Super battle droids, tough ?

[Omega-13]

Ok, the title says it all? are they tough?

In ATOC I looked carefully through the battle scenes, just a few minutes ago, and there is no trace anywhere, that a super battle droid could take a hit from a blaster, redirected back at them, or from a clone trooper, and keep it together, they either get arms blown off, or fall down dead,

So whats the deal? I thought these things were badass

[Omega-13]

JUst to add to that post, or rather questions, I did look at the battle again, and just as R2 pulls 3P0's head off, you can see a super battle droid right behind him, get hit right in the chest with a blaster, make a big spark, but nothing happens, it just moves a bit, and continues fighting, so i guess it depends where they are hit

[Master of Ossus]

I have always assumed that the amount of armor required to protect something from a direct his with a medium or heavy weapon would be prohibitively heavy, and that the Super Battle Droid was designed to withstand glancing shots or shrapnel from heavy weapons. Also, its repeating blasters are a significant step up over either Battle Droids or Droidekas.

[Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi]

They could be "super" because of their firepower. Anyway, I don't think it was meant to replace the origional battle droid. They were still making the TPM droids, and they probably take up less space when stored.

[SirNitram]

These guys were probably made for the purpose of counteracting the Clonetroopers and their huge friggin' guns. They were the elite, the powerful.

[Lagmonster]

These guys were probably made for the purpose of counteracting the Clonetroopers and their huge friggin' guns. They were the elite, the powerful.

No argument, but I'd have slapped the production lines making those shielded Destroyer droids on 'high speed'.

Now *THOSE* things were badass. Even the Jedi thought it would be better to run from them.

[Master of Ossus]

These guys were probably made for the purpose of counteracting the Clonetroopers and their huge friggin' guns. They were the elite, the powerful.

How could they have been designed to counter a threat the TF did not know about?

And I agree that the Droideka was cooler. Perhaps they switched over due to cost or mobility issues.

[Omega-13]

These guys were probably made for the purpose of counteracting the Clonetroopers and their huge friggin' guns. They were the elite, the powerful.

How could they have been designed to counter a threat the TF did not know about?

And I agree that the Droideka was cooler. Perhaps they switched over due to cost or mobility issues.

the Droideka can't fight hand to hand, maybe its shield didn't stop physical objects, like a person for instance, jumping on its back

[BioDroid]

Perhaps it was a cost issue? Better than Standard Battle Droids, less expensive than Droidekas (sp)

[Darth Yoshi]

Well, the thing is, droidekas are better against Jedi than super battle droids, with their shields protecting them, but I think super battle droids are more well rounded. I mean, they've got hands. That allows them to pick up secondary weapons as well, while droidekas are stuck with those blasters.

[Omega-13]

I just get the feeling that super battle droids aren't built "ford tough" ya know?

They are supposed to have advanced allows and lots of armour, can take a blaster in the chest and keep going, without a mark, yet I can just see it blowing into a million pieces if it got hit by a gas truck like arnold did in the first terminator movie

[Darth Wong]

If I had to imagine designing and engineering the superbattledroid vs the droideka, I'd have to hazard a guess that the droideka is far more expensive than a superbattledroid.

For one thing, it has five articulated limbs instead of four. It has an onboard shield generator, which requires a much larger power supply. It transforms, which means that it requires two means of locomotion, which in turns means that it requires two separate, wholly dissimilar guidance systems: one for rolling and one for walking.

And what's a superbattledroid? Just a regular battledroid with heavier torso armour and an automatic blaster built into his arm. They can probably standardize a lot of components between the two models, further driving costs down.

I'd think you can build a whole squad of superbattledroids for the cost of one droideka.

[RayCav of ASVS]

If I had to imagine designing and engineering the superbattledroid vs the droideka, I'd have to hazard a guess that the droideka is far more expensive than a superbattledroid.

For one thing, it has five articulated limbs instead of four. It has an onboard shield generator, which requires a much larger power supply. It transforms, which means that it requires two means of locomotion, which in turns means that it requires two separate, wholly dissimilar guidance systems: one for rolling and one for walking.

And what's a superbattledroid? Just a regular battledroid with heavier torso armour and an automatic blaster built into his arm. They can probably standardize a lot of components between the two models, further driving costs down.

I'd think you can build a whole squad of superbattledroids for the cost of one droideka.

Hmmm, kinda like platfrom and component sharing in the automotive world. Sorry to say folks, but that expensive Jag X-Type, Lexus ES 300, or Audi A4 you bought?

X-Type = Ford Mondeo
ES 300 = Toyota Camry
A 4 = VW Passat

I won't go into the details of platform sharing unless asked because it's OT and I'm kinda crazed from insomnia for now but you get the point. Frankly, I don't know what point I'm making. Stupid school schedule.....

BTW, if I remember correctly the design of the superbattledroid was lifted almost verbatum from rejected concept sketeches for the original EP 1 battle droid. I'm not complaining, rather I think it's rather neat and cool, and just throwing it out as random trivia

[Vympel]

Also remember that the Droidekas features (articulate limbs, transforming, firepower, onboard shield generator etc) would make it a maintenance NIGHTMARE.

[IRG CommandoJoe]

Program it to maintain itself.

[Darth Wong]

Program it to maintain itself.

Brilliant idea. Of course, you'd have to add extra program logic, plus you'd have to add more articulated limbs because its arms have guns instead of hands at the end, you'd have to incorporate specialized tools, etc ...

[IRG CommandoJoe]

Oh! I don't know why, but I thought he was referring to the Super Battle Droid. lol But while we're at it, you're right. Droidekas couldn't maintain themselves. They have no hands or anything. Maybe to solve the Droideka maintenence problem would be to make multi-purpose maintenence droids, that can maintain all types of droids.

[Vympel]

IRG, what I was pointing out was that it would take many more 'man' hours (or droid hours, if you prefer) to maintain a Droideka than it would to maintain the *relatively* simply Battle droids.

A real-life counterpart would be the variable geometry wings of the F-14 Tomcat- even when these things were brand new (they're about to be scrapped- they're just way too old) all the extra moving parts for the wings made them much more expensive to maintain in terms of spare parts and man-hours.

[IRG CommandoJoe]

Yeah, but they're damned good planes, as the Droidekas are damned good weapons. I think results on the battlefield outweigh the maintenence problems.

[Vympel]

Depends- take WW2 Eastern Front;

the Tiger heavy and Panther medium (peculiar definition of medium- the thing weighed 50 tons- the same weight as current Russian tanks) were superior tanks to the venerable Soviet T-34 series (a superb tank in its own right which was the inspiration for the Panther)- but were much more expensive and harder to maintain, despite their superior performance (Panther especially- Tiger was far less numerous and overrated). Coupled with all the other problems; it only served to worsen the imbalance of armor on the Eastern Front from 1943 onwards- where the Soviets were producing more tanks in a single year than the Germans were in the entire war.

The things the Tigers and Panthers achieved on the tactical level was impressive, but on the strategic level there were never enough of them to make a difference. As such, the most numerous German tank by far was the proven and unsophisticated Panzer IV (inferior to the T-34 in every way however).