stardestroyer.net forums

[Brian Young 11,994]

This shows the Millennium Falcon flanking Executor in TESB. By actual scale, a Nebulon-B "frigate" would look like this (matching width of the Falcon):

Most of the Rebel fleet involved corvettes, which are smaller, and transports, which are smaller still.

[Brian Young 11,994]

It's a nitpick, but I think there's at least a possibility that the Mon Cals are bigger than an ISD. Their proportions are roughly the same as HO, and assuming the models are on the same scale they're 1500m long. Assuming the same ISD assumptions as above, this would make them about 25 per cent bigger than an ISD by volume.

 

Well, almost every source available states they are around 1200 meters long. The wingless one is narrower than an ISD, the winged one probably similar in width, and also truncated toward the front. Therefore, roughly 1/2 and 2/3 volume/mass.

But the focus should be on Executor, not the destroyers flanking it. The argument has been made that mighty Executor is no more resilient than an insignificant (by comparison) destroyer, and that the also insignificant (by comparison) Rebel fleet not only overwhelmed the ship, but in short order.

I'm demonstrating that Executor is larger, and by extension likely more powerful, than the combined Rebel fleet. I feel statements were made without the necessary understanding of the scale of the ship in question.

[scvn2812 504]

I did not say that Executor was merely as tough as an ISD. Do not put words in my mouth. What I did say was that while she has substantially greater volume for defensive gear, she also has significant surface area to defend. In absolute terms her total shield strength would be appropriate for her size but there is no basis for assuming that an arbitrarily selected segment of her shields would be a hundred times more resilient than the same area of shield on an ISD. Ex has something to the tune of a hundred twenty or so greater surface area to defend than an ISD. This puts isolated areas of shield within the ability of ships that can kill an ISD within the realm of possibility of being compromised by heavy bombardment. The Clone War era Munis could hang in a fight with significantly more massive Venators and take them out with intense bombardment in less time than is likely to have been between Ackbar giving the order to concentrate all fire on Ex and the A Wing attack.

 

I was not and am not talking about Executor's total defense capacity across all shields and angles but her ability to resist a concentrated attack on a small area by unknown numbers of capital ships with fire power enough to blow ISDs out of the sky. They need not even breach her shields, just force her to reroute capacity to the point of attack and leave the bridge understrength enough that fighter munitions of unknown yield and nature can penetrate to the dome.

 

Referring back to Grievous' trio of Munis killing a Venator, clearly size is not the only factor involved in combat success and maybe a significantly less important factor than we have generally presumed.

 

Let me put it another way, a Nimitz is ten times heavier than virtually any other surface ship in the Navy. It isn't out of line to say that she'd probably take about that much more punishment to sink but if you take a meter cross section of her hull and compare it to a destroyer's, neither one is going to hold up to a missile. Nimitz's hull is probably a bit stronger but not ten times stronger even though the ship as a whole is good for ten times the abuse.

 

Since you're in a spirited mood, if you want me to stop playing devil's advocate and demonstrating all the other ways the data can be interpreted, prove that velocity matters. Not with a feature of Destroyer droid shields that only makes sense for walking droids but actually demonstrate that the speeds of the asteroids and fighters we see safely close in on the hull are measurably slower than the ones that break up without causing damage. Otherwise I will continue to remain convinced that the semi permeable shield theory for starships is not the only viable explanation for shield mechanics as we see them or rather don't. I can guarantee you that I'm not likely the only one who is going to be skeptical of the claim that the velocity trick applies to starships in the absence of verified study.

[scvn2812 504]

Here's where I'm at. For all intents and purposes, I'm rejecting the idea of shields as a collection of damage sponges of fixed size, shape and capacity dictated by the profile of the ship and no other factors that fail after you put X joules into them. In other words, the video game hit point model. I think total power available for shields is less important than how strong the shields are in the specific area being fired upon. Essentially they would be analogous to armor. Some degree of dispersion of energy but not across the total area of the ship's surface area. At least not instantaneously. Going back to the example of Executor: if she were slugging it out with a peer warship then she would throw everything she's got into defending against that opponent from that angle and the two could probably hammer each other for minutes without one obviously having the upper hand and no lesser ship could hope to effect her shields from that angle by even a percentage point.

