Current SW Low End Calcuations

[seanrobertson]

Mr. Robertson, are you honestly questioning the existence of MTL's? LOOK AT THE FUCKING MODEL OF AN ISD! It has light turbolasers (and, perhaps, even laser cannons), it has Heavy Turbolasers and turbolaser batteries. In the mid range it has lots and lots of weapons that are between the smaller guns and the larger guns in terms of size. Those weapons make up the vast majority of the weapons fire we see in RotJ, during the battle going on there. They are also confirmed by WEG, Bacta War, and IIRC Isard's Revenge.

Be cool, bro

I do have questions about MTLs as such. It's not so much that I'm
blowing off what's being bandied about here, but I'm not familiar
with a lot of evidence beyond TL "bolt lengths." Never having read
what you've referenced, especially not the conservative WEG sources,
I'll take your word for it

The source of my...consternation, you could say, is two-fold. First,
I don't remember Michael talking about them anywhere on his site.
I could be wrong; and, admittedly, this is an appeal to authority,
but when it comes to TLs in general, Mike knows his shit. I would
simply assume that the existence of medium-sized turbolaser weapons
would figure into his technological breakdown of the Imperial warships.

Then, the things Curtis says left me with the impression that there
were light guns and heavy guns. He IDs three different-sized ones
from the Mandel blueprints:

heavy turbolaser turrets with eight barrals each;
heavy guns in brim trench notches;
ordinary laser cannons distributed over the entire hull.

However, note his qualification of ordinary laser cannons; i.e.,
not true turbolasers.

He also says this:


Primary turrets:
On both sides of the dorsal superstructure there are four large batteries set in disk-shaped broadside turret mounts. Each pivot mount is approximately fifty metres wide and has a number of turbolaser or ion cannon barrels.


These are obviously the big guns.

But then, of [at least what I *think* are supposed to be] the medium
guns, Dr. Saxton says:


Heavy trench cannons:
Heavy batteries of similar size are mounted in the brim trenches of ISD-I destroyers, within the narrowest and aftmost of the notches which indent the lips of the brim. There are four barrels on each of these emplacements, mounted on what seems to be a single solid rotating base. In Star Wars Incredible Cross-Sections they are called "lateral quad-laser batteries". It seems likely that the purpose of the notches is to allow the guns to aim directly further above or below the ship's plane than the lips of the brim trench would otherwise permit. These cannons partly compensate for the lack of very heavy guns on the ventral faces. The emplacement appears to have two barrels of at least ten metres' length.


Perhaps I'm reading too much into the "heavy batteries of similar
size" bit, because he does say later,


Axial turrets:
Further medium guns were seen on the dorsal surfaces of the ISD-I design. Three triple-gun turrets are mounted on the ridge of the ship, just forward of the lowest, forwardmost terrace of the dorsal superstructure. The guns appear to be about ten metres long, but may be slightly longer than the barrels of the trench quad guns. They are given the label "axial defence turret" in STAR WARS Incredible Cross-Sections.


IOW, I freely admit I could be wrong! I've simply never seen much investigation into the "medium turbolaser," hence my apprehension
at quantifing them.

I don't agree with the low end ISD shields that are being tossed around. While shields and reactor power obviously are somewhat related, shields cannot possibly take as much energy to put up as they can deflect (the whole point is to make your enemy spend more energy to hit you than you have to spend to hit him). Since an ISD is clearly a warship, and an Acclamator is a transport, it is unlikely that the Acclamator maintains a similar ratio of reactor to shield strength as an ISD.

The Acclamator *is* a warship of sorts, but admittedly not capable
of fulfilling the role so well as an ISD.

I am, however, confused by what you mean insofar as "take as much
energy to put up as they can deflect." I fell victim to this assumption
in saying that an Ac's shields are a quarter of its reactor bit, but I don't
know that such was what Curtis intended. As best I can tell, the shield
figures were simply stated to be what the shield could handle.

