i just realized, i spent that whole comment talking about Star Wars,

in the case of HALO, the Covenant have the edge when it comes to Orbital Bombardment, as their Plasma based weaponry is capable of melting the landscape, whereas the UNSC's mass-based weaponry relies on it's kinetic energy (of which there is an INSANE amount, don't get me wrong) to do all of the damage. and while that means that the UNSC's MACs and other magnetically accelerated weaponry are better at penetrating underground fortifications, they do less AOE and long term damage. Covenant Plasma Torpedoes, and the Energy Projector's mounted on the underside of the larger capital ships, operate on different principals, and do do a lot more surface damage, compared to the equivalents used by the UNSC.



now, as for Star Trek, for the most part, the ships used in the Star Trek universe seem to be a lot more fragile, even ships designed for combat, like Klingon vessels, the Defiant, the Prometheus, and even the Enterprise-E, tend to fall apart at the slightest bit of damage. and the weaponry, while it sounds more advanced, doesn't actually have as much of a yield as their Star Wars equivalents. With the exception of Photon and Quantum Torps, those are quite a bit more powerful pound for pound than the Proton Torpedoes used in Star Wars, though larger ships like Star Destroyers are often equipped with Capital Ship-sized Proton Torpedoes, that are significantly more powerful than a Photon Torpedo, simply because they're so much larger.

Phaser's aren't very suited to orbital bombardment,as all of the damage they inflict is very pinpoint and precise, even the disintegration effects on organic matter (at the higher settings) tend to be extremely localized, not spreading very far or inflicting much thermal damage to the surrounding areas.

and whereas a Turbolaser bolt from a Star Destroyer can be up to 20-25 meters in width, even the largest Phaser Array, the Type-XI used aboard the Sovereign-Class Battlecruisers/Explorers only generate a beam of 1.5 meters in diameter, so most of a Federation Starships ability to attack a ground-based target is centered around it's Torpedoes...



i feel like a lecturer...

could i have a PhD?