Help me with my Defiant debate...
 

I was playing Bridge Commander the other day and was using Nine of Nine's Defiant mod. My friend watched me fight a Galaxy class with it and win. He thought that a Defiant could not defeat a Galaxy, I disagreed. The Defiant is a pure warship with nothing but spartan living conditions onboard. Every system was designed for combat. All the other capital ships like the Galaxy, Nebula, Sovereign, etc, are exploration ships with impressive weapon payloads for self defense. Even though these other ships are very powerful, they are not designed soley for combat like the Defiant is. He watched as I had the Defiant flying circles around the Galaxy targeting key systems and punching holes in the hull. That's how it would really be if these things where for real, I told him. He thought that a large capital ship like the Galaxy would be too powerful for a small warship. I told him to think of it this way, the Defiant was built by engineers from hundreds of star sytems that make up the Federation. Combining the knowledge of weapons and warship of hundreds of races. It would be like the Chinese building a warship and then having the United Nations building one. Which ship would be the superior one? That's why I think it is very plausible that the Defiant is the most powerful warship in the quadrant except for the Negh'Var and possibly the Sovereign. What do you guys think?

Hmm...

There ARE borg in the Alpha Quadrant, if you wanted to know, just not many...

And then Janeway killed 'em all, :)

Now, if you watched the series, the Defiant got taken over within 5 seconds because it was unshielded.

Even with shields, I doubt it'd last long against a continual phaser barrage.

And Nine of Nine tweaked the Defiant and made it too strong.

no no no
 

Kareeser:

You are completly right
The Defiant is a warship...and so - nine of nines Defiant is to weak
-> Thats why I have my own Hardpoint file.
-The pulse-Phasers have double power of normal phasers
-The Defiant can bet 3 dominion warship - A Galaxy had problems with them
-Yes, the Defiant has bugs - many - (...)
...
it is one of the heaviest armed vessels in the alpha Quadrant! (DS9 3x09 - Defiant)

@allan14
Watch more carefully

The defiant itself has many advantages over a galaxy class.

1) newer
2) fast and manuvarable
3) cloak
4) quantums

against a tng era galaxy class, it wouldn't take long to destroy a galaxy class. A dominion war galaxy class, refit with all the latest upgrades, may stand a chance. Remember, in Ds9 a specialy modified excelcior class fought the defiant believe it taken over by shape shifters, and the battle was pretty much a draw. It was stated that neither ship could survive another torpedo hit. So if a specialy modified 70+ year old ship can do the trick, and dominion war galaxy, whos much more powerful than an excelcior to begin with, should be able to beat it. It also boils down to which ship has the better crew. A defiant full of cadets wouldn't beat an experienced galaxy crew like that of picards.

A dominion war galaxy has several advantages over a defiant:

1) sheer size: it's larger, thus more mass to shoot though, systems more spread out, more crew, more parts, more reserve power generators, larger reactor core..ect.
2) near 360 desgree phaser coverage. The defiant has foreward and dorsal I believe.

sure:

Ship full with cadets -> Heavy Bot :P

The Defiant would have several advantages over a Galaxy class. The Defiant would be extremly fast and manuverable, most likely doging quite a few of the Galexy's shots. Also: Defiant has quantem torpedeos, the Galaxy doesn't.

But the Galaxy has a larger energy reserve, is capable of saucer seperation (two targets), and has more damage to give.

The Defiant also has one major (IMO) disadvantage. The bulk of its weapons are facing forward. That means that it has to turn completly around to bring any real firepower to bear. That can be anticipated and planned for, especially by a ship like a Galaxy that has lots of firing arcs and aft facing torpedoes.

But, ultimtely, it comes down to the tactics involved and luck.

For a better match-up, take on Rick Knox's Galaxy with Nine Of Nine's Defiant.:D

I did that...
 

and the Galaxy this time put up a better fight but still lost to the Defiant. I personally believe this to be accurate. I dont believe that a Galaxy could beat a Defiant class warship.

No - It can't - for sure.
The Galaxy may have waepons all around the ship, but the Defiant is more manoeuvrable - and the Galaxy has lag shields.
But I don't think, that a Defiant for itself can beat a Sovereign.
...or it would be an interesting skirmish.

Also, remember in "The Jem'Hadar", how the Oddyssey couldn't even kill one ship, yet the Defiant can blast through one in seconds?

No, the Defiant lacks the massive payload of the Galaxy, and the Galaxy can take a good deal more punishment. I think of the Defiant as a vessel ment to go into battle WITH other ships.
As for Bridge Commander. I fought a Defiant comp with a Galaxy and won ;) The Defiant got through my shields a couple of times, but nothing compared to the punishment I delt it! Also, what I noticed when battling the Defiant, which could be a major disadvantage to it's compactness, is that, even when using Phasers, because the Defiant is so compact, more than one system would take severe damage after repeated attacks. Often the two systems that'd take damage simulatiously, would be the impulse and warp drive...not good for the Defiant. In fact, it would often be the death of it.

