Downgrading the Enterprise-D?

[Idazmi]

It is simple, You haven't really completely addressed any one of his points out, I really don't think you are even getting what he is saying (no offense intended here.)

He's not trying to address any point I made. His goal is simply to obfuscate the higher feats by any means. He's claiming that mass-lightening was involved in the Neutron Star feat (when there explicitly wasn't), and making up any other argument he can to lower the AP. He already explained why when he pulled a comparison to Star Wars. The stats in the "official guide" he's using (and hasn't even linked or verified) are far, far below the demonstrated feats - including the feats he brings up himself. We're talking demonstrated Moon, Planet, and Large Planet level feats, against building level calcs in some book. Even if the book says what he says it does, this Wiki uses in-universe feats over guidebooks when they contradict like that.

He doesn't really have an argument: just a desire.

 

[Antvasima]

It does seems like Yuka is simply spamming replies at this point.

If the calculation was accepted by the OBD and we also decided to use it, we should probably close this thread.

 

[Yukaphile]

Probably a good idea, since I'm convincing no one, and Idazmi still won't address my stance that it's an outlier and tackle the speed inconsistency I raised in the wall of text. I still call it an outlier, similar to the Roshi moon-busting feat, but if the mods are against it, that's their call. But let me close with this. As a dedciated fan of Star Trek, I will tell you I've watched TNG, DS9, and Voyager, and I don't think that was ever writer's intent. I also wanna say you're going to run into serious problems later down the line if you ever debate with the Enterprise-D vs. other ships. Stuff like Enterprise vs. Death Star or Vorlon Planet Killer. Because these feats are wildly inconsistent and I'm sure I won't be the only one to bring up this stuff. Especially if you create profiles for other Starfleet ships. As it stands now, you've made it so the Enterprise would curbstomp the entire Empire on its own, and maybe other space organizations you create someday. That's going to cause issues. I guarantee it.

 

[Yukaphile]

Btw, here.

https://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation_Technical_Manual

This is actually on Memory Alpha, not Memory Beta, the licensed canon works.

And this is where I got most of my info.

http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire...me=&Keywords=&Quotes=&Analysis=&Submit=Submit

 

[Yukaphile]

I mean, ByAsura agrees the neutron star thing is a huge outlier. And with phasers and photon torpedoes, the best feats ever shown in the TNG era are continental when attacking a planet directly, with that Romulan/Cardassian fleet. Again, Idazmi, you're not addressing MY points either. How is it logical their tractor beam has more power than their weapons?

 

[Yukaphile]

Heck, this will even cause problems if you create profiles for something like Species 8472, who actually have a planet-busting feat, because that would put it at 5-B, and with the current profile, the Enterprise-D could beat the nine ships that blew up that planet!

 

[Yukaphile]

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

 

[Yukaphile]

And as I said, torpedoes are stronger, as is shown in the show, yet the profile rates phasers as stronger.

 

[Yukaphile]

There are many feats to choose from with direct destructive power shown on screen. Moving a neurtron star fragment was done with tractor beams. Actually attacking a planet matters more. So choosing the former is cherry-picking feats to bump up the Enterprise much higher than it should be.

 

[Idazmi]

It does seems like Yuka is simply spamming replies at this point.

If the calculation was accepted by the OBD and we also decided to use it, we should probably close this thread.

Yes please.

 

[Idazmi]

(...) And this is where I got most of my info.

http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire...me=&Keywords=&Quotes=&Analysis=&Submit=Submit

May I say that I'm not surprised by this in the least? I encountered another argument from that site and addressed it in this comment. I mentioned that I had seen a particularly nonsensical argument used by XING06 before (revolving around something called "NDF" or Nuclear Destruction Factor), on that same site. The fact is, NDF was made up by that site explicitly to have an excuse to downgrade Star Trek's attack power feats and is in no way supported by the canon, as I showed there. The whole site is practically made of blatant bias and cherry-picking, specifically targeted against Star Trek.

 

[Yukaphile]

You're still ignoring me. Fine. You claim I won't address your points? It's the opposite. You're not addressing MY points. You call me a Trek downplayer. YOU'RE a Trek wanker. And I'm sorry I thought you could debate rationally.

