Death Star

[Lord Poe]

Incidentally, it just occured to me that since the novel specifies that Hypermatter reactors occur in both ISDs and the Death Star, there is greater justification for scaling down the reactors of the DS and an ISD from the ICS diagrams to derive power generation

Amazing how far-seeing some folks are. And how generous they are if they leave notes behind.

[Wyrm]

Incidentally, it just occured to me that since the novel specifies that Hypermatter reactors occur in both ISDs and the Death Star, there is greater justification for scaling down the reactors of the DS and an ISD from the ICS diagrams to derive power generation

If hypermatter reactors could be scaled down like this, wouldn't it make sense to use one as the ultimate power source for your typical SW artifical sun?

[Starglider]

If hypermatter reactors could be scaled down like this, wouldn't it make sense to use one as the ultimate power source for your typical SW artifical sun?

Not necessarily. Even if they can be scaled down to very small sizes, hypermatter reactors could be very expensive to build and/or refuel. They may be worth it for military applications where power density is critical to combat performance, but not for civillian applications.

[Illuminatus Primus]

It seems to me all traffic seems to use relatively the same power density. Look at the MF; unless you suggest that he also installed a HM reactor, fuel confinement with orders-of-magnitude better power density, I think its as ubiquitous as our gasoline.

[VT-16]

Even a small fighter like the P-38 uses hypermatter reactors to be able to have interstellar range.

[Starglider]

Look at the MF; unless you suggest that he also installed a HM reactor, fuel confinement with orders-of-magnitude better power density, I think its as ubiquitous as our gasoline.

I suspect the MF's refit was pretty extensive. The thing goes four times faster than a standard YT-1300. Imagine trying to refit a contemporary truck, or cargo plane, or container ship to travel at four times its normal speed - it generally wouldn't be possible no matter how much money and technology you threw at the problem. Furthermore the Millenium Falcon doesn't seem to have a noticeably shorter range, or lower cargo capacity than a stock YT-1300.

[Uraniun235]

Look at the MF; unless you suggest that he also installed a HM reactor, fuel confinement with orders-of-magnitude better power density, I think its as ubiquitous as our gasoline.

I suspect the MF's refit was pretty extensive. The thing goes four times faster than a standard YT-1300. Imagine trying to refit a contemporary truck, or cargo plane, or container ship to travel at four times its normal speed - it generally wouldn't be possible no matter how much money and technology you threw at the problem. Furthermore the Millenium Falcon doesn't seem to have a noticeably shorter range, or lower cargo capacity than a stock YT-1300.

Terrestrial vehicles have certain limitations based on things like roads and atmospheric drag; space, and particularly hyperspace travel, would not have these same issues.

Also, where has the range and cargo capacity of the MF been compared against stock YT-1300 freighters?

[Starglider]

Terrestrial vehicles have certain limitations based on things like roads and atmospheric drag; space, and particularly hyperspace travel, would not have these same issues.

Ok, tell me, what does limit hyperspace speeds? Why can't all vessels go arbitrarily fast? What's the relationship between engine power, hull strength and FTL velocity?

Also, where has the range and cargo capacity of the MF been compared against stock YT-1300 freighters?

I confess I just looked on Wookiepedia. They usually pull their stats from the technical source books if available, the roleplaying games if not.

[Dooey Jo]

Terrestrial vehicles have certain limitations based on things like roads and atmospheric drag; space, and particularly hyperspace travel, would not have these same issues.

Ok, tell me, what does limit hyperspace speeds? Why can't all vessels go arbitrarily fast? What's the relationship between engine power, hull strength and FTL velocity?

According to Lucas in the commentary track on the 2004 ANH DVD (IIRC) it's the navigation systems that determines how fast you can go from point A to point B. Supposedly, ships with inferior navicomputers would have to travel along certain well-known safe routes, while better ones can calculate a much faster way.

[Starglider]

According to Lucas in the commentary track on the 2004 ANH DVD (IIRC) it's the navigation systems that determines how fast you can go from point A to point B. Supposedly, ships with inferior navicomputers would have to travel along certain well-known safe routes, while better ones can calculate a much faster way.

I find that highly unlikely. If that were true, large expensive capships would always have big, 'high quality' navicomputers and travel at high speeds. Little fighters and scouts would have small, cheap navicomputers and travel at low speeds. But this isn't the case; there isn't any particular correlation between size and speed (in fact fighters tend to have very low hyperspace multipliers).

