Star Destroyer VS Battelcruiser

[KingOfLaughter]

First off. Be civil!

Secondly
What do you think in a battle of a Star Wars Star Destroyer vs A Star craft Terran Battle Cruiser, what would happen? Who would win?

Note it is straight SD vs BC no backup, no Tiefighters/Wraiths ect.

Star Destroyer
http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Essays/StarDestroyer.jpg
Battlecruiser
http://wallpampers.com/pictures/6766/1152_Terran%20Battlecruiser%20-%20SC2.jpg

I personally think that the battle cruiser would win.

My reasons
1-The battle cruiser has hundreds (Although in game seemingly only one) of extremely accurate cannons.
2-The battle cruiser has heavy shielding, and heavy plating. Meant to take hits in space.
3-The yamato cannon, which is meant to shred ships, utterly and finally.

If you want to get specific, we can use Vaders SD vs The Hyperion.

I still give it to the BC though.

[Tavar]

1-The battle cruiser has hundreds (Although in game seemingly only one) of extremely accurate cannons.
Source? And how accurate?

2-The battle cruiser has heavy shielding, and heavy plating. Meant to take hits in space.
As opposed to...?

From what I understand, Star Destroyers have some pretty impressive shields and armor as well.

3-The yamato cannon, which is meant to shred ships, utterly and finally.
So it's a weapon.

Really, the main problem here is that, from what I know, the Star Craft universe doesn't give hard numbers for it's capabilities. Star Wars does, at least to a certain degree.

[An Enemy Spy]

Star destroyers I'm pretty sure are bigger and have powerful shields. As far as spacefaring civilizations go, the Terrans seem pretty low tech. I think they've only recently began settling other planets, like maybe a century or two. They're technology just isn't on the same level as Star Wars. They're more on the level of the UNSC.

[warty goblin]

I recall reading a quote from one of the Starcraft novels that indicated a siege tank deployed in, and firing from, the cargo hold was a very significant increase in a terran battlecruiser's combat power.

A tank. Yeah.

I'm gonna call Star Wars on this one.

[dgnslyr]

Star Destroyers are absolutely massive. Battlecruisers are about as big as an angry alien elephant. Sadly, Star Craft units were not meant for the scale of Star Wars vessels. It's not a good matchup just because of the size difference.

Now, a Space Marine vs. a Storm Trooper, that would be an interesting fight.

[MammonAzrael]

Star Destroyers are absolutely massive. Battlecruisers are about as big as an angry alien elephant. Sadly, Star Craft units were not meant for the scale of Star Wars vessels. It's not a good matchup just because of the size difference.

Now, a Space Marine vs. a Storm Trooper, that would be an interesting fight.

I agree with part A. Regardless of what class of Star Destroy you choose for this battle. If, by Vader's SD you mean the Executor (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Executor), then you've screwed the Terrans even more.

Part B would be interesting because while a Storm Trooper's armor doesn't provide serious power enhancements like the Space Marine's does, they do sport the much more destructive weapon. And the Storm Trooper is probably a lot more mobile.

[Caewil]

A battlecruiser is big, but an ISD is just on a different scale. A battlecruiser has only one big gun, I'd consider all of the rest point-defense on a star-destroyer scale.

A stormtrooper loses to a terran marine in armor, but the accuracy of the marine's guns have been pretty poor in every cinematic, I mean even worse than imperial marksmanship. Stormtroopers are vastly more disciplined and much better shots. Plus they aren't recruited from convicts.

[AslanCross]

I recall reading a quote from one of the Starcraft novels that indicated a siege tank deployed in, and firing from, the cargo hold was a very significant increase in a terran battlecruiser's combat power.

A tank. Yeah.


That was because the old Behemoth-class battlecruisers had all their guns on the front. The enemy ship was trying to board them from the side; deploying a siege tank in the cargo hold allowed it to fire from the side. The new Minotaur-class BCs have batteries all around.

That said,the Bucephalus, one of the new Minotaur-class BCs from Starcraft II, is listed as only 560 meters long (http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Bucephalus) and has a crew of 8200 and change. The ISD has a crew of over 37000 and is 1600 meters long. I don't really think the BC has much of a chance against the ISD, considering its lack of shielding.

[hamishspence]

I don't really think the BC has much of a chance against the ISD, considering its lack of shielding.

http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Energy_shield

It does say that battlecruisers, especially in Starcraft II, have access to energy shields.

[AslanCross]

They're a rare and expensive option, though, and not standard equipment; the entry you posted mentions they could be mounted on them. In the Wings of Liberty campaign you had to purchase them, and they didn't remain on all the time (unlike the Protoss shields, which were always on and could regenerate over time). As far as I could tell they're new experimental designs and are more of emergency things rather than a ship's first line of defense like in Star Wars.

[hamishspence]

True. I wonder how "neosteel" stacks up next to Star Destroyer armour?

[Closet_Skeleton]

One of the mini-nukes ghosts can fire severely damages a Battlecruiser.

A Battlecruiser's Yamato cannon can't one-shot another battlecruiser.

A Star Destroyer's heavy turbolasers can severely mess up a planet's surface. In the Star Wars RPG I played a Star Destroyer could blast apart an unshielded Star Destroyer very quickly. Return of the Jedi also shows a Star Destroyer (presubably damaged with most of its shields gone, but the SFX don't show that) being atomised by a few turbolaser shots.

A terran battlecruiser might do okay against a Gladiator-class Star Destroyer (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Gladiator-class_Star_Destroyer). Its in the same size range and only has light turbolasers.

[The Glyphstone]

Gotta go with the Star Destroyer here too. As mentioned, the ISD is three times as big, with more than quadruple the crew - nonsense about being the size of alien elephants aside (if we use that scale, they're also as long as four humans standing in a line):smallbiggrin:, you need some crazy tech advantage to account for the sheer resilience and firepower that size differential implies.

And for specifics...the Executor would curbstomp the Hyperion without so much as breaking a sweat. Behemoths were smaller than Minotaurs, and Super Star Destroyers are bigger than ISD's.

[Winterwind]

I have to give it to the Star Destroyer as well. All other things aside, this is comparing the vessel of a species that's been spacefaring for only a few centuries and holds just a handful of scattered systems to the vessel of a galaxy spanning empire with millions of worlds. It's practically like comparing the canoe of some tribal person from the depths of the Amazonian that has never seen the outside world with a battleship of a modern navy built by a nation numbering hundreds of millions of citizens. The technological and scale difference is staggering.

[hamishspence]

Now Protoss might be a different story. A Protoss fleet does, in the manual and the books, serious damage to a Zerg-infested planet.

In Liberty's Crusade, the whole surface is melted- possibly all the way down to the mantle, and in spots (cities, in particular- probably centres of infestation) it has been "burned down to the liquid core".

Now that might require multiple Motherships, rather than Carriers- but it does sound even more devastating than a Base Delta Zero operation.

[EvilSun]

a Base Delta Zero operation.
Which is - in my opinion - greatly overrated. Basically you take a capital ship and let it flatten an area/installation. Thats basic orbital bombardement, nothing on the scale of what Protoss do to Zerg infested worlds.

[hamishspence]

What's claimed about Base Delta Zero is that it melts every bit of the surface of a planet, to a depth of metres, and that it can be done in the space of a few minutes:

(one star destroyer orbiting the planet at high speed, blasting away with all the guns it can bring to bear).

I am a little dubious about this though.

[Emperor Ing]

An Imperial Star Destroyer is a mile long and is armed to the teeth with turbolasers that put out as much power as a nuclear bomb.

In other words, a mile long metal pizza has dozens of rapid-fire nuclear missiles to bear on the Battlecruiser.

[Soras Teva Gee]

.the Executor would curbstomp the Hyperion without so much as breaking a sweat.

Why stop there, have an Eclipse class destroy the Battlecruiser with said cruisers own idiom of WMG.

[Winterwind]

I think when the OP wrote "Vader's Star Destroyer", he was referring to the destroyer Vader commandeered at the beginning of A New Hope, not the (not yet finished) Executor. He spoke of a Star Destroyer, not a Super Star Destroyer, after all.

[warty goblin]

That was because the old Behemoth-class battlecruisers had all their guns on the front. The enemy ship was trying to board them from the side; deploying a siege tank in the cargo hold allowed it to fire from the side. The new Minotaur-class BCs have batteries all around.


It still indicates that a tank gun was an effective weapon against a battlecruiser, which is not a positive indication of defensive capability.

[hamishspence]

Never mind the 11 mile long Eclipse- there's a 1 mile long modified Imperial-class Star Destroyer with a better weapon than that:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Conqueror_(superlaser)

Has destroyed a "small planetoid" and if you believe StarWars.com, capable of destroying a normal one.

[druid91]

It still indicates that a tank gun was an effective weapon against a battlecruiser, which is not a positive indication of defensive capability.

What about the clone wars episode where the republic shot down the separatist fleet with ATTE's and clone troopers clinging to asteroids?:smalltongue:

That right there made me dislike that series. Before I thought it wasn't completely horrible. But that was just plain ridiculous.

[Da'Shain]

I personally think that the battle cruiser would win.

My reasons
1-The battle cruiser has hundreds (Although in game seemingly only one) of extremely accurate cannons.
2-The battle cruiser has heavy shielding, and heavy plating. Meant to take hits in space.
3-The yamato cannon, which is meant to shred ships, utterly and finally.1. So does the Star Destroyer, in addition to at least 8 heavy turbolasers that are capable of pounding unshielded SW ships into dust with one or two hits. SD guns have also demonstrated an ability to vaporize large asteroids with single, low-power hits, where Battlecruisers seem to take multiple shots to take out even small armored targets (unless the novels state differently).
2. Er ... so is the Star Destroyer? It's the main ship of the line in a galaxy spanning Empire built for war. Not only is it built out of one of the strongest known shipbuilding materials in the galaxy (neutronium, I believe it was called, utilizing material from neutron stars in addition to the best mass-produced synthesized materials), but it's got energy shields as standard equipment that make its armor seem like an unnecessary addition.
3. The Yamato Cannon is a focused nuclear blast and is the strongest ability a BC has, taking seconds to charge up and minutes to recharge. Star Wars capital-ship shields take multiple blasts equal to or superior to nuclear blasts every minute in real combat, and the SD is one of the most powerful mass-produced ships.

