Tech Comm: SPHA-T equivalent to heavy turbolasers?

[Chris OFarrell]

Is there any specific indicators that the neutrino sinks can just suck up energy from anywhere inside the ship without a problem? Because most of the EU litterature I've read on it and the impressions I've gotten from Curtis are that its something linked directly to the ships shield generators. Sucking excess energy from them of just about any kind and disipating it. There is nothing I've read that indicates the ships hull directly has this kind of technology in it. Especialy if the beams peirced right through inside the ship. and started to blow things up all over the place.

The shields, at least after the first salvo clearly offered no resistence to the first salvo (and I would argue there was zero evidence of resistence by a shield DURING the first salvo). With the shield generators down either through overload or just not active, how precisly could the ship disipate direct weapons fire inside the ship? I mean I COULD see the hull where still intact POSSIBLY conducting the energy to these 'neutrino sinks', but the energy inside the hull still should amount to megatons, if not gigatons of uncontroled backwash out into the atmosphere...

Perhaps I'm missing something here...but I just can't see it currently.

[Crossroads Inc.]

I already offered in answer to all of this on page two. That the SPHA-T's Aren’t TurboLasers as we think of them, they are designer specifically NOT to release Multi GigaTons of energy and makes things explode as that would be bad to troops on a field of battle. They are designed to be used like surgical knives, to carve up and pierce shields.

You will note they fired JUST Enough to disable the CoreShip, but not force it to explode which, while could have easily been done, would of harmed the Republic forces.

[NRS Guardian]

Chris, I think that Wong is suggesting that the Core Ships internal heat sinks, it must have considering its huge reactor, are absorbing some of the waste heat.

[Darth Wong]

Is there any specific indicators that the neutrino sinks can just suck up energy from anywhere inside the ship without a problem?

Superconductive hull + heat exchanger system (and most other systems) in physical contact with hull. Hardly an unreasonable conjecture. While the internal components would be destroyed, leakage outside of the hull would be limited by the hull's heat-sink behaviour.

I would argue there was zero evidence of resistence by a shield DURING the first salvo

Obviously, if you believe the ships had no shields, then the SPHA-Ts would have been using much lower power since there is no need to penetrate shields. If you believe the ships had shields, then one must conclude that the shield interaction effects are not visible.

[Alyeska]

Chris, I think that Wong is suggesting that the Core Ships internal heat sinks, it must have considering its huge reactor, are absorbing some of the waste heat.

Those would be placed near the core. And a heat sink doesn't attach to every part of the ship. What isn't protected by the heat sink is fucked, and splash damage still occurs (at least I think it would).

[Darth Wong]

Chris, I think that Wong is suggesting that the Core Ships internal heat sinks, it must have considering its huge reactor, are absorbing some of the waste heat.

Those would be placed near the core. And a heat sink doesn't attach to every part of the ship. What isn't protected by the heat sink is fucked, and splash damage still occurs (at least I think it would).

Correct. However, melted and vapourized debris inside the ship would tend to hit the superconductive hull before flying outside, at which point it transfers most of its internal energy to the hull. As long as there is a functional neutrino radiator system in contact with the hull, this will limit the amount of energy that actually makes it outside the hull, even from damaged and destroyed internal structures.

[Alyeska]

Very interesting. I am rather impressed with such a defensive system.

[Darth Wong]

From a sci-fi writing perspective, the nice thing about the plot device of a superconductive hull is that it still retains some of its damage mitigating properties even if you punch holes in it. You certainly can't say that about a shield generator.

[Alyeska]

Indeed. This is where I definately appreciate Saxton's knowledge of science. He created a very good set of technologies and described them in a very clever fashion within the limitations of observed Star Wars. He also remains quite consistent. Damn, I just can't get over how clever this armor and defense system works. Weather it was shown in AOTC or not is irrelevent, we know it exists and its very well done.

[Stark]

I guess if they can make their entire hull superconductive (whether through applied fields or exotic properties) that does make it easier to accept unexpectedly low visible damage. If we assume the coreships powerplant was in the centre, that neatly explains why the ship wasn't perforated.

Its good to see such effective superconductors (required by the ludicrous power outputs in SW) used in this way. It also means that even without shields, a SW vessel still has remarkable resistance to attack.

[His Divine Shadow]

Here's a thought. Perhaps the controls of the SPHAA/t are precise enough that the weapon fires at full power only precisely long enough to knock down the shields. They'd want to avoid releasing a WMD effect over their own troops, so the beam fires at terraton-level firepower for the fraction of a second it took the 5 SPHAAT's to break the shielding, and then it projected at a significantly lower setting.

Just a thought...

But you still have to deal with the energy required to get through the hull plating, which should still be high enough for any bleedoff to be very noticable.

Should it? The core ships aren't armored at all, they rely on their shields.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

Should it? The core ships aren't armored at all, they rely on their shields.

Really? Hmm... I wasn't aware of that. Alright then, nevermind. And thanks for the info.

