When you do see the Galaxy's taking part in the action, its always as a tank, sit there and shoot the enemies big ships, as their shield systems and armor is strong enough to withstand the beating while they slowly break apart the enemy.
The Galaxy's 12 phaser arrays, 2 torpedo launchers verses the tiny Miranda with 6 phaser arrays, 2 tubular phasers ("cannons"), and a total of 4 torpedo launchers were used in DS9.
Your also talking about a crew complement of about one thousand verses a maximum of 34 on the Miranda. Let alone the additional construction costs for the Galaxy.
But this is one issue with STO (as a game dynamic not as the game itself), in reality, we should have double the Miranda's and Akira class ships in the PVE's etc, and double the number of fighters in each battle, but then since this is a game, no one would be willing to fly in "lowly" ships to be used as semi-cannon fodder while the bigger ships (Galaxy and Excelsiors) tank.
Jim
Thats what i always was afraid of...
someone who takes STO as canon and thinks that STOs ship mechanic actually represents Star Trek....
Did it ever occur to you that a small Miranda Class may have a little less power at hand as a huge Galaxy Class?
Every time i see the battles of DS9 i tend to think that starfleet must have been very desperate to send ancient miranda class ships into a battle against such an dangerous enemy. The crews of those ships where doing suicide missions.
Do you seriously claim that their phaser arrays where just as powerful as the ones on a Galaxy Class?
Good night.
"...'With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured...the first thought forbidden...the first freedom denied--chains us all irrevocably.' ... The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. I fear that today--"
- (TNG) Picard, quoting Judge Aaron Satie
Did it ever occur to you that a small Miranda Class may have a little less power at hand as a huge Galaxy Class?
Size is not relative to the ships strength especially cannoncally in Star Trek. Considering they added roll bars (to increase the weapon load out) in DS9, it stands to reason their standard weapons were also upgraded to what ever was best in Star Fleet issue at the time.
In addition to this, clearly the warp engines of the Miranda's were updated between TOS and DS9, and more then likely, the Miranda's had plenty of energy to use their guns to full capacity. And with having less shields and life support needed to run the ship into battle, even a smaller warp core is acceptable in that case.
Even today, Naval ships are older and get retrofitted to the newest RADAR, communications and weapon systems available all the time, only difference, in space your not dealing with salt water trying to rust the ship, so its very reasonable to expect longer service lifes of the hulls in space then on Earth, and even with that, there are some ships pushing 80 years still in active service in various navies world wide.
If you pay attention to DS9 specifically the Dominion War episodes, you see plenty of Miranda's fighting, more then Galaxy's. Why? In war you want a small ship armed relatively speaking to the teeth then a big ship with a large crew capacity.
When you do see the Galaxy's taking part in the action, its always as a tank, sit there and shoot the enemies big ships, as their shield systems and armor is strong enough to withstand the beating while they slowly break apart the enemy.
The Galaxy's 12 phaser arrays, 2 torpedo launchers verses the tiny Miranda with 6 phaser arrays, 2 tubular phasers ("cannons"), and a total of 4 torpedo launchers were used in DS9.
Your also talking about a crew complement of about one thousand verses a maximum of 34 on the Miranda. Let alone the additional construction costs for the Galaxy.
But this is one issue with STO (as a game dynamic not as the game itself), in reality, we should have double the Miranda's and Akira class ships in the PVE's etc, and double the number of fighters in each battle, but then since this is a game, no one would be willing to fly in "lowly" ships to be used as semi-cannon fodder while the bigger ships (Galaxy and Excelsiors) tank.
Jim
What are you talking about? You are not making any sense. The reason there are more Miranda's battling in the Dominion War than the Galaxy's is because there are simply more Miranda's period. They were cheap and mass produced( like Fed vesrion of Tie fighters.) There aren't as many Galaxy Classes. Minus the Borg, there is nowhere in the TNG show or DS9 where a Galaxy Class slowly desrtoyed an enemy. They either decisivly disabled an enmy or destroyed them with ease. That shows an emmence powerful weapon system that Excelsior and Mirandas can't compare to.
Size is not relative to the ships strength especially cannoncally in Star Trek. Considering they added roll bars (to increase the weapon load out) in DS9, it stands to reason their standard weapons were also upgraded to what ever was best in Star Fleet issue at the time.
In addition to this, clearly the warp engines of the Miranda's were updated between TOS and DS9, and more then likely, the Miranda's had plenty of energy to use their guns to full capacity. And with having less shields and life support needed to run the ship into battle, even a smaller warp core is acceptable in that case.
Even today, Naval ships are older and get retrofitted to the newest RADAR, communications and weapon systems available all the time, only difference, in space your not dealing with salt water trying to rust the ship, so its very reasonable to expect longer service lifes of the hulls in space then on Earth, and even with that, there are some ships pushing 80 years still in active service in various navies world wide.
Heck look at the Defiant, size isn't everything.
Jim
Even the defiants Warp Core had just a fraction of the power of a Galaxy classes Warp core.
There is a huge difference between todays weapon systems and star trek beam weapons, especially todays weapons don't need that much energy to operate.
Surely they could have refitted a Miranda Class with the newest sensors and computers but Weapon and defensive systems need a lot of power to operate.
First: You can't just slap some Galaxy Class phaser arrays into a Miranda Class and send it into battle. The whole ships power systems would need to handle power they never where constructed for (i hardly doubt that it is even possible to retrofit such an old ship to handle that much power).
Second: There is no way to install a Galaxy Class sized Warp core into a Miranda Class.
Live long and prosper.
"...'With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured...the first thought forbidden...the first freedom denied--chains us all irrevocably.' ... The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. I fear that today--"
- (TNG) Picard, quoting Judge Aaron Satie
Minus the Borg, there is nowhere in the TNG show or DS9 where a Galaxy Class slowly desrtoyed an enemy. They either decisivly disabled an enmy or destroyed them with ease.
Humm no, such as in the push to get to Cardassia, the Galaxy's were used to take out the heavier Dominion ships while the rest pushed to break through the lines. And watching the battle, there was no "decisiveness" in the Galaxy's attack, they sit back and pound the bigger Dominion ships as the rest went into battle.
That shows an emmence powerful weapon system that Excelsior and Mirandas can't compare to.
Not really, if you watch DS9, and I mean sit there and watch it Excelsiors kill with just as much ease as the Galaxy class ships when they fire.
No modern Navy, just like no future "space fleet" would bring old equipment into the fight unless they had no choice. Over all most weapon systems are a question of number not "power" as ships would be equipped with the maximum number of weapon systems it can support through its warp core's energy output at the best possible strength weapons available.
Just because the United States took the Iowa class battle ships to war 40 years after they were first built, doesn't mean they left them like that, instead they armed them with the same cruise missiles and weapon platforms that then current new production ships had.
