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  1. #31
    Ultimate Member Jackalope89's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Captain Smith View Post
    At the time of the Frieza attack, a horde of Saiyans flew up to meet him, so they might be Nappa-ish.
    There would be some elites.

  2. #32
    Rumbles Limbo Champion big_adventure's Avatar
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    I don't see any particular reason that the Saiyans couldn't shoot down incoming torpedoes. Fly up nice and high, sense some energy or use scouters, basta.

    And the high-end ones can certainly attack at interplanetary range - they are much stronger than the Roshi and Piccolo who destroyed the moon.
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  3. #33
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    Do we have feats of scouters detecting incoming FTL weapons? Hitting a ship that is flying at high impulse or warp is different from hitting a moon hanging there?

  4. #34
    The Weeping Mod Sharpandpointies's Avatar
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    I seem to recall beam attacks and such from DBZ that were just too fast to dodge or something for lower level characters (by lower level, I mean 'Characters before they stopped actually assigning numbers to power levels'). But I could be wrong.

    Also, it's not like the Klingons need to attack in predictable fashion from predictable directions. One might argue that cloaking devices work great against such things as scouters, due to them working on the enormously capable Federation sensors. The ships can fire simultaneously from anywhere around a planet (it's a sphere hanging in space). If the cloaking stuff works on scouters, that's a whole lot of torpedoes getting fired at ridiculous speeds from (relatively speaking) close range.

    Not saying it's a definite, due to not being fully aware of the DB races capabilities, but it's an option.

    Another option is bombardment with large asteroids - Trek ships have tractors and the computers that can easily figure out trajectories, so if a dozen planet-wiping asteroids show up at the same time (and they're undetectable by scouters), it's going to make things rough. Maybe the Saiyans can blow them up, but again, Klingons can coordinate, leaving the Saiyans dealing with not only a dozen bigger-than-dinosaur-killers but a massive flood of photon torpedoes from all directions at the same time.

    The objective not being 'hit the Saiyans' with the torpedoes, but 'destroy infrastructure and make planet unlivable due to massive environmental damage' or somesuch. Saiyans gotta eat.
    Last edited by Sharpandpointies; 06-27-2022 at 03:54 AM.
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  5. #35
    E-Liter3K Scoped Headshot The MunchKING's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Captain Smith View Post
    Do we have feats of scouters detecting incoming FTL weapons? Hitting a ship that is flying at high impulse or warp is different from hitting a moon hanging there?
    Trek ships in general don't zip around having high-lightspeed fights though. It's usually stand off and slow maneuver broad sides, or a swooping ambush depending on the situation.

    Quote Originally Posted by Sharpandpointies View Post
    I seem to recall beam attacks and such from DBZ that were just too fast to dodge or something for lower level characters (by lower level, I mean 'Characters before they stopped actually assigning numbers to power levels'). But I could be wrong.
    "Faster than the eyes of a God" is my favorite DBZ speed rating, even though they tried pretty hard to not give hard numbers like "lightspeed".

    Quote Originally Posted by Sharpandpointies View Post
    The ships can fire simultaneously from everywhere around a planet (it's a sphere hanging in space).
    By that point though, would the Sayins have packed it up to go invade Q'onos and all the other Klingon worlds though?

    Quote Originally Posted by Sharpandpointies View Post
    If the cloaking stuff works on scouters, that's a whole lot of torpedoes getting fired at ridiculous speeds from (relatively speaking) close range.
    Can't cloak and fire at the same time.

    Also I'll point out again Trek bombardment was pretty poo the one time I remember it.

    Quote Originally Posted by Sharpandpointies View Post
    Another option is bombardment with large asteroids - Trek ships have tractors and the computers that can easily figure out trajectories, so if a dozen planet-wiping asteroids show up at the same time (and they're undetectable by scouters), it's going to make things rough. Maybe the Saiyans can blow them up, but again, Klingons can coordinate,
    Well so can the Sayins. All the ones we saw had scouters, and they could be used as communication devices (over interstellar distances even). I don't know if they actually gave hard numbers for either the number of Sayins on Vegeta or Klingon ships that counted as part of the Empire (and that number fluctuated across "TNG era") but I have a hard time believing Trek could field more heavy duty ships than there are Sayins to blast them.

    Also, they have tractor beams, but on the smaller ships they don't have the hauling power to get a big asteroid up to any sort of speed.


