Guns of Star Wars capital ships

[Surlethe]

Important note: look at the range where the ISDs stopped approaching in the Battle of Endor. They were ready to blast the fuck out of the Rebel fleet from that range, but were ordered to hold fire. The point here is that this is probably a good indication of normal space combat tactics in SW: the kind that these vessels were designed for.

Even more, that was probably the range where the commanders could be almost completely confident that they'd be able to tear the rebel fleet up. This would then be a lower limit on the usual ranges of space combat.

[NecronLord]

It's been a while since I've been a B5 battle, but do we actually see a beam emerge from the side of a Minbari ship and shoot 90 degrees behind it, as opposed to a beam firing from somewhere near the rear of the ship? That doesn't make a whole lot of geometric sense unless the gun actually physically emerges from the porn and can rotate.

Emerges from the porn? 'Freudian slip' indeed. I couldn't tell you where that shot is, mind, but I distinctly recall it. It may be in In the Beginning, where the Black Star attacks, or during the Battle of the Line. Annoyingly, my DVD drive is kaput these days, so I can't come up with any screenshots anyway, but I'll try and get some solid reference.

What I was thinking of, was something like an ABL turret - a big, round nosed bullet shape, that comes out the end of the 'spike' and then rotates on two axis, with some capacity to point backward. The whole thing would retract and then some kind of hatch would close over it.

At the very least, they've got some, they're not actually fixed - they're often doing that 'cheesewire' thing.

What's wrong with simply presuming that they're built for long-range gunnery? A modern battleship can't shoot anything that's too small and close to it either.

Well, I would say that they'd be designed for fighting an enemy that's in their dorsal arc, with bow dipping and everything, but that's clearly not what they do in RotJ. The Excecutor at least, can happily fire most of its heavy weapons emplacements forwards.

[evillejedi]

I'm wondering what the power draw is for the ACTIVE portion of the defensive system, the deflection. The heat absorption/radiation/REFLECTION of the passive portion is finite based on the factors you mentioned. Saxton seems to focus entirely on the passive shield applications for energy absorption and describes the active deflection only in terms of kinetic energy from impactors. He gives the example of a mirror, but any mirror will still melt given sufficient energy. Splintering to scatter the energy diffuses the energy, but it has to have something to make it scatter, which requires the magical field.

We have the capability to evaporate Star destroyers coming out of hyperspace on impact kilometers from the hull of the executor. This field must have energy drain to be maintained and have an instantaneous field impulse to repel matter. This requires energy to intensify the field (remember the Hoth theater shield required a Praetor reactor core to maintain it, there IS power draw of monumental capability here unless we argue that the theater bubble shields are fundamentally different from star ship shielding)

The radiation of this power for the active portion has to be done through normal means, I have no argument there. However Hoth shows us plainly that a massive reactor was necessary to maintain the theater shield and prevent bombardment.

I'm only asking about the energy needed for field produced deflection, not armor supplemented absorption.






Interesting to note that for similar scale vessels <WEG> the number of fuel cells is derived from the days of consumables. 1 Hour of full power combat is equal to 1 fuel cell (one hyperspace jump, one day of maneuvering at full power, 1 month of station keeping) </WEG>

this gives a roughly ~500 ton/sec fuel consumption for an ISD at idle if max output is ~380,000 ton/sec. which is high given saxton's commentary.

[Surlethe]

We have the capability to evaporate Star destroyers coming out of hyperspace on impact kilometers from the hull of the executor. This field must have energy drain to be maintained and have an instantaneous field impulse to repel matter.

Yes, the field must require an energy drain; the real question is whether that energy drain is non-trivial compared to the output of the reactor.

This requires energy to intensify the field (remember the Hoth theater shield required a Praetor reactor core to maintain it, there IS power draw of monumental capability here unless we argue that the theater bubble shields are fundamentally different from star ship shielding)

This assumption is questionable -- why is the reactor necessarily dedicated to the shield? It could be powering other things, like, oh, a big-ass ion cannon.

