phasers vs. droidikas

Phyre · Post by **Phyre** » 2005-06-12 10:13pm

18-Till-I-Die wrote:This is a bit off topic but what Winston mentioned about cutting through that door, made me think of something, and i didnt want to start a new thread...

Are lightsabers solid? I mean, lets asume you have a thick door made of a material that would be resistant to a lightsaber, like phrink or something, and you held a lightsaber blade between the blastdoor as it closes...would the lightsaber be 'broken' by this, or disrupted, or would it shut down or explode or what?

So, are they solid, or are they light or what? Can the actual blade be 'damaged' or disrupted, or even destroyed?

Only one material can block a saber... That's cortosis ore, and it disrupts the saber and shuts it down. Saber's create a field of pure energy

Noble Ire · Post by **Noble Ire** » 2005-06-12 10:19pm

Only one material can block a saber... That's cortosis ore, and it disrupts the saber and shuts it down. Saber's create a field of pure energy

Two materials actually. Phirk, which is used in Magnaguard force staffs and Dark Trooper armor, can block Lightsabers like they are physical blades (and Cortosis weave does the same thing, only Cortosis ore deactivates.)

Phyre · Post by **Phyre** » 2005-06-13 01:09am

Pure Sabacc wrote:
Only one material can block a saber... That's cortosis ore, and it disrupts the saber and shuts it down. Saber's create a field of pure energy
Two materials actually. Phirk, which is used in Magnaguard force staffs and Dark Trooper armor, can block Lightsabers like they are physical blades (and Cortosis weave does the same thing, only Cortosis ore deactivates.)

Pardon, I cede to your knowledge.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2005-06-13 10:43am

Phyre wrote:Only one material can block a saber... That's cortosis ore, and it disrupts the saber and shuts it down. Saber's create a field of pure energy

Overriden by canon. Vader's armour (probably Phrik) is one of the more logical things.

Less logical things include the floors of Naboo's reactors, Dooku's ship's hull, stone floors on Geonosis, the railings of the Emperor's Throne Room, and numerous other incidents in the canonical films.

It's an EU brainbug that they slice through everything. The penetration abilities of a lightsaber depend entirely on how much force is applied and how much energy is in the cell. There is nothing that a lightsaber can destroy that a high grade blaster can not. Nothing.

Nothing at all.

Noble Ire · Post by **Noble Ire** » 2005-06-13 05:20pm

Less logical things include the floors of Naboo's reactors, Dooku's ship's hull, stone floors on Geonosis, the railings of the Emperor's Throne Room, and numerous other incidents in the canonical films.

It's an EU brainbug that they slice through everything. The penetration abilities of a lightsaber depend entirely on how much force is applied and how much energy is in the cell. There is nothing that a lightsaber can destroy that a high grade blaster can not. Nothing.

Nothing at all.

I think the lightsaber resistant aspect of certain materials is more of an ability to hold up better under a concentrated lightsaber push (ie the TF battleship blast door.) Lightsabers have been shown to be able to cut through pure Cortosis Ore given enough time and effort(VOTF.) Undoubtedly if the blast door had been made out of Phrink or Cortosis, the cut would have taken longer, but it still would have penetrated.

Lone_Prodigy · Post by **Lone_Prodigy** » 2005-06-13 09:35pm

Pure Sabacc wrote:I think the lightsaber resistant aspect of certain materials is more of an ability to hold up better under a concentrated lightsaber push (ie the TF battleship blast door.) Lightsabers have been shown to be able to cut through pure Cortosis Ore given enough time and effort(VOTF.) Undoubtedly if the blast door had been made out of Phrink or Cortosis, the cut would have taken longer, but it still would have penetrated.

That is Cortosis Ore, which turns off the blade (the miniscule time lag allows a cut to be made– but only a couple of centimeters deep). Refined Cortosis has been shown to repel lightsaber blades like real blades without turning them off (KotOR sword blades).

