NationStates Jolt Archive

Void sheilds work by projecting a distortion of normal space to warp space in a 3 foot 6 inch layer around the ship. They act as a net which bends or ignores the laws of physics, so they slow down matter and energy as it ripples and bends (check the cinimatic in Fire Warrior). Very slow moving projectiles can "break surface tension" on this liquid-like shields, but as far as I know, not very many SW or ST have weapons like that. Thing is, they can also be used as an offensive weapon, by ramming an enemy ship with them. No ST or SW ship can do that, at full speed, without huge risk to themself. The 40k ships will start bending hull a km before even touching the other ship. Then the 30 meter of armour on the prow of the cruiser with the 0.5 km ram eats it's enemy alive.


Same goes for SW shields, except they only allow things through in a very small number of cases. Such as the DS1 shield or the Gungan or Hoth theatre shields. The Executor was rammed by three ISD's coming out of hyperspace and didn't suffer any damage, the shields were just knocked down. The planetary shield in ROTJ won't let starfighters or shuttles through.

And enough raw firepower, which the Empire has plenty of, can take down any shield.

Also, the reason the ramming isn't used in SW is becaused it's a useless tactic. SW ships just fill the sky with ECM and blast eachother from thousands of kilometers with turbolaser fire.

Between Star Wars and Star Trek, I really wouldn't know which one would be the "harder" out of the two. They both seem to be similiar in terms of technology. Star Trek has the edge with shield technology (something few ships in the Star Wars universe seem to have to any decent extent), and cloaking technology. Star Wars seems to have a lot of very huge ships and nippy little fighters though.

Star Wars technology is orders of magnitude above ST technology. Star Wars shields are rated in the high gigaton range, ST's are mid megaton range. Star Wars has cloaking technology, "No ship that small has a cloaking device." And hyperdrive is hundreds of thousands of times faster than warp drive.

Star Wars technology is orders of magnitude above ST technology. Star Wars shields are rated in the high gigaton range, ST's are mid megaton range. Star Wars has cloaking technology, "No ship that small has a cloaking device." And hyperdrive is hundreds of thousands of times faster than warp drive.

Yes but, X Wings seem to take one shot and be crippled/destroyed, whereas the comparitively chunky shuttlecraft can take at least a few hits from a ship phaser. They seem to have shields where the X Wings don't (computer games aside). They also have warp drives, so even the smallest ship in Star Trek can achieve FTL speeds, whereas in Star Wars you need something a little bigger.

I've also not seen a Star Wars ship with a cloak yet, whereas Klingon ships, seemingly by definition, have cloaking devices, from Vorchas right down to the comparitively tiny BOPs. I've not seen phasing shields (or phasing anything) in Star Wars, anything Yoda can do, Q can do better, and exactly where did exact gigaton figures come from for the shield technologies anyway?

Like I said, an X Wing, with Star Trek shield tech and a warp core.. that'd kick some arse.

Or perhaps a shuttlecraft with a few R2s on the outside.

Or pretty much any hybrid of the best bits of ST/SW tech. Just ixnay on the 40k - unless you want Orks or Chaos/Tyrannids as bad guys.

And then 40k kills them all at 75,000 km.

Star Wars: Death Stars and super star destroyers might look cool, but something about them seems to scream "SHOOT HERE". Maybe the size.

Indeed, with the Death Star's exhaust port, DS2's exposed reactor core shaft, ISD's shield generators, and SSD cloaking devices and bridges, it would appear that EVERY STAR WARS SHIP HAS A WEAK POINT ENGINEERED AT THE CONCEPT STAGE.

Xessmithia, how can the official site be wrong? It's official. By definition, it's right and everything else is wrong.

And what? X-wings have shields. X-wing shields can survive a direct hit from a ISD turbolaser, provided they are aligned correctly. And Star Trek shields are to most fake things I have ever heard of. Energy shields do not percentage strength remaining, they are either up or down. To beat them, you don't just keep firing, you have to overload the shield projectors with a large amount of energy, all at once, such as a missile barrage. And SW hyperdrive is much more useful than ST warp core.

