to be fair TNG had a horrible budget and FX like space combat costs something i think is referred to as money
so instead the writers write stories that manly focused on confrontations they could talk there way out of or the confrontation was not even something they could fight but had to figure out.
it also goes back to picard's character. he did not want to fight instead he rather preferred a peaceful conclusion to ending conflicts so the Ent-D never actually had a chance to show what it could or could not do as it was always holding back.
almost every time picard ordered them to fire it was to disable or at a lower power setting. only time i think they went full on to an enemy was the borg
Yeah, I agree picard was a wuss and the writers didn't help. But it's still the canon the game devs have to work with. You see the galaxy it's avoid fights, losing fights, and only very rarely winning them. That really doesn't translate into DPS-monster.
They talk about, in the show, how the galaxy is very powerful, but that's not how it actually performs. Really, a lot of the "very powerful" talk probably translate into "big engines" and not "superior firepower" anyway.
Um, you mean two galaxies blowing up one of the most powerful ships the Cardassians had with two shots and withstanding and being able to fend off three Jem Hadar attack ships (despite their shielding being vulnerable) up until the point where one rams it?
And how about the fact that the Galaxy class ship was able to survive multiple attacks from the Borg and even do a bit of damage when an entire fleet of federation ships were not able to even make a dent in a single cube?
Yes, I mean two of the supposedly most powerful federation ships being required to take out one of the one of the most powerful cardassian ships. It could have been even more ships, or more shots, that weren't shown on screen. But we know it takes at LEAST two galaxies to tear down a galor.
And I never said the galaxy couldn't tank. In fact I've said the opposite, as that seems to be the only thing it's good at. It could indeed survive multiple attacks from the jem'hadar, without doing much damage in return, until it ultimately dies anyway.
But if I wanted to send a ship on a mission to get shot at and beat up on, a galaxy would be on my short list. However, if I wanted to send a ship on a combat mission where there was a remote chance I might want the ship to destroy another ship...Then the galaxy wouldn't make the list at all.
You are confusing two different systems of measurement. When they are talking about explosive yields in isotons, they are referring to the energy that would be released by an isotone of some standard explosive material.
It is similar to how a thermonuclear bomb weighs less than one ton but can have a 1 million ton explosive yield, because the first unit measures mass and the second unit measures energy released by a ton of TNT.
Also, the Defiant being the most powerful ship in the sector is not exactly high praise considering that a sector in canon seems to be only a few light years in diameter.
I think you got a bit confused there. A bomb is described in terms of yield, which has nothing to do with its physical weight, yes. But Janeway described the weight of ore in isotons -- implying that the iso- prefix is a multiplier of tonnage, just like kiloton and megaton. She was describing the weight of the ore, as a measurement of how much they had, which doesn't make sense if an isoton is greater than a ton (and especially not if it's greater than megaton).
The only way "isoton" makes sense is if it's on a completely different measurement scale than metric, and the 'ton' part is just a coincidence.
The examples given vary from 'several sectors within three light years' to 'one sector is ten light years', to even a single sector containing 'seven Earth Outpost Stations, the Romulan Neutral Zone, as well as Romulus and Romii.'
So, just as with "isoton", we see the word "sector" just being bandied around because it's spacey. The writers clearly were not working from any guidelines as far as measurements go.
Um, you mean two galaxies blowing up one of the most powerful ships the Cardassians had with two shots and withstanding and being able to fend off three Jem Hadar attack ships (despite their shielding being vulnerable) up until the point where one rams it?
<<And how about the fact that the Galaxy class ship was able to survive multiple attacks from the Borg and even do a bit of damage when an entire fleet of federation ships were not able to even make a dent in a single cube?
>>
Well, if you review the battle scene from "The Die Is Cast", a single Jem'Hadar Bug ship was also able to inflict significant damage on a Galor/Keldon ship, so this still doesn't give a lot of creditability to the firepower of the Galaxy Class "GCS" ships. And as far as the Ent-D surviving its encounter with the Borg, had it not been for the for the near by Nebula to hide in, the ship would have been toast ("The Best of Both Worlds").
The bottom line is that in TNG, the vast majority of the battles that the Ent-D won, came from strategy and tactics, and not just sheer weapons power. Let's recap:
Ent-D .vs Probe ("Arsenal of Freedom"): Fail. The probe was out maneuvering and overpowering the Ent-D, and the Ent-D had to rely on tactics, and not sheer firepower, to win.
Ent-D vs Tamarians ("Darmok": Fail. The Tamarians were clearly able to give as much of a fight back to the Ent-D as it was taking from the Ent-D.
Ent-D vs Romulans ("Tin Man"): Fail (Since Data stated that the Romulan Warbird was more powerful than the Ent-D)
Ent-D vs Ferengi in 2 BOP's ("Rascals"): Fail. The Ent-D was easily overpowered by the Ferengi in their 2 BOP's.
Ent-D vs Borg ("Desent") has to resort to hinding in a Sun and utilizing the Sun's energy to defeat the Borg, and not the sheer firepower of the ship itself.
Ent-D vs Cardasssians ("Chain of Command"): Fail. This episode really illustrates part of the weakness of the TNG-era GCS's. In order to make the Ent-D more "battle ready", whole sections and divisions had to be taken offline. There just wasn't enough power available to to be both an exploration ship AND a "Battle-Ship".
GCS vs Jem'Hadar Attack Ship: Fail. The ramming wasn't the only problem that the Odessey had. There was absolutely no evidence that the GCS was able to destroy a single "Bug" ship, even after transferring all of their shield power to weapons AND with the assistance of two Runabouts. Bashir's diaglog states the "One of the Jem'Haddar ships is making a direct run for the Odessey". In order to have "one" of something, you have to have at least "two" things, so it can be assumed that at least two of the Jem'Haddar ships survived.
Ent-D vs 20 year old BOP ("Generations"): Epic Fail. The problem wasn't only the fact the the BOP was able to penetrate the Ent-D shields, but also the fact that the firepower that the Ent-D was able to muster couldn't penetrate the BOP shields.