The defiant was made for the dominion war. By then the galaxy class was outdated. It is only knowlageable that the defiant is better.

"Try to remember it takes more than a big gun to win a shootout. Experience and skill will always triumph."

- Gregory MacCray

Might I add that Nine of Nine's defiant is too strong for it's own good? Another Defiant facing it could barely scratch it's shielding. A sovereign didn't do any damage whatsoever...I'm talking about version 1.5...is the previous one any weaker? I don't think a ship of that size could produce enough power for such strong shielding...it seems alittle unreal. The manouverability I agree with, but the shields and hull are far too strong. I'm sorry to critique but it's true.

As long as there is a Defiant, there will always be people who think it's "Too Weak" or "Too Strong". There is no such thing as a happy medium. There are people who believe the Defiant should be able to blow away an Ambassador with one shot, others who think it shouldn't be able to win against one.

Nine of Nine's is a compromise, and a damn good one at that. It's scaled right, and armed properly. It's a BATTLESHIP, what do you expect?

Yeah, it's a battleship, that's right, but you can only go so far. When a battleship beats a state of the art Sovereign, then you know something's wrong...Besides, there's no way the warp core can generate that much power and shield generator that much shielding...it should be manouverable, but not too tough to beat...no torpedoes ever hit this thing!! If it's a battleship then how come the defiant got so badly damaged by the borg cube in FC being part of such a large fleet? this thing can single-handedly take out the Borg sphere up for download on bcfiles.com!

LOL. Between the two of us, we're posting like crazy around here...lol. I almost have as many posts as you do! A little friendly competition, perhaps?

Ehhh, head over to http://www.groundbc.com and go into the forums. I am ther under the same name. Compete with THAT post count. :p

Sign up there while you're at it. It's a great forum.

As for balance: When it comes to a community of independent modders, balance is impossible. Each person has their own idea of how strong a ship should be, and Canon Trek doesen't exactly help in this regard. Want balance? do it yourself. Not trying to be a jerk, that's just what I think.

Yeah you're right. I would probably do it myself if i had the technological know-how but I can't. Imagine my frustration having to ask people to help me out...but I must say, the Models of the ship look absolutely stunning, as well as everything else about them, except that little thing about the hardpoint file. If you ask me, Activision should have released some sort of chart or something with that stuff in anticipation of a groupe of people looking to mod the game. It would have been most helpful and they might have been looked at in a better light.

As for the other forum...everything looks very well organized and I could have lots of fun in that community...although i doubt i have countless hours in front of my computer, trying to reach your post count...lol...so much for that idea. :(

Ahhh it's a fun place anyway. No, you won't reach my count, but new members are always needed and welcomed.

Well i would say that the Nine of Nine's defiant is dead on, just the right anount of fire power to kill a bop in no time at all, and if you watch way of the warrior, which everyone must have by now, you would of seen her kill them in seconds, now the borg did take out the defiant in FC, but if you work it out, it took the enterprise about 8 hours to get back to earth, and thats at max warp, so that means that the defiant was fighting for all of those 8 hours, so the borg didnt just take her out like she was nothing, now if you only have the the stock version of the the sov class then yes the defiant will kick the crap out of it, its to weak anyway, and i have found that its 50/50 with the defaint vs galaxy match, and the only way to know for sure is to allow the computer to control both ships, and see which one wins, if you use one of the ships them you will win, and thats because you think of things that the AI wont, also i have only played with Nine of nine's defiant, she is a beautiful ship and great fun to use, and when i get a new ship i always test it with the defiant to see how powerful it is.

I think the DS9 era galaxy would whip the Defiant, but it wouldn't have quantums.

Ok. Time for a ST buff to give you the awnsers for this. The Defiant is a Escort/Warship. It has a higher Combat Strength than bot the reg Galaxy and the War Refit Galaxy. Here is some info.
Galaxy reg: Galaxy = 1,000
Beam Firepower : 1,000
Torpedo Firepower : 1,000
Weapon Range and Accuracy : 1,000
Shield Strength : 1,000
Hull Armour : 1,000
Speed : 1,000
Combat Manoeuvrability : 1,000
Overall Strength Index 1,000

War Refit:
Beam Firepower : 1,400
Torpedo Firepower : 1,000
Weapon Range and Accuracy : 1,220
Shield Strength : 1,890
Hull Armour : 1,000
Speed : 1,601
Combat Manoeuvrability : 1,000
Overall Strength Index 1,355

Defiant:
Beam Firepower : 1,400
Torpedo Firepower : 2,150
Weapon Range and Accuracy : 810
Shield Strength : 880
Hull Armour : 3,400
Speed : 955
Combat Manoeuvrability : 30,000
Overall Strength Index 1,560

