Trek Ships Are Too Small Compared to Star Wars

[sciquest2525]

Well, with the humongous sized space station from ST Beyond, the Feds are shown as being able to build large structures in space. Now, all they need to do is attach impulse and warp propulsions.
I remember CJ Cherry having carrier starships that had three externally carried combatant spacecraft affixed to their hulls. The craft were called Outriders.
Big difference in SW vs. ST combat is that ST can fire at very long ranges like 300,000 km or more while SW favors knife fights as very close visual ranges though the can blast a relatively fixed object like a planet at standoff ranges.

 

[SWHouston]

I just want an even playing field for ST.

That's never going to happen. Writers of before and future (probably) are not going to give up making us pity our Heroes because they have written the ST equipment as being total junk.

 

[retroenzo]

Why do you keep referring to 'capital' ships by the way? Not criticising, just never heard of that phrase before.

 

[BJ Wagner]

Why do you keep referring to 'capital' ships by the way? Not criticising, just never heard of that phrase before.

From Wikipedia, so it must be correct.

"The capital ships of a navy are its most important warships; and are traditionally much larger than other naval vessels. A capital ship is generally a leading or a primary ship in a naval fleet."

I mostly remember the term used in Star Wars RPG's and novels. Not sure if I've heard it in reference to any Trek ships, though.

 

[Shikarnov]

To the OP: I don't see why sizing the ships evenly would make them a better match. I think it's all about the mission profile. Star Destroyers are, essentially, dual purpose. They're troop transports and they're aircraft carriers. Their size in volume makes sense. They're not ships of exploration; they're ships of war and law enforcement.

I wonder how big a Star Destroyer would be if you removed the expectation of deploying large numbers of troops and the need to carry entire squadrons of fighters, and kept onboard only the number of people needed to operate it during relative peacetime and a few auxiliary craft for the occasional away mission?

I think we'd probably get down to Star Trek sizes pretty quickly in those cases.

You really only need a truly big-ass ship if you intend to carry thousands of troops and/or several squadrons of starfighters. One could argue that the Galaxy-class is really bigger than it ought to be, but the extra size could be justified for future onboard expansion or for transporting/evacuating thousands of temporary passengers, IMO.

I've often thought about just how empty that ship must be... 1014 people, 42 decks. That's like 25 people per deck. And given just how enormous some of those decks really are, that's a lot of open space (even accounting for cargo, equipment, and the like).

Then if you separate the civilians from the crew; and divide into three shifts; and subtract "non-essential" personnel that don't actually run the ship; you've got to wonder just how many people even need to really be there at all.

Seems to me Trek ships are really oversized.

 

[sciquest2525]

I just wanted ST capital ships to be visually impressive from the size as well as designed to an impressive shape.
I was tired of watching monsters of BSG and SW though the Yorktown starbase is way up there with the same diameter at 19 miles as a super star destroyer. That was my original motivation. Beyond that, we are comparing apples and oranges and watermelons. I felt too often ST was just a plumb next to a watermelon. That said, there is much for us to develop in Trek tech like how does drives, sensors, shuttles, ships, weapons and science works. Trek's biggest ships are impressive but the mission profile is exploration, research, colony transport and peacekeeping with wartime use if war was forced on the UFP while Klingons and Cardassians and Romulan vessels are warships first with peacetime uses beyond reminding everyone that it is Bad idea to mess with their respective empires. And, in the real world, very large interstellar asteroid ships and free flying O'Neil space colonies have been proposed.

Got to close now and haul my PC desktop to my neighbors so we can all watch The Martian on their big TV set as my PC has a blu-ray drive and they are getting one in awhile. Don't mind, even desktops are a little portable!. I'll be back later tonight.

 

[Darkwing]

Size matters not. Well, except for budgets. The bigger the ship and the more it can do, the more resources it takes to build. Even in a post-scarcity economy, where we pretend money doesn't exist, it takes resources to build. Time, energy, metal, labor... And all that has to be brought to where it will be built, as well.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

The big ships of NuTrek and Star Wars are obviously over compensating for something

 

[F. King Daniel]

Way back in Diane Duane's 1980's novels, there were mile-long Starfleet Defender-class ships crewed by elephant-sized nonhumanoids. I'd have LOVED to see a picture of what Duane envisioned.

Then there's the novel Recovery, a Lost Years (between TOS and TMP) novel about a Starfleet hospital supership with 70+ decks.

 

[Deks]

Size isn't everything.
In Trek, bigger isn't always better.
Actually, what we mostly saw from Federation ships was that they sport some impressive technologies that are beyond Star Wars.

