Weapon Strengths

[Lt. Col. Mcoy]

How about something simple: the explosive power of a drone based on the episode "The Defiant One"?

[Mister Oragahn]

How about something simple: the explosive power of a drone based on the episode "The Defiant One"?

If you want a maximum yield for drones, check out Adrift, with estimations in the two digits gigajoule range.
For those who wonder what this stuff is, 4.184 terajoules (10^3 gigajoules) is one kiloton of energy.
The nukes USA used against Japan were between 12 and 15 kilotons.
So, somehow, think the drones are thousand times less powerful... which is still very good for weapons which are not exactly meant to destroy things by explosion, but more by hitting fragile and volatile key sections.

[Mister Oragahn]

Besides, you could either go there, or there?
But there have been a couple of vs threads here as well, with estimations.

[immhotep]

Drone power is highly inconsistant. For example in the Defiant one, it has about the explosive power of a single block of Sg1 style C4. In fact that was consistant in PJ's throughout the series. My thoeries on drones being dependant upon power source used to fire them might account for other examples of them being more powerful when fired en masse or from city ships or outposts. But i would not say that a single drone is even as powerful as 1/1000th of a nuke.

[Mister Oragahn]

Drone power is highly inconsistant. For example in the Defiant one, it has about the explosive power of a single block of Sg1 style C4. In fact that was consistant in PJ's throughout the series. My thoeries on drones being dependant upon power source used to fire them might account for other examples of them being more powerful when fired en masse or from city ships or outposts. But i would not say that a single drone is even as powerful as 1/1000th of a nuke.

But it's what happened. It's no surprise that drones can be precharged.

You can always check this thread, which followed upon that one, to get the maximum observed yield for drones.

Yes, numbers were around 20-30 gigajoules per drone. 4.78-7.17 tonnes of TNT.
Not bad eh?

[Maedhros_Sea]

Couple thoughts. The actual output of an energy weapon may be adjustable. It could be fired at lower yields for tactical or air support applications. Or, because full power isn't needed for a given use.

Also, are we assuming yield of energy weapons remains consistent at longer ranges? They would lose some effectiveness in atmosphere, especially atmospheres with higher humidity.

[Steam]

Couple thoughts. The actual output of an energy weapon may be adjustable. It could be fired at lower yields for tactical or air support applications. Or, because full power isn't needed for a given use.

Also, are we assuming yield of energy weapons remains consistent at longer ranges? They would lose some effectiveness in atmosphere, especially atmospheres with higher humidity.

alright smart arse lol we want to no maximum power

[Gen. Nuke]

Remember the shots taken by the Prometheus in Antartica from Anubis mothership...some missed and hit the ground. And we dont see nuclear like explosion, just in conventional range..

And also shots from the Hatak above jonas quinns planet destroying Anubis supership...so missed and hit the buildings.

[titan_hq]

Remember the shots taken by the Prometheus in Antartica from Anubis mothership...some missed and hit the ground. And we dont see nuclear like explosion, just in conventional range..

And also shots from the Hatak above jonas quinns planet destroying Anubis supership...so missed and hit the buildings.

A couple of possible explanations:

1) Anubis only used low power shots as to not hit his own forces above Antarctica.
2) Traveling through the atmosphere drained the energy weapons power very quickly, so by the time they reached Prometheus they had lost maybe >80% of there max power.

I vote number 2 myself.

[Mister Oragahn]

A couple of possible explanations:

1) Anubis only used low power shots as to not hit his own forces above Antarctica.
2) Traveling through the atmosphere drained the energy weapons power very quickly, so by the time they reached Prometheus they had lost maybe >80% of there max power.

I vote number 2 myself.

Option 3: he wanted the outpost intact. Even small nuke-like levels at this depth would be catastrophic for the outpost.

[Ouroboros]

The problem with the atmosphere weakening the shots is that the energy still needs to end up somewhere. If they were holding hundreds of megatons worth of energy and bleeding so much of it into the atmosphere to the point that only those little spitwads hit nubie's ship you'd still have a nuclear holocaust. The radiated "waste" energy would cause more or less exactly the same effects as it would if it all hit at once. You'd get the same massive heating of the atmosphere, the same shockwaves the same heat melting peoples faces raiders of the lost ark style.

The destruction of Nubie's ship is one of the more difficult things in the series to try and explain. Even saying "well the weapons are just that weak" probably doesn't work because that ends up casting some doubts on if that gigantic ship could even hold together when moving on it's own, even with nobody shooting at it.

[wise one]

or season one screwed up with making the goauld hataks all that powerful so they had to tone it down abit

there have been serval ocassions where a hatak is in orbit and its firing into the planet like in that episode the warrior, if a hatak done what it done to the universe daniel went to, then that would simple got rid of all rebel jaffa and stop them from being a nuisance in the galaxy

[Buba uognarf]

There's also the fact that that even Alkesh and Gliders can wear down Asgard shields like those on the Prometheus. Yet those same shields can withstand fire from Anubis' mothership.

[Ouroboros]

You've got to wonder then though. If they are that weak why are they that weak? We know for a fact that just about all Goa'uld society/tech runs of naquada. We also know that just by adding a few small pieces of not even weapons grade naquada to a normal nuke you get a gigaton level "Goa'uld buster".

So what's stopping the Goa'uld from making weapons like that themselves?

There's really only two main things that can be happening here.

-They don't/can't make gigaton levels weapons like this because they're just that stupid, only Earth knows that ading naquada to a simple fission bomb gives you gigaton level yeilds. Everyone else fights with peashooters millions of times less powerful. All the naquada the Goa'uld are always mining just goes into things like engines or shields but no one ever thought to juice up a weapon with the stuff.

-They do know about how much energy you can get out of naquada which is why it powers all their tech including their weapons. Their "energy blobs" since the run off naquada reactions pump out similar energy levels to what you'd get from a bomb full of small amounts of naquada.

The first one can't really work because then even the Prometheus would be more or less a match for entire Goa'uld fleets. Even without naquada in its nukes it could easily clean up several Ha'taks just with normal kiloton level nuclear missiles.

[thekillman]

they only fought themselves. they were successfull. people thought they were gods. why make superweapons when your old crappy stuff works fine. their tech was scavenged, so i doubt they could build more advanced versions. also, nukes are terribly inefficient when it comes to directed force