All known SG ships vs. SGU drones?

[Aesop]

Of all the known capital ships in the SG franchise from the film to the last episode of SGU, which ones stand the best chance in a war with the automatic attack drones? This is assuming that the conditions of the battle are at least relatively similar to what we've seen Destiny go through.

What seems critical in these battles are point-defense weaponry, since their strategy is overwhelming a target with energy weapons from various directions. From what we know, there seems to be a vast 'fleet' of these control ships and their drones, given that they've managed to blockade every viable fuel stop in the galaxy that Destiny would make a stop at.

So I imagine there are a various factors that would need to be taken into account. Number of available ships, quantity of weaponry, quality of weaponry, shield availability/strength, auxiliary weapon systems, fighter complements, etc.

Off-hand that I can remember, we have:

-Earth's 303 and 304's (including 302 complements)
-Ha'taks (including Glider and Al'kesh complements)
-Hive ships (including Dart complements)
-Wraith cruiser
-Asgard Bilskirnir-class
-Asgard O'Neill-class
-Ori warships (including fighter complements)
-Traveler generational ships
-Lantean Aurora-class battleships
-Asuran cruisers
-City-ships

Any others you can think of. I'm excluding the ships all within SGU simply because we've generally seen them in battle withe drones.

I suspect that actually Ha'taks could be fairly effective simply because their staff canons, IIRC, include main weapons and point-defense. Ordnance-based weaponry would presumably run dry eventually in a battle with the drones.

[Xaeden]

Well naturally the Ori ships would have no problem whatsoever. The smaller Berzerker ships could be ignored since they are inconsequential, (thanks to the strength of an Ori ship's shields) while the Ori go right for the control ships. One hit would take it out and deactivate all of its drones, so the Ori could simply go around taking them all out (assuming they cannot be built faster than they are destroyed).

The next best ship at winning by taking out the control ships would likely be the Aurora-class battleships. We don't know what their shield strength is like as we haven't seen a fully functional one in battle (supposedly the Asuran version had lesser shields) but their drones weapons can (presuming that they have a long enough range) easily bypass enemy drone ships and take out the control ship. Hence, individual battles would not last long. If a control ship already has its drones deployed when an Aurora-class ship shows up then the Aurora-class ship would likely take minimal shield damage before the drone ships deactivate. However, if they're not deployed, then the Aurora-class ship could very possibly end the battle before taking a single hit; while the drone ships are traveling from the control ship to the Aurora-class ship the Ancient's drone weapons would be doing the same in reverse and could very likely get there first.

How they would do against a whole galaxy full of them is another matter. In SGU, the Berzerker fleet was spread out because they were trying to to net a single enemy ship. However, if dealing with a fleet they would respond by attacking in swarms, and we know how well the Ancients did the one time they had to battle a massive swarm of ships.

Aside from those obvious cases, it would be interesting to see the Wraith go up against them. Each Hive carries hundreds, possibly thousands of darts so, assuming the Hive has a full complement, (which was often not the case in SGA because of their food supply problem) the drones might find it difficult to wade through a Hive's dart wall to get at it. Meanwhile, although the Hive may have difficulty getting into firing range of the control ship while their darts duke it out with the drones, the Wraith would almost certainly devote a certain portion of their darts to making a run on the control ship, which appear to lack defensive capabilities.

[Aesop]

Well naturally the Ori ships would have no problem whatsoever. The smaller Berzerker ships could be ignored since they are inconsequential, (thanks to the strength of an Ori ship's shields) while the Ori go right for the control ships. One hit would take it out and deactivate all of its drones, so the Ori could simply go around taking them all out (assuming they cannot be built faster than they are destroyed).

That's right, I forgot that the Ori ships have their pulse weapons in addition to the main beam. Those were good enough to take out a shielded Ha'tak, weren't they? As far as more being built, I think the race that built them was believed to be extinct, so it seems like there's a finite number of them.

