You do realize that, with the exception of Picard, absolutely none of the individuals you mention are likely to help the Federation?
In the case of the Doctor, he's a bloody Time Lord. He'll do whatever the hell he wants. WRT Carrie Fisher, who AFAIK is supposed to be the girl from that exorcist movie, well, she's more than likely to try to kill everybody in the Federation.
The level of pure, unadulterated stupidity present in this post is indescribable. First off, the Ewoks were assraped up and down the galaxy by the Imperial forces.
The only reason the Ewoks weren't massacred wholesale was the presence of the Rebel contingent, which, you know, had blasters, and a Wookie, and even captured an AT-ST for use against the Imperial stormtroopers.
And quite frankly, "idiot" Ewok != dog with a horn. Considering that Ewoks, are, you know, intelligent. You can't say that that's false, either. The Ewoks have a spoken language (ref: C-3PO has Ewok-language in his linguistic database), they have tools for hunting, and travel. IIRC, an Ewok even operates a speeder bike! You can't be an unintelligent baboon and expect to operate something like a speeder bike without any prior experience other than "see fast thing".
Furthermore, Ewoks != Trek powers. Even if the Empire lost to an Ewok-only force (didn't happen), then that says nothing about their ability to conduct a campaign against another starfaring power.
Guys, guys... don't fight.
Star Trek have transporters and can teleport assault teams directly on the bridge of a SSD and phaz0r Darth Vader inna face.
But Star Wars have hyperdrives and could be "on the other side of the galaxy by now". For example glassing Earth while that assault team finds out whether lightsabers can deflect phaser beams or not.
So it evens out in the end.
...
Bah, who am I kidding, Earth gets glassed, Darth Vader chokes the red shirt guy, Star Wars wins.
It will be an eternity of storm troopers trying to kill red shirts. Hell eternal.
And the Empire should know now not to underestimate the power of Ewoks.
While I know you're mostly poking fun at us (I think), I'd like to point out something in general about STvsSW debating; it's in no way a criticism of your post, which I consider very funny.
The transporter and its uses. Yes, transporters can be used to do all sorts of nasty things. The problem, however, is that 99% of these things won't work. It's a twofold issue. For one, a fair portion of transporter tactics that many diehard Trektards describe are never displayed in the entirety of Star Trek continuity. For two, there's a fair bit of evidence that transporters will not be effective against Imperial forces, for several reasons:
1. Heavy ECM The high degree of electronic warfare and electronic countermeasure usage present in Star Wars means that it's possible that ST ships will be unable to get transporter locks, preventing them from doing more than trying to avoid Imperial weapons fire.
2. Boarding Tactics The usefulness and/or effectiveness of boarding tactics in each series is quite radically different; in Star Trek, a boarding assault is a valid operational method. In contrast, in Star Wars a boarding is used to capture a ship that "catch", either with tractor beams or the ever-classic "move and I'll blow you away" methods. In ST, a boarding assault can be conducted in the middle of combat; in SW, a boarding assault is only conducted after you've already crippled and/or immobilized the enemy, or the enemy vessel is a sitting duck under your guns. Further, the large legions of Imperial stormtroopers aboard each Imperial vessel will make carrying a boarding assault difficult, especially considering the body armor and superior personal weaponry of the stormtroopers. Yes, your phasers can phas0rize a rock wall into oblivion, but a phaser is part tool, part weapon, while a blaster is all weapon, all the time.
3. High-Density Armor Perhaps the most damning piece of evidence is the existence of high-density, exotic-material armor used on SW warships. Transporters are known to have difficulty with high-density materials, whether with getting sensor locks to allow transporting, or with actually getting the transporter to work through the material. So it's a very iffy thing on whether or not an ST vessel could weaponize their transporters to deploy ordnance into SW warships.
Stormtrooper inaccuracy is heavily blown out of proportion by most super-Trekkies who consider Trek the be-all-end-all of science fiction. To tell truth, it's blown out of proportion by most anti-SW debaters who aren't entirely honest. I guarantee you that a modern military group would be hardpressed to give a better showing than those stormtroopers. Partly because of weapon types; a stormtrooper's blaster can double as not only a lethal weapon but also a stun-gun. In contrast, a firearm has no such capability.
Imperial stormtroopers are also trained to engage in boarding actions; this is one of the reasons why they are carried aboard most Imperial warships.
Well now, it IS a well known fact that Stormtroopers can't shoot worth a damn. It must be those helmets.
Also, any Star Trek captain worth his salt could easily detonate Imperial ships and especially stations by creating feedback loops in the primary reactor power control via directed beams of theta particles.
