Questions about SD.net

[Vympel]

In regards to DBZ (not BDZ) I get the impression that you act as if this is somehow 'unfair'. It is an official occurence, restated time and again. Darkstar gets around this by trying to throw out the entire EU as invalid by taking *one* Lucas quote out of context. Mike Wong beat him over the head with this in their debate (if you read it, the nature of Darkstar is made clear).

In order to derive figures, you must look at all of the evidence, not just some of it. That's what pisses me off when someone comes on this board with ICS-whines, ESPECIALLY when they claim Dr Saxton just pulled it out of his ass. Have you read Slave Ship? The word gigaton is actually used. Have you examined all the Base Delta Zero incidents? Have you seen the firepower deployed by Slave I in AOTC?

Instead, you've come up with a single incident of the Executor firing at the Medical Frigate, and extrapolated that to infinity to conlude that because these weapons destroyed asteroids in ESB, then not only is that the limit of their power, but these weapons must be effective against capital ships, because they were being used, even though the Medical Frigate is undamaged, and the only ship we see getting destroyed is via HTL fire.

[Master of Ossus]

I lost track of your original idea, I believe it was the one about using the official numbers for reactor output to find suggestive power amounts for the weapons, or was that HDS?
Either way I have yet to do those calculations. It's monday and I'm lucky I can think straight.

Try to pay attention, this time. Take the volume of the firing mechanism of Han's blaster rifle, and volume of the Death Star's superlaser (about one sixth of the station). Calculate, then, what the exponent is for the increase in firepower as the volume of the weapon increases, and then find out that the figures Doctor Saxton used are conservative for firepower.

However I have been bouncing back and forth between SD.net and the ST vs SW site to gather some information. Whoever runs the latter site, Darkstar is int?, puts forth a few good points. However he also has a massive bias gainst SW and clearly shows that bias in some of his figures. Same thing with Wong, but less so with the bias showing through with the numbers. Wong based his high-end calculations on the DBZ quotes. Strangely enough though there is an EU situation Wong listed that matches my figures almost perfectly. So I have to take a better look at that before I start throwing exact numbers about.

That would be Mr. Anderson. He has almost no good points. Just, trust me on this. I will strike him down with part of my hatred, and DarkStar's journey into disrepute will be complete. Seriously, there is almost nothing that you can learn from Anderson's site, legitimately. If you don't believe me, you can ask one of our resident "Trekkies" about Mr. Anderson to see what they think, but the consensus is clear.

[His Divine Shadow]

As we have seen from the Tanitive IV scene

I'll continue to speak for you here.
As we have seen from the Tanitive IV scene, we saw that both light and medium weapons fired on the Tantive IV, towards the end the heavy trench gun fired once and a few shots later the Tantive IV's shields where down.

We do not know about the power of medium weapons, or even light onesfor that matter, medium ones like the two found on the ventral sides of both ISD1 & 2 can be dozens of gigatons a piece, the trench-guns on the ISD1 even higher, laser cannons on ISD's have shown good indication of being even dozens of MT a shot.

and the Neb-B vs SSD scene each ship uses it's lighter weapons, even when facing a much stronger opponent.

Correction, as I've pointed out, and you have not seen fit to reject, it MIGHT have been using it's lighter weapons, but as we've seen even medium/heavy weapons like the trench-gun on the ISD1 does not make
But the point is moot because not even it's heavy weapons would have even scratched the Exeuctor.

For all we know about that particular ISD it's shields could have been weakened by concentrated lighter weapons fire before the HTL's brought in the final blow

For all we know it could have taken several broadsides, of which ISD's can take several, reference shield calcs on this board, stickied in the vs. forum IIRC

[IceHawk-151]

Han's Blaster is a smaller, though relatively heavy side arm. It is meant to fire about 25 high powered shots meant to blast through Stormie armor. The blaster fires Red Bolts from a single central chamber fed from a battery pack.
The Death Star's Superlaser is meant to destroy a planet outright. It fires a single, long green beam that comes from the combination of 10 smaller beams fed by a huge central reactor. Also there is a definte pulsing effect for the DS's superlaser beam, something we see no where else.
This would tell me that, other than the fact that both are energy delivery systems, the two mechanisms themselves have no true correllation between them. They aren't related in anything more than the most remote way. Thusly why would one scale up from a blaster?

