Honerveres vs Trekies

The weapons on a startrek ship are the least of your problems.
I recall one episode where the enterprise-D was using a tractor on the techtonic plates of a planet, to repair some vulcanic problems. Data made it very clear that even a short (fraction of a second) misstake with the tractor focus would render the planet unihabitable.
Now the Federation is obviously too peaceful to ever use that as a weapon. And the Klingons prefer H-2-H combat. But get in a serious war with the Romulans and you might find out just how easy it is for a starship to warp to orbit & pause for a half-second to target tractors. The result probably counts as a violation of the Eridani edict...

Meh. The same thing happens when something (say, a missile) hits a planet with its impeller wedge on.

The average MDM can hit 0.83 c from rest, effectively having kinetic energy equal to its mass in antimatter. You don't want 160 tons of antimatter hitting anywhere close to a planet.


And a merchant ship activating its wedge then ramming a planet will rip a 200-kilometer hole through the planet's crust. Not good.

darrell wrote:
It is actually a tactical questions. The star Treck ships and photon torpedo's are much faser than honorverse ships. A photon torpedo can travel 8Mkm in just a few seconds, it takes a honorverse missile more than 2 minutes to travel 8Mkm at full acceleration. (92,000G's)

A ST torpedo(not all though), in all sources i can find is listed as having an engine capable of maintaining warp, but not achieving it.
Most sources list torpedo maneuvering and acceleration as being somewhere in the range 1-10km/s/s.
Any speed beyond that is limited to what is imparted by the launching ship.
And with ST very likely having the same issues of exactly locating HH ships, as they cant see enough through the sidewalls, ST torpedoes will be unlikely to ever hit, even if they COULD get through the sidewalls, which i doubt. There´s good reason why HH universe moved away from impact-missiles after all.

So, the only time a Photon torpedo can cover 8M km in a few seconds, is by having the launching ship aim itself straight at it, approaching at high speed, essentially giving the HH ship the opportunity to fire missiles at a predicted point.

darrell wrote:ST ships will be very hard to hit, As a minute will be a long time for the ST ship to go off to another location at warp 2+, and the honoverse missiles have nothing to target because the ST ship is somewhere else millions of KM off in another direction a few seconds after the missiles are fired.

Maneuvering at warp is extremely limited, which is why battle usually happens outside of warp.
And you wouldn´t fire missiles at where a ST ship is, or where it currently seems to be going towards, you fire them at where you predict it will be when the missiles will be close enough to have a chance to strike.

darrell wrote:IMO, it is likely the two ships will fight each other to a draw, neither killing the other.

HH ships can force battle through greater strategic mobility, that pretty much decides it.

It´s the same as the argument between ST and Star Wars, the latter´s hyperspace is just so much better that regardless all their bad sides, it´s almost win by default.

darrell wrote:It would be somthing like a WW2 fighter plane attacking a castle that is armed with a catapult. If a catapult stone hits the plane, the plane is tost, but it will take a very lucky shot. (a golden BB) OTOH, it will take a lot of 50 caliber ammo to breach the castle wall.

Mmm, only if you give the castle catapults with 5 times as long range as the fighter and include mm-based radar firecontrol. And give the castle about 30+ catapults.
Not a good comparison overall.

ST missiles are almost certainly completely useless, HH missiles are very hard to hit with, but HH ships have LOTS of them, ST ships do not have lots of missiles.
ST missiles are either drastically slower, or require the launching ship to behave highly predictable, allowing the other side a perfect chance to actually hit with their own missiles, while HH sidewalls probably block any ST missiles.

Beam weapons, HH have around 4-8 times longer effective range, HH sidewalls affect ALL incoming beams, ST shields has a finite amount of charge that will be depleted VERY quickly.

For all those discussing this, I might point out that Lasers are useless against ST shields. This was pointed out several times during ST:TNG.