Please close this thread.

 

[Antvasima]

Alright.

 

[Azathoth_the_Abyssal_Idiot]

Reopening this for a minute.

I should clarify that because the OBD accepted something doesn't mean we should just go "yeah, that's right" automatically. One of the initial points against it way back when the calc was made was that said feat was an outlier (along with things about it not making sense, but that's another topic) and that's honestly still worth debating if there aren't any other 5-A feats.

As an example, we have a calc for 5-A weaponry from normal Imperial ships in 40k, but don't use it due to it being far above what they are shown to do most of the time and contradicting certain other things within the setting. If the Enterprise has a single 5-A feat from reflecting a fragment of a neutron star and no other feats of this level, this feels like something that should be examined.

Please don't spam, though.

 

[Kepekley23]

And the OBD denying something doesn't mean we should go "that's wrong" either. But wasn't that one of your points?

 

[Azathoth_the_Abyssal_Idiot]

My point was more "an offsite calc seems to have been denied and we haven't evaluated it here", since I was referencing the calc on Narutoforums (as I hadn't seen the OBD page beforehand) and didn't wish to imply the feat was invalid because it was denied but more so that the default assumption shouldn't be that it is correct in this case, but I worded it pretty simplisticly.

 

[Amelia_Lonelyheart]

It was denied for it possibly being an outlier. I don't recall if it was ever denied for being mathematically wrong.

 

[ByAsura]

@Yuka

I actually remembered something else. It's possible they didn't use the tractor beam on The Pegasus because of the Ionizing radiation that the asteroid was blanketed with. Tractor beams consistently cannot lock onto objects because of this.

 

[Azathoth_the_Abyssal_Idiot]

@Dark If the math checks out, then I don't really have a problem with the calc itself, but the feat in question should preferably be analyzed if nothing else in this range actually exists for the Enterprise. I'd assume one could get more backing for higher-end Tier 6 or lower-end Tier 5 unless there are other 5-A/high-end 5-B quotes that just haven't been brought up.

 

[Yukaphile]

Am I still allowed to post here? I tried posting, but it vanished.

A few things to note. Can you name specific examples where the tractor beam failed to work because of that? Transporters and weapons I can name, but the tractor beam is more specific, and even as much of a TNG and DS9 die-hard I am, I can't recall that.

Second, is that any upgrades they got over the years weren't enough to alter the ship fundamentally from the one that left Farpoint, ie the same one that tried to push the small moon in "Deja Q." This is, after all, the same design class that fought in the Dominion War. Look here and see.

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

If they'd had planet-busting abilities from all they learned from the D, they would have upgraded it for the Dominion War.

@Azathoth the Abyssal Idiot Did you see what I posted for what the combined Cardassian and Romulan fleet did? That's pretty much multi-continental level, with on screen visuals, and Romulan Warbirds are consistently shown going toe-to-toe with and sometimes surpassing the Enterprise-D and her class. Yet it took a fleet of 20 Warbirds and Cardassian cruisers to cause that much damage.

Also, rating torpedoes lower than phasers is just flat-out wrong. Torpedoes have consistently been shown to be much more powerful, and they could destroy a city at most.

 

[ByAsura]

During Season 7 Beverly used a shuttle to go into a star and Worf couldn't get a lock with the tractor beam due to the radiation. This is but one of many examples.

 

[Yukaphile]

What episode? Though at this point it seems the mods themselves have largely discarded the star fragment feat and are looking for other ones close to Tier 4 or mid Tier 5 before seeing if they should bump it down to high Tier 6 or low Tier 5, so we should be discussing that.

I think most Trek combat is consistent with the TNG tech manual and that it was written with that in mind. Though the more realistic high-ends are, again, as you saw with the Romulan/Cardassian fleet attacking that planet, and Kirk's Enterprise doing that thing with a planet.

 

[ByAsura]

I can't remember or find the exact episode. There is others, but I just can't remember their exact titles either. Their sensors and transporters are also consistently disabled or crippled by this as well.

 

[Yukaphile]

I did bring up the transporters, lol. Remember the "Ensigns of Command?"