Take the example of the beautiful SR-71 clone, Padme's ship:


Manufacturer: Theed Palace Space Vessel Engineering Corps
Make: J-type custiom-built diplomatic barge
Dimensions: Length 39m;width 91m; dpeth 6.8m
Max. speed (in standard atmosphere): 2,000 kph
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)


Here, the peak shielding is twice the reactor output. This is certainly
possible: shields could be charged up with the equivalent of a battery,
holding "extra" in addition to what's fed directly from the reactor.

However, it might be the case that the peak shielding rate isn't
indicative of how much energy is required to *run* the shield,
as I suggested myself; rather, it's simply what the shield can
field, if you'll forgive the bad rhyme.

Am I making sense? And by that, I don't mean do you agree necessarily...just that, does this read as something comprehensible?
I'm determined to have another beer tonight, which nonsensical
me makes

Also, what do you think is a reasonable estimate of an ISD's shield
power, both burst capacity and "endurance-type," as in energy absorbed
over several hours or days? I myself hypothesize that shield generators
are GREAT at total protection, with next to no bleedthrough if any,
for short periods, even in the face of teraton-level energies; however,
over the course of hours or days, the same shields face a burden.
That is, at least, by preferred explanation for why an ISD's shields
didn't seem to protect it from the asteroid hit in "TESB," in addition
to whatever ion cannon damage it might've sustained, etc.

(And yes, I'm aware of the fact that hologram communiques with
Executor could possibly interfere with shield function, but I'm
not entirely convinced of that, either. Surely a low-powered transmission
could find a way through a "hole" in part of the shield grid without
lowering *every* shield on the ship, in spite of Vader's apparent
disdain for his troops' well-being.)

[StarshipTitanic]

200 gigaton is NOT MAX. it never says MAX.

Out of curiosity, why do you guys use gigatons for lasers? Isn't watt a better term?

It's not a laser...

[Howedar]

Mr. Robertson, are you honestly questioning the existence of MTL's? LOOK AT THE FUCKING MODEL OF AN ISD! It has light turbolasers (and, perhaps, even laser cannons), it has Heavy Turbolasers and turbolaser batteries. In the mid range it has lots and lots of weapons that are between the smaller guns and the larger guns in terms of size. Those weapons make up the vast majority of the weapons fire we see in RotJ, during the battle going on there. They are also confirmed by WEG, Bacta War, and IIRC Isard's Revenge.

If you have more TLs ID'd on ISDs besides the primary turrets, the quad brim turrets, the small 2-gun turrets in the minor notch of the trenches, and the axial defense turrets, I'd be absoutely fascinated to see them.

[PROMETHEUS]

200 gigaton is NOT MAX. it never says MAX.

Out of curiosity, why do you guys use gigatons for lasers? Isn't watt a better term?

It's not a laser...

According to you guys, the ICS (whatever that is) says that it's a laser. It also says that it's 200 gigatons. Am I only supposed to believe one? Why not both, if it's an official Lucasfilm source?

[TheDarkling]

PROMETHEUS: Its not a laser for this argument start one showing ST has a nice ability against Plasma weapons and suddenly TL will be lasers (its very odd how this happens)

[Crayz9000]

According to you guys, the ICS (whatever that is) says that it's a laser. It also says that it's 200 gigatons. Am I only supposed to believe one? Why not both, if it's an official Lucasfilm source?

The ICS is the Episode II Incredible-Cross Sections. Anyway, the problem with its laser statement is that it conflicts with canon. There have only been one or two instances of a target exploding before the visible bolt hits, which is not what you would expect to see if it was a hybrid weapon with a plasma tracer.

[XaLEv]

According to you guys, the ICS (whatever that is) says that it's a laser. It also says that it's 200 gigatons. Am I only supposed to believe one? Why not both, if it's an official Lucasfilm source?

Behold, the relevant quote:

Energy weapons fire invisible energy beams at lightspeed. The visible "bolt"
is a glowing pulse that travels along the beam at less than lightspeed...The
light given off by visible bolts depletes the overall energy content of a
beam, limiting its range. Turbolasers gain a longer range by spinning the
energy beam, which reduces waste glow.

No mention of it being a laser, or being electromagnetic.

[Connor MacLeod]

According to you guys, the ICS (whatever that is) says that it's a laser. It also says that it's 200 gigatons. Am I only supposed to believe one? Why not both, if it's an official Lucasfilm source?

