Endurance of Star Wars ships

[IronStar]

Hypermatter is contained in hyperspace, not realspace

It is drawn into realspace and almost immediately destroyed to generate energy.

This and other stuff absolutely does not mean unlimited range(And if it really so, does it mean that there is a hyperspace portal opened all time inside reactor?). Hypermatter is just a component for anihilation- even if it is unlimited, it still need not just any but proper reactant matter to produce energy.

It's not actually 40k tons per second. It's the EQUIVALENT of 40k tons per second.

Umm where did you find this "equivalent" stuff? I ve checked ICS ep 3 on venator and recusant- munificient pages and this is text connected by lines with reactor sections
Venator page- "main reactors anihilates up to 40000 tons of fuel per second at maximum power"
Resuctant-Munificient page- "main reactor anihilates up to 8600 tons of fuel per second"
"main reactors together anihilate up to 2300 tons of fuel per second"
It clearly states many k tons of fuel without some equivalents.

[Borgholio]

Umm where did you find this "equivalent" stuff?

Read the link on hypermatter I provided for you?

[IronStar]

Read the link on hypermatter I provided for you?

First- as i said principle of this power generation is anihilation so antimatter is NOT the only kind of fuel required.
Second- I ve read it long time ago, and it has serious problems as most wiki do. The passage "Venator-class Star Destroyer's main reactor annihilated the equivalent of 40,000 tons of matter each second." does not provide clear reference to "equivalent" and reference [2] leads to ICS: revenge of the sith where there is no mention of any equivalent matter but "main reactors anihilates up to 40000 tons of fuel per second at maximum power" - no equivalent of matter nor hypothetic "amount of fuel equivalent to 40000 of matter" but just 40000 tons of fuel. And what matter? Matter is quite broad. And Wiki Venator page contradicts it. Same about p-38- in ICS no word about equivalents- 3 kg of FUEL per second by each eng.


http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Venator- ... _Destroyer

Its main reactor could annihilate up to 40,000 tons of hypermatter fuel per second

No equivalent. And hypermatter fuel is different from just hypermatter- it can mean reactant+hypermatter

And more than that, i ve read talk section of venator and hypermatter page- its proposed only once in both talks, and both times it was declined as lacking source.

[Borgholio]

Hypermatter was tachyonic matter that existed in hyperspace.[3] When constrained by realspace, charged tachyons were annihilated as they accelerated to infinite speed within a reactor.

It says it all right there. When pulled into realspace inside a reactor, the tachyons blow themselves up. No additional fuel is needed, and none is ever seen on screen or in canon. Since it normally resides in a different state than normal matter, measuring it as dead weight like normal matter is not going to be accurate.

[Vance]

The problem with the argument that its "equivalent mass" or somehow doesn't contribute to the ships actual mass because its tachyonic is that the numbers in the ICS only work if the fuel is actually contributing to the ships mass. Because if you work backwards using Excel from the acceleration and power generation of a Venator (for example) you'll find it must be approaching half a billion tons in mass to require all that fuel annihilation per second to accelerate in the first place. Considering the dry mass must be of reasonable density without fuel due to the way starship debris sink rapidly into oceans in TCW then it makes sense that the remaining bulk of the ships mass is the fuel, several hours worth.

Acclamator weighs 19.44 million tons and consumes 2300 tons of fuel per second
Venator weighs ~395 million tons and consumes 40000 tons of fuel per second
The Imperator star destroyer is 4.4 times more massive and powerful than the Venator.

So in conclusion it appears large ships carry something around ten times their dry-mass in fuel, giving them an average density of tens of tons per cubic meter.

[Batman]

Read the link on hypermatter I provided for you?

First- as i said principle of this power generation is anihilation so antimatter is NOT the only kind of fuel required.

That's right. Antimatter isn't required at all, hypermatter is. We're not talking M/AM reaction here, hypermatter dragged out of hyperspace automatically degenerates into energy. You don't need to bounce it into any other kind of fuel to annihilate it.

Second- I ve read it long time ago, and it has serious problems as most wiki do. The passage "Venator-class Star Destroyer's main reactor annihilated the equivalent of 40,000 tons of matter each second." does not provide clear reference to "equivalent" and reference [2] leads to ICS: revenge of the sith where there is no mention of any equivalent matter but "main reactors anihilates up to 40000 tons of fuel per second at maximum power" - no equivalent of matter nor hypothetic "amount of fuel equivalent to 40000 of matter" but just 40000 tons of fuel. And what matter? Matter is quite broad.

Matter is matter. What matter is irrelevant to the amount of enery you get by total conversion. Gasoline, deuterium, moldy bread, discarded smartphones, you can't get more than 9x10^16J/kg, and assuming you achieve total conversion, you will always get 9x10^16J/kg.

And Wiki Venator page contradicts it. Same about p-38- in ICS no word about equivalents- 3 kg of FUEL per second by each eng.
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Venator- ... _Destroyer

Its main reactor could annihilate up to 40,000 tons of hypermatter fuel per second

No equivalent.