 

[ByAsura]

I found something else. 25 is actually one of the lower yields, there's Torpedoes with 80, 200, and 320, with 90 Istons being able to level everything in 800 miles, which (according to this) is 800 Teratons, or Continent level. Unless only 50% of the energy is the blast, making it Large Country level, which I doubt for Photon Torpedoes.

O'BRIEN: Ninety isotons of enriched ultritium should take out the entire storage facility and everything else within eight hundred kilometres.

 

[Yukaphile]

I remember that. They were taking out the Dominion's ketracel-white storage facility in the Alpha Quadrant in "A Time to Stand" from DS9. That was in a canister, though. Not in an actual torpedo. They beamed it into the facility, and boom. It's similar to the device Kirk rigged up when taking out that gaseous cloud lifeform in "Obsession" that took out part of a planet (suggestion a continental level explosion), and yet it's not something within their actual torpedoes, because they weren't even using a Starfleet ship, but a seized Jem'Hadar fighter.

 

[ByAsura]

The canister isn't, yes, but there's still Photon Torpedoes more powerful than the canister that they possess.

 

[Yukaphile]

Never stated. What we know is that Level 16 is the highest given theoretical maximum. We also know Voyager carried warheads with 25 isotons that could blow up a city. Though given the information we have at hand, we could speculate, that perhaps there are torpedoes with specialized functions that can be set higher, that aren't typically used, because Starfleet ships weren't about destroying other vessels but exploration. Voyager not having access would make sense since it's a scout, and the D originally was a hybrid vessel rather than a warship. This would actually also be consistent with what the Romulan and Cardassian fleet did, in that when they were preparing to massively bombard the Founders' planet, they got their equivalent of the highest yields of torpedoes they could find. That's all speculative, however. A lot of other showings are much weaker, and yet there's many others that are not.

 

[ByAsura]

It seems like you didn't even listen to what I said, they have Torpedoes of 80 (The Omega Directive) and 200 (Scorpio) isotons for advanced torpedoes, while the cansiter was 90. The latter doesn't scale to TNG.

 

[Yukaphile]

I was listening. I just never watched "The Omega Directive" (just SF Debris's review), though I did see "Scorpion." I wasn't disputing that. I was just tryring to come up with explanations for why sometimes they aren't available with these levels of super powerful torpedoes. The real reason is plot, but maybe it's just that they didn't have them on hand for that crisis or something. I don't see what the issue is, though, if we agree on continental. That's consistent with the Romulan and Cardassian attack on the Founders' planet. Though exactly how powerful would 64 megatons be in real life? Just asking.

 

[ByAsura]

Ok. Enough to level a large city (see here).

Anyway, the profile could use with a little touch up besides the AP. One thing, FTL for Impulse is based on a faulty blackhole calc, Impulse is actually consistently sub-light speeds (consistent guide for reference).

 

[Yukaphile]

What is enough?

What IS AP? I know what DC is, but what's that shorthand for?

And I dunno. I did a calc once? The Enterprise had to have been traveling at low FTL speeds to reach the Borg cube traveling to Earth in "Best of Both Worlds" given the stated timeframe. Obviously a massive outlier, however, since even in Kirk's era full impulse (well, we can assume full impulse at "best possible speed") was said to be 4,000 kilometers in four minutes or so during Wrath of Khan and The Search for Spock.

 

[ByAsura]

64 Megatons is enough to level a large city.

AP is Attack Potency. Unlike Destructive Capacity, AP focuses on energy rather than what you can destroy.

Ok.

 

[Yukaphile]

Okay, thanks!

I understand.

 

[Antvasima]

So what are the conclusions here? Should we keep the calculated tractor beam feat or find another, more reliable one, to scale from?

 

[Yukaphile]

The way that I see it, this is like dealing with Post-Crisis Superman. He has more than one universal feat, which are his best high-ends. His low-ends tend to be moon to planetary. The Enterprise's low-end feats are regularly as the tech guide showed, building level for phasers and 64 megatons or so on for their torpedoes, which would be the 25 isotons mentioned in "Living Witness," while the high-ends push closer to near the perhaps large country or continental and small moon range. That fleet of 20 ships that bombarded a world, being able to move two small asteroidal moons more or less the size of Phobos, and then there's what Kirk's Enterprise did back in TOS, which Idazmi illustrated previously. Those are the reasonable low-ends vs. high-ends spectrum as I see it. There's also the fact torpedoes should be rated higher, such as in "Q Who" and "The Nth Degree" where it was plain as day that no matter how "hot" their phasers get, as per the words of Geordi, that the torpedoes still pack more explosive yield.

