Explanation or opinion on firepower discrepancy in star wars

[Simon_Jester]

I think it was almost certainly the reactor what caused the ships total vaporization. However in the process i think that bolt could have also (observe the size of the fireball upon penetration) hundreds of thousands/millions of cubic meters of hull to do so (given the cross sections of the region in ICS/doubled with that being the most heavily armoured region of the ship)

Penetration is not the same thing as vaporization. Heck, high-energy particle beams can effectively penetrate a material without vaporizing it; that's why you need very large slabs of radiation shielding to keep radioactivity out, and can't just settle for a thin ablative coating that takes a long time to boil away.

[Connor MacLeod]

I've certainly considered that, but while starships has dangerous stuff aboard in the form of warheads, power cells and reactors which may be fail-deadly while hit by ordnance, they are are also not unprotected. It's still a mile long starship going from fine to kablooey in one shot. Sure, we can't say that the tl bolt caused all of that, and we don't really know how much energy it would take to do it in the first place. But it's a start.

It's a start, but its not going to be much more helpful for the ICS level yields than the TESB asteroid calcs are. Or the seismic charge of AOTc. Or anything like that. The biggest mass I remember ever being calced for an ISD was on the order of a billion tons. If we're generous in vaporization (something on the order of carbon) you MIGHT get a few gigatons or a few tens of gigatons at best. Maybe a bit more if it were plasma (but good luck there.) But then how do you break that down? Starships can go at least hours on fuel supplies, and if you have hundreds, or thousands of warheads potentially onboard.. you're maybe at megaton range. Far from being inconsequential or trivial firepower wise, but its nowhere near ICS level potentials either.

Dooku's ship may have odd propulsion, but it's consistent with what we see in other takeoffs (Tatooine, Besoin), and repulsors are just way too slow. They've never demonstrated propulsion faster than barely supersonic, and that's with book backing.

No, it's not. Nevermind the implications of a hyper-velocity passage through the atmosphere and the problems there, it requires Dooku's thrustres (if they exist) blasting the planet beneath him with the equivalent of a multi megaton (double or triple digit at that) or multi gigaton plasma blowtorch. I don't think you could call THAT a trivial concern, or argue that it seriously matches up with what we see.

it's even worse because remember that dooku's sailer by the time it reaches the Tradefed ships has slowed down (apparently) to a hundred metres per second, so the alleged timeframe has to account for speeding up AND slowing down.

There's lots of other logical problems I can think of based on this (fuel mass issues, blasting even more energy at the surface of the planet, etc.) but I think that makes the point pretty well.

I don't bother much with the accs calcs, but let's see. As for Yavin, 51 seconds from when we first see the X-Wings to the Death Star 1's magnetic field. While there's wiggling, we can establish a low end from it. Mike's old stuff lists 400 000 km, and believe it or not, Darkstar puts it at 453,615 km (it's just like him to use an exact figure for an estimate). We have to make some assumptions there, of course. Say we see them lined up halfway with Yavin, so that would make it 200000 km in 51 seconds, including necessary deacceleration, so that's 200 MM in 25.5 seconds, or 7 843 137 m/s. Which makes 307574 m/s2, or 31364 g's. That's a lot of wiggle room.

Why are you using 51 seconds? Mike always used 5 minutes, but I myself have never been able to concretely justify more than 10-15 minutes (give or take a few min either way) - which is a respectable tens or hundreds of gees, but nowhere near thousands.

But to the Endor calcs. It takes 68 seconds for the Imperial fleet to appear from the rebels first jumping in. Curtis Saxton based his estimate from the viewscreen in the bunker at 189 km in 92 frames for a mean of 49 km/s. Mike's estimate is a little higher at 60 km/s. Detailed study of the frames have shown that the fleet accelerates (duh).

That's been contested on the basis of how you read the diagram I think. For on ething what if its an approximation and they're still in hyperspace? IIRC just after Leia says 'the fleet will be here any moment' we see them still in hyperspace and then just emerging.

And even if they DID pull that, there's the quesiton of how they slowed down on approach from the death star without massive retro thrusters blowing exhaust out from the front of the ship...

What's really damning is that the rebels didn't notice the imperial fleet coming around even when they first turned around. From when Ackbar get the report that enemy ships have appeared to when we see the imperial fleet, it takes approximately two to four seconds, and we're talking by the end of deaccleration. That leaves estimating the distance. That's tricky in the appearance scene since the imperial fleet is high up enough that we don't see the planet.

I could use the 68 seconds figure for a half-orbit, but the requirement for that is pretty low. I know the usual calcs for Endor is based on that display screen. Still, I guess it's worthwhile to put a low end to it. We'll assume Endor's moon is of Earth-size. I'll assume the Imperial fleet is orbiting at an altitude of 2000 km, since that's the limit for what's considered low orbit. That gives us a radius of 6371 + 2000 = 8371 km. Half the circumference is 26298,272 km. Relative initial velocity is 0, and end velocity is 0. That's a mean velocity of 773 kms per second. Not shabby at all for a 19 km ship, although not impressive for the terms we're spreaking.

I'll have to dig a bit for Endor specific calcs based on the display. I have a meeting today and tomorrow, so no promises, sorry.

Ok. Bear in mind what I just said, alot of it is up to interpretation and not everyone agrees with it. I think Wayne even argued once that there might be some sort of FTL 'accel/decel' component to a hyperdrive jump separate from the engines (as part of a way of explaining the journey to Bespin without hyperdrive.)

[Connor MacLeod]

Given man-whole like mass and iron composition — that would still require double digit\MJ

Possibly yes. But I could also be wrong about it being molten. You may only need to bring it up to 'nearly molten' state before it deforms and falls off. And this STILL assumes Iron composition. If there are problems with the calc then we might have to assume the material is simply less dense or easier to melt than iron.

Another possibility that occurs to me is that no matter how you argue it the scene requires multiple shots across the grate to blast it apart (meaning the bolts are invisible and the viisble bit is just a tracer.)

I'm still not convinced you could just 'blast' the grates, as the yields are still going to be considerable to make a hole that big in anything like metal (hundreds of grams of TNT equivalent easiyl for an efficient laser-type weapon to duplicate) which brings up danger of blast and shrapnel.

I think it was almost certainly the reactor what caused the ships total vaporization. However in the process i think that bolt could have also (observe the size of the fireball upon penetration) hundreds of thousands/millions of cubic meters of hull to do so (given the cross sections of the region in ICS/doubled with that being the most heavily armoured region of the ship)

Not quite sure what you are trying to say, but maybe I'm just tired.