Remember the USS Valiant? It was the Defiant's sister ship. The ship found out the hard way that it can't go 1 on 1 with a Dominon Dreadnought, a ship slighty larger than the Galaxy.
In STO they made it to where ships like the Defiant, not only go 1 on 1 and win against Cruisers, but tank against 3 or more other ships. If you think that's the way canon Star Trek works, then you don't know Star Trek movies or shows and you are another one of those MMO groupies.
Second: There is no way to install a Galaxy Class sized Warp core into a Miranda Class.
And the smaller Intrepid Class warp cores outputted more power then the Galaxy's by default, and that the Galaxy's warp core had to be modified to get it up to where the Intrepid was. And this is something mentioned in TNG, not Voyager.
So again, you fail to see that size =/= power in Star Trek.
Remember the USS Valiant? It was the Defiant's sister ship. The ship found out the hard way that it can't go 1 on 1 with a Dominon Dreadnought, a ship slighty larger than the Galaxy.
Yes however, a experienced crew in a Defiant did mange to stop the USS Lakota, and handled itself well multiple times with superior numbers of Klingons and Dominion ships in the fight.
The point of the Valiant episode was sometimes people's ego's grow enough to consume them. The man makes the ship, the ship doesn't make the man.
Humm no, such as in the push to get to Cardassia, the Galaxy's were used to take out the heavier Dominion ships while the rest pushed to break through the lines. And watching the battle, there was no "decisiveness" in the Galaxy's attack, they sit back and pound the bigger Dominion ships as the rest went into battle.
Not really, if you watch DS9, and I mean sit there and watch it Excelsiors kill with just as much ease as the Galaxy class ships when they fire.
No modern Navy, just like no future "space fleet" would bring old equipment into the fight unless they had no choice. Over all most weapon systems are a question of number not "power" as ships would be equipped with the maximum number of weapon systems it can support through its warp core's energy output at the best possible strength weapons available.
Just because the United States took the Iowa class battle ships to war 40 years after they were first built, doesn't mean they left them like that, instead they armed them with the same cruise missiles and weapon platforms that then current new production ships had.
Jim
Keep in mind the the Galaxy Class Enterprise was the only class of ship that was able to weather the attack from the borg cube and survive. All other classes, including the Excelsior classes were laid waste. This promted Starfleet to start building the remaining Galaxy frames because it has the best capability in extreme battle than the other classes ,while remaining very versatile ship.
Just because a ship is larger don't mean it runs low on power making many systems less than adequate. If you ever looked at a cut away diagram of a the Enterprise-D there are redundant power reactors all over that ship. Its not just using power from the warpcore. The Sauser section had two in front of the impulse engines and the star drive section had one in from of the one impulse engine. The reactors are fusion reactors so that means nuclear power. If you know physics, then you will know that nuclear fusion is the most powerful source of energy that we know of. It is what powers the sun. Your ship size is not enough to drain power out of that kind of source.
Thats not what i was saying. The galaxy had larger power systems but also a larger drain so the extra power available was not what people make it out to be. By comparison smaller ships with smaller warp cores never seemed to suffer from a lack of power so i put it to you that the amount of surplus energy remains constant in all vessels as a design feature and is not proportionate to the size of the power generator. Think of it like the engine in your car, you can have 2 vehicles with top speeds of 150mph and 0-60 times of 10 seconds but that does not mean that both cars have the same size engine since a lighter smaller vehicle does not need the same amount of power as a larger vehicle to achieve the desired performance. So you could end up with a 4 cylinder machine and an 8 cylinder machine with the same performance characteristics. Converslry you can take that 8 cylinder and jam it into the hole the 4 cylinder used and end up with somthing even faster. Like they did with the defiant.
As a time traveller, Am I supposed to pack underwear or underwhen?
Not everything you see on the internet is true - Abraham Lincoln
Of course it still means that the much older Galaxy class Warp Core was as capable as the brand new state-of-the-art Intrepid Class Warp Core, needing only to be tweaked to reach the same output.
Edit:
It did received a new Warp Core as well as other updates in 2370 ("Phantasms"), the quote I just posted taken place in stardate 47310.2 and the "Phantasms" was in stardate 47225.7, will assume "Forces of Nature" taken place before "Phantasms", still makes it true but ultimate irreverent as the ship was upgraded later (to higher capabilities I would expect)
They are not talking power output Drakon. They are talking conversion rates, meaning efficiency.
If you pay attention to DS9 specifically the Dominion War episodes, you see plenty of Miranda's fighting, more then Galaxy's. Why? In war you want a small ship armed relatively speaking to the teeth then a big ship with a large crew capacity.
When you do see the Galaxy's taking part in the action, its always as a tank, sit there and shoot the enemies big ships, as their shield systems and armor is strong enough to withstand the beating while they slowly break apart the enemy.
Whatever show I was watching showed a ship that was capable in every arena.
She was indeed wading in the fight in the Dominion Wars, she was not a sideline fighter.
Don't believe me? Likely.
But go ahead and watch DS9 episode Sacrifice of Angels.
Look at the fleet formations the Galaxy placement and the action of the Galaxy during the fight. She is at the fore and forward mid of the Fleet. Not the rear or center.
All throughout that fight the Galaxy class ships are seen even at the BACK of the enemy fleet engaging in a flanking maneuver.
Clearly a stand still and pot shot ship yes?
Also look at the first large ship shots fired by the Feds.
It is two Galaxy class ships that close in on a Cardassian ship and take pathetically small shots at it and destroy it on the spot.
Also I am willing to bet that no-one in this thread even knows what an SDE is in Star Trek nor how the Phaser Configuration affects an SDE or the meaning of an SDE on energy output.
If you did, then you would know that the Galaxy Class vessels by default, tied with the Nebula, have the highest phaser output period of any ship in the Fleet.
The ships in Star Trek are equipped with enough power to handle operation all systems at their peak and then some.
the competition with the intrepid was a competition about efficiency. power conversion level, thats the ratio for how much you get out of what you put in, that has nothing to do with the actual power generation. the intrepid core is seriously tiny, no way they could take such a mature piece of equipment and cut its size down to a 5th and have it produce more power then the most powerful active core around in a galaxy class. nothing on a galaxy is old ether. we are talking about less then a decade more advanced here, and dealing with all mature technology. there will be no quantum leaps in power or ability in that short amount of time for weapons, computing, warp cores, anything. break thoughts every now and then? sure bioneural computing, that liquid deuterium core. that might have served a niche purpose in some way but it didn't replace more stranded cores or anything.
its hard to figure out warp cores, what physical factors mater, what % of the ships power is run off them, how much tallness has to do with anything. these are some conclusions i have reached
tallness- might have something to do with long duration use, the connie refit has a core that goes all the way up its neck, the miranda's is 3 of 4 decks high. there does not seem to be a massive difference in power output, and the miranda is a more short range in boarders ship compared to the connie being an explorer. the defient certainty had a not tall core, its a short range ship too.
size of crystal chamber- this proboly has the most to do with power output. the intrepid's core is pretty shrimpy and doesn't really have one. somehow they don't need one and can have mater and antimater mingling together behind future metal/glass. must give good efficiency at the least.
