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Do B1s actually carry spare clips for their rifles? It occurs to me that they don't seem to ever reload.

NecronLord wrote:Do B1s actually carry spare clips for their rifles? It occurs to me that they don't seem to ever reload.

A.) The rifles probably have enough ammo for any but the most proctracted battles.

B.) Even if they run out of ammo... so what? They probably have a 'Gun=Empty, Drop, Locate New Gun' subroutine; by the time it's run out of ammo plenty of other B1's will be dead. Or they're dead.

Besides, do we ever see stormtroopers reloading?

I think it's safe to say that SW blasters have some fairly obscene 'ammo capacity', so to speak... which is pretty much canon anyway.

A better question would be how B2:s reload. Perhaps their built-in weapon is powered from the droid's internal charge, which is then recharged along with the droid. B1 blasters are probably comparable with E-11s.

Star Wars: Battlefront and Battlefront II show Battledroids reloading. They seem to carry an obscene amount of clips somehow, just like everybody else. I think I've run out of bullets once and that was after a 20+-clone killing, singlehanded command post capturing spree.

The two Battlefront games and Republic Commando show reloading of most weapons (a few don't reload, as they simply "recharge" after a few seconds) but the vast majority of Star Wars games don't show reloading. In fact, beyond those I can't think of any that do.

Kurgan wrote:The two Battlefront games and Republic Commando show reloading of most weapons (a few don't reload, as they simply "recharge" after a few seconds) but the vast majority of Star Wars games don't show reloading. In fact, beyond those I can't think of any that do.

Republic Commando does for some weapons, and I think Jedi Outcast does as well, if your in 3rd person mode.

Considering the standard E-1 blaster has over 100 rounds and is essentially stuck in single shot mode.............

According to the Star Wars D20 Arms and Equipment Guide, the E-11 has 50 shots. Blaster Pistols are the ones with 100 shots.

I recall KOTOR mentioning something in a cutscene about blasters being able to shoot for weeks without needing a recharge. Obvious hyperbole, but it explains the lack of reloading ever.

PainRack wrote:Considering the standard E-1 blaster has over 100 rounds and is essentially stuck in single shot mode.............

The B1 gun squirts shots out like a proper SMG in RotS.

Game mechanics remain a poor indicator of blaster capacity...

The Han Solo trilogy also supports large clip capacity for even energy sucking blasters like Han's hand cannon.,

there seems to be two different types of ammo for blasters, in the Visual dictionary for the trilogy it mentions blasters requiring batteries for ignition of the plasma to create the bolt and mentions that e-11s come with 100+ shots. however AOTC mentions the usage plasma gas with over 500 shots available. then again with the same ammo in a single clip than one of our soldiers would probably carry I can imagine that problems with ammo would be limited at most. Apparantly this is why blasters are so popular.

Ryushikaze wrote:I recall KOTOR mentioning something in a cutscene about blasters being able to shoot for weeks without needing a recharge. Obvious hyperbole, but it explains the lack of reloading ever.

KotOR II. The young Mandalorian who was trapped on a cliff after a large pack of predators prevented him from going out and he had no spare energy cells for his rifle. He said that those things need so rarely any reloading that he simply forgot to take spare ammunition with him and was trapped because of it.

The size of the ammunition clips for the DC-15 suggests to me that they could be held within some sort of compartment on the B1 droids?
I used to play JK2 and 3 quite a bit, and I'm sure that there was never any reloading. For example, with the E-11 there was a 300 shot total capacity, and any ammo you picked up just added onto this counter; there was no reloading in any of the weapons.

I've played almost every Star Wars game with blasters in it, and I can say the game mechanics are not consistent enough to use to figure this out. They're all on the same canon level, so they kinda override each other with inconsistency, don't they?
I'd say Republic Commando and the Battlefront games handle it well, but if blasters had only 50-60 shots we'd see troopers (both types) reloading more often.

Anyway, what Elheru said is logical. B1s always fight in large groups who drop like flies in battle; if they're winning a battle (defeating lowly space pirates or defaulting debtors, perhaps), they could probably just return for resupply. If they're losing, there's going to be unspent blasters everywhere.

Note that the blaster rifles that the B1 carries have very visible power packs attached to the rear left portion of their blaster. The power packs are quite small; a spare would be easily carried on some compartment on the droid's plating.

nightmare wrote:A better question would be how B2:s reload. Perhaps their built-in weapon is powered from the droid's internal charge, which is then recharged along with the droid. B1 blasters are probably comparable with E-11s.

