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From what I remember from the TNG book, you can "dial a yield" on photon torpedoes, which works by altering the complex magnetic field that intermixes the antimatter and matter inside. On impact and/or when you've programmed them to go off (they have sensors -- some of the probes the D has used the same casings, as I recall it was also used as a travel coffin to hold that one Klingon lady) they go bang. The reason you can dial a yield is that if you don't intermix them in certain ways, the explosion is not as total - some amount of the matter goes flying around during, you know, the explosion (which is energy, and neither matter nor antimatter). Given how the feds approach battle, as well as antimatter being like gasoline (available in large quantities but not trivially cheap) it makes some sense that they try to make the torps go off at "disable enemy ship" levels that do not necessarily annihilate the entire vessel outright. That would be unnecessary loss of life and/or intelligence.
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Apr 13, 2025 18:29
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Nessus posted:From what I remember from the TNG book, you can "dial a yield" on photon torpedoes, which works by altering the complex magnetic field that intermixes the antimatter and matter inside. On impact and/or when you've programmed them to go off (they have sensors -- some of the probes the D has used the same casings, as I recall it was also used as a travel coffin to hold that one Klingon lady) they go bang. That makes sense, but I think they can also do it, and most commonly do it, by just reducing the amount of antimatter aboard before firing. But both options are probably available.
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Apr 13, 2025 18:48
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FlamingLiberal posted:In The Undiscovered Country, the torpedoes feel like cannonballs the way they hit into the Enterprise during that final battle with Chang's special cloaked Bird of Prey. Like one of them goes through the hull and into the big dining reception area we see at the beginning of the movie where the Klingon delegation comes onboard. I'll maintain that Undiscovered Country has the only actually good Star Trek spaceship battle (Khan is also good but a bit marred by 'Khan forgot space has a down' being the resolution). It lands the sense of the fight being a battle of attrition as Chang whittles away at the Enterprise's shields and the crew scramble to find a solution and meanwhile there's actual stakes because of the assassination plot. Not perfect, but it brings all the elements together in a way that other films don't. Generations is the exact same fight but it's just the Enterprise getting wrecked with no special effects budget until Data saves the day. First Contact has 60 seconds of cool looking footage that establishes the Borg as terrifyingly lethal before Picard switches off his targeting computer and uses the force to target their secondary thermal exhaust port. Nemesis and Insurrection just outright terrible.
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Apr 13, 2025 19:13
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Alchenar posted:I'll maintain that Undiscovered Country has the only actually good Star Trek spaceship battle (Khan is also good but a bit marred by 'Khan forgot space has a down' being the resolution). It lands the sense of the fight being a battle of attrition as Chang whittles away at the Enterprise's shields and the crew scramble to find a solution and meanwhile there's actual stakes because of the assassination plot. There's also a great sense of progression to the Chang fight. The first couple of torpedo scuff the shields, the next few mess up the hull, and the final torpedo when the Enterprise's shields are down completely just blasts clean through the saucer with an entry and exit wound.
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Apr 13, 2025 19:29
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Alchenar posted:I'll maintain that Undiscovered Country has the only actually good Star Trek spaceship battle (Khan is also good but a bit marred by 'Khan forgot space has a down' being the resolution). It lands the sense of the fight being a battle of attrition as Chang whittles away at the Enterprise's shields and the crew scramble to find a solution and meanwhile there's actual stakes because of the assassination plot. But yeah I love that final sequence with the two ships trying to find the Bird of Prey
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Apr 13, 2025 19:48
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FlamingLiberal posted:The WoK ending fight is pretty legendary Only change I'd make to the ending of Wrath of Khan would be I wouldn't let Khan die with the satisfaction of thinking he'd killed Kirk and destroyed the Enterprise. I saw an edit someone did once where Khan sees the Enterprise warp away after Spock's sacrifice and he's left all alone with a split second of utter horror before the Genesis device goes off. And I think it really underscores just how pointless the whole endeavour was for Khan more than the movie does as-is.
