Imperial starfighters

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2004-08-26 05:35pm

Rogue 9 wrote:When 3PO was hit, he was blasted to pieces. Again, stormtroopers are not. Actually, I think I remember a mention on here of some EU source specifying that the trooper Leia shot did live. Could be wrong, though.

IIRC, 3PO's parts can automatically separate to reduce overall damage in case of falling or impacts.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2004-08-26 08:09pm

Rogue 9 wrote:
and warheads, which do shit anyway.
Correction: And warheads, which destroyed both Death Stars.

:rolls: Coulda done the same thing with wrenches; should all fighters be armed with wrenches now?

*grin* But everyone just accepts the 'TIEs suck' argument, even tho they are very effective in the movies. Rogue's got an excuse, he can't resist the power of the EU(:))... whats with everyone else? I played Xwing as a kid too; I could recognise that it was horribly biased.

saethar · Post by **saethar** » 2004-08-26 08:31pm

Everything in life is biased, all we can do is choose which side we want to be on. Personally, the TIE Defender is the ultimate fighter as far as I'm concerned. Course, I really loved the game and played it endlessly.

Saethar

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2004-08-26 08:57pm

But, but... the movies! The TIES dominate! They have shields! They have ejectors! The EU is just wrong!

*brain melts*

I just don't get it. Oh well.

Post by **Ghost Rider** » 2004-08-26 09:19pm

Stark wrote:But, but... the movies! The TIES dominate! They have shields! They have ejectors! The EU is just wrong!

While humourous.

This holds true for the ones over the Death Star 1.

They did have shields, kicked X-Wing ass, and had ejectors.

Most of the EU loves to use the X-Wing as the godsend craft...why, dunno...maybe it's the design.

Still trying to wonder why the Y-Wing is such a dismal pig when it performed nearly as well as X-Wings in Star Wars.

Lord of the Farce · Post by **Lord of the Farce** » 2004-08-26 09:22pm

saethar wrote:Storm Trooper armor which can't even stop the energy from a low power blaster pistol (like the one used by Leia in ANH)?

Who say that it's merely a low power pistol? If Leia had the slightest worry that she'll face Stormtroopers, she would pack enough firepower to at least worry them. Hell, in the novelisation (if I'm not mistaken), Leia's little blaster was powerful enough to vape that first Stormtrooper's head (helmet and all).
In at least one occassion in the novel "Tatooine Ghost" (which has probably the best description ever of Stormtrooper armour in use), what would have been an otherwise serious blaster wound was simply deflected by the armour.
And, although it's just in a game's CG intro, in the beginning of Force Commander the main character's brother gets shot in the chest at close range with a blaster rifle, but wasn't killed.

Bah - that armor was only good against KE (bullets, knives, punches, etc) and probably not even to good against that.

Either you're being sarcastic, or you aren't aware of how good that armour is against solid projectiles (again, described in "Tatooine Ghost"). Projectiles used by the Tusken, which were powerful enough to consistently knock whoever they hit to the ground (that's wearing Stormtrooper armour, without it the projectiles would probably blow a gaping hole in whatever they hit), only left streaks or splattered themselves onto the armour for any shots besides those that went through the visor or throat.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2004-08-26 09:35pm

Stark wrote:But, but... the movies! The TIES dominate! They have shields! They have ejectors! The EU is just wrong!

When did a TIE pilot eject? The hatch design on a TIE is hardly conducive to easy ejection.

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2004-08-26 09:38pm

Rogue 9 wrote:
Stark wrote:But, but... the movies! The TIES dominate! They have shields! They have ejectors! The EU is just wrong!
When did a TIE pilot eject? The hatch design on a TIE is hardly conducive to easy ejection.

I think one of the TIE pilots in the ESB asteroid chase ejected, but I'm not sure. In the Marvel comics we are shown TIE ejections.

