Technological comparison between Macross and other Sci-fi

[ChronoReverse]

It's interesting to note that shielding in Star Wars is extremely effective. The Droideka shields can take practically unlimited shots from blasters. Tactical level shielding is invulnerable to constant artillery bombardment (in one instance, a city shield took continuous bombardment for a month and had no signs of collapsing). Planetary shielding can withstand fleet bombardment indefinitely (ESB).

Firepower effects are also all over the place. The same turbolasers that supposedly have multiple megaton power has less explosive force than a C4 charge as seen in ROTS when the shields went down on Grievous's flagship and the turbolasers had clear shots right into the gun turret bay (that is, it didn't even have to go through armour). It just seems to me that numbers are simply inflated whenever they feel like it.

Another example of completely arbitrary firepower are the proton bombs used by the TIE bombers. The explosions are puny and barely even scratch the surface of the asteroid they were being dropped on. But these types of bombs can deal massive damage to cruisers in The Clone Wars (3DCG TV). A single pass of a squadron of bombers is sufficient to blow away the bridge. But then the turbolasers that were capable of blowing up asteroids with a single shot take many more shots to do the same to a cruiser.

Huh, individually? Any post TIE snub fighter would make short work of any zent or UN SPACY snub fighter, imo.

If you believe the numbers they give yeah. For instance, those dinky Jedi Fighters in AOTC supposedly have accelerations of 5000G. Star Wars really suffers from Author Lack of Scale.

5000G is 49,000m/s^2. They would have us believe that these fighters are capable of hitting 49km/s with 1 second of acceleration and yet they can still dogfight WW2 style. Yeah.

What if it's just turning G's? Then we would have to believe that one of these fighters spinning at a 1000rpm can reverse direction within a second and be spinning the other way at 1000rpm.

In the end one simply can't use the supposed stats of Star Wars at all. They simply don't make sense most of the time. It's only the odd case like the infamous asteroid scene that's always being used to justify the enormous numbers.

Edited March 8, 2009 by ChronoReverse

[taksraven]

The new Cross Section books give numbers for the firepower on SW ships. Really, really big numbers. Like megatons to gigatons per turbolaser shot.

Alderaan did have a shield. And it didn't do crap against the DS. You could see the green beam hit the planet, then sort of spread across the surface for a few frames before going asplode.

To be fair to Lucas, the original trilogy did a lot to show how a spacefleet should look (even if it wasn't realistic.) Of course, space fleets in anime (eg Space Cruiser Yamato) had looked impressive for years before that.

Best destruction of a planet sfx I have seen was in the film Star Trek Generations. When planets blew up in that they looked like they were made of rock, not gunpowder.

Once, when I was really bored, I went to the Wikipedia entry for Star Destroyers and started to add zero's to the end of the number of crew members for those ships. Had it up to billions on board each one b4 anybody noticed.

Taksraven

[eugimon]

It also doesn't make any sense... why did the shields stop orbital bombardment but an AT AT can walk up to it and take it out? If those shields can deflect asteroids and space debris why could the ATAT just walk right through it?

IMO, it's pretty obvious that they weren't thinking about consistency or even logic when it came to weapons in SW rather going for "cool" every time.

[ChronoReverse]

Oh that part is explained sort of.

Shields in Star Wars come in two types: Ray and Particle. Ray blocks stuff like blasters and turbolasers. Particle blocks missiles and bullets.

So why didn't the Imperial Fleet simply drop proton bombs?

Oops, it still doesn't make sense after all.

Then there's Ion Cannons. These things ignore shields and disables the power subsystems where they impact (if it's a large enough ion cannon like the planetary one in ESB, it can disable an entire ISD with a single shot!). Everyone uses blasters and turbolasers instead.

There was this one ship in The Clone Wars (3DCG TV) that had a gigantic ion cannon that dwarfed even a planetary one. But they only built one and when it got destroyed, they didn't think of building another one. For that matter, they didn't think of giving it an escort fleet either. lol Star Wars tactics.