Behold, the relevant quote:

Energy weapons fire invisible energy beams at lightspeed. The visible "bolt"
is a glowing pulse that travels along the beam at less than lightspeed...The
light given off by visible bolts depletes the overall energy content of a
beam, limiting its range. Turbolasers gain a longer range by spinning the
energy beam, which reduces waste glow.

No mention of it being a laser, or being electromagnetic.

Do you ever get tired of repeating that same quote, or that the point defense lasers on the acclamator (which are probably the oft-mislabeled "LTLs" on an ISD) are 6 MT?

[Master of Ossus]

Look, guys, any glance at canon or official evidence should rapidly demonstrate that the weapons on SW ships are not, in fact, lasers in our sense of the word. It is probably a colloquial term that is still used to denote energy weapons, or at least a large group of energy weapons, even though they are clearly not true lasers. I don't think that this needs to be debated endlessly. The canon films clearly show that they are not lasers, which is confirmed by several EU sources. This should not turn into a quagmire, into which all passing debaters are drawn.

[Connor MacLeod]

the 60 TL's commonly quoted for ISD's originates wiht WEG and reappears frequently in the EU novelizations. Based on the scalings in EGW&T, these are probably medium TLs, around 10-12 meters in all dimensions (and more or less boxlike.) These appear to be most similar in size to the Acclamators quad TLs, and probably comparable in power. These are perhaps most commonly mistaken for being the "LTLs" on an ISD on most sites, but in general I've always felt they were medium guns.

The HTL's on the ISD-1 and 2 models are generally between 40 and 50 meters in diameter. By "scaling up" from MTLs, I've estimated a difference in power of between 50-100x. They end up quite a bit more powerful if you use a different ration (Say, by scaling up the difference between the 6 MT PD lasers, and the 200 GT MTLs)

The "true" LTLs (or rather, more accruately laser cannons/point defense lasers) on an ISD (or other ships) are probably more similar to the Acclamators, and around 6 MT or so per shot. I find it unlikely that the "small" guns are GT range by any stretch of the imagination (Oh sure, I've scaled them down to 2 GT, but I consider that both questionable and excessive.) WOTC's revised rules credits the ISD with about 40 PD laser cannons of similar power to the Acclamator's.

the term "LTL" appears to be a habitual holdover from pre-ICS days.

[Master of Ossus]

The problem with scaling TL's directly is that they increase in power by much more than a simple 1:1 ratio of size to power (double the size and power). Instead, the weapon increases its power exponentially from hand-blasters to ship bound weapons, and from LTL's to HTL's it can be assumed that similar patterns would hold. Thus it is almost impossible to get scaling estimates from simple size comparisons in SW.

[XaLEv]

Do you ever get tired of repeating that same quote, or that the point defense lasers on the acclamator (which are probably the oft-mislabeled "LTLs" on an ISD) are 6 MT?

No. Why, you want me to stop?

[CmdrWilkens]

<snip>
I am, however, confused by what you mean insofar as "take as much
energy to put up as they can deflect." I fell victim to this assumption
in saying that an Ac's shields are a quarter of its reactor bit, but I don't
know that such was what Curtis intended. As best I can tell, the shield
figures were simply stated to be what the shield could handle.

Take the example of the beautiful SR-71 clone, Padme's ship:


Manufacturer: Theed Palace Space Vessel Engineering Corps
Make: J-type custiom-built diplomatic barge
Dimensions: Length 39m;width 91m; dpeth 6.8m
Max. speed (in standard atmosphere): 2,000 kph
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)


Here, the peak shielding is twice the reactor output. This is certainly
possible: shields could be charged up with the equivalent of a battery,
holding "extra" in addition to what's fed directly from the reactor.

I believe Dr Saxton is utilizing a theory which has been creeping into some quarters based upon shield behavior in Black Fleet Crisis and in both the Lando Calrissian and original Han Solo trilogies. In all those cases it seems as though the shields absorb and dissipate the energy of incoming shots either into the generator or into ship's system. In other words shielding would be defined by how quickly you could dissipate incoming weapons fire. Let me illustrate.