 

A brawl with mixed formations and multiple threats attacking from multiple angles is a much harder fight. Ex can either even out her shields in which case the resilience of any one segment of shielding is going to be a few ISDs worth while the total shield power of all segments combined could be several hundred ISDs. Or she could prioritize a few angles and reduce shielding in areas not immediately threatened. The bridge shield might have been looted to boost power to another angle under heavy attack leaving it possible for rebel fighters to breach it.

 

Reprioritizing shields like this might create vulnerabilities that would allow solid objects to pass through in areas that are not at full strength. That is not strictly necessary to fit the evidence as far as I'm concerned though.

 

Projecting shields away from the hull to catch fire from missiles (as in the Battle of Naboo or that Clone Wars clip) or light gun fire such as from T4 might confer situational benefits over keeping the shield close to the hull. It might reduce the chance of damage to the hull from any energy not caught by the shields due to inefficiency or other unknown variables that might permit damage to the hull through the shields. For maximum protection, though, as in the battle with Grievous in the asteroid field, you want your shields tight against the hull and with all available shield capacity directed into the smallest feasible footprint.

 

This model would make ships especially vulnerable to flanking maneuvers by ships and fighters attacking from angles where their target has not optimized their defenses. This may explain why sometimes an asteroid or out of control fighter crashes and leaves obvious damage and why sometimes they leave no lasting damage, without trying to explain it as differences in velocity that I think will prove hard to quantify and makes sense for a droid that walks on the ground but there is no reason why space craft shields should discriminate by velocity.

 

The moon sized elephant in the room is the Death Star and how it was unable to prevent fighters from reaching its surface and inflicting damage on turrets and other structures. This could have been an oversight, over confidence in the density of the gun fire the Death Star could throw out (not entirely misplaced given the number of kills they were able to make on the descending fighters) and in the ability of the fighter wing to mitigate the damage done (also not entirely misplaced) or it could have been a limitation in scaling conventional shield technology up to that size. It wouldn't be without precedent in the real world, in Star Wars its a bit iffy as we've seen composite lasers small enough for a gunship and large enough for a Death Star but its an explanation. I make no pretense that its the only plausible explanation.

Edited March 29, 2013 by scvn2812

[Afishymeadow 534]

:vader:Some great pix here of ships!

[Brian Young 11,994]

S, Akbar's order was not Concentrate all fire on the posteriolateral aspect of the port side dome of the conning tower of that super star destroyer. Neither were the Awings flying through a hail of turbolaser fire. So the idea of concentrating fire on one point is without precedent.

The idea that shields have to be spread out to deal with multiple threats is a good one, and may help explain some of these examples, but not the ones that deal with starfighters alone. But in any event, this is still a weakness that allows small ships to fly in and take out targets of opportunity during fleet actions. So we arrive at the same conclusion that it can be done.

Of course my hypothesis is not the only possible one. That's not how science works. And we're working with low accuracy data, and limited at that. But the semipermeable idea is the most consistent with the greatest amount of evidence. I have several examples I didn't put in the video in my haste to publish it, which now requires a follow up. That consistency makes it the most likely scenario.

[Captain Seafort 17]

But the semipermeable idea is the most consistent with the greatest amount of evidence. I have several examples I didn't put in the video in my haste to publish it, which now requires a follow up. That consistency makes it the most likely scenario.

 

It's a logical inference from the CW era visuals, but it's contradicted in the Imperial era, implicitly by Dodonna and explicitly by Ackbar. We've only got three explicit statements on the subject - Anakin's briefing, which gave mobility as the key reason for it and which therefore is inapplicable to space vessels, Dodonna's briefing, which all but states that starfighter-proof defences are possible and very strongly implies that the first Death Star's weakness was unusual, and Ackbar's comment that fighters might stand a chance if the shields are first disabled.

[scvn2812 504]

How can you objectively say that the semi-permeable idea is consistent the most evidence? I think I've pretty much gone down the line at this point and posited how these scenes might play out with different shield mechanics. Last time I checked, that's called a draw. On one extreme, we have the Death Star 1 which cannot be explained any other way than permeable shields but then we also have in the movies, the Trade Fed ship that the Naboo were unable to inflict any credible damage on until Annie ended up in the hangar bay. That bit could go either way, you could say that the shields around the hangar were down to allow Vulture droids to take off or that they were permeable and the Naboo hadn't trained for tackling capital ships and thus didn't know about slipping through the shields.