The Altec used laser weapons on their ships and once targeted them on the Enterprise-D in an attempt to acquire the Straleb Jewel of Thesia and Thadiun Okona. Picard noted that such lasers would not even penetrate their navigation shields. (TNG: "The Outrageous Okona")

and

X-ray lasers were a type of ship-mounted weapon utilizing X-rays in the form of a laser emission. X-ray lasers were used by the Talarians in the 24th century.

The weapon was no match for Federation starships like the USS Enterprise-D.

Endar, the captain of the Talarian warship Q'Maire, powered up the weapons of his ship, neutral particle weapons, X-ray lasers, and merculite rockets, in order to "convince" the crew of the Enterprise to return his adopted son, Jono. (TNG: "Suddenly Human")

Given these, would a Graser which, like an X-Ray laser, is simply a Gamma-Ray laser penetrate ST shields?

I find it very funny that everyone has ignored the Trek ships ability to use subspace as a communication and sensor option.

The RMN may own the EM spectrum; however, they cannot impair any Trek ship from using it's basic sensors to detect it using active sensors, or communicate at will.

I also question if H-verse ships would be able to stand up to anit-matter warheads if they get through. H-verse ships getting hit with nukes get damaged badly - a Trek style matter-antimatter missile would release energy in a sharper "spike" of a release. It's not a nuclear fission or fusion reaction, its the total anhilation of all mass with a 100% mass-energy conversion.

Not something your point defense can let slip through more than once.

Further depending on which culture the H-Verse ships encounter, they will have a lot of different encounters.

I think the RMN or RHN fleet encountering a Klingon battlegroup with a Negh'Var class battleship at its core would have an...interesting day.

That class of ship, massing 4,310,000 tons, while 1/2 the size of a SD, is designed to take multiple, skin-skin impacts from anti-matter warheads, energy weapons and likely direct impact boarding actions. Ship like that, combined with it's cruiser escorts & scouts (all with cloaking ability) wouldn't be easy to destroy. Depending on who's commanding, and how insane he is - considering the Klingons, they are all insane - A Haven Sector ship may be fighting a boarding action by pirates with knives, energy weapons and...teeth?

But assuming you ran into the Federation...your life could still get ugly, as if you have the misfortune to encounter a Prometheus class massing in at 2,100,000 metric tons - with the capacity to split into 3 seperate, very manuaverable (and warp capible) warships. It's got extra armor as well.

Even without escorts or other ships, it's going to be a head ache...

I don't think either would "Wipe the floor" with the other.

I think that each would have a very hard time dealing with the other's ships.

Depending on the ships, numbers, nations...involved in the clash, it could change very differently.

A Federation fleet trying to smash through a Haven Sector Wall of Battle would likely find that while they can out manuver them, fighting them is a really tough thing. The H-verse ships outmass them, are tough beyond words, are well set up with active defenses, and are holding in the face of almost anything you can throw at them with iron discipline unheard of in Trek tactics.

A Haven Sector Wall trying to attack a Trek target, depending on who's target, would have to deal with ships that can radically outmanuver it, have tactical flexibility in terms of speed and communication that they can't match, the ability to call for help without physically dispatching the message, ships who are immune from their EW and cannot be tracked using normal means.

It's a bloody, brutal slugging match, or a quick, agressing knifing which may or may not do damage to either side.

Take your pick.

We can set it up all we'd like in favor of each.

A light Klingon scout ship attempting to desperately hold off a fleet of Superdreadnoughs...or a trio of Federation heavy cruisers using FTL hit & run tactics to cut a Dreadnought division to pieces...

But either way, it's going to be a glorious slug fest.

Mitchell, Esq. wrote:I find it very funny that everyone has ignored the Trek ships ability to use subspace as a communication and sensor option.

That is specifically why i mentioned earlier how ST MAY have a big advantage in sensortech. It´s a bit hard to evaluate how well it can be used though.

IF it can actually ignore sidewalls, then ST chances may go up quite a bit.

