Flare Sci-Fi Forums: Dominion Battlecruiser Sizes

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Posted by Federation Shipmaster (Member # 15) on :

Ok, I haev soem proof that there are two sizes of battlecruisers, but can soemone post a side comparison chart just in case I'm wrong?

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What bloke invented signatures?

Posted by Curry Monster (Member # 12) on :

Ahh one of my favourite ship size topics! =)

*Creates piccy*

This won't look so great but it is accurate.

Dominion Ships

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I drink therefore I am.

-Descartes

[This message was edited by Daryus Aden on April 05, 1999.]

Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :

OK does this include the big ship from Valiant that was supposed to be as big as three Galaxy class ships?

if thats the big one, I don't think the Jemmie bug is that big...

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Alamaraine, count to four...

Posted by RW (Member # 27) on :

No, the big one is way bigger. The left one is the standard battleship, the middle one is the seldom seen v-wing cruiser.

Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :

OK, thanks, and actually, looking at the 'bug' pictures on the other thread - and looking at the windows - assuming the are roughly the DS9 standard windows - i.e. about one person to two people can look through them, I would say 125m is pretty good for the bug length, that is in keeping with what I can picture as 100m - i.e. the running track at my old school - its a big help when you can picture say a dominion bug coming to land on the oval...

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Alamaraine, count to four...

Posted by Bernd (Member # 6) on :

Does the middle one actually look different than the left one? Otherwise I would have a problem an start a new scaling discussion...

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I know engineers - they love to change things. (McCoy, STTMP)
www.uni-siegen.de/~ihe/bs/startrek/

Posted by Aethelwer (Member # 36) on :

Dominion ships. What fun.

The battlecruiser is sometimes ~700m, and sometimes ~300m. The V-ship is also ~300.

The battleship, of course, is supposedly ~1200m.

The bug is ~93m on the show.

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http://frankg.dgne.com/
Destruction Drone: "Throw down your weapons and I will spare your miserable lives!"
Rollbar: "That's the best offer we've had all day..."

Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :

actually I like 93m better than 125m

Tanru

Andrew

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Alamaraine, count to four...

Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :

actually I like 93m better than 125m

Tanru
Landru
Andrew

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Alamaraine, count to four...

Posted by Montgomery (Member # 23) on :

Let's settle this once and for all:

The bug is:

*holds out arms*

...THIS big!

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"I'm sorry I'm late....
I've been irrigating the desert...
Which isn't easy on your own."
- M&W

Posted by Sidewinder (Member # 50) on :

What is this V-ship? Is that the same as the battlecruiser? I think the battlecruiser is like 650m, the battleship (from "Valiant") about 1500m and the bug about 100m.

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There's a lady who knows, all that glitters is gold...and she's buying a stairway to heaven. -Led Zeppelin, "Stairway to Heaven"

Posted by Federation Shipmaster (Member # 15) on :

So the biggie is bigger than a Galaxy, and the small is about the size of a Galor?

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What bloke invented signatures?

Posted by Aethelwer (Member # 36) on :

The V-ship is here and here. This is the only close-up I know up, from "In Purgatory's Shadow." Notice the wing structure...it's very different from the regular battlecruiser.

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http://frankg.dgne.com/
Destruction Drone: "Throw down your weapons and I will spare your miserable lives!"
Rollbar: "That's the best offer we've had all day..."

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

IIRC, it was an early version of the battlecruiser that they had lying around, so they threw it in when they needed some background ships...

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"About as useful as a narcoleptic rickshaw driver."
-James Lileks

Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :

*feeds fire*

Ladies and gentlemen, exhibit "A".

http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/6151/vship.jpg

Painstakingly handscanned [poorly] by yours truly [to an insane enlargement level].

Note the "inverse Bolian" ridge down the middle, absent in the regular battlecruiser, as well as the [proportionally] larger upper nacelle-thingies, and of course longer, more definately-slanted wings.

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"......"
��-The Breen at Internment Camp 371

[This message was edited by The_Tom on April 07, 1999.]

Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :

I Like the Vship!
I reckon it IS about the size of a Galor, or maybe just a tinsee bit smaller - and the SoA Jemmie ships - are a bit bigger - about size of Galaxy class? and the Valiant ship about 2-3 times as big as a galaxy... maybe as big as the Mirror Negh'Var?

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Alamaraine, count to four...

Posted by Curry Monster (Member # 12) on :

Well the V ship first appeared in the 2 parter 'In Purgatory's shadow' and then in 'By Infernos light'.

However the next time this ship was seen was in 'Ties of Blood and water' TPTB decided that the V ship model wasn't pretty enough so they made a more highly detailed and larger ship (Eg Duakts Flagship in A Call to Arms). They chose to ignore the V ship, including in the DS9 TM . However the V ship then cropped up again in the SOFA battle at roughly 400 meters.