[hamishspence]

Not only is it built out of one of the strongest known shipbuilding materials in the galaxy (neutronium, I believe it was called, utilizing material from neutron stars in addition to the best mass-produced synthesized materials), but it's got energy shields as standard equipment that make its armor seem like an unnecessary addition.

Nope- whatever Star Wars Neutronium is, it's not Neutron Star Matter:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Neutronium

Durasteel (the material "neutronium" is alloyed into) is described as "300,000 times stronger than steel", though:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Durasteel

[druid91]

Uh where are you getting that turbo-lasers contain as much energy as nuclear weapons? IF that was the case why didn't the death star shred itself?

[Da'Shain]

Nope- whatever Star Wars Neutronium is, it's not Neutron Star Matter:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Neutronium

Durasteel (the material "neutronium" is alloyed into) is described as "300,000 times stronger than steel", though:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/DurasteelWhoops. Was going from memory, there. I probably was combining my knowledge of real neutronium with the sci-fi term, never a good policy.


Uh where are you getting that turbo-lasers contain as much energy as nuclear weapons? IF that was the case why didn't the death star shred itself?StarDestroyer.net (http://stardestroyer.net/Empire/Tech/Beam/Beam2.html), among other places. IIRC (which I possibly am not, considering the mistake I just made), the RotS novelization specifically mentions the capital ships in the opening battle trading shots of greater power than nuclear bombs, and these were ships of the previous generation from SDs.

Why would the Death Star shred itself if that were the case?

[hamishspence]

This is the main source for turbolaser shot energies being of gigaton proportions:

http://www.theforce.net/swtc/isd.html

EDIT: but yes, Stardestroyer.net is another commonly cited source.

[Obrysii]

Uh where are you getting that turbo-lasers contain as much energy as nuclear weapons? IF that was the case why didn't the death star shred itself?

Huh?

In the various Technical Commentaries, the yields of turbolasers, based on their actions against iron-rich asteroids around Hoth, suggest a yield in the gigaton range - far in excess of any modern real-life nuke.

How would the Death Star shred itself? It can't aim its weapons against itself, and even if it did it was protected by a very strong energy shield (note: it was protected with ray shields, not particle shields in most places), and its superstructure was built around its weapon systems.

A Star Destroyer can bring to bear all of its main cannons in a frontal assault, and that assault is multi-gigaton in yield.

[hamishspence]

The planetary shields are large-scale external- if a turbolaser on the surface of the first Death Star fired at an X-Wing, missed, and hit another turbolaser, that turbolaser wouldn't be shielded.

[Winterwind]

Uh where are you getting that turbo-lasers contain as much energy as nuclear weapons? IF that was the case why didn't the death star shred itself?As far as I know this figure was derived from The Empire Strikes Back, where we see turbo-lasers shoot at asteroids. Somebody calculated the energy required to do to these asteroids what these turbo-lasers did to them, and the result was that each shot carried the energy of a modern nuclear weapon. One of the big ones.

As for why the Death Star didn't shred itself, why should it have? Firstly it's not shooting at itself, secondly it's the size of a moon, so nuclear weapons could only barely harm its surface anyway, and thirdly even regular ships in the Star Wars universe have enough armour and shielding to absorb turbo-laser hits without significant damage. Yes, the power level of the Star Wars universe simply is that high. Ships throw weapons in the megaton or even gigaton range at each other and shrug them off regularly.

Which, when you think about it, is actually quite befitting for a civilization so advanced it spans an entire galaxy.

EDIT: Ninja'd multiple times. :smallredface:

[pendell]

I dunno about the rest of you, but I get tired of the term 'battlecruiser' applied to capital ships in SF universes.

Traditionally, a 'battleship' was a ship designed to defeat any other naval vessel it met. A 'cruiser' was a step below that, designed to fight anything smaller than a battleship and to outrun a battleship. A 'battlecruiser' was a hybrid of the two -- a battleship which had quite a bit of its armor removed so it could travel at the speed of the cruiser but retain the guns of a battleship. So essentially a 'super-cruiser', outgunning normal cruisers and faster than a battleship.

The concept didn't work out because navies kept trying to use them in line-of-battle, where the lack of armor meant their destruction. Evidently a couple knots of speed advantage doesn't help when you're locked in formation against projectiles moving at supersonic velocities.

So why is SF overrun with capital units called 'battlecruisers' when they should be 'capital ships' or 'dreadnaughts' or 'battleships'? The original Yamato WAS a battleship!


Back to the topic at hand -- given the disparities in universe, I suspect a proper comparison would be difficult, but judging by this (http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Battlecruiser) it would seem that both are capital ships carrying Big Guns and an onboard contingent of starfighters/strike craft. Accordingly, the major question in my mind in such a conflict would not be 'which is the better ship', but rather 'who's in command'?

Thrawn would probably be a winner with an ISD. Who from the Starcraft universe could match him? Gerard Dugalle?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Obrysii]

The planetary shields are large-scale external- if a turbolaser on the surface of the first Death Star fired at an X-Wing, missed, and hit another turbolaser, that turbolaser wouldn't be shielded.

It's shown in Episode 1 that shields actually hug the surface of the ship. The same is shown for Alderaan's shields and the Millenium Falcon's shields.

It's only the rare planet-based shields that are bubbles.

[hamishspence]

Or those of the 1st Death star- the fighters judder as they pass through the shield, well clear of the actual station.


[nerdrage]

I dunno about the rest of you, but I get tired of the term 'battlecruiser' applied to capital ships in SF universes.

Traditionally, a 'battleship' was a ship designed to defeat any other naval vessel it met. A 'cruiser' was a step below that, designed to fight anything smaller than a battleship and to outrun a battleship. A 'battlecruiser' was a hybrid of the two -- a battleship which had quite a bit of its armor removed so it could travel at the speed of the cruiser but retain the guns of a battleship. So essentially a 'super-cruiser', outgunning normal cruisers and faster than a battleship.

The concept didn't work out because navies kept trying to use them in line-of-battle, where the lack of armor meant their destruction. Evidently a couple knots of speed advantage doesn't help when you're locked in formation against projectiles moving at supersonic velocities.

So why is SF overrun with capital units called 'battlecruisers' when they should be 'capital ships' or 'dreadnaughts' or 'battleships'? The original Yamato WAS a battleship!

40K sort of avoids this- a battlecruiser in that (Imperium) has the same hit points (and shielding) as a cruiser, but with typically longer-ranged weapons, and an extra weapon mount.

[kamikasei]

So why is SF overrun with capital units called 'battlecruisers' when they should be 'capital ships' or 'dreadnaughts' or 'battleships'? The original Yamato WAS a battleship!
Because "cruiser" is a sexier word than "ship". Just be glad there isn't a category with an x in the name or it'd be everywhere.

Back to the topic at hand -- given the disparities in universe, I suspect a proper comparison would be difficult, but judging by this (http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Battlecruiser) it would seem that both are capital ships carrying Big Guns and an onboard contingent of starfighters/strike craft. Accordingly, the major question in my mind in such a conflict would not be 'which is the better ship', but rather 'who's in command'?
:smallconfused:

Why? Does the fact that one is much larger and more powerful, and that though they're both quite big fish in their respective ponds those ponds differ enormously in scale, not come in to play before such niceties as commanders?

[warty goblin]

If one has even an elementary understanding of how L*.A**.S***.E****.R****.s work, then yes, the Death Star should shred itself. Well, melt itself, but the point still stands.

A laser doesn't make energy, it's just a method for focusing photons. You need to put the same sort and amount of photons into it as you get out of it. So in order to produce a shot capable of destroying a planet, the superlaser has to, at some point, contain enough energy to destroy a planet, plus losses for inefficiency. This means that it's holding a vast amount of something very,very hot, and would in all likelihood melt itself from the inside out.

Unless of course they use an enormous free electron laser. In that case they need a vast amount of electricity, which again means a lot of heat.


*Light
**Amplification through
***Stimulated
****Emission of
*****Radiation.

[hamishspence]

Star Destroyers in the EU novels tend to be used as battleships most of the time- since they're far bigger than anything else in common use.

It usually runs:
Carrack Light Cruiser
Strike-class Cruiser
Dreadnought Heavy Cruiser
Victory-class Star Destroyer
Imperial-class Star Destroyer

Only rarely do they get used as "escort destroyers"- when larger ships come on the scene.


If one has even an elementary understanding of how L*.A**.S***.E****.R****.s work, then yes, the Death Star should shred itself. Well, melt itself, but the point still stands.

Virtually everything with the name "laser" in it in Star Wars is actually a particle weapon- including turbolasers and even laser cannons- but the point is sound.

The Death Star is apparently powered by "hypermatter" and the "superlaser" uses it. It's connected to hyperspace, and explains why very little solid material is left behind after a shot- some of it is converted to energy, and some shunted straight into hyperspace.

[pendell]

Because "cruiser" is a sexier word than "ship". Just be glad there isn't a category with an x in the name or it'd be everywhere.

:smallconfused:

Why? Does the fact that one is much larger and more powerful, and that though they're both quite big fish in their respective ponds those ponds differ enormously in scale, not come in to play before such niceties as commanders?

It does and it would, if we had any meaningful way to make comparisons between those ponds. Just because the GFFA is far larger than the Starcraft universe does not necessarily imply that they are more advanced technologically or that their ships have greater military capability. The GFFA has been militarily stagnant for the past thousand years. The Starcraft universe has been fighting continuously.