[evillejedi]

because a big ass ion cannon doesn't prevent an SSD from blowing it up with one well place shot from 2500 turbolasers :-p Also the ion cannon wasn't mentioned until the Imps got too close, they were chastised for alerting the rebels to put up the theater shield not for getting in close because of the planet defender.


The concept that the shields have an active component is based on quotes (from the movie mind you) of 'shields up' 'angling shields' 'double front'

a passive system would not normally have an active adjustment or an on/off switch. The fact that shields were 'off' or 'down' seems to indicate that there is some reason to not keep them on all the time, which again does not indicate a fully passive system, but an active system combined with a passive one. The fact that shields have to be 'raised' to me indicates that there is an operational issue with keeping them up in non-combat operations. In this case the only significant reasons I can think of would be due to diversion to some other non-combat system, Maintenance issues, fuel consumption or heat dumping. Except for maintenance all of these may have a significant fuel drain (now if this is 5% of the reactor output then so be it, however what impact does that 5% have in combat when you output 100% of the reactor output to the weapons, is it leaving the ship vulnerable?)

Given mon cal warship design (unless you take the philosophy that mon cals purposely built military design capabilities into their luxury liners) which implies poor hull design but tremendous reserve shield capacity, damage to a physical passive shield system will not be desired. The intent is to stop the energy from reaching any material that can be ablated.

[Darwin]

Important note: look at the range where the ISDs stopped approaching in the Battle of Endor. They were ready to blast the fuck out of the Rebel fleet from that range, but were ordered to hold fire. The point here is that this is probably a good indication of normal space combat tactics in SW: the kind that these vessels were designed for. They were arranged facing forward, so that only one of the heavy side turrets could orient toward the enemy, but all of their lighter guns could probably fire forward. If they had any gunport armaments like the old Venators, they would be unable to use them in that orientation.

Moreover, none of them were making any effort to re-orient themselves to point a broadside at the Rebel fleet, even as a preparatory gesture. This lends credence to the notion that either the heavy guns cannot fire a full broadside at all, or they are so ponderous and/or inaccurate that they would be useless against moving targets and are actually meant for space stations or planetary targets.

As it was a holding action, they may have kept their noses to the enemy as that provides the best shield and armor protection, while still allowing a reasonable amount of firepower to be brought to bear. Certainly the wedge design presents the most formidable armor slope and the smallest target to enemies directly ahead, and as most of the Rebel vessels were medium-sized, the medium and light guns could deal with most of them, while the DSII's superlaser was focusing on the largest vessels. The Imperial tactics at Endor make perfect sense in this respect. If they had then changed tactics to a full bombardment, it would have only taken a few seconds to reorient to bring all their heavy guns into the party.

[Illuminatus Primus]

I'm wondering what the power draw is for the ACTIVE portion of the defensive system, the deflection. The heat absorption/radiation/REFLECTION of the passive portion is finite based on the factors you mentioned. Saxton seems to focus entirely on the passive shield applications for energy absorption and describes the active deflection only in terms of kinetic energy from impactors. He gives the example of a mirror, but any mirror will still melt given sufficient energy. Splintering to scatter the energy diffuses the energy, but it has to have something to make it scatter, which requires the magical field.

We have the capability to evaporate Star destroyers coming out of hyperspace on impact kilometers from the hull of the executor. This field must have energy drain to be maintained and have an instantaneous field impulse to repel matter. This requires energy to intensify the field (remember the Hoth theater shield required a Praetor reactor core to maintain it, there IS power draw of monumental capability here unless we argue that the theater bubble shields are fundamentally different from star ship shielding)

None of this is true. There's no need for constant energy input to maintain a force field of particular strength. The Earth's gravitational field maintains equivalent force without adding or losing energy density. The energy loss is probably from inefficiency, but that doesn't mean you can arbitrarily ramp up the power to increase the force. In fact, the fact that a cruiser's core powered an entire base, a planetary ion cannon capable of slagging ISDs with a single salvo, and a bubble shield capable of deflecting "any bombardment" by a truly immense fleet (Death Squadron consisted of not only Executor and her five ISD personal escorts (TESB film), but other support and pursuit groups (mentioned in the TESB novelisation, RPG shows VSDs) and battleships (TESB novelisation, arcade game)) despite the fact that they all have ENORMOUS energy generation capacity in excess of the Preator core confirms it. This of course disregarding attached Bombard Fleets to the local SECTGRU. Rather, the planetary heat sink and reradiation surface area is what provides immense capacity.