And if ST shuttlecraft can survive several hits from a ship-mounted phaser, that just proves once and for all how weak the phasers really are. Ship-mounted weapons are supposed to damage other capital ships, so they destroy small shuttles/fighters with ease.

Indeed, with the Death Star's exhaust port, DS2's exposed reactor core shaft, ISD's shield generators, and SSD cloaking devices and bridges, it would appear that EVERY STAR WARS SHIP HAS A WEAK POINT ENGINEERED AT THE CONCEPT STAGE.

Well, it's not as bad as the 100 foot tall stained glass windows on the 40k Ships...

Xessmithia, did you not read my post correctly?

Go here: http://www.starwars.com/databank/starship/superstardestroyer/index.html

Read it. Height: 12,800m. Okay, so I said 12.5km. That was a typo, it's length is 12.8km. End of story.

Funny thing, really.

The actual model, the one used in the movies, scales up to around 18 kilometers. I don't know about you, but the movie itself is higher up on the canon ladder to me than ANY website.


By that time I am talking about the "larger" ships, the "normal sized" ships.

The Imperator class IS a normal sized ship. It's a destroyer.

Yes but, X Wings seem to take one shot and be crippled/destroyed, whereas the comparitively chunky shuttlecraft can take at least a few hits from a ship phaser. They seem to have shields where the X Wings don't (computer games aside).

XD, what horrible logic. Tell me, if a WWI Biplace can take a few hits from AA guns of the time, but a modern F-22 goes down to a single AA missile, does this mean that the biplane has stronger armor?

All that means is that ST Shipboard weapons are weaker than SW ones(several orders of magnitude, in fact).

They also have warp drives, so even the smallest ship in Star Trek can achieve FTL speeds, whereas in Star Wars you need something a little bigger.

Something as small as an X-Wing easily fits a hyperdrive, along with weaponry, a (much) better generator, more advanced sensor systems, an onboard computer so much more powerful than any computer in existance in ST, and countless other systems. If you were to make a ship that was just a hyperdrive engine, some cargo space, and a cockpit, then you could easily make it much smaller than an ST shuttle.

I've also not seen a Star Wars ship with a cloak yet, whereas Klingon ships, seemingly by definition, have cloaking devices, from Vorchas right down to the comparitively tiny BOPs.

Cloaking comes into major play (though it was a viable technology decades earlier) a few years after the Battle of Endor. However, in the same way there is no way to see in, there is no way to see out. It's good for hiding, but you're firing blind if you use it in battle. I seem to remember, though, that cloaked ST ships cannot fire period while in cloak...

I've not seen phasing shields (or phasing anything) in Star Wars

Who needs them? Star Wars shields are thousands, hundreds of thousands really, times more powerful than the most powerful Star Trek Shield.

anything Yoda can do, Q can do better,

The difference is that Yoda would actually do it. The Q seem not to care for the other races much at all, with Q "himself" only toying with them on occasion.

and exactly where did exact gigaton figures come from for the shield technologies anyway?

Well, the Acclamator class' medium turbolaser is rated at 200 Gigatons. This is about 30 years before the Galactic Civil War, on a medium turbolaser, on a transport ship. Imperial warships can pound at each other for several minutes before any portion of the shield collapses. Therefore, shields would probably be in the teraton range.

If you don't want to take this semi-official figure, look at this (http://www.stardestroyer.net/tlc/) analysis of actual footage that arrives at a bare minimum of several gigatons using extremely conservatives and under-rating estimates.


Like I said, an X Wing, with Star Trek shield tech and a warp core.. that'd kick some arse.

In the ST universe, maybe, but it'd get it's ass kicked by a TIE-wing (AKA Deathball) with broken engines in the SW universe.



Indeed, with the Death Star's exhaust port, DS2's exposed reactor core shaft, ISD's shield generators, and SSD cloaking devices and bridges, it would appear that EVERY STAR WARS SHIP HAS A WEAK POINT ENGINEERED AT THE CONCEPT STAGE.

