Trek Space Combat Ranges

[Reliant121]

I dont know where this fits in but I was just viewing Redemption two parter last night, and the distances when the Two BOP attack the Bortas were in Klingon....so i wondered, how far is that. The distance is listed as 20,000 Kellicam. According to Okuda, a Kellicam is equal to 2 kilometres. yet the visuals had them look incredibly close. So I wonder. Is it in fact that the sizes of ships are wrong?

[Captain Seafort]

The distance is listed as 20,000 Kellicam. According to Okuda, a Kellicam is equal to 2 kilometres. yet the visuals had them look incredibly close.

Therefore Okuda (who doesn't have a place in canon) was wrong. If they state the range is 20,000 Kelicams, and the range looks like its about 2 km, then a Kellicam is equivalent to about 10cm.

So I wonder. Is it in fact that the sizes of ships are wrong?

There's too much other evidence to show that the typically stated sizes are accurate.

[Sonic Glitch]

The distance is listed as 20,000 Kellicam. According to Okuda, a Kellicam is equal to 2 kilometres. yet the visuals had them look incredibly close.

Therefore Okuda (who doesn't have a place in canon) was wrong. If they state the range is 20,000 Kelicams, and the range looks like its about 2 km, then a Kellicam is equivalent to about 10cm.

He only created the Klingon Language....

[Captain Seafort]

And? Canon Star Trek is the live-action TV series and films. No more. Not interview statements, not even from the like of Okuda.

[Sionnach Glic]

Aye, that fact is irrelevant. It clearly isn't 40,000KM. Thus a kelicam cannot be 2 kilometres.

[Sionnach Glic]

Thread split from here.

[Reliant121]

Hey, fair point.

[Graham Kennedy]

What exactly do you base this idea that all the visuals of TWoK+ combat are wrong on? This isn't the occasional one-off, which we'd be able to dismiss as special circumstances - combat ranges are consistently depicted as being a few kilometres, with the long-range stuff (such as in Call to Arms and The Wounded) being the exceptions.

We know the ships can go fast, near c even at sublight. We know they can shoot at long ranges, hundreds of thousands of km. They usually don't do so. The obvious reason why is because space battles would be pretty boring if the ships averaged many thousands of km apart. The in universe reason why is... well there isn't one. If Sisko had bitched one day that they had to close in to just a few km because of the enemy Isothorium wavefield, then I'd go along with it happily even if it didn't make a lot of sense.

Given that there isn't one, we can make up whatever answer we like. Some may want to invoke technobabble reasons why ships fight way below their capabilities, be it jammers or... well whatever.

Personally, I think the thing that makes most sense is to just assume that the FX are off in this regard, simply because we do know that that's exactly the real world reason why they do that. For me it's no different from assuming space is silent in the "real" Starfleet no matter how often we hear sound effects, or assuming that people do not actually go through their lives with an orchestral accompaniment no matter how many times we hear on the show that they do.

YMMV, of course, and feel free to use whatever explanation makes best sense to you.

500m would count as unusually close whether normal range is a few kilometres or thousands of kilometres.

Yes it would. But it can hardly be called proof that combat is usually short ranged when it's explicitly stated to be unusually short.

[Graham Kennedy]

Therefore Okuda (who doesn't have a place in canon) was wrong. If they state the range is 20,000 Kelicams, and the range looks like its about 2 km, then a Kellicam is equivalent to about 10cm.

Or the visuals are wrong.

[Tsukiyumi]

...or assuming that people do not actually go through their lives with an orchestral accompaniment no matter how many times we hear on the show that they do...

[Coalition]

Yeah, er... spaceships are massive.

Well i don't know that much about physics but those shields are able to stand against photon torpedoes and phasers, shouldn't be able to take an impact of pure kinetic energy; how much power has the output of a type X phaser or the yield of a photon torpedo and how much is the power of two ships colliding?

There is a difference between kinetic energy and directed energy weapon. Kinetic energy has to be stopped by the shield, by the generator's attachments, and eventually by the structure of the ship. If any of that fails, the ship will take damage. If the shields fail, the ship gets hit. If the generator's bolts fail, the generator comes loose inside the ship (and as long as it has power, the shields will remain up). If the structure fails, the ship crumples.

For energy weapons, the main issue is the shield strength itself. From there, the energy has to be absorbed, and retransmitted. Those surges of heat will cause problems internally, not to mention the mass lighteners used by ST mean that even minor impacts can shake a ship.

Joules are based on mass times the square of speed, but kinetic weapons rely more upon momentum (mass times acceleration). Energy weapons rely upon low mass high-speed particles, while kinetic impact relies upon low speed but high mass.

Think about an industrial laser. It can cut through sheet steel easily, but you can actually hold the steel in your hand as it is being cut (as long as you use eye and heat protection). Now if someone took a sledgehammer to the steel, that would cause problems for anyone holding it.

