Registered: Apr 2001
Location: Finland
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I know we were talking about laboratory conditions, but someone mentioned the minbari 360 degree hologram view.

In a space battle, where distances and speeds are huge, naked eye is completely useless. Only thing that really matters, are computers and sensors.

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Registered: Feb 2001
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quote:

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Originally posted by pera
I know we were talking about laboratory conditions, but someone mentioned the minbari 360 degree hologram view.

In a space battle, where distances and speeds are huge, naked eye is completely useless. Only thing that really matters, are computers and sensors.

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Registered: Dec 2001
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I was the one with the viewer. Like they say in today's military, "If you can see it, you can kill it." My previous remark was also made in the context of the commander being able to absorb information and act quickly to a changing tactical environment. It's not the captain's job to track and engage every target, that's what radar operators and gunners are for.

It's also very hard to judge these things without having combat in mind, simply because that's the only time we really see these things in action. The only real "test" we saw was the Excalibur (or was it the Victory?) blasting asteroids in ACTA.

Going from what we have seen (I'm not looking at the end results, just the gear used) in combat I would like to say a word on pulse weapons. Pulse cannons are still integral to EA ships and as we've seen, they do the job quite well. The only other race that I can remember, useing mainly pulse weapons would be the Centauri. I think here, the Centauri have a slight advantage. Bolt for bolt I think they're eaqual to EA heavy pulse weapons, but the Centauri weapons have a higher cyclic rate.

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Registered: Feb 2001
Location: England
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Well, think about the Warlocks Armour and then place EA armour in rank order with other races.

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Registered: Oct 2001
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Drazi ships also use very effective pulse weaponry and the Narns use limited pulse weaponry (probably stolen from the Centauri so they didn't really invent the tech themselves).

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Registered: Nov 2001
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Remember also that the only weapon we ever see a vree saucer firing is some kind of rapid fire pulse gun.

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Registered: Jul 2000
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Apparently its anti-matter based and its dumped straight from the power core of the vessel. Those bolts are actually quite powerful apparently.

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Registered: Oct 2001
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The Vree also have great control over gravitic drives - hence the saucer shapes

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Last edited by Triggy on 12-20-2001 at 01:05 AM

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Registered: Dec 2001
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I knew about the Vree weapon, but to me it just seems like a pulsed version of the Minbari anti-matter beams. Therefore I figured it wouldn't really compare to the others. When you compare plasma weapons and ion cannons to something flinging gobs of pure anti-matter, there's really no contest.

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Registered: Oct 2001
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The Minbari don't use anti-matter (at least not in weapons), they use particle beams (e.g. neutrons in their neutro lasers). From the relative strengths of the weapons I don't think that the anti-matter weapons are that powerful, but only because it is very difficult to produce large amounts of anti-matter. It is a technological wonder that the Vree can produce enough to make a weapon out of them at all!

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Registered: Apr 2001
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The Vree antimatter guns are EXTREMELY powerful.
They outperfporm EA or CENTAURI weaponry .

Vree have been on Earth after WW2.

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Registered: Nov 2001
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Roswell...


Yes, they are powerful, just saw a shot where they blasted 5 or 6 Shadow fighters away in one salvo..

Last edited by Starkiller on 12-20-2001 at 03:19 PM

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Registered: Dec 2001
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I thought the Minbari main gun was anti-matter. Oh well, it wouldn't be the first time I've been wrong.

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Its either Neutron or Fusion based. Its just a stream of condensed particles. The Vree one is a little different.

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Registered: Dec 2001
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It's soooo hard to find data on the ships that hasn't been cooked like an expense account statement from the former board of Edgars industries.

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Registered: Oct 2001
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AoG's Babylon 5 Wars is by far the best account of ship information that is an official Babylon 5 product. The B5 Security Manual provides some data but these data are mostly well known. The novels provide nice information on the Psi Corps, Technomages and on the future of the Centauri and the ISA.

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Registered: Feb 2001
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hmm lots of views alot of contradictory ones - i will add me 2 cents worth - first the vree pulse gun

i dont believe its antimatter based at least not that part we see - reason is this antimatter doesn't glow it look jsut like normal matter - however perhaps tiny amount of animater are sued to create a very very very hot plasma stream - no doubt however its a very powerful weapon - but consider teh acaul streth of the weapon i torn up some shadow fighters - i would say if an ea heavy plama hit a shadow fighter it would jsut be vapourised without any trace left - but i'd say its more suited for anti-fighter use than anti capital use - however if it can sustain the fire rate for long then it would be a truely impressive weapon - but i doubt it can

ea armour i am convinced is better than most other races wether through design or sheer quantiy but i dont think many ships can take the pounding an EA ship can

minbari weapons are very effective hile perhaps not quite as powerful as those developed by the ea - there almost certainly got a longer firing duration adn recharge rate - range i'm not so certain of - since the god cannons were designed to take down ships at range so they themselves would not be destroyed - but overall effectiveness is definatly in minbari favour

my list would place the races in this order

weapons.

vorlon
shadow
minbari
ea
drahk
centauri
narn

Sensors.

shadows
vorlons
technomages
EA shadow enhnaced/drahk
minbari
centauri
standard EA
Narn
very little inbetween teh last two though

armour(overall effectiveness)

shadows/vorlons.
EA
drahk
minbari
narn/centauri

Engines

shadows
vorlons
minbari
centauri
drakh
EA
narn
only reason i am putting the ea above the narn here is becasue we have begun to mess with gravitic systems and i dont know if the narn even have the resources to try that now even with isa help

C&C

vorlons
shadows
minbari
drakh
centuari/EA/narn

as to th tech gap - i believe we bought jump gate tech but the rest until the ea/minbari war was all our own weapons etc cause the centuari wouldn't even share weapons with the ea for huge amoutns of money and even without outside help we took the dilgar who were supposedly as advanced as the centuari jsut not as big - while we might have done it trough numbers mostly i dont think that takes away from the fact - clearly we still had some powerful weapons - how powerful is open to debate but i would suggest whatever the means so far we have shown a willingness to advance few other races have -if if we have copied alot i think we are better at understanding the new techs than others shown by how fast we get them into sevice

anyway i have given abit more than 2 cents but nevermind i love debates like this

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