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I can't describe them accurately enough to do them justice.

Their ships outstrip all but a handful of the B5 races by a wide margin. They have unmatched cloaking techology/abilites. They are excellent at manipulation.

The only reason they ever lost a war is because they toy with the younger races instead of simply launching an all out assault.

Amaya wrote:

Emperors Faithful wrote:

Amaya wrote:It doesn't matter. I seriously doubt that they have the technology to lock their weapons onto Minbari ships.

So the Imperial Navy would be fighting....like they normally do? You do realise that most Imperial ships just throw crap out and hope it hits stuff right? you need a decent enoug officer or relay to get them to lock on.

And the Shadows would only be defeated by the Imperium if they made grievous tactical errors. Which I doubt they would. They would play it safe for centuries, millenia, however long it takes to slowly eat way at the Imperium's infrastructure before making their strike.

Er...whut?

Yes, it is oh so easy to hit agile ships with out having some sort of targeting array. A piece of cake.

Er....whut? What else is there to say? How can you fight an enemy you can't see?

Maybe you should watch Babylon 5...

Kit it out with the smartest machine spirit you can find. If a land raider moving a top speed can target that one artillery unit up there on that hill with one of it's lascannons surely an Emperor class battleship's machine spirit could.

Aren't the most advanced Machine Spirits in Landraiders?

I'm pretty sure 40k space combat is more akin to WW1/WW2 era naval combat than it is to three dimensional combat.

Amaya wrote:Aren't the most advanced Machine Spirits in Landraiders?

I'm pretty sure 40k space combat is more akin to WW1/WW2 era naval combat than it is to three dimensional combat.

Nope, to my knowledge the most advanced would probably be titans, although... machine spirits do develop experience, so in theory, if one was to survive its first few confrontations... the machine spirit would adapt to the new enemy.
And actually, IoM ships usually have broadside guns, turrets on top, and big motha a down bottom in the form of a lance... the equivalent of a solar flare... nasty.

Amaya wrote:Aren't the most advanced Machine Spirits in Landraiders?

No not at all, Machine Spirits are barely even tangible beyond their unnerring actions. Titans have an actual entity of sorts, almost a personality. Ships, especially the larger behemoths, are on a whole other level.

I'm pretty sure 40k space combat is more akin to WW1/WW2 era naval combat than it is to three dimensional combat.

If you're playing BFG yes. But the book did say that trying to have a game regarding space battle on a 2D board is simply impossible.

Golden Sabres wrote:... IoM warp travel is faster than federation... pls read previous posts... God, why do you do this to me?

What? Was that directed at me?!

sniperjolly wrote:

Golden Sabres wrote:... IoM warp travel is faster than federation... pls read previous posts... God, why do you do this to me?

What? Was that directed at me?!

Whoops, sry, I re-read your post. I thought you said ST warp was faster than IoM warp. My mistake. Sry

keezus wrote:

Commissar Agro wrote:The Scrin from the Command and Conquer tiberium verse might be able to defeat the IoM, but not in a conventional war.
What they do is "seed" every planet in the galaxay with tiberium.

Considering that the IoM regularly inhabit DEATH WORLDS (Catachans) and TOXIC WORLDS (Salvar Chem Dogs), Tiberium would be an insignificant nussiance.

Keezus, you are wrong there, Tiberium would be a grave threat not an insginificant nussiance, Tiberium causes mutations in humans that eventually leads to death, most die outright. Due to the way the Imperium itself acts towards mutants it would most likely purge the mutant populations thus weakining itself as it loses forge worlds, agri worlds to the green crystal, it would lose its way of feeding the IG and producing more wepaons for the IG, this would weaken it. Also the IG proberly wouldn't accept these new mutants thus allowing outside forces to destroy it.

But I don't think SM would be terribly affected by tiberium.
IMO the 2 Greatest threats to the IoM are
1. Itself, come on just imagine an alternate reality version of the IoM invading our version of IoM.
2. Tibeirum, which would weaken the Imperium allowing some other force to destroy it.