Imagine that the shield generator is a pool of water. The pool hold "x" gallons of water. It can be drained at a peak rate of "y" gallons/min. If you put more than "y" gallons per minute into the pool then it will eventually overflow and flood the surrounding ground. In other words if your rate of adding energy to the system (call it "r") exceeds the rate of dispersal then eventually the shields will fail.


Thus the equation we are always solving for is R*T - Y*T >= X
This would give us time of shield failure.

Anyway that's what I think Dr. Saxton was going for on the shielding bit and it is supported by those EU trilogies I mentioned.

[Connor MacLeod]

Mr. Robertson, are you honestly questioning the existence of MTL's? LOOK AT THE FUCKING MODEL OF AN ISD! It has light turbolasers (and, perhaps, even laser cannons), it has Heavy Turbolasers and turbolaser batteries. In the mid range it has lots and lots of weapons that are between the smaller guns and the larger guns in terms of size. Those weapons make up the vast majority of the weapons fire we see in RotJ, during the battle going on there. They are also confirmed by WEG, Bacta War, and IIRC Isard's Revenge.

Sean's right in some regard. If you look at the classical Trilogy ICS you'll never see any of the supposed "60 TLs" the ISD is supposed to have. Any guns on the ISD model (or in the ICS) are FAR smaller than the Acclamator guns. Canonically the potential contradiction can be ignored - we never really ever see warships up close enough to accurately count the number of turrets tehy have (even in Ep1, with Tradefed battleships, and Ep2 with Acclamators), and the apparent inconsistency in the trilogy ICS (an official source) is not enough to invalidate the apparent contradiction with 60 TLs on an ISD.

Generally, I just take it on faith that they're there. Either the turrets are smaller than an Acclamators (yet of similar or almost-similar power), they're normally retracted/hidden (as is supposed to be true of the Trade Fed battleship's own guns) when not in use.. or whatnot.

I don't agree with the low end ISD shields that are being tossed around. While shields and reactor power obviously are somewhat related, shields cannot possibly take as much energy to put up as they can deflect (the whole point is to make your enemy spend more energy to hit you than you have to spend to hit him). Since an ISD is clearly a warship, and an Acclamator is a transport, it is unlikely that the Acclamator maintains a similar ratio of reactor to shield strength as an ISD.

Its not neccesarily true that the Acclamator's shielding be tremendously weaker than an ISD's. Remember that its role is to deploy troops in a potentially hostile situation/war zone (as we saw in AoTC) - which may logically neccessitate a strong armament (to fend off/destroy smaller ships who might be fast enough to catch/threaten it, or its dropships) and strong shielding/defenses (to repel fire from larger ships that may target it in a war zone situation, as well as planetary defenses.) The size difference is not tremendous (though its likely a pure-warship version of the acclamator would probably be somehwat more powerful).

However, if you wanted to carry a point out, you amy wish to note that not in EVERY case is shielding comparable to reactor output. I believe either the Senator's transport (the one blown up in the early part of AoTC) or Padme's starship (the one she and Anakin take to Tatooine and later to GEonosis) had a shield rating that was greater than tis peak reactor output.

[Connor MacLeod]

Do you ever get tired of repeating that same quote, or that the point defense lasers on the acclamator (which are probably the oft-mislabeled "LTLs" on an ISD) are 6 MT?

No. Why, you want me to stop?

No. I'm just wondering if you get tired of correcting ppl.

[Connor MacLeod]

The problem with scaling TL's directly is that they increase in power by much more than a simple 1:1 ratio of size to power (double the size and power). Instead, the weapon increases its power exponentially from hand-blasters to ship bound weapons, and from LTL's to HTL's it can be assumed that similar patterns would hold. Thus it is almost impossible to get scaling estimates from simple size comparisons in SW.

Which is why scaling down doesn't work as well as scaling up. Scaling up can always be considered a conservative estimate. Scaling down would be the opposite. Again, looka t the "scaling down" of a light gun from the MTLs, to the scaling up of a MTL to a HTL. While the ratio of a MTL to HTL may seem "low", and its possible the firepower of a HTL is quite greater, its still a valid (if conservative estimate, since we do not as of yet have any official "HTL" figures.)