[l33telboi]

Ironically, the SFJ site also seems to be a refuge for alot of the weider Stargate folk (Oraghn and L33telboi both post over there frequently, and do extensive stargate "analysis" over there.. for whatever the hell tht is worth. I'm sure you'd be more aware of stargate analysis than I am )

Well, what can I say, I at least have the decency to bring up whatever gripes I have with people and their arguments face to face (or, the closest thing you can get on the internet) instead of running around on various other boards bitching behind the other guys back.

For the record though, I rarely do any Stargate 'analysis' on SFJ, I do it almost exclusively on SB. I do however give input here and there, mainly because there are no people there that know much about SG.

Now if you’re quite done poisoning the well, might I suggest that you in the future PM me if you have any gripes. Because frankly, I find this kind of shit quite cowardly.

[Mange]

Just a few random observations regarding this novel (I guess it's inconsequential to warn about spoilers):

* It's not steeped with the same kind of minimalism which has plagued so many EU novels. The Alliance lost 500 X-wings (and the Death Star lost fewer than a hundred of its TIE-fighters) in a futile attack on the Death Star.

* In said attack, the Death Star fires a low-powered superlaser blast which completely vaporizes the Alliance carrier, a Lucrehulk-freighter. So much for the inability of the original Death Star's superlaser to target smaller targets...

* Although the authors quotes ANH verbatim, they seem to have ignored other relevant quotes, most notably this one:

DODONNA: The battle station is heavily shielded [...]

On page 14, it's claimed that shielding had to be "downgraded to a rudimentary level". It doesn't seem likely that the Alliance would have gotten incorrect information about the shielding as they had access to the complete plans.

* What about the Geonosians? If George Lucas's words are taken as gospel to the point that the name of character is changed as a result of an off hand joke, then what about the DVD commentaries (from the AOTC DVD that the Geonosians were to be the ones commissioned to build the Death Star)? Even if the EU has established a backstory about the construction of the Death Star, I found the absent Geonosians

* All in all, while the novel has some redeeming factors (the technical aspects, the largely absent minimalism and some nice passages), I did not find it quite satisfying.

EDIT: Added a missing preposition.

[Darth Servo]

* Although the authors quotes ANH verbatim, they seem to have ignored other relevant quotes, most notably this one:

DODONNA: The battle station is heavily shielded [...]

On page 14, it's claimed that shielding had to be "downgraded to a rudimentary level". It doesn't seem likely that the Alliance would have gotten incorrect information about the shielding as they had access to the complete plans.

Now, now, thats a good one. Afterall, if a rudimentary shield can withstand all that debris from Alderaan moving at 5% c, what would a standard one be capable of, never mind top-of-the-line.

[VT-16]

DODONNA: The battle station is heavily shielded [...]

On page 14, it's claimed that shielding had to be "downgraded to a rudimentary level".

Dodonna was talking about the exhaust port, not the whole station, and only in relation to the fighter's laser cannons.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

* It's not steeped with the same kind of minimalism which has plagued so many EU novels. The Alliance lost 500 X-wings (and the Death Star lost fewer a hundred of its TIE-fighters) in a futile attack on the Death Star.

* In said attack, the Death Star fires a low-powered superlaser blast which completely vaporizes the Alliance carrier, a Lucrehulk-freighter. So much for the inability of the original Death Star's superlaser to target smaller targets...

Hmm.. seems to lend further credence to the idea that a lot of the Separatists war material ended up in the hands of the Alliance.

[Mange]

DODONNA: The battle station is heavily shielded [...]

On page 14, it's claimed that shielding had to be "downgraded to a rudimentary level".

Dodonna was talking about the exhaust port, not the whole station,

No, he did not, it's quite clear that he was referring to the shielding properties and armament of the Death Star as a whole. The part about the shaft being shielded was mentioned later in the briefing.

and only in relation to the fighter's laser cannons.

I considered that as well but I find it unlikely as he was explaining the properties of the station. However, it's still a possibility.

[VT-16]

I must be remembering it wrong. Either way, heavily shielded for a Rebel can still be rudimentary for an Imperial. ;)

With the Lucrehulk in this book, that makes three capital ship classes taken over by the Rebels. The other are the Recusant and Providence-class vessels seen in SW:Rebellion.

[Illuminatus Primus]

According to Lucas in the commentary track on the 2004 ANH DVD (IIRC) it's the navigation systems that determines how fast you can go from point A to point B. Supposedly, ships with inferior navicomputers would have to travel along certain well-known safe routes, while better ones can calculate a much faster way.