    The objective not being 'hit the Saiyans' with the torpedoes, but 'destroy infrastructure and make planet unlivable due to massive environmental damage' or somesuch. Saiyans gotta eat.
    Fat lot of good that would do if the Sayins have all left already.
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  6. #36
    The Weeping Mod Sharpandpointies's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by The MunchKING View Post
    By that point though, would the Sayins have packed it up to go invade Q'onos and all the other Klingon worlds though?
    There was discussion earlier in the thread about the Klingons being able to stop them or something, due to having the rather large advantage in outer space. If that's not the case, then yeah - if the Saiyans CAN get off their world and attack Klingon worlds, I don't think the Klingons have any real chance. ^_^

    Can't cloak and fire at the same time.
    The idea is to get within that range using the cloak. Then decloak. And fire. If it's a couple of hundred ships all at different places around the globe riffling off a load of torpedoes...

    Also I'll point out again Trek bombardment was pretty poo the one time I remember it.
    If it really sucks, then it sucks. And the Klingons are completely outmatched. I don't know a lot about Trek stuff either, frankly. I've read that Photon torpedoes are city-busters at their highest yield, and unless a whole carpet of them gets through, that's not going to make the planet unliveable. I guess they could do this over and over again, buuuut.

    Anyone have any better evidence of Trek weapons doing sufficient damage to end a planet?

    Well so can the Sayins. All the ones we saw had scouters, and they could be used as communication devices (over interstellar distances even). I don't know if they actually gave hard numbers for either the number of Sayins on Vegeta or Klingon ships that counted as part of the Empire (and that number fluctuated across "TNG era") but I have a hard time believing Trek could field more heavy duty ships than there are Sayins to blast them.

    Also, they have tractor beams, but on the smaller ships they don't have the hauling power to get a big asteroid up to any sort of speed.
    They don't really need 1 ship/asteroid, they can have groups. And they don't actually need THAT many asteroids to pull this kind of thing off. Also, it's not speed, it's acceleration - they don't need to instantly get them moving at speed, just get them moving with a constant acceleration on the proper trajectory. It's space - there's nothing working against a velocity other than gravity (which in this case will actually HELP speed things up), so if you can impart a velocity of 1 m/s^2 to something, it's going to add up. Granted, unless you want to take a year for this to work out, you want better than that, but I figure they can manage.

    (note: even at 1 m/s^2 acceleration, by one year you're hitting 30% of lightspeed, without getting into 'and they're moving down the gravity well, they can use that to increase their velocity once they break the asteroids' stable orbits')

    As you note, all is pointless if the Saiyans have already left. ^_^ Soooo....

    Fat lot of good that would do if the Sayins have all left already.
    And here is the problem, as noted above.

    Basically, I feel that if the Klingons CAN blockade the Saiyans on their planet, they can probably work something out to deal with them.

    If they can't, they're screwed.

    Again, I'm not 100% up on the capabilities of either side, so I have no idea which one is more likely. ^_^
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  7. #37
    E-Liter3K Scoped Headshot The MunchKING's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sharpandpointies View Post
    If it really sucks, then it sucks.
    Well, it's the scene from First Contact (Which for some reason I can't find on YouTube), but that's the Borg bombing Cochram's camp. Words like "Hand grenade levels of blast radius" was the analysis at the time. SO if the Klingons have anything better, that would make sense, but I just don't think we've seen any good orbital bombardment across Trek.


    Quote Originally Posted by Sharpandpointies View Post
    They don't really need 1 ship/asteroid, they can have groups. And they don't actually need THAT many asteroids to pull this kind of thing off.
    Against someone with real-world physics? Maybe not. against thousands-millions (again, no hard numbers, but planetary population levels so it can't be THAT low) of moon-busters? You need more than they've got Sayins remaining to block with. because they can blow up moon sized rocks coming at them into small pebbles.

    Quote Originally Posted by Sharpandpointies View Post
    Also, it's not speed, it's acceleration - they don't need to instantly get them moving at speed, just get them moving with a constant acceleration on the proper trajectory. It's space - there's nothing working against a velocity other than gravity (which in this case will actually HELP speed things up), so if you can impart a velocity of 1 m/s^2 to something, it's going to add up. Granted, unless you want to take a year for this to work out, you want better than that, but I figure they can manage.
    Inertia is the other big factor. tiny ships just can't pull hard enough to get a Texas sized asteroid to change direction fast enough.

    And now I want to complain about Memory Alpha. I was trying to just look up how big some of those Klingon ships were so I could use real numbers and not just a vague "they look tiny" metric. But while they will tell you about EVERY ROOM in the Klingon ships, they won't give you relatively straight forward data like "how big is it"!!
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  8. #38
    The Weeping Mod Sharpandpointies's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by The MunchKING View Post
    Well, it's the scene from First Contact (Which for some reason I can't find on YouTube), but that's the Borg bombing Cochram's camp. Words like "Hand grenade levels of blast radius" was the analysis at the time. SO if the Klingons have anything better, that would make sense, but I just don't think we've seen any good orbital bombardment across Trek.
    Given that their photon torpedoes are capable of damaging shields that do stuff like 'ignore shipmounted lasers forever' and blow big, gaping holes in large, armored ships, I'm of the opinion that 'grenade-level bombardment' would be a low-end depiction.