It's BDZ, I had a typo somewhere back the line and wrote DBZ. And as far as the DBZ goes, well the information seems to be a bit inconclusive.
The quotes about DBZ operations give vauge definitions of damage, vague or no time tables for operational time, and very little information about what types and how many ships are capable of this. None of the quotes give dead on evidence, and it seems any power limits derived from those quotes would depend entirely on the interpretation of those quotes. Although the DBZ Operation can give us a vague idea about vessel firepower, it doesn't seem any true numbers can be derived from it.

Slave Ship mentions a "multi-gigaton" recoil from a weapon that supposedly fires near massless particles (Or so SD.net says). It also says that the "multi-gigaton" recoil could have ripped apart the ship. A problem I have with this is I fail to understand how the acceleration of massless particles results in a "multi-gigaton" force.

[Darth Servo]

A problem I have with this is I fail to understand how the acceleration of massless particles results in a "multi-gigaton" force.

Simple. Even massless photons have momentum.

[His Divine Shadow]

This would tell me that, other than the fact that both are energy delivery systems, the two mechanisms themselves have no true correllation between them.

OTOH, the Death Stars hypermatter reactor and the hypermatter reactors in ISD's and other larger ships are the same tech and same principle

Although the DBZ Operation can give us a vague idea about vessel firepower, it doesn't seem any true numbers can be derived from it.

Coupling it with the larger majority of evidence and it gives a general direction, or atleast supports the idea of the planet being slagged.

A problem I have with this is I fail to understand how the acceleration of massless particles results in a "multi-gigaton" force.

Then maybe you're not exactly the best person to be questioning the science in use here.

[Master of Ossus]

Han's Blaster is a smaller, though relatively heavy side arm. It is meant to fire about 25 high powered shots meant to blast through Stormie armor. The blaster fires Red Bolts from a single central chamber fed from a battery pack.
The Death Star's Superlaser is meant to destroy a planet outright. It fires a single, long green beam that comes from the combination of 10 smaller beams fed by a huge central reactor. Also there is a definte pulsing effect for the DS's superlaser beam, something we see no where else.
This would tell me that, other than the fact that both are energy delivery systems, the two mechanisms themselves have no true correllation between them. They aren't related in anything more than the most remote way. Thusly why would one scale up from a blaster?

Okay, fine. Do the volume of the power storage systems, then. The power regulator on the "North Tower," in DS2 does nicely for this. Calculate the volume stored in both, and then find out how much energy we can reasonably expect the two weapons to have available. Finding the volume of the power generation/storage devices of the two weapons is more difficult, but possible using the ICS. Do so. Find out that Saxton's figures are ENORMOUSLY conservative.

BTW, the two "different" delivery systems (according to the EU) is bullshit. The two weapons use the same basic turbolaser technology, however even if it were not true it would not matter at all, because it would still indicate the power delivery systems of the SW universe.

[IceHawk-151]

1) Hold on a second there MoO, thanks for pointing this out. Power Generation and Power Storage are two completly different things. The Death Star Super Laser as well as Turbolasers are all powered by reactors that generate the energy. Blasters work off a stored power source that has no part in generating the energy. Knowing the volume of the Blaster's Battery tells us nothing about the possible energy generation of Imperial Reactors. I fail to see how scaling up anything from Han's Blaster can give us viable numbers for Capital Ship Energy ouputs.

And I highly doubt using numbers out of a book I am currently criticisizing would lend any help in my direction.