Only through using EU/statistics to fill the blanks does this 100% reach gigaton/teraton level firepower from the bolt (as kiloton point-defense and max power kiloton lasers do only minor scorching/localized damage respectively, and armour can supposedly with stand reasonable barrages of gigaton turbo-lasers).

You pretty much have to resort to EU to fill in a GREAT many gaps, at least as far as any 'vs debate' goes (maybe thats a reason not to get involved in them? LOL) But the problem is that the EU isn't any more consistent than the movies are in some respects - EG they have a capability in one case that they don't use later, etc. To me an EU/canon distinction is pretty silly, because the evidence will still need tons of explanation to make it work no matter what source you reach to. The Destruction of Alderaan is a prime case - there are problems with that that typically get glossed over (like the recoil on the Death STar...)

Note the firepower achieved by the slave ones blasters (giga joule range) note that this cannot out right penetrate the shields of/or destroy Obi Wan's Interceptor (and said weapons are given triple digit gigajoules EU).

I'm pretty sure the firepower of slave one's guns was 'triple digit' only on max power, and for the lowermost guns. The guns just below the cockpit are heavy lasers. Although based on their firepower in the movies they're probably somewhere in the gigajoule range as well (blasting apart rocks comparable in size to the Aethersprite) Also I'm pretty sure Obi-Wan's fighter HAD taken a hit, but then again the fighter was also shielded which is why it could take prolonged abuse like it did.

Consider that X-Wings are far heavier fighters than the interceptor and note that even tie fighter lasers are capable of blowing them away within a lock-on, suggesting much heavier firepower (hundreds gigajoules-terajoules). Consider the damage these might cause to ships - and the quantity of material destroyed by the heavy turbo-laser bolt destroying the star destroyer.

That can depend on how you figure SW shields work, and a great many things. The fact shields can be 'angled' means that gaps and exposed regions can exist (Millenium Falcon vs TIE escorts.)

I would say you can suggest the gigatons teratons from G canon alone but not claim it to be "obvious" or outright as it requires dancing around a bit. When cross referenced to the studied/canon extrapolated figures, its like 'confirmation' or given context.

You can suggest alot of things from the movies (I hate the term G-canon), but suggesting really isn't enough. You need a certain degree of reliability and consistency to the argument. This is why handwaving away the Death Star's desturction of alderaan as technobabble fails, after all.

[nightmare]

I've certainly considered that, but while starships has dangerous stuff aboard in the form of warheads, power cells and reactors which may be fail-deadly while hit by ordnance, they are are also not unprotected. It's still a mile long starship going from fine to kablooey in one shot. Sure, we can't say that the tl bolt caused all of that, and we don't really know how much energy it would take to do it in the first place. But it's a start.

It's a start, but its not going to be much more helpful for the ICS level yields than the TESB asteroid calcs are. Or the seismic charge of AOTc. Or anything like that. The biggest mass I remember ever being calced for an ISD was on the order of a billion tons. If we're generous in vaporization (something on the order of carbon) you MIGHT get a few gigatons or a few tens of gigatons at best. Maybe a bit more if it were plasma (but good luck there.) But then how do you break that down? Starships can go at least hours on fuel supplies, and if you have hundreds, or thousands of warheads potentially onboard.. you're maybe at megaton range. Far from being inconsequential or trivial firepower wise, but its nowhere near ICS level potentials either.

It may not apply to vs. debating, but what we're looking for is really some form of consistency, as hard as it is. The one billion ton figure relies on iron density and 95% air, and the low end figure is precisely that, a low end figure based on perfect energy conversion.

Dooku's ship may have odd propulsion, but it's consistent with what we see in other takeoffs (Tatooine, Besoin), and repulsors are just way too slow. They've never demonstrated propulsion faster than barely supersonic, and that's with book backing.

No, it's not. Nevermind the implications of a hyper-velocity passage through the atmosphere and the problems there, it requires Dooku's thrustres (if they exist) blasting the planet beneath him with the equivalent of a multi megaton (double or triple digit at that) or multi gigaton plasma blowtorch. I don't think you could call THAT a trivial concern, or argue that it seriously matches up with what we see.

it's even worse because remember that dooku's sailer by the time it reaches the Tradefed ships has slowed down (apparently) to a hundred metres per second, so the alleged timeframe has to account for speeding up AND slowing down.

There's lots of other logical problems I can think of based on this (fuel mass issues, blasting even more energy at the surface of the planet, etc.) but I think that makes the point pretty well.

That one of those we get to handwave away. It's not a problem with Dooku's ship since it has that odd buoy network propulsion, but we see the Falcon take off with flaring ion engines yet he's not torching Mos Eisley. That's clearly not the work of repulsors - many of which have no visible engines at all. It doesn't have the expected blowtorch effects, but the acceleration is obviously there anyway.

Besides, it makes no difference if the power is submitted by repulsor or ion engines. A certain amount of acceleration requires a certain amount of power, as you know. We don't have any funky escape the requirement tech, only the force gets away with that.

Why are you using 51 seconds? Mike always used 5 minutes, but I myself have never been able to concretely justify more than 10-15 minutes (give or take a few min either way) - which is a respectable tens or hundreds of gees, but nowhere near thousands.

Realtime from start to end. I don't assume timeskips unless I've got a reason to. When we can suspect timeskips in the movies they're usually jumping back a bit before rolling again. As a rule it's only a total change of location that skips forward, not when we're dealing with ongoing events.

That's been contested on the basis of how you read the diagram I think. For on ething what if its an approximation and they're still in hyperspace? IIRC just after Leia says 'the fleet will be here any moment' we see them still in hyperspace and then just emerging.

And even if they DID pull that, there's the quesiton of how they slowed down on approach from the death star without massive retro thrusters blowing exhaust out from the front of the ship...

That's not really a question, it's called vectored thrust. It works perfectly with Newtonian physics and we actually have secondary canon backing it. I know you know this.

As for interpretation of the diagram, I'm of the opinion that unless otherwise indicated, you get what you see. Plus we're talking about the imperial fleet, which was previously ordered to "Send the fleet to the far side of Endor. There it will stay until called for."

What's really damning is that the rebels didn't notice the imperial fleet coming around even when they first turned around. From when Ackbar get the report that enemy ships have appeared to when we see the imperial fleet, it takes approximately two to four seconds, and we're talking by the end of deaccleration. That leaves estimating the distance. That's tricky in the appearance scene since the imperial fleet is high up enough that we don't see the planet.

Ok. Bear in mind what I just said, alot of it is up to interpretation and not everyone agrees with it. I think Wayne even argued once that there might be some sort of FTL 'accel/decel' component to a hyperdrive jump separate from the engines (as part of a way of explaining the journey to Bespin without hyperdrive.)