 

Then we have Endor and the Clone Wars, where virtually every impact except for that missile salvo from the cloaked ship, hits directly on the hull or so close as to be impossible to argue that they did or didn't which is in contrast to the notion that shields extend outwards as a general rule and that fighters are flying through them to get to the hull. The scenes without shield effects might be explainable as scenes where battle had already been joined before the audience sees it and we are just seeing the decisive moments where the fighters go in to decisively end the battle once shields are compromised. In the scene with Grievous sheltering behind asteroids, he made no effort to attack the Republic with fighters while their shields were still obviously up.

 

It is arriving at the same conclusion from two different routes but the route does have implications for how we deal with VS scenarios, in universe or out.

 

I would be interesting to see the extra evidence you gathered though. Maybe the smoking gun to tilt the weight of evidence one way or another is in there.

 

So on Ex, are we clear now that I don't think the Ex is "as weak as" a lone ISD? My point being that as the Clone Wars is demonstrating in a few clips, size is not the final arbiter of who wins and who loses. I would venture to say for example, that though she may wield firepower equal to in excess of a hundred ISDs, less than that number could probably do her in with the right tactics. Lining up in a formation dead ahead of her in full view of the 700+ probable heavy turrets Saxton identified and where Ex can maximize her shields being a prime example of "not the right tactics."

Edited March 29, 2013 by scvn2812

[scvn2812 504]

I suppose part of me likes the semi permeable idea because it allows for other vs scenarios to be interesting. In the absence of semi permeable shields the only vs against Star Wars in a civilization on civilization beat down that would be a fight worth talking about is Andromeda. Yet honesty compels me to make you work harder for this one Brian.

[Brian Young 11,994]

I'm working on Empire vs Systems Commonwealth now actually.

Lets talk hypotheses. You've pointed out what you feel could possibly be mitigating circumstances on some of the examples. These circumstances are not consistent, and are almost always made up ideas as possibilities. Feel my hypothesis consistently covers them all, and has quotes that explain it as well.

Imagine a trial where the prosecution delivers a mountain of evidence indicating guilt, including videos and audio recordings. The defense complains about each example, claiming "that could be anybody" or "prove his intentions in that video," etc. the Defense never presents a consistent scenario of their own of how the event happened, they just snipe at the Prosecution's many examples that include everything but a confession.

That may be enough to acquit, but it is not enough to overcome a hypothesis with a superior one.

In short, if you have a superior hypothesis, which more logically covers the examples, by all means present it. I'll publish it and everything.

 

Now, more examples. The idea the TradeFed ship had to lower shields to launch ships is contradicted by Millenium Falcon escaping the Death Star bay. Han was concerned about the tractor beam. No one ever said a solitary comment about the shield. It was in place, because the atmosphere was contained. It is also contradicted by all those examples i gave of ships docking with shielded ships. The idea the shields have to be lowered is an invention of the EU, and is contradicted in canon. It is therefore false.

The attack on Malevolence by Ywings involved no friendly turbolasers, no problem of time to raise the shields, and no need to fracture their shields to different areas, as the fighters came in all on the same trajectory. Also note the metal on metal impacts, complete with sound effects. None of your ideas can account for this *entire episode*. Mine does.

Millennium Falcon docked with shielded Avenger. No friendly turbolaser fire. No multiple trajectories.

In the TPM commentary, Dennis Muren explains walking through the shields the same way Anakin did in TCW, except the mobility thing.

The fighter ramming the droid, which I provided a clip for. Direct metal on metal impact, moments after the shields were raised. We could visibly see the shield, so the idea it takes a long time to raise them does not apply. Also, the ship began hovering above the floor simultaneously, so the idea that ground contact is a factor does not apply.

Obi-Wan exclaimed to Anakin the shields were still up on Invisible Hand. Anakin had forgotten, and apologized. Obi-Wan's ship was out of control, courtesy of the buzz droids. He could not slow down, and in fact, crashed and skid across the floor. Anakin still had control, explaining why he forgot the landing bay shields.

The buzz droids themselves dock with ships. In space. Which have yet to be defeated.

 

In short, my hypothesis was derived from these examples. It is the only one so far that explains these examples. If you have a better one, spit it out.

[scvn2812 504]

I'll go point by point later on your post:

 

Two quick things though, I did, in previous posts, outline at least one, if not two possible shield theories that fit every last one of your examples. I'm not in the mood to wall of text the same material all over again, I'll restate it in a more direct way in a follow up. The short version is that proximity to the hull and intensity of a given area of shield can be dictated by the ship to fit its needs depending on the situation. Projecting the shields away from the hull may confer benefits like reducing the effects of any bleed through of hostile energy from shield inefficiency but in many examples in The Clone Wars and the films, it appears most capital ship shields in most situations are hull hugging with no allowance for fighters to dip into them and fire underneath them.