Noble Ire · Post by **Noble Ire** » 2005-06-13 09:49pm

That is Cortosis Ore, which turns off the blade (the miniscule time lag allows a cut to be made– but only a couple of centimeters deep). Refined Cortosis has been shown to repel lightsaber blades like real blades without turning them off (KotOR sword blades).

How is this different from what I said? I fully understand the concept of refined, or "woven" cortosis (look up a few posts.)

Trooper TK12746 · Post by **Trooper TK12746** » 2005-06-13 10:16pm

He said it would just shut it off. And what is this about Vader's armor being made of Phrik alloy?

And i think you forgot, amphistaffs block lightsabers too.

Grandmaster Jogurt · Post by **Grandmaster Jogurt** » 2005-06-13 10:20pm

Trooper TK12746 wrote:And i think you forgot, amphistaffs block lightsabers too.

IIRC that's from a forcefield they emit, not a property of the materials involved.

Trooper TK12746 · Post by **Trooper TK12746** » 2005-06-13 10:24pm

But, the amphistaffs do block lightsabers, regardless of how they do it. It does mean however that the creature that makes up the amphistaff doesn't have some sort of uber skin or something.

Grandmaster Jogurt · Post by **Grandmaster Jogurt** » 2005-06-13 10:36pm

Alright. The discussion was on materials that blocked lightsabres, so I got confused and thought you were saying that amphistaff skin fell under this category.

Trooper TK12746 · Post by **Trooper TK12746** » 2005-06-13 10:40pm

That would be just plain stupid. A skin that blocks lightsabers? Ridiculous.

Noble Ire · Post by **Noble Ire** » 2005-06-13 10:45pm

Trooper TK12746 wrote:That would be just plain stupid. A skin that blocks lightsabers? Ridiculous.

There are several examples of animals in the SW galaxy whose skin is able to repel blaster bolts. Rancors and Krayt Dragons come to mind. Why would this be much different?

Lone_Prodigy · Post by **Lone_Prodigy** » 2005-06-14 04:40am

Pure Sabacc wrote:
Trooper TK12746 wrote:That would be just plain stupid. A skin that blocks lightsabers? Ridiculous.
There are several examples of animals in the SW galaxy whose skin is able to repel blaster bolts. Rancors and Krayt Dragons come to mind. Why would this be much different?

Resist, my friend, resist. They can absorb quite some damage but blasters of sufficient firepower can still gut them. In the Courtship of Princess Leia a Rancor was gunned down by an AT-AT (coincidentally causing her mother to go apeshit and rip the AT-AT a new one), and in Tales from Jabba's Palace a bounty hunter killed a Krayt Dragon by shooting it right between the eyes from point-blank range (by climbing up its horns).

Trooper TK12746 · Post by **Trooper TK12746** » 2005-06-14 08:07am

There are no known organisms that are completely impervious to blaster bolts or lightsabers (outside of the NJO, that is).

The Grim Squeaker · Post by **The Grim Squeaker** » 2005-06-14 09:47am

NecronLord wrote:
Phyre wrote:Only one material can block a saber... That's cortosis ore, and it disrupts the saber and shuts it down. Saber's create a field of pure energy
Overriden by canon. Vader's armour (probably Phrik) is one of the more logical things.

Less logical things include the floors of Naboo's reactors, Dooku's ship's hull, stone floors on Geonosis, the railings of the Emperor's Throne Room, and numerous other incidents in the canonical films.

It's an EU brainbug that they slice through everything. The penetration abilities of a lightsaber depend entirely on how much force is applied and how much energy is in the cell. There is nothing that a lightsaber can destroy that a high grade blaster can not. Nothing.

Nothing at all.

Te entirety of the Emperors paace is lined with cotosis ore, considering his paranoia he might have done so in the death star in case he felt like a little TK was in order.

Also while a lightsaber can cut through nearly anythig it takes time to do so and is less effective against very thick or dense materials.

