How powerful are the Senshi?

[Cheb]

And again it boils down to the "They can as much as your plot needs".
SMverse is extremely flexible and vague in the technical details, because its main strength are its characters.
I should add there was an episode where SM had to fight on a skating ring so her boots grew skates (can't remember ep. # but the fact is undeniable).
You can expand this further via "magic reacts and adapts to Senshi's wishes" and "Their only real limit is what they believe they can and cannot do". So if SM doesn't know she can fly, she can't. If she believes she can fly, she flies.
Whole SM-verse is built on a premise of belief. It's obviously religious in the manga, more abstract in the anime, but the force is still here. SM can draw as much power from Silver Crystal as she believes (in the humankind, the good, her comrades), the battle with Beryl shows that. Because the main battle is not exchanging the skycraper-sized energy beams but the religious dispute. Beryl tries to convince SM that the humanity is trash, to cut her from the source of her power. SM refuses to believe that, finding more and more anchors for her belief in humankind.
It's a pretty religious stuff, in fact.

[Seraphim]

Ah, gotcha--as implied by them flying off to their home planets, you mean? I, personally would take the view that there was a wormhole/hyper-jump/space-warp/tesseract technique implicitly used somewhere along the line there--for the sake of some token compliance to E=mc^2, as well as for power-balancing purposes.
More to the point, each of those five were known interstellar travellers just to get to Earth, so it makes sense that they would have arranged the equipment/techniques for said interstellar travel. But would that necessarily be a general Senshi thing?
If the main Senshi do have super-fast flight they don't seem to realize it, even as late as SuperS (else the death-by-falling danger at the end of that season would have made little sense). I suppose they could theoretically have it, but I'd personally prefer to see it in action before I credited them with the ability to have those kind of high-speed aerial dogfights.

It's in the bit were the Starlights try to take on Galaxia physically, it was agreed on an other forum I'm on that the streaks and flashes of light going around the galaxy wasn't artistic.
The Sol Senshi probably don't know as much as the Starlights about their powers, 'cause all the close together battles they've been in and suddeness of their awakening, they probably haven't really had much of a chance to test out their powers in detail, add to the fact the main source(s?) of info on their powers have really, really spotty memories.
The Starlight are also likely to have actual training.

The Sol system anime senshi are able to teleport. The five inners do it at least twice together, Saturn does it without transforming, and the outers do it in at least the SuperS movie. Coupled with their jumps there is little reason for them to need to fly let alone at FTL speeds.
Does anyone remember if Galaxia, the Starlights, and Kakyuu have actual bodies? If they where just Star seeds at the time they may have abilities and weaknesses they normally would not have had.

I'm sure they did have physical bodies, well, except of Kakyuu when her starseed got stolen, but then I don't think she actually did anything while in that state and while Galaxia had a physical body (she did bleed when injured enough) she didn't have a starseed. In the Anime Chibichibi was her starseed, remember.

[claymade]

It's in the bit were the Starlights try to take on Galaxia physically, it was agreed on an other forum I'm on that the streaks and flashes of light going around the galaxy wasn't artistic.

Ah. In that case I don't think it was episode 200, seeing as the Starlights seem make their final stand the episode before.
So it's probably in 199 then, since (as I just found) Wikipedia asserts it's in their final battle with Galaxia that the Starlights "become pure energy to battle Galaxia across space itself." (I like their interpretation, incidentally--it's still rather silly for even "pure energy" to circuit the galaxy in anything like a human lifetime, but the hand-waving makes it feel less so. At least with that you don't have actual human bodies withstanding quintillions of Gs.)

The Sol Senshi probably don't know as much as the Starlights about their powers, 'cause all the close together battles they've been in and suddeness of their awakening, they probably haven't really had much of a chance to test out their powers in detail, add to the fact the main source(s?) of info on their powers have really, really spotty memories.

Sure, the main Senshi could potentially have any of the powers that any of the other Senshi in the series display. As Cheb points out, they're getting more powers all the time, so you can always whip out a new one of any kind in a fanfic. In terms of their demonstrated abilities, however, that's not one of them.
It could be that FTL flight is a capability inherent to all Senshi everywhere, but as Zwzn says, it's just as possible that it was one specifically developed for the Starlights and Galaxia to make their intergalactic treks, and that the Moon Kingdom went the teleportation route instead.
(Note, also, that none of the lesser enemy Senshi seem to use this ability against the Sol Senshi--and these would not have their memories swiss-cheesed, giving credence to the idea that this is something not every Senshi can do.)
Either way, the anime Senshi don't seem to have the capability for doing it yet--despite it being an obviously handy trick in a fight. Thus, if someone wanted them to suddenly break out with it in a fic I think they'd have to justify it fairly well.
So, certainly not impossible that they could get the ability at some point, but not at all required either. A fic writer would be free to completely disregard it without violating canon at all--either because they never had the capability in the first place, or because they just never realize they have the capability.

