I'm down with that one...
Thumbs of for Warp-Strafing.

It sounds interesting to say the least. Works for me.

From....what, exactly?

I have not read any material about this craft other than what was posted here.

From Post 178:



And the several times that I mentioned it was a Prototype.

But I can see why you were a bit confused, now. It sounded as if you knew what was being discussed. No worries.

*Cough*

I actually just read these... This wasn't an ordinary missile, it was an energy packet. So the launcher itself is an incredibly advanced high tech energy weapon.

The idea of a lone designer of a multibillion dollar project being the only one capable of replicating the work is a bullshit plot trope.

Hack writing for B-movie level stories.




-k

Yes...

Which was where I drew my assumption from, in fact. It seemed you were in the know. Sorry for the Assumption.
Apparently I lost track of whom was saying what.

If you say so... Works in Star Wars, though.
Really sucks when yoiu lose both the originating genius of the project and all the research, though. Could it be replicated? Maybe. But not guaranteed. And was never actually pursued after the project was stolen.

"Emperor! Good news and bad news. Good news: we succeeded in making a fighter with impenetrable armor! Bad news: the prototype was stolen, and the researcher responsible for the breakthrough was murdered before he could tell anyone how he did it."

"Fine then, go crush the rebel scum who stole that fighter. If we can't have it, no one can, throw it in a black hole."

"But Emperor, what about his research? Shouldn't we try and replicate it for future development? If one person figured it out, we should be able to duplicate it again."

"Meh, forget the research. It's unimportant now."

The Emperor was dead *then Cloned, then dead) by then (iirc). It was Admiral Thrawn and then Admiral Dala that were in charge. Penny Ante Dictators, to say the least.

Maybe they were cutting their losses. after all, by losing the original inventor and all the relevant research the investment in the project just lost almost all its value, and any additional research would increase the cost still further. If bureaucratic process became involved then all it'd take is someone looking at the cost rather than the potential to kill the project after this kind of setback.

Because nobody ever backs up incredibly expensive research projects.

The Sun Crusher was discovered at the Maw Installation in 11 ABY (IIRC). The Emperor died in 4 ABY. The only person outside the Maw Installation that knew of its existence was Grand Moff Tarkin and he died at the battle of Yavin (0 ABY).

--



Thrawn died in 9 ABY. Two years before the Sun Crusher was discovered. Daala only came into command after she left the Maw Installation so sometime after ABY.

I believe the proper succession was Thrawn->Paelleon->Daala->Paelleon

Yeah, that sounds more correct. Been over 15 years since I read those novels.

It's not really relevant is it? Once the thing was (re)discovered and it was known that its ilk was possible to create, why the hell didn't the government at the time throw money at duplicating the effort?

I'd like to point out that that has happened with nuclear weapons in the real world. The Manhattan Project cost $2 billion dollars ($25 billion after inflation). Yet it is entirely duplicable today, with little more than a high school diploma and the knowledge that it's already been done, and a few million dollars of industrial equipment.

Had the Manhattan Project somehow blown itself up with its own device, what are the odds that no one would duplicate the research?

Practically 0.

"Wow, it went up in a giant fireball, just imagine if we could unleash that kind of potential on the enemy."

It's somewhat true. Force users during and before the Old Republic were more well versed in the use of the Force. I wouldn't say they were stronger, mind you, they simply had access to more information and training.

You want to spark forum wars amongst Star Wars geeks? Bring up the fact that the Clone Wars was originally supposed to be cloned jedi, not cloned troopers. (Because otherwise, why was Han Solo ever on Carida for training to escape Rostek Horn?)

That said, I'll take Rogue Squadron over the Sun Crusher any day, they are way more reliable.

Well, it's existence wouldn't have become widespread knowledge until ABY11. The New Republic would be the dominant government. The plans for it were stored "safely" with the New Republic, IIRC, and the lead researcher on it defected to them, but they wouldn't have much need or desire to use it. Those that would want to use it (the Imperial Remnant) would have nothing to work off of aside from the knowledge that it can be done.