[His Divine Shadow]

Should it? The core ships aren't armored at all, they rely on their shields.

Really? Hmm... I wasn't aware of that. Alright then, nevermind. And thanks for the info.

Well after reading more of this thread I am no longer sure about the accuracy of my statement but I thought that was the case from what I've heard.

[Gil Hamilton]

I can understand the Core Ships themselves dispersing heat as neutrinos which is very clever indeed, but air, as a general rule, doesn't have that property. The SPHA-T still had to fire the beam through the air to get to the core ship. It seems rather unlikely that it could be completely transparant to the air but really interactive with solid arm, expecially when you consider just how much dust was floating around that battlefield. Air can be pretty good at being transparant to heat (I'm pretty sure the upper atmosphere, for instance, transmits it like crazy) but dust doesn't tend to be. Given that dust that comes off of rocky plains tends to be itty bitty bits of rock and sand itself IE solid objects on a very small scale, you'd think that even if the beam is transparant to the air itself, chances are that it won't be to the stuff in the air. This is where it's lost me. If gigatons of energy are flowing through the dusty air on Geonosis, how do we not see a major secondary effect with it's passing? If we assume the gun to be an even one gigaton, even a millionth of the energy of the beam getting lose in the air is going to be on the within the same ballpark as the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. That's something we'd notice.

[Illuminatus Primus]

1. Saxton says its transparent to air.

2. Why should it be transparent to microscopic dust? Maybe blasters are like gamma rays or other penetrative radiation and are only absorbed by dense and thick objects.

3. Any dust particle absorbing energy from the stream will quickly vaporize and become transparent to the beam. I doubt Geonosian rock has a high enough heat capacity to remain solid long enough for a microscopic particle of it to absorb a megaton's worth of energy.

[Lancer]

1. Saxton says its transparent to air.

2. Why should it be transparent to microscopic dust? Maybe blasters are like gamma rays or other penetrative radiation and are only absorbed by dense and thick objects.

3. Any dust particle absorbing energy from the stream will quickly vaporize and become transparent to the beam. I doubt Geonosian rock has a high enough heat capacity to remain solid long enough for a microscopic particle of it to absorb a megaton's worth of energy.

if blasters worked like #2, then to beat them you should wear as little as you can and hope that the trace amounts of metal in your body aren't dense and thick enough to absorb energy.

[NecronLord]

One question does spring to mind, on a related note. Why do the shields in TPM cause a visual distortion when used inside an atmosphere, but not do so in AotC?

[Lord Revan]

One question does spring to mind, on a related note. Why do the shields in TPM cause a visual distortion when used inside an atmosphere, but not do so in AotC?

N-1 shields didn't cause any distorsion (except when they were activated in TF battleship hargar).

[Illuminatus Primus]

One question does spring to mind, on a related note. Why do the shields in TPM cause a visual distortion when used inside an atmosphere, but not do so in AotC?

Because the craft are moving. AOTC ICS says volumetric shields tend to confine a visible layer of plasma at an arbitrary "edge" when they remain static.

[Gil Hamilton]

1. Saxton says its transparent to air.

It can't possibly be completely transparant to air, nothing can transmit through a medium perfectly. Air is matter just like anything else they might want to hit with it, so it seems really unlikely that it's totally transparant. However, even if it was totally 100% transparant to air, dust in the air remains a large problem.

2. Why should it be transparent to microscopic dust? Maybe blasters are like gamma rays or other penetrative radiation and are only absorbed by dense and thick objects.

I assume you mean "Why shouldn't it?" Gamma rays are highly penetrative but they don't go through anything without some interaction (for instance, would you like to stand in front of a high energy gamma radiation source, even knowing that most of the gamma rays aren't going to be stopped by you?) And when you throw around numbers like gigatons, even small tiny little interactions are going to be noticable, to say the least.

3. Any dust particle absorbing energy from the stream will quickly vaporize and become transparent to the beam. I doubt Geonosian rock has a high enough heat capacity to remain solid long enough for a microscopic particle of it to absorb a megaton's worth of energy.

It doesn't need to absorb megatons of energy, but it is going to heat up and explode dramatically and take with it some energy from the beam and put it into the general environment. It doesn't need to be a huge percentage; even a millionth of a one gigaton beam could blow up the core of a city or at the very least be, you know, visible and noticable. You really don't need that much to get loose to get a big boom.

[Chris OFarrell]

Is there any specific indicators that the neutrino sinks can just suck up energy from anywhere inside the ship without a problem?

Superconductive hull + heat exchanger system (and most other systems) in physical contact with hull. Hardly an unreasonable conjecture. While the internal components would be destroyed, leakage outside of the hull would be limited by the hull's heat-sink behaviour.