[runnerz]

Hmm...interesting. However, there isn't any evidence in the anime that the future inners could fly either (from chibi-Usa's flashbacks), so I'm inclined to believe that they can't fly.

[Seraphim]

Hmm...interesting. However, there isn't any evidence in the anime that the future inners could fly either (from chibi-Usa's flashbacks), so I'm inclined to believe that they can't fly.

In the Manga they can fly. Moon (Chibichibi too) even did the FTL flying with Kakyuu and the Starlights.
The only time I've seen the anime Senshi 'fly' is when they arrived on Fiores comet. Though was there any reason for the Senshi to fly in ChibiUsa's flashbacks?
Claymade: Weren't those 'enemy Senshi' fakes? Only given their powers by Galaxia's bracelets?

[claymade]

The only time I've seen the anime Senshi 'fly' is when they arrived on Fiores comet.

There's also the instance where Usagi first does her Moon Princess transformation--she seems to have a bit of levitation action going there from the screenshots I saw. Though, as mentioned, it doesn't seem to be capable of generating sufficient braking thrust to actually stop her and Chibi-Usa's her fall in SuperS. Might have been an altitude thing, I dunno.

Claymade: Weren't those 'enemy Senshi' fakes? Only given their powers by Galaxia's bracelets?

Were they? You'd know better than I--most of my knowledge is just gained by research I've done out of curiousity from reading Ranma/Sailor Moon crossovers.
I know that the bracelets of the Sailor Animates keep them alive even in spite of the absence of their Star Seeds, and bind them to Galaxia's will. But I didn't think that meant their powers came solely from Galaxia. Uranus and Neptune, as Sailor Animates, still fought using their usual distinct set of powers/attacks, didn't they? The braclet-starseed-grab technique was the only new one I know of them using.
By implication, then, I guess I'd assumed that the rest of the (anime) Sailor Animates were similarly Sailors that did essentially the same thing as Uranus and Neptune. If true, I don't see why they'd lose any of their powers either. But as I now look, I find I'm not able to find any definitive info on the past of the anime Animates one way or another.

[WG_Writer]

My research agrees that the animamates were fakes who Galaxia gave power to for betraying and killing their planet's senshi. althouth like all my knowledge I am probably wrong.

[claymade]

My research agrees that the animamates were fakes who Galaxia gave power to for betraying and killing their planet's senshi. althouth like all my knowledge I am probably wrong.

That was very definitely what they were in the manga. It seems highly doubtful that the same was true in the anime, though--when Moon destroys one of the mind-control bracelets of the last Animate, she's suddenly torn between the desire to help the Senshi and her compulsion to serve Galaxia.
In fact, for what it's worth, I just found this line from an online summary of episode 195: "The princess said that Galaxia's bracelet was still taking over the sailor senshi (Nyanko). But since there was only one bracelet, her memory as a sailor senshi was returning to her."
http://www.eternal-moon.com/illustrated/195/195.html

[Cheb]

My research agrees that the animamates were fakes who Galaxia gave power to for betraying and killing their planet's senshi.

Better say, zombies.

That was very definitely what they were in the manga. It seems highly doubtful that the same was true in the anime, though--

What? Who said an animated dead couldn't regain its memories?

[claymade]

What? Who said an animated dead couldn't regain its memories?

The key distinction, at least as regards this discussion, is between "non-senshi who killed a senshi to curry favor with Galaxia and became fake senshi" and "originally a senshi from the start, who was brainwashed by Galaxia." What term we want to give their current state doesn't much factor into that question.
Besides, calling them "zombies" would, I think, invoke a lot of baggage that I can see little support for in the anime canon. Uranus and Neptune demonstrably retain their old powers, even rebel against Galaxia, and all of the Animates have distinct personalities of their own. Thus, calling them "zombies" carries connotations to it that only muddy the waters. Better that any such speculations on the nature of their existance be stated openly and precisely--instead of implicitly through a term that is certainly not 100% applicable in all its connotations.
Also, Galaxia, regarding Uranus and Neptune: "I never expected that there would be someone who wouldn't become controlled by my bracelet." Note that the continued existance of free will is the default assumption--even for the Animates it still exists as a rule, and needs to be controlled by the bracelets. I don't see "zombie" in that--not in any meaningful sense.

[Seraphim]

Maybe 'puppet' would be a better word?