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Apr 13, 2025 19:53
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nine-gear crow posted:Only change I'd make to the ending of Wrath of Khan would be I wouldn't let Khan die with the satisfaction of thinking he'd killed Kirk and destroyed the Enterprise. I saw an edit someone did once where Khan sees the Enterprise warp away after Spock's sacrifice and he's left all alone with a split second of utter horror before the Genesis device goes off. And I think it really underscores just how pointless the whole endeavour was for Khan more than the movie does as-is. Oh I bet Montalban could've done a wonderful scream of rage as the Enterprise warps away on his Borgen viewscreen and he explodes.
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Apr 13, 2025 19:58
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nine-gear crow posted:Only change I'd make to the ending of Wrath of Khan would be I wouldn't let Khan die with the satisfaction of thinking he'd killed Kirk and destroyed the Enterprise. I saw an edit someone did once where Khan sees the Enterprise warp away after Spock's sacrifice and he's left all alone with a split second of utter horror before the Genesis device goes off. And I think it really underscores just how pointless the whole endeavour was for Khan more than the movie does as-is. I almost want to say that that scene is in the remastered and/or director's cut because I really haven't watched any fan edits but have an exact mental image of that in my head.
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Apr 13, 2025 20:02
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Sometimes I wonder if I might be on the autism spectrum and then I see a bunch of goons nerding out about ships and I think, probably not.
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Apr 13, 2025 21:56
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BIG HEADLINE posted:That does pose a rather interesting point... Just like ships cannon aren’t just sitting around loaded all the time.
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Apr 13, 2025 22:07
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TheCenturion posted:When they say “arm photon torpedoes,” part of that is loading antimatter into them.
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Apr 13, 2025 22:20
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Sloth Life posted:Sometimes I wonder if I might be on the autism spectrum and then I see a bunch of goons nerding out about ships and I think, probably not. Yeah I don't think my diagnostic status is going to surprise anyone in this thread.
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Apr 13, 2025 22:30
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"Arm Photon Torpedos!" "Unable to do so sir! Wesley has his science project set up here!"
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Apr 13, 2025 22:31
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happyhippy posted:"Arm Photon Torpedos!" That's it! We warned him!
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Apr 13, 2025 23:09
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Sloth Life posted:Sometimes I wonder if I might be on the autism spectrum and then I see a bunch of goons nerding out about ships and I think, probably not. I mean, I'm almost definitely AuDHD (definitely really bad ADHD, diagnosed in 1996/7), and I can't, for the life of me, give a poo poo about what the ships look like. Do I think some look cool? Sure, but it doesn't matter at all. Just like a good video game isn't determined by graphics. However, Discovery era ships are all idiotic because of the transformer poo poo going on. There is no conceivable reason to have detached nacelles, or for Discovery to spin around really fast, but that's because it's stupid in universe, not (solely) because it looks really stupid.