Im discounting the stuff ftom B5 cause i don't watch it, the borg cause that argument is just one massive flame war and the other Sci-fi series/books that I havent' watched/read. But this is just my opinion.

Just remember this is only peoples opinons based on fluff as evidence and we don't actually know how a fight between X race of Y verse Vs IoM would end, they are just games or book or T.V. serries not RL, I think some of you have forgotten this.

Haha, the IoM deals with far more dangerous stuff than some crappy radioactive rock.

I do like how noone has suggested 40K could beat The Culture. Here's a new idea. The Solar Deliberative from Exalted.
Apocalypse class battleship fires it's lances at the Solar Exalt floating in space. Solar parries with his daiklaive. Solar uses First Age presence charm. Every member of the bridge crew watching the main screens falls instantly into worshipful love of the Solar. Lock the bridge doors, vent the atmosphere of the rest of the ship. Solar has a new battleship.

Wait a minute, don't the Culture just want to have fun and aren't serious and don't give a about anything other than having fun?

Yeah, but the Imperium wouldn't stand for their shenanigans.

Terminus wrote:Haha, the IoM deals with far more dangerous stuff than some crappy radioactive rock.

Don't underestimate its power

Bromsy wrote:I do like how noone has suggested 40K could beat The Culture. Here's a new idea. The Solar Deliberative from Exalted.
Apocalypse class battleship fires it's lances at the Solar Exalt floating in space. Solar parries with his daiklaive. Solar uses First Age presence charm. Every member of the bridge crew watching the main screens falls instantly into worshipful love of the Solar. Lock the bridge doors, vent the atmosphere of the rest of the ship. Solar has a new battleship.

You know it took me a while to realise that you weren't talking about Solar Macharius.

What about Daleks?

A Retribution Class Battleship isn't nearly fast enough to get a broadside on a Borg Cube.

A Borg cube can fight at Warp Speed now? Okay, even then all the Retribution has to do is fire all shots in all directions (entirely possible with it's lance armanent) and odds are one will hit isomething.

Pretty much all ST ships can fight at warp, thats why they are so vicious.

Firing in all directions is irrelevant. Your artillery and less than light speed weaponry is literally standing still compared to an ST ship. It would just look like a porcupine to them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Having said that all this is irrelevant. The IoM can't even take out the wimpy mosquitolike Tau. Most races in ST and Star Wars would do just fine thank you very much. The IoM is too busy dealing, all the big powers are too busy dealing with the other big powers.

A perfect opportunity for... Space Balls!

ST ships can't fight at FTL speed, thus it is irrelevant.

Friggin' trekkies.

Frazzled wrote:Firing in all directions is irrelevant.

Haha. You're right, but not in the way you intended. The IoM ship just needs to fire straight ahead when the Borg Cube drops out of warp to deliver it's menacing monologue. That should do it 9/10 times.

Melissia wrote:ST ships can't fight at FTL speed, thus it is irrelevant.

Friggin' trekkies.

Photon torpodoes, disruptors, etc. etc. They've been fighting at warp speed since STOS.

Frigging nuns with guns nancy boys.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

keezus wrote:

Frazzled wrote:Firing in all directions is irrelevant.

Haha. You're right, but not in the way you intended. The IoM ship just needs to fire straight ahead when the Borg Cube drops out of warp to deliver it's menacing monologue. That should do it 9/10 times.

Excellent point.

"Oh you got me monologing!"
-Badguy, the Incredibles.

Frazzled wrote:Photon torpodoes, disruptors, etc. etc. They've been fighting at warp speed since STOS.

But only if both ships are moving at that speed, so relativistically they're moving at similar speeds.

Frazzled wrote:

Melissia wrote:ST ships can't fight at FTL speed, thus it is irrelevant.

Friggin' trekkies.

Photon torpodoes, disruptors, etc. etc. They've been fighting at warp speed since STOS.

Frigging nuns with guns nancy boys.