Even so, you're talking about particle shielding, not energy shielding. Slowing enemy projectiles and destroying them will release its energy thermally, which the ray shielding still must manage. And arbitarily increasing the directed-force of the particle shielding will just increase reaction forces in the starship's frame and bracings for the shield projectors.

The radiation of this power for the active portion has to be done through normal means, I have no argument there. However Hoth shows us plainly that a massive reactor was necessary to maintain the theater shield and prevent bombardment.

I'm only asking about the energy needed for field produced deflection, not armor supplemented absorption.

Even if energy is required, that does not imply the ability to arbitrarily increase capacity at will. Nor does it prove that the energy input was the quintessential variable governing capacity, as I showed, the bombardment forces available were in great excess to the core's power generation, yet the shield was imprevious. Besides, the primary heat sink need not be armor (notice it doesn't glow white hot); ROTS ICS shows somesort of fluidic heat sink coolant.

Interesting to note that for similar scale vessels <WEG> the number of fuel cells is derived from the days of consumables. 1 Hour of full power combat is equal to 1 fuel cell (one hyperspace jump, one day of maneuvering at full power, 1 month of station keeping) </WEG>

this gives a roughly ~500 ton/sec fuel consumption for an ISD at idle if max output is ~380,000 ton/sec. which is high given saxton's commentary.

And WEG is wrong. We know they just made up their mechanics. What evidence is there that an ISD REQUIRES 500 ton/sec annhiliation? Ender has calculated an ISD may consume less than a TW while idle. Quite frankly, if you work out the fuel consumption vs. the drive output requirements you can only get some hours of peak power output (generally less than a day) and only a few hours of maximum acceleration. You must pay for your mass fraction and inertia.

[Illuminatus Primus]

The concept that the shields have an active component is based on quotes (from the movie mind you) of 'shields up' 'angling shields' 'double front'

a passive system would not normally have an active adjustment or an on/off switch. The fact that shields were 'off' or 'down' seems to indicate that there is some reason to not keep them on all the time, which again does not indicate a fully passive system, but an active system combined with a passive one. The fact that shields have to be 'raised' to me indicates that there is an operational issue with keeping them up in non-combat operations. In this case the only significant reasons I can think of would be due to diversion to some other non-combat system, Maintenance issues, fuel consumption or heat dumping. Except for maintenance all of these may have a significant fuel drain (now if this is 5% of the reactor output then so be it, however what impact does that 5% have in combat when you output 100% of the reactor output to the weapons, is it leaving the ship vulnerable?)

Of course we're not saying that its PASSIVE defense; geometry is obviously a factor. That doesn't have anything to do with your assertion that the energy requirement of the shield system (which could simply be continuous due to inefficiency heat loss; Saxton said that the repulsorlift, another field system, does not require any energy to maintain its altitude) means necessarily that you can put all your reactor output to the shields and make them magically stronger. Can a modern destroyer put all of his power into its search lights and make them death beams? You're asserting arbitrarily increased capacity but not provided any cogent reason why.

Given mon cal warship design (unless you take the philosophy that mon cals purposely built military design capabilities into their luxury liners) which implies poor hull design but tremendous reserve shield capacity, damage to a physical passive shield system will not be desired. The intent is to stop the energy from reaching any material that can be ablated.

