL, nobody knows how it works. All people know is that it gets you across the galaxy in the blink of an eye. And from appearances, it's similar to the way Shadow Vessels from Babylon 5 travel. Or it could work like the FTL in Battlestar Galactica. Point is, nobody knows how it works, and there's no evidence it's anything like Star Trek FTL.

As for the speeds, I'm ruling them back in. "Warp 13" isn't a valid counterargument, because that's an oddball number that's clearly been demonstrated as being outside the norm in Star Trek. 10,000 light years in 10-40 days, however, is stated to be standard across the entirety of the Imperium, as is consistent with other pieces of background, like the bit you mentioned from BFG.

While getting stuck in a rut here, you're very guilty of the same crime you accuse me of. A ship cutting a planet in two using void shields? Who cares, it only happened once and so therefore inadmissable as evidence.

No, because it's not later contradicted by other events. We don't then see other scenarios in which other ships raise their shields in an atmosphere and not cutting the planet in two, unlike your "subspace hop" theorem which, if true, would occur all the time. That it doesn't disproves your notion of its being a viable tactic. However, nothing as of yet has come along and disproven void shields being that powerful. Instead, we've gotten consistent reminders in novels and supplements of just how powerful void shields are.

Also can you please provide proof of a BFG ship surviving a solar flare on a regular occurrence? I don't think you can, since a book is equivalent to an episode and one episode is not sufficient proof of existence according to your premise.

I don't know of a situation, no. But that's because you're the one who was making that argument, so I assumed you knew what you were talking about. I guess not. Either way, my point still stands. 40k ships dish out firepower in the teraton to petaton range, and so would have to survive the same in return. Star Trek ships, however, dish out firepower in the megaton to gigaton range. So yes, there's absolutely no way their shields can be anywhere near as powerful as void shields, because if they were, then every single Star Trek ship would be utterly indestructible.

And metaphasic shielding is a poor argument, as that particular shuttle had to be rescued byt eh Enterprise without the benefit of those shields (I think?), ditto the original enterprise going back in time to the 1960s and The Voyage Home in the S11 (Bird of Prey).

The Enterprise didn't enter the stars corona. They had to wait breathlessly for the shuttle to come out. So yeah, don't argue something unless you know what you're talking about. The metaphasic shielding came up, again, during a Borg two-parter in which the Enterprise used it to hide in a stars corona and stay away from the Borg. And the original Enterprise got slingshotted around the sun. It didn't enter the sun's corona. Just watch both instances. At no point do you see it going near the sun, much less entering the corona. It just took advantage of the suns gravity to accelerate its speed.

And so your evidence that Klingon and Dominion ships can't survive has no reflection on Federation Ships. And also has the net effect of being redundant as the 40K ships can't survive the same phenonimum(sp?).

I have no idea if they can. YOU'RE the one who stated they could, not I. As I said, I just assumed you had some idea of what you were talking about. Don't go accusing me of making things up when I'm just repeating what you yourself say.

Since your view on this is unlikely to be swayed, much in the same way a die hard trekkie wouldn't be swayed on a ST forum, I think that we will have to disagree on many things and let this thread die a natural death.

Nah, I'd rather beat it into the ground, as you don't got a leg to stand on. FYI, I've argued the same on two Star Trek forums, too (One of which I post under a very Star Treky name). Facts are facts, no matter where you are. And the fact is the Imperium Vs. the Federation is a curbstomp on the part of the Imperium. See, the difference between you and I is that my enjoyment of a sci-fi property isn't dependent on that setting being "the uberest" or "the leetest". Babylon 5 is one of my favorite settings, but you know what? The Galactic Empire can slaughter every single major power in Babylon 5. So can the Imperium. The Federation can definitely trounce the Earth Alliance. At the end of the day, despite the fact that the Earth Alliance, which is very cool, can be smashed to bits by every other human power in every other major sci-fi franchise, doesn't matter in the slightest. Because Babylon 5 is an awesome universe, and it's relative power level does nothing to detract from my enjoyment of it.

Likewise, I've been a lifelong fan of Star Trek (As evidenced by the fact that I seem to know more about Star Trek than you). I've certainly been a fan of Star Trek longer than of 40k. Despite that, though, I'm capable of freely admitting that the Imperium can take it down, easy. Likewise with the Galactic Empire (And I'm NOWHERE near the Star Wars fan that I'm the Star Trek fan. Star Wars is just entertaining fare to me, not something that's near and dear to my heart). Facts are facts, though. And the facts are that the Federation would lose those fights. And arguing for ridiculous junk like the Genesis device or phase cloaks is cheesy, just as my arguing for the Emperor, the Primarchs, and fully functioning STC's on the part of the Imperium would equally be cheesy.

This suggests that instead of having hugely powerful individual weapons, a weapons battery is merely a huge collection of weaker weapons (the first four - definitely, the latter two have no basis in science). As weapons batteries are equally effective at collapsing void shields - especially as some warships only carry batteries - I think that your arguement that void shields are impervious to "weak" weapons is faulty as it is clear from the description that shields can be disabled by volume of fire.