Think of it like this... a SD can move at a very slow pace of several km to to hundreds of km per second... though, lets' give them 1000 km per second.

Trek ships can move at sublight velocity of 74 000 km/s at a minimum.
Furthermore, use of subspace fields around Federation ships lowers their mass to the point where it becomes negligible and allows Trek capital ships to execute fighter like maneuvers.

Star Wars also doesn't have the firepower to do any real damage... except the Death Star.
We have evidence supporting the idea that a Galaxy class can churn out about 11 gigatons per second at maximum from phasers alone.
Whereas photon torpedoes easily go into the hundreds of gigatons range, or possibly even Teratons.

Wars capital ships (apart from the Death Star) never showed any exceptional yields when it comes to planetary bombardment.
A Trek ship could easily render a planet uninhabitable in a minute... while easily also destroying planetary crusts.

I am also reminded of something else... at warp velocities, the Borg cube, which is a gargantuum vs the Galaxy class can easily turn around its own axis at Warp speeds.
Federation ships have done similar with them executing sharp maneuvers at Warp speed or even Slisptream (when Voyager in the last minute turned away from Borg space to avoid it).

It is also not impossible for a Federation ship to rotate itself at Warp (lets say clock-wise or counter-clockwise).

Point being, Transporters aren't the only technology Wars ships don't have, ergo, they don't need to be equal in size or bigger to be far more capable/advanced.

Technical efficiency allows us to do more with less... so it is likely that Trek follows this paradigm a lot more than Wars does (which makes sense, considering that in Trek, the Federation doesn't use money and is more in line with doing things sustainably, while Wars has monetary economics which are based on endless growth and 'bigger is better').

Oh and, last time I checked, Federation ships are able to also blow up a planet with a simple torpedo...
Whereas Wars needs a huge space station to do the same thing.
Furthermore, it can be argued that an ability to destroy planets is not as impressive as making one (aka the Genesis device).

Trek has far superior control over energy and its conversion... especially into matter. And just because the Feds don't build huge megastructures, does't mean they can't... it could easily mean they just have no need for them, because they can do more with less.

 

[Deks]

Plus, the Galaxy class and the Sovereign class ships aren't exactly small in comparison to a Star Destroyer.
There's also the Klingon Negh'Var and a Romulan Warbird.
The Romulan warbird alone is comparable in size to the Star Destroyer.

People who focus on size as an 'awesome' factor really do not understand the process of technical efficiency.

Why waste resources on a humongous structure if you can do the same with a smaller object that does something similar if not exactly the same?

 

[MacLeod]

It's always hard to compare different universes, but as others have said it's not how big something is but what you do with it, \hoe muvh of a Satr Destroyers massive size ompared to a Trek ship is given over to propulsion systems?

 

[Arpy]

Way back in Diane Duane's 1980's novels, there were mile-long Starfleet Defender-class ships crewed by elephant-sized nonhumanoids. I'd have LOVED to see a picture of what Duane envisioned.

Then there's the novel Recovery, a Lost Years (between TOS and TMP) novel about a Starfleet hospital supership with 70+ decks.

That's kind of awesome. Different aliens will be different sizes. Imagine intelligent hot-air balloon jellyfish from a gas giant homeworld joining the Federation. They're probably going to have ships that suit them better. Bigger isn't just about intimidation.

Also, I imagine there are large tanker ships and freighters and terraforming and colony ships that may be larger than the Galaxy out there. Heck, the Narada is a mining vessel from the Prime Universe and it's crazy bigger than a D'deridex. A Nimitz Class aircraft carrier is huge, but a supertanker can be way larger still.

 

[Phoenix219]

True. The equivalent of today's Nimitiz class or Gerald Ford class aircraft carriers biggest ships in the fleet.

That is a very cool poster, but some of these side views look absolutely horrible.

I've always *liked* the way Excelsior class ships look, but wow, that side view is f'ing UGLY.

 

[kazemiya]

Well actually bigger is always better, except for Galactica and Space above and beyond series (babylon V ,only applied for white star on the hand of EAF), in which fighters could take out capital ship easily. Bigger is always better, however it become worsen if their technology couldn't matched their size or oversize...
And yes, i am agree, Bj Wagner. Starwars has turbo laser and heavy turbolaser for their main weapon in which both of weapon are 1st generation of light/beam weapon. While Babylon V already have neutron blaster and graviton beam which are both a 2nd generation.
In other side Startrek universe already expand their technology to phaser, distruptor, and plasma which are 3rd generation.