2) The EU also implies in certain cases that the reason that Ion Cannons can peirce Imperial Shields is beacuse they operate on a seperate frequency. It says that Imperial Ships can "adjust" their Ray Shielding to stop Ion Cannons, but doing so would make them useless against Turbolasers. It also says that the SSD, which is 8KM long, has Heavy Cannons that start massive forest fires instead of leveling acres of foiliage and Temples made of stone... Get my point.

3) I do acknowledge that the Hyper Reators in a Star Destroyer and in the Death Star operate off of the same premise and technology. However we do not know HOW the Energy is generated. Is it possible that the volume of the reactor is directly related to power output. Infact that may be the case. But what is that direct realtionship? Was there an improvement in efficiency that allowed the DS Rector to be much smaller than it should be? Or is the Reator simply an ISD power source with a multiplier of a coupl orders of magnitutde?

4) BDZ
WHat majority of evidence? It seems to me there is as much evidence against the BDZ claim as there is evidence for it.

5) "Then maybe you're not exactly the best person to be questioning the science in use here." -HDS
Well you seem to be well versed in science, why don't you explain it to me.
The only calaculations I could find about it were these:
Impulse = Force * Time = change Momentum
Momentum = Mass * Velocity

[Master of Ossus]

1) Hold on a second there MoO, thanks for pointing this out. Power Generation and Power Storage are two completly different things. The Death Star Super Laser as well as Turbolasers are all powered by reactors that generate the energy. Blasters work off a stored power source that has no part in generating the energy. Knowing the volume of the Blaster's Battery tells us nothing about the possible energy generation of Imperial Reactors. I fail to see how scaling up anything from Han's Blaster can give us viable numbers for Capital Ship Energy ouputs.

Your point is not only bullshit, but it is also a red herring. Knowing the firepower of Han's blaster, and the firepower of the DS, we can easily calculate SW's ability to CHANNEL AND DELIVER energy. How can you not recognize this? Are you being intentionally deceitful and annoying?

Moreover, since according to ALL official sources, the DS must charge its weapon for a brief period of time, we KNOW that it needs to store power. Do the math with the power storage, using the power regulator on the North Tower, and the power-pack in Han's blaster like I asked you to. All you do is run around crying that the simple calculations I keep asking you to do don't mean anything, when in fact they do. Why don't you run a calculation, rather than creating large numbers of escape clauses that allow you to either avoid doing the math, or to disregard the results of the math I asked you to do.

And I highly doubt using numbers out of a book I am currently criticisizing would lend any help in my direction.

What are you talking about? I asked you to run math based on canonical and official data from a multitude of sources. You haven't done it. All you do is run around screaming that the calculations won't be EXACTLY accurate, when I never claimed they were! I'm saying that, done this way, Saxton's numbers are conservative. You have continuously ignored my point.

2) The EU also implies in certain cases that the reason that Ion Cannons can peirce Imperial Shields is beacuse they operate on a seperate frequency. It says that Imperial Ships can "adjust" their Ray Shielding to stop Ion Cannons, but doing so would make them useless against Turbolasers. It also says that the SSD, which is 8KM long, has Heavy Cannons that start massive forest fires instead of leveling acres of foiliage and Temples made of stone... Get my point.

Source for this information? In any case, the SSD example is TOTALLY irrelevent, as it has been disproven by canon data. Why the hell do Trekkies like yourself continuously claim that this disproves the validity of the entire EU? This is such an obvious leap in logic I cannot, honestly, see how anyone could make such a mistake. Again, are you purposely being deceitful, or are you ACTUALLY this confused and incapable of thinking for yourself? Second, the forest fires started by the SSD might have been planet-encompassing. Finally, SSD's have done a hell of a lot more damage than this in the past, both in the EU and in canonical accounts. Again, address the BDZ issue. How is this possible with the firepower you keep claiming?

3) I do acknowledge that the Hyper Reators in a Star Destroyer and in the Death Star operate off of the same premise and technology. However we do not know HOW the Energy is generated. Is it possible that the volume of the reactor is directly related to power output. Infact that may be the case. But what is that direct realtionship? Was there an improvement in efficiency that allowed the DS Rector to be much smaller than it should be? Or is the Reator simply an ISD power source with a multiplier of a coupl orders of magnitutde?