The most apt comparison I can think of would be real-world 19th century. China is an overwhelmingly large power which has most of Asia under its sway and has not had a serious war in generations. Britain is a tiny island that has been primarily at war with other European nations for two hundred years. A little fish in a little pond versus a world-striding empire. But when those two nations went to war (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_wars), it wasn't even a contest.

Evidently the little pond was a much more Darwinian environment than the peaceful empire.

So: The fact that the Empire has existed for thousands of years and is much larger than the Starcraft universe does not necessarily mean it is more militarily capable. That's why I go directly to the commanders -- the ability to adapt to asymmetric capabilities , the ability to match your strengths against an opponent's weakness, count for a great deal more than the raw ship capabilities, unless the disparity is so great the discussion is pointless. As far as I can tell, that has not been proven.

"Remember, it's not the crate, but the man in the crate that makes the difference." -- attributed to Baron Von Richthofen

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Winterwind]

If one has even an elementary understanding of how L*.A**.S***.E****.R****.s work, then yes, the Death Star should shred itself. Well, melt itself, but the point still stands. ...or one simply assumes that a civilization capable of a whole ton of other achievements that range anywhere from "utterly outside of the scope of our understanding how they could work" to "utterly outside of what is possible according to the laws of nature as we understand them" can have solved that problem as well. Which seems like the only reasonably approach to me when it comes to science fiction. :smallwink:

(And just for reference, I think I have a fair bit more than just an elementary understanding of how lasers work. You know, being a Ph.D. student of physics, and all that. :smalltongue:
Not that understanding how actual lasers work helps in any way when it comes to Star Wars, of course. It's not like these have anything whatsoever to do with each other.)

[Da'Shain]

If one has even an elementary understanding of how L*.A**.S***.E****.R****.s work, then yes, the Death Star should shred itself. Well, melt itself, but the point still stands. As hamish mentioned, what are called "lasers" in SW are pretty much definitely not actual lasers, although I had an argument with my brother about that. He claims that we should take its name as indicative that it is a laser because if Lucas had intended them to be something else he would've called it something else, while I think that since they seem to conform to none of the rules or effects of lasers and the term "laser" is often misunderstood by non-technical people, one should accept that "laser" is simply a language artifact for them the same way as "cannon" is for us. (And, of course, fluff-wise they're not even speaking English, the movies are just "translated" to make it easier to understand and laser might be the only remotely close English word.)

Also as mentioned, Star Wars ships fire these weapons all the time with demonstrably powerful effects and don't suffer ill-effects from it themselves. Even without getting into the technobabble explanations for why this is -- they work.


So: The fact that the Empire has existed for thousands of years and is much larger than the Starcraft universe does not necessarily mean it is more militarily capable. That's why I go directly to the commanders -- the ability to adapt to asymmetric capabilities , the ability to match your strengths against an opponent's weakness, count for a great deal more than the raw ship capabilities, unless the disparity is so great the discussion is pointless. As far as I can tell, that has not been proven. It doesn't mean that the SW universe will necessarily have greater technology and be in general more powerful, but it's a piece of circumstantial evidence that supports the other, rather hard evidence. ISDs have demonstrably more powerful shields, weapons, and engines than BCs, often by orders of magnitude (hyperdrives, for another example, are ridiculously faster than Terrans' month or years long travel between sectors). The addition of a tactical genius captain to the BC and a buffoon commander to the ISD might make a difference, but is unlikely to.

[hamishspence]

So: The fact that the Empire has existed for thousands of years and is much larger than the Starcraft universe does not necessarily mean it is more militarily capable.

The Fleet itself was very new- prior to the Clone Wars, the Republic didn't have a galactic fleet. Though some individual systems had their own fleets.

I'm not sure where the money for all those Acclamators in Episode II came from- maybe the same place the money for the Clone Army came from :smallamused:

In The Rise of Darth Vader, we find out The Emperor has earmarked half of the Empire's budget to build The Fleet.

Since it was a rapid programme of mass-production building (thousands of ships within the space of a few years- this might explain design flaws. The Imperial II class, in particular, is described as "174,000 design flaws waiting to be exploited"

[pendell]

I'm not sure where the money for all those Acclamators in Episode II came from- maybe the same place the money for the Clone Army came from :smallamused:


Internet porn, MAKE.MONEY.FAST, and Nigerian email scams, perhaps?

What? It's the dark side, after all :smallamused:. Making profit off of other people's greed and vices seems just the thing.


Respectfully,

Brian P.

[hamishspence]

What? It's the dark side, after all :smallamused:. Making profit off of other people's greed and vices seems just the thing.

At least one Sith Lord (Darth Vectivus) was a businessman rather than a would-be conqueror- so maybe he passed the techniques of money management onto his successor? :smallamused:

[Eric Tolle]

Huh?

In the various Technical Commentaries, the yields of turbolasers, based on their actions against iron-rich asteroids around Hoth, suggest a yield in the gigaton range - far in excess of any modern real-life nuke.


The problem with the technical commentaries is that they assume the asteroids are nickle-iron asteroids, which is plainly ridiculous. They don't look like IR asteroids, they certainly don't behave in any way like NI asteroids. Based on the orbital dynamics of the insanely cluttered asteroid field, it's more likely that they are made out of something resembling styrofoam. Their being made out of low-density organics also explains why a worm could actually live in an asteroid. Substitute weak material like that into the equation, and you get Star Destroyer weapons that are at a much more reasonable level.

The natural objection is that TIE fighters impacting asteroids are destroyed. Yes, well, from the evidence, a thrown rock will destroy a TIE fighter.

It's also worth pointing out that the physics of the Star Wars universe are so radically different than that of other Sci-Fi universes that it's uncertain whether any foreign technologies would work. For a start, it's obvious that "space" in the Star Wars universe is not actually a vacuum; it has enough air to allow people to wander outside wearing only breath masks, not to mention that spacecraft work on aerodynamic principals. So an actual spacecraft would likely run into trouble in the Star Wars universe. Then there are the really bizarre orbital dynamics of asteroid fields that should have been ground into powder, and the apparent fact that the galaxy is either rotating faster than light speed, or very small.

But leave that aside, and the range of weaponry will tell. Since it's obvious from the movies that Star Destroyer weapons obviously have a range of only a couple miles, with poor accuracy even within that range, any spacecraft with weapons that are ranged in the hundreds of miles will outrange a Star Destroyer.

And no, I don't care what some fanfic or game sourcebook says; the only thing that counts are the movies.

[hamishspence]

On http://www.theforce.net/swtc/isd.html as a source, the writer may be an astrophysicist, but he doesn't seem to have much imagination.

He argues that a moon like Endor must have a density comparable to Earth's at most-

yet it's entirely possible for a real planet to be denser even without the possibility of an usually heavy-element rich supernova. All it takes is for the same thing to happen to the planet, as it did to Mercury.

A collision drove off most of the mantle, leaving a (for its size) fairly dense object.

Imagine something similar happening to an Earthlike bod- driving off even more of its outer shell, leaving only a Mercury-sized iron core.

Cometary bombardment can help to provide water and organics.

If the initial body had an even denser core than that, it might have a gravity close enough to Earth's to account for atmosphere being retained, yet low enough to allow giant creatures like the Gorax to exist, and for the Ewoks to fly with their crude apparatus.


The problem with the technical commentaries is that they assume the asteroids are nickle-iron asteroids, which is plainly ridiculous. They don't look like IR asteroids, they certainly don't behave in any way like NI asteroids. Based on the orbital dynamics of the insanely cluttered asteroid field, it's more likely that they are made out of something resembling styrofoam. Their being made out of low-density organics also explains why a worm could actually live in an asteroid. Substitute weak material like that into the equation, and you get Star Destroyer weapons that are at a much more reasonable level.

The Wookieepedia article on the Hoth Field, says it was formed only a million or so years ago by two planets colliding- so it may not be a Belt encompassing an entire orbit.

[BRC]

According to the Fluff, a Battlecruiser is a full on capital ship. In Liberty's Crusade, the Norad II carried all of Alpha Squadron, a full compliment of marines, tanks and wraiths.

In the Game, a Battlecruiser can be shot down by less then twenty infantrymen.

Assuming we go by Fluff, A Battlecruiser is still probably going to lose. The way they are shown in cutscenes/the game, a Star Destroyer is simply in an entirely different weight class than a Battlecruiser.

Now, that said, we saw a Star Destroyer crippled by one x-wing pulling off an accidental kamikazi (IIRC), which means they're more fragile than their bulk would indicate.
In the end, I think a Battlecruiser could beat a Star Destroyer, which is a lot different than saying it Will. The Battlecruiser would need a smart captain, the Star Destroyer would need a dumb one, and even then the Battlecruiser would need to get lucky.
Basically, the way I see it, a good hit with the Yamoto cannon would cripple a Star Destroyer, One, or two good hits with the Turbolasers would cripple a Battlecruiser. The Star Destroyer has more turbolasers, and they can fire them more frequently. Unless the SD's gunnery crews are all half blind rookies recovering from a night of partying so intense that Jedi the galaxy over woke up with a hangover, they WILL land that good hit before the Yamato cannon is ready to fire again.
So yeah, the odds are against the Battlecruiser, but it's not a sure thing.

[Da'Shain]

Now, that said, we saw a Star Destroyer crippled by one x-wing pulling off an accidental kamikazi (IIRC), which means they're more fragile than their bulk would indicate. I believe what you are referencing is in RotJ when an A-wing crashes into the Executor (an SSD)'s bridge, and that was only possible because the entire Rebel fleet had been focus firing on the SSD in an attempt to bring down its shields, and then the only reason the ship lost control was that no one got to the emergency bridge in time. It was something that happened only due to superior firepower and no small amount of luck, not a single lucky attack.

[hamishspence]

In the same Marvel Comics that show a Super Star Destroyer shrug off three ISDs colliding with its shields (they were in a hurry, made a microjump, and came out right next to it), one hit from the Millenium Falcon's gun in the right place, cripples its steering (all shields were directed to the front at the time).