That's nice and all, but again, what you see is what you get until you've got something to fill out the blanks. I don't think anyone has seriously argued that hyperjumps is just normal accleration since it would effectively be going from zero to FTL in a fraction of a second. You can't really base a calc off that. If the ion engines do a part of the job, where does it end?

Now I've gotta run again, prep for my second meeting, then all evening booked. But it was nice talking to you again, Connnor. You've always been rational and insightful, and I know you have considerable and thorough knowledge to back it up with, which is sadly rarely encountered in the topic of sci-fi analysis.

[Ritterin Sophia]

A modern HEAT round used by MBTs is only something like 30-60 megajoules (I think).

Are you sure about that?

[Connor MacLeod]

It may not apply to vs. debating, but what we're looking for is really some form of consistency, as hard as it is. The one billion ton figure relies on iron density and 95% air, and the low end figure is precisely that, a low end figure based on perfect energy conversion.

Consistency isn't that hard to find. Consistency that people won't complain or argue over is another story. That includes firepower, industry, etc.

Oh and the Iron figure? It actually relied more on something I remember discussing with Ender. He used water as a baseline density (which is actually pretty close to average densities of submarines, or so I hear.) and internal volume estimates. No indication of 'percentag eempty' or hull thickness or anything like that was done. But it does show how mass figures can vary depending on the parameters and assumptions. And it may or may not fit with other evidence easily - such as the ability for all manner of huge ass starships ot land on planets (AOTC, ROTS, etc.)

That one of those we get to handwave away.

Why?

It's not a problem with Dooku's ship since it has that odd buoy network propulsion

But that doesn't exist in the movies now does it? If we're getting into the 'official' material things get complicated on a whole nother level of 'interpretation.' (ICS vs other authors, for example.)

but we see the Falcon take off with flaring ion engines yet he's not torching Mos Eisley. That's clearly not the work of repulsors - many of which have no visible engines at all. It doesn't have the expected blowtorch effects, but the acceleration is obviously there anyway.

How exactly can you dismiss repulsors? Do you know how they work on the basis of the movies alone? What's more, how do you know its the engines causing the thrust? We don't see any sort of exhaust trail or other indications that we might otherwise expect from such high accel/high energy events. Things like that can't be ignored.

Besides, it makes no difference if the power is submitted by repulsor or ion engines. A certain amount of acceleration requires a certain amount of power, as you know. We don't have any funky escape the requirement tech, only the force gets away with that.

Actually it DOES matter, because for any sort of reaction drive (barring any mass lightening handwaving or something like that) to push a certain mass at a certain acceleration, it will require a certain amount of energy. You do realize THAT is in point of fact one of the premises behind Star Wars' 'uber firepower' from the omvies, right? The abilities to push billion ton-plus starships at thousands of gees, and so on. And energy cannot just disappear into thin air. That's part of the problem.

Realtime from start to end. I don't assume timeskips unless I've got a reason to. When we can suspect timeskips in the movies they're usually jumping back a bit before rolling again. As a rule it's only a total change of location that skips forward, not when we're dealing with ongoing events.

So why should we go with the 'realtime' inference over the timeframes stated in the movie? You do realize it can be argued either way, and thus far there is nothing arguing for your interpretation over any other (mine or other people's.)

That's not really a question, it's called vectored thrust. It works perfectly with Newtonian physics and we actually have secondary canon backing it. I know you know this.

Vectored thrust is canon from the movies now? Or are we dipping back into the non-movie sources?

As for interpretation of the diagram, I'm of the opinion that unless otherwise indicated, you get what you see. Plus we're talking about the imperial fleet, which was previously ordered to "Send the fleet to the far side of Endor. There it will stay until called for."

Which is again the problem. People can cite 'opinion' all they like, but it won't od much to resolve things. Some peopel hold the opinion that the Death Star isn't a brute force planet destroyer, after all.

What's really damning is that the rebels didn't notice the imperial fleet coming around even when they first turned around. From when Ackbar get the report that enemy ships have appeared to when we see the imperial fleet, it takes approximately two to four seconds, and we're talking by the end of deaccleration. That leaves estimating the distance. That's tricky in the appearance scene since the imperial fleet is high up enough that we don't see the planet.

As I recall the Imperials were engaging in some rather heavy jamming (one reason they couldn't get a reading on the shield, after all..) why should the Imperial ships be any easier to detect through jamming? The Crux of your argument seems to be 'the Imperial fleet should have been spotted instantly' which is not unreasonable, but it is far from the only (or even most likely) conclusion.

That's nice and all, but again, what you see is what you get until you've got something to fill out the blanks. I don't think anyone has seriously argued that hyperjumps is just normal accleration since it would effectively be going from zero to FTL in a fraction of a second. You can't really base a calc off that. If the ion engines do a part of the job, where does it end?

So you're saying its okay for anyone to make up any old excuse based on their own opinions, and people don't have to obey any sorts of constraints or limits (like energy having to go someplace.) Isn't that the supposed problem with the 'critics' of the super-high-OMFG yields?

Moreover, what makes 'SUPER HUGE INSANE ACCELERATIONS FROM ION ENGINES' somehow more plausible. As I recall you're arguing for tens of thousands of gees, which is pretty insane given that it makes some of those problems worse (like Dooku trying to escape the planet) Accelerations beyond a few thousand gravities have some pretty hefty problems behind them (in the form of 'you burn your fuel down even faster. And a 3000 gee accel for an ISD lasts only around 10K seconds or so, as I recall from Curtis' own statements on the calcs he did for the ICSes - which I might add are supposed to be BASED on those very same movies.)

Now I've gotta run again, prep for my second meeting, then all evening booked. But it was nice talking to you again, Connnor. You've always been rational and insightful, and I know you have considerable and thorough knowledge to back it up with, which is sadly rarely encountered in the topic of sci-fi analysis.

Thanks. And you don't have to rush responding to this right after the fact I have. These debates don't exactly disappear fast, and I'm not going to hold it against anyone if they take some time between replies (at least I won't as long as they avoid pissing me off.)

[Luke Skywalker]

Yeah and I'm sure you can go off and find it then if there is, and then explain what a railgun is supposed to have in common with your gross generalization about reaction drives. This should prove amusing and enlightening if you can pull it off.