Edited March 8, 2009 by ChronoReverse

[MDP310]

It also doesn't make any sense... why did the shields stop orbital bombardment but an AT AT can walk up to it and take it out? If those shields can deflect asteroids and space debris why could the ATAT just walk right through it?

IMO, it's pretty obvious that they weren't thinking about consistency or even logic when it came to weapons in SW rather going for "cool" every time.

The "official" reason is that they were able to step through it because they were grounded. Or something. It really doesn't make sense, you're right, but in Phantom Menace you do see battle droids simply walking through the Gungan shield when they couldn't shoot through it.

[eugimon]

I'm normally prone to take Star Wars numbers with a grain of salt since so many of them originally trace back to third party RPG sourcebooks rather than anything to do with the films, but I believe it goes right back to the original movie novelization that the Imperial Star Destroyer was armed such that one vessel could wipe a lightly defended planet to bare rock in fairly short order. This meant that just one would be sent to pacify a planet that showed risk of rebellion. A fleet of them would only be needed for a well-shielded planet or one that could mount a comparable fleet(recall how the Rebel fleet couldn't hope to break through without killing the shields in RotJ.) Further, it had heavy shielding and armoring, and could presumably stand up against vessels of its own class in extended fights. Going into the more detailed materials, there were some 25,000 just of the Imperial class made, not to mention those larger or smaller. Certainly fewer than the millions or more in a Zentradi fleet, though not exactly a small number either.

By contrast, the Zentradi surely didn't need all 4+ million ships to swiftly destroy the Earth's surface, but I don't get the impression that even their Quiltra-Quelamitz gunboats specifically designed for planetary bombardment are meant to do so in small numbers. As a corollary, it seems unlikely that a Star Wars capital ship is likely to find any weapons on a Macross universe ship to be especially shocking or exotic. Further, they're, while not exactly fragile, still unshielded and thus not hard to destroy with similar weaponry. Do remember that a Valkyrie with reaction missiles can be effective against Zentradi capital ships.

...

Actually, I think they would find the main gun technology to be pretty exotic. The big gun on a DS is still just a really big ass array of turbo lasers, it's not a fundamentally different type of weapon. On the other hand, the main gun (if the name is to be taken literally) is some sort of multi dimensional energy.

And the fleet structures are more similar than you're making it out to be. In the books, it's made clear that the fleet cohesion of the Imp navy was held together by the Force through the emperor and that without his influence they weren't able to fight effectively. So both fleets are heavily dependent on command structures it's just that there are 1000-2000 zent fleets, each fleet further broken down to smaller fleets commanded by Nupetiet-Vergnitzs-Class Fleet Command Battleships and then further broken down, etc.

[Killer Robot]

It also doesn't make any sense... why did the shields stop orbital bombardment but an AT AT can walk up to it and take it out? If those shields can deflect asteroids and space debris why could the ATAT just walk right through it?

IMO, it's pretty obvious that they weren't thinking about consistency or even logic when it came to weapons in SW rather going for "cool" every time.

How can a shield stop lasers, but not be opaque? Sensible or not, only stopping things above a certain speed or energy level is a staple property of sci-fi shielding, so I'm not going to argue with that part.

Anyway, I could go on for quite a while myself about stupid stuff in Star Wars, especially the run of crazy EU stuff and "bigger and better" competitions between writers and RPG sourcebooks. On the other hand, given the other series being discussed has planes that turn into robots, people who are changed to be ten meters tall, giant space monsters that are impervious to all physical weapons but can be hurt by music, and cannons that draw on the power of Earth's gravity to destroy two million giant spaceships in a shot - maybe it's best not to start throwing stones. Or more practically, if some sort of baseline reliability isn't accepted for the technological capability of their ships and weaponry, the two series can't be reasonably compared and we might as well let it be now.

[eugimon]

How can a shield stop lasers, but not be opaque? Sensible or not, only stopping things above a certain speed or energy level is a staple property of sci-fi shielding, so I'm not going to argue with that part.

