Breathable atmo in CIS vessels...

[Shroom Man 777]

Okay, I've got a simple explanation for this.

The Invisible Hand DID have a bridge crew. I imagine the ship's other sections might have meatbag crew, if only in case of potential system malfunctions OR Republic cyber-attacks... or overrides in case of ion weapons use. Imagine ionics against droid-crewed ships!

So I guess that's why CIS ships have life-support systems. There're probably skeleton crews in 'em and it may be cheaper, or of insignificant expense, for 'em to just put breathable atmo in all of a ship's segments rather than have some parts airless and go through all the trouble of filling these parts with air when a crew member checks a look for maintenance purposes and then removing the air when the person fucks away (or having crew wear masks, which might be bothersome for Nemoidian twats who want to stay comfy).

[Gandalf]

Even if there's no skeleton crew, maybe they just function better in an atmosphere than a vacuum. I know that droids spoke out loud to one another in TPM, but were they doing it later on?

[Solauren]

My guess is it's a cost effectiveness thing.

Odds are, there are some repairs you don't leave to droids (or perhaps droids of that skill level are expensive).
So, for that, you use non-droid crew.

Maybe it's just easier to keep a normal atmosphere on the ship then keeping it a near vac then refilling it for major repairs. Would certainly be a time saver.

[Silver Jedi]

Do we actually have examples of battle droids operating in vacuum? They don't respire like most organics, but there may be other functions that require an atmosphere (liquid lubricants that would boil off in vac, convection cooling of electronics, etc.). If you have to keep an atmosphere in your ship anyway, might as well make it one that's breathable by the members of your military that do that.

[Gandalf]

Do we actually have examples of battle droids operating in vacuum? They don't respire like most organics, but there may be other functions that require an atmosphere (liquid lubricants that would boil off in vac, convection cooling of electronics, etc.). If you have to keep an atmosphere in your ship anyway, might as well make it one that's breathable by the members of your military that do that.

Isn't there a shot in the opening battle of ROTS where battle droids on a ship are shooting clone troops on another ship?

[Adam Reynolds]

Isn't there a shot in the opening battle of ROTS where battle droids on a ship are shooting clone troops on another ship?

I believe that was from the '04 Clone Wars series, which isn't canon anymore (if you care about that). It was a somewhat ridiculous scene in which a group of clones led by the horned Jedi killed by Palpatine boarded a ship after their own was falling apart. Apparently seizing the bridge of a CIS vessel allows you to target enemy ships.

From another Legends source, Cloak of Deception indicated that TF battleships ships had minimal atmospheres outside the bridge. It was still breathable in most of the ship, but only just.

As for Invisible Hand, that was clearly a trap, in which having a breathable atmosphere for the Jedi to fight through was intentional. It doesn't have to be representative of most CIS warships.

[The Romulan Republic]

Perhaps he's referring to the brief broadside exchange in RotS between the Invisible Hand and a Venator cruiser, where we see droids operating broadside canons?

One of my favourite moments in the film, incidentally, because I've always been irked by Star Wars' focus on fighters and boarding actions in its battle scenes, to the exclusion of the capital ships.

[SpottedKitty]

Do we actually have examples of battle droids operating in vacuum? They don't respire like most organics, but there may be other functions that require an atmosphere (liquid lubricants that would boil off in vac, convection cooling of electronics, etc.). If you have to keep an atmosphere in your ship anyway, might as well make it one that's breathable by the members of your military that do that.

As an example of this, here's a page (dating from a couple of years before RotS) from the Freefall comic strip noting the importance of making sure both organic and inorganic crew know what's involved... (Note that the doggie is an actual engineer, and the robot is about as bright as the little light that comes on when you open the fridge door.)

[NecronLord]

B1 battle droids can operate in space fine. This is shown in Clone Wars.

[Lord Revan]

It should be noted that dealing with overheating isn't a binary either you can or can't situation. It could be a case that droids can work in hard vacuum until their internal heatsinks fill up and they're forced to either shutdown or retreat to cooldown. It could easily explain why CIS vessels have atmoshpere everywhere instead of just having it on spaces where there's organic crews.