Kazuaki Shimazaki · Post by **Kazuaki Shimazaki** » 2004-08-26 09:42pm

saethar wrote:There is no practical difference between "dead" and "laying on the ground waiting for your enemy to shoot you in the head" except the hope that your enemy is to busy to do the afore-mentioned head shooting. In the detention scene they were using powerful blaster rifles (vs. the little pistol that Leia used). Besides you know those naval troopers were over-acting cause their faces were visable

I've been told then when you are hit by a powerful round in a bulletproof vest, you would still be knocked to the ground and at least temporarily disabled from the blunt trauma. But the BPV still saved your ass.

SPOOFE · Post by **SPOOFE** » 2004-08-26 09:55pm

All this talk over technical issues and design issues is irrelevent. I think it plain that the most obvious solution to making sure that pilots don't run off with the expensive equipment is to A: not give them expensive equipment, and B: make it impossible to run off.

Sure, they could just put a self-destruct mechanism on it, but then they lose the whole ship. Much better to discourage dissent by making its very attempt utterly futile.

Admiral Drason · Post by **Admiral Drason** » 2004-08-26 10:16pm

Didnt half of rouge squadron run off with Ties when they defected?

saethar · Post by **saethar** » 2004-08-27 04:11am

Ok, I'm gonna go last to first so...

Admiral Drason wrote:Didnt half of rouge squadron run off with Ties when they defected?

No, they defected in the frigate Rand Ecliptic.

Kazuaki Shimazaki wrote:I've been told then when you are hit by a powerful round in a bulletproof vest, you would still be knocked to the ground and at least temporarily disabled from the blunt trauma. But the BPV still saved your ass.

Depending on the calibur of the bullet, range from target, etc the damage can be anywhere from light trauma (bruising), severe trauma (broken bones), partial penetration, full penetration, and full through-and-through. For example today's modern combat BPV and Helmet is very good at stopping pistol and similar rounds, but is still not that effective vs. AR or other high velocity rounds, is completely ineffective against high caliber & high velocity in combo (ie .50 sniper rifle), also protection vs. things such as shrapnel is questionable (because of speed in combo with razor sharp edges).

The EU is ripe with examples of ST armor being more effective than it is in the movies. One example is in one of the Rogue Squadron novels (sorry memory failing on which one - it was early, probably 1, 2 or 3) where corran is shot in the chest by a blaster rifle and survives, noting to himself that the armor likely saved his life. Though the fact that Gavin survived a worse hit, with out the armor does kinda contradict that.

Now my actual point to this is that EVERY storm trooper shot in the OT falls down dead (or at best very incapacitated) despite wearing their armor. In fact the only time we see ST's not get their asses handed to them is when they fight rebel redshirts (beginning of ANH, ESB and various other points in the movies).

Lord of the Farce wrote:Either you're being sarcastic, or you aren't aware of how good that armour is against solid projectiles (again, described in "Tatooine Ghost"). Projectiles used by the Tusken, which were powerful enough to consistently knock whoever they hit to the ground (that's wearing Stormtrooper armour, without it the projectiles would probably blow a gaping hole in whatever they hit), only left streaks or splattered themselves onto the armour for any shots besides those that went through the visor or throat.

Semi-sarcastic. Seriously, there are multiple points in the OT where a simple "bonk on the head" (even if it was by a wookie, though another example of this is han/luke taking out those ST to get their armor in ANH) or some thrown rocks (thrown by fucking teady bears!) takes a ST out of commission. That is not what I would call effective vs. KE damage.

Just my opinion is all.

Saethar

Lord of the Farce · Post by **Lord of the Farce** » 2004-08-27 04:37am

saethar wrote:The EU is ripe with examples of ST armor being more effective than it is in the movies. One example is in one of the Rogue Squadron novels (sorry memory failing on which one - it was early, probably 1, 2 or 3) where corran is shot in the chest by a blaster rifle and survives, noting to himself that the armor likely saved his life. Though the fact that Gavin survived a worse hit, with out the armor does kinda contradict that.

It's not a contradiction when you consider that Corran and Gavin were most likely shot in different places, hit by possibly different blaster settings, and how much longer it took Gavin recover.