Bernd - Yes there are differences between the two! Notice the different proportional nacelle sizes, and the fact that the front fork of the larger of the pair ends off more quickly than that of the smaller one.

A full comparison if you please *L*: (Promptly pasting together new one!). I just threw in the Defiant for reference...so no maoning about it's size!

Voila!

Ships of the Jem Hadar

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I drink therefore I am.

-Descartes

[This message was edited by Daryus Aden on April 07, 1999.]

Posted by Aethelwer (Member # 36) on :

Ooh, more V-ship views. Thanks, Tom.

I wonder if the scenes where the battecruiser shows up as ~300m are meant to be of the V-ship. Or maybe this is the BoP situation again.

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http://frankg.dgne.com/
Destruction Drone: "Throw down your weapons and I will spare your miserable lives!"
Rollbar: "That's the best offer we've had all day..."

Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :

Actually, Daryus, I don't think there were any V-ships in SofA. But we can pretend that the 400ish meter cruisers were actually V-ships.

*all join hands*

Shimberee... shimberah.. shimbereee.. shimberah

(obscure purple dinosaur reference)

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"......"
��-The Breen at Internment Camp 371

Posted by Curry Monster (Member # 12) on :

Well I suppose the whole V ship thing in itself is debateable as the cruiser is only a slightly changed V ship model which has been scaled differently.

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I drink therefore I am.

-Descartes

Posted by Bernd (Member # 6) on :

If the 300-400m ship is *supposed* to look different than the 700m ship, I can accept it rather than a huge K'Vort class BoP for which there has always been only one model.

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Early bird catches the gagh. (The Doctor to B'Elanna at 06:00, "Drone")
www.uni-siegen.de/~ihe/bs/startrek/

Posted by Sidewinder (Member # 50) on :

What purpose would this ship serve? The Dominion already has a heavy assualt ship and has its smaller "fighters."

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There's a lady who knows, all that glitters is gold...and she's buying a stairway to heaven. -Led Zeppelin, "Stairway to Heaven"

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

Well, Frank would probably argue that they have a battleship, a battlecruiser, a cruiser, and a destroyer. Personally, I'd just say they have four different sizes of ships. Think about like this: Klingons have Negh'Vars, Vor'chas, K't'ingas, and BoPs. The Feds have Galaxies, Excelsiors, Mirandas, and Defiants. The Dommies have battleships, battlecruisers, V-ships, and bugs. It all works out...

(Of course, we have yet to see a giant ship for the Cardies, but there's always the finale... *hopes*)

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"About as useful as a narcoleptic rickshaw driver."
-James Lileks

Posted by Excalibur on :

I would just like to say that the DS9TM says that the Jem'Hadar Battle Cruiser is 639.75m x 568.44m x 204.97

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"Walk softly and carry a big stick"-Theodore Roosevelt

Posted by Curry Monster (Member # 12) on :

Excalibur - Thanks, I know *L*.

Four ships are logical. The Cruiser is the size of a Galaxy, and you can only build so many of those. You need a medium sixed warship - The V ship!

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I drink therefore I am.

-Descartes

Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :

Actually, I've given some thought to the V-ship's absense lately and have come up with a theory the V-ship is a sort of hunter-killer ship designed to track down rebels to the Dominion and eliminate them. It's not designed to sit in a big fleet a la SofA or CtA and exchange fire with a wall of ships but rather chase after single Galor-sized targets or so and get rid of them cleanly. In "Purgatory.." we must assume Dukat basically gave every Cardassian defence code to the Dominion in exchange for his new leadership role, as there is no way a fleet of that size would have gained an iron grip over Cardassia in such a short time. Therefore the aim of the first convoy was not primarily supplying raw firepower but providing equipment to quickly exterminate any renegade Guls who'd try and make a run for it. The V-ships are probably optimised for speed, sensing and operating one mean running firefight with a target but are probably not as well armoured as the regular battlecruisers.

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"......"
��-The Breen at Internment Camp 371

Posted by Federation Shipmaster (Member # 15) on :

The proof is here.

Looking at these picture from Perdo's Shiporama and visually identifying the Jem-hadar Battlecruiser near the Galor, we see that they have a nearly identical length. Didn't soemone say there was one size, which was about 700m? How long is a Galor? 300 is it? It stands to reason that this is about 300 as well.

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What bloke invented signatures?

Posted by Federation Shipmaster (Member # 15) on :

Perhaps even shorter.

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What bloke invented signatures?

Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :

For those of you who thought four was too many...