In fact, they wouldn't even need a proton torpedo and a small thermal exhaust port.
I'm going to assume this is just poking fun at me, which I totally understand. My little diatribe wasn't in any way directed at you, just a bit of an observation in general. I'll add an edit that clarifies this.
Incidentally, trekkies who are obsessed with Trek to the point of "Trek=GOD" and "Trek is the measure of all scifi", often trot out the transporter and decide that any other setting without transporters is automatically inferior, regardless of actual capability.
For example, a trekkie might argue that the Federation could whip the Xeelee or the Time Lords, based on the fact that the Feds have transporters and the other two do not. Ironically, the Xeelee and Time Lords would bitchslap the Federation into the previous millenium, because both have far superior time travel.
there's coffee in that nebula.
also star wars is fantasy not science fiction
Well, Star Trek is not science fiction either. As in, science fiction is extrapolation of existing science to create visions of future science.
Star Trek, much like Star Wars, pulls a lot of stuff out of its proverbial arse. And likes to ignore Newtonian physics.
You want science fiction, go watch Odyssey 2001. You want shiney space pew pew, either Star Trek or Star Wars will do, depending whether you want your dose of science fantasy flavored with inverse polaron beams or ancient weapons and hokey religions.
And I'm not poking fun at anyone, just pointing out that discussing whether Star Trek could beat up Star Wars or vice versa is a waste of time, since we all know that Spaceballs can beat them both together because they have the Lower Side of the Schwartz, Good is Dumb and they can travel at Ludicrous Speed.
Star Wars is science fiction by the standards of 99% of the population; it has space ships that go whoosh and blow shit up with green death, it occurs in space, has space travel.
WRT Star Wars and science fiction, the proper description of it is actually "science fantasy", because it uses many fantasy-styled plot elements and stylizations, but has a very much scifi-esque setting. Warhammer 40,000 is another example of science fantasy, only awesomer because of chainswords and flying space cathedrals.
WRT SWvsST debating, the idea isn't "SW beats of ST", it's actually that of a mental exercise and a debating ground. That SW would crush ST into the ground, and then some, is relevant insofar as determining the results of the debate. At least, that's how I've thought of it.
Though TBH, I don't get the Spaceballs references. Never seen the movie.
Bad idea. Canonically, SW vessels have maneuvered in a relatively static manner; that is, they don't zip around each other like attack craft would. I'm also fairly certain that the Borg don't do that either.
http://youtu.be/mk7VWcuVOf0
Sooo funny, back then.....
That was hilarious. "They've gone to plaid!"
You have to tweak their turn speed values. The reason why some ships end up in an infinite chase out of the gravity well is because they get locked in a tail-chase loop, where one ship won't turn because it is chasing the closest target but can't get close enough to fire, and the other ship won't turn because it's not far away enough from the closest target (the chasing ship) to initiate a strafing run.
So what you do, you make it so that ship speed and turn ratio (how tightly they can turn) is such that these situations are minimized. It is not a problem in vanilla because the only ships that move are fighters and bombers. I am not sure if the problem can be completely neutralized, but it certainly can be reduced to an exception, rather than the rule.
You should. If you like Star Wars, you'll rofl your ass off.
And I did say "science fantasy" in my post.
The problem with debates like these is that bith ST and SW are basically so far away from reality that debating is largely reduced to how far away one is willing to run away with their favored universe's lore. Also, how well someone is grounded in real science.
For example, we do know that Star Trek uses antimatter for various purposes. This is the ultimate weapon right there. You can't get more nasty than that. It doesn't matter what kind of armor you got and its even better if its super dense - when it comes into contact with antimatter you get a bigger boom. And a copious dose of lethal hard radiation. In fact, one little blob of it coming into direct contact with the hull would be enough to kill any ship in both universes. The only reason why ST doesn't use it as a weapon is because it would make for boring battles.
@Manshooter, can you give me some turn ratio values and ship speeds please.
@Myfisto, where are you?
I'm doing the ship icons for the additional three races in the textures folder, as a total conversion mod i'm replacing the stock races ship icons in the following files:
Unit_Hud_CursorOver
Unit_Hud_Disabled
Unit_Hud_Normal
Unit_Hud_Pressed
I've already done the first three, which are in Zombies base mod which are:
Races_Unit_Hud_CursorOver
Races_Unit_Hud_Disabled
Races_Unit_Hud_Normal
Races_Unit_Hud_Pressed
The problem i've got, is that when i go to the research window, instead of seeing the first ones i added, Races_Unit_Normal ship icons to begin the research to make the ships avalible, i see the ship icons i've added to Unit_Hud_Normal.