By contrast... by "scaling down" a 200 GT MTL to a "LTL" (or laser cannon) you might end up with something in the half a gigaton to several gigaton per shot range.. which is well over two orders of magnitude greater than the "light" guns rated for an ISD or Acclamator (at least by WOTC). And its excessive for a simple PD weapon

[Master of Ossus]

Sean's right in some regard. If you look at the classical Trilogy ICS you'll never see any of the supposed "60 TLs" the ISD is supposed to have. Any guns on the ISD model (or in the ICS) are FAR smaller than the Acclamator guns. Canonically the potential contradiction can be ignored - we never really ever see warships up close enough to accurately count the number of turrets tehy have (even in Ep1, with Tradefed battleships, and Ep2 with Acclamators), and the apparent inconsistency in the trilogy ICS (an official source) is not enough to invalidate the apparent contradiction with 60 TLs on an ISD.

Generally, I just take it on faith that they're there. Either the turrets are smaller than an Acclamators (yet of similar or almost-similar power), they're normally retracted/hidden (as is supposed to be true of the Trade Fed battleship's own guns) when not in use.. or whatnot.

Its not neccesarily true that the Acclamator's shielding be tremendously weaker than an ISD's. Remember that its role is to deploy troops in a potentially hostile situation/war zone (as we saw in AoTC) - which may logically neccessitate a strong armament (to fend off/destroy smaller ships who might be fast enough to catch/threaten it, or its dropships) and strong shielding/defenses (to repel fire from larger ships that may target it in a war zone situation, as well as planetary defenses.) The size difference is not tremendous (though its likely a pure-warship version of the acclamator would probably be somehwat more powerful).

However, if you wanted to carry a point out, you amy wish to note that not in EVERY case is shielding comparable to reactor output. I believe either the Senator's transport (the one blown up in the early part of AoTC) or Padme's starship (the one she and Anakin take to Tatooine and later to GEonosis) had a shield rating that was greater than tis peak reactor output.

Actually, the weapons on the ISD are MUCH more massive than even the largest ones on the Acclamator. The Acclamator is just much smaller than the ISD, and so its weapons may seem to be proportionately larger. If you look closely at the models for the ISD from RotJ, you will see a multitude of weapons emplacements and hardpoints, some of which are far larger than Acclamator weapons, some of which are of comparable size, and some that are even slightly smaller than the very heavy guns on the Acclamator. That is why I think that they have many kinds of TL's, rated in terms of size.

In any case, the weapons available to most ground forces are weaker than the weapons designed to engage space-bound ships. And the Acclamator certainly was not designed to stand up to massive space-bound ships that were as large and powerful as ISD's, except in the very briefest struggles. Also remember that troop ships are never to be risked unless absolutely necessary. Ideally, they are sent in only after heavy defenses have been cleared away. The reason for this is pretty obvious: if you lose a troop ship before it lands its troops, you lose a substantial number of valuable soldiers that may be critical for conquering whatever you were trying to conquer. Thus, front-line ships are almost invariably sent in first in an effort to clear away large defenses. Further, since an Acclamator cannot penetrate planetary shields by itself (not even ISD's and an SSD, and their heavy weapons can), it is pretty clear that the Acclamator is not designed to conquer the most heavily defended planets. Rather, it is designed to attack worlds that lack VERY heavy planetary defenses like shields and planetary-scale weapons like the KDY ion cannon.

Finally, shields have to have the ability to deflect more energy than is diverted towards them for the simple reason that if they did not then they would be almost totally useless. It would be better to put all of your energy into firepower, in an effort to stop the enemy before he did sufficient damage to you. This way you would have more energy to fight with, and would be more efficient. Also, it is almost always easier to deflect something than to fire it in RL. And yes, the Naboo cruiser did have shields that had more wattage than its main reactor. This constitutes proof that it is possible. It is also completely reasonable--you are trying to make your enemy spend more energy than you spend during combat.The ratios of shield power to reactor power differs wildly in different classes of ship, and the ISD dedicates far larger amounts of internal space (both proportionately and in net value) to weapons, shields, and power generation than the Acclamator (which takes up huge volumes in service of the troops that it carries--the ISD is much less bound by its own ground forces because in proportion with ship size their numbers are far smaller).