IF YOU HAD RUN THE GODDAMNED CALCULATIONS I ASKED YOU TO DO SEVERAL TIMES, YOU WOULD KNOW THE ANSWER TO YOUR QUESTION. Like most power generators, the hypermatter reactors gain exponentially more power-generation abilities as they grow in size. Had you run the calculations I keep asking you to do, you would know the frickin' answer to this question and wouldn't have to keep annoying people with it. Moreover, it is irrelevent that we do now know exactly how power is generated. We know enough from what we can see. Why don't you understand this?

4) BDZ
WHat majority of evidence? It seems to me there is as much evidence against the BDZ claim as there is evidence for it.

Wrong. The BDZ has been established by MULTIPLE EU sources. It is part of the STORY of the EU, as opposed to a simple statement that was made once. It has been in numerous accounts, from three short stories to four novels to the ICS to a sourcebook. What evidence is there that a BDZ cannot happen?

5) "Then maybe you're not exactly the best person to be questioning the science in use here." -HDS
Well you seem to be well versed in science, why don't you explain it to me.
The only calaculations I could find about it were these:
Impulse = Force * Time = change Momentum
Momentum = Mass * Velocity

Maybe you should go look something up in a text-book, rather than trying to concoct farcical escape clauses for yourself, or ordering us to do math for you.

[His Divine Shadow]

2) The EU also implies in certain cases that the reason that Ion Cannons can peirce Imperial Shields is beacuse they operate on a seperate frequency. It says that Imperial Ships can "adjust" their Ray Shielding to stop Ion Cannons, but doing so would make them useless against Turbolasers. It also says that the SSD, which is 8KM long, has Heavy Cannons that start massive forest fires instead of leveling acres of foiliage and Temples made of stone... Get my point.

Yes, I am getting that you are IGNORING my points outright!
No, you have to be ignoring years of debate to miss this since every last vs. debater knows these facts.

1) Forrest fires immediatly visisble from high orbit(scale unknown)
2) Strips of jungle dissapearing with single shots, visisble from high orbit again(scale unknown, but given the speed and distance from which it's instantly viewable)
3) Heavy cannons? You have about zero proof of what cannons where used in what particular instance so stop making baseless assumptions.
4) Stone? Are you lying again? Anyone familiar with Yavin IV knows about the Temples sith-enhanced properties that makes then nearly invulnerable

Ofcourse the funniest thing is that ICS > EU novels per LFL policy.

WHat majority of evidence? It seems to me there is as much evidence against the BDZ claim as there is evidence for it.

Just too bad this claim is wrong then.

Well you seem to be well versed in science, why don't you explain it to me

Why should I? You will probably just ignore it again and make up some fabrication later on, like you just did now with Darksaber, again my confidence in your integrity has been shot to hell.
At any rate:
http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Tec ... Calc1.html

[Vympel]

In regards to DBZ (not BDZ)

WTF I can't believe I made a mistake like that. Swap those two.

[Vympel]

MoO you're wasting your time on this guy. Notice how he's started pulling out the events in Darksabre as some sort of 'proof' against BDZs.

One problem with that argument, which I pointed out to Darkstar when he originally made it:

At no point was a Base Delta Zero ordered. Nowhere does it say the objective was to slag the planet, nor does it imply that that's what the Knight Hammer was doing.

[His Divine Shadow]

At no point was a Base Delta Zero ordered. Nowhere does it say the objective was to slag the planet, nor does it imply that that's what the Knight Hammer was doing.

Even so, events can be interprepted to fit planetary scale destruction, so no contradiction.
But it's moot because they had troops on the ground FFS.