So- fragile, under those shields.

[BRC]

I believe what you are referencing is in RotJ when an A-wing crashes into the Executor (an SSD)'s bridge, and that was only possible because the entire Rebel fleet had been focus firing on the SSD in an attempt to bring down its shields, and then the only reason the ship lost control was that no one got to the emergency bridge in time. It was something that happened only due to superior firepower and no small amount of luck, not a single lucky attack.
and a normal Star Destroyer will have less shields/be a good deal weaker than the SSD, and the Yamoto cannon is more powerful than a single crashing A-Wing.

And if the main defenses are the Shields, then once the Yamoto Cannon takes down the shields, the Batttlecruiser's standard battery might be enough.
As I said, Smart BC commander, stupid SD commander, and luck.

[Da'Shain]

and a normal Star Destroyer will have less shields/be a good deal weaker than the SSD, and the Yamoto cannon is more powerful than a single crashing A-Wing.

And if the main defenses are the Shields, then once the Yamoto Cannon takes down the shields, the Batttlecruiser's standard battery might be enough.
As I said, Smart BC commander, stupid SD commander, and luck.That would be true if the Yamato cannon was actually a threat to an SD's shields. Which it really isn't much of, considering that it might approach the power of a heavy turbolaser (unlikely but possible), but SD's shields are designed to withstand minutes of constant bombardment by such guns, while a BC can only fire its cannon once every couple of minutes (in game; in the fluff it's probably even longer). The battlecruiser is a big enough target to be easily targetable by the SD's own guns and is far too slow to have pretty much any chance of consistently dodging, so it would essentially require the Imperial commander to completely hold fire and let the battlecruiser fly around it for half an hour charging up its cannon many times.

Or some one-in-a-million occurrence that brought down the SD's shields or allowed the BC to fire a far more powerful Yamato than its stated comparable-to-nukes yield.

[Obrysii]

one hit from the Millenium Falcon's gun in the right place, cripples its steering (all shields were directed to the front at the time).

No?

The Millenium Falcon was escaping a Star Destroyer. It's not a battleship. It's a freighter. It was taking and shrugging off hits that should have destroyed it.

And after it took a heavy turbolaser blast? C3PO noted that the rear shields had dropped. One more gigaton-yield blast would destroy the civilian vessel.

Fragile? No. Just utterly overwhelmed by far superior firepower.

[hamishspence]

Or some one-in-a-million occurrence that brought down the SD's shields or allowed the BC to fire a far more powerful Yamato than its stated comparable-to-nukes yield.

Might depend on the nuke- and if enough narrowly concentrated power can punch a hole in the shield without causing the whole thing to collapse.

If it's equivalent to a 100 megaton nuke, concentrated into a small spot barely metres wide, it might be nastier.

Approaching from a less well-protected quarter (rear, or from beneath) might help as well.



And after it took a heavy turbolaser blast? C3PO noted that the rear shields had dropped. One more gigaton-yield blast would destroy the civilian vessel.


Since when was it a heavy turbolaser blast? And wasn't the theme of it, that the Imperials were trying to capture the Falcon, not destroy it?

[Obrysii]

Since when was it a heavy turbolaser blast? And wasn't the theme of it, that the Imperials were trying to capture the Falcon, not destroy it?

The size of the bolt plus the ship's reaction to its impact highly imply it is bigger than the weapons they had been using prior.

[hamishspence]

Bigger- maybe- but not necessarily one of the heavy turbolasers- those are the ones along the sides of the superstructure.

[Da'Shain]

Star Wars weapons are also capable of fairly precise power control -- witness the lead AT-AT's shots in ESB, when it uses them one second to fire relatively small, lower powered bolts that just kill running soldiers without vaporizing them, and then the next it fires much larger, brighter bolts that utterly destroy the giant shield generator (17 km away or something, I forget).

[hamishspence]

Yup- the fact that a bolt from a Star Destroyer brings down the Falcon's rear deflector shield, says nothing about what gun it came from, or how powerful the bolt was.

We certainly cannot assume "The Falcon's shields can take a gigaton hit".

Or, that the shot from the Falcon that crippled the steering on the Executor in the comics, was a gigaton hit.

[warty goblin]

Approaching from a less well-protected quarter (rear, or from beneath) might help as well.


It's a spaceship, in a setting where enemy spaceships can appear out of nowhere at reasonably close range at any time. It would be extremely poor design to have one angle of approach be significantly less well defended than any other. If that is the case, all those extra defense elsewhere just became so much wasted money and dead weight.

[hamishspence]

That's the way they designed Star Destroyers though.

Most of the firepower on the top half- limited ability to shoot into the rear arc (what with the emissions from the engines) and so on.

Mara even points the general design principles out in Survivor's Quest as a way to recognize a warship-


"Doesn't look like a warship," Mara commented from beside him. "They usually have at least one low-silhouette, high firepower plane available to present to an approaching enemy. That thing's going to be a perfect target no matter what direction it comes at you from."

"You forget the Death Star," Luke reminded her. "It was shaped more or less like that."

"And its design stunk, too," Mara retorted. "It just happened to be big enough and mean enough to get away with it."

"Mostly," Luke couldn't resist saying.

[Da'Shain]

It's a spaceship, in a setting where enemy spaceships can appear out of nowhere at reasonably close range at any time. It would be extremely poor design to have one angle of approach be significantly less well defended than any other. If that is the case, all those extra defense elsewhere just became so much wasted money and dead weight.I don't think any area is poorly protected by the shields, but the design of a Star Destroyer does make certain avenues more approachable simply because less guns can defend it -- its design made a tradeoff of having a fairly large field in which it can focus virtually all of its firepower at the expense of having other fields where much of its firepower can't reach.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

It's also worth pointing out that the physics of the Star Wars universe are so radically different than that of other Sci-Fi universes that it's uncertain whether any foreign technologies would work. For a start, it's obvious that "space" in the Star Wars universe is not actually a vacuum; it has enough air to allow people to wander outside wearing only breath masks, not to mention that spacecraft work on aerodynamic principals. So an actual spacecraft would likely run into trouble in the Star Wars universe.

There's no evidence that space doesn't have a vacuum. We know they have sensors able to pick up life signs, presence of atmosphere, and similar data, so while Solo & Co. should probably have been more suspicious as to why the asteroid cave had an atmosphere to begin with, they could pick up their breath masks with full knowledge that there was an atmosphere out there, simply one that wasn't breathable. The TIE pilots have fully pressurized suits because the Empire skimped on life support in the TIE series, and the Rebel pilots' suits seal up and pressurize in the event of loss of cabin pressure, so vacuum is definitely taken into account.

[Lamech]

The Wookieepedia article on the Hoth Field, says it was formed only a million or so years ago by two planets colliding- so it may not be a Belt encompassing an entire orbit. No he is saying that if a field of NI arstroids was around for that long the astroids would have been ground into dust, also they would have collasped back into a planet as they lose energy from collisions. The rocks do NOT behave the way NI astroids should, so they are clearly not.


There's no evidence that space doesn't have a vacuum.You can't hear in a vacuum. So "canon" star wars doesn't have a vacuum.

[Obrysii]

You can't hear in a vacuum. So "canon" star wars doesn't have a vacuum.

Actually that's noted too as to why there's sound there.

it's fake. It's broadcast by the fighters / starships to simulate and assist the warriors using it.

Plus also it is for the audience in real life's benefit. To use the same logic as the whole "they're speaking Basic, which is translated into English for the audience" the sound effects were added for our benefit.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Plus also it is for the audience in real life's benefit. To use the same logic as the whole "they're speaking Basic, which is translated into English for the audience" the sound effects were added for our benefit.

Precisely. I assume the next objection will be that Star Wars has a sound track in the background, which is so totally unrealistic? :smallwink:

[hamishspence]

No he is saying that if a field of NI arstroids was around for that long the astroids would have been ground into dust, also they would have collasped back into a planet as they lose energy from collisions. The rocks do NOT behave the way NI astroids should, so they are clearly not.

The point I was making was, the Hoth Field is young enough, and large enough in total mass (thanks to being formed from the destruction of two planets) that what happens on screen is not so implausible.

There could beat least some metal-rich asteroids out there (since people mine for metal there in the EU.) However, as mentioned, it's also probable that the ones shot by the star destroyers, weren't metal-heavy.

[The Glyphstone]

Precisely. I assume the next objection will be that Star Wars has a sound track in the background, which is so totally unrealistic? :smallwink:

Wait, it's not normal to be able to hear the soundtrack music of real life?:smalleek:

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Wait, it's not normal to be able to hear the soundtrack music of real life?:smalleek:

Oh, it's normal to hear your own soundtrack, don't worry; it's just weird if you start hearing other peoples'.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Bigger- maybe- but not necessarily one of the heavy turbolasers- those are the ones along the sides of the superstructure.

Probably one of the point-defence ion cannons a Star Destroyer apparently has 60 of. An Imperial-II class has no point defence guns however because apparently when they decided to refit their ships to give them more firepower they ignored the fact that their enemies favoured fighters and bombers over capital ships.

[druid91]

Probably one of the point-defence ion cannons a Star Destroyer apparently has 60 of. An Imperial-II class has no point defence guns however because apparently when they decided to refit their ships to give them more firepower they ignored the fact that their enemies favoured fighters and bombers over capital ships.

That's what Lancer escorts are for.

[Mando Knight]

That's what Lancer escorts are for.

And the third most common item in the galaxy: TIE Fighters.
(The first two are hydrogen and stupidity)

[The Glyphstone]

But TIE fighters are stupid, so is there a distinction?:smallcool:

[TechnoScrabble]

Star Destroyer.
According to the novel series, Star Destroyers can level all of a planet's cities if given a few hours.
Super Star destroyers can probably do it in a few minutes.
Which always made me wonder:
Why the Death Star?