I find that highly unlikely. If that were true, large expensive capships would always have big, 'high quality' navicomputers and travel at high speeds. Little fighters and scouts would have small, cheap navicomputers and travel at low speeds. But this isn't the case; there isn't any particular correlation between size and speed (in fact fighters tend to have very low hyperspace multipliers).

I disagree; simply because better navicomputers may be more reliable at plotting safe trajectories through dense obstacles as opposed to shitty ones leaving you basically to play it safe and very clear of potential problems, does not mean it is all that matters. For example, I'm sure particle shielding integrity matters if you travel extensively at high-impact through areas of denser medium than others. Also, ships with more responsive or more powerful drives will be more effective at applying course corrections due to hyperspatial drag.

As for starfighters, they have low range in most cases, and don't calculate routes at all, but rely on stored routes figured by dedicated navicomputers. So many characteristics which figure into effective hyperspace transit speed may not even apply to the hyperspace travel involving starfighters by nature.

[Vehrec]

Ironically, the SFJ site also seems to be a refuge for alot of the weider Stargate folk (Oraghn and L33telboi both post over there frequently, and do extensive stargate "analysis" over there.. for whatever the hell tht is worth. I'm sure you'd be more aware of stargate analysis than I am )

Well, what can I say, I at least have the decency to bring up whatever gripes I have with people and their arguments face to face (or, the closest thing you can get on the internet) instead of running around on various other boards bitching behind the other guys back.

For the record though, I rarely do any Stargate 'analysis' on SFJ, I do it almost exclusively on SB. I do however give input here and there, mainly because there are no people there that know much about SG.

Now if you’re quite done poisoning the well, might I suggest that you in the future PM me if you have any gripes. Because frankly, I find this kind of shit quite cowardly.

L33tleboi, we do not need your permission to talk about you. We are not going to ask for your permission before making fun of you. And we certainly aren't running around behind your back. This is an open board, anyone can read anything posted on this part of the forum. So I hope you'll take it in the best of ways when I say FRAK OFF.

In other news, when was anyone ever surprised about the Rebels taking stuff that didn't belong to them? Their Freighters were bought from a company that went under, their Nebulon-Bs were stolen, they stole Impstars, Interdictors, and even post RotJ captured a Executor. Compared to those stunts, finding and taking possession of a Lucrehulk after they were all shut down is small potatoes.

[PainRack]

I disagree; simply because better navicomputers may be more reliable at plotting safe trajectories through dense obstacles as opposed to shitty ones leaving you basically to play it safe and very clear of potential problems, does not mean it is all that matters. For example, I'm sure particle shielding integrity matters if you travel extensively at high-impact through areas of denser medium than others. Also, ships with more responsive or more powerful drives will be more effective at applying course corrections due to hyperspatial drag.

Fuel capacity may also be another factor... Ships with large fuel stores can possibly afford to expend more fuel on acceleration and decceleration, as opposed to starfighters and smaller vessels, who can't scarifice the fuel neccesary to revert back to realspace.
After all, the X-wing series tell us that X-wings use relatively little fuel while in hyperspace, only during the acceleration and decceleration.

[Uraniun235]

Terrestrial vehicles have certain limitations based on things like roads and atmospheric drag; space, and particularly hyperspace travel, would not have these same issues.

Ok, tell me, what does limit hyperspace speeds? Why can't all vessels go arbitrarily fast? What's the relationship between engine power, hull strength and FTL velocity?

I don't know. There may be other issues which come into play, but at the same time make "install bigger engine = 4x faster than stock" much more feasible in space/hyperspace than on the ground or in atmospheric flight. The point is that "well you can't just make a car go 4x faster by putting a bigger engine in it so you can't do it to a spaceship either" is really a pretty horrible analogy.

[Starglider]

I don't know. There may be other issues which come into play, but at the same time make "install bigger engine = 4x faster than stock" much more feasible in space/hyperspace than on the ground or in atmospheric flight.

It works fine for sublight; acceleration is exactly proportional to thrust, which for any given technology is fairly proportional to the size and energy usage of the engine (subject to dimminishing returns as the engine mass becomes a major fraction of the vessel mass). For hyperspace, either it takes energy to keep ships in hyperspace and/or drive them forward vs drag or it doesn't. If it doesn't, something about the initial jump determines the speed - either the computer (which doesn't make sense) or the drive power. If it does, it's either FTL drive size or STL drive power - the later is possible but not likely as we don't see a good correlation between hyperspace speeds and sublight speeds.

