Starfighter Power Outputs & Shielding

[Spartan]

The Millennium Falcon firepower thread got me to thinking about. What kind of power outputs and shielding can realistically be attributed to SW light craft (ships under 100 meters).

Here is my analysis:

[biform SW2ICS:[/b]

Manufacturer: Theed Palace Space Vessel Engineering Corps
Make: J-type custom-built diplomatic barge
Dimensions: Length 39m;width 91m; depth 6.8m
Max. speed (in standard atmosphere): 2,000 kHz
Max. acceleration (in space): 2,500G
Power: main reactor peak 3e12 MW; peak shielding 6e12 MW
Hyperdrive: Nubian 288 cores; S-6 generators (class 0.7; range 80,000 light
years fully fueled)

Now the Naboo Diplomatic Courier has a power output of 3.0E18W, and peak shielding rated at 6.0E18W (that’s 1,428 megaton per second).

The Naboo Royal Yacht that Anakin takes to Tatooine has a reactor output of 7.0E18W and a peak shield rating of 2.0E18W (ie. 476 megaton per second)

I wonder if the shield rating and power output were switched for the Diplomatic Courier. First off its the only vessel in the book with a peak shielding greater than its reactor output. Secondly, if its not a typo then why does the royal yacht have shielding that's so much weaker?


Neither of these vessels are so much larger than the MF that they should have reactor outputs or peak shielding orders of magnitude greater. And once we take into account that the Falcon, has been modified to have a more powerful power plant, and shields. All three vessels should be in the same ballpark.

We also know from Darth Wong’s Calcs. from TESB, that the Avenger was hitting the Falcon with at minimum 3.5 megaton turbolaser shots. The imps wanted them alive so they, had to know the Falcon could survive those shots. The implication being that even a stock YT-1300 Transport has megaton range shielding, and by definition power output of 1.5E16W. Even if the Falcon's reactor output is only 1 percent of the Diplomatic courier, say 3.0E16W that's 30,000 TW.

Seeing as Slave1 and the Falcon mix it up regularly, without either side having a clear advantage. Slave1' shielding and reactor output must be comparable.

On to Starfighters:

A light fighter such as a TIE interceptor has (4) 1kt laser cannons. If each can fire 20 shot per second the total power output is 3.4E14W solely to power its weapons.

Assuming a TIE interceptor masses 6 metric tons it requires at least 1.35E14J to accelerate to one half light speed. If a TIE can reach that velocity in one minute then, the power output would be 3.75E10W.


And finally Darth Wong has a calc which scales the energy required for an ISD to make a hyperjump down to the size of a fighter.

Starfighter propulsion systems also produce a prodigious amount of power: TIE fighters easily overcome the 6E7 J/kg minimum energy requirement for escaping the gravity of a planet, and by comparing the size of a TIE fighter with the size of a Star Destroyer we can compute that hyperdrive-equipped TIE fighters most likely consume at least 1E15 J every time they jump into hyperspace, assuming that hyperjump energy requirements are proportional to volume.

Since the hyperdrive is the most energy intensive system on any SW vessel. The upper limit for the power output of any fighter should be around 1E15W. Since hyperdrive equiped fighters are not 10-100 time more powerful than straight TIES. Their power output should be at least 1E14W.

Now if a shielded fighter can only direct 10 percent of its total power output to its shields. (1E15)/(10)= 1E14W or 23 kilotons per second. If it can direct 25 percent thats 2.5E14W (59.5 kilotons)!

Which brings up another point why should galactic civil war era fighters be limited to the SW2ICS figures. Sure we can use them as a lower limit; but if we assume that capital ship weapons advanced over the 20 year period after ATOC. Then why not fighters?

Look at this quote fromIsard's Revenge:

pg. 7 "Two New Republic Assault Frigates, the Tyrant's Bane and Liberty Star, cruised in toward the Golan station. Though each ship was less than a third as long as the station, they bristled with fifty laser cannons and poured terajoules of coherent light into the Golan."
pg. 111 "Moonshadow was coming up and turning to port, its port-side batteries firing Direption's aft shields. Red and blue laser and ion cannon fire pumped terajoules of energy into the shields, but somehow they stayed up."

These capitalship laser cannons are stated to be in the terajoule range 1E12 to 1E15 joules. That between 0.2 to 238 kilotons, so may be they're point defense lasers. The point is looking at the power avalible to a starfighter, they could easily mount heavier weapons (say 10-5kt), if there is no other technical or physical limitation. Bottom line we only know the energy weapon yeild of what would be considered obsolete 20 year old fighters. We never see a starfighter shoot anything in the OT, that can be used to accuratly determine there weapons yeild.


So here are the ranges:

Millennium Falcon: Reactor output 4.5E16W to 7.0E18W
Peak Shielding 1.5E16W to 6.0E18W

Slave1: Reactor output 4.5E16W to 7.0E18W
Peak Shielding 1.5E16W to 6.0E18W

Tie Interceptor: Reactor output 5.0E13w to 1.0E14W

Tie Advanced: Reactor output 7.5E14 to 1.0E15W
Peak Shielding 1.9E14W to 3.75E14w


I'm interested if anyone else has any calcs, figure, or correction.

[Mr Bean]

Hmm lets see

X-wings are mentioned as being able to take one not TWO Proton Torps while Shuttles can ALMOST take two and survie while X-Wings are nearly toast after one, That gives you a bases figure considering Torp Figures ranging from 50MT(Concussion Missles) to 100-140 MT(Proton Torps) up to Cap attack verisons(Estmated at 1-10 Gigatons if they acutaly wanted to do any attacking of Capships)

Generaly we assume the MF has roughly a Two to Twenty Gigatons of Shielding Considering it takes LTLs blasts

Also TIE's are not nessarly 1KT considering Ten Shots are enough to shread shielding(Ten shots from both guns that is so 20 indivudal)
Given the fact a Concussion missle takes down the avarge X-Wings shields according to WEG we have a lowend of 50 Megatons to 100 Megatons
Meaning TIE Lasers are anywhere from 1-6 Megatons, There is strong though not defanit evidance that LTLs are Hundreds of Megatons in Strength(100-300) while Point Defense Lasers on ISDs are in the teens of megatonange.

Simply put SW power output is quite excelent, Wedge even indicates that there are extremly expsenive minautre power generation plants that can give near-cap ship power generation to a shuttle sized craft however they would cost *A fleet of X-wings.
Since he is no power expert I won't take him at his word and its highly likley its exageration, however, even exageration means there is somthing even more powerful than standered out there

[Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi]

I believe that the numbers in the ICS are maximum numbers, and ships usually use much less power. Efficency is almost as important as power.

[Howedar]

Maxiumum speed in kilohertz?