Rescuing the topic: Star Wars and engineering

[JGregory32]

I'll admit the topic was interesting, examing Star Wars engineering and discussing the whys and what fors of various design decisions from the star wars universe would have been great.
Thus I wish to rescue this topic, with my own couple of caveats.
1. Star Wars Engineers are not idiots, they know their trade and make reasonable, rational decisions.
2. Engineers do not have the final say in design, sad to say this mirrors real life where a design is often evaluated and changes proposed by people who have no backgound in engineering. Watch the scene in Pentagon Wars where the design life of the Bradley is explored to get an idea of how it happens.
3. Teams of engineers will often work at cross purposes, again this is something that happens in real life on many large projects. Different groups will want to route cables, or hallways, or piping through the same area and compromises must be made.

Okay so those caveats are explained. Here's a couple of questions.

In A New Hope we seen Obi-Wan moneky with some devices that control the tractor beams onboard the death star. These devices have readouts and manual controls in areas that are right above a yawning chasm with only a small ledge. Why were they designed that way? Why are the readouts and manual controls in such a dangerous area to access?

Why design a Star Destroyer with an exposed bridge super structure and then face that bridge with windows?

Why, oh why is there such a lack of safety railings in every industrial and semi-industrial setting?

[Todeswind]

[quote="JIn A New Hope we seen Obi-Wan moneky with some devices that control the tractor beams onboard the death star. These devices have readouts and manual controls in areas that are right above a yawning chasm with only a small ledge. Why were they designed that way? Why are the readouts and manual controls in such a dangerous area to access?

Why design a Star Destroyer with an exposed bridge super structure and then face that bridge with windows?

Why, oh why is there such a lack of safety railings in every industrial and semi-industrial setting?[/quote]

As to the first I can only assume that there are some manual controls, or remote ones, that can be accessed at a different location with less difficulty. As you no doubt well know any system of heavy and potentially dangerous equipment demands of the tractor beam will always have some redundant points at which the machine may be put into emergency shutdown in case one of the aforementioned Engineers gets caught in it or the more practical locations have been rendered unreachable.

Frankly this is probably one of those cosmetically and esthetically human designs. Considering that once the shields of a ship are down a stray fighter seems to be able to crash through the side of a ship and small munitions can break all merry hell (I'm basing this largely on the video games which may or may not be considered to be canon) it would be safe to assume that a ship with it's shields down is screwed to begin with, so having the bridge exposed or not is something of a moot point. A better question is why is there no secondary bridge in case something happens to the command staff so that some of the lesser officers have a chance to take control of the ship in case say, oh I don't know, a fighter collides with the exposed bridge over the moon of Endor?

Are their workers unions in Star Wars? If not that may answer the third question. But seriously with the glaring exception of those two guys on the deathstar with the shittiest job on the planet it seems like most industrial jobs are done by droids or aliens. The first is replaceable and the second may or may not think that anyone dumb enough to fall deserves to.

[Samuel]

In A New Hope we seen Obi-Wan moneky with some devices that control the tractor beams onboard the death star. These devices have readouts and manual controls in areas that are right above a yawning chasm with only a small ledge. Why were they designed that way? Why are the readouts and manual controls in such a dangerous area to access?

Could it just be that was a cooling shaft that he was messing around with, overheating the system and requiring them to shut down the tractor beam?

Why design a Star Destroyer with an exposed bridge super structure and then face that bridge with windows?

Tradition and if they pierce your armor you are dead anyway. Almost all vessels in the series have exposed bridges and cockpits- the Falcon shows how pervasive it is.

Plus, star destroyers were made to inspire fear and awe- they are all about image and overwhelming firepower.

Why, oh why is there such a lack of safety railings in every industrial and semi-industrial setting?

Let's see what I can remember...

Episode 1- power plant next to palace. Had force fields to keep people out of the giant pit.
Episode 2- droid factory, Corusant industrial area- no organics are supposed to be there and no 2 was probably "stay out- exhaust area".
Episode 3- the planet was mostly molten. If you are outside you are dead anyway.
Episode 4- Death Star... staying on budget?
Episode 5- I believe they did have safety railing in Cloud City
Episode 6- N/A

Of course, we could always say that Emperor Palpatine disbanded OSHA...

