Photon and Quantic torpedoes power output

[WhiteLion]

Hi everyone, on the various Star Trek wikias they always give 25,000 megajoules as photonic torpedoes, while for quantum torpedoes they give 10 ^ 5 megajoules. I converted the figure into Megatoni and Gigatoni on the online converter and the result has a negative exponent, try to check you too, I leave the link:

https://www.google.com/search?biw=1280& ... CAs & uact = 5

it seems strange to me because I remember a photon torpedo should have about 50 megatons

[Batman]

Um-yeah. No. 25,000MJ gives you about 6 tons of TNT because one lousy MT is 4.18E15J while 25000MJ is 2.5E7. Not only would 10E5MJ be 2.5 times 'less' than your photon torpedoes but I seriously suspect you don't know what those numbers actually mean

[Darth Lucifer]

...it seems strange to me because I remember a photon torpedo should have about 50 megatons

You're close, the figure most often quoted by fans was from the Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual, which stated that photon torpedoes carried a payload of 1.5kg of antimatter (~64 megatons). This figure, however, is not canon as it was never stated or shown on-screen in any episode.

At a later point in the televised series and also in the Star Trek Encyclopedia, the term used to describe energy output was the isoton. In that book, the authors stated that an isoton may never be defined precisely. Personally, I think that the writing staff decided that direct conversions to real world measures should not be used to avoid science and continuity errors.

[Batman]

@WhiteLion
I think I owe you an apology. I stand by the core of my statement but that could have been phrased less agressively.

[Batman]

And while 'I' think my math holds up you should really check with somebody else before accepting it because I'm really shitty at math

[WhiteLion]

Batman, don't worry, you're right, I don't understand much about mathematics, I've never been good.

[Lord Revan]

While got insanely "breaks planets apart" high yields and "less damage then if you dropped casing from high orbit" low yields. on average photons tend to have yields around high KT-low(ish) MT range based on observation for QT we don't got enough info. Not helped by Photon(ic) torps being variable yield weapons (and that was stated on screen in the last episode of season 2 of ENT or first of season 3 (I can't remember which atm), when they got their first batch of photonic torps).

[Batman]

Photorps at least and at least per TNG are 'definitely' dial-a-yield. There's numerous mentions of 'set torpedo to level x' throughout the series. Data's 'illumination' torpedoes from 'Redemption Pt II' come to mind
And when did we get 'breaks planet apart' torpedo yields?

[Eternal_Freedom]

That's probably referring to Kim's hyperbole in "The Omega Directive" about the (definitely non-standard) "Gravimetric charge."

[Lord Revan]

actually I was referring to "anti-matter charge" from a TOS episode "obsession" where an ounce of antimatter left a huge crater at the surface using the 1.5kg payload figure it would mean that photon torps would be planet crackers.

That said it's an outlayer never really repeated so it should be ignore the same way the pathetically low yield from ST5 should be ignored.

[Captain Seafort]

That said it's an outlayer never really repeated so it should be ignore the same way the pathetically low yield from ST5 should be ignored.

I'm not sure it should be entirely ignored, because there's an awful lot of TOS that's fairly consistent within the series but doesn't mesh at all well with later series - the long list of explicit or implied speeds that would have had Voyager home in a few weeks, for example.

The ST5 shot can easily be explained as the low end of the variable yield - the "knock a comm array off a shuttlepod without scratching the hull" setting Reed attributed to the NX-01's photonics.

[Eternal_Freedom]

The "Obsession" example causes a whole bunch of problems, not least because of the stated yield for an antimatter device. Namely, it implies that the Big E's ordinary photon torpedoes aren't antimatter warheads themselves, something that pretty much everything else I know of ignores or disputes.

There is also how the hell you get a continent-wrecking yield from an ounce of antimatter. My personal theory is they actually built a crude subspace weapon like the Son'a use. It's about the only thing I can think of that makes a semblance of sense.

[FaxModem1]

What were the yields of the torpedoes used by the Romulan/Cardassian fleet that bombed what they thought was the Founders homeworld?

[Imperial Overlord]

What were the yields of the torpedoes used by the Romulan/Cardassian fleet that bombed what they thought was the Founders homeworld?

Too many issues with the scene to calculate. The fireballs dissipate far too quickly for large scale explosions, the dialogue doesn't give us numbers we can work with, and there's sensor spoofing going on.

[Lord Revan]

What were the yields of the torpedoes used by the Romulan/Cardassian fleet that bombed what they thought was the Founders homeworld?

Too many issues with the scene to calculate. The fireballs dissipate far too quickly for large scale explosions, the dialogue doesn't give us numbers we can work with, and there's sensor spoofing going on.

and it's a mix of energy weapons and torps so we can't say for sure how of the visible effects was done by the torps and how much by the energy weapons.

[NecronLord]

What were the yields of the torpedoes used by the Romulan/Cardassian fleet that bombed what they thought was the Founders homeworld?