Now my actual point to this is that EVERY storm trooper shot in the OT falls down dead (or at best very incapacitated) despite wearing their armor. In fact the only time we see ST's not get their asses handed to them is when they fight rebel redshirts (beginning of ANH, ESB and various other points in the movies).

The apparent value of body armour does drop a bit when a lot of people walk around with the equivalent of mini-AMR. Then again, if we were to consider the Rebels to be exceptions rather than the rule when it comes to weapons that can easily incapacitate Stormtroopers, would you rather have the armour, or be without?

Lord of the Farce wrote:Semi-sarcastic. Seriously, there are multiple points in the OT where a simple "bonk on the head" (even if it was by a wookie, though another example of this is han/luke taking out those ST to get their armor in ANH) or some thrown rocks (thrown by fucking teady bears!) takes a ST out of commission. That is not what I would call effective vs. KE damage.

For Luke and Han, we don't have any idea of what potential weapon they might have had on hand (perhaps a "hydro" hammer or two), or what help they had (Obi-Wan == Jedi), nor how they actually did it (maybe Chewie shoves their heads forward, then L&H clobber the base of their skull).
By the way, do you know anybody who can toss around head-sized rocks like they were made of styrofoam? Those "fucking teady bears" (sic) certainly could.

By the way, something else mentioned in "Tatooine Ghost" about Stormtrooper armour characteristics: It makes their wearer immune to stun shots.

EDIT: I need to catch up on my sleep, making typos left-right-center...

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2004-08-27 09:20am

YT300000 wrote:They aren't solar panels

Sure they are solar panels, unless you are saying that the first Incredible Cross Sections book is wrong. It very clears labels and describes the process which they work, too. Want me to scan a picture of it when I get home?

Kazuaki Shimazaki · Post by **Kazuaki Shimazaki** » 2004-08-27 09:24am

GilHamilton wrote:
YT300000 wrote: They aren't solar panels
Sure they are solar panels, unless you are saying that the first Incredible Cross Sections book is wrong. It very clears labels and describes the process which they work, too. Want me to scan a picture of it when I get home?

No, I believe you. Sigh ... yet another disease inherited from WEG along with Imperial-class. Well, I guess they could be symbolic solar panels, but if anyone dares say it actually does provide real power, well, even if a film character said that (without a DAMNED good explanation), he'd just be rated as incompetent and ignored. And I doubt they can show using visuals that the power came from the solar panel.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2004-08-27 09:36am

Kazuaki Shimazaki wrote:No, I believe you. Sigh ... yet another disease inherited from WEG along with Imperial-class. Well, I guess they could be symbolic solar panels, but if anyone dares say it actually does provide real power, well, even if a film character said that (without a DAMNED good explanation), he'd just be rated as incompetent and ignored. And I doubt they can show using visuals that the power came from the solar panel.

Why would you put symbolic anything on a TIE fighter? The damn things get in the way and make it a bigger target to shoot at.

Kazuaki Shimazaki · Post by **Kazuaki Shimazaki** » 2004-08-27 10:05am

Gil Hamilton wrote:Why would you put symbolic anything on a TIE fighter? The damn things get in the way and make it a bigger target to shoot at.

As someone said, it might be enough for some start-up procedure of the sub-start up system which starts up the startup system which starts the reactor. But that's about all the energy you can get off a solar panel system that size even if it is 100% efficient

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2004-08-27 11:18am

Seriously, there are multiple points in the OT where a simple "bonk on the head" (even if it was by a wookie, though another example of this is han/luke taking out those ST to get their armor in ANH) or some thrown rocks (thrown by fucking teady bears!) takes a ST out of commission. That is not what I would call effective vs. KE damage.

1.) Getting whacked by a Wookiee will mess you up. Period.

2.) There were shots fired in the Falcon; those stormtroopers weren't just whacked on the head.