Considering that once the shields of a ship are down a stray fighter seems to be able to crash through the side of a ship and small munitions can break all merry hell (I'm basing this largely on the video games which may or may not be considered to be canon) it would be safe to assume that a ship with it's shields down is screwed to begin with, so having the bridge exposed or not is something of a moot point.

Games are canon, but very low- I believe that only their storylines count. Also, ships are doomed with shields down- I remember that different Stardestroyer variants had different armor thicknesses which only makes sense if it had some degree of effectiveness.

A better question is why is there no secondary bridge in case something happens to the command staff so that some of the lesser officers have a chance to take control of the ship in case say, oh I don't know, a fighter collides with the exposed bridge over the moon of Endor?

They did. Unfortunately they only had a couple seconds to switch over and regain control and the ship had been a bit clunky...

[Knife]

*sigh* the 'why have a bridge exposed and with a window no less' argument with starships with gigaton or petaton level weapons that only survive due to some sort of energy shielding should be pretty easy to answer.

[Stark]

With regard to the tractor controls, are these the primary tractor controls? Obviously not since it's uncrewed and isn't a control-room. It's possible that it's a very large, spread-out system and this is the nearest point Obi-Wan could have performed his sabotage. Given the ubiquity of antigrav in SW perhaps the void spaces are full of droids or technicians on flying devices who primarily work with these systems.

[JGregory32]

*sigh* the 'why have a bridge exposed and with a window no less' argument with starships with gigaton or petaton level weapons that only survive due to some sort of energy shielding should be pretty easy to answer.

So battle's pretty much depend on who has the better shields? What's the use of armor then? We do know that starships carry armor and the Invisible Hand survived several blasts and almost complete destruction.

[Todeswind]

You don't totally stop having armor for a number of reasons, notably the apparent weakness of the shielding of star destroyers and the like to physical damage from things like asteroids. Remember the bit in TESB where they say "Our shields won't protect us from those asteroids."

Some ships rely more on shielding than others, a Mon Cal cruiser for example is a re-tooled pleasure liner. It has powerful shields but even less in the way of armored siding.

[Batman]

Um-I can't remember there being a bit in TESB saying that shields won't protect them from the asteroids, what with that being EXACTLY what particle shields are FOR (and them surviving the asteroid field with no more losses than a handful of TIEs and a single ISD losing communications). And damage from energy weapons is just as physical as damage from kinetic impactors, you know.

[DesertFly]

1. Perhaps the whole assembly upon which the controls were mounted rotates to face the walkway?

[Batman]

1. Perhaps the whole assembly upon which the controls were mounted rotates to face the walkway?

The question is a) why have the whole assembly in that bottomless shaft to begin with, and b) why didn't the walkways have railings?
a) Might be necessary due to some technological reason or other but b) is definitely not.

[phred]

A better question is why is there no secondary bridge in case something happens to the command staff so that some of the lesser officers have a chance to take control of the ship in case say, oh I don't know, a fighter collides with the exposed bridge over the moon of Endor?

They did. Unfortunately they only had a couple seconds to switch over and regain control and the ship had been a bit clunky...

I would also imagine with the explosive decompression of the bridge there would have been some odd control adjustments before they went out completely, causing some initial confusion on the secondary bridge.

You don't totally stop having armor for a number of reasons, notably the apparent weakness of the shielding of star destroyers and the like to physical damage from things like asteroids. Remember the bit in TESB where they say "Our shields won't protect us from those asteroids."

I think they were more worried about the density and activity of the asteroid field, than they were about asteroids in general.

[Knife]

So battle's pretty much depend on who has the better shields?

Er...Yes. Again, giga to petaton level firepower.

What's the use of armor then?

A flac jacket seems an appropriate analogy. It's not there to stop the bullet, it's there to mitigate the damage to something more reasonable and manageable.

We do know that starships carry armor and the Invisible Hand survived several blasts and almost complete destruction.

The fact that upper tier warships can unleash firepower above and beyond armor's capability to hold back does not totally dismiss the need for such things as armor.

[Knife]

The question is a) why have the whole assembly in that bottomless shaft to begin with,

Perhaps it was the actual assembly, not a terminal or anything. Air cooled or needed the extra space around it for whatever reason.

and b) why didn't the walkways have railings?
a) Might be necessary due to some technological reason or other but b) is definitely not.

