How powerful is a Galaxy class starship?

[PicardSpeedo]

According to Star Trek Online, a single Defiant can take out a Borg tactical cube, whereas a Galaxy cannot even punch through the shields of a low-end BoP without an assist from other vessels.

I don't think you're playing the Galaxy class right in STO.

(Also, why are you quoting yourself?)

I don't play STO at all; I'm not a fan of Asian grindfests. I'm going by STO's own forums, where there exists no small amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth about STO's Galaxy being a toothless tiger.

I quoted myself rather than spam the board with the same exact post.

 

[bbjeg]

In Generation's defense, it's safe to assume the Duras sisters could have obtained more than just the Enterprise's shield frequency in the diagnostics Geordi transmitted, like weapon modulations, to better defend against the Enterprise's counter-assult.

 

[PicardSpeedo]

In Generation's defense, it's safe to assume the Duras sisters could have obtained more than just the Enterprise's shield frequency in the diagnostics Geordi transmitted, like weapon modulations, to better defend against the Enterprise's counter-assult.

Perhaps the Duras sisters uploaded the Galaxy specs to a file-sharing website right before they got blown into a billion pieces, and that's why by the 2400s the Galaxy has such a glass jaw?

 

[M.A.C.O.]

According to Star Trek Online, a single Defiant can take out a Borg tactical cube, whereas a Galaxy cannot even punch through the shields of a low-end BoP without an assist from other vessels.

I don't think you're playing the Galaxy class right in STO.

(Also, why are you quoting yourself?)

I don't play STO at all; I'm not a fan of Asian grindfests. I'm going by STO's own forums, where there exists no small amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth about STO's Galaxy being a toothless tiger.

I quoted myself rather than spam the board with the same exact post.

Voyager had no trouble beating a Borg Tactical cube in the episode "Unimatrix 0".
The Intrepid class is like a smaller Galaxy class if you compare them. I always saw the Intrepid class as an economy version the of Galaxy class. Tactically speaking there is nothing an Intrepid can do that a Galaxy can't. The Intreprid is just newer.

A ship's performance in a videogame is not a good reference IMO. Neither is bringing in stats and or feats from comics and novels.

 

[C.E. Evans]

The initial problem with the Defiant was that it had trouble with a power plant that would have been better suited on a larger vessel. It took a little bit to resolve that issue,

The cloaking device had trouble hiding the ship due to its power plant's relatively high output, but that wasn't the problem with the ship as far as production goes.

Actually, the problem was the Defiant had a power plant that was too big for it.

COMMANDER B.L. SISKO: ...to put it simply, it's overgunned and overpowered for a ship its size. During battle drills, it nearly tore itself apart when the engines were tested at full capacity.

(Emphasis mine)
Ultimately, they just found a way to balance things out with its various systems, including the cloaking device.

 

[RunawayStarShip]

I'm going by STO's own forums, where there exists no small amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth about STO's Galaxy being a toothless tiger.

The first post of that thread states that "the Galaxy Class in the game is COMPLETELY disappointing compared to its on screen counter part." (emphasis mine)

--------------

Every video game differs in trying to convert on-screen material to ship functions and numbers needed for simulated battles. There are numerous examples of these discrepancies:

-In "Star Trek: Armada", for example, the Defiant is extremely (extremely, extremely, extremely) under-gunned compared to its on-screen version. (My guess is that Activision was pissed at how long it took for them to get the rights to use material from DS9.)

-In "Star Trek: Armada II", the Sovereign has an actual working corbomite reflector. (It wasn't a bluff after all... ) Riker and Picard probably forgot to turn it on against the Son'a battleships and the Scimitar respectively...

-In "Star Trek: Bridge Commander", the Vor'cha is nearly invincible when attacking its forward shields... making it much better than a Romulan warbird (so much so that an in-game cut scene requires a script to disable a Vor'cha's weapons when fighting a warbird rather than letting it play out normally as in most other cut scenes).

-In "Star Trek: Dominion War", the Galaxy is much stronger than a Dominion battlecruiser when they should be equal (at best).

-In Bridge Commander (made by Activision), an Akira is more dangerous than a Galaxy. In every other game made by Activision, a Galaxy is better than an Akira.

-There are many more examples...

... Yeah, I just realized that I know way too much about these games...