Mitchell, Esq. wrote:I also question if H-verse ships would be able to stand up to anit-matter warheads if they get through. H-verse ships getting hit with nukes get damaged badly - a Trek style matter-antimatter missile would release energy in a sharper "spike" of a release. It's not a nuclear fission or fusion reaction, its the total anhilation of all mass with a 100% mass-energy conversion.

Contact fusion weapons are considered mostly obsolete by HH-u, they simply cant hit well enough. And that was even before sidewalls existed that could cover up the front and rear "soft points".

Mitchell, Esq. wrote:A Haven Sector ship may be fighting a boarding action by pirates with knives, energy weapons and...teeth?

Considering what´s normal gear for a Haven sector marine, a boarding action would be a less than happy occasion for the Klingons i believe.
Well, possibly with the exception of in the sense of "It´s a good day to die". ^_^

Mitchell, Esq. wrote:We can set it up all we'd like in favor of each.

Not quite. Weapon range is nearly always a big deal.

Mitchell, Esq. wrote:But either way, it's going to be a glorious slug fest.

Likely. But i´m yet to read anything that moves me away from expecting HH to come out on top overall.

Tenshinai wrote:

darrell wrote:It is actually a tactical questions. The star Treck ships and photon torpedo's are much faser than honorverse ships. A photon torpedo can travel 8Mkm in just a few seconds, it takes a honorverse missile more than 2 minutes to travel 8Mkm at full acceleration. (92,000G's)

A ST torpedo(not all though), in all sources i can find is listed as having an engine capable of maintaining warp, but not achieving it.
Most sources list torpedo maneuvering and acceleration as being somewhere in the range 1-10km/s/s.
Any speed beyond that is limited to what is imparted by the launching ship.
And with ST very likely having the same issues of exactly locating HH ships, as they cant see enough through the sidewalls, ST torpedoes will be unlikely to ever hit, even if they COULD get through the sidewalls, which i doubt. There´s good reason why HH universe moved away from impact-missiles after all.

So, the only time a Photon torpedo can cover 8M km in a few seconds, is by having the launching ship aim itself straight at it, approaching at high speed, essentially giving the HH ship the opportunity to fire missiles at a predicted point.

So lets see, you appear to be saying that if a ST torpedo is fired faster than light, it travels faster than light, if fired from rest, it is only able to travel at 0.003% of light speed or less???????? You are saying that ST torpedo's travel at it's fastest just slightly faster than a satelite in low earth orbit. (7.8km/s)

ST torpedo's are faster than Honoverse missiles. At time of firing, the ST torpedo travels at a minimum just under the speed of light, thus will travel 8MKM in 30-40 seconds, when it takes a Honorverse MDM at full acceleration 133 seconds to travel the same 8Mkm.

Tenshinai wrote:

darrell wrote:ST ships will be very hard to hit, As a minute will be a long time for the ST ship to go off to another location at warp 2+, and the honoverse missiles have nothing to target because the ST ship is somewhere else millions of KM off in another direction a few seconds after the missiles are fired.

Maneuvering at warp is extremely limited, which is why battle usually happens outside of warp.
And you wouldn´t fire missiles at where a ST ship is, or where it currently seems to be going towards, you fire them at where you predict it will be when the missiles will be close enough to have a chance to strike.

Since when???????? In the middle of combat, captain Kirk has repetedly said turn at warp 2. combat at warp speed is common.

Even if I am wrong, ST ships can accelerate to near light speeds in seconds, Honorverse ships take hours to accelerate to 80% of light speed. (9.5 hours for a shrike at 710 G's)

Tenshinai wrote:

darrell wrote:IMO, it is likely the two ships will fight each other to a draw, neither killing the other.

HH ships can force battle through greater strategic mobility, that pretty much decides it.

It´s the same as the argument between ST and Star Wars, the latter´s hyperspace is just so much better that regardless all their bad sides, it´s almost win by default.

How???????? ST ships have an acceleration more than 1000 times greater than Honorverse ships. A ship that is limeted to 600-700 G's can not force combat on a ship that can be faster than light in just a few seconds.