You misunderstand my point. I don't mean individual shots being powerful enough. I mean being able to pour enough firepower at once. A Star Trek ship simply can't do it. The only way they could possibly do it is if they were to unload their entire payload of photon torpedos at once (which they can't). As mentioned, their weapons are in the megaton to gigaton range. 40k ship weapons are in the teraton to petaton range. Just look at that description. They're not firing all those guns at other 40k ships one at a time. They're firing them all at once, in massive salvos, in order to have an effect. You can see similar in a novel quote I posted earlier, in which some Chaos Marines directed every single heavy weapon they had at a Titan, but were unable to bring down its void shields. Weapon batteries are equally effective, yes, but only because you're firing entire batteries of weapons "in one concentrated blast ".

Without concrete evidence of how much "quantifiable" damage Imperial starships are able to deliver, it is difficult to quantify the energy absorption characteristics of a void shield.

Connor MacLeod on another forum did a pretty good job calculating the effects of Imperial ships from the 40k novels. Ridiculously horrific damage, on par with Star Wars ships (though not on par when it comes to numbers of ships or economy. Apparently the Galactic Empire can stomp all over the Imperium, too).

Gentleman curb your nerd rage.This thread isn't Imperium vs star trek this is 40k vs star trek and that includes necrons,nids,chaos,eldar,tau and orks.

...oh. All of Star Trek Vs. all of 40k?

Then Star Trek wins. They've got the Q Continuum.

IvanTih wrote:Gentleman curb your nerd rage.This thread isn't Imperium vs star trek this is 40k vs star trek and that includes necrons,nids,chaos,eldar,tau and orks.

Star Trek could probably win even without the Q continuum. The Douwd (http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Douwd) could probably wipe out all 40k not hiding in the Eye of Terror or the Webway. This would then develop into a stalemate as the Douwd would just hang around outside and bootstomp anything emerging from either location. Gork and Mork would disappear as their worshippers would be all dead, and the Emperor would go from being 98% dead to 100% dead.

slowed.

As an aside, I'm not trying to argue that Starfleet ships can damage the Imperial ships... only that I think that I've overestimated the power of 40k ship weapons. I need evidence of material damage to recalculate the ranges of power for Imperial ships, and from there, extrapolate the defensive capabilities of void shields.

Re: Connor's calcs. Please provide a link for review.

I do not think that the Galactic Empire stands a chance against the Imperium due to relative fleet strengths... so I'm interested in seeing what he bases his conclusion on. His conclusion that the Glactic Empire would win seems to shed doubt on his whole analysis.

keezus wrote:

IvanTih wrote:Gentleman curb your nerd rage.This thread isn't Imperium vs star trek this is 40k vs star trek and that includes necrons,nids,chaos,eldar,tau and orks.

Star Trek could probably win even without the Q continuum. The Douwd (http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Douwd) could probably wipe out all 40k not hiding in the Eye of Terror or the Webway. This would then develop into a stalemate as the Douwd would just hang around outside and bootstomp anything emerging from either location. Gork and Mork would disappear as their worshippers would be all dead, and the Emperor would go from being 98% dead to 100% dead.

Actually, the Douwd could very well end up being made the Chaos God's toys. The problem with the near omnipotent aliens in Star Trek is they're still fairly human psychologically.

The article you linked to mentioned a Douwd going crazy in anguish and killing fifty billion people, despite wanting to be a pacifist. What happens when Khorne starts chatting with someone like that? It's like having Superman fight Cthulhu or something. Yeah he can shoot lasers, but it's not a matter of physical ability.

Of course, I don't know how the Warp works in our hypothetical, so maybe they wouldn't really interact with each other.

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keezus wrote:I do not think that the Galactic Empire stands a chance against the Imperium due to relative fleet strengths... so I'm interested in seeing what he bases his conclusion on. His conclusion that the Glactic Empire would win seems to shed doubt on his whole analysis.

Star Wars? Yeah, I'd put them as the winners against The Imperium. Their ships are at least a tenth of the power of the Imperium's, and they can concentrate them and produce them a lot more easily.

The Imperium would have to win by targeting Emperor Palpatine or something or something else unconventional.

I personally think that 40K is intentionally designed to win all of these threads, with a flowchart on including a unit or piece of background or not is

1) Would it make a good model?
2) Would people buy it (good rules?)
3) Is it Awesome?
4) Is it over the top or exessivly grimdark?
5) Would it curb-stomp star trek in a fight?

Now thats just me, but it seems that GW employees snuck these things in just to difinitively win arguments like these.

"Star Wars is, like 500 times the size of Star Trek and has better technology!"

"Q-continuum Hurr.."

"Hyperspace"

"Ya know I herd wonce that there were theese things called GENISIS TORPEDOS, man those things were baddass, Trek would ttly p3n Star Wars"

*GW employee looks up from his beer*
"Do you really want to know who would win? 40K would, thats who. Exterminatus."

*argument ends in a most satisfying manner*

Thankyou sniperjolly.