 

[bbjeg]

^I knew the first three (though I feel foolish in just getting Armada II's "Corbomite" maneuver).

 

[jmampilly]

A ship's performance in a videogame is not a good reference IMO. Neither is bringing in stats and or feats from comics and novels.

I agree, STO is not canon, and isn't relevant here. Whether or not the Galaxy is weak in a videogame does not necessarily translate to weakness in the canon universe.

 

[Richard Baker]

A number of Trekkers I know have downloaded Mods and patches to various video games so the ships act and perform more accurately to what is seen on screen.
Phaser/torp strength, shields, maneuverability, even size between vessels is usually wrong.

 

[Cyke101]

A number of Trekkers I know have downloaded Mods and patches to various video games so the ships act and perform more accurately to what is seen on screen.
Phaser/torp strength, shields, maneuverability, even size between vessels is usually wrong.

There's one mod for the original Armada (made by a German team, I believe) which somehow, someway, programmed the Defiant class to charge up its pulse phasers until it came time to fight. When it *did* fire, it unleashed the gates of hell, obliterating everything until its charge was spent with a steady stream of pulse phasers blazing about -- a vast improvement over the original model. It was unbelievably fun.

Yeah, video games are designed for fun, not to stick to pre-established canon; even then, saying the Galaxy in STO can't defeat a weak BoP is a gross exaggeration -- STO (made by American company Cryptic, by the way) follows the three class model like many other RPGs -- attack, support, and tank. The Galaxy falls in the latter, as it's designed to draw fire and withstand a large amount of punishment so that other ships can do their job while providing cover fire -- not completely unheard of considering the DS9 battles.

But anyway, now i'm helping to steer this off topic.

 

[T'Girl]

In Generation's defense, it's safe to assume the Duras sisters could have obtained more than just the Enterprise's shield frequency in the diagnostics Geordi transmitted, like weapon modulations, to better defend against the Enterprise's counter-assult.

I never thought of that before, but it is a excellent idea.

If the Dura sisters knew not just the Enterprise's shield freq's, but also the phaser modulations at any given moment they could adjust their BOP's shield freq's to provide the most protection possible.

You be smart, please father my young.

 

[bbjeg]

^I have enough useless information to ace any trivia game but there are smarter people.

 

[PicardSpeedo]

In Generation's defense, it's safe to assume the Duras sisters could have obtained more than just the Enterprise's shield frequency in the diagnostics Geordi transmitted, like weapon modulations, to better defend against the Enterprise's counter-assult.

I never thought of that before, but it is a excellent idea.

If the Dura sisters knew not just the Enterprise's shield freq's, but also the phaser modulations at any given moment they could adjust their BOP's shield freq's to provide the most protection possible.

You be smart, please father my young.

That, plus knowing where the sole toilet aboard the Enterprise is, makes the Duras sisters a force to be reckoned with.

 

[bbjeg]

^I thought they teleported it out and reconstituted it into something else.

 

[-Brett-]

I don't play STO at all; I'm not a fan of Asian grindfests. I'm going by STO's own forums, where there exists no small amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth about STO's Galaxy being a toothless tiger.

I quoted myself rather than spam the board with the same exact post.

I hate to say it, being a gamer myself, but gamers are one of the whiniest groups you'll ever run into online. Their complaints on any subject should be taken with a big grain of salt.

Which is a shame, since all of the legitimate complaints about the game get buried under bullshit.

 

[PicardSpeedo]

^I thought they teleported it out and reconstituted it into something else.

Most probably, which is likely why it took Geordi so long to get to engineering. :-P

 

[Matt4511]

Sorry for jumping in late here. Real life intervened.

But my sense has always been that the Galaxy-class, as originally fielded in 2360s, was a powerful and respectable vessel. Certainly the most powerful of any other class of starship then in Starfleet service. But it was, in my view, not as powerful as it could have been. Rather than being as powerful as the spaceframe and power systems could make it, the ship was probably designed to be as powerful as Starfleet's experts felt it would need to be.

Recall the situation around the time the Galaxies were entering service. A peaceful, allied Klingon Empire. The Romulans in total isolation. No contact yet with the Borg or Dominion. Some fighting with the Cardassians, sure, and other powers, but no one that really could rival the Federation in an all-out war, if it came down to it. The Galaxies were designed in peacetime, and I imagine that their tactical systems were designed by people thinking, "OK, well, how much firepower does this thing need to make it the strongest ship in the fleet and make sure it's competitive with anything else operating in the region? Let's figure out what that much firepower is and go with that."