As you can see the defiant has everything except the weapon accurancy and shield strength BUT its armour make way up for that. I have proven the Defiant rules. Though it cant destroy a Sovereign

Oh heres the Sovies stats

Sov:
Beam Firepower : 1,700
Torpedo Firepower : 5,700
Weapon Range and Accuracy : 1,260
Shield Strength : 1,700
Hull Armour : 1,900
Speed : 4,125
Combat Manoeuvrability : 4,000
Overall Strength Index 2,925

And btw The Defiant was originaly designed to combat the borg but when the borg threat went away they had no need for it so the just "stuck the prototype in storage". The the dominion came along and Sisko needed more defence for DS9 so he asked for the defiant eventhough it was massively flawed. It was way to overpowered for its size, they nearly blew the ship in half on its test run (they tried to fire all weapons at full impulse). and all my info came from http://www.ditl.org/

ah - after a long wait - there is someone with numbers.

Remember, the Galaxy (U.S.S Odessey) that got taken out in DS9 had no resistance to the Poleron weapons on the dominion bugs. Once the federation acquired a Poleron weapon to study and develop shields resistant to dominion tech a BugFighter was comparable in strength to a regular Bird of Prey! And remember the Odessey only went down because one of the Dominion ships rammed her. She was turning to flee, after hanging in there admirably. Imagine fighting 3 BOP's in a galaxy with your shields down!

Meaning a TNG era Galaxy with runabout support could have spanked the 3 BugFighters if it had Dominion weapon resistant shields (like all fed ships had after sisko captured the crashed BugFighter). A Dominion War refit Galaxy would have made it look silly.

Also In DS9: Defiant, the supposedly massively powerful defiant was quickly overpowered by a BugFighter wing, but once again when the shield tech of the federation was modified against Poleron weapons the superiority of the Defiant was clear.

Defiant is small, but like others have said, she is built for war, not studying gaseous anomolies and ferrying diplomats, which changes the rules for a fed ship.

If any of you doubt the calibre of a Galaxy, 5 of them in "sacrifice of angels" apparently accounted for 30 odd dominion ships (edit) with no losses themselves (/edit)! Imagine what the defiants can do in numbers..

http://www.ditl.org is a great source, even if a lot of is conjecture.

Oh, and the Admirals defiant off BCFiles is overpowered compared to stock ships imo, but whats stopping anyone opening the .py files themselves? I did and it's a much more fun ship to use now.

First post, hello!

One last thing... To quote Sisko (to the best of my memory at least) "She may have flaws, but she has teeth. And when the Dominion come through that wormhole, I want to be ready". He said something along those lines. I cant remember. And that bit about the Odessey and SoA is true. The galaxy is one of my top five ships, I think its a very good ship, one of the best. Hey atleast they dont die in one full phaser blast like Mirandas (namely the Seatack and the Magestic, the 2 ships that were with the defiant during the SoA battle but got destroyed). Yes I do know alot about DS9.

That's right, the Defiant is over powered for her size, meaning she has so much extra power left over after turning everything to max... they had problems modifying the cloaking to even be able to mask her power! Think about that, a device made to cloak a Warbird wouldn't work at first on the defiant cause it had too much power. Moreover, when you watch the defiant lay mines in front of the wormhole, it gets attacked by 3 bugs with its sheilds down... and what did the weapons do? Bounced off the armor :D. And of course, you have First Contact where the federation fleet had been fighting the cube for 3 days and ships are being blown up left and right. But, when the defiant gets shot, it doesn't do much, and when the defiant shoots, the explosion on the borg hull are bigger than that of any other weapon (phaser or otherwise) that is shot at it. And THEN you have the cube blow up and take out several ships with it just by the shock wave, yet the defiant still survived and could be repaired :P. And if this isn't enough, you have the episode where the breen disable the fleet. During the scene where they are arguing on the bridge, you can hear the defiant being pounded. It took a while to blow the thing apart even with no power, yet in the background you see unmarred ships get shot once and basically get totalled.

The power of the defiant increases as the show goes on. When it was first introduced, it was about the same as a galaxy all things considered, but later it becomes invulnerable to bug weapons O_o. And there's the alternate universe one that takes on a Neg'Var and wins. The defiant reminds me of the revolutionary war ships the americans had. The british had upwords to 80 gun battle ships, yet a small sloop like the Enterpise with only up to 16 or so guns could take them out. In the world of combat, manuverability is key, not firepower.

It sure can take a beating with no shields but thats because of the Ablative Hull Armour (aint it great). And also in First Contact its a 4 day running battle, not 3 day. And also I doubt the Defiant was there since day one because it would take it a few days to reach Earth (on DS9 they said it took a week), and I know it was the Typhon Sector that they were gathering the ships but that sector is not that far from Earth (on ST standards).

I meant Nine of Nines v1.5 defiant, not admirals. You could ram starbases with the original hardpoints. Had a mass many times that of a galaxy and so on.