[The Glyphstone]

Star Destroyer.
According to the novel series, Star Destroyers can level all of a planet's cities if given a few hours.
Super Star destroyers can probably do it in a few minutes.
Which always made me wonder:
Why the Death Star?

Because blowing up cities is a surgical attack, not an obliteration strike. You can torch a planet's main population centers prior to an invasion, or as a 'this is your last warning' threat. Firing the Death Star is a warning to people on other planets, who don't want to be next.

it's doubtful a SSD could perform such an attack that much faster - it'd need to have both 60x as many guns and be able to move 60x as fast, to cut down on the time-till-decimation. I'd think it more likely for a SSD to be slower than a ISD, considering they run off the same engines, and adding more thrusters to the back will have rapidly diminishing returns vs. fuel consumption.

[Reverent-One]

Probably one of the point-defence ion cannons a Star Destroyer apparently has 60 of. An Imperial-II class has no point defence guns however because apparently when they decided to refit their ships to give them more firepower they ignored the fact that their enemies favoured fighters and bombers over capital ships.

Well of course, fighters are insignificant little things, why worry about those? Just throw a few TIE squadron's at them and forget about them. :smalltongue:

[Foeofthelance]

Star Destroyer.
According to the novel series, Star Destroyers can level all of a planet's cities if given a few hours.
Super Star destroyers can probably do it in a few minutes.
Which always made me wonder:
Why the Death Star?

According to the rebels in the movie, its a terror weapon meant to obliterate civilian populations for siding with the rebels.

According to the EU, the Emperor knew about the Yuuzhan Vong and their impending invasion of the galaxy, and things like the Death Stars and Sun Crushers were intended to deal with their world ships. A Star Destroyer would be able to crack the surface armor a little, but the Death Stars would be able to punch straight through for an instant kill.

Well, so long as the Vong didn't realize it had exhaust ports.

[Mando Knight]

The Vong hold all dead-tech as anathema. They'd never read the plans, unless some Idiot Corps like the Peace Brigade gave them the info.

[turkishproverb]

In the same Marvel Comics that show a Super Star Destroyer shrug off three ISDs colliding with its shields (they were in a hurry, made a microjump, and came out right next to it), one hit from the Millenium Falcon's gun in the right place, cripples its steering (all shields were directed to the front at the time).

So- fragile, under those shields.

The marvel comics were deemed non canon (oddly they're the only major body of work that was.)

Just saying. :smallbiggrin:

[warty goblin]

Star Destroyer.
According to the novel series, Star Destroyers can level all of a planet's cities if given a few hours.
Super Star destroyers can probably do it in a few minutes.
Which always made me wonder:
Why the Death Star?

It seems unlikely that a SSD would actually be able to destroy individual targets on a planet that much more quickly than a standard destroyer. At some point the limiting factor is how much of the planet you can see (aka half), not how fast you can shoot. And those targets near the rim are going to be very hard to hit, since aiming even slightly wrong would result in rounds landing very far from their target.

And the Death Star doesn't even make much sense as a way to send messages to other planets. If a bunch of Star Destroyers can reduce a planet's surface to rubble, it has for all intents and purposes the same effect as destroying the planet for surface dwelling life.

[HamHam]

Star Wars space is filled with Aether. That's why all ships perform as though they were in an atmosphere, and why you can hear in space.

[hamishspence]

The marvel comics were deemed non canon (oddly they're the only major body of work that was.)

Just saying. :smallbiggrin:

Quite a lot of Marvel comics work have been retconned into canon though- Shira Brie/Dark Lady of the Sith Lumiyia in particular.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Quite a lot of Marvel comics work have been retconned into canon though- Shira Brie/Dark Lady of the Sith Lumiyia in particular.

They're actually all canon now. Even the ones that can't be made to fit have been changed to "in universe false information".

[hamishspence]

Even the ones that can't be made to fit have been changed to "in universe false information".

This happened, I think, to the first Clone Wars cartoon- which has amazing capabilities for Jedi and Grievous- and has been retconned into being "propaganda media"

[Mando Knight]

Actually, the Marvel Comics are S-canon: superseded by anything else that's canon, but given the benefit of the doubt otherwise. The original Clone Wars cartoon is going to be reintegrated into the canon timeline (likely discarding events that conflict with TCW) once TCW is finished. (By which time the live-action SW show might have started. Which has a high chance of having Boba Fett in it, played by the same guy (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Daniel_Logan) who did the 10-yr-old version for AotC. And the voices for Fett and the cadets in TCW. He might be single, Rabbit. :smallwink::smalltongue:)

[Tazar]

Star Destroyer Turbolaser strengths are inherently variable; it's pretty clear that there's no set power in mind, but rather it's just changed to whatever is convenient at that moment.
For example, during the Thrawn trilogy, a Star Destroyer bombards the planetary surface of Honoghor; the damage inflicted is nowhere near what it would be if the math done regarding the strength of turbolasers in the movies is accurate.
Both are canon sources, both contradict each other. It's impossible to accurately apply math or logic to Star Wars; the whole series is based around cool space opera, not any kind of realistic science fiction.

That being said, a Star Destroyer, as a far larger ship with energy shields, would probably have a large advantage, but claiming that turbolasers are so amazingly powerful when Star Wars is all over the place in respect to their strength just doesn't make sense.


To address the sound thing: Star Trek takes place in a vacuum, and Star Trek space fights have sound. The sound in Star Wars is put there solely for the audience's benefit. Nothing I've read ever talks about fighters having sound simulators, but maybe I missed that? Seems completely nonsensical, though.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Nothing I've read ever talks about fighters having sound simulators, but maybe I missed that? Seems completely nonsensical, though.

EU after-the-fact justification as to why the pilots in the movies react as if they can hear enemy fighters.

[hamishspence]

Star Destroyer Turbolaser strengths are inherently variable; it's pretty clear that there's no set power in mind, but rather it's just changed to whatever is convenient at that moment.
For example, during the Thrawn trilogy, a Star Destroyer bombards the planetary surface of Honoghor; the damage inflicted is nowhere near what it would be if the math done regarding the strength of turbolasers in the movies is accurate.

yes- even a single 200 gigaton bolt (assuming the ISD's turbolasers are comparable to the Acclamator's) would have had much more dramatic effects than in the book.

It was used as a warning shot to scare the natives, rather than a true attack bombardment- but it still shows a big power gap- for it to make sense they would have to have been the smallest guns on the ship.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

It was used as a warning shot to scare the natives, rather than a true attack bombardment- but it still shows a big power gap- for it to make sense they would have to have been the smallest guns on the ship.

Makes sense; they wouldn't want to wipe out the very-useful Noghri, after all. They could have used smaller guns, or modified them to use less power, or something.

[Tazar]

yes- even a single 200 gigaton bolt (assuming the ISD's turbolasers are comparable to the Acclamator's) would have had much more dramatic effects than in the book.

It was used as a warning shot to scare the natives, rather than a true attack bombardment- but it still shows a big power gap- for it to make sense they would have to have been the smallest guns on the ship.

Except they're clearly stated as turbolaser shots, not point-defense shots. So it's a blatant contradiction, which Star Wars is full of and I tend to look past for the sake of enjoying a great series.

And that sound generator thing really makes no sense. Like, how is it possibly supposed to replicate all of the sounds that might occur in a combat environment? Oh, EU. :smalltongue:

[hamishspence]

Except they're clearly stated as turbolaser shots, not point-defense shots. So it's a blatant contradiction, which Star Wars is full of and I tend to look past for the sake of enjoying a great series.

They don't have to be the heavy turbolasers on the dorsal side- a Star Destroyer has turbolasers of several different sizes- and it could have been firing one of the prow ones that we see target the Falcon, without it being a "point-defense laser".

[Tazar]

Yeah, but even that isn't consistent with the kind of statistics that are always tossed around in regards to the absurd power of Star Destroyer turbolasers. The turbolasers still do far less damage than turbolasers of any kind should, if the math people give is correct.


Also, I will never understand how Star Destroyers could be strong enough to withstand a barrage of that power yet be so poorly armored at the same time that an asteroid impacting the bridge does critical amounts of damage.

[Mando Knight]

And that sound generator thing really makes no sense. Like, how is it possibly supposed to replicate all of the sounds that might occur in a combat environment? Oh, EU. :smalltongue:

Electronics, and a sufficiently large library of sounds. It makes sense to me, at least: the only omnidirectional sense that normal humans have is that of sound. By integrating a sound system with the sensor array, you could artificially produce sounds with which to give the pilot a better sense of what's going on even without using the radar. It's the reason weapon locks have their own chirps: a pilot can use the sound system to get information without having a direct neural uplink or taking his eyes off of what's in front of his ship.

For reference, try playing Rogue Leader in cockpit view only. Now turn off the sound.

[Reverent-One]

Also, I will never understand how Star Destroyers could be strong enough to withstand a barrage of that power yet be so poorly armored at the same time that an asteroid impacting the bridge does critical amounts of damage.

That asteroid could have simply been the last of many impacts.

[hamishspence]

Yeah, but even that isn't consistent with the kind of statistics that are always tossed around in regards to the absurd power of Star Destroyer turbolasers. The turbolasers still do far less damage than turbolasers of any kind should, if the math people give is correct.


Also, I will never understand how Star Destroyers could be strong enough to withstand a barrage of that power yet be so poorly armored at the same time that an asteroid impacting the bridge does critical amounts of damage.

Distribution- a lot of kinetic energy at one small spot on the shield might have different effect to the gun energies spread out over the ship.

They could be weaker vs fast, heavy mass than vs energy.

The ship looked virtually intact- then one asteroid went straight through what remained of the shield and hit the superstructure and the bridge.

At a guess, I'd say Star Destroyers aren't very heavily armoured (at least not compared to their shields).