Fuel capacity may also be another factor... Ships with large fuel stores can possibly afford to expend more fuel on acceleration and decceleration, as opposed to starfighters and smaller vessels, who can't scarifice the fuel neccesary to revert back to realspace.

This would be mass fraction, not absolute fuel storage capability (for any given fuel/reactor energy density). It doesn't seem to be the case, given the fact that fighters have a short operational range yet tend to have high hyperspace speeds - it's possible that their high hyperspace speeds come from high hyperspace fuel usage, but that contradicts the X-Wing quote and suggests that figthers should be able to sacrifice speed for range - which they seemingly can't (though admittedly that may be a life support consumables limitation).

I admitt that we can't make any firm statements about how hyperspace speeds work - no revelation, they've been a mess ever since the first 'point five past lightspeed' line.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Speed and range do not seem as connected as would be intuitive. Range seems to be a fixed characteristic of the hyperdrive mass or volume relative to the overall mass or volume of the starship, as opposed to based on fuel consumption (Shuttles and regional-range warships and pan-galactic-range warships don't seem to have that much different regarding their mass fraction).

[Connor MacLeod]

I'd say alot of things could affect hyperdrive speed. Hyperspatial "Drag" is one thing (mentioned AFAIK only in the Lando Calrissian novels.)

Acceleration at FTL is also possible (LC novels again) as well as manuvering (ANH novel), so those too could affect fuel supply.

Navigational ability can also probably influence that (both having good navicomputers as well as godo sensors.) This plays into the whole bit about hazards in realspace, ,as well as the neccessity of shields bit mentioned later.

Its also possible the protective measures against FTL travel can have effects. We know shields of some kind are needed to protect against destruction while at FTL (it is possible to "burn up" in hyperspace without shields, so shielding can obviously influence how fast you move without destorying onself) relatavistic shields (the stuff that protects against aging and whatnot) also may play a role, as the acceeleration compensators. Possibly others.

Good old efficiency may also play a role. I doubt cost is a role in how good a hyperdrive you get.

Redundancies and whatnot can also probably affect hyeprdrive size/raneg as well. Some hyperdrives are probably safer than others, while yet others are more dangerous (IE the Falcon.)

[Kane Starkiller]

Latest from the "reasoned discussion" board:

However, given the surface-to-vacuum defenses, the number of fighters, turbolaser batteries, charged-particle blasters, magnetic railguns, proton torpedo banks, ion cannons, and a host of other protective devices, no naval ship of any size would be even a remote threat. A fleet of Imperial-class Star Destroyers—even a fleet of Super-class Star Destroyers, should such a thing ever exist — would offer no real danger to the battle station once it was fully operational. Given all that, a shield system that was less than perfect at times wasn't such a high price to pay for the ability to vaporize a planet.

The surface to vacuum defenses (huh? what's that, a range of 10 centimeters?) were enough to deal with a fleet of ISD or SSDs.
This puts at new twist on Dodonna's words, for any self respected EU fan.

The Death Star had such firepower, aside from the superlaser, that it would be able to deal with any fleet of any ISD or SSD anyone could think of.

Liar liar pants on fire! The quote states that "no naval ship of any size would be even a remote threat" meaning that no INDIVIDUAL ship would be a threat. After that line there is full stop and then it states that "A fleet of Imperial-class Star Destroyers—even a fleet of Super-class Star Destroyers" would offer no threat. NOT "any fleet" or "entire Imperial starfleet" but "a" fleet.
I shouldn't even comment on the retarded "surface to vacuum means 10cm range". I guess that means that surface to air missiles have a range of 10cm too.

We know that SDN people always took the most convenient interpretation of Dodonna's words, and never agreed that Dodonna, when talking to the pilots, could have been including the surface defenses, or even solely talked about them.

But here, we see that it was the case. If you use the EU, you'll be forced to accept the fact that Dodonna was talking about the surface weapons.

You heard it guys. If you use EU you must use Mr. Oragahns false interpretation of Death Star novel!
But hey what have we here? It's the Behind the Magic CD that states:

No other weapon produced during the Galactic Civil War proved as devastating as the awesome Imperial superlaser. The superlaser was created by several turbolaser pulses, produced by amplifications crystals around the cannon's circular well. These pulses were fused over the central focus lens, resulting in a devastating energy beam with more firepower than half the Imperial starfleet.

Well whoop-de-fucking-do. It seems that EU explicitly states that it's the superlaser itself that is more powerful than half of starfleet not the surface defense weapons.
Keep up the "reasoned discussion of Star Wars and/or Star Trek" guys!