Sure. "Tie" fighter stands for Twin Ion Engines. Ergo, they function by shooting out ionized particles, meaning that they do indeed involve the same basic premise as railguns and projectile weapons. Your argument here is that it is reasonable to say that a star destroyer's weaponry is magically ten thousand times weaker than its engines, despite both drawing off the exact same power source. Why would this be the case? How does this even make the slightest hint of a sense, that a ship's engines have a magical quality about them that don't apply their weaponry?

Additionally, as Dooku's sailboat accelerates inside the atmosphere at the calculated speeds, chunks of air would hit it with the force of small nuclear bombs; the fact that the ship doesn't disintegrate under the astronomical air resistance would be a telling sign of its shielding and armor.

LOL. so you're assuming that any hypothetical energy-consuming weapon a SW ship might consume can automatically take the full output of the reactors without problem with magically perfect efficiency? Remember, movies-only deprives us of alot of those useful tidbits from the ICS and such.

What a pointless strawman; whoever said that their weapons can take the "full output" of their reactors? If an ISD's reactor can generate e24 joules every second, even 0.01% of the reactor strength being diverted to a heavy turbolaser would yield many hundreds of gigatons. To nerf Wars figures to any significant extent would require us to believe that the guns of an imperial star destroyer, a dedicated combat warship, are significantly less efficient than a 19th century lightbulb.

If turbolasers were that inefficient, why don't star destroyers mount other weapons instead?

I can't wait to see you justify this assertion.

So a dedicated combat warship only applies 0.001% of its reactor power to weaponry, and the rest go to cooking dinner.

Or, a dedicated combat warship applies 80% of its reactor power to weaponry, but their turbolasers are so inefficient, 99.999% of their energy is wasted, making them less efficient than modern day solar panels.

I'm pretty sure engine exhausts, while they can move very fast potentially are not nearly as collimated as a beam weapon requires for any effective range. I'm assuming you're going by the old 'Kzinti Lesson' standby, which was dealt with by Atomic rockets here.

The article assumes a universe that actually makes sense. Your assumption here is in which the engines of an ISD are e23 watts, while their weapons are <e18 watts, in which case, even a heavily dispersed, crappy, inaccurate and inefficient use of exhaust thrust would spell doom for any ship in which it is aimed at.

For crying out loud did you even bother looking at the numbers? how many 'seconds' is seconds? That can techincially mean anyhwere from 2 seconds to 59 seconds (or 119 if you consider 'one minute' to not be the same as 'minutes.') If we assumed 25 seconds from ground to low orbit (EG outside the atmosphere) and assuming around 150 km or so for atmosphere (I'm too lazy to doubl echeck and its not going to make a huge diff calc wise) we get.. 48 gees. Which is not exactly trivial for acceleration, but its far from the hundreds or thousands of gees typically atributed to star wars.

Alone, it doesn't prove ICS yields; what it does support is the notion that all of these various examples of ships achieving orbit within seconds aren't simply editing errors, or jumps in chronology.

But yes, it is a weak example, in comparison to others.

Moreover, it doesn't address the fact that we know repulsors exist, and they may be involved in getting a ship ot orbit. Indeed from the SW novelization we know repulsors can work some distance out from a planet.

So what? Repulsors will still require energy, unless if they can violate CoE.

A ship that uses a magical solar sail to propel itself and has no thrusters of any kind except in the AOTC ICS (which are, I might add, nowhere near as powerful as the movie proclaims.) Another potential case where Repulsors are involved, nevermind the possibility that the two scenes are not continuous.

Bullshit. The sail doesn't open up until after the ship has already reached Geonosis's rings. And I love how you dismiss anything supporting my argument by dismissing the propulsion device used as "magic".

Maybe you should try running your own numbers and math and regurgitating other people's work? I find it hilarious that you somehow think I am totally unaware of these facts or am somehow new to this. (Here's a hint, my name actually crops up in quite a few places on Mike and Curtis's sites pertaining to SW stuff. I've known about this crap for years.)

I have, on other sites, but what is your point, exactly? If you've known about the numbers for years, feel free to explain how the example I provided is incorrect, rather than vaguely appealing to your experience. Your entire argument here is on the basis that Star Wars warships cannot dedicate even 5% of their reactor power to their guns, which doesn't even make the slightest shred of sense.

[Simon_Jester]

There's something very ironic about the way that this site can spawn people who have read its numbers and taken them so much to heart that they are no longer able to consider anything not said on the main page...

Sure. "Tie" fighter stands for Twin Ion Engines. Ergo, they function by shooting out ionized particles...

This does not follow.

meaning that they do indeed involve the same basic premise as railguns and projectile weapons.

Nor does this- there's a huge difference between railguns, conventional chemical guns, and rocket engines. It matters to people who know how they work.

What a pointless strawman; whoever said that their weapons can take the "full output" of their reactors? If an ISD's reactor can generate e24 joules every second, even 0.01% of the reactor strength being diverted to a heavy turbolaser would yield many hundreds of gigatons. To nerf Wars figures to any significant extent would require us to believe that the guns of an imperial star destroyer, a dedicated combat warship, are significantly less efficient than a 19th century lightbulb.

If turbolasers were that inefficient, why don't star destroyers mount other weapons instead?

Because other weapons can't be scaled up to handle those energy levels at all?

So a dedicated combat warship only applies 0.001% of its reactor power to weaponry, and the rest go to cooking dinner.

Or, a dedicated combat warship applies 80% of its reactor power to weaponry, but their turbolasers are so inefficient, 99.999% of their energy is wasted, making them less efficient than modern day solar panels.

Or a dedicated combat warship's engines are somehow tied to the reactor in a way that does not allow all its power output to be converted into electricity.

You don't need to be all that imaginative or flexible to see how this could be true, because it's true in real life. Real life warships have 'power plants' (turbines) that run at tens or hundreds of megawatts of power output. This does not mean they have tens or hundreds of megawatts of electricity available, should they need them. The idea of redesigning a ship for "all-electric" propulsion so that all the power of its engines can be converted to electricity in a practical way is actually rather new and quite difficult.

Obviously, Star Wars ship reactors don't run on turbines. But it's hardly a stretch to suppose that the main reactor's output is hardwired to the main drive, in such a way that only a small fraction of the reactor's power output can be converted into electricity to perform "just any" task, such as operating sensors or weaponry.

The article assumes a universe that actually makes sense. Your assumption here is in which the engines of an ISD are e23 watts, while their weapons are <e18 watts, in which case, even a heavily dispersed, crappy, inaccurate and inefficient use of exhaust thrust would spell doom for any ship in which it is aimed at.

A kiloton/second beam weapon that can be focused into a spot a meter wide delivers a much higher intensity on target than a gigaton/second rocket exhaust plume that spreads to ten kilometers across at the same distance. Depending on how the target is designed and hardened, the kiloton/second weapon may be far more effective at cracking its defenses.