% of the ships power from the core- even though the galaxy has a huge warp core, it looks pretty shrimpy in the cut away. the sov's core is at least a bit taller if i recall correctly, again proboly for long range durability. the sov has at least 2 HUGE impulse fusion reactors as well, and in it's last showing apparently could put up an impressive offense and defense running just off the power they provide, wile moving at full combat speed. the galaxy class has 2, reactors that are at least as big as the 2 the sovereign has, though the sov's exhaust ports look huge, there are basically the same size as the ports on a galaxy's saucer, just at a steep angle. and the main impulse reactor is larger still, it likely has 1.5 to 2 times as much fusion generated power then a soverign has. and thats appropriate, the galaxy is more the twice the volume of a sov.
the gal dwarfs the sov so hard its not even funny. 1 did not replace the other.
other conclusions- on some ships like the defiant, i think a totality of the ships power comes from the warp core, it simply wouldn't have room for impulse engines that doubled as fusion reactors too. thats why its core is so large, it runs everything. on ships like the galaxy or sov, the warp core proboly mainly just powers the warp drive, and is the secondary power to other systems. the sov's core is a bit larger because its the fastest ship, faster then the galaxy class. the core sizes corresponds with the flat out top speed of each.
regarding phasers, length of an array is what maters, not number of arrays. the galaxy's dorsal array has 200 emitters, each emitter acting like a capacitor and holding its own energy. when an array fires you see some or all of the emitters on the array transfer their energy sequentially toward the fireing location on the array, and the power of the shot depends on how many emitters took part of this charging effect.
so... ships with out arrays at all are in a bad way as far as phaser damage potential is concerned, wile the galaxy class is the king of phaser output. also king of torpedo output, being able to fire 10 torpedoes at a time from each bay, or 10 sequentially in a single second. thats just whats been observed, it could likely do more. the number of launchers on the sov that are much smaller and have much less burst potential can only hope to match a galaxy's torpedo salvo capacity, wile only having about half the phaser firepower, due to its longest array being much less then half the length of the longest galaxy array, but having more powerful emitters. even if the type 12 could contribute twice the energy as a type 10, the galaxy would still out gun the sov. on a technology as mature as phaser emitters, theres no way in hell the type 12 can channel twice the energy as a type 10.
and why should the sovereign be more powerful then the galaxy? the sov isn't even in the same league size wise, and wile a higher % of the sov is proboly devoted to tactical capability then a galaxy class is, its still less then half the size of a galaxy. its the size of the galaxy that allows for such massive phaser arrays as well, thats not all wasted space tactically. a ship 10 years newer but less then half the size is not going to be more powerful, thats just preposterous, and thats assuming the design thats 10 years older hasn't been constantly upgraded.
remember, in 3 full array phaser discharges, the enterprise D was able to disintegrate as much volume of a borg cube as there is volume of a galaxy class star ship. the saucer section would have fit nicely in one of those craters. but then thanks to plot railroading it cant obliterate a single bop or a flight of bug ships in a single shot or 3. see all the inconsistency for yourself.
the competition with the intrepid was a competition about efficiency. power conversion level, thats the ratio for how much you get out of what you put in, that has nothing to do with the actual power generation. the intrepid core is seriously tiny, no way they could take such a mature piece of equipment and cut its size down to a 5th and have it produce more power then the most powerful active core around in a galaxy class. nothing on a galaxy is old ether. we are talking about less then a decade more advanced here, and dealing with all mature technology. there will be no quantum leaps in power or ability in that short amount of time for weapons, computing, warp cores, anything. break thoughts every now and then? sure bioneural computing, that liquid deuterium core. that might have served a niche purpose in some way but it didn't replace more stranded cores or anything.
its hard to figure out warp cores, what physical factors mater, what % of the ships power is run off them, how much tallness has to do with anything. these are some conclusions i have reached
tallness- might have something to do with long duration use, the connie refit has a core that goes all the way up its neck, the miranda's is 3 of 4 decks high. there does not seem to be a massive difference in power output, and the miranda is a more short range in boarders ship compared to the connie being an explorer. the defient certainty had a not tall core, its a short range ship too.
size of crystal chamber- this proboly has the most to do with power output. the intrepid's core is pretty shrimpy and doesn't really have one. somehow they don't need one and can have mater and antimater mingling together behind future metal/glass. must give good efficiency at the least.
% of the ships power from the core- even though the galaxy has a huge warp core, it looks pretty shrimpy in the cut away. the sov's core is at least a bit taller if i recall correctly, again proboly for long range durability. the sov has at least 2 HUGE impulse fusion reactors as well, and in it's last showing apparently could put up an impressive offense and defense running just off the power they provide, wile moving at full combat speed. the galaxy class has 2, reactors that are at least as big as the 2 the sovereign has, though the sov's exhaust ports look huge, there are basically the same size as the ports on a galaxy's saucer, just at a steep angle. and the main impulse reactor is larger still, it likely has 1.5 to 2 times as much fusion generated power then a soverign has. and thats appropriate, the galaxy is more the twice the volume of a sov.
the gal dwarfs the sov so hard its not even funny. 1 did not replace the other.
other conclusions- on some ships like the defiant, i think a totality of the ships power comes from the warp core, it simply wouldn't have room for impulse engines that doubled as fusion reactors too. thats why its core is so large, it runs everything. on ships like the galaxy or sov, the warp core proboly mainly just powers the warp drive, and is the secondary power to other systems. the sov's core is a bit larger because its the fastest ship, faster then the galaxy class. the core sizes corresponds with the flat out top speed of each.
regarding phasers, length of an array is what maters, not number of arrays. the galaxy's dorsal array has 200 emitters, each emitter acting like a capacitor and holding its own energy. when an array fires you see some or all of the emitters on the array transfer their energy sequentially toward the fireing location on the array, and the power of the shot depends on how many emitters took part of this charging effect.
so... ships with out arrays at all are in a bad way as far as phaser damage potential is concerned, wile the galaxy class is the king of phaser output. also king of torpedo output, being able to fire 10 torpedoes at a time from each bay, or 10 sequentially in a single second. thats just whats been observed, it could likely do more. the number of launchers on the sov that are much smaller and have much less burst potential can only hope to match a galaxy's torpedo salvo capacity, wile only having about half the phaser firepower, due to its longest array being much less then half the length of the longest galaxy array, but having more powerful emitters. even if the type 12 could contribute twice the energy as a type 10, the galaxy would still out gun the sov. on a technology as mature as phaser emitters, theres no way in hell the type 12 can channel twice the energy as a type 10.
