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Scarab, Galor, Defiant Cannonical Strength

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
While I am not breaking away from the major topics at hand; this is an attempt to at least shift focus to a different discussion on those topics.

I want to take a somewhat closer look at just how powerful these three ships are supposed to be in Canon starting with the Jem'hadar Attack Ship AKA the Scarab Class. We will assume it gets its name thanks to its appearance and I will refrain from making the appropriate jab about what a Scarab really is... This ship in STO is decidedly OP compared to its kin but is that appropriate when compared to its Canon counterpart?

Well the original Scarabs were not really all that powerful. They had limited power and decent weaponry that at first was somewhat tricky for the Federation to adjust to. After learning how to stop their energy weapons from cutting through shields, however, they became much less of a threat. Their main feature was that they were extremely nimble. These were ships the size of a BoP that could turn like a fighter craft which is DEFINITELY worthy of note. However, in terms of hitting hard or taking damage well these things were pretty average. The Defiant tended to blow these into dust by looking at them the wrong way and could take a sustained beating from them. The real power of these ships was not in the ships themselves but the willingness of the crew to sacrifice themselves in very deadly suicide rams that were arguably the most effective attack they had. What really made the Dominion forces scary was NOT the strength of their individual craft but instead the fact that they had seemingly inexuastable supplies of absolutely expendable ships and soldiers. While your numbers declined theirs swelled making fighting them a horrible war of attrition that they would win.

So the Scarab really was nothing that special in terms of Tanking or DPS but it was an extremely Agile ship. However, they were also not particularly good shots as they missed a number of craft at crucial moments proving that their great control scheme was apparently not fool proof.


The Galor class was the workhorse of the Cardassians. It was decently big and reasonably tough but unfortunately to call it anything special would be a serious joke. The Cardassians seem to posses somewhat outdated technology and while it is still barely viable most of their weapons and defensive systems do not stack up well against the Federation and pale in comparison to the Klingons or Romulans. Maquis Fighter Craft were able to reasonably punish these ships while they could not scratch the Galaxy Class. So it seems while the Galor probably had good versatility, thanks to being the main line Cruiser and one of the most utilized of their ships, it was not particularly powerful on the battlefield compared with its peers. Later the Cardassians created the Galor's successor which was the Kelvin and that ship was far more respectable and a reasonable threat to anything it came across.


The Defiant, which gets no end of love, was originally an experimental craft that was literally over powered. It was designed with fighting the Borg in mind (Probably a good idea to not have lots of crew in a ship that is going up against the Borg...) but the design was horribly flawed with too much power for its systems to safely cope with. Miles managed to fix this thing up and get it to run smoothly despite this and the improved armor and heavy weapons coupled with its nimble design allowed it to be a fiercesome little ship. It could take a reasonable beating for its small size and dish out a very respectable amount of punishment in a short time frame. However, before you go thinking it was every bit the match of ships like the Sovereign or the MVAE consider that when it went up against just a SINGLE Borg Cube it got its tail handed to it on a silver platter and its crew had to be rescued. It was tough and deadly... for A SHIP ITS SIZE. It was far from the be-all or end-all of Federation war ships and likely the butt of many Klingon jokes. It WAS a stepping stone to more powerful warships to come and an interesting and possibly good design for a craft that you would engage the Borg with. Considering you could easily absorb its crew onto other ships if the Borg defeated it and in the meantime it could give them a very solid pounding it was not a bad design for dealing with them.


So what is my point? Mostly that when it comes to Canon none of these ships are particularly amazing. The Defiant is the most powerful of the three by leaps and bounds and even the Defiant is not that big of a deal when compared to other power houses like the Sovereign, Akira, and Prometheus. Thus it is a bit laughable how greatly inflated their power is in STO all in the name of making these ships rare new toys to be sought after.
Post edited by Unknown User on

Comments

  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2012
    Cannon = weapon
    Canon = established history/continuity of a subject

    That is all.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2012
    With the way these ships are being made available they are so rare that their power is kind of irrelevant. We blow up plenty of NPC bugs and Galor class cruisers, so they aren't really overpowered in the game.

    Any ship that the player captains is automatically more powerful due to having a character shield. It's not that all these ships are more powerful, it's just that certain ones captained by players are.

    I'm more bothered by the nature of the lottery to get the ships than by their stats.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2012
    It's been said before, ships are as powerful as the writers need them to be. In FC the writers needed to get Worf on the the Enterprise for the movie, so the Defiant was taken out quickly. In Ds9 it was the "Hero Ship" so it's not going to be so easy to kill.

    Makes it difficult to actually quantify their comparative power.

    -cheers
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2012
    Adamma. wrote: »
    It's been said before, ships are as powerful as the writers need them to be. In FC the writers needed to get Worf on the the Enterprise for the movie, so the Defiant was taken out quickly. In Ds9 it was the "Hero Ship" so it's not going to be so easy to kill.

    Makes it difficult to actually quantify their comparative power.

    -cheers

    That's a pretty bad comparison, lol. Your comparing 2 different time periods and two entirely different enemies....
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2012
    Meanwhile, somehwere in STO a Miranda blows up a Negh'Var.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2012
    nynik wrote:
    Meanwhile, somehwere in STO a Miranda blows up a Negh'Var.

    Is it also not true that near the end of the UFP tutorial you blow up a borg cube with your miranda?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2012
    Stormnnorm wrote:
    Is it also not true that near the end of the UFP tutorial you blow up a borg cube with your miranda?

    A Borg Cube that has been heavily damaged. Not to mention you have the assistance of three slightly more believable AI-controlled ships.

    So yeah, the believability it about the same between that and the Negh'var.
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