Anyway, I could go on for quite a while myself about stupid stuff in Star Wars, especially the run of crazy EU stuff and "bigger and better" competitions between writers and RPG sourcebooks. On the other hand, given the other series being discussed has planes that turn into robots, people who are changed to be ten meters tall, giant space monsters that are impervious to all physical weapons but can be hurt by music, and cannons that draw on the power of Earth's gravity to destroy two million giant spaceships in a shot - maybe it's best not to start throwing stones. Or more practically, if some sort of baseline reliability isn't accepted for the technological capability of their ships and weaponry, the two series can't be reasonably compared and we might as well let it be now.

Which is why in all of my comparisons I have accepted as fact what's shown on screen. Besides, it's not throwing stones, it's trying to make sense of what's sense of what's shown to understand the properties of the various offensive and defensive systems so we can draw better conclusions. If you want to say an X-wing's shields could stop a bullet, you have to explain why it doesn't stop other physical/kinetic things from passing through, like when luke takes out one of those towers on the SD and receives damage when he flies through the resulting explosion.

[ChronoReverse]

The problem isn't only that. The problem is that Star Wars is extremely inconsistent in its depictions of class. Macross isn't perfect of course, but it's on the more grounded side of consistency.

The shielding explanation you gave doesn't even help explain why they couldn't have simply have missiles that slow down before passing through the shield and accelerating again. I mean, this is the same universe that has missiles that deploy droids!

Edited March 8, 2009 by ChronoReverse

[taksraven]

The shields in SW are nowhere near as confusing or futile as the ones in Dune. If I remember correctly (and I'm probably getting movie Dune mixed up with novel Dune, so sue me) they could kill an unshielded human on touch or impact, but slow moving projectiles could move through them, as well as limbs bearing weapons, and if you used a laser against it it would explode!!

Taksraven

[eugimon]

The shields in SW are nowhere near as confusing or futile as the ones in Dune. If I remember correctly (and I'm probably getting movie Dune mixed up with novel Dune, so sue me) they could kill an unshielded human on touch or impact, but slow moving projectiles could move through them, as well as limbs bearing weapons, and if you used a laser against it it would explode!!

Taksraven

The shields don't kill humans but they do stop fast moving objects and explode against lasers (and not just explode but little FUSION reactions lol)and they attract the sand worms and they are among the most nonsensical of energy shields in all of science fiction

Edited March 8, 2009 by eugimon

[Mr March]

I don't think any sci-fi franchise, even those franchises with silly made up figures, can be analyzed based upon "on screen" events only. No firepower figures are ever mentioned "on screen" and defensive technologies are never rated in any meaningful fashion. Those few REAL figures that are mentioned in sci-fi often contradict themselves or have effects above/below what is actually shown on screen. In other words, one fireball is as good as another

The only way to compare would be to accept official statistics in common units for the franchises in question (if they even exist) and see how they match up. Without that, it's just a debate of fan opinion and any fan can claim any figures/amount/rating at that point.

[ChronoReverse]

In a perfect world that would make sense but it really doesn't since authors tend to not comprehend scale. This is especially egregious in Star Wars.

[Gubaba]

So...consensus is that the Robotech Masters would pwn everyone else, right?

[SchizophrenicMC]

So...consensus is that the Robotech Masters would pwn everyone else, right?

Curse you, Rick Hunter.

I missed too much, so I'll just say a few things about stuff I noticed:

CF

I've decided that with the entire Imperial Navy, which spans an entire galaxy, has more CF. The UNSpacy only spans a small portion around each of the planets and colonization ships.

Energy Weapons

There are 3 types of Directed Energy Weapons mounted on the ships.

Blasters:

They're mildly effective at melting armor and have enough of a negative charge to disrupt shields.

Ion Cannons:

They have a high negative charge in their bolts that negate shields and disrupt electronic processes. However, they have next-to-no anti-armor capability.

Disruptors:

A high-energy discharge capable of vaporizing armor. It lacks any ability to disrupt shields, since it has no charge. Basically small versions of MacCannons.

Turbolasers are heavy blasters. Few ships carry disruptors. Several attacker and bomber craft carry Ion guns.

Planetary Shielding

Planetary shields come in 2 forms. One stops matter, the other stops energy.