Do you know what tactical errors are? That was the problem with the first Death Star. Actually, that was several problems.

A. Tarkin was over-confident. Had he launched the Death Star's TIE squadrons, the Rebels would never have gotten within 100,000 kilometers.

B. The designer never expected a force-user to be the one to try a trench run. Remember, Luke wasn't the first one to launch a torpedo at the port, someone else did, with their targetting computer on and working, and missed. Luke, however, was a force-user, making him infinitely more capable.

C. The Death Star actually was supposed to have an escorting fleet (which would include anti-fighter frigates and their ilk), but Tarkin rushed off to be the one to blow up the Rebel base.

The second Death Star only had an exposed reactor core BECAUSE IT WAS UN-FINISHED. Once complete, it would have been virtually un-stoppable.

And the Executor class' bridges are hardly a weakpoint. The shields had dropped after continual bombardment by more than half the Rebel fleet and a very damaged A-Wing careened into it. Had the Executor not been in the presence of the Death Star, control could have been restored on the secondary bridge. Instead, it was pulled in by the Death Star's gravity too quickly and destroyed.

Ooo-er! Quick men! Fetch the handbags!

Instead, it was pulled in by the Death Star's gravity too quickly and destroyed.

I was under the impression that the Executor crashed becasue they crew couldn't regain control to fix the unwanted dive into the Death Star caused by the main bridge's destruction.


Xessmithia, how can the official site be wrong? It's official. By definition, it's right and everything else is wrong.

Because as IE said, the movies and model show the Executor being 17-18 km long, with 17.6 km being the accepted figure. The movies overide the official website.

Yes but, X Wings seem to take one shot and be crippled/destroyed, whereas the comparitively chunky shuttlecraft can take at least a few hits from a ship phaser. They seem to have shields where the X Wings don't (computer games aside). They also have warp drives, so even the smallest ship in Star Trek can achieve FTL speeds, whereas in Star Wars you need something a little bigger.

Yes they take one or two hits from laser canons in the terajoule range and are destroyed. While a shuttle can take a few hits from phasers with less power than that.

X-Wings have shields, "All power to front deflector shields." Was said in ANH during the Death Star attack.

Luke went from Hoth to Dagobah, and from Tatooine from Dagobah in his X-wing. This means X-Wing's have hyperdrives.

I've also not seen a Star Wars ship with a cloak yet, whereas Klingon ships, seemingly by definition, have cloaking devices, from Vorchas right down to the comparitively tiny BOPs. I've not seen phasing shields (or phasing anything) in Star Wars, anything Yoda can do, Q can do better, and exactly where did exact gigaton figures come from for the shield technologies anyway?

Cloaking devices are used extensively in the Thrawn Trilogy. And as quoted from TESB,
Captain Needs: "No ship that small has a cloaking device."

Ergo SW has cloaking devices.

Who needs phasing shields when your shields are rated in the teraton range.

The gigaton range comes from the canon AOTC: Incredible Cross-Sections. The medium turbolasers on the Acclamator class troop transport are rated at 200 gigatons.

Deathballs are fun. A Y-wings slow speed and agility, coupled with a TIE's lack of shields or decent weaponry, combine to give the worst fighter in the Star Wars universe. Also known as DIE-wings, because that's what they do.

And fine. My only objection is that there is no scale given in the film, but I accept it. I did see something somewhere that there are two types of SSD. Most are 17.6km, but there are a few that are 12.8km.

Deathballs are fun. A Y-wings slow speed and agility, coupled with a TIE's lack of shields or decent weaponry, combine to give the worst fighter in the Star Wars universe. Also known as DIE-wings, because that's what they do.

http://www.starwars.ow.pl/sluis/index.php?lokacja=mcrc&miejsce=ntr2

and theres some pics of em....

ergh...

http://www.starwars.ow.pl/sluis/index.php?lokacja=mcrc&miejsce=ntr2

and theres some pics of em....

ergh...

And in the original starwars language too. Good find,

And in the original starwars language too. Good find,

I'm sure the Polish would have something to say about copy right infringement on their language! :p :D