Ah yeah the FTL speeds at which they fight.


If the high-sublight speed and kinetic energy formulas are taken to their logical conclusion, then the warhead yield is an insignificant fraction of the total energy of the torpedo. This is a ludicrous conclusion; one would have to question why the Federation would put warheads on their torpedoes at all, since they require complex and damage-prone antimatter loading and containment systems.


Federation sublight drives employ a low-level variant of warp drive to propel starships at high relativistic speeds without corresponding expenditures of energy. Their kinetic energy is therefore also low (they cannot get a large amount of kinetic energy with a small expenditure of energy- this would be a violation of Conservation of Energy), most likely because they have somehow reduced the "effective mass" of their starships. This technology is also used on photon torpedoes, in the form of a "warp sustainer" engine described in the TM. Therefore, the kinetic energy of a photon torpedo is not related to its speed, since it is propelled by a spatial distortion rather than conventional impulse reaction physics.

The formula for the maximum speed of a photon torpedo is v=vi+0.75vi/c, where vi is the launch velocity, and there is a 75% boost available for torpedoes fired at low sublight (ref TM pg. 129). However, maximum speed is a nonsensical concept in space, where continued acceleration is always possible provided that fuel is available. This is consistent with a space-warp propulsion system rather than a conventional impulse reaction propulsion system, and it is yet another piece of evidence that the KE=½mv² formula cannot be applied to photon torpedoes.


Photon torpedo speeds are greatly exaggerated. Photon torpedoes invariably accelerate to a velocity of a few kilometres per second relative to the launching platform, rather than reaching high sublight speeds regardless of launch-platform speed as some believe. They can travel at superluminal speeds when launched from a ship at warp, but when launched from low sublight platforms or immobile platforms such as DS9, they invariably remain at low sublight speeds. The velocity increase (relative to the launching platform) is consistently in the range of 1-10 km/s, not 100,000 km/s. This can be clearly seen in "Way of the Warrior" and "A Call to Arms".


The low-sublight DS9 torpedoes seen in "Way of the Warrior" and "A Call to Arms" were just as effective as torpedoes launched from mobile platforms such as starships. If the kinetic energy of a photon torpedo were commensurate with the launch platform's velocity, the low-speed DS9 torpedoes would have been ineffective compared to torpedoes launched from a mobile starship.

Without knowing the rate of acceleration, it is impossible to determine how fast a photon torpedo is traveling by the time it reaches its target. If a torpedo accelerates at the same rate as a GCS (10 km/s²) and it strikes its target in 5 seconds, it will only be traveling at 50 km/s. This would explain the relatively low speeds seen in the episodes while being consistent with the high speed claims of the TM. Given enough time, thanks to its space-distortion drive system, a photon torpedo may indeed be capable of achieving high relativistic speeds. However, those speeds will be tactically useless, because of the long time required to achieve them.

In conclusion, because photon torpedoes use a warp sustainer engine rather than conventional impulse reaction engines to achieve its speed, they do not possess the kind of kinetic energy that one would normally expect from a torpedo travelling at high relativistic velocities. Furthermore, their observed velocities in actual combat are far lower than the claims being made on their behalf. We can only assume that this must be yet another propaganda campaign on the part of the Federation.

Photon torpedo tactical effectiveness


Photon torpedoes are roughly equivalent to high-yield nuclear fusion weapons. We know that shielded Federation starships can withstand nuclear explosions (albeit with damage and radiation exposure to some crewmembers) from "Balance of Terror". This indicates that a single hit from a large nuclear weapon or photon torpedo could be expected to penetrate a TOS Federation starship's shields, but several would be required to destroy it. This is consistent with the pattern of battle in TOS, where a single volley of photon torpedoes (only 2 torpedoes with the old TOS launchers) heavily damaged a fully shielded Klingon warship in "Elaan of Troyius".


