Fun with superlasers

[mr. big]

Alright, I think this is a possible way of determing the firepower of DSII.

Admitedly, this post is based on a number of assumptions. Here go's:

In official texts somewhere (WEG I think) it was stated that the Eclipse was designed
shortly after the Hoth battle, and constructed before Endor. That same official text also
claimed that the firepower of the Eclipse's superlaser was 2/3 that of the first Deathstar.

Okay, thats a massive technological development right there: firstly, the DSI was 160 KM in diameter. The core was in the centre. So, the superlaser traveled 80 KM, from the core to the surface. The Eclipse is stated to be 10 miles, or 16 KM. Thats 1/5 of the size of the DSI. Making the Eclipse 24 KM long would have resulted in the same firepower of the DSI!
Secondly, the superlaser in the first DS consisted of 8 beams, the Eclipse had one.

Making the link to the DSII: its quite possible that the Eclipse and the DSII used the same superlaser tech, since they where constructed at roughly the same time. However, the DSII was quite a bit bigger, and also had 8 beams. So its possible that the SL on the DSII was insanly powerfull.

Here's some calcs:
DSI Superlaser: 1E38 J over 80 KM, 8 beams.

Eclipse SSD: 6.67E37 J over 16 KM, 1 beam.

DSII: 8 beams, each 400 KM long (the DSII is 800 KM in diameter)

First of all: 8(for each beam)*6.67E37= 53.36E37= 5.3E38 J.

Already 5 times as powerfull as the first. Now taking length into account:

400/16=25, meaning that an Eclipse beam fits 25 times into a DSII beam.

So: 5.3*25= 132,5= 132,5E38= 1,33E40 J

Thats damn powerfull, no?

As I said, this post is full of assumptions, but I like big numbers, so what the hell :p

PS: my first post!

[Slartibartfast]

Interesting calcs...

Just wanted to point that I've not seen evidence of the supelaser originating in the Death Star core. For all I know it could be generated 24 km from the surface.

[Eleas]

PS: my first post!

Good first post, but you forget the part where it's explicitely stated that the Eclipse's superlaser only cracks the crust without destroying the planet.

[Smalleyjedi]

i thought the eclipse was 2/3 of ONE of the eight beams in the original death star, or one twelth the power. That cracks crust, annihilatesa continent, however you want to put it, life ceases to exist. BDZ with one shot. Two thirds of a ds doesnt make sense. If 2/3 only cracks crust, how does DS completely blow it away?

[Mr Bean]

Refernecing Weg the exact quote is 2/3 of ONE Beam of the DS

The Sovergn class carrys one roughly twice as powerful as the Eclipses and it supposdly its designed to fire faster too

[Cpt_Frank]

The Sovereign class carrys one roughly twice as powerful as the Eclipses and it supposdly its designed to fire faster too

Then the Sovereign would be more powerful than the DS if it was 2/3 of the DS's firepower. 2/3 of one beam seems more logical since the Eclipse isn't as long as the DS.
However, the Sovereign might eventually be able to blow a huge chunk out of the planet.

[Eleas]

Refernecing Weg the exact quote is 2/3 of ONE Beam of the DS

The Sovergn class carrys one roughly twice as powerful as the Eclipses and it supposdly its designed to fire faster too

Nope.

Eclipse: "Gradational output can fire once every minute at minimum energy charge (1D damage). It can also build a charge of 1D per minute up to 8D. Current reactor can only generate 11D total per day."
Sovereign: "Gradational output can fire once every minute at minimum energy charge (1D damage). It can also build a charge of 1D per minute up to 8D. Current reactor can only generate 8D total per day."

They're equally powerful, and the Sovereign's doesn't last as long.

[Eleas]

Oh, and WEG has nothing to say about exact beam strength, either, except to say that the single generator is actually "much more powerful" than those used on the DS.

[His Divine Shadow]

Question, did the quote about 2/3rd and crack planets also include any mention of a planetary shield?