That energy must still be stored (either in armor heat sinks, coolant, etc.) and reradiated. And adding more reactor output does not mean you can magically bounce away beams with no problem. And your mirror example was unintentionally correct: that's the whole issue. Enough power will simply overwhelm its capacity and it'll melt. What mechanism will permit this perfect deflection simply with great power allocation? Fiat?

Moreover, none of them were making any effort to re-orient themselves to point a broadside at the Rebel fleet, even as a preparatory gesture. This lends credence to the notion that either the heavy guns cannot fire a full broadside at all, or they are so ponderous and/or inaccurate that they would be useless against moving targets and are actually meant for space stations or planetary targets.

You think the lighter battery was capable of delivering full-power to other ships and primarily tasked with ship-to-ship combat?

[Surlethe]

because a big ass ion cannon doesn't prevent an SSD from blowing it up with one well place shot from 2500 turbolasers :-p Also the ion cannon wasn't mentioned until the Imps got too close, they were chastised for alerting the rebels to put up the theater shield not for getting in close because of the planet defender.

What does that have to do with what the reactor powers?

a passive system would not normally have an active adjustment or an on/off switch. The fact that shields were 'off' or 'down' seems to indicate that there is some reason to not keep them on all the time, which again does not indicate a fully passive system, but an active system combined with a passive one.

You seem to be differentiating between two "components" of a shield system, as though they drain reactor energy separately. Since you're looking for energy requirements, why not treat the system as a whole thermodynamically? There's no need to muck about more than necessary when looking at energy, which is conserved.

[Illuminatus Primus]

I remember Ender suggesting that the placement of the turrets were such that the ship could absorb the recoil from the firing of the turrets.

There is the Quad Turbolaser positioned midway on the ISD which could most certainly fire forward. The turrets however have always had some ambiguous role because the only time we ever saw them working was in ROTS. Notice that in ROTS, the Gualara had to be actually side by side with the Invisible Hand before it opened fire. from the way it looked, it appeared that at least the front most turret could traverse and fire from the start, but it did not.

There are numerous other reasons that they didn't use the heavy guns. They probably were aware the Chancellor was aboard, and closed to use light guns only (like the gunport battery) to delay it, after the IH could no longer threaten at long range.

[Darth Wong]

The concept that the shields have an active component is based on quotes (from the movie mind you) of 'shields up' 'angling shields' 'double front'

a passive system would not normally have an active adjustment or an on/off switch. The fact that shields were 'off' or 'down' seems to indicate that there is some reason to not keep them on all the time, which again does not indicate a fully passive system, but an active system combined with a passive one.

So if a medieval Saxon soldier was told to raise his shield, or re-orient it from one direction to another, you would assume that his shield must require considerable electrical power? Your logic is terrible.

How do you know that the shield draws any power beyond simply paying for the inefficiency of its projection mechanism? And even if it does, how do you know that this power draw need be large, or proportional to the energy of the weapon that it is deflecting?

The fact that shields have to be 'raised' to me indicates that there is an operational issue with keeping them up in non-combat operations.

It's not exactly unusual for a piece of equipment to have a duty cycle of less than 100%, you know. That doesn't mean it must have a huge power draw.

Your arguments seem to be couched in logic that has not been tested by applying it to real-life.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Where does this "fight fire with fire" and "push against laser beams" concept of shielding come from? I see this at TFN, amongst Trekkies, etc. all the time.

[Darth Wong]

Where does this "fight fire with fire" and "push against laser beams" concept of shielding come from? I see this at TFN, amongst Trekkies, etc. all the time.

It comes from scientific ignorance. Where else?

Actually, to be more specific, it comes from Star Trek, which is a veritable fountainhead of scientifically inaccurate memes. I've said it many times: the worst thing that ever happened to sci-fi was the widespread adoption of Star Trek-inspired paradigms.

[evillejedi]

Yay I drew out the big guns, I'm impressed. I will continue to be insolent :-p

And WEG is wrong. We know they just made up their mechanics. What evidence is there that an ISD REQUIRES 500 ton/sec annhiliation? Ender has calculated an ISD may consume less than a TW while idle. Quite frankly, if you work out the fuel consumption vs. the drive output requirements you can only get some hours of peak power output (generally less than a day) and only a few hours of maximum acceleration. You must pay for your mass fraction and inertia.