Photon torpedo accuracy is excellent against targets which are either immobile or travelling in a predictable path- a photon torpedo struck a 1.5 metre target from 80,000km away in "The Changeling". This is not surprising- active guidance systems like those in 20th century cruise missiles correct and refine their courses as they approach their targets so that the range is irrelevant to the accuracy (a cruise missile has the same target accuracy from 10km away as it does from 400km away). The same would probably be true for photon torpedoes, which use active guidance systems.


In general terms, photon torpedoes have much longer ranges than phasers and much higher power, but they are not very maneuverable and are therefore not effective against highly maneuverable targets (otherwise, why would phasers be used at all?).

Melissia wrote:

Frazzled wrote:Photon torpodoes, disruptors, etc. etc. They've been fighting at warp speed since STOS.

But only if both ships are moving at that speed, so relativistically they're moving at similar speeds.

Incorrect. I reference...The Kirk!

Klingons doing warp speed strafing runs on a sublight enterprise.

Melissia wrote:

Frazzled wrote:Photon torpodoes, disruptors, etc. etc. They've been fighting at warp speed since STOS.

But only if both ships are moving at that speed, so relativistically they're moving at similar speeds.

About Impulse drive.

Impulse Drive

Impulse drive uses a fusion-powered low-level variant of warp drive to power the ship forward. This allows it to achieve high relativistic speeds in excess of 0.75c (TM pg. 75) although such speeds are normally not used and the TM suggests that combat incidents always occur at low sublight relative velocities. This is supported by the various onscreen combat incidents in the Star Trek canon- we never see any combat in Star Trek where the relative velocities of the combating ships are high (and by "high" I mean "relativistic", rather than fighter-plane speeds).

There is some debate as to whether Federation impulse drives must accelerate a starship in conventional space physics fashion, as opposed to simply initiating the space warpage that allows them to reach high relativistic speeds and bypassing the normal acceleration curve requirements. However, the original TNG TM explicitly stated that the old Ambassador class's acceleration was at least 10 km/s², and the new DS9 TM explicitly states that Bajoran impulse fighters are limited to 15,600 m/s acceleration (this is curious, since the units of acceleration are m/s² rather than m/s, but we can assume that when they say "maximum delta-v" they are actually referring to "maximum delta-v per second"). Impulse fighters can easily outmaneuver capital ships (as seen in "Sacrifice of Angels"), so this allows us to determine that capital ship acceleration is between 10 km/s² and 15 km/s².

The presence of a maximum acceleration limit indicates that impulse drives do require a finite amount of time to accelerate. Some Federation cultists have claimed that this is untrue because the helmsman announces that they are at full impulse almost immediately after the captain orders it, but that only indicates that their engines are at full power. It does not indicate any sort of speed. If the helmsman announced "we are at 0.8c" instead of "we are at full impulse" we might have some idea of its actual speed. But since the helmsman invariably states "we are at full impulse" we only know that the engines are at full power. No speed or acceleration information can be derived from this sort of incident. In conclusion, Federation capital-ship impulse drives appear to be capable of producing accelerations in excess of 1,000g but less than 1,500g.

The stated highly relativistic speeds of Federation starships are at odds with their slow observed speeds in planetary orbit, as seen in STG, "Way of the Warrior", "A Call to Arms", "Tears of the Prophets", and others. In all of those situations, higher speeds would have been useful, but for some reason, they were apparently unavailable. It is therefore surmised that their low-level warp drive, or so-called "mass-lightening effect" must suffer from reduced effectiveness in a planetary gravity well. This is logical because the use of "mass-lightening" technology in a planetary gravity well presents serious Conservation of Energy problems.The problems with mass-lightening in a gravity well are consistent with the invariably slow speed of starships attempting to enter or leave orbit, although it would theoretically be possible to very quickly circumnavigate a fixed-altitude orbit without running into this problem because no change in gravitational potential energy would occur.

Frazzled wrote:

Melissia wrote:

Frazzled wrote:Photon torpodoes, disruptors, etc. etc. They've been fighting at warp speed since STOS.

But only if both ships are moving at that speed, so relativistically they're moving at similar speeds.