Uhm, with tech stagnation, perhaps they have a level of reliability that they expect little need for safety devices on stations they expect to never be manned or need much in the way of human maintenance.

[JGregory32]

It could be that the tractor beam 'thing' obi-wan was messing with was a standard device that got installed in a bad place. On a project the size of the Death Star it would makes sense that a few things got installed in places they normally shouldn't be.

[Batman]

I would also imagine with the explosive decompression of the bridge there would have been some odd control adjustments before they went out completely, causing some initial confusion on the secondary bridge.

Horseradish. Even accepting how hopelessly exagerated decompression is in SciFi that's not going to do BEANS to affect bridge functions (other than the operators dying). The A-Wing CRASHING into bridge consoles might. The decompression is not going to.

You don't totally stop having armor for a number of reasons, notably the apparent weakness of the shielding of star destroyers and the like to physical damage from things like asteroids. Remember the bit in TESB where they say "Our shields won't protect us from those asteroids."

I think they were more worried about the density and activity of the asteroid field, than they were about asteroids in general.

That's the exact same thing, you know.

[Mad]

So battle's pretty much depend on who has the better shields? What's the use of armor then? We do know that starships carry armor and the Invisible Hand survived several blasts and almost complete destruction.

The more overloaded a shield system becomes, the more damage can leak through the shields and hit the hull. Having armor helps prevent catastrophic damage before the shields fail completely.

The armor also prevents smaller, more agile ships from doing as much damage if they find an area with overloaded shields.

When two similarly-sized vessels meet, they probably each have enough weapons to easily penetrate the armor of the other vessel very quickly.

[JGregory32]

Okay, just found a pic of the tractor beam control station

Profs go to theforce.net
Can someone tell me why there is the space between the top of the control section and the continuation of the device?
More pics are found at:
http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/dvd/zs ... power1.jpg
and
http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/dvd/zs ... power2.jpg

[Batman]

The question is a) why have the whole assembly in that bottomless shaft to begin with,

Perhaps it was the actual assembly, not a terminal or anything. Air cooled or needed the extra space around it for whatever reason.

As I said, there MAY have been actual technological reasons for it.

Uhm, with tech stagnation, perhaps they have a level of reliability that they expect little need for safety devices on stations they expect to never be manned or need much in the way of human maintenance.

Kilometre-deep shafts with little in the way of safety measure is certainly a recurring theme, and as mentioned at least once in the EU (Hand of Thrawn Duology) they DO use tractor beams to cover for that but you'd think something as simple as a railing would make more sense.

[Teleros]

Can someone tell me why there is the space between the top of the control section and the continuation of the device?

Is there even a reason? If Saxton's site doesn't have anything to say on it I'm inclined to think it's just there because it looks cool rather than being designed as something specific.

Horseradish. Even accepting how hopelessly exagerated decompression is in SciFi that's not going to do BEANS to affect bridge functions (other than the operators dying). The A-Wing CRASHING into bridge consoles might. The decompression is not going to.

Trouble with that is the A-Wing came in through the window, above most of the consoles (we see Piett diving down towards them in fact). Caused a nice fire though, but I've always thought it missed the consoles themselves.

With regard to the tractor controls, are these the primary tractor controls? Obviously not since it's uncrewed and isn't a control-room. It's possible that it's a very large, spread-out system and this is the nearest point Obi-Wan could have performed his sabotage. Given the ubiquity of antigrav in SW perhaps the void spaces are full of droids or technicians on flying devices who primarily work with these systems.

Further to that, a tractor beam control (or a separate system affecting the tractor beam) in a hard-to-reach point is much better to sabotage than one in the middle of a room full of imperial technicians. Or more likely droids, given the relatively tiny crew figures for the two Death Stars.

Why design a Star Destroyer with an exposed bridge super structure and then face that bridge with windows?

Aside from the issue of shields vs armour, it may also be down to politics. If whoever is designing the first KDY ships is told that the customer wants a nice big bridge window then it'll probably end up going in. Add in the secrecy of the whole Republic military, and it's likely that KDY simply dusted off & updated older designs in time for Geonosis, rather than design something from the ground (keel?) up with almost no consultation with the customer (I say almost because I don't know if Palpatine or one of his proxies checked up etc).

Why, oh why is there such a lack of safety railings in every industrial and semi-industrial setting?