The Spartan · Post by **The Spartan** » 2005-06-14 11:01am

the .303 bookworm wrote:Te entirety of the Emperors paace is lined with cotosis ore, considering his paranoia he might have done so in the death star in case he felt like a little TK was in order.

Source on this?

The Grim Squeaker · Post by **The Grim Squeaker** » 2005-06-14 11:31am

The Spartan wrote:
the .303 bookworm wrote:The entirety of the Emperors palace is lined with cortosis ore, considering his paranoia he might have done so in the death star in case he felt like a little TK was in order.
Source on this?

One of Timothy Zhaans books, cant rememmber which.

Trooper TK12746 · Post by **Trooper TK12746** » 2005-06-14 03:14pm

I know it was part of the original Thrawn trilogy, I think it was in Dark Force Rising, Mara was talking to Luke

The Grim Squeaker · Post by **The Grim Squeaker** » 2005-06-14 04:58pm

Trooper TK12746 wrote:I know it was part of the original Thrawn trilogy, I think it was in Dark Force Rising, Mara was talking to Luke

That's the one, she was talking about the little "suprises" Palpatine had in his palace to squish any uppity jedi

Noble Ire · Post by **Noble Ire** » 2005-06-14 05:14pm

Trooper TK12746 wrote:There are no known organisms that are completely impervious to blaster bolts or lightsabers (outside of the NJO, that is).

None of the YV organisms are impervious to blasters. Yorik Coral obviously isnt, Voodun Crab Arm is described as being holed by YVK blaster fire, and there have been several occasions when a lightsaber has cut off a sword-form Amphistaff's head.

Trooper TK12746 · Post by **Trooper TK12746** » 2005-06-14 09:47pm

I was just being on the safe side, I couldn't remeber if there was anything the Vong had that was completely impervious to blasters.

THEHOOLIGANJEDI · Post by **THEHOOLIGANJEDI** » 2005-07-05 06:57pm

Ender wrote: That said, I wouldn't give your average redshirt very good odds in gettng a chance to shoot it, I think the droid would smoke them too fast. Remember, the only reliable strategy the Jedi could come up with to handle these things consists of RUN!

Well in the case of the Jedi it is mostly b/c it's a standoff situation that would keep them more occupied that they would have wanted. (Qui Gon states that it was a standoff) But, Like most of you say, the Redshirts are pretty screwed even if their weapons could "do the Trick".

The Silence and I · Post by **The Silence and I** » 2005-07-06 01:42pm

On topic...

(By the way, I am ignoring the practical reality of such a situation, I am only dealing with a droid that sits there and takes the fire)

Those shields are designed to repel blaster side arms, now I don't know what numbers are floating around for blaster side arm settings but I do know that dialog has given TNG phaser rifles a power output of roughly 2 MW, max. Given the nature of phaser operation my guess is that this power is used to generate a particle stream as well as a suspension matrix of some kind allowing the exotic particles (making material vanish is fairly exotic I'd say

) to exist long enough to reach their target. This is a technobabble way to say that since phasers are not DET the 2 MW figure is more or less useless, except to tell us how much power a phaser can consume.

So a 2 MW shield might be easily pierced by a phaser or it might repel it indefinately. The only exceptions I can think of are the thermal settings--assuming the particles stream hits the target and decays into thermal energy to accomplish the rapid heating of rocks then it could be said that with the correct setting a phaser could deliver 2 MW in a roundabout DET fashion to a shield or a material.

Any other setting would be a complete gamble though, and I can only speculate at best about the nature of the thermal setting anyway.

So, since blasters are generally thought to be more powerful than phasers I'd say that a shielded droid is immune to a single phaser at the very least, and an unshielded droid might react very differently on different settings, but some of those settings ought to be effective. Just might take a few redshirts before the correct setting is discovered...

In other words, much like a blaster--the shielded droid is immune and the unshielded droid may be damaged if not destroyed with a few hits.