The next best ship at winning by taking out the control ships would likely be the Aurora-class battleships. We don't know what their shield strength is like as we haven't seen a fully functional one in battle (supposedly the Asuran version had lesser shields) but their drones weapons can (presumably that they have a long enough range) easily bypass enemy drone ships and take out the control ship. Hence, individual battles would not last long. If a control ship already has its drones deployed when an Aurora-class ship shows up then the Aurora-class ship would likely take minimal shield damage before the drone ships deactivate. However, if they're not deployed, then the Aurora-class ship could very possibly end the battle before taking a single hit; while the drone ships are traveling from the control ship to the Aurora-class ship the Ancient's drone weapons would be doing the same in reverse and could very likely get there first.

The one issue I could see with Aurora-class ships fighting the berserker drones is that they have a finite supply of drone weapons. If they were in Destiny's circumstances and couldn't readily resupply, those drone weapons could run dry pretty quick.

That being said, it's possible that an Aurora-class ship could get by only using 1-2 drone weapons per control ship. We saw those drone weapons weave around Darts when the Orion attacked those two Hive Ships alongside the Daedalus. Since the control ships don't have shields it's possible a full compliment of drone weapons could be used to take out all of the control ships, but who knows.

How they would do against a whole galaxy full of them is another matter. In SGU, the Berzerker fleet was spread out because they were trying to to net a single enemy ship. However, if dealing with a fleet they would respond by attacking in swarms, and we know how well the Ancients did the one time they had to battle a massive swarm of ships.

True, any of these other ships would probably go on the offensive more than Destiny did, since they would be at 100% while Destiny wasn't. If the tactics changed, the Ori ships might be the only ships who would realistically make it through such a confrontation.

Aside from those obvious cases, it would be interesting to see the Wraith go up against them. Each Hive carries hundreds, possibly thousands of darts so, assuming the Hive has a full complement, (which was often not the case in SGA because of their food supply problem) the drones might find it difficult to wade through a Hive's dart wall to get at it. Meanwhile, although the Hive may have difficulty getting into firing range of the control ship while their darts duke it out with the drones, the Wraith would almost certainly devote a certain portion of their darts to making a run on the control ship, which appear to lack defensive capabilities.

It would indeed be interesting to see how a Hive's regenerative armor would fare against drone weapons, though I doubt it'd be any better than against Earth's railguns. Even though they have huge amounts of Darts, the ships themselves only have their main weapons from what I've seen. I guess it's a toss up there.

I still think the Ha'taks might do surprisingly well against these ships, if only those Ha'taks that were upgraded by Anubis...

[thekillman]

Hive ships may fare better than Ori ships because they can regenerate. Besides, i doubt the Drones would be able to do much damage against a hive at all, including suicide runs.

[garhkal]

Well naturally the Ori ships would have no problem whatsoever. The smaller Berzerker ships could be ignored since they are inconsequential, (thanks to the strength of an Ori ship's shields) while the Ori go right for the control ships. One hit would take it out and deactivate all of its drones, so the Ori could simply go around taking them all out (assuming they cannot be built faster than they are destroyed).

The next best ship at winning by taking out the control ships would likely be the Aurora-class battleships. We don't know what their shield strength is like as we haven't seen a fully functional one in battle (supposedly the Asuran version had lesser shields) but their drones weapons can (presumably that they have a long enough range) easily bypass enemy drone ships and take out the control ship. Hence, individual battles would not last long. If a control ship already has its drones deployed when an Aurora-class ship shows up then the Aurora-class ship would likely take minimal shield damage before the drone ships deactivate. However, if they're not deployed, then the Aurora-class ship could very possibly end the battle before taking a single hit; while the drone ships are traveling from the control ship to the Aurora-class ship the Ancient's drone weapons would be doing the same in reverse and could very likely get there first.

How they would do against a whole galaxy full of them is another matter. In SGU, the Berzerker fleet was spread out because they were trying to to net a single enemy ship. However, if dealing with a fleet they would respond by attacking in swarms, and we know how well the Ancients did the one time they had to battle a massive swarm of ships.

Aside from those obvious cases, it would be interesting to see the Wraith go up against them. Each Hive carries hundreds, possibly thousands of darts so, assuming the Hive has a full complement, (which was often not the case in SGA because of their food supply problem) the drones might find it difficult to wade through a Hive's dart wall to get at it. Meanwhile, although the Hive may have difficulty getting into firing range of the control ship while their darts duke it out with the drones, the Wraith would almost certainly devote a certain portion of their darts to making a run on the control ship, which appear to lack defensive capabilities.