I was reviewing Saba's videos from SofA, and had a good long look at the final ship the Defiant passes over... the damn big one that's a squeeze to squish into the 630-730 meter size bracket... and lo and behold... I think we have yet another Battlecruiser design. Nearly identical from the back, but from the front you can make out quite a few differences

A very big bird-chest sticking downwards

A sort of modular segmentation on the madible not seen in the other battlecruisers

Thin, nearly 45% pylons holding up the upper nacelle-things that are far less snug to the ship than in the V-ship and standard battlecruiser.

Two big central ridges that start about 2/3 of the way from the bow to the "poop deck" and no visible ridging in front of that.

Overall size... I think 850+ m is more reasonable.

Now have I cracked yet another great secret of ship scaling or should I lay off the LSD?

BTW, the only image Pedro had doesn't really show off the features I was talking about too well... they appear several frames later, often lit by the light of the explosion.

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"......"
��-The Breen at Internment Camp 371

[This message was edited by The_Tom on April 09, 1999.]

Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :

*pokes FedSM*

We know that the Battlecruiser in SofA was not a V-ship but was of V-ship size. However, everywhere else it was 600-700m long, which fits the windows on the model better.

BTW, the thread is a bit long and therefore big as it is... could we change those pics to URLs?

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"......"
��-The Breen at Internment Camp 371

Posted by Aethelwer (Member # 36) on :

Hmm, this changes things.

Okay, we have the bug, which in the VFX is ~93m. And the V-ship, which is about 3 times the size of the bug, so if you believe me, it's ~300m.

Then there's the big ship Tom mentioned, which might very well be a different type.

Then the ~1200m batteship.

Now, the battecruiser. It was, I think, ~350m in CtA. And about that in SoA. So...I don't think it's ever been ~700m.

BTW, Galors aren't useful for scaling, since they keep changing size. Nor is DS9, for that matter.

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http://frankg.dgne.com/
Robot: "Hey, I'm stuck up here!"
Cyclonus: "Everybody's got to be somewhere."

Posted by Curry Monster (Member # 12) on :

I still prefer the 4 ship formula.
The issue here is not about the Bug or the Supercruiser.

It's about the Battlecruiser (639.75) and the Destroyer (385 meters - accoring to me).

I agree that last ship the Defiant flew over was massive...closer to 900 m, but I think it was just an oversized battlecruiser.

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I drink therefore I am.

-Descartes

Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :

What is that thing hanging down from that big ship that the defiant and the bofp's a flying over - ?? is this a newwy - or is this the infamous huge mother that we see in 'valiant' - of course the crew of the 'valiant' don't know about it - cause they are behind enemy lines...

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Alamaraine, count to four...

Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :

Andrew: That's the ship we're referring to above.

Let me try to get this organized, Peregrine-style.

Bugs

First appear in "The Jem'Hadar", about 93m, perhaps a bit shorter.

Through s3 and s4 they vary from 120-160m, [assuming a 170m Defiant]

In the great nail-down of s5, they are nailed down at 152m.

s5-present they've been 152m consistently. [assuming a 170m Defiant]

Cruisers
Variant One: V-ship

300-400m, seen in "In Purgatory's Shadow/By Inferno's Light". Leaving wormhole footage reused at start of "Call to Arms"

Variant Two: Standard Battlecruiser

In "Ties and Blood of Water" it docks at DS9, and despite the station's rather erratic size, it is obviously between 500 and 800m long. This is supported by the windows. The docked shot reappeared in "In the Cards" and "Call to Arms". Worf referred to it as a Battleship.

In the final battle of "Call to Arms", appears at 625-750m long assuming a 152m long bug.

In "A Time to Stand" is shown docked to Terok Nor along with several Galors. Clearly in the 625-750m range. This shot is reused in most of the remaining War arc stories.

300-400m during battle with Starfleet forces in opening of SofA fight.

Immediately before the Klingons arrive, the Defiant passes over a few. They appear to be bigger than above, but any extrapolation here is iffy.

Variant Three: BattleBattleCruiser

Appears in back lines of Dominion fleet in "Sacrifice of Angels". 800-1000m long.

Battleships

Experimental Dominion Dreadnaught, "twice as big as Galxy Class ship", (1300m?) from "Valiant".

BTW, my current guess is that the "battlebattlecruiser" was either designed as yet another draft of the Cruiser design (like the Standard one) before "Ties..." aired, or was created in the "SofA" production process by adding a lot more detail to the current model for its close-up.

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"......"
��-The Breen at Internment Camp 371

[This message was edited by The_Tom on April 10, 1999.]

Posted by Aethelwer (Member # 36) on :

The bug has never been shown to be 152m, to my knowledge.

Don't assume a 170m Defiant. The Defiant has never been shown to be 170m on the show. I don't care what you believe, but even if you think the VFX have been wrong each time, the ship has always been 120m in the VFX.