And it's even more moot when the ICS has a higher canonicity rating than Darksaber

[Darth PhysBod]

In regards to BDZ, there is the 'poor man's' BDZ of Nar Shadda ("Hutt Gambit" if I recall). I say poor man's because they had second rate ships and a full blown BDZ by Imperators reduces a planet to a lifeless rock.

The planned 15 minute Nar Shadda BDZ was to be carried out by 3 dreadnoughts and 4 Bulkcruisers (not exactly top of the line ships). That particular operation had it not been ordered to fail would have entailed wiping out 72-95 billion inhabitants and "razing the entire moon", the surface as described by Page 207 of the SW encyclopaedia:

"Nar Shaddaa - the ungoverned "smugglers' moon", it is completely covered by interlocking spaceport facilities and kilometers high docking towers reaching into orbit. Nar Shaddaa's "vertical city" was built over thousands of years and is protected by often-malfunctioning shields."

20 Psi blasts do not guarantee destruction of modern concrete buildings (5.6.2 of the FAQ), at least 100 Psi would probably be required to flatten all-steel construction buildings if we were to try building "multi Km" structures today. (steel has a shear strength of ~300MPa compared to concrete which is ~23MPa) given the height of buildings and construction techniques available in the SW universe this is probably highly conservative.

From the NukeFAQ:

http://nuketesting.enviroweb.org/hew/Nwfaq/Nfaq5.html

r=Y^0.33*const-bl

Where this constant is ~2.2*P^-0.7 (P in Psi, refer to 5.6.2 of the FAQ)
I.e. for 100 Psi 0.088

Using:
a) Surface area of Mars (diameter 3394Km)
b) Surface area of Earth (diameter 6250Km)

And assuming the ships in squadron (primarily the dreadnoughts as the bulk cruisers apparently don’t even have turbolasers) between them are capable of the same number
of shots as a single WEG "60TL" ISD (assuming 1 ISD=3 dreadnoughts is rather conservative), in 15 minutes of continuous firing they could rattle off 54,000 shots.

In case a) that has to cover an area of 1.45e8 Km^2, i.e. blasts of radius ~29 Km. requiring a yield of 37GT per shot.

In case b) that has to cover an area of 4.91e8 Km^2, i.e. blasts of radius ~54 Km. requiring a yield of 232 GT per shot.

Even if we said the squadron was equivalent to 3 WEG ISD's and thus capable of 162,000 shots the figures are as follows:

a) Mars sized- 17Km blasts, 7 GT per shot
b) Earth sized- 32Km blasts, 45 GT per shot

Then there is canon information itself, In the ISDII armaments thread I demonstrated that MKI imperators have 1400mm weapons, MkII have 1200mm weapons, now comapre that to the light guns seen onboard both the DSI and the ISD Devestator (see the TL commentries page I dont have any images of those weapons yet), both are more akin to 20-40mm AA weapons. The bore size is somewhere around 1/4000th that of the heavy guns, the overall barrel volume is around 1/14,000 of the heavy guns!

Since we know from ESB even the smallest bolt from a point defence gun is ~3MT (the falcon impact) the Heavy guns must be well into the GT range.

[IceHawk-151]

Damn, thats a good deal of replies.
Quess thats what I get foer taking a three day break.

1) If I were to do the calculations you request of me MoO that would be a consession on my part that scaling up in that manner actually means something. This is not something that I agree with at the moment. Thus the numbers I would get if I did scale up from Han's Blaster would only be useful to me if I agreed with your numbers.
a) How does the DS store power before a shot?
b) What is the purpose of the power regulator? To me it sounds as though the tower merely controls the flow of the power instead of actually storing it.
c) "Finding the volume of the power generation/storage devices of the two weapons is more difficult, but possible using the ICS" - MoO
Using the ICS would mean that I actually agree with the numbers in it.

2) The EU
The point was that the EU has conflicted with onscreen info before, and it is possible that it has done so again. Nowehere did I imply that I wished to throw out the EU. (Funny how anyone opposing you is automaticaly a Trekkie MoO)

3) The Jedi Academy
"I do detect some ground activity. Heavy weapons fire in the jungles."
"Yes." Daala said, "We strike from orbit. All Turbolaser Batteries, full strength."
Sounds to me as though the VSD's under Pelleeon and the SSD under Daala used maximum firepower.