and why should the sovereign be more powerful then the galaxy? the sov isn't even in the same league size wise, and wile a higher % of the sov is proboly devoted to tactical capability then a galaxy class is, its still less then half the size of a galaxy. its the size of the galaxy that allows for such massive phaser arrays as well, thats not all wasted space tactically. a ship 10 years newer but less then half the size is not going to be more powerful, thats just preposterous, and thats assuming the design thats 10 years older hasn't been constantly upgraded.
remember, in 3 full array phaser discharges, the enterprise D was able to disintegrate as much volume of a borg cube as there is volume of a galaxy class star ship. the saucer section would have fit nicely in one of those craters. but then thanks to plot railroading it cant obliterate a single bop or a flight of bug ships in a single shot or 3. see all the inconsistency for yourself.
I would just like to point out 2 things. First that its difficult to base any conclusion on what we saw on screen since it varys so much. There are times when the enterprise simply obliterates a target and times when the target simply ignores it. Just in that first video we see how the firepower varied from impressive to innefectual.
Second size isn't everything as most technology tends to get smaller as it advances the origional enterprises warp core took up the entire upper third of the secondary hull. Not saying your wrong but consider that a smaller emitter array made up of more efficient emitters may be equaly as powerful as the longer array. And since the real damage from a directed energy beam happens over time maybe the newer arrays are set up for longer duration charges transfering its energy to the target for a longer duration resulting in more energy on target. We do tend to see the D firing in shorter bursts than the E. Altho this may merely be a byproduct of special effects budgets since we also see longer firing cycles during the dominion war. Which you could argue are refit versions not really comparable to the D but the the D would have had those upgrades at that time anyway.
As a time traveller, Am I supposed to pack underwear or underwhen?
Not everything you see on the internet is true - Abraham Lincoln
And the smaller Intrepid Class warp cores outputted more power then the Galaxy's by default, and that the Galaxy's warp core had to be modified to get it up to where the Intrepid was. And this is something mentioned in TNG, not Voyager.
So again, you fail to see that size =/= power in Star Trek.
Jim
Not really.
They talked about efficiency.
That means how much power is lost between the matter antimatter reaction and the actual use of that power in the engines.
That's why they measured it in percentage not in absolute numbers.
Output has nothing to do with this.
An example of this would be some of those highly efficient ecodrives.
They are efficient because they get the most out of a specific amount of fuel.
But that does not mean it's going to provide as much HP as a big 8 cylinder engine.
What they said in the episode is basically that they managed to improve the engine of a 4,500,000 tons starship wiht a crew of over 1,000 to be as efficeint as the ecodrive of a 700,000 ton starship with a crew of 150.
remember, in 3 full array phaser discharges, the enterprise D was able to disintegrate as much volume of a borg cube as there is volume of a galaxy class star ship. the saucer section would have fit nicely in one of those craters. but then thanks to plot railroading it cant obliterate a single bop or a flight of bug ships in a single shot or 3. see all the inconsistency for yourself.
You cannot fathom the immensity of the TRIBBLE not given by the galaxies at 3:35. Direct quote from the two Captains of those ships. "Galor class on our Port bow. Beating the TRIBBLE out of our weak little buddies. @#$% SLAP THAT TRIBBLE NAO!!! Also tell the other Galaxy underneath us to open up, just in case he can slap us back. GO!!!!" "You want US to open up on that? Shoots." 5 seconds later... "EAT SPACE YOU CARDASSIAN @#$%^!!!!"
Alas, the galaxy class is not that powerful.
It is said the best weapon is one that is never fired. I disagree. The best weapon is one you only have to fire... once.
I would just like to point out 2 things. First that its difficult to base any conclusion on what we saw on screen since it varys so much. There are times when the enterprise simply obliterates a target and times when the target simply ignores it. Just in that first video we see how the firepower varied from impressive to innefectual.
i rate the ship based off its best showing, not the other times were the crew was to incompetent to spam the space bar.
Second size isn't everything as most technology tends to get smaller as it advances the origional enterprises warp core took up the entire upper third of the secondary hull. Not saying your wrong but consider that a smaller emitter array made up of more efficient emitters may be equaly as powerful as the longer array. And since the real damage from a directed energy beam happens over time maybe the newer arrays are set up for longer duration charges transfering its energy to the target for a longer duration resulting in more energy on target. We do tend to see the D firing in shorter bursts than the E. Altho this may merely be a byproduct of special effects budgets since we also see longer firing cycles during the dominion war. Which you could argue are refit versions not really comparable to the D but the the D would have had those upgrades at that time anyway.
size in about 90% of everything actually. it gives basically every advantage you could imagine. larger power generators, more room for bigger weapon emplacements, more surface to stretch long arrays across, more redundancy capacity, more damage soak, more presence, more everything. it just cant zip around as well.
not that any ship with a phaser array needs to, anything any point on an array has line of sight with, it can hit with a full power shot. arrays are OP, phaser cannons are a compromise. they are used in applications were they cant place a huge array on a ship because its too small. being small, it should be maneuverable enough for the low fireing arc to be less of a problem. but as an added bonus cannons can deliver more frequencies at a time to borg targets for an enhanced chance to damage it.
in cannon, most beam impacts last only slightly longer then it takes to initially hit the target, to deliver the totality of the energy all at once, as apposed to shining a flash light on them over a long period. just like in game, burst is whats important.
You cannot fathom the immensity of the TRIBBLE not given by the galaxies at 3:35. Direct quote from the two Captains of those ships. "Galor class on our Port bow. Beating the TRIBBLE out of our weak little buddies. @#$% SLAP THAT TRIBBLE NAO!!! Also tell the other Galaxy underneath us to open up, just in case he can slap us back. GO!!!!" "You want US to open up on that? Shoots." 5 seconds later... "EAT SPACE YOU CARDASSIAN @#$%^!!!!"
Alas, the galaxy class is not that powerful.
they were firing shots only using a fraction of the emitters too, it looked like they were just firing to disable, causing core breaches in such a densely packed battle would be... counter intuitive.
there was that war between the federation and the cardasians at the start of tng, only mentioned later in the series because the D was never a part of it. then the galaxy and nebula class started showing up on the front lines and the war suddenly ended, fancy that.
alas its not powerful in game? yes, its the least accurately portrayed ship in the game bar none. not only does it have the least firepower, its the least flexible in its station setup. when in canon its the most powerful, and most modular.
alas its not that powerful in canon? well based off its best showing and how phaser arrays work, it has no peer in starfleet, even up to the end of canon at the end of nemisis.