 

Which brings me to point two: your theory requires all capital ships in virtually all scenarios to have shields that are projected off of the hull with enough clearance for a fighter to at least dip their nose through and fire their weapons.

 

This is demonstrably untrue in virtually all of the Clone Wars clips of combat you have used. We see both starfighter and capital ship weapons used on the same targets, simultaneously and both appear to hit the hull.

 

There are only two options for explaining this: either the shields are invisible and are having no obvious effect on the visible portion of the beam - unlike the gradual break up of the beam in Tantive IV vs Devastator (which I am undecided if that is Devastator projecting its shields outwards or a separate defensive system) which then impacts harmlessly on the hull OR the ships have been in combat for some time already and, not unlike WW2 documentaries, we are only seeing the decisive moments.

 

The same would also have to be true of the battles at Coruscant in ROTS and at Endor in ROTJ, no weapon impacts anywhere from capital weapons at a distance a fighter would be able to fly under.

 

The only examples that come to mind immediately of shields being visible in Clone Wars clips you have posted are of Grievious' three frigates sheltering behind the asteroids firing on Ashoka's Venators with the shield effects not being really possible to determine if they are on or above the hull due to the scale of the ships in question and the Confederacy ship that raised thermal shields to stop a missile attack. Notably the commander of that vessel emphasized the phrase thermal shields instead of deflector shields, ray shields or just plain shields.

 

As for Malevolence, a point for hull hugging shields would be that we do not know what noise anything makes when it scrapes against a shield and the Falcon landing on the back of an ISD could be evidence that you can safely come into contact with a shield if you don't crash into it.

 

Where are the examples of turbolasers being stopped by capital ship shields with enough clearance to fly a fighter under them? You've shown an arsenal of examples of fighters flying through empty space above the hull of capital ships and even maiming them but none that show capital ship gunfire being stopped by capital ship shields with enough clearance above the hull to fly a fighter. Meanwhile, there are plenty of examples in ROTS, ROTJ and Clone Wars of capital ship firing reaching the hull and not causing any damage, sometimes with apparent shield effects, sometimes not.

 

If you addressed this already, then I missed it so maybe it bares repeating.

Edited March 30, 2013 by scvn2812

[scvn2812 504]

Also, when did having a better idea become a prerequisite for pointing out flaws in a theory that need to be addressed or other ways the data could be interpreted? I'm not arguing from a position of having a dire emotional need for it to go one way or another but for scifi debating purposes, a theory that has counter examples needs to have those examples explained.

 

I've got some ideas but I don't know if I have a theory that can hold against all evidence yet, guess I'll see when I revisit the examples we've been looking at. I don't need to have a correct theory though to demonstrate you've still got some work to do explaining all of the evidence.

Edited March 30, 2013 by scvn2812

[scvn2812 504]

@jm while I vehemently disagree with the position you've taken on the nature of disruptors, the more sensible tactics would be to beam or launch munitions into hanger bays or through lower density materials such as windows. There's no telling how far into the ship you can go before internal bulkheads have put too much exotic matter into the path of the transporter beam but I'd wager you could beam a quantity of antimatter or exotic weapons such as those I believe to be responsible for the damage to the planet in The Die is Cast far enough into a ship like Executor or a Star Destroyer that it would be unpleasant, probably break something important although it may not be fatal depending on the device used. I don't believe something capable of gutting or reformatting an ISD are standard issue or stockpiled in great quantities but it might work a few times until a survivor gets word out and they start trying to work out precautions like heavy jamming or isolating the devices with force fields.

[ESAD 12,045]

Quick question, how do you fellas all have wives? I mean that's just bloody crazy talk man.

 

[scvn2812 504]

My girlfriend does not live with me, does not know about this forum but if she did, at worst she would make fun of me relentlessly. Sort of like how she does about my table top role playing and larping. She can't decide if I talk to imaginary people as a fantasy being because I'm schizophrenic or just stopped maturing at the age of 9. She's a dork, loves anime and scifi but doesn't really share my rather peculiar level of interest. I can't speak for anyone else, but this really doesn't occupy that much of my time. When things get really intense I might spend a few hours total in a day bickering over this stuff but I enjoy it more than watching TV and at least as much as reading. Maybe not quite as much as role playing, which at times, when I put on my devil's advocate hat, this has elements of. I actually watch so little TV that there are probably weeks where I've logged more hours on here going back and forth on how the validity of the ICS calcs or whether The Die is Cast represents conventional weapons than I've spent watching TV.