On the wraith hives.. in letters from pegasus we saw those hives open up on the Langaran point satellite from much further away than it seems the Destinies main weapon can engage enemy ships from.

[Xaeden]

As far as more being built, I think the race that built them was believed to be extinct, so it seems like there's a finite number of them.

That could be the case or the race that built them could have given them the capacity to build more drones on their own. Considering how numerous they were I would lean toward the latter, but we simply do not know.

If they do have production capabilities it could be that there are a series of builder ships out there that we never got to see because, obviously they're going to be programmed to keep them far away any potential danger. In which case finding and targeting those specific ships would need to a priority for anyone fighting them. If, on the other hand, the drones have both combat and production capabilities then that would complicate things tremendously as they may very well be able to produce ships faster than they lose them.

The one issue I could see with Aurora-class ships fighting the berserker drones is that they have a finite supply of drone weapons. If they were in Destiny's circumstances and couldn't readily resupply, those drone weapons could run dry pretty quick.

Yeah, while I think Aurora-class ships would do well in individual battles, that is part of why I think they would have problems in an all out war. I would guess that their traditional method of resupply is the gate network and that when they run out of drones they generally try to jump to hyperspace and head to the nearest gate so they can request that an outpost or city send them a fresh supply of drones. Naturally that is a weakness that the Berzerker fleet can exploit; they can either set up camp around Stargate worlds to try and ambush as many battle weary Ancient ships as they can or they can simply take out the Stargates. No, they can't physically take them out, but they can bury a good number of them by firing on their position. In SGU it served their interests to keep the gate network up because they wanted the crew of the Destiny to use it so they could find them. However, in a different situation they would have no use for the gate network and thus they could make life extremely difficult for the Ancients by dismantling a good portion of it.

On the other hand, the Berzerkers can't use the gates themselves so adapting accordingly by putting Stargates in their ships might work for them if there's nobody else around to worry about.

I still think the Ha'taks might do surprisingly well against these ships, if only those Ha'taks that were upgraded by Anubis...

Personally, if I were the Goa'uld or the Lucian Alliance (and thus didn't mind sacrificing people) I would use motherships as diversions only. Again, I think the real key to beating them is to take out those control ships as fast as possible. Having to beat a large chunk of their drone squadrons before being able to get close enough to take out the control ship is draining. If if an attacker survives while pursuing that course of action, they're going to either have to go into the next battle with weakened shields, take time to recover, or possibly even return to port for repairs since most shield systems don't fully protect a ship from sustaining damage. In a sustained war against large numbers like that, the goal should be to avoid direct engagement with the drones as much as possible. As such, after dropping out of hyperspace I'd flee in the opposite direction at sublight speeds while firing at the pursuing drones. Meanwhile, a cloaked Tel'tak would be headed to the control ship. Once next to it, its pilot would detonate a small supply of naquadah and, since its not shielded, easily take it out.

I don't know that they'd be able to win a war though. New ships take time to build and the Berzerker fleet can therefore seriously hamper their war effort by targeting shipyards (not to mention naquadah mines and population worlds, which supplied the Goa'uld with their slave labor).

On the wraith hives.. in letters from pegasus we saw those hives open up on the Langaran point satellite from much further away than it seems the Destinies main weapon can engage enemy ships from.

I'm not sure about the distance, but I would point out that the satellite was (relatively, of course) static. In contrast, a control ship can move around and thus dodge incoming fire. At a short distance, that is difficult to do. At a large distance, it's plenty easy to see incoming fire and have time to react. Since the Wraith only have energy weapons that fire in a straight line I would therefore imagine that it would be difficult for them to take out a control ship from far away regardless of their range.

[garhkal]

Personally, if I were the Goa'uld or the Lucian Alliance (and thus didn't mind sacrificing people) I would use motherships as diversions only. Again, I think the real key to beating them is to take out those control ships as fast as possible. Having to beat a large chunk of their drone squadrons before being able to get close enough to take out the control ship is draining. If if an attacker survives while pursuing that course of action, they're going to either have to go into the next battle with weakened shields, take time to recover, or possibly even return to port for repairs since most shield systems don't fully protect a ship from sustaining damage. In a sustained war against large numbers like that, the goal should be to avoid direct engagement with the drones as much as possible. As such, after dropping out of hyperspace I'd flee in the opposite direction at sublight speeds while firing at the pursuing drones. Meanwhile, a cloaked Tel'tak would be headed to the control ship. Once next to it, its pilot would detonate a small supply of naquadah and, since its not shielded, easily take it out.