Thank you for you excellent postings, dontdrunkimshoot
Escpecially valuable to point out that the Sovereign is NOT supposed the Galaxies succesor, though the Enterprise-E was one. It's a completely different ship with a completely different field of use. (As Picard asks his crew if anyone remembers the time they were explorers).
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
Just imagine that 20 year old BoP in Generations getting annihilated by a salvo like this.
(just imagine ST:8 with a Enterprise -D Enterprise - D entering the battle of sector 001, how breathtaking that fly by on the defiant would have looked like. )
Another thing:
Yes technology tends to get smaller but not so fast, so ten year old Galaxy Class Warp core could be build 1/5 of its size and to be expected to have still the same capacity, i don't buy that.
And even if that where the case don't you think that if such a new genreation of warp cores wouldn't be installed into a Galaxy Class as well ?
(just a bigger version of that previous mentioned warp core, with again a much higher power outout, than a smaller one)
The same thing goes with weapons and any other technical device.
About efficiency:
When fighting a huge enemy ship, like a Borg cube, it doesn't matter if your runabout works at 100% efficiency and still doing no damage.
Live long and prosper.
"...'With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured...the first thought forbidden...the first freedom denied--chains us all irrevocably.' ... The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. I fear that today--"
- (TNG) Picard, quoting Judge Aaron Satie
Cryptic should make the Galaxy class as good on the offense as a Sovereign or Tac Odyssey, and nobody has ever provided evidence that this should not be so.
Thank you for you excellent postings, dontdrunkimshoot
Escpecially valuable to point out that the Sovereign is NOT supposed the Galaxies succesor, though the Enterprise-E was one. It's a completely different ship with a completely different field of use. (As Picard asks his crew if anyone remembers the time they were explorers).
Another thing:
Yes technology tends to get smaller but not so fast, so ten year old Galaxy Class Warp core could be build 1/5 of its size and to be expected to have still the same capacity, i don't buy that.
And even if that where the case don't you think that if such a new genreation of warp cores wouldn't be installed into a Galaxy Class as well ?
(just a bigger version of that previous mentioned warp core, with again a much higher power outout, than a smaller one)
The same thing goes with weapons and any other technical device. (snip)
Live long and prosper.
My Iphone has more computing power than most home pc's had 10 years ago. And it fits in my pocket.
As a time traveller, Am I supposed to pack underwear or underwhen?
Not everything you see on the internet is true - Abraham Lincoln
My Iphone has more computing power than most home pc's had 10 years ago. And it fits in my pocket.
Iphones and Warp Cores are not the same.:eek:
Live long and prosper.
"...'With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured...the first thought forbidden...the first freedom denied--chains us all irrevocably.' ... The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. I fear that today--"
- (TNG) Picard, quoting Judge Aaron Satie
You're still at this? :eek:
And with "arguments" getting worse all the time?
Geeez ...
'Couple things:
1) All fluff/canon/fanon arguments are VOID!
Ships were as powerful or as weak in any given episode as the writer needed them for his plot. There never was an underlying system to it, and any attempt to argue there is one just makes you look silly.
2) The ONLY thing that count here is game balance!
Ships in this game give up one thing to achieve something else. DPS vs tankiness vs mobility vs special powers. That's the whole of if.
The total amount of these abilities is determined by a ship's tier rating, which gives it a pool of powers and abilities to distribute - from the lowly tier 1 miranda to current tier 5, tier 5/store and tier 5.5 fleet and lockbox ships. The Galaxy-R is the T5/Store ship with most of its balance assigned to tanking. It fills a role here. Other ships already fill other rolls.
You can complain all day long that the Galaxy was chosen for this role and not another - it's pointless. And you KNEW what you were getting when you bought that ship, didn't you?
3) Yes, in a more realistic approach, bigger ships would have more firepower AND better tanking stats than a small one. The reason that it's not that way in STO is, again: game balance! Cryptic wants you to be able to fly all ships (actually: to buy all ships), so they can't have some be overly powerful and others totally useless. The current system is a compromise to make it possible.
Sure, other games have done a different approach. In EvE, a bigger ship is actually better than a smaller ship, ships are not balanced - but if you lose your ship in EvE, it's gone forever ... and that's balancing it out.
Would you rather prefer buying a new ship every time you get killed? I mean, 'pretty sure Cyrptic would like the sales ...
4) Cruisers are fine! The Galaxy is fine!
There really is no problem with Cruisers in this game, if you compare capabilities among ship types. They're pretty well balanced.
What's really the problem is the lack of content that actually CHALLENGES these ships. We're running content that's balanced around T4/Mk VII to T5/Mk X ships, and even then, balanced around players of average abilities, and groups with non-optimized setup.
Of course, that means that a good group of tanky dps can tear through content without much need for a dedicated tank - which is the cruiser's role in PvE. THAT is why Cruisers don't feel as important or powerful as they actually are.
Of course, if Cryptic re-balanced content accordingly, or even just released new content at higher difficulty ... I'd bet that most of you would whine just as loud as you're whining now, it'd just be about "impossible content" ... :rolleyes:
5) FL2FP!
If you can't kill things in a cruiser, you FAIL! Hard. You SUCK! Brontosaur balls!
Even a simple Star Cruiser with all Mk X blues can tear through anything this game currently has to offer as opposition.
The Galaxy-R has even less of a problem.
The Galaxy-R's only problem is people who can't play.
People who complain about doing no damage, people who manage to lose 1v1 vs an equally geared Escort, people who answer with their mistaken view of canon to game-balance questions, and use even worse mistaken views of game-balance to justify outrageous demands.
FL2FP!
You can go back to arguing TNG vs. DS9 episodes now ... though I'd guess if you keep doing it a mod will close this down sooner or later.
Actually, it is. The Sovereign is a "weaker" tactical cruiser (in terms of firepower) but is instead more agile, able to keep up with the lighter cruiser escorts. The Galaxy, even though used in exploration (and we have laid out that "exploration" means "facing whatever bad you may encounter in deep space by YOURSELF"), should feature more firepower but be actually less agile and slower in sub-warp.
EDIT: But I also agree with flekh here. He pointed out the main problem: STO is a relatively simple MMO, relying on the fact that everyone can buy and use every ship and thus, all of them have to be "equal". What "we" need is simply another game, in this game there won't be any canonical ST feel ever. That still means it wouldn't hurt giving her a universal ensign slot, wouldn't it?
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
Actually, it is. The Sovereign is a "weaker" tactical cruiser (in terms of firepower) but is instead more agile, able to keep up with the lighter cruiser escorts. The Galaxy, even though used in exploration (and we have laid out that "exploration" means "facing whatever bad you may encounter in deep space by YOURSELF"), should feature more firepower but be actually less agile and slower in sub-warp.
