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What exactly did Han mean when he said this in ANH?

Did it mean the Falcon had one shield they had to move around to absorb fire?

I think it refers to shield concentration, making the forward ones stronger by diverting power from the rear ones, for example.

Yeah, like the X-Wing pilots were doing during the Battle of Yavin.

"Put your deflectors on. Double front." Shield strength is 200% fore, 0% aft.

"Rear deflectors" are just the opposite, while "stabilize your deflectors" means set them to normal strength (equal distribution). Best example of this is in the X-Wing games.

Lazy Raptor wrote:Yeah, like the X-Wing pilots were doing during the Battle of Yavin.

"Put your deflectors on. Double front." Shield strength is 200% fore, 0% aft.

"Rear deflectors" are just the opposite, while "stabilize your deflectors" means set them to normal strength (equal distribution). Best example of this is in the X-Wing games.

Putting your deflectors on double front doesn't work in the Death Star run in X-wing, though. They have just as many guns facing the other way as towards you and they chew you up. I found that the best way was to take a short dive into the trench to get your targeting computer locked on, then clear the trench, get out of gun range of the Death Star, drain lasers and shields, and tool along above the trench until you get to the port. (Start recharging your shields about 16 km out, but you don't need the guns.) The TIE Advanced fighers will catch up to you right after you make your shot if you time it right. Makes for amazing screenshots from the replay.

I believe he talked about angling the deflector shield when they were coming under fire from an ISD. In that situation, where all of the fire is coming from one direction, perhaps the shield actually has a geometry which can be optimized in order to make the shield more effective by making more of the energy reflect rather than absorbing into the system. Sort of like sloped tank armour.

No, actually. He was talking about angling the deflector shield when they were fighting the TIE patrol while escaping the Death Star. A cockpit display shows Chewie actively controlling the angle of the shield to keep the bulk between the ship and the TIEs.

Rogue 9 wrote:No, actually. He was talking about angling the deflector shield when they were fighting the TIE patrol while escaping the Death Star. A cockpit display shows Chewie actively controlling the angle of the shield to keep the bulk between the ship and the TIEs.

He says it while fleeing Tatooine as well.

Rogue 9 wrote:No, actually. He was talking about angling the deflector shield when they were fighting the TIE patrol while escaping the Death Star. A cockpit display shows Chewie actively controlling the angle of the shield to keep the bulk between the ship and the TIEs.

No. "Angle the deflector shields while I make the calculations for the jump to hyperspace" or something like that was while escaping Tatooine. The grid you saw during the escape from the Death Star was the gunnery targetting computers used by Luke and Han.

I'm pretty sure he gives the order both times. At Tatooine it was "while I make the calculations" while at Alderaan it was "while I charge up the main guns".

I reckon it's probably the same as the references among Red and Gold Squadron during the Death Star attack: "swith your deflectors to double-front". We know what this means from the X-Wing series; you can double the strength of one part of the shield by transfering power from the rear quarter (the rear quarter then proceeds to build up again, so you can have varying mixes of shield strength).

Darth Wong wrote:I believe he talked about angling the deflector shield when they were coming under fire from an ISD. In that situation, where all of the fire is coming from one direction, perhaps the shield actually has a geometry which can be optimized in order to make the shield more effective by making more of the energy reflect rather than absorbing into the system. Sort of like sloped tank armour.

Blaster bolts can "bounce" off shields (they did so off Anakin's fighter in TPM). I think AndrewTse had also found one or more examples of DS weapons fire reflecting off a X-wing's shield (or appearing to) as well.

Rogue 9 wrote:Putting your deflectors on double front doesn't work in the Death Star run in X-wing, though. They have just as many guns facing the other way as towards you and they chew you up. I found that the best way was to take a short dive into the trench to get your targeting computer locked on, then clear the trench, get out of gun range of the Death Star, drain lasers and shields, and tool along above the trench until you get to the port. (Start recharging your shields about 16 km out, but you don't need the guns.) The TIE Advanced fighers will catch up to you right after you make your shot if you time it right. Makes for amazing screenshots from the replay.

I found the best way was to divert everything to the engines, and constantly reroute the laser energy to the shields as they drain (not that it matters too much, at the speed you achieve you hardly have to worry about getting hit).

Vympel wrote:you can double the strength of one part of the shield by transfering power from the rear quarter (the rear quarter then proceeds to build up again, so you can have varying mixes of shield strength).

Actually what irked me was that when you switch to double-front or double-back the opposite side doesn't charge at all. Maybe they fixed it afterwards?

I think they fixed it in X-wing vs. TIE Fighter.

I'm pretty sure it was fixed for Tie Fighter too, though I haven't played in an unfourtunately long time.

Luke Starkiller wrote:I'm pretty sure it was fixed for Tie Fighter too, though I haven't played in an unfourtunately long time.

Was it? I always kept my shields maxed out, so I don't know.

Luke Starkiller wrote:I'm pretty sure it was fixed for Tie Fighter too, though I haven't played in an unfourtunately long time.

They did...only X-Wing I remember that particular flaw.

I take this to mean shields have a vector component to them--we have seen shots bounce off shields, scattered by shields and yes, absorbed by shields. Reflecting a shot is the best option as you are not required to spend energy to do so (without knowing how shields operate I can not say if this is necessarily true in the practical world) but to do so requires tailoring the shield vectors to each individual bolt--otherwise the vectors don't add up correctly and you lose effectiveness.
So, as evidence I present this:
The Falcon did not properly angle her shields, and absorbed both the full energy and full momentum of the bolts, throwing her significanly off axis and contributing to the rapid shield loss in this scene.
More successful angling results in the tooth rattling (instead of bone jarring ) impacts and greater shield endurance seen more often when the Falcon takes fire.

The Silence and I wrote:I take this to mean shields have a vector component to them--we have seen shots bounce off shields, scattered by shields and yes, absorbed by shields. Reflecting a shot is the best option as you are not required to spend energy to do so (without knowing how shields operate I can not say if this is necessarily true in the practical world) but to do so requires tailoring the shield vectors to each individual bolt--otherwise the vectors don't add up correctly and you lose effectiveness.
So, as evidence I present this:
The Falcon did not properly angle her shields, and absorbed both the full energy and full momentum of the bolts, throwing her significanly off axis and contributing to the rapid shield loss in this scene.
More successful angling results in the tooth rattling (instead of bone jarring ) impacts and greater shield endurance seen more often when the Falcon takes fire.

The falcon would absorb the full momentum regardless if the bolt hit. Momentum has to be conserved.

Not if it bounces off.

GySgt. Hartman wrote:Not if it bounces off.

Oops, I think you're right. I misread that.,

Rogue 9 wrote: Putting your deflectors on double front doesn't work in the Death Star run in X-wing, though. They have just as many guns facing the other way as towards you and they chew you up. I found that the best way was to take a short dive into the trench to get your targeting computer locked on, then clear the trench, get out of gun range of the Death Star, drain lasers and shields, and tool along above the trench until you get to the port. (Start recharging your shields about 16 km out, but you don't need the guns.) The TIE Advanced fighers will catch up to you right after you make your shot if you time it right. Makes for amazing screenshots from the replay.

this was the only mission that i had to enlist a friend as my R2 unit. I wanted to do it right (trench and all) but there's no way you can make it through all the junk beforhand and then do the trench. His job was to keep the shields charged and flip flop them back and forth (mixing with the lasers and the engines) to keep us from getting killed. now I know why they have astromech driods. Makes it a LOT easier.