Although we see that the Ent-D fired once or twice on the BOP, it is clear from the dialog that the Ent-D fired more than what was shown since the BOP weapons officer states that "our shields are holding", and we have NEVER seen a character utter that phrase when something was not impacting against the shields.
So, it appears that the game is taking its cues regarding the firepower (or lack of) from TNG itself.
I think you got a bit confused there. A bomb is described in terms of yield, which has nothing to do with its physical weight, yes. But Janeway described the weight of ore in isotons -- implying that the iso- prefix is a multiplier of tonnage, just like kiloton and megaton. She was describing the weight of the ore, as a measurement of how much they had, which doesn't make sense if an isoton is greater than a ton (and especially not if it's greater than megaton).
The only way "isoton" makes sense is if it's on a completely different measurement scale than metric, and the 'ton' part is just a coincidence.
The examples given vary from 'several sectors within three light years' to 'one sector is ten light years', to even a single sector containing 'seven Earth Outpost Stations, the Romulan Neutral Zone, as well as Romulus and Romii.'
So, just as with "isoton", we see the word "sector" just being bandied around because it's spacey. The writers clearly were not working from any guidelines as far as measurements go.
That was my point. An isoton is a both a measure of mass and a measure of explosive yield just like a kiloton.
If you go by canon, it is somewhat confusing because according to Voyager:
(1) A 25 isoton photon torpedo explosion could destroy an entire city within seconds.
(2) A 54 isoton yield gravimetric charge could blow up a small planet.
(3) 200 isotons was the explosive yield of a photon torpedo with a class-6 warhead.
Now, by (1), an isoton of explosives would seem to be in the 10-1000 kiloton range, but a 54 kiloton bomb could not blow up a small planet.
So, even ignoring (2), a photon torpedo is pretty powerful since it is the equivalent of at least 8 large thermonuclear bombs.
And if a photon torpedo can blow up an entire planet like Mercury, then the amount of energy is incredible, much larger than all the nuclear weapons ever produced on the planet earth.
That was my point. An isoton is a both a measure of mass and a measure of explosive yield just like a kiloton.
If you go by canon, it is somewhat confusing because according to Voyager:
(1) A 25 isoton photon torpedo explosion could destroy an entire city within seconds.
(2) A 54 isoton yield gravimetric charge could blow up a small planet.
(3) 200 isotons was the explosive yield of a photon torpedo with a class-6 warhead.
Now, by (1), an isoton of explosives would seem to be in the 10-1000 kiloton range, but a 54 kiloton bomb could not blow up a small planet.
So, even ignoring (2), a photon torpedo is pretty powerful since it is the equivalent of at least 8 large thermonuclear bombs.
And if a photon torpedo can blow up an entire planet like Mercury, then the amount of energy is incredible, much larger than all the nuclear weapons ever produced on the planet earth.
So then, you agree with me that the writers changed anything and everything around throughout the entire franchise, so nothing can be taken at face value, and all evidence of any starship's strengths or weaknesses are highly suspect at best?
Because we never, ever actually see photon torpedoes do that kind of damage. That kind of firepower would make very short work of the Borg, or any other dangerous enemy that they weren't trying to just disable.
Think about the photon torpedo yield in Star Trek VI -- they were clearly trying to destroy that Bird of Prey, and that Bird of Prey was clearly trying to destroy the Enterprise and the Excelsior, but it didn't. Obviously, when you're trying to kill your enemy, you'd set your weapons to as powerful as they could go... but we see a torpedo savagely damage a small part of the Enterprise's saucer section, rather than completely obliterate it as you said it should.
Simply put, not a single thing that's ever happened in Star Trek makes sense, and arguing about how powerful a ship is is rather pointless given the RADICALLY HUGE inconsistencies involved.
The only way to reconcile the on screen evidence of Star Trek is if every single scene takes place in a slightly different continuity (i.e., TNG "Parallels"). It's the only way to explain why the Klingon Bird-of-Prey keeps changing sizes in Star Trek III and IV, despite being supposedly the same ship, and why none of the established rules of a thing (Warp Speed limits, travel distances, "isoton", scaling, even continuity) are followed later on.
I love debating, but Star Trek canon is about as consistent as poorly mashed potatoes that's been dropped on the floor and rolled around in by a great shaggy dog. There's just no point in debating it since, given all the contrary evidence on screen for just about everything, nobody can be right.
I have to step in with some elementary logic regarding the point of requiring two Galaxy classes to best a Galor class. (There are also many other points that I disagree with, but those are based on opinon and conflicting evidence rather than logical deduction.)
First, we did not see the resulting effects upon the Galor class, so we can make no assumption as to how many Galaxy classes it would take to best it; the Galor class might have exploded a second later or been absolutely fine.
Second, to achieve the damage we did see it took four phaser bursts from one Galaxy class, and two from another. Both of these ships took no damage themselves, and we can presume that both are tactically equal in their abilities; ergo, we can deduce that one Galaxy class could have inflicted the same damage with six phaser bursts in a fractionally longer amount of time, however as there were multiple Galaxy classes availble at the time, it was tactically advantageous for both to fire upon the Galor class in order to neutralise the threat with greater expediency.
To infer from that clip that it takes at 'least' two Galaxy classes to best a Galor class is faulty logic; in fact one can only infer that it takes at 'most' two Galaxy classes to best a Galor class, and it can be logically concluded that a single Galaxy class could also have performed equally well in the situation.
I have to step in with some elementary logic regarding the point of requiring two Galaxy classes to best a Galor class. (There are also many other points that I disagree with, but those are based on opinon and conflicting evidence rather than logical deduction.)
First, we did not see the resulting effects upon the Galor class, so we can make no assumption as to how many Galaxy classes it would take to best it; the Galor class might have exploded a second later or been absolutely fine.
Second, to achieve the damage we did see it took four phaser bursts from one Galaxy class, and two from another. Both of these ships took no damage themselves, and we can presume that both are tactically equal in their abilities; ergo, we can deduce that one Galaxy class could have inflicted the same damage with six phaser bursts in a fractionally longer amount of time, however as there were multiple Galaxy classes availble at the time, it was tactically advantageous for both to fire upon the Galor class in order to neutralise the threat with greater expediency.