    Again, the stuff I've seen bandied about the net (without corroboration) goes with 'Photon torpedoes at highest end blow up cities'. Don't know if that's true, would like someone with greater knowledge to weigh in.

    Against someone with real-world physics? Maybe not. against thousands-millions (again, no hard numbers, but planetary population levels so it can't be THAT low) of moon-busters? You need more than they've got Sayins remaining to block with. because they can blow up moon sized rocks coming at them into small pebbles.
    If they're all moon-busters, that's an issue. Granted, they have get the rocks before they hit atmosphere, which requires them spotting the rocks and going to hit them outside atmo (hitting them inside the atmosphere is just going to end up with a shotgun effect, and worse - once a high-speed rock that size hits the atmosphere, the atmosphere in that area is GONE and a chunk of the damage is already done), but otherwise, if thy can detect the rocks and zap them far outside the atmosphere, then this strategy isn't going to work at all.

    There's also the matter of dealing with the Klingons simultaneously decloaking and firing a whackload of photon torpedoes while the Saiyans are dealing with the big rocks, but if it's a population of millions of moonbusters, sure again.

    Inertia is the other big factor. tiny ships just can't pull hard enough to get a Texas sized asteroid to change direction fast enough.
    They don't need to do it at speed. That's the entire point of acceleration and the absolute lack of stuff in space working against. All they need to do is impart a change in acceleration that changes the orbit in a way that they want it to change. That's all. Once it gets going in the correct direction, they can then use tractors to increase the acceleration in that direction, even if it's a tiny amount...with ships that are capable of nearly instantly accelerating to close to light speed, I think that's doable with a much larger rock.

    Inertia would be a nigh-insurmountable issue if they were just flying up to it and saying 'Grab it and go!' and trying to zip off straight down the gravity well towing a rock, but that's not what they need to do.

    And now I want to complain about Memory Alpha. I was trying to just look up how big some of those Klingon ships were so I could use real numbers and not just a vague "they look tiny" metric. But while they will tell you about EVERY ROOM in the Klingon ships, they won't give you relatively straight forward data like "how big is it"!!
    Ah, the joy of seeking Rumbles information on the net...I feel your pain.
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  9. #39
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    There's a general problem with ship to ship fights in most portrayals. Look at Space Cruiser Yamato, the Star Wars fights, Star Trek. They fight at what looks like Age of Sail distances and speeds or the Monitor vs. the Virginia. Otherwise the fights wouldn't be visible.

    I'm still waiting for feats that indicate Saiyans with Scouters can detect and react to attacks just as Sharp plans.

    Back to hand held weapons - here's Goku getting shot with an hand held energy weapon when his guard is down:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbdCt9ZEhbE

    Lucky ambush, so Klingons who are just strong human level shouldn't count on it.

  10. #40
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    The best Trek bombardment is probably the attempt to wipe out the Founders in Deep Space Nine. The problem with that is, they were being sensor spoofed, so we don't know for sure that their reported effects actually happened. They certainly didn't seem to find it odd that a fleet would be able to destroy 30% of a planet's crust in one volley.

  11. #41
    The Weeping Mod Sharpandpointies's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Captain Smith View Post
    There's a general problem with ship to ship fights in most portrayals. Look at Space Cruiser Yamato, the Star Wars fights, Star Trek. They fight at what looks like Age of Sail distances and speeds or the Monitor vs. the Virginia. Otherwise the fights wouldn't be visible.
    Absolutely.

    It should be all light speed and C-fractional weapons at ranges where sensors and ECM are the main reasons people hit or not, due to everyone being far out of visual range (by, like, a lot).

    But people want action, dogfights, and Age of Sail ships of the line, not guided missile bombardment at 500k km and anti-ship fighter strikes at such speeds and ranges that even the fighter pilots can’t visually pick up their targets.
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  12. #42
    Extraordinary Member Cody's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sharpandpointies View Post
    Absolutely.

    It should be all light speed and C-fractional weapons at ranges where sensors and ECM are the main reasons people hit or not, due to everyone being far out of visual range (by, like, a lot).