Its like its overwritten the first ones. This does not affect in game, just the research tree window.
Anybody any ideas?
Theo.
ST does use antimatter as a weapon though. The ST:TNG technical manual describes photon torpedoes as carrying a 1.5kg antimatter payload.
In SW, there's weapons with much higher destruction than antimatter is capable. However, both sides have shields that can withstand multi-kiloton to multi-petaton range energy yields (the latter being exclusive to SW, mind you), so it all evens out.
EDIT: I'd also like to mention that I somewhat dislike antimatter as a weapon; it's simply too expensive, and if it's widespread so that Joey-Mercenary can get his hands on it, then you're SOL because a fair portion of the space-mobile population now has access and/or possession of biosphere-destroying WMD. It's the same reason I dislike it as a powerplant fuel; the energy content of antimatter is so great that any ship carrying it as a reactor fuel (or propulsion fuel) will contain a metric f*ckton of energy, to the point that it might be able to, say, vaporize Greenland.
Go into the appropriate research file and make sure that it's calling up the hudIcon that calls upon Unit_Hud_X versus Races_Unit_Hud_X (aka. the hudIcon in the ship's entity).
Here's a good analogy to what your saying.
Your argument is basically that a species can adapt to being shot in the face with a 120mm high explosive shell.
I could go up to every animal on earth and do that, but they will all die. You can't adapt to death.
Err...I'm saying that when you take pseudo-scientific and fantastic concepts written for dramatic effect by a non-scientist in a theatrical production and then "prove" they are "actually scientific" that you're full of...rhetoric.
"Set napalm gargle blasters to 'Deep Fat Fry'!"...later, I'll explain why Spaceman Spiff's weaponry is actually plausible and that creating a futuristic ray weapon utilizing napalm and mouthwash really would require a deep fat fry temperature to function...all this while also simultaneously proving how stupid and uniformed critics of this very genuine weapon really are.
In addition, any one who tries to devise a means to defeat the gargle blaster will be absolutely countered and defeated by Stupedous Man's completely unbeatable transmogrifer and they're complete idiots if they think they won't be.
I love this thread and all who dwell within it.
But I think you hate on anti-matter too much. It tastes very good in my coffee.
That is all. Carry on.
1. His point was that all your attempts to prove that a Federation military victory was in any way possible is false, hence his analogy.
2. When have I ever said that "such and such happens in Star Wars/Trek, and is fully and completely scientifically possible", when I am describing, say, the turbolasers, or phasers, or FTL system. Photon torpedo yields? That can be scientifically calc'ed, because antimatter is a known entity in modern science.
3. I have not in any way shape or form attempted to explain why any of the weapons used in SW or ST are plausible. What I have been doing is saying "we know these operating characteristics, and by using basic mathematics and physics, we can deduce (x) and (y) about the item", where (x) and (y) equal some aspect of operation, like say, weapon yield, or perhaps superluminal propagation velocity, or maybe power generation or real-space acceleration. The key assumption is naturally that some of the most basic and fundamental concepts of science, like say thermodynamics, still hold true in said fictional settings.
Oh, I think antimatter is a very useful substance, for a propulsion system or a compact weapon. The problem is that it would have to be heavily restricted in any actual economy, because of its enormous energy content. When a kilo-and-a-half comes out to around two and a half times more powerful than a current city-killer nuke, and in a much smaller package, then you get problems.
It's only further compounded by the enormous energy requirements of producing antimatter; because of some complicated reasons that I don't really understand except to say "people much smarter than me confirm this as correct", when you make antimatter, for a given energy you'll actually get one-half antimatter and one-half normal matter. Toss in the fact that a hypothetical antimatter-drive rocket would probably contain enough energy (in the antimatter fuel) to, say, vaporize Greenland, then you get really big problems.
There's actually a fancy name for this: Jon's Law- "Any interesting is a weapon of mass destruction. It only matters how long you want to wait for maximum damage. Interesting is equal to 'whatever keeps the readers from getting bored." Closely related is Larry Niven's "Kzinit Lesson"- "A reaction drive's efficiency as a weapon is in direct proportion to its efficiency as a drive." An antimatter drive that will push you around at a respectably rapid rate is going to pump out enough thrust plume power to quite literally melt whatever unlucky individual gets caught in the exhaust. OTOH, it's going to be poorly collimated so that means that you'll only be able to fry something, maybe tens, or at most, hundreds, of kilometers away. Which is peanuts to the typical ranges space combat is likely to be fought at.