The shield on Echo Base was the latter. ATAT can pass through, but turbolaser bombardment can't, unless it's overloaded.

I don't care to reply to more.

Well, one more: THERE AREN'T HUNDREDS OF EXECUTORS. THERE ARE, I BELIEVE, 8 IN THE CLASS.

[miles316]

It also doesn't make any sense... why did the shields stop orbital bombardment but an AT AT can walk up to it and take it out? If those shields can deflect asteroids and space debris why could the ATAT just walk right through it?

IMO, it's pretty obvious that they weren't thinking about consistency or even logic when it came to weapons in SW rather going for "cool" every time.

planetary shields are designed to protect a large portion of a planet not just them selves making them vulnerable to ground forces.

[eugimon]

planetary shields are designed to protect a large portion of a planet not just them selves making them vulnerable to ground forces.

Why wouldn't the shield protect the portion of the planet that the shield generator was covering? You're gonna go through all the trouble of making a nigh invincible planetary shield and leave the shield generator wide open What's to stop someone from orbit just move to a better angle then? And why would you put the defensive structures on the outside of the shield, as in when the ATATs are happily blasting away the laser towers. Because if the shields are like how they were on Alderaan it's out in the atmosphere, so that means a radius of some 120km and there's no way those ATATs walked 120kms to the shield generators.

As for the size of the Imp fleet, this guy has a long ass essay on the matter and it doesn't come close to even one bodolza class fleet: 25,000 Imp SD

Edited March 8, 2009 by eugimon

[taksraven]

I don't think any sci-fi franchise, even those franchises with silly made up figures, can be analyzed based upon "on screen" events only. No firepower figures are ever mentioned "on screen" and defensive technologies are never rated in any meaningful fashion. Those few REAL figures that are mentioned in sci-fi often contradict themselves or have effects above/below what is actually shown on screen. In other words, one fireball is as good as another

The only way to compare would be to accept official statistics in common units for the franchises in question (if they even exist) and see how they match up. Without that, it's just a debate of fan opinion and any fan can claim any figures/amount/rating at that point.

I think that Star Trek, particularly from TNG onwards was fairly consistent at least with the firepower and shields of their vessels. That was for a number of reasons including...

a) They made so damn much of it.

b) Plot points in a lot of episodes were built around shield/phaser strength.

c) The franchise has such a whiny bunch of nit-picky fans.

And the consistency did pay off, like at the start of the Voyager episode "Scorpion", where you see three Borg cubes taken apart by single blasts of an unseen aliens weapons, and your immediate reaction is "WHOA, they must be a really powerful enemy."

It also helped the franchise that most of the programs had very similar or the same production teams.

Taksraven

Edited March 8, 2009 by taksraven

[Killer Robot]

I think that Star Trek, particularly from TNG onwards was fairly consistent at least with the firepower and shields of their vessels. That was for a number of reasons including...

Star Trek is another one of the prime examples of series where the onscreen events don't really have much or anything to do with published stats, and where consistency is limited in any case. The stats would indicate that combat is always at much greater distances, much higher speeds, and generally happening much differently than what's ever seen onscreen. Enormous numbers are thrown around corresponding to pretty small onscreen effects. Lots of "godlike" aliens are encountered against which the full power of a large starship is useless. Hand weapons which can be set to neatly vaporize most things are totally useless against others for little apparent reason, or act just like guns against other targets. It's usually consistent that "X in Star Trek will usually beat Y in Star Trek" but this is just as true in Macross, in Star Wars, or in anything else you might care to name: the tricky part is only in comparing that with something from a whole different source material.

[Sulendil Ang]

So...consensus is that the Robotech Masters would pwn everyone else, right?

Yeah, right... Until they meet their makers.

Yeah, Mortar Headd pretty much owns everyone.

[azrael]

Seriously, it takes an impressive amount of jerry-rigging to compare 2 different universes' tech. More than most people would probably want to think about unless they drank enough booze to turn their liver into a lump of coal. So let's not go into this anymore. And BTW, "versus"-threads of any kind are frowned upon here.