To infer from that clip that it takes at 'least' two Galaxy classes to best a Galor class is faulty logic; in fact one can only infer that it takes at 'most' two Galaxy classes to best a Galor class, and it can be logically concluded that a single Galaxy class could also have performed equally well in the situation.
I'd like to add that we did see a one-on-one combat between a Galaxy and a Galor in TNG:"The Wounded", which ended in a clear defeat for the Galor.
but also, never compare what you see on your TV with what you get in a computer game...99% of the times you do, you get disappointed.
But it's okay to use the way a ship is implemented in the game to explain how it worked on TV to in this circular fashion explain how it works in the game...brilliant!
Ah, thos fabulous "upgrades"...that are so fabulous they were never shown, mentioned or even hinted at ever.
RRIIIGHHHT
But it's okay to use the way a ship is implemented in the game to explain how it worked on TV to in this circular fashion explain how it works in the game...brilliant!
yet you are disappointed about it...proves my point anyway.
Hardly anything is explained in star trek anyway, and if, it is contradicted in atlest 1 other episode or film. So no matter how you look at star trek there is no one viewpoint, or one right answer, rather than interpretation based upon another interpretation.
you can actually never say therefore ship A is stronger than ship B, because in one episode it was, in the next it wasn't. what ever served the plot.
I'd like to add that we did see a one-on-one combat between a Galaxy and a Galor in TNG:"The Wounded", which ended in a clear defeat for the Galor.
No, it didn't. There was no one-on-one combat, it was one-on-none combat, because the enterprise didn't fire a shot. Once again picard refused to engage his weapons despite being attacked, likely in much the same way an inadequately endowed man is reluctant to drop his pants for fear of being laughed at.
The point is, the Galaxy is clearly the most useless ship (cruiser) in the Game IMHO.
For all i care, other ships can keep having more firepower, but the Galaxy Class should at least get a BOFF layout that puts the player into a position to make the best out of a situation. But that's not even possible, low level Engineering powers are just not as useful as comparable tactical BOFF powers. Maybe they should make Engineering team have a slightly weaker version as Tact teams shield distribution effect.
EPtW should get a 30 seconds damage boost instead of just 5 seconds and so on.
At least then we could start talking about the Galaxy Class being at least a bit useful, but even then, it still needs it's both Lt. and its Ensign BOFF Stations being universal and a additional tactical Console slot. That's just a must have.
If they would go by the book the Galaxy Class should be the complete opposite to what it is in STO. Actually is should be the Federation counterpart to the Klingon BoP (at least how Cryptic made it). Highly versatile and adaptable, maybe not as much tactical focussed as the Sovereign but in no way as static and defensive as the ship we got in STO. Of course since STO is just a game and not a Star Trek simulation, there have to be some tradeoffs, like it's slow turnrate, but as always Cryptic exaggerated it way too much.
Making it the slowest cruiser in the game without giving it SOME advantage in firepower or other offensive capabilities is plainly unfair and just bad game design in my eyes.
Btw. TNG really isn't a good example about the Galaxies firepower because as someone already stated, the producers didn't had the budget/or intention to show big space battles.
But even in DS9 battles like in "Sacrifice of angles" we can clearly see that the Galaxy is a ship that has to be taken seriously, at least much more than a Excelsior or Ambassador class for example.
Curiously, no one is arguing about the (Fleet) Excelsiors firepower or the comparably awesome BOFF layout of the Ambassador, ships that are supposed to be inferior compared to the Galaxy Class. Maybe it's because these ships have at least some area where they can take an active role in this game.
But the Galaxy is just inferior and boring in STO, having the least firepower, the least Tactical BOFF slots and the least useful BOFF layout in general of any ships in the game, makes it just inferior IMHO.
"...'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
No, it didn't. There was no one-on-one combat, it was one-on-none combat, because the enterprise didn't fire a shot. Once again picard refused to engage his weapons despite being attacked, likely in much the same way an inadequately endowed man is reluctant to drop his pants for fear of being laughed at.
actualy the enterprise fired 2-3 shots and disabled the galors shields and weapons
So then, you agree with me that the writers changed anything and everything around throughout the entire franchise, so nothing can be taken at face value, and all evidence of any starship's strengths or weaknesses are highly suspect at best?
Because we never, ever actually see photon torpedoes do that kind of damage. That kind of firepower would make very short work of the Borg, or any other dangerous enemy that they weren't trying to just disable.
Think about the photon torpedo yield in Star Trek VI -- they were clearly trying to destroy that Bird of Prey, and that Bird of Prey was clearly trying to destroy the Enterprise and the Excelsior, but it didn't. Obviously, when you're trying to kill your enemy, you'd set your weapons to as powerful as they could go... but we see a torpedo savagely damage a small part of the Enterprise's saucer section, rather than completely obliterate it as you said it should.
Simply put, not a single thing that's ever happened in Star Trek makes sense, and arguing about how powerful a ship is is rather pointless given the RADICALLY HUGE inconsistencies involved.
The only way to reconcile the on screen evidence of Star Trek is if every single scene takes place in a slightly different continuity (i.e., TNG "Parallels"). It's the only way to explain why the Klingon Bird-of-Prey keeps changing sizes in Star Trek III and IV, despite being supposedly the same ship, and why none of the established rules of a thing (Warp Speed limits, travel distances, "isoton", scaling, even continuity) are followed later on.
I love debating, but Star Trek canon is about as consistent as poorly mashed potatoes that's been dropped on the floor and rolled around in by a great shaggy dog. There's just no point in debating it since, given all the contrary evidence on screen for just about everything, nobody can be right.
You are ignoring that most of the blast is absorbed or deflected by the energy shielding and structural integrity field. That also explains why the Enterprise D was capable of destroying a gigantic space complex with a single torpedo, because they had primitive or nonexistent energy shielding. It also explains why the Galaxy's hull was more resilient than the bird of prey, because the Galaxy had much stronger structural integrity force fields.