EDIT: But I also agree with flekh here. He pointed out the main problem: STO is a relatively simple MMO, relying on the fact that everyone can buy and use every ship and thus, all of them have to be "equal". What "we" need is simply another game, in this game there won't be any canonical ST feel ever. That still means it wouldn't hurt giving her a universal ensign slot, wouldn't it?
I couldn't have said it better.
Cryptics ship system is just a simple MMO game mechanic.
The only thing they can do is to "bend" it, so Star Trek ships fit in somehow.
Especially the Galaxy Class doesn't fit really into this system, because it is a multi purpose ship. So the best thing is to give it something to make it as versatile as possible (but without breaking the game balance).
Now that there is the Regent Class which is having a Lt.Cmdr universal, my idea was to give the Galaxy class the same (maybe remove its lt. sc as a tradeoff), just to reflect its versality.
the Gama balance surely isn't broken because of the Regent Class, as it wouldn't be if the Galaxy would get a similar BOFF layout IMHO.
Live long and prosper.
"...'With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured...the first thought forbidden...the first freedom denied--chains us all irrevocably.' ... The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. I fear that today--"
- (TNG) Picard, quoting Judge Aaron Satie
Comments
Because Starfleet had much more old miranda class ships mothballed, than big expensive Galaxy Class ships.
Thats what i always was afraid of...
someone who takes STO as canon and thinks that STOs ship mechanic actually represents Star Trek....
Did it ever occur to you that a small Miranda Class may have a little less power at hand as a huge Galaxy Class?
Every time i see the battles of DS9 i tend to think that starfleet must have been very desperate to send ancient miranda class ships into a battle against such an dangerous enemy. The crews of those ships where doing suicide missions.
Do you seriously claim that their phaser arrays where just as powerful as the ones on a Galaxy Class?
Good night.
If STO was cannon, we'd be limitting 20% of the fleet to the Miranda class. :P
Size is not relative to the ships strength especially cannoncally in Star Trek. Considering they added roll bars (to increase the weapon load out) in DS9, it stands to reason their standard weapons were also upgraded to what ever was best in Star Fleet issue at the time.
In addition to this, clearly the warp engines of the Miranda's were updated between TOS and DS9, and more then likely, the Miranda's had plenty of energy to use their guns to full capacity. And with having less shields and life support needed to run the ship into battle, even a smaller warp core is acceptable in that case.
Even today, Naval ships are older and get retrofitted to the newest RADAR, communications and weapon systems available all the time, only difference, in space your not dealing with salt water trying to rust the ship, so its very reasonable to expect longer service lifes of the hulls in space then on Earth, and even with that, there are some ships pushing 80 years still in active service in various navies world wide.
Heck look at the Defiant, size isn't everything.
Jim
What are you talking about? You are not making any sense. The reason there are more Miranda's battling in the Dominion War than the Galaxy's is because there are simply more Miranda's period. They were cheap and mass produced( like Fed vesrion of Tie fighters.) There aren't as many Galaxy Classes. Minus the Borg, there is nowhere in the TNG show or DS9 where a Galaxy Class slowly desrtoyed an enemy. They either decisivly disabled an enmy or destroyed them with ease. That shows an emmence powerful weapon system that Excelsior and Mirandas can't compare to.
There is a huge difference between todays weapon systems and star trek beam weapons, especially todays weapons don't need that much energy to operate.
Surely they could have refitted a Miranda Class with the newest sensors and computers but Weapon and defensive systems need a lot of power to operate.
First: You can't just slap some Galaxy Class phaser arrays into a Miranda Class and send it into battle. The whole ships power systems would need to handle power they never where constructed for (i hardly doubt that it is even possible to retrofit such an old ship to handle that much power).
Second: There is no way to install a Galaxy Class sized Warp core into a Miranda Class.
Live long and prosper.
Remember the USS Valiant? It was the Defiant's sister ship. The ship found out the hard way that it can't go 1 on 1 with a Dominon Dreadnought, a ship slighty larger than the Galaxy.
In STO they made it to where ships like the Defiant, not only go 1 on 1 and win against Cruisers, but tank against 3 or more other ships. If you think that's the way canon Star Trek works, then you don't know Star Trek movies or shows and you are another one of those MMO groupies.
And the smaller Intrepid Class warp cores outputted more power then the Galaxy's by default, and that the Galaxy's warp core had to be modified to get it up to where the Intrepid was. And this is something mentioned in TNG, not Voyager.
So again, you fail to see that size =/= power in Star Trek.
Jim
Yes however, a experienced crew in a Defiant did mange to stop the USS Lakota, and handled itself well multiple times with superior numbers of Klingons and Dominion ships in the fight.
The point of the Valiant episode was sometimes people's ego's grow enough to consume them. The man makes the ship, the ship doesn't make the man.
Jim
Thats not what i was saying. The galaxy had larger power systems but also a larger drain so the extra power available was not what people make it out to be. By comparison smaller ships with smaller warp cores never seemed to suffer from a lack of power so i put it to you that the amount of surplus energy remains constant in all vessels as a design feature and is not proportionate to the size of the power generator. Think of it like the engine in your car, you can have 2 vehicles with top speeds of 150mph and 0-60 times of 10 seconds but that does not mean that both cars have the same size engine since a lighter smaller vehicle does not need the same amount of power as a larger vehicle to achieve the desired performance. So you could end up with a 4 cylinder machine and an 8 cylinder machine with the same performance characteristics. Converslry you can take that 8 cylinder and jam it into the hole the 4 cylinder used and end up with somthing even faster. Like they did with the defiant.
Not everything you see on the internet is true - Abraham Lincoln
Occidere populo et effercio confractus
They are not talking power output Drakon. They are talking conversion rates, meaning efficiency.
Clearly we are all watching different shows.
Whatever show I was watching showed a ship that was capable in every arena.
She was indeed wading in the fight in the Dominion Wars, she was not a sideline fighter.
Don't believe me? Likely.
But go ahead and watch DS9 episode Sacrifice of Angels.
Look at the fleet formations the Galaxy placement and the action of the Galaxy during the fight. She is at the fore and forward mid of the Fleet. Not the rear or center.
All throughout that fight the Galaxy class ships are seen even at the BACK of the enemy fleet engaging in a flanking maneuver.
Clearly a stand still and pot shot ship yes?
Also look at the first large ship shots fired by the Feds.
It is two Galaxy class ships that close in on a Cardassian ship and take pathetically small shots at it and destroy it on the spot.
Also I am willing to bet that no-one in this thread even knows what an SDE is in Star Trek nor how the Phaser Configuration affects an SDE or the meaning of an SDE on energy output.