But, in short order, the Romulans were back, the Borg were around, the Klingons went apeshit and the Dominion showed up. I think the Galaxies we saw kicking so much ass in DS9 were the ones that Starfleet had outfitted to maximize the combat capability of the class, rather than just meet the bureaucratic requirements of the design tender. And that was probably a very substantial increase in firepower indeed (and was probably also done to most every ship in Starfleet that was capable of it).

 

[jmampilly]

Sorry for jumping in late here. Real life intervened.

But my sense has always been that the Galaxy-class, as originally fielded in 2360s, was a powerful and respectable vessel. Certainly the most powerful of any other class of starship then in Starfleet service. But it was, in my view, not as powerful as it could have been. Rather than being as powerful as the spaceframe and power systems could make it, the ship was probably designed to be as powerful as Starfleet's experts felt it would need to be.

Recall the situation around the time the Galaxies were entering service. A peaceful, allied Klingon Empire. The Romulans in total isolation. No contact yet with the Borg or Dominion. Some fighting with the Cardassians, sure, and other powers, but no one that really could rival the Federation in an all-out war, if it came down to it. The Galaxies were designed in peacetime, and I imagine that their tactical systems were designed by people thinking, "OK, well, how much firepower does this thing need to make it the strongest ship in the fleet and make sure it's competitive with anything else operating in the region? Let's figure out what that much firepower is and go with that."

But, in short order, the Romulans were back, the Borg were around, the Klingons went apeshit and the Dominion showed up. I think the Galaxies we saw kicking so much ass in DS9 were the ones that Starfleet had outfitted to maximize the combat capability of the class, rather than just meet the bureaucratic requirements of the design tender. And that was probably a very substantial increase in firepower indeed (and was probably also done to most every ship in Starfleet that was capable of it).

I absolutely agree. I think your theory is by far the best one I've seen. The Enterprise-D was a peacetime ship, whereas the kickass Galaxies we see in DS9 are true warships.

 

[Cyke101]

Some fighting with the Cardassians, sure, and other powers, but no one that really could rival the Federation in an all-out war, if it came down to it. The Galaxies were designed in peacetime, and I imagine that their tactical systems were designed by people thinking, "OK, well, how much firepower does this thing need to make it the strongest ship in the fleet and make sure it's competitive with anything else operating in the region? Let's figure out what that much firepower is and go with that."

The Cardassians' Galor class was the primary class back in TNG, and that somewhere (I *think*) it was mentioned that three of them were a match for a Galaxy. But having three of them fight a Galaxy shows, I think, the kind of controlled and careful escalation by Starfleet that's reflected in your theory.

I would imagine that the simple fact of the E-D being an all purpose, 640 meter swiss army knife kind of ship would mean that it wouldn't have the offensive power that the Galaxy could be designed to handle. The Galaxy's famed module system could easily switch out a few science departments for more energy batteries, for example, so it could be fitted for battle like in DS9.

 

[Matt4511]

The Cardassians' Galor class was the primary class back in TNG, and that somewhere (I *think*) it was mentioned that three of them were a match for a Galaxy. But having three of them fight a Galaxy shows, I think, the kind of controlled and careful escalation by Starfleet that's reflected in your theory.

Nothing really jumps out at me as being a clear and definitive signal of how Galaxies compared with Galors. The Enterprise easily fends off the Trager in The Wounded — really easily, when you think about it. In The Chase, Gul ... I don't recall, the lady gul — confidently boasts that she had two ships to Picard's one, but he didn't seem all that bothered by the tactical situation, so she may have been bluffing. (I suspect she was bluffing.)

Personally, my money would be on a TNG-era Galaxy having no difficulty taking on two Galors, and would probably still bet on the Galaxy against three Galors, though that'd be a tougher fight. But it's just my gut call. I don't really see even three Galors overwhelming a Galaxy before the Galaxy could hit spam-fire enough phasers and torpedoes to make it a more even fight. Galors always seemed to have glass jaws (or maybe Starfleet issue starboard power couplings).