As we have seen though, the Drone ships are able to quickly adapt to new tactics.. Such as how quickly they changed from shooting at the Destiny after Rush and Eli converted the shields to just protect against the Energy blasts, to ramming it. So while that tactic might work once or twice, i doubt it would work after.
Also do we even know if they can detect cloaked ships or not?

[Aesop]

That could be the case or the race that built them could have given them the capacity to build more drones on their own. Considering how numerous they were I would lean toward the latter, but we simply do not know.

I could see that happening if there were perhaps some kind of automated factory that had the implements to create more.

If they do have production capabilities it could be that there are a series of builder ships out there that we never got to see because, obviously they're going to be programmed to keep them far away any potential danger. In which case finding and targeting those specific ships would need to a priority for anyone fighting them. If, on the other hand, the drones have both combat and production capabilities then that would complicate things tremendously as they may very well be able to produce ships faster than they lose them.

That would make sense. Builder ships, or maybe a space dock of some kind that churns out drones and command ships.

Yeah, while I think Aurora-class ships would do well in individual battles, that is part of why I think they would have problems in an all out war. I would guess that their traditional method of resupply is the gate network and that when they run out of drones they generally try to jump to hyperspace and head to the nearest gate so they can request that an outpost or city send them a fresh supply of drones. Naturally that is a weakness that the Berzerker fleet can exploit; they can either set up camp around Stargate worlds to try and ambush as many battle weary Ancient ships as they can or they can simply take out the Stargates. No, they can't physically take them out, but they can bury a good number of them by firing on their position. In SGU it served their interests to keep the gate network up because they wanted the crew of the Destiny to use it so they could find them. However, in a different situation they would have no use for the gate network and thus they could make life extremely difficult for the Ancients by dismantling a good portion of it.

I suppose the gates would work, though something about it seems like it might not be as efficient as Ancients seem to have been. I figured rearming an Aurora involved docking on a city-ship and a big resupply operation. Who knows, in desperate times, gates might very well be the best option.

IIRC, when Rush and Eli figured out how to track the Command Ships, they determined that they were posted up at nearly every star that was within range of a gate, likely meaning that they were in a fairly advantageous position to attack any gates that went active.

On the other hand, the Berzerkers can't use the gates themselves so adapting accordingly by putting Stargates in their ships might work for them if there's nobody else around to worry about.

A gate on board an Aurora would probably be the best idea since the Ancients could just ferry supplies of drones directly onto the ship.

Personally, if I were the Goa'uld or the Lucian Alliance (and thus didn't mind sacrificing people) I would use motherships as diversions only. Again, I think the real key to beating them is to take out those control ships as fast as possible. Having to beat a large chunk of their drone squadrons before being able to get close enough to take out the control ship is draining. If if an attacker survives while pursuing that course of action, they're going to either have to go into the next battle with weakened shields, take time to recover, or possibly even return to port for repairs since most shield systems don't fully protect a ship from sustaining damage. In a sustained war against large numbers like that, the goal should be to avoid direct engagement with the drones as much as possible. As such, after dropping out of hyperspace I'd flee in the opposite direction at sublight speeds while firing at the pursuing drones. Meanwhile, a cloaked Tel'tak would be headed to the control ship. Once next to it, its pilot would detonate a small supply of naquadah and, since its not shielded, easily take it out.

That's a clever tactic. Although I wonder if an Al'kesh would be more effective then a Tel'tak. In any case, a cloak might be irrelevant if they're able to exit hyperspace on top of a Command Ship the same way Destiny did when Chloe programmed the ship's navigation to do so in "Gauntlet". Either an Al'kesh or Ha'tak could successfully ambush a Command Ship if they had access to the subspace signal that Eli and Rush isolated and thus tracked them with.

I don't know that they'd be able to win a war though. New ships take time to build and the Berzerker fleet can therefore seriously hamper their war effort by targeting shipyards (not to mention naquadah mines and population worlds, which supplied the Goa'uld with their slave labor).