--



I don't know. I might rather have Wraith Squadron in my pocket. The 181st wouldn't be bad to have either.

Why the hell not? That kind of armor has more uses than anything.
Construction material (why worry about physics, when your building materials have infinite strength?)
Vehicular "armor" (fender benders no more! no more deaths from head on collissions!)
Reactor plating (no more nuclear fallout when the reactor overloads: the armor can take it!)
Not to mention commercial space travel (pirates? impervious armor. micrometeorites? impervious armor. accidentally crashing into a star? impervious armor)

And that's just off the top of my head.

Wraith Squadron were more well rounded, to be sure (given they were mostly commandos and the like), but Rogue Squadron were the better pilots.

I don't think the armor was particularly difficult to recreate. The problem, as with most things, would be the cost of it to manufacture worthwhile amounts and how long it took to manufacture and if it were possible to automate production. Those are all barriers to using the material at an industrial scale. We know carbon nanotubes are very strong and our only likely way to create a space elevator, but actually constructing carbon nanotubes of lengths sufficient for common usage is exceedingly difficult.

The armor also wasn't impervious. It did absolutely nothing against ion blasts. That makes it entirely useless as an anti-piracy measure. Micrometeorites aren't a problem thanks to shields. Accidentally crashing into a star should never happen.

Rogue Squadron is indeed awesome...

and of course nintendo hard

If someone with better google-fu than me can find the cover of the GameCube game "Rogue Squadron" only spelled out Rouge Squadron and with makeup on Wedge, I'd love you forever. We used to link it all the time on GameFAQs when people misspelled it.

Rogue Squadron was the Nintendoo 64 one.
Rogue Leader was the RS2 on the Gamecube
Rebel Strike was the RS3 on the Gamecube.

Neither of the covers had Wedge. Rebel Strike had Luke on it. Both RS1/RS2 had an X-Wing on the cover.

My Google-fu was strong today.

http://content.ytmnd.com/content/0/c/2/0c2...f3f0b16d299.jpg

You're right, it was Rogue Leader (probably the best game of the series). And thank you for that, I laugh every time I see it.

Sadly, I cannot view while not at home.

There are other ways to protect yourself against ion blasts, yanno. And even if not...

Okay, so the pirates have ionized the ship. Now what? How are they gonna get in? Cutting through the impervious hull - nope! Ripping the door off? Too bad the bolts that lock the door and the door itself are made of the same stuff as the hull; that's never coming off.

What are they gonna do? Drag you inside a larger ship? You mean the kind of place where they wouldn't dare direct the kind of ion blasts at your ship that it would take to knock it out? Great, you just sit tight while they try in vain to pry into your ship, wait for the power systems to come online, and start shooting up their vessel from the inside.


Gonna sit in space ionizing you until you starve? What will that get them, if you leave the ship locked up tight? Not a whole lot, really, and a lot of time wasted that they could have been going after other things.



Even if - and this is not exactly a big if, I'll concede - the super-impervious armor is too expensive to use on random cargo ships, you would still want to replicate it for use on very, very important ships - transports carrying critically important people, for instance. Your flagship, perhaps, or even just to armor your very best fighter squadron.

Your death stars...

Or at the very least, their reactor cores. So if a lone fighter does get through and lobs a missile down the exhaust pipe, the explosion doesn't tear the whole place apart.

Or just put a grate there, so a missile can't get an unobstructed path to a reactor core. Also, don't put the antenna for your shield on the outside of the shield.

Best. Called Shot. Ever.

Starships don't. That's why the traditional way to take the shield generators down is to span proton torpedoes at them; overwhelm the shields and pop the juicy grapes underneath.

For ground-based installations... Yeah, I got nothing. That's as derptarded as derp gets.

You mean like the empires bright idea to put their shield generators in two very detectable targets as two balls above the command bridge...

Can we actually find anyone who says that the Empire was any good at designing things for military purposes? I mean, they had excellent weapons tech, excellent materials, great usage of energy in the form of the shields, but they leave tons of fairly easily exploited weak points.

