Destiny's weapon grid

[Descended]

I was pretty disappointed to see "slow moving glowing balls of... something" repeated again as a weapon system.

I figured they were going for a more pseudo realistic type feel for this show, and this definitely put a dent in that feel. Come on, can't they think of anything else other than the glowing blobs of slow moving goo again? I would even have been happy with ancient satellite type beam weapons but this was just the same old cliche for the billionth time being trotted out again.

"Look at our bad ass ship! Just don't try to fight us from more than a few kilometers away or we'll be completely helpless."

Every ship in stargate suffers from this problem. The closet they ever got to a viable weapon system for space warfare was 304 nuclear missiles, but they were way too slow and they failed to use them correctly.

This glowing blobs of goo thing though, this needs to end, and not just in Stargate either. It's a genre wide megacliche that's persisted since at least the original star wars in 1977.

Kinda hard to show a laser based weapon system that travels at the speed of light. You wouldn't be able to see the beam travel since space is a vacuum and light beams are only visible when diffracting off dust particles in the air. You would see the turrets glow and then the target explode. Doesn't make for an epic battle feel.

[Ouroboros]

Kinda hard to show a laser based weapon system that travels at the speed of light. You wouldn't be able to see the beam travel since space is a vacuum and light beams are only visible when diffracting off dust particles in the air. You would see the turrets glow and then the target explode. Doesn't make for an epic battle feel.

At this point I'd settle for just a "probably more visible than it realistically should be" red "laser" beam that actually seemed to propagate at light speed and had a maximum range to match, just to finally get something different for a change.

They could even color it whatever color they want and just call it a particle beam or something. Lets just get rid of the horribly short ranges and shots that move with all the urgency of a speeding tree slug.

[thekillman]

well even IF blobs are used (and i'm fine with that), i get annoyed by the insane slowness.

perhaps the Arcturus weapon had the fastest bolts we ever saw on Stargate.

and those weren't that fast either.


no, i REALLY like to see bolts going so fast, you can barely see them. they're almost a stream of light.


THAT would be cool.

[Encoder]

Nah those weapons are seriously flawed. The only true power is from the single continuous beam weapons that Star Trek used on the Starfleet ships and that the Asgard beam weapons (Ori beam weapons) eventually received on our F304's.

Such a large buildup for such a small duration of payload. Very 20th century!

[Sim]

We were giving basically no reference point on how long they fired those weapons for. I don't want to call it "lazy writing", but they definitely just glazed over it very quickly like they were avoiding a question.

Almost as bad as their flashbacks without telling us when this took place (one of the things I didnt like about BSG.)

[Otarush]

I think that with the conduits damaged and such a lot of power was leaking away or being used to push power through areas with high resistance. And for all we know, these are like Asgard beam weapons per shot. At least, I hope so, because that would be awesome.

[greenmen]

We were giving basically no reference point on how long they fired those weapons for. I don't want to call it "lazy writing", but they definitely just glazed over it very quickly like they were avoiding a question.

Rush went from his chat on the observation balcony to some place inside the ship, came up with a plan to improve their odds, talked to the other scientists about it and then talked to Telford before the lights went finally out in that scene.

Most likely, that's about "a couple of hours", depending on how long it took him to plan everything. At the very least we can safely say it's a lot longer than those few moments we see in the show.

[Nightfighter89]

I was pretty disappointed to see "slow moving glowing balls of... something" repeated again as a weapon system.

I figured they were going for a more pseudo realistic type feel for this show, and this definitely put a dent in that feel. Come on, can't they think of anything else other than the glowing blobs of slow moving goo again? I would even have been happy with ancient satellite type beam weapons but this was just the same old cliche for the billionth time being trotted out again.

"Look at our bad ass ship! Just don't try to fight us from more than a few kilometers away or we'll be completely helpless."

Every ship in stargate suffers from this problem. The closet they ever got to a viable weapon system for space warfare was 304 nuclear missiles, but they were way too slow and they failed to use them correctly.

This glowing blobs of goo thing though, this needs to end, and not just in Stargate either. It's a genre wide megacliche that's persisted since at least the original star wars in 1977.

Good points and true save for one thing: Drones.

The ancients were smart enough to solve the problem, just took 'em a while

[ha'tak_]

to me it sounded like the rainguns on the 303's and 304's

yess I thought so also, it did look very much like a railgun and sounded

[garhkal]

Probably a fleet of ships. That and the Destiny running into rouge space objects like Metors and comets. I think the Destiny would work the entire Earth fleet of 304's.

The ship easily has over a dozen cannon's on it and shields that can withstand being inside of a star.