Where is the full segment?

[Cal Wright]

DS II is 900kms in diameter, or 500 miles from numerous sources. Which would also cause problems for the 160km scaling of the DS I, since the DS II was twice as powerful and twice it's size.

[Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi]

Well, I say we should just throw out the "2/3rd power", considering the Eclipse is described as only beoing "powerful enough to the crust of a planet". As for the DSII firepower, I'd say it was only designed to fire faster, instead of firing more powerful shots. It's 125 times bigger than the first DS, and assuming it recharges 60 times faster, it would allow the blast to contain over twice as much energy. Of course, tihs is based entirely on scaling.

[Cal Wright]

It's hard to say how powerful it's blasts truely were. We know it's twice as powerful as the first dreaded Death Star. If anything, oh God I can't believe I'm doing this, take a reference from KJA, the humanity, the prototype to the first Death Star was set on lower power settings. The superlaser effectively was powerful enough to rip apart capital ships, but low enough to recharge within minutes if not seconds. So the blasts that occured in RotJ could have been much lower. Also in the RotJ novelisation Palpatine orders JerrJerod to turn the laser on Endor in the event the Rebles take out the sheild. In fact later, the Falcon is racing inward and it depicts JerrJerod growing angry at the Rebellion for not allowing themselves to be bullied while the Death Star rotates to take out Endor. So not only could it take out two Mon Calamari ships with ease, it seems it was going to take out Endor as well. Which by estimates is faaaar larger than Alderaan.

[Spartan]

Question, did the quote about 2/3rd and crack planets also include any mention of a planetary shield?

Where is the full segment?

(Ref: Dark Empire sourcebook pg. 88)

The Death Star's prime weapon was composed of eight individual lasers that could focus together, generating enough power to destroy an entire planet. By comparison, the Eclipse carries only a single laser, but recent focussing and generator advances make this ray much more powerful than the units used on the Death Star. The beam packs enough destructive power to shatter the most planetary shields and sear whole continents in a flash.

Sounds like both to me. The real question is how powerful are the planetary shields they are refering too? From all the references I've seen they vary greatly in power.

[Spartan]

Sorry, the correct reference is (Ref: Dark Empire sourcebook pg. 88)

[Spartan]

Damn! no edit. Its page 88 .....sigh

[His Divine Shadow]

(Ref: Dark Empire sourcebook pg. 88)

The Death Star's prime weapon was composed of eight individual lasers that could focus together, generating enough power to destroy an entire planet. By comparison, the Eclipse carries only a single laser, but recent focussing and generator advances make this ray much more powerful than the units used on the Death Star. The beam packs enough destructive power to shatter the most planetary shields and sear whole continents in a flash.

Now this is a kicker, I don't see anything about it NOT being able to blow up an unshielded planet, but it talks about punching through a planetary shield here too, thats why the beam is 2/3rds of the DS beam yet is not powerfull enough to blow a shielded planet up.
This would make for some kickass planetary shields

[Spartan]

Well... lets see if the DS1 superlaser output is 1E38J and the lets say the Alderan planetary shield resisted to 1/100th of a second. Then the shield resisted at least 1E36W. But the superlaser blast would still punch through with 9.9E37J. Ouch!

Assuming that capital ship superlasers have 2/3 the energy of the DS, then we get 6.7E37J vs. the 1E36W planetary shield which would punch through with 6.6E37J. Again ouch!

Now here's the rub Alderan supposedly had planetary shields as strong as Courscant or Byss. So either the 2/3 figure is to far high (and mind the 1/2 figure at 5E37J is too). Or the shields on Alderan were above average and not the apex of shield technology.

Alternately if we assume a planetary shield capital ship superlasers merely punch through shields then the minimum would be a shade over 1E36J.