Incorrect. I reference...The Kirk!

Klingons doing warp speed strafing runs on a sublight enterprise.

That could actually work against them with the proper logic engines aboard an IoM ship, calculating where the Klingons would appear next and then hitting them as they pass by. Maneuverability at that speed is rather low (thus leading them to find dodging difficult-- unless they violate the laws of physics, making sharp turns at that speed would kill everyone on board), while the impact of each IoM ship's attack is going to be massive due to them often using more physical batteries.

Can't we all just agree that Picard is one of the missing Primarchs and leave it at that?

Melissia wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

Melissia wrote:

Frazzled wrote:Photon torpodoes, disruptors, etc. etc. They've been fighting at warp speed since STOS.

But only if both ships are moving at that speed, so relativistically they're moving at similar speeds.

Incorrect. I reference...The Kirk!

Klingons doing warp speed strafing runs on a sublight enterprise.

That could actually work against them with the proper logic engines aboard an IoM ship, calculating where the Klingons would appear next and then hitting them as they pass by. Maneuverability at that speed is rather low, while the impact of each attack is going to be massive.

They can use warp strafing,but again that will do nothing,but annoy IOM ship which will proceed to destroy their planets,shipyards and in the end them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Grakmar wrote:Can't we all just agree that Picard is one of the missing Primarchs and leave it at that?

No,he's way to short to be a primarch,but I admit he has psychic defenses like plot armour and luck.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Amaya wrote:

Golden Sabres wrote:... IoM warp travel is faster than federation... pls read previous posts... God, why do you do this to me?

It's safer too! ;D

I'm still wondering how the Imperium can defeat a foe they can't see and that will corrupt their goverments.

They're already fighting Chaos which is way more worse than Shadows.

Grakmar wrote:Can't we all just agree that Kirk is one of the missing Primarchs and leave it at that?

Fixed your typo.

Asherian Command wrote:http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Nova_Cannon
I found a weapon. That literally scared me D:

The Atlas-class warhead was a type of weapon employed by the warships of the Imperium of Man.

At the time of the Horus Heresy, several Atlas-class warheads were adapted for space to surface operations in order to disperse the Life Eater virus on Istvaan III.1
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Lance
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Imperial_Fleet
Also this creepy thing....
Again. Please read the ships. As you guys have not compared the sheer size and weaponry of the imperium ships to a trekkies.... And not to mention an entire fleet of the Imperium is like 4,000 ships. D:

Imperial Navy warp capable warship number is from 250,000 to 370,000.
Lasguns are better than phasers.
This scared me even more.
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Skylord-class

Frazzled wrote:

Grakmar wrote:Can't we all just agree that Kirk is one of the missing Primarchs and leave it at that?

Fixed your typo.

Ha! We've successfully hijacked the thread into a classic Krik vs Picard debate.

My plans are coming to fruition. <evil laugh>

Anyway, back on topic. Did you see how many times Kirk ignored the prime directive? He should have been court martialed dozens of times!!! Picard had a little something called integrity.

IvanTih wrote:

Asherian Command wrote:http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Nova_Cannon
I found a weapon. That literally scared me D:

The Atlas-class warhead was a type of weapon employed by the warships of the Imperium of Man.

At the time of the Horus Heresy, several Atlas-class warheads were adapted for space to surface operations in order to disperse the Life Eater virus on Istvaan III.1
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Lance
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Imperial_Fleet
Also this creepy thing....
Again. Please read the ships. As you guys have not compared the sheer size and weaponry of the imperium ships to a trekkies.... And not to mention an entire fleet of the Imperium is like 4,000 ships. D:

Imperial Navy warp capable warship number is from 250,000 to 370,000.
Lasguns are better than phasers.
This scared me even more.
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Skylord-class

How is a lasgun better than a phasers. IIRC a phaser at full power and disintegrate a person. A lasgun can't, Our lasguns freaking suck, A lasgun is better used as a club than a gun imo...I am a IG player.