Agreed WEG makes stuff up, I had no other reference point to go on at the time. The 500/ton estimate is a direct result of applying the specifically stated WEG logic (hence the <WEG> tags). The drive output to reach the quoted accelerations is a function of the realspace fuel mass loss (hypermatter?) and the reactor/engine system efficiency at generating thrust from said fuel. It can be described as a system of equations but not an absolute value without knowing those parameters explicitly.

You seem to be differentiating between two "components" of a shield system, as though they drain reactor energy separately. Since you're looking for energy requirements, why not treat the system as a whole thermodynamically? There's no need to muck about more than necessary when looking at energy, which is conserved.

Because it interests me to understand the dynamics of an impact when 'shields are down'

Passive shielding as stated seems to define that shields can only be locally overloaded with heat which will result in erosion of hull material at the impact site and definite annihilation of any surface equipment not made out of high density armor/cooling composite.

It comes from scientific ignorance. Where else?

Or it comes from Undergrad/high school physics that primarily teaches that deflection of charged particles requires a field of a certain intensity and an increase in intensity will create a greater deflection. Or that a denser/larger body will generate a gravitational field and thus impart more potential energy to an object in the field. (or gravitational lensing of EM radiation) Work is expended in creation of the field necessary to produce deflection and incoming radiation will deform the field (like a coronal mass ejection) A field of specific strength would be necessary to prevent the incoming energy from deforming the field to the point that critical components are exposed to more energy than they can absorb. Anything of higher energy would simply penetrate the field with suboptimal deflection (which is still good in a way). I can't speak to other fields or to projected fields in the SW universe because I do not have an understanding of how they are supposed to function. you claim scientific ignorance is to blame but you don't help the problem by trying to teach.

Saxton said that the repulsorlift, another field system, does not require any energy to maintain its altitude

I will concede all of my energy input for active shield arguments if you can explain this in the absence of an outside field.

I am probing on this for informational reasons. It's not good enough to say 'saxton' said, I want more detail. I don't believe in religion :-p

I don't consider star trek and my exposure to it is mostly incidental. I care nothing about comparisons between two fantasy universes and find such debates a terrible waste of human effort. So eliminate that as a topic please because it is not relevant to any discussion with me.

[Stark]

Oh jesus wept. He thinks he's being 'insolent'.

Why does he think that a passive-absorbing shield system means you can only overwhelm a particular area of the field and burn through? Doesn't he realise these fields are generated by machines and connected to heatsinks, both of which have limits?

[Darth Wong]

It comes from scientific ignorance. Where else?

Or it comes from Undergrad/high school physics that primarily teaches that deflection of charged particles requires a field of a certain intensity and an increase in intensity will create a greater deflection.

Funny ... when I learned physics, I was taught to use real equations, not vague qualitative statements. Have you actually tried doing the math to justify your assumption that the energy involved in physically deflecting the particle stream must be comparable to the energy yield of the weapon? Or are you going to persist in assuming that because the relationship is not inverse, then the absolute magnitudes must be comparable?

[Surlethe]

Because it interests me to understand the dynamics of an impact when 'shields are down'

The dynamics of an impact -- thermal or kinetic -- when shields are down are well-understood, because in the absence of sci-fi magic shields the physics collapses back to real-life. Honestly, is that difficult to understand?

Passive shielding as stated seems to define that shields can only be locally overloaded with heat which will result in erosion of hull material at the impact site and definite annihilation of any surface equipment not made out of high density armor/cooling composite.

Where do you get this? And what does this have to do with the point that you're making up "passive" and "active" shielding instead of actually trying to understand the way energy passes through the whole shielding system?

Saxton said that the repulsorlift, another field system, does not require any energy to maintain its altitude

I will concede all of my energy input for active shield arguments if you can explain this in the absence of an outside field.