As I've said, I think using a tractor beam to measure AP is odd, given we never see them employ said AP when there is no restraints put them, no plot to get in the way, meaning it's possible, and there's no other explanation other than the star fragment is an outlier. Take the Romulan and Cardassian fleet again. A single Romulan Warbird is comparable to a Galaxy-class ship. With the knowledge of the technology they had available, if they could use their tractor beams to just crush the planet the Founders were on within seconds, they'd take that, and send one ship under cloak. Heck, it's something the Cardassians could do quite easily. Yet they don't. And there's no mention of radiation at all like with "The Pegasus." They are unrestricted by plot to show off massive destruction against a planet, to set up for the reveal they've been lured into a trap. Yet they use their weapons instead, probably set to maximum yield. Also regarding tractor beams, they said in "Devil's Due" and I think in "Pen Pals" that they could use their tractor beams to "relieve pressure" on tectonic plates or manipulate them to cause earthquakes. That seems large country or continental to move, similar to Reeve Superman's feat in bench-pressing California.

Here's the transcript

PICARD: Her powers are, at the best, unclear. Think about it, Mister Worf. Transporter technology can make things appear and disappear. The illusion that she can transform herself into a Klingon creature could be created by holographic projection.
CLARK: And creating a minor tremor could be the result of a low frequency tractor beam projected against the tectonic plates.

The "earthquakes" in question were ones that affected at most a whole city, so... given that they called it "low frequencies," with higher frequencies, it seems very possible it's large country to continental to even small moon level.

You know, we could rename this to a general Enterprise or Star Trek revision thread? There's a lot needs cleaning up past the tier, AP, and DC, and there's also the possibility we're going to create profiles for Kirk's Enterprise and Voyager too, or the Enterprise-E. And as I've said, Kirk's Enterprise seemed to be much faster somehow. Idazmi never addressed my points that TNG ships were already moving slower than Kirk's ship which could cross the galaxy in 47 days prior to "Force of Nature," which was his claim, that that set the precedent to go slow or risk rupturing the space-time continuum or something (I admit I never saw the episode, I just watched SF Debris's review, but I am aware it's from late Season 7, and all my examples were from earlier). As I said, this seems like a retcon. Where does the wiki stand on retcons?

 

[Yukaphile]

This is how I think the tiering should be rated, based on what I termed the "reasonable low-ends vs. high-ends" spectrum above, that others have explained is based on adjustable settings.

For phasers, High 8-C at lowest frequencies, 6-B at maximum frequencies | For photon torpedoes, 7-B at lowest yield, 6-A at highest yield.

That's actually a lot more consistent with stuff like dispersing the soliton wave, the Romulan/Cardassian fleet bombarding the Founders' planet (which is visually what I'm basing this on), and what Kirk's Enterprise did to a planet. Also, that Geordi commented how technology hadn't changed that much in the past 70 or 100 years (besides the speed retcon), and that Kirk's Enterprise took on the Doomsday Machine, which ate up planets for fuel (though we never see it on screen, it is still around those ranges). It also uses the tech guide, since most of combat is based around the low-ends, and it was probably written with those in mind, as they can go higher.

Your guys' thoughts?

 

[Antvasima]

So what are the conclusions here? Should we keep the calculated tractor beam feat or find another, more reliable one, to scale from?

I would appreciate a reply regarding this from people other than Yuka.

 

[Yukaphile]

Me too, definitely. Especially since I'm basing this visually from the attack on the Founders' homeworld, as the best reasonable high-end, and I'd love other people's thoughts. Of course, might need to be tweaked a bit higher.

 

[Yukaphile]

Your grammar is very poor, mate. I'm not sure I understand? Also, the amount of power wattage they can produce is never consistent. I sort of went with the tech guide as a low-end vs. on screen feats as the high-ends (discounting outliers). As is, I think my suggested tier is reasonable. Do you agree with that?