I'd like to add that we did see a one-on-one combat between a Galaxy and a Galor in TNG:"The Wounded", which ended in a clear defeat for the Galor.
Yeah, and that also shows the Nebula class ship, to which the Galaxy is either equal or superior in terms of firepower and defensive capabilities, utterly decimating Cardassian vessels.
You are ignoring that most of the blast is absorbed or deflected by the energy shielding and structural integrity field. That also explains why the Enterprise D was capable of destroying a gigantic space complex with a single torpedo, because they had primitive or nonexistent energy shielding. It also explains why the Galaxy's hull was more resilient than the bird of prey, because the Galaxy had much stronger structural integrity force fields.
I find it hard to believe that "structural integrity fields" functionally turned a torpedo supposedly capable of an explosive yield greater than modern-day nuclear weapons into a small explosive. We see charring, and pieces of the ship get tossed up as debris when the torpedoes impact... there's no way they'd be able to tone down the damage that well. Assuming that shields were capable of withstanding nuclear explosion-levels of force, we'd still see massive explosions when they impact on the shields.
It's not even a case of audience benefit, since the amount of damage the Enterprise takes is a very important story issue. What they say and what they show are almost always different, and rarely consistent because of all the different writers.
Discussing the Galaxy here. What can we do to make sure Cryptic/Devs fix the imbalance with the Galaxy class Retrofit / Fleet Galaxy?
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there was 2 occasions that come to mind were a galaxy got to actually show just how much firepower it had to work with, but both times its targets were basically invincible, so no mater how impressive the display, its didn't have any meaningful effect.
in Q who, with a few phaser blasts it disintegrated more of a borg cube's volume then all the volume of the defiant's bug ship kills combined. and the defiant caused them to explode, not totally vaporize. a bug is between 1/90th and 1/100th the volume of a galaxy class, and the craters in the borg cube were certainly larger then the enterprise's total volume.
another time was vs a Husnock warship, that ship wasn't real and capable of taking any damage. the enterprise fired between 6 and 10 torps in about a second, and a few full array discharges and stopped.
every other time in the show a galaxy class lost a fight, if it had fired similarly to those examples the opponents would have been obliterated, but those would have been short episodes, or they wouldn't have gotten a new ship for the last 3 movies. its best cant just be dismissed, wile all that is remembered is when the writing makes the enterprise lose.
the way the tech manual describes how phaser arrays work, penned by the same people that directed the effects of those weapons in the show, tells us the galaxy class has unmatched phaser fire power among federation ships, no other class, save the nebula, comes close to matching the length and number of emitters it can use in a single shot. the upper limits of the 2 huge torpedo bay's launching potential before having to reload is unknown, but per launcher, no other ship has seen coming closes to matching it. with a max of 3 to 4 per launcher shot in about 2 seconds, with several seconds needed between bursts for reload.
this is just the data for an early 2360s model galaxy, not one that has been refit in the decades past its introduction. tactically, the galaxy class is a hugely powerful battleship, yet it can be just as powerful an instrument of science and exploration. thats how starfleet builds its ships. people act like for every science lab it has, its that much less tacticly powerful, nope it doesn't have to give up ether thanks to its size.
Discussing the Galaxy here. What can we do to make sure Cryptic/Devs fix the imbalance with the Galaxy class Retrofit / Fleet Galaxy?
2 universal LTs and ENS stations, fleet version having 4/3/3 consoles. or 4/2/4, or 3/3/4 because of all fed cruisers, it should be the one with the most firepower.
Discussing the Galaxy here. What can we do to make sure Cryptic/Devs fix the imbalance with the Galaxy class Retrofit / Fleet Galaxy?
Get someone else besides Rivera in charge of ship balance? That's about all you can hope for. Until then, the Excelsior will be top of the pile. And the Galaxy will be an also ran.
I find it hard to believe that "structural integrity fields" functionally turned a torpedo supposedly capable of an explosive yield greater than modern-day nuclear weapons into a small explosive. We see charring, and pieces of the ship get tossed up as debris when the torpedoes impact... there's no way they'd be able to tone down the damage that well. Assuming that shields were capable of withstanding nuclear explosion-levels of force, we'd still see massive explosions when they impact on the shields.
It's not even a case of audience benefit, since the amount of damage the Enterprise takes is a very important story issue. What they say and what they show are almost always different, and rarely consistent because of all the different writers.
That seems like an argument from personal incredulity logical fallacy.
I'm not sure why you think you would see "massive explosions". To begin with, a photon torpedo contains very little excess matter in the warhead and they are usually detonated in outer space, so you would not see a whole lot of blackbody radiation from luminescent matter. In pure proton-antiproton annihilation, it would produce a photon, and of course E=mc^2 clearly dictates that the photon would not be visible as it would be of incredibly high energy. So essentially, in the primary reaction of an anti-matter warhead, you would get essentially no visible photons.
In a "pure" reaction, you might see almost no explosion, although in a real reaction, it would most likely produce quite a few subatomic particles as a byproduct, some of which would emit visible light. But still, the amount of visible light emitted by a photon torpedo explosion would be a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of the total energy, although as nobody has seen such a reaction outside of a particle accelerator, it is hard to predict exactly how it would behave in a large scale weapon.
Now, according to the TNG technical manual, structural integrity fields are more or less very similar to the main shields, so there is no reason to believe they would not have a similar effect. It is a fictional technology, but one can assume that if the main shields can absorb thousands of megatons of explosives, the structural integrity field can probably do something similar.
2 universal LTs and ENS stations, fleet version having 4/3/3 consoles. or 4/2/4, or 3/3/4 because of all fed cruisers, it should be the one with the most firepower.
That would be perfect!
Game developer who know what they doing would have done it that way IMHO.
It still would't be a competition to the Odyssey, since the very different BOFF layout, so both ships would have their own right to exist.
Get someone else besides Rivera in charge of ship balance? That's about all you can hope for. Until then, the Excelsior will be top of the pile. And the Galaxy will be an also ran.
I haven't been up to date with who is in charge at cryptic for a long time...
So Rivera is still responsible for what they call ship "balance", that explains very much IMO. Especially the Superority of the Galor, D'Kora and the Excelsior compared the the Galaxy Class.