[Airlocke 12,014]

I had a wife who loved this kinda stuff. More recently I was talking to this woman who also loved this kinda geeky stuff, though she didn't like the debate much, she understood. HUGE SWs junkie. But, alas, that didn't work. Fuck. Thanks for reminding me. Dickhead.

[Brian Young 11,994]

Quick question, how do you fellas all have wives? I mean that's just bloody crazy talk man.

 

 

Fuck you, asshole.

[Afishymeadow 534]

Quick question, how do you fellas all have wives? I mean that's just bloody crazy talk man.

 

 

[Brian Young 11,994]

Now for those worthy of attention:

As for Malevolence, a point for hull hugging shields would be that we do not know what noise anything makes when it scrapes against a shield and the Falcon landing on the back of an ISD could be evidence that you can safely come into contact with a shield if you don't crash into it.

Oh come on! You're just making stuff up now.

Also, when did having a better idea become a prerequisite for pointing out flaws in a theory that need to be addressed or other ways the data could be interpreted?

I'm planning an entire video on the Scientific Method, which deals with this. We're working with low accuracy, inconsistent data. If consistent rules are applied to the data to account for the inconsistencies, and everyone uses good logic, we should theoretically all come to the same conclusion. Of course, that doesn't always happen, we all think differently. But if those rules are followed, and good logic is used, the hypothesis produced should be a good one.

In that mindset, the way to defeat that hypothesis is to present a superior one, which either addresses the data more consistently, more concisely with fewer assumptions, or employs superior logic, or a combination thereof.

To complain and make up excuses about the individual examples is, to look at the big picture, simply a statement that, "dadgum, the data is inconsistent with low accuracy!"

But that is a basic fact of what we are doing - we all know that going in. It's like saying "let's sit down and plan a vacation, and since we don't know exact prices, we'll generalize and round off to get it in the ballpark" - then on the next to last detail, someone complains that we're rounding off and can't possibly know the exact price we're dealing with.

That is not productive.

If the existing hypothesis is the most consistent and logical one presented, it is what we must accept until something better is presented, period. That's how science works.

But to say "in some of the CW examples, it could be X, but not in others, maybe in those it is Y, and in some of the movie examples it looks like A, but then sometimes B..." does not make a consistent hypothesis. Once again, it is just an elaborate way to say "dadgum, the data is inconsistent and with low accuracy."

So, in general, discussions about the logic used, different interpretations, etc., are welcome. That's why we are here. But constantly pointing out the basic fact that we're dealing with low accuracy inconsistent data is as helpful as simply stating that phrase itself over and over.

 

So once again, I arrived at the semipermeable idea by looking at all this data, which by the way involves explicit explanations by characters onscreen. With a few caveats, it covers almost all the data consistently, it does involve solid logic, and involves few assumptions, especially given the explicit quotes by characters and VFX people.

If you have an idea that covers MORE of the data, MORE consistently, and involves FEWER assumptions, let's have it. But ideas that apply to fewer examples, or a multitude of different ideas to cover different examples doesn't suffice.

[Khas 12,158]

Quick question, how do you fellas all have wives? I mean that's just bloody crazy talk man.

 

 

I don't. Hell, I'm still a virgin.

[Khas 12,158]

Fuck you, asshole.

 

I think ESAD was honestly curious. He would have said something A LOT nastier if he WAS trying to be an asshole. I've known him for close to three years now. If he wanted to be nasty, it would have been a lot nastier.

[Tyralak 12,068]

I had a wife who loved this kinda stuff. More recently I was talking to this woman who also loved this kinda geeky stuff, though she didn't like the debate much, she understood. HUGE SWs junkie. But, alas, that didn't work. Fuck. Thanks for reminding me. Dickhead.

 

Maybe I'll ask her if she wants to register here.

[Tyralak 12,068]

Fuck you, asshole.

 

[Khas 12,158]

I've also been pestering my brother to join.

[Airlocke 12,014]

I don't. Hell, I'm still a virgin.

 

Yeah.....we've gotta do something about that. Like, nao.