[Connor MacLeod]

I'll probably get to my response later (more interested in dealing with my 40K stuff right now) but I did want to add a couple comments to something Simon said. Lengthier than I intended, but eh.

Obviously, Star Wars ship reactors don't run on turbines. But it's hardly a stretch to suppose that the main reactor's output is hardwired to the main drive, in such a way that only a small fraction of the reactor's power output can be converted into electricity to perform "just any" task, such as operating sensors or weaponry.

Depending on your source, they do use 'turbines' on weapons and engines. TLs as per the EGW&T have turbines (and regulating the power flow to the turbolasers is critical or else they might explode.) and engines on quite a few starships in the DK Cross sections books are listed as having turbines (fighters like the Y-wing, the Tantive IV, or hell even the ISD has a turbine listed.) How engines work also depends on source: some 'ion engines' (like the HK Ion engine mentioned as the most common/popular design in some books) behave like a Nuclear Thermal rocket in their descriptions rather than some kind of 'particle accelerator'. TIE engines use the latter, but they were mentioned as both a fairly recent and specialized (unique even) design, and the high velocity was supposed to mean they don't need much propellant to achieve high agility, which makes it hard to argue stupendously huge propellant quantities larger power outputs demand. hell the exhaust velocity wasn't even near-c neccesarily, it was IIRC a 'substantial' fraction of lightspeed, which is more variable.)

Another amusing thing re: complaints that 'engines should easily translate into powerful weapons' - this actually doesn't work out with small craft or fighters. Single digit kt laser cannons at MAXIMUM OUTPUT (some weapons are actually sub kiloton- GASP), and yet their engine performance (thousands of gees for multi ton fighters) is something on the order of (IIRC) e16-e17 watts 'supposedly' (Ender mentioned the performance stats for the ARc-170 here, and I think Curtis has made allusions to this on his Power Technologies page, but the exact origin of the calcs - one of those guys or someone else I knew, or if I did them, is lost to my immediate memory and years in the past.)

This really highlights one of the problems assumed in the OP - there is an 'either/or' aspect to the evidence that prevents any other answer. Either its all right, or all wrong. And you can't really get away with declaring 'one source over others', because other people do that ('TCW series contradicts the ICS!' is a common counterargument against the stats placed into the ICS and derived from other sources.) and there are indeed other interpretations depending on where you look: EG the X-wing novels with 'kilojoule' x-wing lasers and 'terajoule' capital ship weapons. Or what about the cases where SW ships (including capital ships) run on fusion reactors? Amusingly, I remember Luke Campbell mentioning (and I've brought it up here before) that 10% or 1% weapon to reactor ratio seems reasonable - at least for certain kinds of reactor types but it probably could apply in other cases (shockingly, depends on parameters.) Kinda interesting how that changes your perspective, I think.

Hell, even the so called 'canon' power figures for starships involve a ton of assumptions: Dimensions may be easily extrapolated (EG Death Star, ISD, etc.) but the actual internal composition is not so easily divined - hull thicknesses, ship internals, etc. are not, and we are forced to rely on other evidence to fill in those gaps. But if we exclude those sources.. the strength of the calc becomes shakier because we have to make assumptions. Same goes with the operation of the engines - exhaust velocity, propellant usage (and how much is carried) and so on and so forth. Play around with those numbers in different ways and you can yield vastly different figures. It doesn't get any better when it comes to weaponry either - how does the energy get from reactors to weapons? In what form? how efficiently can it be conducted? What about heat dissipation systems? Etc. etc.

Ultimately this thread is more about 'what people think the evidence says' than 'what the evidence actually says', and sometimes I wonder how much of the material people have read. I know Mike and Curtis have read a fair bit of it (at least in the past) and I know I have, but sometimes it seems like people just go by what other people say, and that causes problems.

[Connor MacLeod]

Sure. "Tie" fighter stands for Twin Ion Engines. Ergo, they function by shooting out ionized particles, meaning that they do indeed involve the same basic premise as railguns and projectile weapons.

Your argument here is that it is reasonable to say that a star destroyer's weaponry is magically ten thousand times weaker than its engines, despite both drawing off the exact same power source. Why would this be the case? How does this even make the slightest hint of a sense, that a ship's engines have a magical quality about them that don't apply their weaponry?

First, Proof? I don't think you even know how a railgun works, otherwise you wouldn't even claim that. Moreover are you claiming EVERYONE uses ion engines? If so I want proof. And even then how do you know what the performance parameters of the ion engine are? You have evidence handy? Second, Are you really this clueless? You think reactor power magically gets from the engines to other systems throughout the ship? There are all manner of systems involved in taking power from the reactor and transferring it to weapons, shields, etc. and that its somehow going to be perfectly efficient? Third, I love how you keep bringing up'10,000' as if I stated there was some absolute, definitive figure, rather than saying 'we don't know, so it could be anything, like 1/100th.'

Don't bother reading what other people post much, do you?

Additionally, as Dooku's sailboat accelerates inside the atmosphere at the calculated speeds, chunks of air would hit it with the force of small nuclear bombs; the fact that the ship doesn't disintegrate under the astronomical air resistance would be a telling sign of its shielding and armor.

Evidence? I assume you did calcs so let's see them so let's see them as well

What a pointless strawman; whoever said that their weapons can take the "full output" of their reactors? If an ISD's reactor can generate e24 joules every second, even 0.01% of the reactor strength being diverted to a heavy turbolaser would yield many hundreds of gigatons. To nerf Wars figures to any significant extent would require us to believe that the guns of an imperial star destroyer, a dedicated combat warship, are significantly less efficient than a 19th century lightbulb.

That assumes ISDs put out e24watts of course, which depends on the parameters you base those calcs on. I don't think you realize how many assumptions tend to go into Star Wars calcs, which means there can be ways to contest or challenge those calcs (At least going by movies alone. you do realize that your original claim was that the movies showed the sort of firepower Havok explicitly said did not exist apart from the ISD?) Oh and I love how you claim my demand you provide proof to back up your assumptions, and me pointing out that there are alot more assumptions and unknowns behind a great many calcs (as if I am the only perso nto ever do this) is 'strawmanning', particualrily when you go off on some arbitrary '10,000' figure you brought up but I haven't mentioned up to this point.

If turbolasers were that inefficient, why don't star destroyers mount other weapons instead?

So a dedicated combat warship only applies 0.001% of its reactor power to weaponry, and the rest go to cooking dinner.