[omegaLancer]

The figure of 60 TL relates to Batteries ( not individual cannons) if we look at the stat for the ISDII it 50 batteries and 50 TL cannons.

A battery would be a group of TL linked to fire together..Example is the dual weapon turret that flank the Tower, the quad turbo lasers and the 3 barrel axial guns on the ISD.. So they may be 60 batteries but 100's of individuals guns...

I do remember seeing that a battery on a ISD actually being a total of 8 guns, but have not been able to trace the reference... But I will keep looking..

[Connor MacLeod]

Actually, the weapons on the ISD are MUCH more massive than even the largest ones on the Acclamator. The Acclamator is just much smaller than the ISD, and so its weapons may seem to be proportionately larger.

Only some are,and it depends on which ISD model. the HTLs and quad lasers on the ISD-1 and the octets on the ISD-2 certainly.. but not the tiny "point defense" guns. The "axial" guns do not appear to be as large as the dorsal guns, except maybe in barrels alone, and a vaguely-represented number of turbolaser station "bumps" with no observable barrels. Maybe 20-30 or so per trench. And an unknown number of smaller guns a couple of meters long.

If you look closely at the models for the ISD from RotJ, you will see a multitude of weapons emplacements and hardpoints, some of which are far larger than Acclamator weapons, some of which are of comparable size, and some that are even slightly smaller than the very heavy guns on the Acclamator. That is why I think that they have many kinds of TL's, rated in terms of size.

The ISD-1 model tends to have alot more diversity than the ISD-2 model. I've seen the latter up close before, and it DOES have a number of smaller turrets, but these are at best a few meters on each side. ISD-2's, in a strictly canon sense, seem to be more uniform in their weapons loadouts than the ISD-1 (most of the uniformity would come from WEG's ISD-2 loadout) And even Canon seems to identify at most 3-4 different "sizes" of weapon - which is all you really need. Thats' hardly "many". And remember that some of the guns could also be ion cannons or lasers, both of which can have different sizes/outputs/etc.

Also, It might help if you can be more specific as to what you're talking about regarding "multitudes", because I cannot clearly recall any such examples from ROTJ or any of the other trilogy movies.

In any case, the weapons available to most ground forces are weaker than the weapons designed to engage space-bound ships. And the Acclamator certainly was not designed to stand up to massive space-bound ships that were as large and powerful as ISD's, except in the very briefest struggles.

Not entirely so. True the Acclamator has no heavy turrets, but depending on how you handled the trilogy ICS quote regarding the 50 meter turrets, its possible that NO warship shielding or armor was meant to withstand those guns (the quote mentions "overloading the deflector shielding and punching holes in the most heavily armored starships" The Acclamator's own quad TLs appear to be comparable in power to the Medium/standard TLs on the ISD-1 (ISD-2 is a different matter entirely), or only slightly less powerful. The only real difference is that the ISD-1 carries alot more of them (or, if you prefer, also carries more turrets per battery - some sources cite that each TL battery is a multi-turret array) The same goes for the light/poitn defense laser cannons - same power as the acclamators, but more numerous.

And really, it only needs to withstand brief fire, or stray shots/barrages from maybe medium guns or the occasional heavy. In a combat situation, battleships are going to be fighting battleships, not wasting firepower on a stray transport (unless they aren't threatened.) And an Acclamator doesn't take long to really get to ground and deploy (a couple minutes or so, as Mike has estimated on his AOTC revelations page.) The point was that the Acclamator is designed to enter combat situations rapidly, survive that passage, and deploy quickly. It can outrun most larger and tougher ships, as well as survive some of what those ships can throw at the transport, and outgun what it cannot outrun (corvettes and frigates - ie pickets and escorts.)

Also remember that troop ships are never to be risked unless absolutely necessary. Ideally, they are sent in only after heavy defenses have been cleared away. The reason for this is pretty obvious: if you lose a troop ship before it lands its troops, you lose a substantial number of valuable soldiers that may be critical for conquering whatever you were trying to conquer. Thus, front-line ships are almost invariably sent in first in an effort to clear away large defenses.

