40,000 Tons = 27.7 Kg.....

[IceHawk-181]

According to Gary the numbers in the Revenge of the Sith ICS do not actually mean what they say….

As the person who wrote Jedi Counseling 94, I can shed some light on the subject. First, I had to make different sources on fuels and consumption rates match up. Star Wars Adventure Journal #5 first introduced the concept of a fuel cell (specifically, the Imperial Mark IV Fuel Cell) along with what 1 fuel cell could do, how many a tramp freighter (in this case, a YT-1300) would hold, and how much they cost to replace (50 credits). Second, the Star Wars Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook (and Revised Core Rulebook) both establish that 1 kg of fuel costs 50 credits. Given this, and starting with the assumption that the fuel in the Core Rulebook is the same as the fuel in fuel cells, it was possible to calculate that a fuel cell holds 1 kg of fuel. After that, I worked from the assumption that for every increase in size category, a ship uses 10 times as much fuel. (A size category is approximately doubled in all dimensions, sometimes a bit more, so it averages out to about a tenfold increase in mass.) From this, and using the rules established in Adventure Journal #6, it was possible to calculate that a Venator would hold 736 fuel cells, a total weight of 73,600 metric tons of fuel.

However, I was keenly aware of the numbers in ROTS:ICS (I'd referenced them extensively when writing the Revenge of the Sith Collection for the Wizards of the Coast website), and I was also aware that the mass annihilation Saxton lists was derived assuming that relatively normal real-world physics were at work (e.g. calculating energy based on the luminance and size of engines, assuming that thrust was emitted at near the speed of light, etc.) -- and, more importantly, his numbers absolutely would not work if they represented "real" weights. (Even assuming that peak power consumption is 24 times faster than normal, meaning it would only have to last 736 hours, it would require fuel stores of 1.06x10^11 metic tons -- that is far too much because the thrust Saxton calculated as being required would no longer be enough to move the ship while it carried that fuel.)

Thus, I concluded that the masses listed in ROTS:ICS were "virtual" mass. Here's how it works (and it's essentially based on the same technology as inertial compensators): The sublight drives on starships (e.g. H-K ion engines, etc.) produce a limited warping of the space-time continuum that makes the starship's mass relative to the rest of the universe much lower than it "really" is; by doing so, the motive thrust provided by a given mass of reaction mass accelerated to a given velocity is multiplied, thereby making absurdly high accelerations (thousands of Gs) over extended periods possible without carrying insane amounts of reaction mass. In this case, the "relative mass gradient" works out to 1.44x10^6-to-1. (As a comparison, this relative mass gradient would allow the real-world space shuttle to reach orbit using about 2.6 pounds of fuel.) So, in conclusion, it's not hypermatter itself at work here -- it's just the complex inner workings of sublight engines themselves that make the relative masses of the ship much lower than that of the reaction mass, and this virtual mass is reported in ROTS:ICS because that's what would traditionally be used for calculating things like specific impulse and so forth.

(Also, in addition to my word as the Jedi Counselor, this is the reasoning I put in comments on the column when it was sent to Leeland and company for approval -- given that they approved it for publication, I'm assuming they agreed that my behind-the-scenes explanation was a reasonable way to justify the two radically different numbers as well as a way to explain the incredibly large numbers in ROTS:ICS.) -- Gary M. Sarli (Jedi Counselor) 00:09, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Talk:Ven ... _Destroyer



Star Wars now has Warp Drive...

[Surlethe]

Star Wars Adventure Journal #5 first introduced the concept of a fuel cell (specifically, the Imperial Mark IV Fuel Cell) along with what 1 fuel cell could do, how many a tramp freighter (in this case, a YT-1300) would hold, and how much they cost to replace (50 credits). Second, the Star Wars Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook (and Revised Core Rulebook) both establish that 1 kg of fuel costs 50 credits. Given this, and starting with the assumption that the fuel in the Core Rulebook is the same as the fuel in fuel cells, it was possible to calculate that a fuel cell holds 1 kg of fuel.

You know, there may be something I don't know, but all I see is that a fuel cell costs 50 credits and a kg of fuel costs 50 credits. I don't see anything that says a fuel cell has to hold 1 kg of fuel. By this logic, if a 2-gallon gas can costs $3.00, and a gallon of gas costs $2.50, a 2-gallon gas can can only hold a little over a gallon of gas.