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Apr 13, 2025 23:33
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BIG HEADLINE posted:And I could've sworn that at least one time in Voyager it was mentioned the yields could scale into the "isotons." "isotons" is intended to be a fuzzy term meant to make it easier for writers to just make up numbers without having to think about the actual scale, much like "-quads" (kiloquads, megaquads, gigaquads, etc) came into use for data storage/transmission twistedmentat posted:That is probably the single coolest space battle shot in all of Star Trek. It was so popular that in Klingon Academy, they made ship models take damage just so you can see that happen. my recollection is that the ginsu system in KA came about because they were stuck on some other aspect of development for so long (probably to do with the engine, they had a hell of a time beating the old Starfleet Academy engine into doing what they wanted it to, especially without having the source code) that the art team had run out of things to do, so they started working on putting all those wonderful battle damage breakaways into the ship models. that said, it did look awesome, and i remember when Bridge Commander came out i felt that KA's battle damage looked a hell of a lot more spectacular than BC's
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Apr 14, 2025 00:53
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I've been chasing the high of this moment for a LOOOOOOOOONG time... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg58hVEY5Og&t=92s
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Apr 14, 2025 01:29
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nine-gear crow posted:There's also a great sense of progression to the Chang fight. The first couple of torpedo scuff the shields, the next few mess up the hull, and the final torpedo when the Enterprise's shields are down completely just blasts clean through the saucer with an entry and exit wound. It also does that progression perfectly without even once having someone say a shield percentage
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Apr 14, 2025 03:02
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Part of the fun of being hyperfixated on fictional spaceships is that when they're bad it's twice as funny than it is to someone more normal about it
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Apr 14, 2025 05:03
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CJacobs posted:Part of the fun of being hyperfixated on fictional spaceships is that when they're bad it's twice as funny than it is to someone more normal about it A well designed starship can be a work of art (see: The TMP Enterprise, the D, [your favourite here]). A badly designed starship is a conversation starter 
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Apr 14, 2025 05:22
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Okay, so the April Lower Decks comic is actually pretty damned good. It's not as good as having the show back, but I can hear the character's voices in my head as I read, and that's a decent consolation prize.
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Apr 14, 2025 06:12
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FlamingLiberal posted:The WoK ending fight is pretty legendary Target that explosion and FIRE! And yea, Chang is definitly toying with Kirk. He could of probably destroyed them in a single shot, but he wanted to just slap the Enterprise down slowly to make the defeat more humiliating. Farmer Crack-rear end posted:
I just remember it being part of the marketing for that game, at least all the reviews I saw mentioned it.
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Apr 14, 2025 16:31
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MikeJF posted:With the small size of the render the window location may have looked off just because of the small number of pixels, especially if the window light was blooming. Farmer Crack-rear end posted:"isotons" is intended to be a fuzzy term meant to make it easier for writers to just make up numbers without having to think about the actual scale, much like "-quads" (kiloquads, megaquads, gigaquads, etc) came into use for data storage/transmission
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Apr 14, 2025 20:59
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Knormal posted:I never played Klingon Academy, but I thought the way you could use the phasers in Bridge Commander to cut off nacelles or blast big holes in ships. It did look kind of janky because of the technical limitations of real-time dynamic model reshaping on a 486, but it was so much more awesome then having a damage bar fill up until the whole ship exploded. You still almost never see games that deform models on the fly like that. I've wanted War Thunder But It's Star Trek for years.
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Apr 14, 2025 21:51
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Knormal posted:I never played Klingon Academy, but I thought the way you could use the phasers in Bridge Commander to cut off nacelles or blast big holes in ships. It did look kind of janky because of the technical limitations of real-time dynamic model reshaping on a 486, but it was so much more awesome then having a damage bar fill up until the whole ship exploded. You still almost never see games that deform models on the fly like that. I’m guessing you’re exaggerating because there’s no way either of those games would run on a 486. I think Klingon Academy required a Pentium II at bare-rear end minimum (and even with stouter-than-average hardware for its day it could get pretty choppy at times), and Bridge Commander was even more demanding. I think pulling off dynamic deformation that doesn’t look janky probably would require substantially more effort in both the models and the game engine - not impossible but yeah, probably not feasible with the available hardware when BC came out. Even as-is it can sometimes cause some spectacular graphical glitches.
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Apr 14, 2025 23:42
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:I’m guessing you’re exaggerating because there’s no way either of those games would run on a 486. I think Klingon Academy required a Pentium II at bare-rear end minimum (and even with stouter-than-average hardware for its day it could get pretty choppy at times), and Bridge Commander was even more demanding.