[Tazar]

Except there are instances where Star Destroyers whose shields are down take turbolaser fire and don't explode into a million pieces.

Regarding the "last of many impacts", the bridge looks completely undamaged in that scene.

I guess you can wave it away as "magical energy distribution", but I fail to see how anything able to withstand something with the energy of a nuclear blast can be so easily broken through by an asteroid. Again, this is the whole problem with applying science to Star Wars; you have to handwave away or explain away so many things.

[Reverent-One]

Regarding the "last of many impacts", the bridge looks completely undamaged in that scene.

Because up until then, the shields prevented the damage.

[Tazar]

That's exactly my point, though. A Star Destroyer with an undamaged hull (which has proven capable of taking punishment from turbolasers) is hit by an asteroid, one asteroid, and critically damaged.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Also, I will never understand how Star Destroyers could be strong enough to withstand a barrage of that power yet be so poorly armored at the same time that an asteroid impacting the bridge does critical amounts of damage.

For some stupid reason they went into the asteroid field with the wrong kind of shields. Star Wars has arbitary distinctions between the kinds of shielding that can block differant things.

[Reverent-One]

That's exactly my point, though. A Star Destroyer with an undamaged hull (which has proven capable of taking punishment from turbolasers) is hit by an asteroid and critically damaged.

It didn't just hit the hull though, did it? Didn't it hit the bridge?

[Tazar]

I know the shields mainly prevent damage; I'm referring to the fact that armor capable of shrugging off turbolasers that supposedly pack the power of many nuclear explosions is so easily compromised by a fast-moving asteroid.

It hit the entire command tower, not just the glass bridge. And if the command tower isn't well-armored, no part of the ship is going to be.

[Reverent-One]

I know the shields mainly prevent damage; I'm referring to the fact that armor capable of shrugging off turbolasers that supposedly pack the power of many nuclear explosions is so easily compromised by a fast-moving asteroid.

It hit the entire command tower, not just the glass bridge. And if the command tower isn't well-armored, no part of the ship is going to be.

As hamishspence said in the other thread, the ships probably rely on shields more than armor. A turbolaser to the tower/bridge with downed shields should have taken it out too.

[Tazar]

Except there are times in EU when Star Destroyers, or any kind of capital ship, whose shields are down take turbolaser fire and don't blow apart into a million pieces.

So again, contradictions.

[hamishspence]

Except there are instances where Star Destroyers whose shields are down take turbolaser fire and don't explode into a million pieces.

Maybe. Starships of the Galaxy gives the Star Destroyer's shields much less durability than the hull- a hit that can (just) get through the shield and hit the hull, still does only 1/15 of the damage needed to destroy the ship.

But that might be to make it more playable.

[Reverent-One]

Except there are times in EU when Star Destroyers, or any kind of capital ship, whose shields are down take turbolaser fire and don't blow apart into a million pieces.

So again, contradictions.

Lucky shots happen. A ship taking a bit longer to blow up in one source than in another isn't a major contradiction at all. There's plenty of only non-vital locations you could hit on a capital ship, I'm sure.

[Tazar]

Lucky shots happen. A ship taking a bit longer to blow up in one source than in another isn't a major contradiction at all. There's plenty of only non-vital locations you could hit on a capital ship, I'm sure.

Except the area that the asteroid impacts is one that should be, logically speaking, one of the most well-protected areas on the entire ship, and the asteroid goes through it like tissue paper.

Furthermore, in the EU, ships sometimes take minutes of sustained turbolaser fire without shields without being destroyed. Lucky shots don't even enter into the equation there; if the armor really is as weak as you suggest, they should have been outright obliterated almost immediately. That's not a minor time difference, that's a huge one.

As hamishpence has just pointed out, there is yet another contradiction, as if Star Destroyers in that setting are able to shrug off so much turbolaser fire, they must clearly have strong armor. Yet, in the movie, Star Destroyer armor appears quite weak. So either we have a contradiction, or there is some kind of magical "energy dampening" armor that is somehow able to shrug off nuclear explosions yet crumples at physical impacts.

[hamishspence]

Possible solutions:

the 200 gigaton shots of an Acclamator, used for Base Delta Zero, consume most of the power on the ship. To perform that kind of operation, the ship must enter standard orbit, and transfer all of its engine power and most of its shield power, to the guns.

For a "normal space battle" the shields, guns, and engines would all be drawing power- thus, it would not be able to put out nearly as much damage.

Nor would it be designed to take 200 gigaton shots.

This is just a hypothesis though.

[Tazar]

Yeah, but in the middle of an asteroid field, you're definitely going to have a TON of power diverted to shields and engines, which means that those statistics given for vaporizing an asteroid are for a SD operating under something resembling normal combat conditions.

So while it might make sense in one context, there's still contradictions in another.

[Reverent-One]

Except the area that the asteroid impacts is one that should be, logically speaking, one of the most well-protected areas on the entire ship, and the asteroid goes through it like tissue paper.

Logically speaking, the bridge should be not be on top of a tower in the first place.


Furthermore, in the EU, ships sometimes take minutes of sustained turbolaser fire without shields without being destroyed. Lucky shots don't even enter into the equation there; if the armor really is as weak as you suggest, they should have been outright obliterated almost immediately. That's not a minor time difference, that's a huge one.

I said the armor was probably weaker, in comparison to the shields. And no, they shouldn't have "been outright obliterated ". Star Destroyers are big ships, hitting the cafeteria for example isn't going to cause a chain reaction that blows up the whole ship.


As hamishpence has just pointed out, there is yet another contradiction, as if Star Destroyers in that setting are able to shrug off so much turbolaser fire, they must clearly have strong armor.

Or it's the shields that really "shrug off" the bolts.

[warty goblin]

And that sound generator thing really makes no sense. Like, how is it possibly supposed to replicate all of the sounds that might occur in a combat environment? Oh, EU. :smalltongue:

To some extent the sound generators make sense. After all hearing is a very large factor in situational awareness, and you'd have to maintain serious 360x360 awareness in space combat. Where they don't make sense is the sounds they make. It'd be far more useful to play tones based on distance (and possibly relative velocity) than ship type. After all once you've IDed a target, what it is remains constant, but where it is and how it's moving do not.

Also you'd really want a way to turn the system off. In some of those larger dogfights there'd be so much audio it'd be disorienting and confusing instead of helpful.

[Lamech]

Lucky shots happen. A ship taking a bit longer to blow up in one source than in another isn't a major contradiction at all. There's plenty of only non-vital locations you could hit on a capital ship, I'm sure. Yes, yes there are non-vital locations. But if the star destroyer armor on the most important section of the ship is damaged and penetrated by a astroid a nuke would cut through the armor like its nothing. Probably seriously mess it up with a single shot let alone a handful.

[Reverent-One]

Yes, yes there are non-vital locations. But if the star destroyer armor on the most important section of the ship is damaged and penetrated by a astroid a nuke would cut through the armor like its nothing. Probably seriously mess it up with a single shot let alone a handful.

It should also be noted that in the novelization of The Empire Strikes Back, the asteroids that hit the ship do so with the force of "multi-megaton bombs", so it is nuclear bomb level force we're talking about that took out the bridge.

[Mando Knight]

Maybe. Starships of the Galaxy gives the Star Destroyer's shields much less durability than the hull- a hit that can (just) get through the shield and hit the hull, still does only 1/15 of the damage needed to destroy the ship.

But that might be to make it more playable.

You're forgetting something: the shields don't go down in one hit. Assuming the systems operator fails to recharge the shield at all (though he's got a ~40% chance of succeeding each turn) and the ship gets hit by an attack source that deals a constant 150 damage each turn, it takes 25 shots to bring down the shields entirely, during which time it will have absorbed 1625 damage, and the armor 500. The hull will have taken 1625 damage itself (amusingly), and be on the verge of destruction.

On the other hand, the three models of Super Star Destroyer in the game (generic, Lusankya, and Eclipse) have enough SR that they've basically got "Damage = No" instead.

Ion cannons are oddly nigh-useless against warships in SAGA, though, dealing much fewer dice than is needed to puncture a warship's defenses on average.A Heavy Ion Cannon dealing base damage needs to roll near maximum damage (25 out of 30 on the dice before multiplication) in order to match the ISD's shields, and has nearly no chance of actually damaging the ship if it's at full shielding (maximum damage deals a total of 5 damage to the hull). Once the shields are brought down a little by the turbolasers, though, the Ion cannons are useful for further weakening the shields so the lasers deal more hull damage.

In comparison, the ion cannons in most games are closer to plasma shots in Halo: shuts down shields easily, but has trouble against armor.

[hamishspence]

You're forgetting something: the shields don't go down in one hit. Assuming the systems operator fails to recharge the shield at all (though he's got a ~40% chance of succeeding each turn) and the ship gets hit by an attack source that deals a constant 150 damage each turn, it takes 25 shots to bring down the shields entirely, during which time it will have absorbed 1625 damage, and the armor 500. The hull will have taken 1625 damage itself (amusingly), and be on the verge of destruction.


true- I was thinking of weapons like the Eclipse Superlaser- one shot, and the shields absorb 125 pts, the armour 20 pts- and the remaining damage will, on average, be very close to the amount needed to destroy the ship.

Though Starships of the Galaxy does have a special manuever allowing you to ignore the shields entirely- slipping inside them to attack the hull.

[warty goblin]

Except there are times in EU when Star Destroyers, or any kind of capital ship, whose shields are down take turbolaser fire and don't blow apart into a million pieces.

So again, contradictions.

Not really, no. Consider warships on Earth. There are cases of ships being pounded into nonfunctioning hulks, but neither sinking nor exploding. Then you've got cases like the HMS Hood, which apparently took one hit in the wrong place and blew in half a few moments into a fight.

Expecting every ship to take exactly the same amount of punishment seems like a bit of videogame thinking, not anything with a basis in observation.