[Vympel]

Here's a better question- who cares what RPG stats say about unknown fuel cells whatsoever?

[Mange]

Sarli did a good job on the Executor, but this is just... Just look at this:

However, I was keenly aware of the numbers in ROTS:ICS (I'd referenced them extensively when writing the Revenge of the Sith Collection for the Wizards of the Coast website), and I was also aware that the mass annihilation Saxton lists was derived assuming that relatively normal real-world physics were at work (e.g. calculating energy based on the luminance and size of engines, assuming that thrust was emitted at near the speed of light, etc.) -- and, more importantly, his numbers absolutely would not work if they represented "real" weights.

I'd like to see something which refutes that "relatively normal real-world physics were at work" in the movies etc.

[Vympel]

Indeed, it's all mixed-up in this game mechanics discussion on WotC:

Link

[Illuminatus Primus]

Who is surprised? These clowns don't know math or science. Where's Ender? He actually reverse-engineered the math and calcs to get Dr. Saxton's figures, because we obviously can't get him involved. He could show us the beef.

Anyway, why should Saxton's fuel consumption and engine model bend to WoTC bullshit, as opposed to the other way around. Oh yeah, RPG fluff fanboys can understand, physics they cannot. And Sarli is the idiot who decided that the ROTJ visuals portray a DS2 tens of thousands of kilometers from Endor to force a "not 550 mile" diameter figure. He's a moron.

[Connor MacLeod]

Even disregarding the "ton" figures in the ROTS:ICS, we're still left with the reactor output figures in the AOTC:ICS (or are they pulling in imaginary enegy now.)

Moreover, its been a well known fact in the EU for a long time now that SW powerplants don't run solely on the 'fuel cells" they can run on many kinds of power sources (Vympel's got a quote somwhere.) And we further know from the AOTC:ICS (as well as other sources and the OT:ICS) that startships employ multiple, different kinds of powerplants (some supporting each other, such as fusion plants confining hypermatter plants.) so even if he wanted to keep his "fuel cells" there is nothing stating they apply to one kind of reactor solely.

And I bleieve the Acclamator entry on the AOTC:ICS specifies that they utilize highly dense fuel supplies (orders of magnitude denser than the ship's own mass, for that matter.) If you're going to invoke trek-like "mass lightening", why not claim that they're "lightening" the fuel-mass? Its still amounting to the same thing (although the "mass lightening" is really just an extra unknown, since the ship still has to provide the energy to move that mass somehow.)

And if you REALLY want to get pedantic, "fuel" doesn't neccesarily refer to reactor fuel - Sarli seems to be confusing what is annihilated in the reactor along with propellant to move the ships (the "fuel cells" could very well be used as propellant, since he is mainly talking about ion engines, after all.)

[Bounty]

and, more importantly, his numbers absolutely would not work if they represented "real" weights.

Surely this can be double-checked?

[Ender]

and, more importantly, his numbers absolutely would not work if they represented "real" weights.

Surely this can be double-checked?

How to phrase this so that it cannot be taken out of context....

Mr. Sarli has made a number of his own assumptions that he holds must be true because he made them, and is holding on to an old system that is systematically flawed in all its execution, and combining them to achieve the net effect of claiming that Dr. Saxton is wrong. Assumptions are like anything else - put crap into the machine, and crap comes out.

Basically, he made some decisions, and since what Dr. Saxton wrote didn't match with his decisions, he is changing Dr. Saxton's work. The fact that written books are far higher then "what some gut says on an internet page" is going to be irrelevent to a large number of people, and thus make this a pain.

He is correct that if you assume peak power operations for weeks on end that you cannot hold all that fuel. The problem there is that there is no reason at all to believe that to be true, and dozens of good reasons to think otherwise.

The upside is that we have a direct quote as to the e=mc^2 being used for the reactors. The interesting question is how this impact calcs, and how it impacts fuel stowage, which is an issue, but for totally different reasons then Mr. Sarli provides. In fact, his "virtual mass" explanation, aside from being extremely slippery science, compounds the real issues with fuel supplies.

Also, its going to be interesting trying to hammer this into McEwok's head. And it opens a lot of problems with things like coasting through spoace with the engines shut down and planetary impacts, and conservation of energy for liftoffs and just being there.

[Mange]

The upside is that we have a direct quote as to the e=mc^2 being used for the reactors. The interesting question is how this impact calcs, and how it impacts fuel stowage, which is an issue, but for totally different reasons then Mr. Sarli provides. In fact, his "virtual mass" explanation, aside from being extremely slippery science, compounds the real issues with fuel supplies.