If you did, then you would know that the Galaxy Class vessels by default, tied with the Nebula, have the highest phaser output period of any ship in the Fleet.
The ships in Star Trek are equipped with enough power to handle operation all systems at their peak and then some.
its hard to figure out warp cores, what physical factors mater, what % of the ships power is run off them, how much tallness has to do with anything. these are some conclusions i have reached
tallness- might have something to do with long duration use, the connie refit has a core that goes all the way up its neck, the miranda's is 3 of 4 decks high. there does not seem to be a massive difference in power output, and the miranda is a more short range in boarders ship compared to the connie being an explorer. the defient certainty had a not tall core, its a short range ship too.
size of crystal chamber- this proboly has the most to do with power output. the intrepid's core is pretty shrimpy and doesn't really have one. somehow they don't need one and can have mater and antimater mingling together behind future metal/glass. must give good efficiency at the least.
% of the ships power from the core- even though the galaxy has a huge warp core, it looks pretty shrimpy in the cut away. the sov's core is at least a bit taller if i recall correctly, again proboly for long range durability. the sov has at least 2 HUGE impulse fusion reactors as well, and in it's last showing apparently could put up an impressive offense and defense running just off the power they provide, wile moving at full combat speed. the galaxy class has 2, reactors that are at least as big as the 2 the sovereign has, though the sov's exhaust ports look huge, there are basically the same size as the ports on a galaxy's saucer, just at a steep angle. and the main impulse reactor is larger still, it likely has 1.5 to 2 times as much fusion generated power then a soverign has. and thats appropriate, the galaxy is more the twice the volume of a sov.
http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/8792/3axissizecompare.jpg
the gal dwarfs the sov so hard its not even funny. 1 did not replace the other.
other conclusions- on some ships like the defiant, i think a totality of the ships power comes from the warp core, it simply wouldn't have room for impulse engines that doubled as fusion reactors too. thats why its core is so large, it runs everything. on ships like the galaxy or sov, the warp core proboly mainly just powers the warp drive, and is the secondary power to other systems. the sov's core is a bit larger because its the fastest ship, faster then the galaxy class. the core sizes corresponds with the flat out top speed of each.
regarding phasers, length of an array is what maters, not number of arrays. the galaxy's dorsal array has 200 emitters, each emitter acting like a capacitor and holding its own energy. when an array fires you see some or all of the emitters on the array transfer their energy sequentially toward the fireing location on the array, and the power of the shot depends on how many emitters took part of this charging effect.
so... ships with out arrays at all are in a bad way as far as phaser damage potential is concerned, wile the galaxy class is the king of phaser output. also king of torpedo output, being able to fire 10 torpedoes at a time from each bay, or 10 sequentially in a single second. thats just whats been observed, it could likely do more. the number of launchers on the sov that are much smaller and have much less burst potential can only hope to match a galaxy's torpedo salvo capacity, wile only having about half the phaser firepower, due to its longest array being much less then half the length of the longest galaxy array, but having more powerful emitters. even if the type 12 could contribute twice the energy as a type 10, the galaxy would still out gun the sov. on a technology as mature as phaser emitters, theres no way in hell the type 12 can channel twice the energy as a type 10.
and why should the sovereign be more powerful then the galaxy? the sov isn't even in the same league size wise, and wile a higher % of the sov is proboly devoted to tactical capability then a galaxy class is, its still less then half the size of a galaxy. its the size of the galaxy that allows for such massive phaser arrays as well, thats not all wasted space tactically. a ship 10 years newer but less then half the size is not going to be more powerful, thats just preposterous, and thats assuming the design thats 10 years older hasn't been constantly upgraded.
remember, in 3 full array phaser discharges, the enterprise D was able to disintegrate as much volume of a borg cube as there is volume of a galaxy class star ship. the saucer section would have fit nicely in one of those craters. but then thanks to plot railroading it cant obliterate a single bop or a flight of bug ships in a single shot or 3. see all the inconsistency for yourself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d734afLFPds&playnext=1&list=PLF37F38EA72A03613
if a galaxy opened fire like this in every battle it lost, we never would have seen it lose on screen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=H_XbWq49vUM
I would just like to point out 2 things. First that its difficult to base any conclusion on what we saw on screen since it varys so much. There are times when the enterprise simply obliterates a target and times when the target simply ignores it. Just in that first video we see how the firepower varied from impressive to innefectual.
Second size isn't everything as most technology tends to get smaller as it advances the origional enterprises warp core took up the entire upper third of the secondary hull. Not saying your wrong but consider that a smaller emitter array made up of more efficient emitters may be equaly as powerful as the longer array. And since the real damage from a directed energy beam happens over time maybe the newer arrays are set up for longer duration charges transfering its energy to the target for a longer duration resulting in more energy on target. We do tend to see the D firing in shorter bursts than the E. Altho this may merely be a byproduct of special effects budgets since we also see longer firing cycles during the dominion war. Which you could argue are refit versions not really comparable to the D but the the D would have had those upgrades at that time anyway.
Not everything you see on the internet is true - Abraham Lincoln
Occidere populo et effercio confractus
Not really.
They talked about efficiency.
That means how much power is lost between the matter antimatter reaction and the actual use of that power in the engines.
That's why they measured it in percentage not in absolute numbers.
Output has nothing to do with this.
An example of this would be some of those highly efficient ecodrives.
They are efficient because they get the most out of a specific amount of fuel.
But that does not mean it's going to provide as much HP as a big 8 cylinder engine.
What they said in the episode is basically that they managed to improve the engine of a 4,500,000 tons starship wiht a crew of over 1,000 to be as efficeint as the ecodrive of a 700,000 ton starship with a crew of 150.
You cannot fathom the immensity of the TRIBBLE not given by the galaxies at 3:35. Direct quote from the two Captains of those ships. "Galor class on our Port bow. Beating the TRIBBLE out of our weak little buddies. @#$% SLAP THAT TRIBBLE NAO!!! Also tell the other Galaxy underneath us to open up, just in case he can slap us back. GO!!!!" "You want US to open up on that? Shoots." 5 seconds later... "EAT SPACE YOU CARDASSIAN @#$%^!!!!"