Not always feasible, hence the term "ideal." As the battle of Geonosis illustrates, sometimes fast deployment is essential, if not key to victory. One would point out that there WERE armed warships/battleships of the trade federation present at that battle, which would have to have been fought through (even the Ep 2 novelization supports a space battle in tandem with the ground battle.) and which could have threatened the Acclamators on their way to deploying troops, unless you think they surprised the Geonosians AND the TRade Federation so much that they'd already started landing/deploying before they could respond (Despite any planetary sensor networks, despite ships in orbit, etc.)

And as I point out later, if you get the drop on yhour opponent, you need not bother with "clearing away" all the defenses before you land troops. In some respects, landing troops at key points (shield generators, power generation facilities, key weapons installations) can be crucial to taking a planet.

Further, since an Acclamator cannot penetrate planetary shields by itself (not even ISD's and an SSD, and their heavy weapons can), it is pretty clear that the Acclamator is not designed to conquer the most heavily defended planets. Rather, it is designed to attack worlds that lack VERY heavy planetary defenses like shields and planetary-scale weapons like the KDY ion cannon.

Not entirely true. The Lusankya carried enough firepower to punch thorugh Coruscants planetary shield network in under a minute, allowing it to escape in "The Krytos trap.". Also, The superlasers on the Eclipse and Sovereign class SSD's had enough power to penetrate planetary shields.

Even more importantly, you're ignoring the canon/official details about planetary shields. Its known already in most official sources that most planetary shields cannot and are not operated continuously (Coruscant's was an exception, for the most part - but even then, such as in Shadows of the Empire, it wasn't present) due to power draw and strain, but that they take anywhere from several mintues to half an hour to activate. The canon TESB radio dramatization makes a similar statmeent (Vader comments that "such a shield" as the Rebels used on Hoth "takes huge amounts of raw power. The Rebels could not constantly keep it active.") Given surprise, an Acclamator or group of Acclamators could drop down BEFORE shields are raised and land troops.

Of course, thats also why ground weaponry and orbital defense stations exist and are used - to fend off assault until shields CAN be raised. So being able to survive landing/takeoffs would be a key factor in an assault ship as well as a warship. Anyhow, certainly that once full planetary shields are active (or if there are ONLY transports and ground/orbital weapons are manned and prepared) there's no way that transports like an ACclamator would get through to land, but there are very FEW worlds that can manage to maintain indefinite planetary-shield operation (even Coruscant couldn't.)

Finally, shields have to have the ability to deflect more energy than is diverted towards them for the simple reason that if they did not then they would be almost totally useless. It would be better to put all of your energy into firepower, in an effort to stop the enemy before he did sufficient damage to you. This way you would have more energy to fight with, and would be more efficient. Also, it is almost always easier to deflect something than to fire it in RL.

As I've understood it, the figure represents the max power level the shields can dissipate away in a second or less of time. Any energy over that is absorbed for later dissipation, but this leads to gradual degradation as more and more energy is absorbed than can be dissipated away (and the illustrations support this - clearly denoting that shields operate on an absorption/reradiation principle, with heat sinks for absorbing energy/heat, radiators for dissipating the stored energy, etc.)

Generaly, I think the "ability" of a shield will depend on the type of vessel and the task at hand. Smaller ships need only need to worry about fire from smaller vessels, but a picket ship need not have the same level of durability as a gunship. A Carrier need not have the same level of durability as a cruiser, and so forth. Size alone does not always need to determine shield effectiveness (especially if the ship chooses to devote more internal space to stronger shielding. Say at the expense of operational endurance, speed, or firepower.) What it raelly becomes is a matter of tradeoffs.

And yes, the Naboo cruiser did have shields that had more wattage than its main reactor. This constitutes proof that it is possible. It is also completely reasonable--you are trying to make your enemy spend more energy than you spend during combat.

Indirectly. Its not just energy. Its about forcing the shields to absorb more energy than they can safely get rid of. Gradually, this leads to the shields overloading for one reason or another (which is about the simplest way I can think of explaining it.) While you can try to force your opponent to waste more energy trying to "reinforce" shields, Its still not neccesary to force your opponent to expend all his energy before shields drop - simply to overload the reactor (although he can run OUT of power in the process of reinforcing the shielding's ability to handle/get rid of energy.. or force the shield to operate at its maximum capacity long enough to burn out, or something like that.)