This is one point we can answer for sure. The B2 is explicitly described as having a repeating blaster powered by the droid's main power source.

Cykeisme wrote:Note that the blaster rifles that the B1 carries have very visible power packs attached to the rear left portion of their blaster. The power packs are quite small; a spare would be easily carried on some compartment on the droid's plating.

The field B1s also had those backpack things. Since they retrieve their blasters from that pack, it may charge them before battle. They could plug it back in to recharge it, or it could carry extra power packs.

Perhaps reloading is such a trivial and pedestrian thing it just never gets any air time... kinda like we rarely see anyone going to the bathroom as well.

I can say that in the field of battle, if you need to reload, you hide first, preferably behind something that will stop the other guy's bullets while you fish for yours. We don't see people reloading because standing there reloading in the open is an obvious indication that that particular person is helpless for the next 5 seconds, and will draw a lot of fire. They're ducking behind cover somewhere, hence, not seen.

Perhaps reloading is such a trivial and pedestrian thing it just never gets any air time... kinda like we rarely see anyone going to the bathroom as well.

It does occur to me though, at the beginning of Clone Wars, Season Two, the Clone team sent to resuce Ki-Adi-Mundi is seen priming and arming their weapons, clips and all. Not particularly relevant to the overall discussion, but it is shown from time to time.

Noble Ire wrote: Republic Commando does for some weapons, and I think Jedi Outcast does as well, if your in 3rd person mode.

In RC all but the pistol and Geonosian beam weapon reload, IIRC. In Jedi Outcast, I don't think so. A few weapons recharge in JK2/JA, but none reload.

Coyote wrote:Perhaps reloading is such a trivial and pedestrian thing it just never gets any air time... kinda like we rarely see anyone going to the bathroom as well.

True. The only time I remember anyone "reloading" was in Lord of the Rings where Legolas actually went to search for more arrows after he had used all of his own.

The only indication we have that anyone has to load anything is that one line in ANH where the Stormtrooper leader (?) says "load your weapons men" right before the escape from Docking Bay 94. We don't actually see anyone load anything, they seem already ready to go, but that's the line.

And we don't EVER see anyone going to the bathroom in Star Wars. Jar Jar steps in crap and gets farted on, so we have proof some bodily functions DO happen!

The BAW E5 rifles don't seem to be too powerful, at least compared to a weapon like Han's DL-44 or the E11s, which blow up concrete walls and vaporize metal. If an E5 was fired at a low power setting, without using up too much power for one shot, it could have plenty of power to spare. Or they could have only one power pack available, as B1s are designed to act as a cheap army for the Trade Federation and the CIS. They always drop quickly in battle, so there would be no point for the credit-pinching Nemodians to waste cash making more ammunition.

How do we know the Neimoidians are "credit pinching"? After all, aren't these the guys responsible for making "quadrillions" of droids to battle only 3 million clone troopers? And the ones financing super mega droids for Grievous to play around with that cost as much as capital ships? (yes I am saying this a bit tongue in cheek, but that's what the EU has given us, so there you go)


Couldn't you just use the old excuse "well the powerful shots use up your ammo faster, so they just set their guns to conserve ammo."

You don't need to be able to blow huge chunks out of a wall to kill a person with your gun or disable them in a fight. Han Solo has the luxury of firing up some showy shots and then fleeing to his ship, where he can reload his gun at his leisure while Chewie does the flying. If he rarely uses his gun, then he doesn't need to constantly be carrying around bandoliers of ammo to resupply. A battle droid carries no gear, that either indicates that it's disposable or that they're pretty efficient with what they've got. Or maybe there's a droid running around with ammo to hand out, like those guys in the Matrix Revolutions (much as you all wanted to forget that movie) in the background...

Noble Ire wrote:

Perhaps reloading is such a trivial and pedestrian thing it just never gets any air time... kinda like we rarely see anyone going to the bathroom as well.

It does occur to me though, at the beginning of Clone Wars, Season Two, the Clone team sent to resuce Ki-Adi-Mundi is seen priming and arming their weapons, clips and all. Not particularly relevant to the overall discussion, but it is shown from time to time.

About that: Anyone remember the guy with the underbarrel grenade launcher loading his gun at the begining? That was one big power pack he put into it...