I wish someone who is a Star Trek fan and knows how ST ships work would finally be in charge for a change... or someone would finally make a game which is more like Star Trek than STO.
EDIT:
Just curious, was Mr Rivera really the one who decided to make the Galaxy that bad?
I just want to know whom we owe the Galaxy to be the baddest ship around.
Btw. does anyone know if any dev even bothers to read anything in this forum?
"...'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
If you have issue with Galaxy (like I do) and want to change something, write e-mail directly to Dan Stahl. The more this issue is raised, the better.
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My problem with the Galaxy is that it's not a science vessel. Its console and boff layout leave it tanky, with a slight lean towards science via the consoles. That said, since it will never ever match up with more offensively oriented vessels, I'd love to see it really embrace the role of a tanky science vessel (I'm sure it'll be impinging upon an already existing, if underselling, design, but that's ok since I'm sure the Galaxy class is one of the top sellers even without being statistically relevant).
Abilities such as Subsystem Targeting and Sensor Scan seem pulled straight out of TNG combat (I actually appreciate that the tactical boff is a Klingon who never learns space combat beyond Fire at Will and Torpedo Spread). I'm looking to take the ship even further, making it a full blown console cruiser, but for the price tag it just doesn't seem worthwhile given that its currently so outclassed.
Anyway, Galaxy class (and possibly the Dreadnaught) should be converted to science vessels. I think it's really fitting with what the Enterprise-D was in the series. The multi-mission science vessels seem to me to carry on the spirit of the Enterprise-D, but I personally find their appearance too unappealing to justify the $50 bundle.
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I haven't been up to date with who is in charge at cryptic for a long time...
So Rivera is still responsible for what they call ship "balance", that explains very much IMO. Especially the Superority of the Galor, D'Kora and the Excelsior compared the the Galaxy Class.
I wish someone who is a Star Trek fan and knows how ST ships work would finally be in charge for a change... or someone would finally make a game which is more like Star Trek than STO.
Not sure you would actually want that. If that were true, the Galaxy would be firmly set in a T4 state as it is an old class without much to make the Starfleet brass want to keep them around beyond their large habitation capabilities and generous numbers in service. At the same time, the Excelsiors would dominate everything in the galaxy, because a workable transwarp drive instantly makes all other types of drive (including slipspace) obsolete, and the power able to be delivered by such a drive would be astronomical (it would be no different than a sublight spaceship compared to a warp-driven starship). Those are the facts if STO were 'balanced' by a ST fan who knows how ST ships work.
As it is now, STO is set up in such a way that every ship has a place, and those who love the Galaxy class don't have to accept that their favorite ship's time has long past. Instead, there are refits available to bring older ships up to par with the newest ships in the fleet, allowing people to play a ship to their liking.
Not sure you would actually want that. If that were true, the Galaxy would be firmly set in a T4 state as it is an old class without much to make the Starfleet brass want to keep them around beyond their large habitation capabilities and generous numbers in service. At the same time, the Excelsiors would dominate everything in the galaxy, because a workable transwarp drive instantly makes all other types of drive (including slipspace) obsolete, and the power able to be delivered by such a drive would be astronomical (it would be no different than a sublight spaceship compared to a warp-driven starship). Those are the facts if STO were 'balanced' by a ST fan who knows how ST ships work.
As it is now, STO is set up in such a way that every ship has a place, and those who love the Galaxy class don't have to accept that their favorite ship's time has long past. Instead, there are refits available to bring older ships up to par with the newest ships in the fleet, allowing people to play a ship to their liking.
Excelsiors wouldn't dominate everything in the galaxy. One, the transwarp drive failed in ST:III and all subsequent Excelsior class ships used standard warp drives. The fact that this game's Excelsior has a transwarp drive is just a homage. Two, the ship class is so outdated it was essentially used as cannon fodder in the Dominion War. The Galaxy class would be outdated, but still workable. The Excelsior likely would be retired altogether and left as a tier 2 or 3 ship. Those are the facts if STO was balanced by a ST fan who actually knows how ST ships work.
The problem with the Galaxy-class in this game is that it's unbalanced compared to older cruisers such as the Excelsior, and now the recently released Ambassador classes. Sure, there are refits for the Galaxy-class, like the Fleet Galaxy. But then the Excelsior and Ambassadors get a refit as well - taking us right back to square one.
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As it is now, STO is set up in such a way that every ship has a place, and those who love the Galaxy class don't have to accept that their favorite ship's time has long past. Instead, there are refits available to bring older ships up to par with the newest ships in the fleet, allowing people to play a ship to their liking.
The game is however not what you describe since older ships surpass newer ships in performance instead of being on par with them.
As you describe it all ships should have a place and function in this game.
Every ship should have its niche, or its own place in a particular nice.
Every ship should bring something to the game.
What does the Galaxy bring?
Compare it with any other ship of its type (tanky ships) and you'll see the others can do everything the Galaxy can and additionally some things even better.
That is the antithesis of game balance and the antithesis of what you describe should be.
Comments
Yeah, I agree picard was a wuss and the writers didn't help. But it's still the canon the game devs have to work with. You see the galaxy it's avoid fights, losing fights, and only very rarely winning them. That really doesn't translate into DPS-monster.
They talk about, in the show, how the galaxy is very powerful, but that's not how it actually performs. Really, a lot of the "very powerful" talk probably translate into "big engines" and not "superior firepower" anyway.
Yes, I mean two of the supposedly most powerful federation ships being required to take out one of the one of the most powerful cardassian ships. It could have been even more ships, or more shots, that weren't shown on screen. But we know it takes at LEAST two galaxies to tear down a galor.
And I never said the galaxy couldn't tank. In fact I've said the opposite, as that seems to be the only thing it's good at. It could indeed survive multiple attacks from the jem'hadar, without doing much damage in return, until it ultimately dies anyway.
But if I wanted to send a ship on a mission to get shot at and beat up on, a galaxy would be on my short list. However, if I wanted to send a ship on a combat mission where there was a remote chance I might want the ship to destroy another ship...Then the galaxy wouldn't make the list at all.