I am probing on this for informational reasons. It's not good enough to say 'saxton' said, I want more detail. I don't believe in religion :-p

You indeed are a scientific ignoramus if you don't understand why the repulsorlift does NO work and therefore expends NO energy to maintain a constant altitude.

There's reason not to believe that the shield mechanism requires an energy output proportional to the amount of energy it's deflecting. Energy is a scalar, so redirection does not necessarily involve work; moreover, there's no reason heat conduction requires work on the part of the conductor if the heat is flowing from a warmer system to a cooler system.

[Darth Tanner]

It could be powering other things, like, oh, a big-ass ion cannon

Just a little note in that according to the incredible locations book the ion cannon was powered by its own generator that was in a cavern beneath it. However the two generators were apparently connected so perhaps both generators were needed to fire the shots that took out the star destroyers.

[VT-16]

It could be powering other things, like, oh, a big-ass ion cannon

Just a little note in that according to the incredible locations book the ion cannon was powered by its own generator that was in a cavern beneath it. However the two generators were apparently connected so perhaps both generators were needed to fire the shots that took out the star destroyers.

The ITW:OT book says Echo Base and all its defenses were powered by the reactors from a Star Battlecruiser, whereas the Massassi Station and its defenses had been powered by a Star Destroyer's reactor, which could only repel an attack from a pre-Executor battleship.

[evillejedi]

Why does he think that a passive-absorbing shield system means you can only overwhelm a particular area of the field and burn through? Doesn't he realise these fields are generated by machines and connected to heatsinks, both of which have limits?

localized penetration of the shields means that the support subsystems have not collapsed or exceeded their absolute limits. Otherwise the shields would have collapsed and subsequent attacks before they can be reestablished would inflict significant damage. If the shields temporarily fail/weaken because of the inability to remove waste heat that is understandable. My impression is that starship shields are highly sectionalized anyway.

Or are you going to persist in assuming that because the relationship is not inverse, then the absolute magnitudes must be comparable?

This was never stated, otherwise a vessel would not be able to withstand its own firepower/second which is a very silly proposition. I never stated that the magnitude of the incoming energy has to be compensated for with an equal energy input to the shields. Only that the initial generation and maintenance of the field required some energy input and that an increase in field strength required energy as well. I did not quantify the relationship as being linear.

The dynamics of an impact -- thermal or kinetic -- when shields are down are well-understood, because in the absence of sci-fi magic shields the physics collapses back to real-life. Honestly, is that difficult to understand?

Thank you for that clarification, but it is not obvious given the scifi environment.

Where do you get this? And what does this have to do with the point that you're making up "passive" and "active" shielding instead of actually trying to understand the way energy passes through the whole shielding system?

because I am trying to understand how to reduce the total heat energy the ship-shield system has to dissipate. If the energy is reflected it should not be considered part of the ship system but rather a term in the ship - external energy system. Behavior of the magic-scifi shield is something I have trouble understanding the mechanics of. (both the behavior of the field and the energy to create and maintain it)

My understanding is that the ship will heat up based on any energy it cannot radiate away. I am perfectly fine with that portion of the ships defense, it makes sense. The ability to reflect the energy before it enters the ship system is what I want to discuss.

You indeed are a scientific ignoramus if you don't understand why the repulsorlift does NO work and therefore expends NO energy to maintain a constant altitude.

Admittedly a very stupid and poorly worded response on my part.

Clarification, explain the controlled generation and regulation mechanism of the ships repulsor lifts and how they prevent the vessel from accelerating towards the other mass.

[Darth Wong]

Or are you going to persist in assuming that because the relationship is not inverse, then the absolute magnitudes must be comparable?

This was never stated, otherwise a vessel would not be able to withstand its own firepower/second which is a very silly proposition.

Then why the fuck did you respond to a remark about the idiotic spacebattles.com "you need X joules to defend against X joules" mentality by saying that it is based on physics?