Also, its going to be interesting trying to hammer this into McEwok's head. And it opens a lot of problems with things like coasting through spoace with the engines shut down and planetary impacts, and conservation of energy for liftoffs and just being there.

As I mentioned above, Mr. Sarli apparently doesn't think that real-life physics can be applied on Star Wars:

I was also aware that the mass annihilation Saxton lists was derived assuming that relatively normal real-world physics were at work (e.g. calculating energy based on the luminance and size of engines, assuming that thrust was emitted at near the speed of light, etc.) -- and, more importantly, his numbers absolutely would not work if they represented "real" weights.

I'm disappointed, very disappointed, especially with LFL. Why the hell does LFL even bother themselves with continuity editors?

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

and, more importantly, his numbers absolutely would not work if they represented "real" weights.

Surely this can be double-checked?

How to phrase this so that it cannot be taken out of context....

Mr. Sarli has made a number of his own assumptions that he holds must be true because he made them, and is holding on to an old system that is systematically flawed in all its execution, and combining them to achieve the net effect of claiming that Dr. Saxton is wrong. Assumptions are like anything else - put crap into the machine, and crap comes out.

Basically, he made some decisions, and since what Dr. Saxton wrote didn't match with his decisions, he is changing Dr. Saxton's work. The fact that written books are far higher then "what some gut says on an internet page" is going to be irrelevent to a large number of people, and thus make this a pain.

He is correct that if you assume peak power operations for weeks on end that you cannot hold all that fuel. The problem there is that there is no reason at all to believe that to be true, and dozens of good reasons to think otherwise.

The upside is that we have a direct quote as to the e=mc^2 being used for the reactors. The interesting question is how this impact calcs, and how it impacts fuel stowage, which is an issue, but for totally different reasons then Mr. Sarli provides. In fact, his "virtual mass" explanation, aside from being extremely slippery science, compounds the real issues with fuel supplies.

Also, its going to be interesting trying to hammer this into McEwok's head. And it opens a lot of problems with things like coasting through spoace with the engines shut down and planetary impacts, and conservation of energy for liftoffs and just being there.

McEwok? He's going to disregard any hammering anyway. The fella sticks to his own guns even when the ship is burning. He's a first class idiot of the worse sort.

[Illuminatus Primus]

I'm disappointed, very disappointed, especially with LFL. Why the hell does LFL even bother themselves with continuity editors?

Because LFL - the EU departments anyway - are going the way of Paramount, B&B and the Enterprise shitbox. Same symptoms of stupidity and open whoring to the most loony extreme of the fanbase, expecting them to prop them up rather than trying to produce quality and keep a broad spectrum. Same stuff right down the middle.

Not to mention, they care about issues they think the fans will be upset by. So they freak over some bullshit about Mandalorians or other fanboy crap and any mention of "toast" or "earth" rather than the basic sci-fi premises behind the wondrous technology in SW. Its also a harder job to keep continuity there solid because such premises influence everything from space battles, transit times, and logistical complexity. Whereas Mandalorian crap only effects those crap stories.

[Mange]

And Sarli is the idiot who decided that the ROTJ visuals portray a DS2 tens of thousands of kilometers from Endor to force a "not 550 mile" diameter figure. He's a moron.

Sorry, I missed this post, but was that him? I can't say that I'm surprised...

[Braedley]

As the person who wrote Jedi Counseling 94, I can shed some light on the subject. First, I had to make different sources on fuels and consumption rates match up. Star Wars Adventure Journal #5 first introduced the concept of a fuel cell (specifically, the Imperial Mark IV Fuel Cell) along with what 1 fuel cell could do, how many a tramp freighter (in this case, a YT-1300) would hold, and how much they cost to replace (50 credits). Second, the Star Wars Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook (and Revised Core Rulebook) both establish that 1 kg of fuel costs 50 credits. Given this, and starting with the assumption that the fuel in the Core Rulebook is the same as the fuel in fuel cells, it was possible to calculate that a fuel cell holds 1 kg of fuel. After that, I worked from the assumption that for every increase in size category, a ship uses 10 times as much fuel. (A size category is approximately doubled in all dimensions, sometimes a bit more, so it averages out to about a tenfold increase in mass.) From this, and using the rules established in Adventure Journal #6, it was possible to calculate that a Venator would hold 736 fuel cells, a total weight of 73,600 metric tons of fuel.