I think you got a bit confused there. A bomb is described in terms of yield, which has nothing to do with its physical weight, yes. But Janeway described the weight of ore in isotons -- implying that the iso- prefix is a multiplier of tonnage, just like kiloton and megaton. She was describing the weight of the ore, as a measurement of how much they had, which doesn't make sense if an isoton is greater than a ton (and especially not if it's greater than megaton).
The only way "isoton" makes sense is if it's on a completely different measurement scale than metric, and the 'ton' part is just a coincidence.
As far as the Defiant-sector issue, here's a bit of reading:
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Sector
The examples given vary from 'several sectors within three light years' to 'one sector is ten light years', to even a single sector containing 'seven Earth Outpost Stations, the Romulan Neutral Zone, as well as Romulus and Romii.'
So, just as with "isoton", we see the word "sector" just being bandied around because it's spacey. The writers clearly were not working from any guidelines as far as measurements go.
Well, if you review the battle scene from "The Die Is Cast", a single Jem'Hadar Bug ship was also able to inflict significant damage on a Galor/Keldon ship, so this still doesn't give a lot of creditability to the firepower of the Galaxy Class "GCS" ships. And as far as the Ent-D surviving its encounter with the Borg, had it not been for the for the near by Nebula to hide in, the ship would have been toast ("The Best of Both Worlds").
The bottom line is that in TNG, the vast majority of the battles that the Ent-D won, came from strategy and tactics, and not just sheer weapons power. Let's recap:
Ent-D .vs Probe ("Arsenal of Freedom"): Fail. The probe was out maneuvering and overpowering the Ent-D, and the Ent-D had to rely on tactics, and not sheer firepower, to win.
Ent-D vs Tamarians ("Darmok": Fail. The Tamarians were clearly able to give as much of a fight back to the Ent-D as it was taking from the Ent-D.
Ent-D vs Romulans ("Tin Man"): Fail (Since Data stated that the Romulan Warbird was more powerful than the Ent-D)
Ent-D vs Ferengi in 2 BOP's ("Rascals"): Fail. The Ent-D was easily overpowered by the Ferengi in their 2 BOP's.
Ent-D vs Borg ("Desent") has to resort to hinding in a Sun and utilizing the Sun's energy to defeat the Borg, and not the sheer firepower of the ship itself.
Ent-D vs Cardasssians ("Chain of Command"): Fail. This episode really illustrates part of the weakness of the TNG-era GCS's. In order to make the Ent-D more "battle ready", whole sections and divisions had to be taken offline. There just wasn't enough power available to to be both an exploration ship AND a "Battle-Ship".
GCS vs Jem'Hadar Attack Ship: Fail. The ramming wasn't the only problem that the Odessey had. There was absolutely no evidence that the GCS was able to destroy a single "Bug" ship, even after transferring all of their shield power to weapons AND with the assistance of two Runabouts. Bashir's diaglog states the "One of the Jem'Haddar ships is making a direct run for the Odessey". In order to have "one" of something, you have to have at least "two" things, so it can be assumed that at least two of the Jem'Haddar ships survived.
Ent-D vs 20 year old BOP ("Generations"): Epic Fail. The problem wasn't only the fact the the BOP was able to penetrate the Ent-D shields, but also the fact that the firepower that the Ent-D was able to muster couldn't penetrate the BOP shields.
Although we see that the Ent-D fired once or twice on the BOP, it is clear from the dialog that the Ent-D fired more than what was shown since the BOP weapons officer states that "our shields are holding", and we have NEVER seen a character utter that phrase when something was not impacting against the shields.
So, it appears that the game is taking its cues regarding the firepower (or lack of) from TNG itself.
That was my point. An isoton is a both a measure of mass and a measure of explosive yield just like a kiloton.
If you go by canon, it is somewhat confusing because according to Voyager:
(1) A 25 isoton photon torpedo explosion could destroy an entire city within seconds.
(2) A 54 isoton yield gravimetric charge could blow up a small planet.
(3) 200 isotons was the explosive yield of a photon torpedo with a class-6 warhead.
Now, by (1), an isoton of explosives would seem to be in the 10-1000 kiloton range, but a 54 kiloton bomb could not blow up a small planet.
So, even ignoring (2), a photon torpedo is pretty powerful since it is the equivalent of at least 8 large thermonuclear bombs.
And if a photon torpedo can blow up an entire planet like Mercury, then the amount of energy is incredible, much larger than all the nuclear weapons ever produced on the planet earth.
So then, you agree with me that the writers changed anything and everything around throughout the entire franchise, so nothing can be taken at face value, and all evidence of any starship's strengths or weaknesses are highly suspect at best?
Because we never, ever actually see photon torpedoes do that kind of damage. That kind of firepower would make very short work of the Borg, or any other dangerous enemy that they weren't trying to just disable.
Think about the photon torpedo yield in Star Trek VI -- they were clearly trying to destroy that Bird of Prey, and that Bird of Prey was clearly trying to destroy the Enterprise and the Excelsior, but it didn't. Obviously, when you're trying to kill your enemy, you'd set your weapons to as powerful as they could go... but we see a torpedo savagely damage a small part of the Enterprise's saucer section, rather than completely obliterate it as you said it should.
Simply put, not a single thing that's ever happened in Star Trek makes sense, and arguing about how powerful a ship is is rather pointless given the RADICALLY HUGE inconsistencies involved.
The only way to reconcile the on screen evidence of Star Trek is if every single scene takes place in a slightly different continuity (i.e., TNG "Parallels"). It's the only way to explain why the Klingon Bird-of-Prey keeps changing sizes in Star Trek III and IV, despite being supposedly the same ship, and why none of the established rules of a thing (Warp Speed limits, travel distances, "isoton", scaling, even continuity) are followed later on.
I love debating, but Star Trek canon is about as consistent as poorly mashed potatoes that's been dropped on the floor and rolled around in by a great shaggy dog. There's just no point in debating it since, given all the contrary evidence on screen for just about everything, nobody can be right.