[Deepcrush]

Babylon 5.
Their ranges very a great deal. The Narn battled the Shadows from far outside of visual range. In fact the Shadow Cruisers were next to a planet and the Narn could barely see the planet. Thats some serious range. At the Battle of B5 Independence, the two sides were firing and waiting several seconds for Lasers (which travel at the speed of light) to impact. Breaching pods were tracked long enough for defense troops on B5 to move from all around the station to a single area. Which would take several minutes. During the Earth-Membari War, EA ships had to get to visual range because the Membari could jam their targeting systems. Of course there was a cost for this since for every Membari ship lost the EA lost five.

Space: Above and Beyond.
They were a lot like B5. Their ranges were all over the place but they fought like WWII ships in that series.

TOS.
We saw ships fighting while at warp speed. Plus, often enough they couldn't even see each other when they fired.

TNG.
On the screen they were in the same shot but I heard the crew talk about ranges of 20,000 km. So I spent a lot of time on this confused.

DS9.
I wrote this whole thing off as ECM. Ships got tired of getting slammed at 50k and so started jamming each other. This in turn forced them to get within visual distance. SoD mostly as I have no way of making RL sense out of it.

[SomosFuga]

There is a difference between kinetic energy and directed energy weapon. Kinetic energy has to be stopped by the shield, by the generator's attachments, and eventually by the structure of the ship. If any of that fails, the ship will take damage. If the shields fail, the ship gets hit. If the generator's bolts fail, the generator comes loose inside the ship (and as long as it has power, the shields will remain up). If the structure fails, the ship crumples.

For energy weapons, the main issue is the shield strength itself. From there, the energy has to be absorbed, and retransmitted. Those surges of heat will cause problems internally, not to mention the mass lighteners used by ST mean that even minor impacts can shake a ship.

Joules are based on mass times the square of speed, but kinetic weapons rely more upon momentum (mass times acceleration). Energy weapons rely upon low mass high-speed particles, while kinetic impact relies upon low speed but high mass.

Think about an industrial laser. It can cut through sheet steel easily, but you can actually hold the steel in your hand as it is being cut (as long as you use eye and heat protection). Now if someone took a sledgehammer to the steel, that would cause problems for anyone holding it.

I like it, but what happend in the case on KE weapons? i mean, if shields in ST are vulnerable to KE impacts why not to use KE weaponry? unless it takes a lot of energy to get through the shiled, to much for a ship mounted railgun or mass driver; or would applies the same principle "low mass-high speed"
Anyway, thanks, it's a good explanation.

[Graham Kennedy]

During the Earth-Membari War, EA ships had to get to visual range because the Membari could jam their targeting systems. Of course there was a cost for this since for every Membari ship lost the EA lost five.

Wasn't it rather worse than that? As I recall, the whole Earth Alliance only destroyed two Minbari capital ships in the entire war.

TOS.
We saw ships fighting while at warp speed. Plus, often enough they couldn't even see each other when they fired.

The funny thing about this is that the reason TOS showed combat at long range is that they didn't have the FX capability to show two ships fighting close in. As FX technology got better, the technology it depicted for worse!

On the screen they were in the same shot but I heard the crew talk about ranges of 20,000 km. So I spent a lot of time on this confused.

Screens can and do magnify images hugely, remember, so being visible on screen isn't the same thing as being close. Also, in The Wounded we heard of weapon ranges in the 300,000 km region.

I wrote this whole thing off as ECM. Ships got tired of getting slammed at 50k and so started jamming each other. This in turn forced them to get within visual distance. SoD mostly as I have no way of making RL sense out of it.

Could be, though you have to wonder why nobody ever, every mentioned this.

[Captain Seafort]

We know the ships can go fast, near c even at sublight.

From what? The best acceleration we've seen or heard of was TMP - the rest of the time they lumber around like beached whales.

We know they can shoot at long ranges, hundreds of thousands of km. They usually don't do so.

Modern infantry weapons have a range of several kilometres, and this range is occasionally used. However, the typical firefight happens at a few dozen yards, if that.

The obvious reason why is because space battles would be pretty boring if the ships averaged many thousands of km apart. The in universe reason why is... well there isn't one.

The in-universe reason is probably ECM - as has been suggested time after time.

Personally, I think the thing that makes most sense is to just assume that the FX are off in this regard, simply because we do know that that's exactly the real world reason why they do that.

That's one possible OOU reason (although I've never heard any statement that it was intended that the DS9 fleet actions were fought at thousands or tens of thousands of km). However, OOU reasoning means jack shit when discussing IU capabilities.

For me it's no different from assuming space is silent in the "real" Starfleet no matter how often we hear sound effects, or assuming that people do not actually go through their lives with an orchestral accompaniment no matter how many times we hear on the show that they do.

That's no different from assuming that there was no orchestral accompaniment to WW2, despite the fact the fact that most war documentaries have one. As for the "sound in space" we have solid proof that that must be factually innacurate, whereas we have no such proof regarding typical starship combat ranges.

Yes it would. But it can hardly be called proof that combat is usually short ranged when it's explicitly stated to be unusually short.

It's evidence because, as Rochey pointed out, there's a difference between "close" and "insanely, suicidally close". If typical ranges are a few km, then 500m would be the former. If they're a few thousand then it's the latter.