Too many issues with the scene to calculate. The fireballs dissipate far too quickly for large scale explosions, the dialogue doesn't give us numbers we can work with, and there's sensor spoofing going on.

It should be noted that while it's traditional to point out that there is spoofing around here to dispute the effects of the weapons, the dialogue implies that such a fleet must be capable of the destruction indicated.

If they were not, and only capable of "conventional" megatonnes of damage, the scene is about as realistic as expecting a Russian artilleryman in WW2 to be fooled into thinking he'd blown up all of Berlin in one shot with a Katuysha. They'd obviously know what their weapons should be capable of and not be fooled by readings indicating that they had been ten thousand times more effective than they should be.

The best reconciliation of the scene IMO is that the disruptors would have disintegrated the crust and that photons and plasma torpedos would have been targeted on suspected strongpoints or installations. IE that the damage could indeed be done but that it wasn't reliant on simple antimatter explosion.

[Imperial Overlord]

I don't think anyone is arguing that 20 large Star Trek warships aren't capable of razing the surface (and instillations in the subsurface) of an undefended planet. The scene isn't any good for torpedo calculations and the giant fireballs don't behave like giant fireballs so trying to calc them like fireballs is problematic. When civilizations that can harness antimatter and quantum black holes bombard a planet, the planet is going to get wrecked.

[NecronLord]

Mostly that there's no need to mention the sensor spoofing, though it's traditional there's no reason to think it conveys anything misleading about the abilities on display!

[Captain Seafort]

The best reconciliation of the scene IMO is that the disruptors would have disintegrated the crust and that photons and plasma torpedos would have been targeted on suspected strongpoints or installations. IE that the damage could indeed be done but that it wasn't reliant on simple antimatter explosion.

While I agree that the sensor-spoofing argument is a red herring, that seriously contradicts the many examples of the E-D using its phasers to drill holes in planets at a rate vastly less than that predicted in TDiC, and the fact that Riker suggested using "almost all" the E-D's PTs against the Pegasus asteroid, which wouldn't have lasted a second against phasers capable of vanishing rock at a similar rate to the TDiC prediction.

[NecronLord]

One of the main things about chain reactions is of course that they are exponential. Fifty warbirds may be able to achieve far more than fifty times one individual warbird.

[WhiteLion]

Besides the TOS and Voyager episodes, there is also that of Discovery who posted NecronLord some time ago, in which explosions were seen that devastated vast areas of continents. For 3-4 torpedoes they would do continental destruction. Considering also this episode are three cases in which we can consider a high power.

[Batman]

As opposed to scores of them NOT doing it and exceeding the yield physically possible for M/AM warheads

[Lord Revan]

Wasn't it implied that those hits were from Mycelial powered weapon mounted on the Charon and developed by Mirror Stamets.

[WhiteLion]

from the video it appears that the torpedoes are fired from a ship of the same class as the discovery. Even if it is in the mirror universe the weapons are the same. But if in the episode they say it's another weapon or if you know details that I don't know it's another matter, I haven't seen the last episodes of Discovery yet.

[NecronLord]

As opposed to scores of them NOT doing it and exceeding the yield physically possible for M/AM warheads

Measuring performances by modal order of magnitude firepower is fine, of course, and it would soon result in some interesting performances for Star Wars and some other franchises we historically treasure high firepower.

Of course we know that the general feel of Star Trek having "realistic" firepower figures is because the writers in the Sternbach era did the math behind the scenes, and were obliging enough to publish a lot of their working in the ST:TNG:TM.

I don't think that has predictive power, as we are now very much in the post-Sternbach era, and there's no clear playbook for what the technology is capable of being used by the writers of the various Star Trek productions, as may be witnessed by things like the movies obliging us with fifty long range photon torpedo launchers in the NX-01's engineering sections mounted like broadside guns (!) and the various fighter-based battles in Star Trek Discovery. With multiple production companies, multiple semi-competing series, consistency is bound to decline; and I suspect it'll decline in the direction of more awesome/capable things.

I suspect the actual level of boom we're seeing now is going to remain in excess of what the Star Trek TM. Certainly in other ways; e.g. overall weapons, smallcraft, etc, the modern productions tend to add rather than take capabilities from the Federation's ships.

Wasn't it implied that those hits were from Mycelial powered weapon mounted on the Charon and developed by Mirror Stamets.

The script does indeed imply that the ship used a superweapon to bombard Harlack. Doylian we know this is because the ship was originally intended to have a single vast super-weapon like the Doomsday machine; the Charon is visually designed to look like a cruder derivative of the Doomsday Machine, and actually a planet destroyer. This is from John Eaves' recent book.

In the script as performed this is omitted, but it is noted the ship is extraordinarily powerful due to its Mycelial core by Mirror-Stamets.

It's conceivable that the power core on the Charon allows it to manufacture much more antimatter of course.