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When finished, does it have a shield (like a planetary shield)?

Not needed? The DS is powerfull enough? Hmm maybe at the times of the movies but maybe a kamikaze cruiser,a rogue soeverein SSD, a powerfull alien race,.... could still treaten it

It has a shield able to withstand the explosion of Alderaan.

It's not as powerful as the Endor shild though.

This may be a stupid question, but what is the effective range of the Superlaser? I always thought they were far enough away they didnt need a shield to protect them from the flying debris, also the DS and DS2 are so freakin' huge, and with so much firepower--probably on the order of a million turbolasers, plus the Superlaser--i thought shields would be redundant.

18-Till-I-Die wrote:This may be a stupid question, but what is the effective range of the Superlaser? I always thought they were far enough away they didnt need a shield to protect them from the flying debris, also the DS and DS2 are so freakin' huge, and with so much firepower--probably on the order of a million turbolasers, plus the Superlaser--i thought shields would be redundant.

The effective range may be incrdible but have a few unknowns. If Eu is any indication it could reach a few AU at the very least.

And given how vulnerable it still would be to cruisers and fleets is why for Shields...better safe then sorry.

18-Till-I-Die wrote:This may be a stupid question, but what is the effective range of the Superlaser? I always thought they were far enough away they didnt need a shield to protect them from the flying debris, also the DS and DS2 are so freakin' huge, and with so much firepower--probably on the order of a million turbolasers, plus the Superlaser--i thought shields would be redundant.

The distance from the DS1 to Alderaan has been scaled before, and IIRC the calculations showed that the DS survived enough energy to overcome the Gravtational Potential Energy of Earth. There's really nothing stopping them from doing much more long-distance attacks(at least if we accept EU material), but its a lot more intimidating to have the bouncing ball of destruction take out a planet, and then fly unscathed through an explosion that vaporises any moons the planet had.

According to the SW Technical Journal, the superlaser's effective range was 47.06 million km.

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:According to the SW Technical Journal, the superlaser's effective range was 47.06 million km.

Is that against planetary targets, or cap ships?

Death Star I, so planetary.

Time for another ignorant question. Is that due to beam dispersal, or sensor limitations?

I'd sermise that it would have Planetary shield technology. As seen in ANH the fighter were able to slip between the joints of the shield because as Dodonna said if they thought a snub fighter was a threat then they'd have a tighter defense. So the case is that the Death Star was designed to repell a attack by a fleet of capitol ships rather than an attack by starfighters. The DSII would have surely had no such problem. it that case they would have not been able to pull the same trick to get close again. regardless the only way to destroy the second Death Star would be to attack it while it was still under coinstruction.

consequences wrote:Time for another ignorant question. Is that due to beam dispersal, or sensor limitations?

It doesn't specify.

consequences wrote:Time for another ignorant question. Is that due to beam dispersal, or sensor limitations?

My guess is it is due to beam dispersal. Planets are huge targets moving in a predictable fashion, Hitting them would be very easy at any range.

Saxton actually leans in the other direction, thinking that sensor inaccuracy would occur before beam dispersal.

Keep in mind again that the effective range is about 1/3 of an Earth AU, which is a very very long distance.

A good analogy would be that a bullet travels further than it can be accurately aimed.

Still present day technology can accurately aim and send spacecraft to other planets. It should be even easier for a galactic scale civilization like the Empire to aim a superlaser at a planet.

evilcat4000 wrote:Still present day technology can accurately aim and send spacecraft to other planets. It should be even easier for a galactic scale civilization like the Empire to aim a superlaser at a planet.

Yeah, but ECM's a bitch.

Most spacecraft is directed using mathematical calculations rather than real time targeting.

There's still the fact that assuming sensor range is greater is counter to conventional weapons operation. It doesn't make much sense for the superlaser beam to disperse below how far they can aim it.

Max range might not be caused by either beam dispersal or sensor limitations. At max range (47 million km), a planet of earth's size takes up just less than one arc-minute (1/60 of a degree). This might represent a limitation in the stability of the death star as a firing platform. Or perhaps the death star's manouvering thrusters can't adjust to values less than an arc minute.

Interestingly enough, hitting the earth at that distance is roughly equivalent to nailing a headshot at 1000m here on earth. Not too hard for a trained shooter.

consequences wrote:

evilcat4000 wrote:Still present day technology can accurately aim and send spacecraft to other planets. It should be even easier for a galactic scale civilization like the Empire to aim a superlaser at a planet.

Yeah, but ECM's a bitch.

ECM is unlikely to protect a planet size targets. After all planets are easily visible in telescopes.

evilcat4000 wrote:Still present day technology can accurately aim and send spacecraft to other planets. It should be even easier for a galactic scale civilization like the Empire to aim a superlaser at a planet.

Present day technology also uses something known as 'mid course corrections' (for a trip to Mars there are usually 2 of them), because we 'aint all that.

evilcat4000 wrote:

consequences wrote:

evilcat4000 wrote:Still present day technology can accurately aim and send spacecraft to other planets. It should be even easier for a galactic scale civilization like the Empire to aim a superlaser at a planet.

Yeah, but ECM's a bitch.

ECM is unlikely to protect a planet size targets. After all planets are easily visible in telescopes.

You do understand that Electronic Counter Measures can help given distances involved?

We're not talking about parking half an AU away to go "All right gunner...no point and click."

Ghost Rider wrote:You do understand that Electronic Counter Measures can help given distances involved?

We're not talking about parking half an AU away to go "All right gunner...no point and click."

I'm not sure about this. The path of ANY populated planet in the galaxy should be a part of all navigational computers. So you could fire at a planet without using your sensor at all ( except to calculate your own position ).