Heck one ship could have done it. From what i saw it looked like THEY had to do stuff to make those weapons be usable. So maybe the other ship got in shots without being fired back on.

Rush went from his chat on the observation balcony to some place inside the ship, came up with a plan to improve their odds, talked to the other scientists about it and then talked to Telford before the lights went finally out in that scene.

Most likely, that's about "a couple of hours", depending on how long it took him to plan everything. At the very least we can safely say it's a lot longer than those few moments we see in the show.

Very true. And since he had to do it all without Telford knowing, that should have tacked on an hour or two more..

[Ouroboros]

The ancients were smart enough to solve the problem, just took 'em a while

Drones are better than blobs certainly, they're basically missiles, but they still seem to be slow moving and overly short ranged. Even the shots where they attack from ground to orbit don't exactly show off impressive ranges in space combat terms, though the speeds do generally tend to improve in those scenes, but even that's more down to lazy FX inconsistency than it is to any kind of deliberate intent.

It's a problem with the whole way space combat is depicted. Lumbering or stationary ships a few ship lengths apart shooting slow moving colorful crap of some kind at each other until one of them explodes like it was full of gasoline.

[Lightning Ducj]

It's a problem with the whole way space combat is depicted. Lumbering or stationary ships a few ship lengths apart shooting slow moving colorful crap of some kind at each other until one of them explodes like it was full of gasoline.

This is because space combat is extrapolated from either Aerial combat or Naval combat, depending in the situation. No TV show, or movie, that I know of has really taken a 'science-fctioni*' approach to space combat in terms of extrapolating from what we know to attempt to determine what combat in space would really be like. Very few deal with the fact that energy weapons travel at light speed and I don't think any deal with the fact that mirrors make effective shielding against light. So we get naval battles in space


*Just a personal note but I distinguish "science-fiction" from "sci-fi", but that's another discussion

[omeeuk]

I'm impressed with the weapons system. I thought the sound effects were some sort of cross between 304 railguns and wraith weapon sound effects.

Someone mentioned how they were only using the little guns too. There are at least 6 massive triple-barrelled gun emplacements around the ship. My thinking is that these little guns may well be the point defence systems while the large ones may be the main long range weaponary or something.

You can see the huge size difference in this gateworld screencap:

http://www.gateworld.net/gallery/dis...um=898&pos=265

The little guns seem to be retracted into their riveted domes. There a couple to either side and just in front of the central shuttle. Each one is next to one of those larger glowing domes. There are also a couple further back. Looking at other screencaps, it looks like these little riveted gun domes are located all around the ship. The big guns.. well they are pretty obvious.

[Ouroboros]

This is because space combat is extrapolated from either Aerial combat or Naval combat, depending in the situation. No TV show, or movie, that I know of has really taken a 'science-fctioni*' approach to space combat in terms of extrapolating from what we know to attempt to determine what combat in space would really be like. Very few deal with the fact that energy weapons travel at light speed and I don't think any deal with the fact that mirrors make effective shielding against light. So we get naval battles in space


*Just a personal note but I distinguish "science-fiction" from "sci-fi", but that's another discussion

The real funny thing is that it's even extrapolated from a poor and/or horribly outdated understanding of both air and sea combat.

The air combat influences generally come in the form of "WW1 dogfights in space complete with getting on the other guys six and downing him with machine guns, and fighters that maneuver aerodynamically when there's no air to be found for billions of miles". I'm even hesitant to call what they show WW1 dogfighting because I'm betting even WW1 dogfights involved a lot more in the way of tactics than is typically depicted in any sci-fi show. I know WW2 dogfighting certainly did. I've always wanted to see someone do some kind of spoof episode in one of these shows where somehow a pilot like Manfred von Richthofen or Erich Hartmann is transported through time to lay waste to all that lays before him while laughing at how they can be both so advanced and so hopelessly backward at the same time.

You wouldn't think WW1 and WW2 German fighter pilots would represent the ultimate weapon in sci-fi fighter warfare, but give these guys a few weeks to learn the new controls and realize it's just a short bus version of what they already do, and I certainly wouldn't bet against them.

As far as the naval stuff goes it's even worse. They regress all the way back to the early age of sail with that one, with some Sci-fi even going so far as to work in boarding actions.

If they're just going to rip off air and naval combat, and I totally agree that that is what they do, it would be nice to see someone at least break the mold there to and rip off modern air and naval combat.

[Lightning Ducj]

The real funny thing is that it's even extrapolated from a poor and/or horribly outdated understanding of both air and sea combat.

Yup!