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Apr 14, 2025 23:56
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I played EGATrek back before it was changed to be non-infringing
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Apr 15, 2025 00:16
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MikeJF posted:IIRC tech fluff stuff somewhere (maybe the novel? Can't quite recall where.) just threw up their hands and said that particular one was a torpedo that had a detonation failure or hadn't been properly armed up with antimatter or something. Simple Answer: Chang is a cat playing with his food, once he batters down the Enterprise's shields enough, he orders the torpedoes set to low yields so he can take Enterprise apart slowly. I mean, he has a LOT of Shakespeare to quote afterall.  Excelsior shows up? Full yield for you, thank you!
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Apr 15, 2025 01:56
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Galaga Galaxian posted:Simple Answer: Chang is a cat playing with his food, once he batters down the Enterprise's shields enough, he orders the torpedoes set to low yields so he can take Enterprise apart slowly. I mean, he has a LOT of Shakespeare to quote afterall. He winged Excelsior once and just kind of scraped its shields before the gas-seeking torpedo did it's just...
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Apr 15, 2025 02:01
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FuturePastNow posted:I played EGATrek back before it was changed to be non-infringing I love how using the shuttlecraft in EGATrek was inherently worse in every way than just using the transporter.
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Apr 15, 2025 03:32
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Bridge Commander was a really good game and the mods that added every ST ship you could possibly imagine were even better (when they worked) It's the only ST game I can think of that gives some sense of both piloting and being in charge of a starship (more the former than the latter, to be fair, but still really satisfying)
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Apr 15, 2025 09:27
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Barry Foster posted:Bridge Commander was a really good game and the mods that added every ST ship you could possibly imagine were even better (when they worked) It really was great. I haven't played in at least 20 years (matt_damon_aging.gif), but I bought it on Good Old Games a couple years ago and forgot about the purchase until today's posts. Time to give it a shot and see how it runs on modern hardware. Bonus trivia: D.C. Fontana co-wrote the script! Arc Light fucked around with this message at 14:01 on Apr 15, 2025 |
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Apr 15, 2025 10:26
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And once again I curse the cancellation of Secret of Vulcan Fury.
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Apr 15, 2025 13:25
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Secret of Vulcan Fury never even meaningfully existed as a project. They did some voice recording and mocap but never actually built "a video game".
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Apr 15, 2025 18:24
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That's the secret
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Apr 15, 2025 18:27
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Pinterest Mom posted:Secret of Vulcan Fury never even meaningfully existed as a project. They did some voice recording and mocap but never actually built "a video game". And? Does this some how make my desire to have seen it completed and released invalid?
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Apr 15, 2025 18:50
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TheCenturion posted:And? Does this some how make my desire to have seen it completed and released invalid? Yeah, kinda. There's nothing to "complete", it's just a concept. It's an idea, nothing more. "They almost started to make a Star Trek game and then they didn't" is something that's happened more than once, it's weird to still be hung up on this one specific project-that-never-got-started thirty years later.
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Apr 15, 2025 19:18
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Arc Light posted:It really was great. I haven't played in at least 20 years (matt_damon_aging.gif), but I bought it on Good Old Games a couple years ago and forgot about the purchase until today's posts. Time to give it a shot and see how it runs on modern hardware. Did you ever want to see how a battle between a runabout and a Star Destroyer would turn out?
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Apr 15, 2025 19:39
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Pinterest Mom posted:Yeah, kinda. There's nothing to "complete", it's just a concept. It's an idea, nothing more. "They almost started to make a Star Trek game and then they didn't" is something that's happened more than once, it's weird to still be hung up on this one specific project-that-never-got-started thirty years later. Well, you're welcome to have that stance.
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Apr 15, 2025 19:58
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When it comes to the battles in the TOS films, I always thought it curious that WoK was the only film to actually use the phasers. I know they refer to them in TMP, but other than those it's just torpedos after torpedos. I wonder if there was any reason for that, other than torps just having a punchier feel than the beams? That said, I think phasers were done better in Khan than most of the TNG era stuff (that I can remember). They just feel so anaemic in comparison.
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Apr 15, 2025 20:26
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