Add that to Mike planet killer calcs. for the Eclipse (which doesn't included the energy require to penetrate a planetary shield):

...the energy requirement for vaporizing an entire continent is well in excess of the threshold for a global extinction event (1E9 megatons). Figures in the range of 1E10-1E11 megatons are probably more realistic

1E36J added to 4.2E26J and viola! 1.00000000042E36J (So so after penetrating the shields frying a few continents is nothing.)

Mind you in the superlaser in this calc is now only a little over 1/100 th the power of the DS superlaser.

[mr. big]

Ok, the main argument against my calc is the (typical) WEG screw-up. Clearly, they didn't do there research with the whole 2/3 DSI SL-thing and the searing continents-part.

So, there are two things you can do:
throw out the part claiming that the ESSD's SL is 2/3 of the SL on the DSI, or:
Rationalize both parts.

I intend to do the later: The SL on a ESSD can, infact, destroy a planet. Just not a heavily shielded one like Coruscant, or Byss (a pet theory of mine is that the planetary shield on Byss is even more powerfull than the one on Coruscant, but it has no evidence whatsoever).

Now, Spartan has posted that the shield of Alderaan withstood 1/100th, or 1 procent of the DSI SL. However, looking at the picture's Mike Wong posted in the RSA debate/slaughter, we can determine the true strength of the planetary shield on Alderaan.

Frame 0: SL has not yet impacted.
Frame 1 to 4: SL hits planetary shield
Frame 5: SL still visible, but destroying the planet.

So, that makes 4 frames with SL/shield interaction, and another frame where the SL is visible.

Frame 1,2,3 have the shield still up, 5 its down, but the SL is visible. Frame 4 is hard to see, I guess the shield went down in 'frame 3,5'. So, 5 frames total, 3,5 of them with the shield still up.

-1E38 J was divided over 5 frames.
-Thats 2E37 J per frame.
-3,5*2E37= 7E37 J.

Conclusion: Alderaan's planetary shield withstood *7E37 J*. That *more* than 6.67E37 J, or the amount of power an ESSD could pump into its SL. So, the Eclipse could not even have destroyed Alderaan! It would need to have that much power to be a credible threat.

[Spartan]

Ok, the main argument against my calc is the (typical) WEG screw-up. Clearly, they didn't do there research with the whole 2/3 DSI SL-thing and the searing continents-part.

The essential guide to vehicles repeats the weg error to I believe.

Now, Spartan has posted that the shield of Alderaan withstood 1/100th, or 1 percent of the DSI SL. However, looking at the picture's Mike Wong posted in the RSA debate/slaughter, we can determine the true strength of the planetary shield on Alderaan.

You got me there, but my 1/100th of a second was a back of the napkin calculation. I was mainly trying to show the mini superlaser can not possible be 2/3 or even 1/2 the DS yield. I believe Darth Wong also stated as much in a past thread.

Conclusion: Alderaan's planetary shield withstood *7E37 J*. That's *more* than 6.67E37 J, or the amount of power an ESSD could pump into its SL. So, the Eclipse could not even have destroyed Alderaan! It would need to have that much power to be a credible threat.

Hmmm...I can't find fault with that. So Alderaan did indeed have shields as strong as any in the Empire.

The beam packs enough destructive power to shatter the most planetary shields and sear whole continents in a flash.

7E37 that is one scary number. Fortunately we can still save this part of the Weg quote by setting the upper limit of a typical full planetary shield at slightly less than 6.67E37.


My personal opinion is that it can just punch through your average Non-Core world shield. The shields are the important thing how strong is and are most sheilds. Like I said in my previous post with the firepower we're talking about cracking, searing, heck vaporizing a continent is nothing.


Say Mr. Bean did't mention something in another thread about planetary shields being made up of many overlapping 100km square-coverage theatre shields? Or something similar? Maybe we can come up with a calc on the Hoth theater shields power (unless someone has a ready official one) and then estimate what full planetary coverage would require.

[Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi]

Well, in TESB, the shield was said to be able to "resist any ardment". By that, I believe they mean from their ISD (duh). The lower estimate for a BDZ is about 1 petaton over a one hour period, so, after estimating and dividing, the Hoth theater shield runs on about 1E21 watts, to prevent overloading. However, it is a rough estimate, and with TT-level TLs going around, the BDZ power of an ISD is probably an order of magnitude or two higher. A planetary shield could be several theater shields linked together, or one big one.

The Alderran shield must be more powerful, considering that they've had billions of people for thousands of years, and during that time, there were probably many smaller-scale superlasers around the place. Perhaps, Alderran had a backup shield that wasn't up in time after the man one failed during the DS blast.

[Mr Bean]

However, it is a rough estimate, and with TT-level TLs going around, the BDZ power of an ISD is probably an order of magnitude or two higher. A planetary shield could be several theater shields linked together, or one big one.

Acutal no, If one remebrs old Bean's disscussion on Plantary shields you would rember that LOS concersens prevent there from being *one big shield

Also from the way that SW shielding Tech works, Shields are an application of energy

IE Shield stations simply turn raw energy into a useful form of defense, Diffrent shields are diffrent strengths depending on how much Energy is pumped into them, so Somthing like the Courscant Double shields are increably strong by design because there is so much raw powerflowing around

Furthermore even assuming 200 GT weapony we find that the avarage Theater shield based on the Hoth section of the movie must resist 8 ISDs plus 1 SSD each of which can bring to bear 32 HTLs plus the SSD which can bring roughly 72 HTL to bear on the shield which gives us

32X8=256+72=328 Guns, Assuming JUST HTLs of course x200=65,600 or 65.6 Teratons of Damage Per Volly, considering the fact that one they say it can repel thier firepower means that say during a Ten second Period the shield is expected to repel 328,000 Gigatons or 328 Teratons of damage and surive

This is of course assuming JUST HTLs and of course using the old 200 GT figure

With the current 5 Teraton Avarge figure plus 250GT MTLs means 5x328=1640 Teratons or one Peta-Ton for just HTLs, the extra 30x8+60=300 MTLsX 250 gigatons= 75,000 Gigatons or 75 Teratons added into the 1640 Teratons=1715 Teratons or 1.715 Petatons of damage per volly or x5=8.575 Petatons of damage over ten seconds and surivie

Check my mid range calcs for more but seriously even basic Theater shields are very strong and very nasty things

[His Divine Shadow]

Also from the way that SW shielding Tech works, Shields are an application of energy

IE Shield stations simply turn raw energy into a useful form of defense, Diffrent shields are diffrent strengths depending on how much Energy is pumped into them

That is disproven.

Shields do take alot of energy to run and has lots of energy running through them, but their efficency is not correlated to the amount of energy put into them, the shield generators energy-dissipation and heat-sink system is the key factor, that is why Padmes ship has a shield rading of 6e12watts while her ship can only generate 3e12watts.

[His Divine Shadow]

Acutal no, If one remebrs old Bean's disscussion on Plantary shields you would rember that LOS concersens prevent there from being *one big shield

BTW, I do not remember this, if that is so, then why is it not so for droid-dekas and ships?

[His Divine Shadow]

Well, I say we should just throw out the "2/3rd power", considering the Eclipse is described as only beoing "powerful enough to the crust of a planet". As for the DSII firepower, I'd say it was only designed to fire faster, instead of firing more powerful shots. It's 125 times bigger than the first DS, and assuming it recharges 60 times faster, it would allow the blast to contain over twice as much energy. Of course, tihs is based entirely on scaling.

I say we should throw out neither because it's easily rationalized as meaning punching through planets and shields.

[Mr Bean]

BTW, I do not remember this, if that is so, then why is it not so for droid-dekas and ships?

Because LoS agian they where OVER the City, Remeber the Fighters and Anakins little trip? They flew UP at the Control ship, not around the planet
The control ship was over the palace