4) The Jedi Temple
I understand that when Exar Kun was holed up in the Templ the Jedi Kights of the Old Republic counldn't destroy it. However without Kun's prescene one can only guess if his SIth powers still worked. Although the Jedi stuidents did say in the book that the Great Temple would not be stable for long, refering to the orbital barrage I believe.

5) "high above Yavin 4 she could already see the forests start to burn." - AS to my knowldge that is the only time we hear about what is happening to the jungle.

6) "At no point was a Base Delta Zero ordered. Nowhere does it say the objective was to slag the planet, nor does it imply that that's what the Knight Hammer was doing." - Vympel

However what it did say was that ALL turbolaser batteries were set on MAXIMUM firepower levels and then fired at the planet. According to Wong when a Star Destroyer sets it's weapons to full power and fires on a planet in an hour the surface will have been melted to a whole meter in depth. If an SSD carries more powerful and larger quantities of Turbolsers it must be able to smash a planet in less time than a mere ISD.

[IceHawk-151]

"Since we know from ESB even the smallest bolt from a point defence gun is ~3MT (the falcon impact) the Heavy guns must be well into the GT range." - HDS

Somewhere around 40 GT I think.

Quick question, we know that Nar Shadda is a moon. Why did you use the surface area of two full blown planets?

Nar Shaddaa - the ungoverned "smugglers' moon

[Illuminatus Primus]

Perhaps, in case you didn't notice, all scenes from all Nar Shaddaa show people walking around in basically Earth-level gravity or perhaps a tad less.

Therefore its comparable in size to a Earth-type planet, get it?

[IceHawk-151]

Quessing gravity levels from comic books, always fun.

Ignoring the fact that Star Wars has the ability to deploy massive artificial gravity arrays, and the fact that the majority of the planet seems to be covered in facilities, I quess you'd be able to go with that.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Oh, I see. Because it says "moon" it must be the size of ours, stupid me.

Tell me, which does logic prefer: the moon shows people in all experiences, game, book, etc as being in relatively 1 G gravity so the moon must be a) similar mass to Earth or b) on a moon where even the security traffic regulation shields break down and are left unrepaired and is ruled by outlaws and Hutts, the moon's entire surface is plated w/ artifical gravity systems. Hm....I wonder.

Dipshit.

[IceHawk-151]

"Oh, I see. Because it says "moon" it must be the size of ours, stupid me. "

But it seems like everything is roughly 1 G so you automaticaly use the surface of a planet.

"Moon" implies that the stellar body is smaller than an average planet and is most likely orbiting something. USing the average planet, Earth, as a basis for calcs seems a bit strang to me.

[Illuminatus Primus]

What the fuck do you think Endor was? The "sancturary moon"?

We have examples of relatively large masses orbiting each other--such as Pluto and Charon. Charon is at best half Pluto's size. I don't see what's hard to believe about Nal Hutta being somewhat over Earth's mass and having a similar orbit w/ Nar Shaddaa, being somewhat below Earth's mass, to be conservative.

It is you who cannot comprehend that other moons exist other then barren one's around much larger rocky terrestial planets and there's nothing stopping a larger moon from having an orbit around a similar size planet.

Think if Earth was...30 percent more massive and Mars was our distant moon.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Our mass assumptions are based on apparent gravity, not the name of fucking stellar body. Which two values are actually associated w/ each other in physics?

[IceHawk-151]

Question, would it be possible for a stellar body with a diameter 75 % that of the earth to have a gravity ~9.8 m/s?

[Illuminatus Primus]

I was just making a rough example w/ the Mars thing.

But yeah, it would just have to be made of more dense stuff then Earth.

[nightmare]

Or contain more iron. Earth is estimated to have 34,6% iron in it's composition.