Star Wars The Force Awakens

[MrBogosity]

It was very one-sided in any case.  There were precisely two proper battles in the whole war, one at each Death Star, and only the second was a true fleet action.  In both battles, the Rebels took massive losses of the forces used and only won because the outcome of the battle depended on destroying the Death Star in each case.  The first one was destroyed because it had a small but critical design flaw, the second because it was far from ready for battle without its external fixed defenses.

But there's not much difference between (say) an X-Wing and a Tie Fighter, and if the Empire had the ability to generate power on that magnitude a single Tie Fighter should be able to take out a squadron of X-Wings!

JMS can actually write, something Lucas has demonstrated he really doesn't know how to do.

Indeed.

Incidentally, according to the only references I've ever found, the Vorlons used something called a 'hyperspace power tap,' presumably drawing power from the difference between normal space and hyperspace.  Clearly, the Vorlons used far higher output power systems than the younger races, by a couple orders of magnitude based on the recharge time of the main gun on the Excalibur.

It was never explained in the series. I could think it of the Shadows; they basically lived in hyperspace.

[evensgrey]

But there's not much difference between (say) an X-Wing and a Tie Fighter, and if the Empire had the ability to generate power on that magnitude a single Tie Fighter should be able to take out a squadron of X-Wings!

TIE fighters were consistently shown to be extremely flimsy compared to X-Wings.  Any hit would usually take out a TIE fighter, but only a fairly hard shot would take down an X-Wing, which regularly survived the first hit.  The only exception was Vader's personal fighter, which appeared to have several non-standard features.

Power generation isn't likely to be strictly proportional to volume, either.  Generally speaking, the larger a power source you have, the higher the power density it can generate.  There are also maximum and minimum sizes at which most types of power systems are efficient.  You'd have a hard time building a gasoline-powered piston engine large enough to power an aircraft carrier, and an even harder time building a fission reactor small enough to power a fighter (the smallest aircraft that carried operational or potentially operations fission reactors were heavy bombers, and even then it simply wasn't viable as a power source to drive the aircraft).

[tnu]

Are yo only countng hte battles  n thbe films for "proper battles". In whch case yo're missing a significant ammount of battes from the Rise of the Empire to the truce between the Imperial Remnant and the New Republic. Which s quite a long span of time.

[ArtemisVale]

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[MrBogosity]

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Haven't watched the video yet, but my understanding is that you just need a laser to create a plasma in a confined space. The only part of it we can't make is the force field to hold it in.

[ArtemisVale]

Haven't watched the video yet, but my understanding is that you just need a laser to create a plasma in a confined space. The only part of it we can't make is the force field to hold it in.

Id warth the video since Kaku came up with a different idea than using lasers

[MrBogosity]

Id warth the video since Kaku came up with a different idea than using lasers

Yeah, that was a big "Meh." Reminds me why I stopped watching that show.

If you had a force field regenerating at (say) 60Hz, you could generate the plasma with a laser. It's pretty clear that's what's going on in the movies.

If we had light sabers with Kaku's design, the first thing I'd do is reverse the polarity of my magnets--REPEL the other sword! Ahahahahaha!!!

[dallen68]

Yeah, that was a big "Meh." Reminds me why I stopped watching that show.

If you had a force field regenerating at (say) 60Hz, you could generate the plasma with a laser. It's pretty clear that's what's going on in the movies.

If we had light sabers with Kaku's design, the first thing I'd do is reverse the polarity of my magnets--REPEL the other sword! Ahahahahaha!!!

On a somewhat related note, why wouldn't I use the force to float my lightsaber over to where you are and duel you from... say 30 miles away?

[MrBogosity]

On a somewhat related note, why wouldn't I use the force to float my lightsaber over to where you are and duel you from... say 30 miles away?

That's one thing that disappointed me about Yoda in Episode I. In his heyday, he should have been able to float several lightsabers to fight dozens of foe without even standing up. I imagined him with his hands in the air conducting an orchestra of floating light sabers in a barrier that no one could get past.

Really, there was no excuse for Episodes I-III not being awesome. And CERTAINLY none for them being the dreck they are.

[ArtemisVale]

Yeah, that was a big "Meh." Reminds me why I stopped watching that show.

If you had a force field regenerating at (say) 60Hz, you could generate the plasma with a laser. It's pretty clear that's what's going on in the movies.

If we had light sabers with Kaku's design, the first thing I'd do is reverse the polarity of my magnets--REPEL the other sword! Ahahahahaha!!!

What I would like to see though is a plasma blade with a single edge (you know, like a saber) instead of a big glow stick that you could hit yourself with.

[dallen68]

What I would like to see though is a plasma blade with a single edge (you know, like a saber) instead of a big glow stick that you could hit yourself with.

The hilt/battery chamber (whatever you want to call it) is long enough that you'd actually have to go out of your way to hit yourself with the blade. Which, of course, you could do with anything.

[evensgrey]

The hilt/battery chamber (whatever you want to call it) is long enough that you'd actually have to go out of your way to hit yourself with the blade. Which, of course, you could do with anything.

None of the movies show even the greenest apprentice doing anything as stupid as hitting themselves with their own lightsabre.

(Like I said, West End Games put hitting yourself if you didn't have the skill in mostly for game balance, as lightsabres were really, REALLY powerful in their game.  Even a half-trained apprentice could easily shred most ground combat vehicles, and a master could take down attacking starfighters.  TIE fighters weren't up to much in that game, though.  The way they modeled their relative flimsiness resulted in a max-strength human being able to punch holes in them, and wookies, which are stronger than humans can be, can rip them apart like tinfoil.  Even most blaster pistols can damage basic TIE fighters, if they manage to get a hit.  In mechanics terms, IIRC, the damage from a lightsabre strike in that game was your Strength, plus your Force Alter skill, plus 3 dice from the lightsabre itself, and your hit was your Dexterity plus your Force Sense skill plus your Lightsabre Combat skill.  Defense was normally just Strength plus up to 3 dice of armor, and your ability to doge was just your Dexterity, which were applied against the result of the attacker's rolls in a simple highest wins test.  In practice, in usually meant that a lightsabre made anyone who knew how to use it nearly invincible.  At least, until you had half-trained apprentices against one High Sith Lord, which I've played through.  Or you stupidly get yourself drugged and captured and chained to the wall and deprived of your lightsabre and are left with just taunting the villain about how he's completely failing at being intimidating, which I played through later.  Nothing really scares you after you've been toe-to-toe with a High Sith Lord.)