Which doesn't mean it needs to ferry around 40,000 x (operational endurance in seconds) tons worth of hypermatter.

And hypermatter fuel is different from just hypermatter- it can mean reactant+hypermatter

Um no it can't. Not to mention that it is quite explicitly stated that you don't need another component to annihilate hypermatter, just dragging it into realspace does the trick. There is literally nothingsaying hypermatter needs to react with whatever your imagination came up with particle/antiparticle style to be turned into energy.

[Vance]

Which doesn't mean it needs to ferry around 40,000 x (operational endurance in seconds) tons worth of hypermatter.

True, but the mass of the ships implies that they do ferry hours worth of fuel around. Unless you think the average density of the ship excluding fuel reaches tens of tons per cubic meter all on its own. In which case the stuff they're made out of would be two, perhaps three orders of magnitude denser than titanium.

[Batman]

Which doesn't mean it needs to ferry around 40,000 x (operational endurance in seconds) tons worth of hypermatter.

True, but the mass of the ships implies that they do ferry hours worth of fuel around. Unless you think the average density of the ship excluding fuel reaches tens of tons per cubic meter all on its own. In which case the stuff they're made out of would be two, perhaps three orders of magnitude denser than titanium.

Oh I quite agree they apparently do, and the range limits given in the ICSes make a lot more sense if you assume it's an onboard fuel issue rather than drive burnout (we're talking a galaxy-spanning civilization here, a Venator is going to amass 60,000 ly in no time flat, especially as that represents what, a whopping 22 days under hyperdrive at a measly million c? If that's your engine lifetime I think you should ask for your money back), I was merely pointing out that just because they burn x amount of fuel per second doesn't automatically mean they must carry x amount of fuel times expected mission duration.

[IronStar]

Antimatter isn't required at all, hypermatter is

mistake- i meant hypermatter

hypermatter dragged out of hyperspace automatically degenerates into energy.

Well, if it is so and that hyper-anihilation outcome is far more than energy needed to open and keep hyperspace portal and assuming some superb conversion into usable energy- we almost have a perpetuum mobile and SW ships have theoretically unlimited endurance which is wrong.
And in ICS every ship(except Deathstar maybe ) has quite distinguishable fuel tanks filled not with hypermatter, but with what is written to be reactant- for example in ICS ep 2 on Acclamator page there are fuel tanks which are relatively far from reactor and connected by "tubes and valves" with reactor(and reactant is said to be denser than ship material by orders of magnitude).

There is still not so much info on one of my questions- despite i already have info from local topics and ICS ep 2(bombardments and hours of multi k g acc before refuel)- just want smth more particular.

[Batman]

Um-you do know that Wars ion engines are reaction engines that need to throw stuff out the rear end of the ship to go forward, and thus would unsurprisingly need fuel for propulsion, right? Doesn't mean the stuff is in any way needed to operate the reactors.

[Borgholio]

Who said anything about peak power being needed to keep the ship in hyperspace? Peak power output is probably only needed for the first jump, or in combat situations when you have all your turbolasers firing and shields on full.

[Eternal_Freedom]

It's worth pointing out that the 40,000 tonnes per second figure for the Venator (and all similar figures for other ships) were int he context of up to a maximum of xyz tonnes per second at peak useage. Please note the words "up to a maximum of." It's an upper limit, not a standard rate. I suspect that that consumption rate is the "absolute red line balls-to-the-wall nothing else to lose" rate of fuel use, for heavy combat or escaping things that are trying to kill you.

Good point Batman. I recall the original trilogy ICS shows the Falcon, with a "shielded power core" "main engines/hyperdrive" and "reactant tanks" with links between the later two but not the first. That same page explains that the "fuel tanks" are indeed for the sublight ion engines, with "virtually anything being useable as fuel, from explosive liquid metals (for the Falcon) to radioactive pressurised gas (for the TIE fighter,possibly similar to blaster gas now I think of it).

This also fits in nicely with passages in the X-Wing books to the effect of the sublight engines gulping fuel while the hyperdrives merely sipped it.

[StarSword]

Also consider that the same source we get the hypermatter consumption numbers from states that they use fusion reactors to power the hypermatter reaction containment field, so you need (probably) deuterium.

But probably the biggest constraint on endurance isn't ship fuel, but rather crew consumables. SW doesn't have anything resembling an ST food replicator.

[Batman]

Heck depending on which EU you accept it's entirely possible for a ship to remain in hyperspace indefinitely because you need power to get back to realspace again. Peak power is likely max shields/max firepower/max acceleration and possibly all three at the same time.

[Crazedwraith]

Um-you do know that Wars ion engines are reaction engines that need to throw stuff out the rear end of the ship to go forward, and thus would unsurprisingly need fuel for propulsion, right? Doesn't mean the stuff is in any way needed to operate the reactors.

The AotC ICS Explicitly has labels for 'Annihilation reactant condensed in silos is denser than ship's bulk by many orders of magnitude' on a round tank and for pipes coming off said silos 'reactant channels lead to reactor system'

So yeah, it's for the reactor not the engines.