3.) They were still moving and fighting after having those bigass rocks dumped on their heads. An unarmored human would have a broken neck and fractured/splattered skull from a stone that size dropped from that height. The armor did a damned good job of absorbing KE there.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2004-08-27 11:24am

Kazuaki Shimazaki wrote:As someone said, it might be enough for some start-up procedure of the sub-start up system which starts up the startup system which starts the reactor. But that's about all the energy you can get off a solar panel system that size even if it is 100% efficient

That's even a little odd consider how small they can make high density battery packs in StarWars. They can put a battery in a blaster with enough energy make concrete walls explode like grenades and with multiple shots, but they can't run their sub-systems off one? The solar panels on TIE fighters are really tricksy things as to what they do.

Going by the Incredible Cross Sections, they are connected to the engines and ionize the radioactive fuel that makes the ship go. Even though that's a really fucked up explaination on quite a few levels, that's the one the canon source on the matter has to say.

PainRack · Post by **PainRack** » 2004-08-27 12:26pm

Kazuaki Shimazaki wrote:
The only way this can possibly be true is if the Empire uses conscripts for most of its enlisted mechanics. There is no way the main government's average mechanic quality can be inferior to the guerilla force's unless they are conscripts (which greatly shortens the available time for training and thus closes the training level gap between the two).

Not even then. The RSAF for a while used conscripts as mechanics, we experienced lower downtime than all the other SEA airforces.

Another possibility is Limited Perception. Wedge is a pretty good pilot, so he might have been assigned from the outset to one of the Rebel's better bases with their choice personnel. While on average, the government's force will have an advantage, if he serves on an elite base where they concentrate a bunch of veteran chiefs for the maintenance task, they could achieve a higher grade of competence than the military, which even if not conscript is a mix of people ranging from the equivalent of E1 to the officers.

He could be referring to the frequency which TIEs get damaged. The nav shielding is probably low grade, meaning that random battle debris, atmosphic conditions and the like incur more damage to TIEs than would other shielded spacecraft.

Also, with regards to the solar panels thing once again, ahem, anyone here remember my heat exchanger theory? Photovaltic cells may serve as a APU, if they converted energy radiating away from the panels, as opposed to radiation falling on it.

Grand Admiral Mango · Post by **Grand Admiral Mango** » 2004-08-27 01:00pm

Correct me if i'm wrong, but didn't Thrawn put shields on his Interceptors because they were too valuable to lose so easily?

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2004-08-27 01:01pm

Grand Admiral Mango wrote:Correct me if i'm wrong, but didn't Thrawn put shields on his Interceptors because they were too valuable to lose so easily?

Yes, he did.

YT300000 · Post by **YT300000** » 2004-08-27 01:38pm

Gil Hamilton wrote:
YT300000 wrote:They aren't solar panels
Sure they are solar panels, unless you are saying that the first Incredible Cross Sections book is wrong. It very clears labels and describes the process which they work, too. Want me to scan a picture of it when I get home?

The original ICS isn't canon IIRC. That only applies to the Ep. II ICS. Besides, its [Saxton's theory] a far more rational explanation, far more likely, and more believable.

EDIT: Clarified.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2004-08-27 02:42pm

YT300000 wrote:The original ICS isn't canon IIRC. That only applies to the Ep. II ICS. Besides, its [Saxton's theory] a far more rational explanation, far more likely, and more believable.

EDIT: Clarified.

I thought all the ICS were all low end canon. That's what I've been told. Besides, they are refered as solar panels in lots of other places.

And it doesn't matter if Saxton's theory is a million times more rational and likely. Unless he puts it in a book and gets that book officially endorsed, it ain't official or canon. There are tons of things that could have a more rational explaination than the official one, but it's the official one that counts in the end.

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2004-08-27 05:01pm

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:
Rogue 9 wrote:When 3PO was hit, he was blasted to pieces. Again, stormtroopers are not. Actually, I think I remember a mention on here of some EU source specifying that the trooper Leia shot did live. Could be wrong, though.
IIRC, 3PO's parts can automatically separate to reduce overall damage in case of falling or impacts.

According to IIRC the WOTC Naboo sourcebook, all droids are held together by electromagnets like that. Explains the battledroids falling apart nicely.