[Cheb]

I don't see "zombie" in that--not in any meaningful sense.

Ok, "undead" then.

[claymade]

Maybe 'puppet' would be a better word?

Ok, "undead" then.

"Undead puppet" works for me...
...with the afformentioned caveats that they're perfectly sentient puppets, who can, given a strong enough will, wrench the strings from their handler, and they're undead who are largely indistinguishable (in a functional sense) from regular living beings.

[FOG3]

Often times, in Ranma/Sailor Moon fics we seee Ranma as vastly more powerful than the senshi.But based on the anime and manga, how powerful would you say they really are in comparison with the world of Ranma 1/2.

You balance powers as desired, neither is exactly what we call consistant or particularly invested in maintenance of the power levels, except manga Sailor Moon.
That said, there's a few not so minor problems in a straight up Deathmatch.
1) Whether it's Herb, Hinako, Ryouga, Saffron, or whoever I can't recall him ever dodging one of their spherical energy attacks while within a few meters. He manages to dodge Herbs while he kept himself several meters out, but he was screwed over the first time they fought when he couldn't.
What makes this particularly damning though is that nature of the SSH incident. Ranma starts by rushing Ryouga who then has to assume position, target, and fire while saying SSH. This models a 21' drill, which would indicate that if Ranma was operating like a perfectly normal motivated human, the advantage should have been _his_ ie he should have been on top of Ryouga before he could fire. Given SSH wasn't picked up as a bzzing noise by the bystanders some kind of funkyiness isn't likely.
2) Ranma 1/2 attacks have never by themselves been shown or been implied to be lethal. Saffron was frozen and cracking, not falling with a giant hole somewhere. Sailor Moon attacks have never been indicated to have such a limitation and given the Outers thought their attacks would actually kill Hotaru, it's pretty clear the expectation is there as one would expect.
3) Ranma and crew ignoring the ramped up Vol 1 intro version have really never shown the ability to do a quick KO. Especially when you take into account that the Senshi do have some protection in that area. Thus even if a Ranma crew individual can get on top of a Senshi they can simply grab and hang on, while they invoke their attack giving them the win.
4) The Senshi can modify the battlefield to their advantage, while Ranma and crew have no such capability.
5) The Senshi have shown the ability to be able to ramp up their attacks significantly, so they can basically bombard a football field sized area. Jupiter in particular basically blanketed such an area with lightning bolts spaced such one couldn't easily hide between them (R movie). Ranma has never come close.
6) A significant portion of the damage Ranma 1/2 attacks do isn't even possible to do to those materials if they were their real life counterpart, period. Dirt can't compress that much, rock isn't that ductile, etc. This calls all the material properties and natures of the targets into question leading to the power claims off them being tenacious at best. Plus there is no real follow through for the high estimates off them.

[Climhazard]

6) A significant portion of the damage Ranma 1/2 attacks do isn't even possible to do to those materials if they were their real life counterpart, period. Dirt can't compress that much, rock isn't that ductile, etc.

Magic don't exist in real life, period. So what your point about real life?

1) Whether it's Herb, Hinako, Ryouga, Saffron, or whoever I can't recall him ever dodging one of their spherical energy attacks while within a few meters.

Sorry to disappoint you, but they generate SSH and MT almost instantly. In contrast with fics when they need some time to do this. So Ranma just don’t have any time to dodge SSH.

He manages to dodge Herbs while he kept himself several meters out, but he was screwed over the first time they fought when he couldn't.

With exception of Dragon Spirit Flight, Herb doesn’t have any "spherical energy attacks". And DSF using two *invisible* ball's of ki. You think that avoiding something invisible actually a easy task?

2) Ranma 1/2 attacks have never by themselves been shown or been implied to be lethal. Saffron was frozen and cracking, not falling with a giant hole somewhere. Sailor Moon attacks have never been indicated to have such a limitation and given the Outers thought their attacks would actually kill Hotaru, it's pretty clear the expectation is there as one would expect.

So Demon God Assault Bomb not lethal? But of course, how can be lethal attack that easily dissect giant stone statue in pieces! Or attack that easily breaks nice holes in walls!? Or how can be lethal attack that easily molten rock, yes? Or attack specially designed to rip opponent heart? Do you really read manga? Or just read bunch of fics?

) The Senshi can modify the battlefield to their advantage, while Ranma and crew have no such capability.

Oh? Someone turn off BT? Or they lost ability to destroy wall? Rip poles from ground? And i never see any significant ability to "modify the battlefield to their advantage" in Senshi case. They just jumping around and try to hit their enemy with wild fire.
PS. FOG3, if you like Senshi better that NWC, fine. But try to be a little more objective.