Sounds to me like Wookiepedia is trying to combine wildly different sources about hypermatter into one article and making a hash of it.

[IronStar]

Um-you do know that Wars ion engines are reaction engines that need to throw stuff out the rear end of the ship to go forward, and thus would unsurprisingly need fuel for propulsion, right? Doesn't mean the stuff is in any way needed to operate the reactors.

Sorry- my mistake- i missed smth important. In ICS ep 2 and ICS ep 3 there on Acclamator and Venator pages Text about the contents of silos doesnt say just reactant but anihilation reactant for both, and at an Acclamator page there is text for a tube going from one of anihilation reactant silos- "reactant channel leads to reactor system".

Sounds to me like Wookiepedia is trying to combine wildly different sources about hypermatter into one article and making a hash of it.

And the whole problem of hypermatter canon is also discussed in talk sections there.

[Batman]

So they need to actually carry reactor fuel. It's not like Vance already established they apparently do so anyway. This means they need some other fuel for the hypermatter to react with because of...?

[IronStar]

This means they need some other fuel for the hypermatter to react with because of...?

Well, i ll try to rationalize it. There is another detail- we know that some anihilation reactant or reactor fuel is stored in silos, but no mention of storing hypermatter itself. MAYBE hypermatter/matter anihilation is similar to antimatter/matter anihilation with one exception- this stuff about hypematter taken from hyperspace during anihilation is true and it means that hypermatter is almost unlimited and very energy efficient to gather in huge amounts unlike antimatter(i dont think that keping open tiny hyperspace portal for hypermatter to flow into reactor requieres a lot of energy).

This debate about principles of SW pwerplants is intersting but still doesnt give much info on my questions.

[Vance]

This debate about principles of SW pwerplants is intersting but still doesnt give much info on my questions.

1.) I've answered your first questions regarding the mass of ships, the mass of fuel they carry, and the durations they can operate at maximum fuel consumption. Of-course they can operate for years if their not expected to perform hours of FTL, combat, or thousand G acceleration.

2.) I believe someone answered your second question on page one.

3.) And finally in that episode of the clone wars where the AT TE's hide on asteroids we see 5 Muni star frigates focus fire on 3 Venators firing about 5 shots per second from their prow cannons. One of the Venators drops in under 25 seconds. So if you average the distribution thats probably around 200 super-heavy turbolaser impacts to breach the shields of a Venator and cause significant damage.

This spreadsheet extrapolates allot of technical parameters for star wars ships by comparing known statistics of ships to work out the blanks. You could figure out the answer to some of your questions there. https://www.dropbox.com/s/gin8442ky1g6o ... 20gen.xlsx

If you go just by the numbers then a Star Destroyer should be able to lower a single shield arc of another in just eight seconds. But of-course lots of shots will miss, and many will be spread over more than just one of the six shield arcs. And after the shields are down it could be less than a minute before the ship is crippled or destroyed. SO probably anywhere from less than a minute to several minutes. Of-course there is the Alpha Strike maneuver, in which case the fight could be over in a single consolidated salvo.

[Eternal_Freedom]

If you go just by the numbers then a Star Destroyer should be able to lower a single shield arc of another in just eight seconds. But of-course lots of shots will miss, and many will be spread over more than just one of the six shield arcs. And after the shields are down it could be less than a minute before the ship is crippled or destroyed. SO probably anywhere from less than a minute to several minutes. Of-course there is the Alpha Strike maneuver, in which case the fight could be over in a single consolidated salvo.

Which fits very nicely with the X-Wing books, where "one full salvo to drop shields" is very common.

[IronStar]

This spreadsheet extrapolates allot of technical parameters for star wars ships by comparing known statistics of ships to work out the blanks. You could figure out the answer to some of your questions there. https://www.dropbox.com/s/gin8442ky1g6o ... 20gen.xlsx

This is just awesome, it is what i ve been watching for for al long time. Thanks Vance!

[IronStar]

This spreadsheet extrapolates allot of technical parameters for star wars ships by comparing known statistics of ships to work out the blanks. You could figure out the answer to some of your questions there. https://www.dropbox.com/s/gin8442ky1g6o ... 20gen.xlsx

This is just awesome, it is what i ve been watching for for al long time. Thanks Vance!
Shield energy capacity per arc means normal shield settings right?

[Havok]

Uh why is HYPER-matter being taken as the opposite of matter and that the two would annihilate each other?

Obviously, anti-matter, I get, but not hyper-matter.

[Vance]

This spreadsheet extrapolates allot of technical parameters for star wars ships by comparing known statistics of ships to work out the blanks. You could figure out the answer to some of your questions there. https://www.dropbox.com/s/gin8442ky1g6o ... 20gen.xlsx

This is just awesome, it is what i ve been watching for for al long time. Thanks Vance!
Shield energy capacity per arc means normal shield settings right?

No worries and aye normal shield settings.