Lavo, could you be a bit more specific, if you don't mind.
Where do i start to look for the research files.
In the gameInfo folder?
Thanks
Theo
yes, all with RESEARCHSUBJECT_descriptionRACEstage.entity as the pattern eg RESEARCHSUBJECT_ANTIMATTERPSI1.entity
harpo
I was going to give a longer and pointed answer to a bunch of this but it's really simple.
If this is a formal debate thread about the superiority of Empire versus Federation technology in the fictional universes then fine--debate away (it will never end).
This was posted in the modding section but it was really a "what if?" post which i think confused the issue.
Apparently there is some real interest in this being a mod now and people are working at the start stages of ideas.
The fanboy views will not make for a balanced game and if the game starts that the Empire is a crushing juggernaut with untouchable ships then it isn't going to be much fun or else we all are going to play the Empire.
So is the point of the mod to play the Empire and get joy from crushing the other inferior scifi universes out of existence?
In a realistic scenario the Federation would ally with the Rebels--who didn't have that much of an impressive fleet in comparison to the Empire either. They'd fight guerrilla tactics and push research into new technologies. They would not remain a static, inflexible and hapless bunch with no clue how to fight back. In some ways it is clear the Federation is better at research and science--the Empire just focused on brute force.
For it to be a fun mod you need to argue less about "Why Star Wars must win" and more for what efforts you will really make to be sure its balanced. Right now it's imbalanced and that's the whole point of my posts.
I get the stated theory of your balance but your current arguments don't inspire much confidence that it's being really developed.
*facepalms*
None of my posts WRT SWvsST debating had anything to do with the balance of the mod. I've already offered my opinion that, mod-wise, the Empire would have somewhat fewer, but superior, ships, with poor maneuverability, but reasonable straight-line acceleration, exceptional superluminal transit, and wide fire arcs.
I personally have never argued that this mod was supposed to be "herp derp Empire crushes st00pid Feddies derp". I have always had the opinion that it would actually have balance to ensure fun, fair play between the factions in the mod. Not that the mod would resemble an actual hypothetical situation between these two fictional powers.
My posts WRT SWvsST debating had to do with the a hypothetical scenario. Now, to argue why some of your points are daft.
1. The Federation wouldn't ally with the Rebellion for the simple reason that the Rebellion is more interested in fighting the Empire, the Federation hasn't got a snowballs chance in hell of doing so, and the Federation is in a whole other bloody galaxy.
2. The technological gap from a weapons, armor, shielding, and propulsion standpoint between the Empire and Federation is simply too great to overcome. As has already been suggested, technological "stagnation" in Star Wars could be for the simple reason that they've figured it (science) all out. They've got nothing left to learn.
You're talking about a power that's been around for a mere several hundred years trying to research it's way into beating down a power that has:
i) A galaxy-spanning industrial base.ii) A galaxy-spanning economy to support said industry.iii) A galaxy-spanning dominion, providing enormous amounts of able-bodied personnel and/or materials.
And, to top it all off, the Empire benefits from some ten thousand years of technological refinement. There are some gaps that are simply to big to cover.
3. How would Federation guerrilla tactics work, pray tell? Because Federation warships simply haven't got the sublight acceleration, superluminal mobility, or firepower to take down anything more than say a lone freighter like the Millennium Falcon. Kinda hard to kill ships who's point defense gunnery measures in the low single-digit megaton range, when your own anti-ship weapons are just barely high double-digit megaton range.
4. On a board that I read frequently, a SWvsST topic recently came up, wherein the OP asked how a Empire vs Federation conflict would go if the firepower and durability were swapped. The problem is that the sheer industrial and economic might of the Empire, coupled with the superior strategic mobility of hyperdrive over warp drive, means that the Empire still wins. The fact that the Empire's mainline warships, the Imperial-class star destroyer, is in service in higher numbers than the Federation's entire navy, is quite damning as well.
Overall, SWvsST is like pitting a lightning fast, strikes-like-a-nuclear-bomb, horde of people against a handful of creative, average-reflex, average-strength people. It doesn't matter how creative you are, because the quantitative and qualitative advantages held by the opposition is simply too much to overcome.
EDIT: I'll also note that I am in no way part of balancing this mod, and that I've posted very little about balance. I actually no nothing about the balance of the mod that Theo has set up; your guess is as good as mine. What part of the mod that I think I've been 'contracted' to do is the backstory of how all these disparate scifi franchises have been brought together.
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