[hamishspence]

Not really, no. Consider warships on Earth. There are cases of ships being pounded into nonfunctioning hulks, but neither sinking nor exploding. Then you've got cases like the HMS Hood, which apparently took one hit in the wrong place and blew in half a few moments into a fight.

Sounds like a very bad critical hit roll. :smallamused:

[Closet_Skeleton]

Maybe. Starships of the Galaxy gives the Star Destroyer's shields much less durability than the hull- a hit that can (just) get through the shield and hit the hull, still does only 1/15 of the damage needed to destroy the ship.

But that might be to make it more playable.


You're forgetting something: the shields don't go down in one hit. Assuming the systems operator fails to recharge the shield at all (though he's got a ~40% chance of succeeding each turn) and the ship gets hit by an attack source that deals a constant 150 damage each turn, it takes 25 shots to bring down the shields entirely, during which time it will have absorbed 1625 damage, and the armor 500. The hull will have taken 1625 damage itself (amusingly), and be on the verge of destruction.

In Saga Edition a capital ship's durability is entirely in its shields. Armour caps at 20, shields can go to up to 200 for a cruiser (and 400-500 for those Super Star Destroyers).

A quad heavy turbolaser does 9d10x5 damage. A battery of five turbolasers on a ship with intelligence 14 and a skilled crew has an attack bonus of +12 (2 base attack +2 intelligence +8 aid another). Most capital ships have a defence of 2 (+12 armour -20 size). With a roll of 10 a turbolaser battery beats its targets defence by 20, getting 6 bonus damage dice (but it caps at 4 because we only have 5 guns in our battery). So now that's 12d10x5 or 12*5.5*5=330 average damage. The hypothetical target capital ship has 20 DR and 2000 hit points, so it would take on average 7 shots from such batteries to annihilate our unshielded ship.

What happens mechanically if we add a modest for a capital ship shield rating of 150? In a rediculously ideal but easy to calculate scenario where we're getting hit by 1 battery a turn and making our restore shields roll every turn it now takes 13 shots to kill our ship. So adding 7.5% of the ship's hit points in shields has doubled the number of shots it takes to kill the ship. In a more likely scenario with multiple batteries hitting us and our shields going down we'd die quicker.




Though Starships of the Galaxy does have a special manuever allowing you to ignore the shields entirely- slipping inside them to attack the hull.

Which is only possible with ships too small to carry turbolasers. Best weapon you can get on such a ship is a 11d10x2 4 fire-linked quad heavy blaster cannons with cannon enhancements, also known as the 16 barreled death gun that makes the GM sigh. 10 shots from it can kill an unshielded Star Destroyer, maybe 9 if you've got a good gunner.

[hamishspence]

In Saga Edition a capital ship's durability is entirely in its shields. Armour caps at 20, shields can go to up to 200 for a cruiser (and 400-500 for those Super Star Destroyers).

True- the point was that, when it comes to single enormous shots, only a little of the total power is expended on the shields.

Outside of that though, it's true that the shields will mitigate the damage enormously- when the shots only do, on average, a bit more damage than the shields can take.



Which is only possible with ships too small to carry turbolasers. Best weapon you can get on such a ship is a 11d10x2 4 fire-linked quad heavy blaster cannons with cannon enhancements, also known as the 16 barreled death gun that makes the GM sigh.

on average (assuming the ship isn't shot down) how many attack runs would it need to destroy an ISD?

[Tazar]

Not really, no. Consider warships on Earth. There are cases of ships being pounded into nonfunctioning hulks, but neither sinking nor exploding. Then you've got cases like the HMS Hood, which apparently took one hit in the wrong place and blew in half a few moments into a fight.

Expecting every ship to take exactly the same amount of punishment seems like a bit of videogame thinking, not anything with a basis in observation.

Regarding the Hood, it was thinly armored and took a direct hit to a magazine, fi I recall correctly. It was destroyed due to a fluke hit on a lightly armored part of the ship, in short, an exception to the rule.

In the EU, capital ships regularly take large amounts of punishment to destroy, just as Earth battleships in World War 1 and World War II regularly took large amounts of punishment to destroy. Just like Earth warships, Star Wars warships are armored for an extended fight without shields. Whether or not they are destroyed by lucky hits, far more often than not they take large amounts of punishment without getting Golden BB'd. This indicates that although they can be destroyed by lucky hits, they are in fact armored to take punishment from ships of similar classes.

[Closet_Skeleton]

True- the point was that, when it comes to single enormous shots, only a little of the total power is expended on the shields.

Outside of that though, it's true that the shields will mitigate the damage enormously- when the shots only do, on average, a bit more damage than the shields can take.

My example shows that even when you're doing double the damage the shields can take they're still a massive advantage.

Single enormous shots are pretty rare. I can't remember off the top of my head what the damage of the planet defender ion cannon is.



on average (assuming the ship isn't shot down) how many attack runs would it need to destroy an ISD?

I edited that into my post before you did.

[The Big Dice]

Ion cannons are oddly nigh-useless against warships in SAGA, though, dealing much fewer dice than is needed to puncture a warship's defenses on average.
Don't ion cannons in SAGA ignore shields? I'm away from my books atm, but I'm pretty sure they do.

The thing that annoys me with people talking about Star Wars tech is, it's always BIGGERANDBETTERANDMOREPOWERFULTHANYOURTECH! Always. Even when the evidence on screen is contradictory. Even ignoring things like the Star Trek writers creating a tech bible, so that it is more consistent from one writer to the next. And also literally possible to understand why and how things might be happening in the show.

Star Wars has nothing like that. It's Rule of Cool all the way. Which is great, as long as you don't try and extrapolate anything other than things being cool from it.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Don't ion cannons in SAGA ignore shields? I'm away from my books atm, but I'm pretty sure they do.

Nope. It was one of the typical noob questions back when WotC had a Star Wars board.

The Star Wars RPGs aren't very a good system for debates. A Gamma-class shuttle with the angle deflector shields maneuver can happily sit there while a star destroyer pounds on it.

[hamishspence]

My example shows that even when you're doing double the damage the shields can take they're still a massive advantage.

Yup- against an Eclipse, if you had a "mini-superlaser" that did 1000 average damage every time, the 5 pts loss to the shields each time you fire, wouldn't make that much of a difference- it would still take about 12 shots to kill the thing.

[Tazar]

Don't ion cannons in SAGA ignore shields? I'm away from my books atm, but I'm pretty sure they do.

The thing that annoys me with people talking about Star Wars tech is, it's always BIGGERANDBETTERANDMOREPOWERFULTHANYOURTECH! Always. Even when the evidence on screen is contradictory. Even ignoring things like the Star Trek writers creating a tech bible, so that it is more consistent from one writer to the next. And also literally possible to understand why and how things might be happening in the show.

Star Wars has nothing like that. It's Rule of Cool all the way. Which is great, as long as you don't try and extrapolate anything other than things being cool from it.

Yup, Star Wars is Rule of Cool to the max, which is why deriving math from it is inherently silly.

If the asteroid vs Star Destroyer argument isn't enough, kindly explain how a turbolaser hit directly around the cockpit area of an X-wing didn't instantly vaporize such a small and lightly-armored craft? TIE lasers blow X-wings apart, so surely a turbolaser should leave nothing left, no?

Another contradiction.

[Reverent-One]

The thing that annoys me with people talking about Star Wars tech is, it's always BIGGERANDBETTERANDMOREPOWERFULTHANYOURTECH! Always. Even when the evidence on screen is contradictory. Even ignoring things like the Star Trek writers creating a tech bible, so that it is more consistent from one writer to the next. And also literally possible to understand why and how things might be happening in the show.


How does ST tech being consistently protrayed make it more powerful? The consistency just makes it harder for anyone to make an argument that ST tech is more powerful, since it's consistently protrayed as being weaker.


Yup, Star Wars is Rule of Cool to the max, which is why deriving math from it is inherently silly.

Actually, that's Gurren Laggan.


If the asteroid vs Star Destroyer argument isn't enough, kindly explain how a turbolaser hit directly around the cockpit area of an X-wing didn't instantly vaporize such a small and lightly-armored craft?

By not being a turbolaser.

[Tazar]

How does ST tech being consistently protrayed make it more powerful? The consistency just makes it harder for anyone to make an argument that ST tech is more powerful, since it's consistently protrayed as being weaker.

You're missing the point; he's not saying Star Trek tech is more powerful because it's consistently portrayed, he's saying it's actually valid to extrapolate comparisons from Star Trek tech because it's consistently portrayed.

The laser that destroyed Porkin's craft was a turbolaser; check Wookiepedia if you don't believe me. The turret that shot him was a turbolaser turret.

[hamishspence]

If the asteroid vs Star Destroyer argument isn't enough, kindly explain how a turbolaser hit directly around the cockpit area of an X-wing didn't instantly vaporize such a small and lightly-armored craft?

Was that an EU scene? I don't remember an X-wing ever taking a direct hit to the cockpit in the movies- and even in the Thrawn books, as I recall, it was close misses.

EDIT: Porkins's example may be a case of another very close miss. Or, the X-wing's shields took most of the hit, which was still enough to fry the ship.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Yup- against an Eclipse, if you had a "mini-superlaser" that did 1000 average damage every time, the 5 pts loss to the shields each time you fire, wouldn't make that much of a difference- it would still take about 12 shots to kill the thing.

You can actually kill the Eclipse with other Star Destroyers. It just takes about 10 rounds of lucky crits before its shields start to drop. I made an excel spreadsheet to calculate this stuff.

The turbolaser turrets on the Deathstar in ANH don't make any sense at all really.


TIE lasers blow X-wings apart, so surely a turbolaser should leave nothing left, no?

Sometimes. In the trench run, Biggs gets blown apart, but Wedge only suffers engine damage and R2D2 gets hit but survives with some repairs.

[Tazar]

Was that an EU scene? I don't remember an X-wing ever taking a direct hit to the cockpit in the movies- and even in the Thrawn books, as I recall, it was close misses.