Alas, the galaxy class is not that powerful.
i rate the ship based off its best showing, not the other times were the crew was to incompetent to spam the space bar.
size in about 90% of everything actually. it gives basically every advantage you could imagine. larger power generators, more room for bigger weapon emplacements, more surface to stretch long arrays across, more redundancy capacity, more damage soak, more presence, more everything. it just cant zip around as well.
not that any ship with a phaser array needs to, anything any point on an array has line of sight with, it can hit with a full power shot. arrays are OP, phaser cannons are a compromise. they are used in applications were they cant place a huge array on a ship because its too small. being small, it should be maneuverable enough for the low fireing arc to be less of a problem. but as an added bonus cannons can deliver more frequencies at a time to borg targets for an enhanced chance to damage it.
in cannon, most beam impacts last only slightly longer then it takes to initially hit the target, to deliver the totality of the energy all at once, as apposed to shining a flash light on them over a long period. just like in game, burst is whats important.
they were firing shots only using a fraction of the emitters too, it looked like they were just firing to disable, causing core breaches in such a densely packed battle would be... counter intuitive.
there was that war between the federation and the cardasians at the start of tng, only mentioned later in the series because the D was never a part of it. then the galaxy and nebula class started showing up on the front lines and the war suddenly ended, fancy that.
alas its not powerful in game? yes, its the least accurately portrayed ship in the game bar none. not only does it have the least firepower, its the least flexible in its station setup. when in canon its the most powerful, and most modular.
alas its not that powerful in canon? well based off its best showing and how phaser arrays work, it has no peer in starfleet, even up to the end of canon at the end of nemisis.
Then each ship could simbly carry a modifier for each type of weapon.
So an escort may have a 1.1 cannons 0.9 beams 1.0 torpedo.
While a cruiser would have a 1.1 beams 0.9 cannona 1.0 torpedo.
Then it would be simpler to attach better modifiers to specific ships for whatever reason.
Not everything you see on the internet is true - Abraham Lincoln
Occidere populo et effercio confractus
Escpecially valuable to point out that the Sovereign is NOT supposed the Galaxies succesor, though the Enterprise-E was one. It's a completely different ship with a completely different field of use. (As Picard asks his crew if anyone remembers the time they were explorers).
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
(just imagine ST:8 with a Enterprise -D
Another thing:
Yes technology tends to get smaller but not so fast, so ten year old Galaxy Class Warp core could be build 1/5 of its size and to be expected to have still the same capacity, i don't buy that.
And even if that where the case don't you think that if such a new genreation of warp cores wouldn't be installed into a Galaxy Class as well ?
(just a bigger version of that previous mentioned warp core, with again a much higher power outout, than a smaller one)
The same thing goes with weapons and any other technical device.
About efficiency:
When fighting a huge enemy ship, like a Borg cube, it doesn't matter if your runabout works at 100% efficiency and still doing no damage.
Live long and prosper.
Thats a good reason why not^
My Iphone has more computing power than most home pc's had 10 years ago. And it fits in my pocket.
Not everything you see on the internet is true - Abraham Lincoln
Occidere populo et effercio confractus
Live long and prosper.
And with "arguments" getting worse all the time?
Geeez ...
'Couple things:
1) All fluff/canon/fanon arguments are VOID!
Ships were as powerful or as weak in any given episode as the writer needed them for his plot. There never was an underlying system to it, and any attempt to argue there is one just makes you look silly.
2) The ONLY thing that count here is game balance!
Ships in this game give up one thing to achieve something else. DPS vs tankiness vs mobility vs special powers. That's the whole of if.
The total amount of these abilities is determined by a ship's tier rating, which gives it a pool of powers and abilities to distribute - from the lowly tier 1 miranda to current tier 5, tier 5/store and tier 5.5 fleet and lockbox ships.
The Galaxy-R is the T5/Store ship with most of its balance assigned to tanking. It fills a role here. Other ships already fill other rolls.
You can complain all day long that the Galaxy was chosen for this role and not another - it's pointless. And you KNEW what you were getting when you bought that ship, didn't you?
3) Yes, in a more realistic approach, bigger ships would have more firepower AND better tanking stats than a small one. The reason that it's not that way in STO is, again: game balance! Cryptic wants you to be able to fly all ships (actually: to buy all ships), so they can't have some be overly powerful and others totally useless. The current system is a compromise to make it possible.
Sure, other games have done a different approach. In EvE, a bigger ship is actually better than a smaller ship, ships are not balanced - but if you lose your ship in EvE, it's gone forever ... and that's balancing it out.
Would you rather prefer buying a new ship every time you get killed? I mean, 'pretty sure Cyrptic would like the sales ...
4) Cruisers are fine! The Galaxy is fine!
There really is no problem with Cruisers in this game, if you compare capabilities among ship types. They're pretty well balanced.
What's really the problem is the lack of content that actually CHALLENGES these ships. We're running content that's balanced around T4/Mk VII to T5/Mk X ships, and even then, balanced around players of average abilities, and groups with non-optimized setup.
Of course, that means that a good group of tanky dps can tear through content without much need for a dedicated tank - which is the cruiser's role in PvE. THAT is why Cruisers don't feel as important or powerful as they actually are.
Of course, if Cryptic re-balanced content accordingly, or even just released new content at higher difficulty ... I'd bet that most of you would whine just as loud as you're whining now, it'd just be about "impossible content" ... :rolleyes:
5) FL2FP!
If you can't kill things in a cruiser, you FAIL! Hard. You SUCK! Brontosaur balls!
Even a simple Star Cruiser with all Mk X blues can tear through anything this game currently has to offer as opposition.
The Galaxy-R has even less of a problem.
The Galaxy-R's only problem is people who can't play.
People who complain about doing no damage, people who manage to lose 1v1 vs an equally geared Escort, people who answer with their mistaken view of canon to game-balance questions, and use even worse mistaken views of game-balance to justify outrageous demands.
FL2FP!
You can go back to arguing TNG vs. DS9 episodes now ... though I'd guess if you keep doing it a mod will close this down sooner or later.
Actually, it is. The Sovereign is a "weaker" tactical cruiser (in terms of firepower) but is instead more agile, able to keep up with the lighter cruiser escorts. The Galaxy, even though used in exploration (and we have laid out that "exploration" means "facing whatever bad you may encounter in deep space by YOURSELF"), should feature more firepower but be actually less agile and slower in sub-warp.
EDIT: But I also agree with flekh here. He pointed out the main problem: STO is a relatively simple MMO, relying on the fact that everyone can buy and use every ship and thus, all of them have to be "equal". What "we" need is simply another game, in this game there won't be any canonical ST feel ever. That still means it wouldn't hurt giving her a universal ensign slot, wouldn't it?
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
Cryptics ship system is just a simple MMO game mechanic.
The only thing they can do is to "bend" it, so Star Trek ships fit in somehow.
Especially the Galaxy Class doesn't fit really into this system, because it is a multi purpose ship. So the best thing is to give it something to make it as versatile as possible (but without breaking the game balance).
Now that there is the Regent Class which is having a Lt.Cmdr universal, my idea was to give the Galaxy class the same (maybe remove its lt. sc as a tradeoff), just to reflect its versality.
the Gama balance surely isn't broken because of the Regent Class, as it wouldn't be if the Galaxy would get a similar BOFF layout IMHO.
Live long and prosper.