Clarification, explain the controlled generation and regulation mechanism of the ships repulsor lifts and how they prevent the vessel from accelerating towards the other mass.

Why the fuck is that necessary in order to establish that a static hovering distance does not necessarily require constant power output, in the face of observed examples of vehicles which hover 24/7, such as landspeeders? Are you trying to be deliberately dense?

[Surlethe]

The dynamics of an impact -- thermal or kinetic -- when shields are down are well-understood, because in the absence of sci-fi magic shields the physics collapses back to real-life. Honestly, is that difficult to understand?

Thank you for that clarification, but it is not obvious given the scifi environment.

Yes, it is, unless you want to throw SoD completely out the window.

Where do you get this? And what does this have to do with the point that you're making up "passive" and "active" shielding instead of actually trying to understand the way energy passes through the whole shielding system?

because I am trying to understand how to reduce the total heat energy the ship-shield system has to dissipate. If the energy is reflected it should not be considered part of the ship system but rather a term in the ship - external energy system. Behavior of the magic-scifi shield is something I have trouble understanding the mechanics of. (both the behavior of the field and the energy to create and maintain it)

You still don't get it, do you? You do not need to understand the mechanism if you want limits on the total energy requirements.

My understanding is that the ship will heat up based on any energy it cannot radiate away.

At least you're not totally hopeless.

I am perfectly fine with that portion of the ships defense, it makes sense. The ability to reflect the energy before it enters the ship system is what I want to discuss.

Did you completely ignore what I wrote about that? There's no need to do work to reflect attacks.

You indeed are a scientific ignoramus if you don't understand why the repulsorlift does NO work and therefore expends NO energy to maintain a constant altitude.

Admittedly a very stupid and poorly worded response on my part.

Clarification, explain the controlled generation and regulation mechanism of the ships repulsor lifts and how they prevent the vessel from accelerating towards the other mass.

Do you honestly not understand? Here, let me break it down very simply.

Observation: device maintains constant altitude.
Deduction: device is doing no work.
Conclusion: device is not expending energy.

Get it now? Or do I need to use baby-speak?

[evillejedi]

Then why the fuck did you respond to a remark about the idiotic spacebattles.com "you need X joules to defend against X joules" mentality by saying that it is based on physics?

X was never involved (at very least it should have been X vs Y.) A relationship of some type was implied, but not stated to be based on physics or quantified (in universe physics maybe, but not our physics)

I have never been to starshipbattles.com

You still don't get it, do you? You do not need to understand the mechanism if you want limits on the total energy requirements.

Did you completely ignore what I wrote about that? There's no need to do work to reflect attacks.

but that doesn't mean I can't ask about the mechanics at the same time.

Rolling Eyes Do you honestly not understand? Here, let me break it down very simply.

Observation: device maintains constant altitude.
Deduction: device is doing no work.
Conclusion: device is not expending energy.

Why the fuck is that necessary in order to establish that a static hovering distance does not necessarily require constant power output, in the face of observed examples of vehicles which hover 24/7, such as landspeeders? Are you trying to be deliberately dense?

No problem there besides my earlier gaffe. Again I want an explanation of the mechanism even if it is in-universe. The response did not mention energy but ability in this case.

[VT-16]

The mechanism is the subnuclear knots of space-time made in enormous unmanned power refineries encompassing black holes. They are used in devices such as repulsorlifts, tractor beam-projectors and acceleration compensators in starships. (ROTS:ICS)

[Cykeisme]

Umm, evillejedi, some understanding of physics is needed in order to hold a discussion about physics. Bandying about some lingo isn't going to cut it when you don't understand the relation between work done and energy.

Your references to "in-universe physics" as opposed to "our physics" might be indicative of the point of contention here.
See, in the fiction, there are fantastic technologies whose exact functioning mechanism we don't understand. However, there are properties and behaviours that we can determine from observation, and we apply real physics in our understanding of those.

If you're expecting a technobabble discussion on "intuitive" ways of imagining things work, this forum may not be so much fun.