The ratios of shield power to reactor power differs wildly in different classes of ship, and the ISD dedicates far larger amounts of internal space (both proportionately and in net value) to weapons, shields, and power generation than the Acclamator (which takes up huge volumes in service of the troops that it carries--the ISD is much less bound by its own ground forces because in proportion with ship size their numbers are far smaller).

ISD's actually carry a little bit of everything. They have supplies for YEARS of independent activity, fighters, repair parts for fighters (IIRC they have no onboard recycling facilities or machine shops), at least one deployable garrison, ground attack vehicles and troops, landing barges, etc. as well as heavy turbolasers and fighters, and larger crews.) They're no more a "pure" warship than the Acclamator is. They're bound by a "workhorse/long term independent operation" role - and their firepower capabiliteis are due in a large part to the simple fact of their larger size/volume. This doesn't tell us anything as to how the ratio of the ACclamator/ISD goes, but from what I've heard from Curtis, its about an order of magnitude difference, IIRC (but don't quote me on that, because its not even an official statement.)

I suspect that something more like an Alleigance class (although IIRC there may be a "battleship" version of an ISD) that is closer to a true battleship than an ISD is. In such cases, the alleigance would probably be significantly more powerful than an ISD AND an acclamator in terms of offense and defense.

[Connor MacLeod]

The figure of 60 TL relates to Batteries ( not individual cannons) if we look at the stat for the ISDII it 50 batteries and 50 TL cannons.

Regarding the ISD-1: Depends on the source, its varied. I've seen it relate to "turrets" rather than battereis, hell even to "heavy" TLs... I generally go with the "battery" definition, as some WEG sources were more explicit in that regard.

In WOTC they treat the 60 TLs as separate turrets it seems, with 5 turrets being linked into a "battery", for a total of 12 batteries on an ISD-1.

A battery would be a group of TL linked to fire together..Example is the dual weapon turret that flank the Tower, the quad turbo lasers and the 3 barrel axial guns on the ISD.. So they may be 60 batteries but 100's of individuals guns...

Several hundred at least, even by conservative estimates (120 for the 60 turrets, another 120 if you want to add ions, 80 or so for point defense lasers.. WOTC added 40 PD lasers to an ISD-1.. etc.) ISD-2's easily have several hundred individual guns ignoring the HTLs.

I do remember seeing that a battery on a ISD actually being a total of 8 guns, but have not been able to trace the reference... But I will keep looking..

It was stated on the original Sw.com website before the revision, under the ISD heading. It was originally listed in the "Special edition movie trilogy" sourcebook.Some sties online I've seen using it. However, it wasn't a total of eight guns, it was a total of five guns batteries in three-turret arrangements.. two twin and one single. This appeared to apply to both TLs AND ion cannons.

I had the quote somewhere, but I havent looked for it lately. And I dont have a page number, I had it from the old website before the revision.

[Ender]

200 gigaton is NOT MAX. it never says MAX.

Out of curiosity, why do you guys use gigatons for lasers? Isn't watt a better term?

Considering that they suppossedly fire for less then a second, no.

[His Divine Shadow]

PROMETHEUS: Its not a laser for this argument start one showing ST has a nice ability against Plasma weapons and suddenly TL will be lasers (its very odd how this happens)

It's very odd too how some people can suddenly be flamed so badly that even a sailor would look away from the screen.

[His Divine Shadow]

Connor, if the designation LTL is incorrect, and Laser-cannon should be used, should we then say the small laser-cannons are not turbolasers but laser cannons?

Because we know that laser-cannons and turbolasers are two distinct weapons based on the same tech.

Or maybe the small guns are not turbolasers?

[U.S.S. Enterprise]

Whatever the output or amount of SW turbolasers, the fact remains that they are lasers and Federation sheilds can stop all lasers.

[Admiral_K]

Whatever the output or amount of SW turbolasers, the fact remains that they are lasers and Federation sheilds can stop all lasers.

Idiot or troll?





My bet is on option #2