Couple of questions. Is the TFB's hull superconducting? I know Curtis made a point of the Acclamators having it, but did he do so on a TFB? I mean they ARE really just converted civilian ships, not purpose built warships. Beyond that, the beams blew rather large chunks out of the TFB's hull. Especialy as the beams then fired a second salvo into those areas, I would have expected a GREAT deal of blowback out of them. Even if 95% of the energy was sucked up by some kind of omnipresent heat exchanger system on the hull, when your talking about gigaton ranged damage here. 5% of even ONE gigaton would still equate to HUGE energy released into the atmosphere.

I'm just not so sure about this. We don't know if the TFB has a superconducting hull like the Acclamators, the lack of Curtis pointing to one in AOTC:ICS and the converted civilan design makes me dobut it. The ships shield generators almost certianly dump waste heat through a neutrino heat exchanger system fair enough, but they use the shields to collect that energy through the generator. I dobut it can suck it all out directed energy weapons blasting inside the ship. Even if the outer hull is part of the system, the breach isn't and the beams are pooring right through there...and clearly blasting things inside to vapor and slag.

I would argue there was zero evidence of resistence by a shield DURING the first salvo

Obviously, if you believe the ships had no shields, then the SPHA-Ts would have been using much lower power since there is no need to penetrate shields. If you believe the ships had shields, then one must conclude that the shield interaction effects are not visible.

Much lower power? Why? Most EU sources have ships without shields taking just as much punishment without destruction. The hull clearly is within the order of magnitude of how much punishment it can take. We have many examples in the EU of Star Destroyers pounding each other, their shields collapsing, then surviving many more such poundings to their hull. Beyond that, simply look at the sequence of events. YOda tells ALL fire to be combined on the ship and a half dozen SPHA-T's open up firing sustained bursts. If less then total firepower was needed, you would have expected only a single SPHA-T' to fire at somewhat reduced firepower.


When it gets down to it, my point is that I think Curtis is making an unfounded assumption when he says the total power output of a SPHA-T must equate to the total wattage of a TFB's shields, because they were able to bring down that ship. IMO the SPHA-T's wouldn't have a fraction of the power needed to bring down a TFB. I mean the *reactor* on the TFB is far larger then the SPHA-T! If however you suppose the TFB has a relativly weak hull as a converted civilan ship and its shields were not up, then it makes more sense, IMO.

[Illuminatus Primus]

It can't possibly be completely transparant to air, nothing can transmit through a medium perfectly. Air is matter just like anything else they might want to hit with it, so it seems really unlikely that it's totally transparant. However, even if it was totally 100% transparant to air, dust in the air remains a large problem.

Gamma and x-rays are for all basic purposes transparent to air. And saying "it can't" is simply bullshit. They have particle beams which are not affected by gravity. We have observed that blaster weapons do not interact with atmosphere. Period.

I assume you mean "Why shouldn't it?" Gamma rays are highly penetrative but they don't go through anything without some interaction (for instance, would you like to stand in front of a high energy gamma radiation source, even knowing that most of the gamma rays aren't going to be stopped by you?)

Am I as dense as air, moron? Will the air absorb megatons of energy? Even if it was slightly absorbing, the air would quickly heat and ionize and explode away from the central column, creating a vacuum for it to go through. It wouldn't be around long enough to tap off megatons of energy.

And you're still making the mistake of confusing what you think should happen with what is observed. The fact that this does not bother Mike - who has posted in this thread - but does bother you is not lost on me. I trust if there was a major conceptual scientific problem, he would've raised it.

And when you throw around numbers like gigatons, even small tiny little interactions are going to be noticable, to say the least.

No, because as soon as a single molecule of air absorbs x joules, it will ionize and be accelerated out of the beam column. It will not simply sit there, absorbing megatons of energy. That is the most cretinuous thing I've heard today. What do you really think AIR'S heat capacity is, anyway?

It doesn't need to absorb megatons of energy, but it is going to heat up and explode dramatically and take with it some energy from the beam and put it into the general environment. It doesn't need to be a huge percentage; even a millionth of a one gigaton beam could blow up the core of a city or at the very least be, you know, visible and noticable. You really don't need that much to get loose to get a big boom.

"It doesn't need to absorb megatons, but it will absorb megatons."

You are an idiot.

[The Original Nex]

The Star Wars Encyclopedia has noted that Neutronium is one of the metals that makes up the Durasteel/Dura-armor alloy. Anything made of this substance (including most Starship hulls) have Neutronium impregnation.

[Chris OFarrell]

The Star Wars Encyclopedia has noted that Neutronium is one of the metals that makes up the Durasteel/Dura-armor alloy. Anything made of this substance (including most Starship hulls) have Neutronium impregnation.

There appears to be a distinct difference between Neutonium impregnated hulls and simple durasteal hulls. The 'Neutronium' in Durasteal is either not the same thing, or exists in *tiny* quantities in normal armour. I think the Neutronium impregnated idea Curtis once said was supposed to involve tiny veins criscrossing the hull all over the place to conduct energy away. Which would be somewhat different from simple hull materials.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

*snip*

*snip*

What Gil suggests struck me as something akin to atomic bombs igniting the atmosphere...