It is being overshadowed by other classes which are supposed to be older and outdated and is struggling to find a place to belong.
A small boost to its various stats here and there, and a potential universal slot would go a long way to making it more viable.
If any devs are reading this... please consider making a few tweaks to breathe a bit more life into this iconic Star Trek ship.
Thanks.
First, we did not see the resulting effects upon the Galor class, so we can make no assumption as to how many Galaxy classes it would take to best it; the Galor class might have exploded a second later or been absolutely fine.
Second, to achieve the damage we did see it took four phaser bursts from one Galaxy class, and two from another. Both of these ships took no damage themselves, and we can presume that both are tactically equal in their abilities; ergo, we can deduce that one Galaxy class could have inflicted the same damage with six phaser bursts in a fractionally longer amount of time, however as there were multiple Galaxy classes availble at the time, it was tactically advantageous for both to fire upon the Galor class in order to neutralise the threat with greater expediency.
To infer from that clip that it takes at 'least' two Galaxy classes to best a Galor class is faulty logic; in fact one can only infer that it takes at 'most' two Galaxy classes to best a Galor class, and it can be logically concluded that a single Galaxy class could also have performed equally well in the situation.
I'd like to add that we did see a one-on-one combat between a Galaxy and a Galor in TNG:"The Wounded", which ended in a clear defeat for the Galor.
pre dominion/breen upgrades that was...served!:D
but also, never compare what you see on your TV with what you get in a computer game...99% of the times you do, you get disappointed.
Ah, thos fabulous "upgrades"...that are so fabulous they were never shown, mentioned or even hinted at ever.
RRIIIGHHHT
But it's okay to use the way a ship is implemented in the game to explain how it worked on TV to in this circular fashion explain how it works in the game...brilliant!
Galor-class Type-3 Cruiser. Those were considered "top of the line" by Riker in the episode "Ensign Ro"
yet you are disappointed about it...proves my point anyway.
Hardly anything is explained in star trek anyway, and if, it is contradicted in atlest 1 other episode or film. So no matter how you look at star trek there is no one viewpoint, or one right answer, rather than interpretation based upon another interpretation.
you can actually never say therefore ship A is stronger than ship B, because in one episode it was, in the next it wasn't. what ever served the plot.
No, it didn't. There was no one-on-one combat, it was one-on-none combat, because the enterprise didn't fire a shot. Once again picard refused to engage his weapons despite being attacked, likely in much the same way an inadequately endowed man is reluctant to drop his pants for fear of being laughed at.
For all i care, other ships can keep having more firepower, but the Galaxy Class should at least get a BOFF layout that puts the player into a position to make the best out of a situation. But that's not even possible, low level Engineering powers are just not as useful as comparable tactical BOFF powers. Maybe they should make Engineering team have a slightly weaker version as Tact teams shield distribution effect.
EPtW should get a 30 seconds damage boost instead of just 5 seconds and so on.
At least then we could start talking about the Galaxy Class being at least a bit useful, but even then, it still needs it's both Lt. and its Ensign BOFF Stations being universal and a additional tactical Console slot. That's just a must have.
If they would go by the book the Galaxy Class should be the complete opposite to what it is in STO. Actually is should be the Federation counterpart to the Klingon BoP (at least how Cryptic made it). Highly versatile and adaptable, maybe not as much tactical focussed as the Sovereign but in no way as static and defensive as the ship we got in STO. Of course since STO is just a game and not a Star Trek simulation, there have to be some tradeoffs, like it's slow turnrate, but as always Cryptic exaggerated it way too much.
Making it the slowest cruiser in the game without giving it SOME advantage in firepower or other offensive capabilities is plainly unfair and just bad game design in my eyes.
Btw. TNG really isn't a good example about the Galaxies firepower because as someone already stated, the producers didn't had the budget/or intention to show big space battles.
But even in DS9 battles like in "Sacrifice of angles" we can clearly see that the Galaxy is a ship that has to be taken seriously, at least much more than a Excelsior or Ambassador class for example.
Curiously, no one is arguing about the (Fleet) Excelsiors firepower or the comparably awesome BOFF layout of the Ambassador, ships that are supposed to be inferior compared to the Galaxy Class. Maybe it's because these ships have at least some area where they can take an active role in this game.
But the Galaxy is just inferior and boring in STO, having the least firepower, the least Tactical BOFF slots and the least useful BOFF layout in general of any ships in the game, makes it just inferior IMHO.
actualy the enterprise fired 2-3 shots and disabled the galors shields and weapons
You are ignoring that most of the blast is absorbed or deflected by the energy shielding and structural integrity field. That also explains why the Enterprise D was capable of destroying a gigantic space complex with a single torpedo, because they had primitive or nonexistent energy shielding. It also explains why the Galaxy's hull was more resilient than the bird of prey, because the Galaxy had much stronger structural integrity force fields.
Yeah, and that also shows the Nebula class ship, to which the Galaxy is either equal or superior in terms of firepower and defensive capabilities, utterly decimating Cardassian vessels.
I find it hard to believe that "structural integrity fields" functionally turned a torpedo supposedly capable of an explosive yield greater than modern-day nuclear weapons into a small explosive. We see charring, and pieces of the ship get tossed up as debris when the torpedoes impact... there's no way they'd be able to tone down the damage that well. Assuming that shields were capable of withstanding nuclear explosion-levels of force, we'd still see massive explosions when they impact on the shields.
It's not even a case of audience benefit, since the amount of damage the Enterprise takes is a very important story issue. What they say and what they show are almost always different, and rarely consistent because of all the different writers.
Discussing the Galaxy here. What can we do to make sure Cryptic/Devs fix the imbalance with the Galaxy class Retrofit / Fleet Galaxy?