Or, a dedicated combat warship applies 80% of its reactor power to weaponry, but their turbolasers are so inefficient, 99.999% of their energy is wasted, making them less efficient than modern day solar panels.

I see, its that way because you think it is, and you don't really HAVE evidence. Should I be surprised? I like how you assume 'combat mode' automatically means going full tilt at MAXIMUM POWER at everything. Because apparently anything less than maximum effort is 'stupid' by your fiat and everyone is just supposed to obey what you say. Or that 'other weapons' woudl magically be more efficient. Again with nothing like proof. It's amazing how much of this logic you take as 'proven fact' just because you say so. Then again you think railguns and particle beams and ion engines operate on identical principles so...

The article assumes a universe that actually makes sense. Your assumption here is in which the engines of an ISD are e23 watts, while their weapons are <e18 watts, in which case, even a heavily dispersed, crappy, inaccurate and inefficient use of exhaust thrust would spell doom for any ship in which it is aimed at.

so you're tossing physics out because its inconvenient? Or are you thinking its actually possible to pick and choose arbitrarily when science does and doesn't apply? If you do that you don't get your big fancy numbers. I love how you keep assumping that I'm the one making assumptions in pointing out 'we don't know how alot of things work and so the exact parameters are up for debate', when it's you who is making all the assumptions about inefficiencies in the process, heat dissipation, etc. (bearing in mind the original 'movies-only' slant from Havok's first post, which you responded to. Then again you seem to like to cross between 'movies' and 'non movie' evidence when it suits you so...)

Alone, it doesn't prove ICS yields; what it does support is the notion that all of these various examples of ships achieving orbit within seconds aren't simply editing errors, or jumps in chronology.

But yes, it is a weak example, in comparison to others.

How does it prove what you claim?

So what? Repulsors will still require energy, unless if they can violate CoE.

They might, but they don't need to violate CoE in any of the cases. Again much of this depends on the parameters being used here. I don't see why this is an impossible fact for you to grasp. The movies don't spell things out in excruciating detail (which is not a bad thing, since it's not a starship repair manual.)

Bullshit. The sail doesn't open up until after the ship has already reached Geonosis's rings. And I love how you dismiss anything supporting my argument by dismissing the propulsion device used as "magic".

Hey look, you're misrepresenting what I said. I said Dooku's solar sailer is clearly magical, which is true, since its far too small to actually work as a solar sail is meant to work. 'Magical' does not mean 'it automatically breaks physics in every way', you know (or maybe you don't, given your response as a whole.) Moreover, you evidently havent' grasped the key element of my responses: That there's far less we KNOW as fact from the movies (and even the EU doesn't provide all the answers) and assumptions are involved - which can be challenged or contradicted (and often are.) whereas you seem to take everything as being established, irrefutable fact - because you say it has to work according to your own narrow sort of logic. Considering you just claimed the SW universe doesn't make sense as an excuse, accusing me of using 'magical' to describe how things work is pretty ludicrous.

I have, on other sites, but what is your point, exactly? If you've known about the numbers for years, feel free to explain how the example I provided is incorrect, rather than vaguely appealing to your experience. Your entire argument here is on the basis that Star Wars warships cannot dedicate even 5% of their reactor power to their guns, which doesn't even make the slightest shred of sense.

LOL, you don't even understand what the hell I'm saying apparently. Here's the genesis of the discussion in case you forgot, in which my point was quite clear: we don't know alot of the details we would be required to know to take 'extrapolated' firepower examples as definitively as the demonstrated ones (EG the Death STar destroying Alderaan.) Fuck, do you even KNOW what assumptions (from the movies or elsewhere) went into making the ICS numbers work? Or the Death STar (and there was some interesting hoops to jump through for that one.) I kinda doubt you thought about that, because I certainly know *I* haven't always thought about those numbers beyond the fact 'someone made numbers, they MUST be true!'. OH dear, there I go appealing ot my own experience again... But hell, you do have a point I really didn't address the Endor bit to you, but that's pretty easy. On one hand, they're based on an interpretation of the display in the bunker (the scene just after the display shows the fleet still in hyperspace, after all.) and we don't know what is decelerating the ships.

[Luke Skywalker]

OK, Conner. Your main argument here seems to be that one cannot estimate a warship’s firepower based on its reactor output because it involves too many “assumptions” and “extrapolations”. Naturally, you’ve been incredibly vague about exactly what these assumptions are, and how they are in any manner unreasonable, but I’ll list out all of the ones that I can think of, so feel free to point out any I missed.

1. That the Star Wars universe can be rationalized using RL physics.
2. That the various observations and calculations of high SW accelerations in the thousands or tens of thousands of Gs are accurate.
3. That a dedicated warship can divert any reasonable (>0.1%) of its reactor power to its guns.
4. That a turbolaser is more efficient than the first Edison lightbulb.

You seem to be rallying against assumptions 3 and 4, as though I am committing a ridiculous leap in logic in making them, even though the most basic dose of common sense, and not abusing the appeal to ignorance fallacy at every possible angle, would lead one to conclude that 3 and 4 are ridiculously conservative assumptions, and that any dedicated combat warship should be able to divert a significant fraction of its power to its main guns, and that any respectable weapon would not be as ridiculously inefficient as your dissent requires it to be.

Really, feel free to explain how 3 and 4 are unreasonable assumptions rather than extremely conservative estimates, rather than screaming “well, we can’t know for sure!” over and over again.

Moreover are you claiming EVERYONE uses ion engines? If so I want proof. And even then how do you know what the performance parameters of the ion engine are?

What the fuck? How is this relevant in the slightest? If they can slap ion engines on tie fighters, and these ion engines produce ridiculous acceleration rates, then the only reason why’d they’d use other engine types on other vessels is if those engines were on parity with ion engines, in which case your argument is, well, stupid and changes nothing. Especially given that tie fighters are cheap fodder.

My point was to prove (even though this should already be painfully obvious) that SW reactors are efficient enough to transfer >1% of its power to, say, a projectile weapon, and that its engines are not magically and inexplicitly ten thousand times more powerful than its weaponry. In fact, note that the figures produced by these acceleration estimates refer to the engines alone, meaning that if you argue extreme inefficiency, the calculations already factor this in!

You have evidence handy? Second, Are you really this clueless? You think reactor power magically gets from the engines to other systems throughout the ship?

Wait, since when is the reactor power going to go from the engines to other systems? That it can transfer X power to the engines merely gives a lower limit as to the power of the reactor itself, it has nothing to do with what you’re implying here.

There are all manner of systems involved in taking power from the reactor and transferring it to weapons, shields, etc. and that its somehow going to be perfectly efficient?