Tenshinai wrote:

darrell wrote:It would be somthing like a WW2 fighter plane attacking a castle that is armed with a catapult. If a catapult stone hits the plane, the plane is tost, but it will take a very lucky shot. (a golden BB) OTOH, it will take a lot of 50 caliber ammo to breach the castle wall.

Mmm, only if you give the castle catapults with 5 times as long range as the fighter and include mm-based radar firecontrol. And give the castle about 30+ catapults.
Not a good comparison overall.

ST missiles are almost certainly completely useless, HH missiles are very hard to hit with, but HH ships have LOTS of them, ST ships do not have lots of missiles.
ST missiles are either drastically slower, or require the launching ship to behave highly predictable, allowing the other side a perfect chance to actually hit with their own missiles, while HH sidewalls probably block any ST missiles.

Beam weapons, HH have around 4-8 times longer effective range, HH sidewalls affect ALL incoming beams, ST shields has a finite amount of charge that will be depleted VERY quickly.

Just one tactic, the ST ship approaches the Honorverse ship faster than light to a distance of 1MKM, outside effective laser and graser range, fires a spread of torpedos, than retreats at faster than light speed. Since it takes more than 30 seconds for the honorverse missiles to arrive, it would be virtually impossible for the honorverse ship to even hit the star trek ship.

With the sidewalls, immense size, and armor of Honorverse ships, It would be virtually impossible for even multiple hits from a Star Trek ship to destroy a honorverse ship of the wall.

Since it would be virtually impossible for either ship to destroy the other, any combat would end in a draw.

As a longtime Starfleet Battles player, I give the edge to the Star Trek ships. For those of you not familiar with SFB, Steve Cole based the game on one of the early Trek episodes, "Balance of Terror," where the Enterprise fought a Romulan War Bird (commanded by Mark Lenard, who played Spock's father in later episodes and movies).

In the SFB system, Honorverse vessels will be moving a single hex in a turn under impulse power, while the warp-driven Trek vessels can move up to 31 hexes. The massive Type-R plasma torpedoes (the War Bird's weapon in the above "Balance of Terror")fired by Romulan vessels moves at 32 hexes per turn.

Speed kills, peaches. In SFB game terms, HV starships are nearly immobile, and the ST starships would be firing down-the-throat and up-the-kilt salvoes more or less at will. (From an SFB standpoint, if I were commanding an HV ship, I wouldn't want to think about what hellbore cannons, enveloping plasma torpedoes, or plasmatic pulsar devices would do with the open throat and kilt of my impeller wedge.)

Remember, also, that Star Trek weapons and ship to ship engagements had to have the ships close enough so audiences could see what was happening on a television or movie screen, so weapons ranges seemed to be low.

Of course this is all nothing but conjecture, and fun conjecture at that. It depends on what assumptions are made, and there's no way to prove or disprove them. But what if phasers could penetrate an impeller wedge, and lasers and grasers do about as much damage to ST shields as a spitball? Advantage: Star Trek. Reverse those assumptions, and HV has the advantage.

From what I remember most ST ships fire 1 or 2 PT's at a time, can these weapons be intercepted by HV point defence?

if the can PD that is designed for facing salvoes of thousands of missiles shouldn't have a problem, in which case it comes down to ST energy weapons (which are relatively short ranged compared to the HV) and while the Enterprize-D may have shrugged off the fire from a single x-ray laser battery how would it manage the energy from 30/40 SD sized Grazers?.

P.S. A friend of mine wants to start a ST based RPG game and he wants to run the Ship based portion of the game using the Starship Bridge simulator (which I think would be pretty cool). I have agreed to play as long as the Captain is "Captain Chemise Rouge"

Emo Otaku wrote:
if the can PD that is designed for facing salvoes of thousands of missiles shouldn't have a problem,

Point Defense is based on tracking impeller driven missiles.

What happens when your primary tracking methods...don't work?

What also happens when your ECM and Decoys don't work?

Hows that point defense and ECM domination of the Haven Quadrant working out for you, eh?