Hmm, there seems to be a disconnect here. That's 5 magnitudes off.

Just thought I'd point that out.

[Stark]

He's using his made-up 'roleplaying size categories = magnitude increase because of my appalling scaling work' assumption too.

[Batman]

He seems to be working on the assumption that the size of the fuel cell goes up right along with the size of the ship. Even if that isn't completely baseless (I neither know nor care about the SW RPG stuff) which I rather suspect it is as already pointed out by others this has no bearing on Saxton's numbers.

[Darth Wong]

In other words, his argument boils down to "I think Saxton's numbers violate the laws of physics as I understand them, so I'm going to make up some new laws of physics, and correct those numbers. Of course, I'm going to ignore the fact that if it's OK to make up new laws of physics, I have no basis upon which to deny the validity of Saxton's figures".

[Lord Poe]

This is yet another immature attempt to "keep everything-throw nothing out" that has anything to do with Star Wars. So DEFINITIVE SOURCES (as it says on the DK books) have to now be downgraded in favor of making them gel with out of date RPG material that has been CORRECTED.

I'm so sick of this shit I feel like feeding a bonfire with every Star Wars related book I've wasted good money on over the years.

[Illuminatus Primus]

I'm right w/ Poe. God these geeks are so out to lunch its not even funny, thinking that the literal content of the narrative needs to conform to the conventions and mechanics of a role-playing game spun-off from a franchise. They need real educations, jobs, and friends.

It doesn't make the slightest bit of intuitive sense. Why not just say "for the purposes of modeling the range of warships in the official SW RPG..."?

[Mange]

As the person who wrote Jedi Counseling 94, I can shed some light on the subject. First, I had to make different sources on fuels and consumption rates match up. Star Wars Adventure Journal #5 first introduced the concept of a fuel cell (specifically, the Imperial Mark IV Fuel Cell) along with what 1 fuel cell could do, how many a tramp freighter (in this case, a YT-1300) would hold, and how much they cost to replace (50 credits). Second, the Star Wars Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook (and Revised Core Rulebook) both establish that 1 kg of fuel costs 50 credits. Given this, and starting with the assumption that the fuel in the Core Rulebook is the same as the fuel in fuel cells, it was possible to calculate that a fuel cell holds 1 kg of fuel. After that, I worked from the assumption that for every increase in size category, a ship uses 10 times as much fuel. (A size category is approximately doubled in all dimensions, sometimes a bit more, so it averages out to about a tenfold increase in mass.) From this, and using the rules established in Adventure Journal #6, it was possible to calculate that a Venator would hold 736 fuel cells, a total weight of 73,600 metric tons of fuel.

Hmm, there seems to be a disconnect here. That's 5 magnitudes off.

Just thought I'd point that out.

I must be out of it, I don't see that...

[Cykeisme]

As the person who wrote Jedi Counseling 94, I can shed some light on the subject. First, I had to make different sources on fuels and consumption rates match up. Star Wars Adventure Journal #5 first introduced the concept of a fuel cell (specifically, the Imperial Mark IV Fuel Cell) along with what 1 fuel cell could do, how many a tramp freighter (in this case, a YT-1300) would hold, and how much they cost to replace (50 credits). Second, the Star Wars Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook (and Revised Core Rulebook) both establish that 1 kg of fuel costs 50 credits. Given this, and starting with the assumption that the fuel in the Core Rulebook is the same as the fuel in fuel cells, it was possible to calculate that a fuel cell holds 1 kg of fuel. After that, I worked from the assumption that for every increase in size category, a ship uses 10 times as much fuel. (A size category is approximately doubled in all dimensions, sometimes a bit more, so it averages out to about a tenfold increase in mass.) From this, and using the rules established in Adventure Journal #6, it was possible to calculate that a Venator would hold 736 fuel cells, a total weight of 73,600 metric tons of fuel.

Hmm, there seems to be a disconnect here. That's 5 magnitudes off.

Just thought I'd point that out.

I must be out of it, I don't see that...

1 fuel cell weighs 1kg, so 736 fuel cells should weigh 736kg, or 7.36x10^2 kg.

Instead, the second statement says they weigh 73,600 tons, which is 73,600,000, or 7.36x10^7 kg.

Five orders of magnitude off.