Wait, when did I ever argue that energy transfer was going to be “perfectly efficient”? Did you even bother reading a third of my post, in which I continuously repeated to you, again and again (so much that I cut out some of my paragraphs, for fear of excessive repetition), that even ridiculously low figures of efficiency (1%) would still produce gigaton range weapon yields? No “perfect efficiency” was ever assumed or claimed.

You see, your entire argument is that, because I cannot know the exact efficiency rate of a turbolaser and a hypermatter reactor, I cannot make any assumptions on firepower. So I cannot in good faith assume that a dedicated combat warship could transfer 25% of its power to its main guns, and that turbolasers would be far more efficient than primitive chemical lasers (>75%).

which means there can be ways to contest or challenge those calcs…there are alot more assumptions and unknowns behind a great many…

Really, I look forward to clarification as to the “ways” to contest or challenge these calcs.
Indeed, half of your post continuously references these unreasonable and ridiculous assumptions I make, and the “unknown parameters” that my argument is founded upon. You are suspiciously vague as to what these parameters actually are, and the few times that you actually explain them, you pull ridiculous strawmans of me assuming “perfect efficiency” (when I am assuming precisely the opposite).

I see, its that way because you think it is, and you don't really HAVE evidence. Should I be surprised? I like how you assume 'combat mode' automatically means going full tilt at MAXIMUM POWER at everything.

Does my conservative estimate of 1% power mean “maximum power” at everything?

Because apparently anything less than maximum effort is 'stupid' by your fiat and everyone is just supposed to obey what you say.

Feel free to explain what the other 99.99% of the reactor power is doing then.

Or that 'other weapons' woudl magically be more efficient.

Magically? If turbolasers were less efficient than solar panels, they’d use other, more powerful weapons instead. It’s not that hard to deduce.

Hey look, you're misrepresenting what I said. I said Dooku's solar sailer is clearly magical, which is true, since its far too small to actually work as a solar sail is meant to work.

Whoever says that it’s a solar sail? The thing only opens up when Dooku’s ship has already passed geonosis’s rings.

[the atom]

Additionally, as Dooku's sailboat accelerates inside the atmosphere at the calculated speeds, chunks of air would hit it with the force of small nuclear bombs; the fact that the ship doesn't disintegrate under the astronomical air resistance would be a telling sign of its shielding and armor.

Or maybe he just waited until he reached the upper atmosphere/low orbit before really flooring it. The fact that nobody was blinded by a large fireball as Dooku's sailboat blasted through the atmosphere is rather telling.

[Lunacy1]

My takeon the whole thing with reactor overall power/fire-power thing is tht canon in-fact supports the the difference in “power” between engines and weapons is at least hundreds – or/and up to hundreds of thousands... Not that, for example (save for a few quotes maybe) they can have firepower nigh-100% of their total reactor output. (Extrapolating from canons provided ~densities ~accelerations ~masses ~firepowers)
Star Destroyers power output is ~7.7e+24W, whilst the power maintained by weaponry at maximum firepower for “intense ship to ship combat” or “base delta zeros” (and the required turbolaser equivalent energy) is 6 teratons/second… this is hundreds of times less than the total power.

Note shields of warships can vary from 25-50% of their overall reactor output and firepower over this will overwhelm them instantly creating an upper limit on the ships firepower/total power ratio.

However shields being lowered in “minutes”, severe “crust melting” world bombardments, ICS-statistics, scales in comparison to Boba Fetts (in-film) light-rapid-firing GJ blasters & canonically yielded turbolasers, all leading to sustainable fire-powers at least hundreds of times less than the overall main-reactor output.
Fighters overall reactor power (mostly dedicated to thrust) is a good order of magnitude above their sustainable firepower... as seen through their accelerations and max. fuel consumption rates compared to their firepower (both on-screen or ICS).

The key is the gigantic-engines far greater scale and integration with main reactors when compared to the turbolasers which are far-far smaller and less integrated to main reactors... connected only by insanely heavy duty power bigtillion watt power cables.

What happens with craft which do in-fact have gigantic-super-weapons integrated directly with reactors?... You get Eclipse’s or Death Stars… examples of what ships are like when they actually do have a large(er) percentage of their reactor out-put dedicated to the weapons firepower (resulting in world-ending firepower).

[jollyreaper]

Out side of the Death Star, even the movies don't show the firepower people like to wank out of their pockets for debate.

I agree with the sentiment about Lucas not being a numbers guy. Tech performance is according to the speed of plot, nothing more.

That being said, Dodonna's quote is: "The battlestation is heavily shielded, and carries a firepower greater than half the starfleet. It's defenses are designed around a direct, large-scale assault. A small, one-man fighter should be able to penetrate the outer defense."

Would he be talking about the anti-capship weapons or include the superlaser?

The Death Star seems really, really out of line compared with the rest of Imperail tech. A lot more out of scale than saying "well, here's an American infantryman with a rifle and grenades and a megaton thermonuclear weapon is completely out of scale." We're not just talking about slagging the surface of a planet with starships -- something I would find plausible with their tech -- we're talking hitting a planet so hard that it's going to form a new asteroid belt.

[Batman]

We see the DS do it. It's not up for debate. To a shielded planet no less. And the 'half the starfleet' comment was Han, not Dodonna. And wasn't referring to the firepower of the DS but the one needed to explode a planet (which, admittedly, amounts to the same thing, but Han didn't know that at the time).

[Havok]

No, Han says "The entire starfleet couldn't destroy a whole planet. It'd take a thousand ships with more fire power than I've..."

Dodonna says "The battle station is heavily shielded and carries firepower greater than half the star fleet" and he is talking about why they need to use fighters and not the fleet.

[Batman]

I stand corrected.

[Connor MacLeod]

OK, Conner. Your main argument here seems to be that one cannot estimate a warship’s firepower based on its reactor output because it involves too many “assumptions” and “extrapolations”. Naturally, you’ve been incredibly vague about exactly what these assumptions are, and how they are in any manner unreasonable, but I’ll list out all of the ones that I can think of, so feel free to point out any I missed.

1. That the Star Wars universe can be rationalized using RL physics.
2. That the various observations and calculations of high SW accelerations in the thousands or tens of thousands of Gs are accurate.
3. That a dedicated warship can divert any reasonable (>0.1%) of its reactor power to its guns.
4. That a turbolaser is more efficient than the first Edison lightbulb.