[WATCH-MAN]

B1 battle droids can operate in space fine. This is shown in Clone Wars.

I'd argue that this couldn't have been vacuum as we could see the beam of their lamps.

Maybe the droids are needing some kind of atmosphere for their cooling. The atmosphere could be necessary to enable heat transfer.

[NecronLord]

I'd argue that this couldn't have been vacuum as we could see the beam of their lamps.

That's a level of astrographic detail that is pernicketty beyond reason. By that standard, Star Wars planets are really dim on the surface and the stars really weak because we can see stars from orbital positions without them being washed out by earthlight (Hothlight/nabboolight etc).

Your SoD has to kick in some time.

[Lord Revan]

There's also the matter of context for that scene, a debris field like that would probably have enough dust and small peices to show the beams while being effectively vacuum as far as cooling is concerned

[Shroom Man 777]

Droids talking out loud might also be a measure to avoid ECM and jamming - if droids relied entirely on radio emissions or other non-acoustic things, these might get spoofed by Republic countermeasures or intercepted by ELINT. A droid saying "roger roger" and perhaps even putting some non-audible but still-acoustic signature in their statements might go around radio-frequency (or whatever) jamming. Droids can whisper "ssshhh be very careful I'm hunting Jedi" because if they transmitted signals, it'd break emissions control (EMCON) and then Republic artillery might home in on their location!

[Silver Jedi]

Do we actually have examples of battle droids operating in vacuum? They don't respire like most organics, but there may be other functions that require an atmosphere (liquid lubricants that would boil off in vac, convection cooling of electronics, etc.). If you have to keep an atmosphere in your ship anyway, might as well make it one that's breathable by the members of your military that do that.

As an example of this, here's a page (dating from a couple of years before RotS) from the Freefall comic strip noting the importance of making sure both organic and inorganic crew know what's involved... (Note that the doggie is an actual engineer, and the robot is about as bright as the little light that comes on when you open the fridge door.)

Ty, this was exactly the the strip I had in mind when I wrote that comment, but was too lazy to find it in the archives.

[WATCH-MAN]

I'd argue that this couldn't have been vacuum as we could see the beam of their lamps.

That's a level of astrographic detail that is pernicketty beyond reason. By that standard, Star Wars planets are really dim on the surface and the stars really weak because we can see stars from orbital positions without them being washed out by earthlight (Hothlight/nabboolight etc).

Your SoD has to kick in some time.

There's also the matter of context for that scene, a debris field like that would probably have enough dust and small peices to show the beams while being effectively vacuum as far as cooling is concerned

And how is it possible that the droids are talking with each other AND we can hear them?

That shouldn't be possible if they were in vacuum or in a debris field with dust and small pieces.

[Elheru Aran]

I'd argue that this couldn't have been vacuum as we could see the beam of their lamps.

That's a level of astrographic detail that is pernicketty beyond reason. By that standard, Star Wars planets are really dim on the surface and the stars really weak because we can see stars from orbital positions without them being washed out by earthlight (Hothlight/nabboolight etc).

Your SoD has to kick in some time.

There's also the matter of context for that scene, a debris field like that would probably have enough dust and small peices to show the beams while being effectively vacuum as far as cooling is concerned

And how is it possible that the droids are talking with each other AND we can hear them?

That shouldn't be possible if they were in vacuum or in a debris field with dust and small pieces.

Same reason we can hear Jedi and clonetroopers talking when they're space-walking... narrative convention. It's a literary device, not a hard-science thing. By the same logic we shouldn't be able to hear people in Star Trek talking when they're space-walking, either.

If you want an explanation? There's something that's been around awhile now, called 'radio'.

[Lord Revan]

Now Watch-man I'll ask you this, why do we hear the engine roar of trek ship when they fly past or the sounds of phasers and photon torpedos being fired, or the captain making a log entry when based on the position of the camera we shouldn't be hearing a damn thing and this is very much relevant as so don't try to dismiss it was irrelevant as when you find the true answer to the question I posted you find the true answer to why we hear the droids.