Hmmm galaxy class has 15,000 maximum evacuation limit anyway. But those ship couldn't bring heavy planetary assault machine such as AT AT walker.

 

[David cgc]

That's kind of awesome. Different aliens will be different sizes. Imagine intelligent hot-air balloon jellyfish from a gas giant homeworld joining the Federation. They're probably going to have ships that suit them better. Bigger isn't just about intimidation.

We saw that on-screen with the Xindi Aquatic's ships.

 

[kazemiya]

Plus, the Galaxy class and the Sovereign class ships aren't exactly small in comparison to a Star Destroyer.
There's also the Klingon Negh'Var and a Romulan Warbird.
The Romulan warbird alone is comparable in size to the Star Destroyer.

People who focus on size as an 'awesome' factor really do not understand the process of technical efficiency.

Why waste resources on a humongous structure if you can do the same with a smaller object that does something similar if not exactly the same?

Well in my opinion, depend on the situation, that could be both true and false. Wasting resources for bigger size only applied if their technology is inballance with or couldnt cover or utilize their size, mass, or weight. However bigger ship with optimal advanced technology could surpass their smaller ship w/ same technology (in term of power and capacity). Ex defiant class which is used as testing bed for sovereign, couldn't defeat the latter. Though the larger and outdated uprated excelsior class, Lakota, is a good match for newer and smaller Defiant. Scimitar might be a good example for this philosophy. Or a nebulon B never able to defeat Mc80 and Mc80 never able to beat stardestroyer. The same goes with babylon V omega class is surpassed by a larger Victory class. Well at least i never see a smaller capital ship of the same race could defeat (without exceptional tactic or for the sake of the story) their larger ship w/ the same technology. With exception Babylon V EAF White Star, who incorporated Minbari tech on it. I guess larger is always better since we can incorporated their latest technology to the ship with more powerful weapon, more power source, thicker armor, more modern science lab, etc. However i think the case only applied for between the ships of the same race from the same series.

 

[Mytran]

I've often thought about just how empty that ship must be... 1014 people, 42 decks. That's like 25 people per deck. And given just how enormous some of those decks really are, that's a lot of open space (even accounting for cargo, equipment, and the like).

Well, we know that originally Andrew Probert envisioned a crew of several thousand for the Enterprise-D, but that was nixed by Roddenberry because he was concerned about paying for all those extras in the background.

So, we are left with a population of 1,012, that figure including both crew and civilians. Deck after deck of empty space is one possibility, but what if we are overestimating how much useable space is actually in one of those Galaxy Class saucers? I am thinking of the Haynes Death Star cutaway which (unlike the earlier Shane Johnson version) depicts a sphere mostly jam-packed with machinery to make the vessel function:

The Death Star Haynes manual describes a few decks on the outer skin of the sphere. Translated to the setup of the Enterprise-D, this could explain the preponderance of windows on the hull, most of them lit all the time. If the full extent of the saucer were used for accommodation there would certainly be no need for so many window-cabins to be occupied.

After all, the support equipment for the propulsion, life support, computer power and holodeck generators has to go somewhere, doesn't it?

 

[C.E. Evans]

Usually Trek has depicted most of the various support equipment as being dispersed across the ship and accessible by Jefferies tubes between the decks and by removable panels in corridors. An argument could be made that the only sections on a Galaxy-class ship not intended to feature living quarters could be in the pylons and nacelles.

 

[BJ Wagner]

Well, we know that originally Andrew Probert envisioned a crew of several thousand for the Enterprise-D, but that was nixed by Roddenberry because he was concerned about paying for all those extras in the background.

So, we are left with a population of 1,012, that figure including both crew and civilians. Deck after deck of empty space is one possibility, but what if we are overestimating how much useable space is actually in one of those Galaxy Class saucers? I am thinking of the Haynes Death Star cutaway which (unlike the earlier Shane Johnson version) depicts a sphere mostly jam-packed with machinery to make the vessel function:

The Death Star Haynes manual describes a few decks on the outer skin of the sphere. Translated to the setup of the Enterprise-D, this could explain the preponderance of windows on the hull, most of them lit all the time. If the full extent of the saucer were used for accommodation there would certainly be no need for so many window-cabins to be occupied.

After all, the support equipment for the propulsion, life support, computer power and holodeck generators has to go somewhere, doesn't it?

And all it took was a couple of Proton Torpedoes fired from a magical farm-boy in order to make that thing go boom. I hope someone lost their job because of it. Things aren't build to last these days...