You seem to be rallying against assumptions 3 and 4, as though I am committing a ridiculous leap in logic in making them, even though the most basic dose of common sense, and not abusing the appeal to ignorance fallacy at every possible angle, would lead one to conclude that 3 and 4 are ridiculously conservative assumptions, and that any dedicated combat warship should be able to divert a significant fraction of its power to its main guns, and that any respectable weapon would not be as ridiculously inefficient as your dissent requires it to be.

Really, feel free to explain how 3 and 4 are unreasonable assumptions rather than extremely conservative estimates, rather than screaming “well, we can’t know for sure!” over and over again.

You still don't get it. you seem to have this idea that things are simple and it can just be broken down to a few key points and everything else doesn't matter, when that's not the case. You're looking at a starship as being some big, giant gun and that's all you have to concern yourself with as far as how it works and how it deals with things. How does the TL convert reactor power into a TL bolt? Does the reactor convert the energy release to electricity, transmit it from reactor to gun, and then get translated into a TL bolt, or is it some other method? How efficient is the process at every step along the way? How much power can be transferred from reactor to gun in a given timeframe safely, and how efficiently can it be done? What about cooling systems for the entire process? How do they store and dump waste heat, and how efficiently is it done? What are the power handling characteristics of TLS? If they use capacitors as storage, how much power does it store before releasing the shot? Literally those are the only examples off the top of my head and it doesn't even begin to grasp the complexity you would need to answer to have any reasonable translation of 'engine output' to 'firepower.' As incredible as you might think, it's actually not impossible for reactor power to be so high simply to power the engines. or maybe the hyperdrive. Guns, shields or other systems may not be a huge power draw on starships. We don't know and thus how it is interpreted is open to debate and what assumptions are treated as 'reasonable.'

I mean fuck, you argued that ion engines (as you defined the) were the exact same thing as railguns (nevermind all the other stuff you said) and you didn't grasp WHY this was a problem. If you can't be bothered to grasp why that is the problem, then there's no possible way I can explain the problem to you. The numbers aren't the absolutes you treat them to be, ESPECIALLY if you go 'movies only' (which i might add was Havok's original point in a far more concise manner.)- and adding the EU does not magically fix this because the EU creates as many problems with 'big NUMBAHS' as it solves, depending on where you look.

Which agian brings us back to 'the numbers aren't absolute, and its silly when people treat them as absolutes.' And if you can't grasp that by now i'm frankly wasting my time. Take that as a concession or whatever, but what Havok said originally is accurate and stands. Deal with it.

[Havok]

AND Batman, not to rub it in or anything, Han knew exactly what he is talking about because the line before that he says "It's been totally blown away."

What we take from these two lines is that the act of completely obliterating a planet is unheard of by Jedi or Smuggler, that Han is under the impression that the Imperial Starfleet is well under 1000 ships and their combined might couldn't come close to accomplishing the feat and that Dodonna thinks that the Death Stars defenses, not the super laser, are a match for over half the Imperial starfleet, let alone what the rebels can throw at it. (This is backed up by the small amount of ships we actually SEE in ROTJ considering they believe the DSII defenses are not yet operational)

To me, and this is the kinda key point of the movie to me, the Death Star and it's super laser is an absolute exception, a true ULTIMATE WEAPON and the opening crawl states, which is why it is so important that it is destroyed.

[Havok]

a double digit/multi-hundred megajoule blast from an E-11, vaporizing that grate in the detention block of the Death Star

Holy shit, you do know what a double to triple digit megajoule explosion looks like right? A modern HEAT round used by MBTs is only something like 30-60 megajoules (I think).

More like 10-15 MJ. Tungsten 17-20 MJ, USN railgun 33 MJ.

But I think he's right... vapourization is pretty hefty, and it was clearly turned to gas.

Clearly? Or does she just blast it and it breaks and falls into the garbage chute and you can't see it because of the smoke?
Why do you guys always assume the absolute most AWESOME firepower levels when there is a far more logical explanation.

Also given the fact that the power required to vaporize that metal would probably vaporize them at that range and that there is no fucking way Chewie and his fur could just sit in the grate arguing with Han without catching on fire from the residual heat if that amount of firepower actually existed.

[Havok]

That depends on your take of the Imperial Fleet destroying asteroids during ESB but for the most part, yeah you're right.

You know I was thinking about this... isn't this the same asteroid field that had asteroids colliding into each other and exploding and catching on fire in space? Seems like there may be something present in the asteroids themselves that is helping the TLs of the Executor along.

[Connor MacLeod]

I should note that one of the aspects of the OMFGHUGE firepower numbers being derived from acceleration is that it has HUGE impliactions for recoil, both for the firing ship, and the ship being hit. If, for example, a TL bolt packing 1/10th the power of the ship's max reactor output hits another ship, the ship firing is going to be pushed backwards (via recoil) and the ship struck is going to have momentum imparted to it which is comparable to the energy in the shot (at least for any sort of 'realistic' beam weapon - if we're dealing with projectiles the story gets more complicated.) so if the ISD moves at oh, 3000 gees, that means the single bolt is going to behave like 1/10th the reactor output. If both ships are the same size, that translates into a SUBSTANTIAL (and noticable) shove on either firing ship or the target. Funny enough starfighters seem to have much lower firepower than their engine performance suggests, for example (gj-tj range lasers whereas the reactor outputs, assuming thousands of gees accel, typically go into the 16-17 watt range)

The Death star firing on Alderaan is a big example of this problem, but there are others (ship to ship combat in general) like TESB when the ion cannon hits the Star destroyer (takes down shields and cripples ships in a few shots, but the ship only sorta sits in place and wobbles out of place rather than being shoved backwards violently and at tremendous velocity if it had firepower anywhere close to what an ISD is purported to output at max thrust.)

Nevermind that engine performance depends not just on ship mass (and what parameters do you use for THAT is a huge question - i've seen ISD masses go from millions of tons to a billion plus tons depending on assumptions.) as well as the mass of fuel carried (super huge yields demand INCREDIBLY huge fuel requirements - eg again Death star), propellant mass carried (unless you're using something like a photon rocket), exhaust velocity, and how long the ship can go before running dry.

[Havok]

And sorry, I am saying some of the stuff you guys already did (the grate issue).

[Connor MacLeod]

You know I was thinking about this... isn't this the same asteroid field that had asteroids colliding into each other and exploding and catching on fire in space? Seems like there may be something present in the asteroids themselves that is helping the TLs of the Executor along.

i dont think you could find anything chemically reactive with nearly enough energy to blow them apart unless they didn't vaporize unless like 99% of it was solid chemical. You'd literally have to start arguing they actually weren't asteroids. but giant space grenades.

[Havok]

Ok, so why are they exploding and catching on fire when they collide?