Episode 1: Aside from the forcefields, the Theed power plant seemed almost completely empty. Why put in safety railings in a place as automated as that (and when you have droids too)?
Episode 2: The droid factory also seemed entirely automated (don't know what the geonosians in the hallway Anakin & Padmé used were doing there though), and droids are cheap.
Episode 3: Mustafa had various forcefields shielding the building from the lava and temperatures, and frankly going outside there is inadvisable anyway.
Episode 4: No real idea about the tractor beam controls, although this thread has a few ideas. In addition the use of slave labour (did they use it on the DS1?) might have meant some corners were cut.
Episode 5: I don't think the carbonite freezing chamber had railings in it, but the balcony outside it certainly did. Didn't seem to be run by droids and was a small time and rather shady operation, so perhaps evidence of some cost-cutting?
Episode 6: I believe there's a railing in the shield bunker in front of those machines (Han Solo knocks someone over it though). Palpatine's throne room had railings around the bottomless pits, but not on the walkway Luke was on before Darth Vader cut it in two.

[Batman]

Horseradish. Even accepting how hopelessly exagerated decompression is in SciFi that's not going to do BEANS to affect bridge functions (other than the operators dying). The A-Wing CRASHING into bridge consoles might. The decompression is not going to.

Trouble with that is the A-Wing came in through the window, above most of the consoles (we see Piett diving down towards them in fact). Caused a nice fire though, but I've always thought it missed the consoles themselves.

I rather suspect that caused not inconsiderable damage to the rest of the bridge too but my POINT was that decompression itself isn't going to do any damage to bridge consoles in any way shape or form, or have any effect on ship systems.

[Todeswind]

Um-I can't remember there being a bit in TESB saying that shields won't protect them from the asteroids, what with that being EXACTLY what particle shields are FOR (and them surviving the asteroid field with no more losses than a handful of TIEs and a single ISD losing communications). And damage from energy weapons is just as physical as damage from kinetic impactors, you know.

Actually "My lord our shields will not protect us from those asteroids" is a direct quote from the star wars empire at war which I apparently assumed was the exact same quote from TESB game where the shields do in fact do nothing to protect the hull from asteroid damage.

The quote from TESB is this.

VADER: Yes, Admiral?

PIETT: Our ships have sighted the Millennium Falcon, lord. But...it
has entered an asteroid field and we cannot risk...

VADER: (interrupting) Asteroids do not concern me, Admiral. I want
that ship and not excuses.

PIETT: Yes, lord.

This may indicate that it was the particular asteroid belt in question but most of the tactical games that include starship combat seemed to indicate otherwise. Once again this is a situation where my knowledge of star wars physics centers more around the video games and movies than the EU.

[Batman]

Um-I can't remember there being a bit in TESB saying that shields won't protect them from the asteroids, what with that being EXACTLY what particle shields are FOR (and them surviving the asteroid field with no more losses than a handful of TIEs and a single ISD losing communications). And damage from energy weapons is just as physical as damage from kinetic impactors, you know.

The quote from TESB is this.
VADER: Yes, Admiral?
PIETT: Our ships have sighted the Millennium Falcon, lord. But...it
has entered an asteroid field and we cannot risk...
VADER: (interrupting) Asteroids do not concern me, Admiral. I want
that ship and not excuses.
PIETT: Yes, lord.
This may indicate that it was the particular asteroid belt in question but most of the tactical games that include starship combat seemed to indicate otherwise. Once again this is a situation where my knowledge of star wars physics centers more around the video games and movies than the EU.

The video games more or less don't matter and Piett being WORRIED about entering that particular asteroid field doesn't mean beans. He might have been talking about not wanting to risk losing contact with Coruscant/Palpatine and we know for a fact that WAS a problem inside the asteroid field.

[Todeswind]

That well may be but it seems quite clear that asteroids do on fact pose a distinct threat to star destroyers.

http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWbta.html

Yes I am well aware that this is from a site that is at times a bit disreputable, but still from the films is from the films.

[Todeswind]

Ignore his analysis and focus on the actual screen caps from the movie.

[Batman]

Scratch the 'bit'. There is absolutely no evidence in ESB for the ISD being destroyed NOR losing its bridge. They lost communications for a while. That's the total extent of the damage that ISD suffered.