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in Q who, with a few phaser blasts it disintegrated more of a borg cube's volume then all the volume of the defiant's bug ship kills combined. and the defiant caused them to explode, not totally vaporize. a bug is between 1/90th and 1/100th the volume of a galaxy class, and the craters in the borg cube were certainly larger then the enterprise's total volume.
another time was vs a Husnock warship, that ship wasn't real and capable of taking any damage. the enterprise fired between 6 and 10 torps in about a second, and a few full array discharges and stopped.
every other time in the show a galaxy class lost a fight, if it had fired similarly to those examples the opponents would have been obliterated, but those would have been short episodes, or they wouldn't have gotten a new ship for the last 3 movies. its best cant just be dismissed, wile all that is remembered is when the writing makes the enterprise lose.
the way the tech manual describes how phaser arrays work, penned by the same people that directed the effects of those weapons in the show, tells us the galaxy class has unmatched phaser fire power among federation ships, no other class, save the nebula, comes close to matching the length and number of emitters it can use in a single shot. the upper limits of the 2 huge torpedo bay's launching potential before having to reload is unknown, but per launcher, no other ship has seen coming closes to matching it. with a max of 3 to 4 per launcher shot in about 2 seconds, with several seconds needed between bursts for reload.
this is just the data for an early 2360s model galaxy, not one that has been refit in the decades past its introduction. tactically, the galaxy class is a hugely powerful battleship, yet it can be just as powerful an instrument of science and exploration. thats how starfleet builds its ships. people act like for every science lab it has, its that much less tacticly powerful, nope it doesn't have to give up ether thanks to its size.
2 universal LTs and ENS stations, fleet version having 4/3/3 consoles. or 4/2/4, or 3/3/4 because of all fed cruisers, it should be the one with the most firepower.
Get someone else besides Rivera in charge of ship balance? That's about all you can hope for. Until then, the Excelsior will be top of the pile. And the Galaxy will be an also ran.
That seems like an argument from personal incredulity logical fallacy.
I'm not sure why you think you would see "massive explosions". To begin with, a photon torpedo contains very little excess matter in the warhead and they are usually detonated in outer space, so you would not see a whole lot of blackbody radiation from luminescent matter. In pure proton-antiproton annihilation, it would produce a photon, and of course E=mc^2 clearly dictates that the photon would not be visible as it would be of incredibly high energy. So essentially, in the primary reaction of an anti-matter warhead, you would get essentially no visible photons.
In a "pure" reaction, you might see almost no explosion, although in a real reaction, it would most likely produce quite a few subatomic particles as a byproduct, some of which would emit visible light. But still, the amount of visible light emitted by a photon torpedo explosion would be a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of the total energy, although as nobody has seen such a reaction outside of a particle accelerator, it is hard to predict exactly how it would behave in a large scale weapon.
Now, according to the TNG technical manual, structural integrity fields are more or less very similar to the main shields, so there is no reason to believe they would not have a similar effect. It is a fictional technology, but one can assume that if the main shields can absorb thousands of megatons of explosives, the structural integrity field can probably do something similar.
Game developer who know what they doing would have done it that way IMHO.
It still would't be a competition to the Odyssey, since the very different BOFF layout, so both ships would have their own right to exist.
I haven't been up to date with who is in charge at cryptic for a long time...
So Rivera is still responsible for what they call ship "balance", that explains very much IMO. Especially the Superority of the Galor, D'Kora and the Excelsior compared the the Galaxy Class.
I wish someone who is a Star Trek fan and knows how ST ships work would finally be in charge for a change... or someone would finally make a game which is more like Star Trek than STO.
EDIT:
Just curious, was Mr Rivera really the one who decided to make the Galaxy that bad?
I just want to know whom we owe the Galaxy to be the baddest ship around.
Btw. does anyone know if any dev even bothers to read anything in this forum?
Abilities such as Subsystem Targeting and Sensor Scan seem pulled straight out of TNG combat (I actually appreciate that the tactical boff is a Klingon who never learns space combat beyond Fire at Will and Torpedo Spread). I'm looking to take the ship even further, making it a full blown console cruiser, but for the price tag it just doesn't seem worthwhile given that its currently so outclassed.
Anyway, Galaxy class (and possibly the Dreadnaught) should be converted to science vessels. I think it's really fitting with what the Enterprise-D was in the series. The multi-mission science vessels seem to me to carry on the spirit of the Enterprise-D, but I personally find their appearance too unappealing to justify the $50 bundle.
Not sure you would actually want that. If that were true, the Galaxy would be firmly set in a T4 state as it is an old class without much to make the Starfleet brass want to keep them around beyond their large habitation capabilities and generous numbers in service. At the same time, the Excelsiors would dominate everything in the galaxy, because a workable transwarp drive instantly makes all other types of drive (including slipspace) obsolete, and the power able to be delivered by such a drive would be astronomical (it would be no different than a sublight spaceship compared to a warp-driven starship). Those are the facts if STO were 'balanced' by a ST fan who knows how ST ships work.
As it is now, STO is set up in such a way that every ship has a place, and those who love the Galaxy class don't have to accept that their favorite ship's time has long past. Instead, there are refits available to bring older ships up to par with the newest ships in the fleet, allowing people to play a ship to their liking.
Excelsiors wouldn't dominate everything in the galaxy. One, the transwarp drive failed in ST:III and all subsequent Excelsior class ships used standard warp drives. The fact that this game's Excelsior has a transwarp drive is just a homage. Two, the ship class is so outdated it was essentially used as cannon fodder in the Dominion War. The Galaxy class would be outdated, but still workable. The Excelsior likely would be retired altogether and left as a tier 2 or 3 ship. Those are the facts if STO was balanced by a ST fan who actually knows how ST ships work.
The problem with the Galaxy-class in this game is that it's unbalanced compared to older cruisers such as the Excelsior, and now the recently released Ambassador classes. Sure, there are refits for the Galaxy-class, like the Fleet Galaxy. But then the Excelsior and Ambassadors get a refit as well - taking us right back to square one.
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The game is however not what you describe since older ships surpass newer ships in performance instead of being on par with them.
As you describe it all ships should have a place and function in this game.
Every ship should have its niche, or its own place in a particular nice.
Every ship should bring something to the game.
What does the Galaxy bring?
Compare it with any other ship of its type (tanky ships) and you'll see the others can do everything the Galaxy can and additionally some things even better.
That is the antithesis of game balance and the antithesis of what you describe should be.