Apparently fuel cells for ships in a bigger size class are supposed to be different sizes though, so in this particular regard it's not a mistake, just a dumb way of classifying things. In all other issues mentioned here, it's still pretty dumb.
Sarli should've gotten someone with a grasp of physics to help him reconcile RPG rules with the way the universe works, rather than trying to do it himself. With help, an elegant solution might have been discovered.

[Ender]

1) Its not necessarily off, he states they go up by a factor of ten for each increase in ship class. I'd have to look at the respective classes to check that he has the right values there, but I wouldn't label it an error there yet (particularily as there are more flagarent errors elsewhere there)

2) I want to point out right now the counterargument to anyone trying to claim this as canon fact: If information used to support an argument for things that are canon is now canon despite having never been published, this means everything on SWTC is now canon, as that is the listing of supporting arguments for everything Dr. Saxton published.

And if you want to stretch that, since Mike was credited with aiding Dr Saxton on most pages of his site and thanked in the end of the books, that would mean SDN is canon as well. And since SDN is canon, then taking this to its illogical extreme, what we post here is canon.

Which means I'm going to take this oppertunity to state with canon authority there are 300 quadrillion clones in the GAR.

Or, you know, we could realize that what some guy posts in a wiki is just that - what he posted in a wiki, and carries no canon authority and serves only to make him look like a fool. Which is really why the internet exists anyways. Well, that and for looking at porn.

[Mange]

Here's the fuel cell size from the Wizards site.

Code: Select all

Size:           Fuel cell holds:     
Up to Small         1 kg 	
Medium 	         10 kg 
Large 	           100 kg 
Huge 	            1,000 kg (1 ton) 	
Gargantuan         10,000 kg (10 tons) 	
Colossal 	     100,000 kg (100 tons)

That might work as game mechanics, but to try to push this further...

Or, you know, we could realize that what some guy posts in a wiki is just that - what he posted in a wiki, and carries no canon authority and serves only to make him look like a fool. Which is really why the internet exists anyways. Well, that and for looking at porn.

Remember that Chee approved this...

[Darth Wong]

Chee approved it but that doesn't mean it makes sense, and EU material which makes no sense has always been ignored (remember the 5 mile SSD or the idiotic claim that the construction of the Executor nearly bankrupted the Empire?)

The fact is that while "complex mass", aka hypermatter is an idea that is not supportable by science, the math at least works out and it doesn't overtly violate anything. I suspect that Sarli doesn't really understand what he's writing, because all he's really done is take "complex mass" or "hypermatter", add some totally unnecessary and remarkably uncreative technobabble (lifted directly from Star Trek, I might add) to it, and then re-label it "virtual mass" instead of "complex mass". He seems to think he's solved a problem, but the problem was already solved. All he did was slap a new name on it and add technobabble which he copied from Star Trek. Only now we have to explain how you can annihilate "virtual mass" in order to get real energy.

The conundrum exists in Star Wars regardless of whether you want to acknowledge it; the Death Star and other supervessels can generate energy that is unreasonably large in relation to their apparent mass. Adding space-warping capabilities to every Star Wars vessel doesn't solve this problem; it only creates more side-effects which we should observe but don't. At the end of the day, you only have two choices:

1) Some kind of fuel source which is not visible or apparent in the vessel's inertia (Saxton's idea). Best stated as a simple premise, without acting like a Trek writer and trying to make up technobabble explanations of exactly how it works.

2) Fuel which makes much more than 9E16 J/kg when annihilated.

Both Saxton and Sarli went for option #1, but Sarli ignored the fact that Saxton had already done this and made up his own version of #1 but with totally unnecessary technobabble added. This has long been a problem with Trek and people who have watched too much Trek; they think that a sci-fi idea is improved by trying to explain exactly how it works. In reality the opposite is true; trying to explain how it works only creates more questions than it answers.

[Mange]

Chee approved it but that doesn't mean it makes sense, and EU material which makes no sense has always been ignored (remember the 5 mile SSD or the idiotic claim that the construction of the Executor nearly bankrupted the Empire?)

Yes, that was more or less my point. Unfortunately, it seems as if more and more SW authors are rewriting and changing what has already been established in order to make things fit their own (in the cases we've seen, totally baseless) assumptions on what things should be like. We've seen it with Traviss and now we've seen it with Sarli and the continuity editors are going along with it. I don't understand what they're for anyway as I thought that the whole point with having a continuity was to try and protect that continuity instead of changing it on the whim of an author.