I think that the Empire was very good at designing their Military Technology. Nothing is perfect. *shrug*

I think that the Empire was very good at designing their Military Technology. Nothing is perfect. *shrug*
And really, anything the size of the Star Destroyers will have weak points. Same with the Death Star. In that particular case it was never expected that ANYONE would have the chops to actually exploit it (the one and only exploit that was found, if you remember). *shrug*

Having shield generators outside, or being extremely obvious and easy to hit is a huge weakness. The missile to the reactor was not the main weak point. That they were even able to send fighters against it was.

Sucks when the superstructure is not finished, doesn't it?
As for the original Death Star, well the exhaust port was shielded, just not against proton torpedoes. As I indicated, it was the ONLY weakness of the Deathstar, and was not abvious without detailed schematics. *shrug*

I'm going to jump in and suggest that maybe that specific configuration of heavy shield NEEDS to have big spherical generators outside of the main ship... after all, how much do we really know about shield generator physics? sure no other ship needed them, but maybe they were settling for inferior shields as a trade off?

as to the death star's exhaust port... a better point defense grid across the death star's surface would have been a good idea. After all, if someone had decided to simply rig up some photon torpedoes with remote control and guidance systems, then launch them at the death star using the same target then the anti-capital turbo-lasers would have been even less effective!

MonCal cruisers have external shields as well. They're just not obvious as those on a Star Destroyer, because they're housed in (some of) those ubiquitous blisters on the surface of the ship - they're also much more redundant than is typical for a ship's shields, and many of those blisters house things which are not shields.

They also don't have standardized plans, so targeting their shield generators is more or less impossible. Imagine if the surface of a Star Destroyer was covered with like, ten huge geodesic domes, two of which were the primary shields and two of which housed backup shields. And which ones were which (as opposed to being filled with a fat lot of nothing) is random on any given ship.


But that's an excessively inefficient way to design ships.

Since we're on the subject anyway, which do you think is better (assuming mutually exclusive): cloaking or shielding?

Shielding. Unquestionably shielding.

interesting...
My money was on cloaking provided you can fire while cloaked. the problem is that cloak technology is rarely consistent even within a single setting *cough*star trek*cough*, so it's hard to really define how good it is.

EDIT: of course there's those that want it both ways, IE traveler. Their black globe generators are both shields AND cloaks

I'd go with Cloaking. If you aren't being shot at, that's better than soaking damage.

But yes, it depends on implementation.

It really depends on a number of factors. Duration and strength being primary. A cloak needs to be sustained nearly indefinitely for it to be effective, while there's a minimum level of strength for a shield to be effective (whereas a cloaking system that only partially cloaks will still be effective to avoid detection at longer ranges)
If we assume it's between perfect cloaks and perfect shields, I'd rather the shields. Someone can get lucky against a perfect cloak, not so with a shield.

I find that comment Interesting. If it is Perfect, they will never get lucky, and therefore Cloaking is the choice.
Assuming Imperfect, I would go with the Shields.

I don't think that susceptibility to area suppression fire is an imperfection of a cloaking device, per se. If your shields are perfect, then no shot will penetrate them. If your cloak is perfect, someone might get lucky and lob a 50 kiloton nuke/RKV/Hungry Giant Space Hamster along a constant bearing (decreasing range, natch) to your heading, and fast enough to prevent countermeasures/evasive action.

I based my answer on FTL: Faster than Light.


Even with the upgrade that lets you fire while cloaked, having no shields is a recipe for getting your ass beat. Granted, I wouldn't want to go without cloak either, but given the choice between the two, I go with shields.


And conceptually, I agree. If someone knows you're there but can't see you - or if they even suspect you're there - they can hose you down with area fire and get lucky. Getting "lucky" on someone unshielded is usually the game-winner.

Space is big. very big. you won't believe how mind-bogglingly big it is! you might think it's a long walk down to the corner store, but that's just peanuts to space!

In other words... Area denial and suppression fire in space is very very difficult. The amount of firepower you'd need to have even the remotest chance of hitting someone with a good cloak through saturation fire is way more than you'd need to overload a comparably good shield.