True, although the Goa'uld fleet is pretty large, even after it took a major hit from the Replicators. There's apparently still plenty of ships to go around amongst the Lucian Alliance and the Free Jaffa Nation. It might be more than a match numerically for the drones, especially if they employ the strategy discussed above.

Those Ha'taks may be old but in general they seem to be in great working condition. Whenever SG-1 is on board one, I don't ever recall anyone saying it was in poor condition like Destiny or Aurora. That right there might be an advantage.

As we have seen though, the Drone ships are able to quickly adapt to new tactics.. Such as how quickly they changed from shooting at the Destiny after Rush and Eli converted the shields to just protect against the Energy blasts, to ramming it. So while that tactic might work once or twice, i doubt it would work after.
Also do we even know if they can detect cloaked ships or not?

I don't think there's any evidence that the drones/command ships can detect cloaks since there weren't any in SGU, at least on Destiny's side of the universe. My guess is it's not very likely since cloaks typically mask all energy signatures, which are what the drones seem to target (at least initially).

A cloak would be beneficial if you were unable to use guerrilla tactics á là Sam aboard the Phoenix in the alternate reality. Otherwise, the best option seems to be using the tracking program to drop in on Command Ships, bombard them with whatever energy or projectile weaponry the ship has and take it out before it even deploys drones. The whole thing could probably be done in a matter of seconds if executed right.

Ha'taks and Ori warships might be ideal for that sort of strategy anyway, since they have omnidirectional energy weapons... so they can cover multiple sectors at once and not have to worry about resource depletion in a firefight.

[Xaeden]

As we have seen though, the Drone ships are able to quickly adapt to new tactics.. Such as how quickly they changed from shooting at the Destiny after Rush and Eli converted the shields to just protect against the Energy blasts, to ramming it. So while that tactic might work once or twice, i doubt it would work after.
Also do we even know if they can detect cloaked ships or not?

We don't know if they can detect cloaked ships, but it's a fairly rare capability in the Stargate universe, so chances say they can't. Maybe they'd learn to detect the naquadah, but are both the Lucian Alliance and Goa'uld incapable of having/developing a non-naquadah bomb of a sufficient yield to get the job done? I doubt it.

Anyway, assuming the cloaked ship couldn't be detected, it's a pretty difficult strategy to adapt to. There's no real way to defend against a cloaked ship. They can't create a complete physical blockade around the control ship, so there will always be room for a Tel'tak to slip through. I suppose they could surround the control ship as best they can and randomly fire outward as rapidly as they could to try to keep it from slipping through, but how long can they keep that up for? All the Tel'tak has to do is sit back and wait for them run out of power or, if they are not inclined to wait that long, the mothership can approach and start firing on the drones. Either they can maintain their position until a sufficient hole has been made in their defenses or a certain number of them can create their own hole by breaking off and heading for the mothership. In the latter case the Tel'tak, which would be sitting at a close but safe range, should be able to move right in.

[garhkal]

True, we have seen no examples of cloaks in SGU, but the wraith did finally get to pierce cloaking tech in Enemy at the gate with the super hive.. So perhaps the Drones might.

[Aesop]

True, we have seen no examples of cloaks in SGU, but the wraith did finally get to pierce cloaking tech in Enemy at the gate with the super hive.. So perhaps the Drones might.

It might make for an interesting plot point if the drones could detect a cloaked ship. The only example we have of that happening was the Super Hive, which had an enormous power boost from (I think) a bank of ZPM's. So, we could deduce that if the drones detected a cloak ship they too must have a significant power source - one worth exploring.

[garhkal]

That is a valid point. We don't even know what power source the drones use..

[thekillman]

True, we have seen no examples of cloaks in SGU, but the wraith did finally get to pierce cloaking tech in Enemy at the gate with the super hive.. So perhaps the Drones might.

there was one episode in SG1 where a cloaked tel'tak was detected. It definitely depends on the level of the cloak.

[Aesop]

there was one episode in SG1 where a cloaked tel'tak was detected. It definitely depends on the level of the cloak.

That, and the power available to the sensor array and the sensors themselves.

[garhkal]

Not really. remember the Ori ships didn't detect either Teal'c in the cloaked cargo ship, or the cloaked Oddessy.