    But people want action, dogfights, and Age of Sail ships of the line, not guided missile bombardment at 500k km and anti-ship fighter strikes at such speeds and ranges that even the fighter pilots can’t visually pick up their targets.
    I never understood this. Big ships shooting at each other from far away I get, but the fighter's?
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  13. #43
    The Weeping Mod Sharpandpointies's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cody View Post
    I never understood this. Big ships shooting at each other from far away I get, but the fighter's?
    Why close to visual range through intensifying anti-fighter fire when your own weapons have ranges much greater than that? ^_^

    And…if you’re flying at enormous speed, visual range is ‘blink and you’re already passed them’.
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  14. #44
    Extraordinary Member Cody's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sharpandpointies View Post
    Why close to visual range through intensifying anti-fighter fire when your own weapons have ranges much greater than that? ^_^

    And…if you’re flying at enormous speed, visual range is ‘blink and you’re already passed them’.
    Well I guess that just begs the question.. What's the point of organic fighters? Drone fighters would be more effective in that matter.
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  15. #45
    The Weeping Mod Sharpandpointies's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cody View Post
    Well I guess that just begs the question.. What's the point of organic fighters? Drone fighters would be more effective in that matter.
    An exceptionally good question, and I will make an attempt to answer - I say attempt, because this is all supposition (because...we don't actually HAVE this kind of stuff! ).

    So, the missiles would be effectively suicidal drone fighters, with limited control, preprogrammed with algorithms for evasion, ECM, etc. Capable of greater acceleration than fighters. Etc. So why have fighters?

    ASSUMING the civilization doesn't have true AI (in which case, it's just fighters piloted by AI, so fair game there)...

    Two reasons -

    1. Extended engagement: fighters with actual live pilots can change objectives on the fly, based on command and control on the scene (ie, some sort of wing commander, if you will). They could engage other fighters, shift targets, continue to next target, etc, all without preprogrammed information (which is vulnerable to confusion in the rapidly changing situation that is real combat) or dependency on algorithms to try to cover every eventuality (they can't).

    One might argue that the fighters could take orders and information from their carrier. A sound idea, but...

    2. Communication issues. Getting information from the bosses back on the carrier is great, but if the carrier is operating at 500k km from the battle, at extreme ranges and behind the escort ships, communication has a lag. Say it's a second and a half+ behind to start with (lightspeed sensor systems at 500k from the battle). Then there's another second and a half+ for any communications from the carrier to reach the fighters, and worse if the conversation starts going back and forth. And that's not even getting into electronic countermeasures (ie, 'jamming' and such) to seal up those communications.

    If it's a drone taking commands (rather than operating on an algorithm or programming, in which case it's basically a missile), that 3 second lag is a serious problem. Not even getting into 'what if their ECM is good and they jam our controls?'. Also, the carrier is a second and a half behind the times with regards to knowledge of what is happening. Possibly worse if they're launching from a more safe distance (ie, not lined up with warships, but considerably behind them or something).

    Put pilots on those fighters, the problem disappears. They're THERE, in the thick of things, taking orders from their various commanders who are also there, in the thick of things. The fleet and carriers give them the strategic instructions, but when it comes down to the nitty-gritty of 'what exactly are we doing now?' that's left to the pilots and their commanders to decide. No comm-lag, no sensor-lag, etc. They can pick the targets that work for THEM, chose best possible approaches, decide on a moment what to do, etc. Maybe they've received their general orders already - "attack enemy escort ships with anti-ship missiles then engage enemy fighters" - but they have the ability to interpret those orders better in the chaos of combat.

    And if need be - 'I see an important thing that wasn't covered under our instructions!' - they can go against those orders to deal with something that crops up.

    Again, if this civilization has instantaneous sensors/comm, less of a problem. If the civilization has true AI, also less of a problem (however, one is then swapping the death of a biological life form for the death of machine intelligence, and we're getting into other ethical issues, but we're not talking about that right now).

    I guess we should mention a third thing: the ugly math. If a big ship takes a year to make, a gazillion dollars (or whatever), and has a crew of 400 people, but factories are spewing out fighters at rapid speed and you can train up a pilot in a year, and a couple of squadrons of fighters MIGHT be able to take out a big ship...well, the ugly math of resources, money, and 'human capital' says that the fighters are more 'economically viable' than a big ship. <-- bleah, but wars are fought over resources/greed/empire-building, and sadly, this is going to factor in.

    Maybe none of those two squadrons of fighters come back because they were thrown into the teeth of a warship sporting a crap-ton of anti-fighter stuff, but if they get it...trading a one or two dozen fighters and pilots for a warship is probably CHEAP. <-- bleah again, but there it is, and I'm talking space-warfare, not naval stuff on real-world earth - I have no idea of the grotesque economics in that situation.

    In entertainment? Drama. Everyone likes fighters.
    Last edited by Sharpandpointies; 06-27-2022 at 12:08 PM.
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