Questions about the Hoth ion cannon

[Stark]

Ion cannons are used on bombers to help soften up shielded targets before dumpind the payload. They're used to help overload shields and disrupt electrical systems. They have also been used to take medium sized ships intact. They're useless whn facing capships, but fighter mounted ions do well against other fighters and moderately well against larger support craft. I'm not sure why the idea of scaling bothers you so much. It seems pretty simple that power decreases when the energy sources is decreased. Nothing in the EU has contradicted this, so why are you so stuck on this?

Gah. Because there is no canon evidence for shield-ignoring magic disabling ion guns at all. Just a huge fucking gun with the power of a battlecruiser that knocks out an ISD.

'Soften up a target before dropping the payload'??? So the 'bombers' bombs need help? Against capship shields that laugh off starfighter-scale weapons? 'Take medium size ships intact'? Like Tantive IV? Shoulda launched Gunboats shouldn't they, and plinked away with tiny little ion guns to disable them. Right?

And I'll say it again. BCs can disable DDs in two hits. There's a huge size disparity there. If you scale the BC down to a fighter, what does that make the DD? Sure, lots of fire from fighter-scale guns could disable a fighter... but near misses will do the same (ESB) and low power shots can be metered to penetrate the shields and cripple them (ANH, the T4). Where is the evidence or role for ion guns?

Once ROTS is done, we will never have seen an ion gun disable a ship without brute force, or magically penetrate shields, or be used from a fighter, or be present in split armaments in regular fighters. Will that stop anyone? Hell no.

@Kaz - I don't understand. Yes, the BC can disable the DD in a pair of shots, after an obvious shield interaction; I'd imagine BC-scale TLs can perform the same feat (the ion gun didn't have a lot of tracking flexibility tho, which would make guns of that size less useful on caps). And fighters can disable MF-size ships with regular cannons (ANH), so who wants to waste hardpoints on ions? I think I've missed your point.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

@Kaz - I don't understand. Yes, the BC can disable the DD in a pair of shots, after an obvious shield interaction; I'd imagine BC-scale TLs can perform the same feat (the ion gun didn't have a lot of tracking flexibility tho, which would make guns of that size less useful on caps). And fighters can disable MF-size ships with regular cannons (ANH), so who wants to waste hardpoints on ions? I think I've missed your point.

Imagine this. You are the Rebels. You are desperately short of ships. Every ship taken is a plus. For example, if you raid an weakly guarded Imperial convoy or a lone ship, if at all possible, you don't want just the goods, you want to take the ship too.

So, what would you do (after you've downed the shields on your prey), given choices:
1) Use TLs and try to shoot out the comm array and the engines without destroying the whole thing. Please remember you are the Rebels. Realistically, that means your crew and pilot quality would be rather uneven, so you may or may not be able to rely on precision shooting. Then you send a boarding party over. You grab the ship, but you are stuck because the engines are FUBARed. So unless you can tow it, you are basically stuck, because that little corvette you are using for the raid probably has no replacements for such extensive damage to the engines. Given time, you might be able to bring a tech crew, spare parts ... etc, to get the ship moving, but with the Imperials prowling, you don't have time. Even if you somehow tow the ship into hyperspace and elude pursuit with such a big piggyback, the ship would be useless until it gets a mighty expensive repair.
2) Use ion cannon and avoid most of all this. A few circuits might be fried, but a few circuits can be replaced more easily (or rerouted around) than destroyed engines. When you leave, you get one operational warship.

[Stark]

Okay, I can see a potential niche there... but there's only slim evidence that ion guns don't fuck ships right up; we assume Tyrant got back underway and accompanied Executor, but I don't know what the novel says about that.

And I'm just being a grumpy purist.