I haven't investigated the windows, but, again, DS9 itself isn't useful for scaling.

The battlecruiser in CtA was 3.5 times the length of the bug.

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http://frankg.dgne.com/
Robot: "Hey, I'm stuck up here!"
Cyclonus: "Everybody's got to be somewhere."

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

See why we shouldn't use the VFX for numbers? Just use them to say "this ship is bigger than that ship" or "this ship is about half-as-long as that ship", an so on...

And let me clarify that "four sizes" thing. I was only trying to give precedent for having four different majore sizes of ships. I wasn't saying that every race needs to have four sizes. The Cardies only have two (Galor/Keldon and Hideki). The Rommies only have one, unless you count the scout! I was just trying to counter the arguement "What purpose would this ship serve? The Dominion already has a heavy assualt ship and has its smaller 'fighters.'".

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-a certain anonymous administrator

Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :

Frank: The bug was 152m every time it was shown with the Defiant ;-)

[lets not take this any further. You know where it will go...]

The Battlecruiser "appeared" 3.5 time the length of a fighter in CtA when they passed by beam-on.. but later on, you see them from the back, and there's actually several hundred meters between them. The battlecruiser is clearly shown to be 3-4 times the beam of the fighter. That fits it into the 630-730 Stipes/Sternbach length bracket.

*hunts for piccy from ToB+W, ItC or CtA or ship docked*

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"......"
��-The Breen at Internment Camp 371

Posted by Aethelwer (Member # 36) on :

If you scale the bug up by the same amout as the Defiant, it comes to about 132m.

And those ships aren't several hundred meters apart. Watch the episode; they're actually very close.

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http://frankg.dgne.com/
Robot: "Hey, I'm stuck up here!"
Cyclonus: "Everybody's got to be somewhere."

Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :

Look at the picture, they're actually very far.

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"......"
��-The Breen at Internment Camp 371

Posted by Curry Monster (Member # 12) on :

Oh dear...Tom and Frank once again dance the enernal ship debate waltz.

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I drink therefore I am.

-Descartes

Posted by Jim Phelps (Member # 102) on :

I would highly recommend we limit VFX measurements to upper and lower limits, since what one person sees as close may be far away to another.

Boris

Posted by Aethelwer (Member # 36) on :

A rational opinion, yes.

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http://frankg.dgne.com/
Robot: "Hey, I'm stuck up here!"
Cyclonus: "Everybody's got to be somewhere."

Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :

That doesn't make a calculation of a 350m battlecruiser based on those pictures any less logical.

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"......"
��-The Breen at Internment Camp 371

Posted by Jim Phelps (Member # 102) on :

Another suggestion - leave the V-ship debate to rest until we are actually able to observe the window spacing on the model. I believe there are some windows on the underside of the ship, not visible in the usual diagrams.

Boris

Posted by Bernd (Member # 6) on :

I'd prefer the window argument, but I'm not sure if the window distances of the two cruiser types are actually different, if they only modified the V-ship to model the battlecruiser.

Otherwise my old rule applies:

*** Equal shape ----> equal size ***

*takes cover*

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Early bird catches the gagh. (The Doctor to B'Elanna at 06:00, "Drone")
www.uni-siegen.de/~ihe/bs/startrek/

[This message was edited by Bernd on April 14, 1999.]

Posted by Jim Phelps (Member # 102) on :

Rule Number One:

Galors are HUGE. They have never been portrayed at 371m to my knowledge. They started out being designed at 481m for "The Wounded", but every time I've seen them next to the Defiant they are 600m long or so, even when the ship is taken as 100m. And I don't even want to try to work out the size of that Galor chasing Chakotay's raider (assuming the thing is 70-80m long). Yes, they would have huge decks but DS9 has 20' decks as well, so this isn't a problem.

I don't care if the majority of visual evidence happens to contradict the official figures despite of this (with the exception of DS9, of course), as long as we keep it at one size for the V-ship and one size for the other one. Given the Galor-thing above I have a feeling the ship is closer to the official value, and a window examination will probably support the answer.

Boris

[This message was edited by Boris on April 14, 1999.]

Posted by Curry Monster (Member # 12) on :

From the bottom the two ships look very similar...I'm not sure that a window count would work in this case.

As for the Galor, they were smaller than a galaxy in TNG, I'd put them about the size of a Vorcha.

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I drink therefore I am.

-Descartes

Posted by bear (Member # 124) on :

Ok, this off on some really fXXXed up tangent, but you are telling me that the beast of a 12-1600 meter Jem battleship was built in less than three years, and a Galaxy takes ten years to build?
Bear's head really hurt...the war is over....pack your bags boys.

Bear is sick of being a junior member!
lol
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hello world

[This message was edited by bear on May 25, 1999.]