"The usefulness of large ships is to subdue enemies without firing a single shot."
A good point, but we're at the tech levels now where if you could cow an opponent into submission, you should be able to do it with something smaller. For example, my Wraiths are about the size of the Normandy in Mass Effect (the original, not the larger SR2), and their main focus is ridiculously-hard-to-detect stealth. They don't have a single projectile weapon, or actually anything that's technically a weapon at all.
They can also glass entire planets, and, in a thought experiment, two of them, and one Sparkadian railgun, are capable of destroying the RSV Phoenix (or, at least, Attacker didn't dispute this when I postulated and explained it to him), albeit I also added in a few billion fighter-analogues to serve as distractions, as I was unsure how advanced the Phoenix's sensor suite over long range is against the Kage stealth system.
What really matters in the long run is, really, the sort of tech you have, not the size of your ships (unless you're Kyr, and have both).
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Destroying planets is only important in two things - total warfare, when it's kill or be killed, and as a theoretical yardstick for destructive power.
Of course, technically, by now being able to destroy planets is trivial, as is setting off supernovae, and really anything like that, but anyway.
16-Jan-2014 13:25:44