EDIT: Porkins's example may be a case of another very close miss. Or, the X-wing's shields took most of the hit, which was still enough to fry the ship.

Could be, but then, there's canon evidence for snubfighter shields not being able to resist turbolaser blasts at all, so there's a whole nother can of worms right there.

The turbolaser turrets do actually make sense; they're there to make it into the ultimate capital ship.

[Closet_Skeleton]

The turbolaser turrets do actually make sense; they're there to make it into the ultimate capital ship.

Them being there makes sense. Sort of. What they do visually in the film is iffy.

[Reverent-One]

You're missing the point; he's not saying Star Trek tech is more powerful because it's consistently portrayed, he's saying it's actually valid to extrapolate comparisons from Star Trek tech because it's consistently portrayed.

No, he says that people discussing Star Wars ignore the consistency of ST when saying SW tech is "BIGGERANDBETTERANDMOREPOWERFULTHANYOURTECH!", which would only make a difference in such a discussion if the consistency somehow made ST tech compare better.


The laser that destroyed Porkin's craft was a turbolaser; check Wookiepedia if you don't believe me. The turret that shot him was a turbolaser turret.

Hmm, you're right. It was a turbolaser that hit him, and it blew his ship up entirely (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGwYj4AqB6Q).

[Tazar]

Them being there makes sense. Sort of. What they do visually in the film is iffy.

I couldn't agree more, which is yet another reason why I am extremely, extremely skeptical of any math derived from Star Wars. :smalltongue:

Yes, the turbolaser shot with a supposedly incredibly high megaton yield took several seconds to fully destroy a craft the size of an atmospheric fighter today. Does that make sense to you? Because it doesn't to me. That X-wing should have been utterly vaporized.

[Reverent-One]

Yes, the laser shot with an incredibly high megaton yield took several seconds to fully destroy a craft the size of an atmospheric fighter today. Does that make sense to you? Because it doesn't to me.

Artistic license. Lucas is a movie maker, not a scientist.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Hmm, you're right. It was a turbolaser that hit him, and it blew his ship up entirely (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGwYj4AqB6Q).

It was a green coloured bolt that hit him. But its not just turbolasers being fired in that sequence. There are some smaller cannons you see Storm troopers and personel walking past.

You also don't actually get to see him being hit, just him exploding. A turbolaser shot might have missed him by 500 meters and still fried him.

[Draz74]

Am I the only one who started reading this topic and started wanting to make a joke about how Tassadar is Vader's ship? (Executor. Ha.)

[Tazar]

Artistic license. Lucas is a movie maker, not a scientist.

Which is exactly my point as to why we can't apply science to things that happen in Star Wars.

@Draz-The High Templar/Vader jokes in SC1 are great. :smallbiggrin:

@Closet_Skeleton-The wiki has a turbolaser shot as getting him.

[Reverent-One]

It was a green coloured bolt that hit him. But its not just turbolasers being fired in that sequence. There are some smaller cannons you see Storm troopers and personel walking past.

You also don't actually get to see him being hit, just him exploding. A turbolaser shot might have missed him by 500 meters and still fried him.

Eh, feels like splitting hairs. If wookiepedia is right, the novelization makes it clear it was a turbolaser, and I'm willing to grant that.


Which is exactly my point as to why we can't apply science to things that happen in Star Wars.

It just means you shouldn't make arugments based soley on how something looks or sounds on movies made in the 1970s which have to look and sound entertaining as well. Just like you shouldn't say they must be speaking English because that's what we hear.

[Tazar]

It just means you shouldn't make arugments based soley on how something looks or sounds on movies made in the 1970s which have to look and sound entertaining as well. Just like you shouldn't say they must speaking English because that's what we hear.

I'm not making an argument about the power of Star Destroyers, I'm simply trying to point out that doing math and then saying "this is how strong a turbolaser is" isn't necessarily valid due to the amount of contradictions present in Star Wars, because, as you said, Lucas is not a scientist.

[Reverent-One]

I'm not making an argument about the power of Star Destroyers, I'm simply trying to point out that doing math and then saying "this is how strong a turbolaser is" isn't necessarily valid due to the amount of contradictions present in Star Wars, because, as you said, Lucas is not a scientist.

And who is basing weapon strengths on things Lucas has said? Besides which, your contradictions aren't contradictons.

[Tazar]

And who is basing weapon strengths on things Lucas has said? Besides which, your contradictions aren't contradictons.

People base turbolaser strength off of things that happen in the movie; see the earlier pages of the thread. Also, if turbolasers being that strong isn't contradicted by the movie, how come you weren't able to explain the X-wing surviving that hit in terms besides "artistic license"? :smallwink:

Anyways, I feel I've proven my point adequately here, so I take my leave.

[hamishspence]

You can actually kill the Eclipse with other Star Destroyers. It just takes about 10 rounds of lucky crits before its shields start to drop. I made an excel spreadsheet to calculate this stuff.

Using my suggested BFG rules (if the Star Destroyer battery is considered Str 5) it will (even if the Eclipse's armour value is 6+) eventually drop the Eclipse.

My estimates put the Eclipse's main gun as comparable to the Armageddon gun- which only inflicts D6 automatic hits regardless of armour- with first hits resolved against shields.

Even if the gun battery is considered much lower Str, a squadron can combine fire.

[Reverent-One]

People base turbolaser strength off of things that happen in the movie.

More off of books that soley off the movies, the turbolasers doing 200 gigatons a shot measurement, which is the value I've seen the most of in this thread, is from a sourcebook.


Also, if turbolasers being that strong isn't contradicted by the movie, how come you weren't able to explain the X-wing surviving that hit in terms besides "artistic license"? :smallwink:

It didn't survive the hit. It blew up. Do I need to link to the youtube vid again?


Anyways, I feel I've proven my point adequately here, so I take my leave.

Despite that you haven't actually proven anything.

[Closet_Skeleton]

People base turbolaser strength off of things that happen in the movie; see the earlier pages of the thread. Also, if turbolasers being that strong isn't contradicted by the movie, how come you weren't able to explain the X-wing surviving that hit in terms besides "artistic license"? :smallwink:

No X-wing survives a hit from a turbolaser. It just gets blown up in a more visually interesting way than how you apparently want it to have exploded.

It might have happened instantly, cinematic time doesn't equal real time. "Manipulation of time" is supposedly one of the defining parts of cinema as a medium according to my university lecturers.

[Mando Knight]

Sometimes. In the trench run, Biggs gets blown apart, but Wedge only suffers engine damage and R2D2 gets hit but survives with some repairs.

Wedge and R2 weren't hit with turbolasers. Both were hit by Vader's TIE.

[Reverent-One]

Wedge and R2 weren't hit with turbolasers. Both were hit by Vader's TIE.

I'm reasonably certain that the "sometimes" was for the statement that "TIE's lasers blow X-wings apart".

[hamishspence]

The Battlecruiser's gun is described as "A nuclear explosion compressed into a narrow beam"- what kind of Star Wars weapon would that be equivalent to?

200 gigaton turbolaser? Light turbolaser?

[Da'Shain]

People base turbolaser strength off of things that happen in the movie; see the earlier pages of the thread. Also, if turbolasers being that strong isn't contradicted by the movie, how come you weren't able to explain the X-wing surviving that hit in terms besides "artistic license"? :smallwink:Power dialed down for faster firing. As we said earlier, laser tech in SW is capable of being dialed down very precisely from its highest settings, which is almost certainly what was going on with the turbolasers on the Death Star -- the shots were probably not much more powerful than a normal laser bolt, because they didn't need to be, low-power shots means less time to recharge between them, and high-power shots had a much greater chance of damaging the Death Star's exterior when they missed.

[Hawkfrost000]

Power dialed down for faster firing. As we said earlier, laser tech in SW is capable of being dialed down very precisely from its highest settings, which is almost certainly what was going on with the turbolasers on the Death Star -- the shots were probably not much more powerful than a normal laser bolt, because they didn't need to be, low-power shots means less time to recharge between them, and high-power shots had a much greater chance of damaging the Death Star's exterior when they missed.

touche Tazar:smallwink:

[Closet_Skeleton]

I'm reasonably certain that the "sometimes" was for the statement that "TIE's lasers blow X-wings apart".

Yeah.


The Battlecruiser's gun is described as "A nuclear explosion compressed into a narrow beam"- what kind of Star Wars weapon would that be equivalent to?

200 gigaton turbolaser? Light turbolaser?

Light or medium turbolaser.

Like I said earlier, a Battlecruiser wouldn't be that bad a match for a Gladiator-class Star Destroyer. They're the same length and a Gladiator doesn't have anything better than a light turbolaser. I'd still give it to the Gladiator due to having a faster fire rate and more guns but with luck, surprise or good tactics I could see the Battlecruiser winning.

[dgnslyr]

Sadly, Imperial troops are not known for intelligence. Taking that into account, would the battle turn out any differently?

[warty goblin]

Regarding the Hood, it was thinly armored and took a direct hit to a magazine, fi I recall correctly. It was destroyed due to a fluke hit on a lightly armored part of the ship, in short, an exception to the rule.

In the EU, capital ships regularly take large amounts of punishment to destroy, just as Earth battleships in World War 1 and World War II regularly took large amounts of punishment to destroy. Just like Earth warships, Star Wars warships are armored for an extended fight without shields. Whether or not they are destroyed by lucky hits, far more often than not they take large amounts of punishment without getting Golden BB'd. This indicates that although they can be destroyed by lucky hits, they are in fact armored to take punishment from ships of similar classes.

I'm well aware of the history. My point was that one or two cases where a large, powerful and well armored warship was destroyed quickly and with minimal firepower does not mean something is inconsistent. It means that durability is not constant, which is exactly what one should expect.

It's not so much an exception to the rule, as a demonstration that there is no rule, and it is foolish to look for one. Probability and statistics are far better tools here.