[Scrubula]Battle Droids vs Federation (in ground combat)

[harbringer]

Personally I would simply make it easier that Darth Wongs suggestion use droideka's and have something invulnerable crack heads.... overkill I know but why have them and not use them

[Darth Fanboy]

but why have them and not use them

because the whole point of the scenario is to have the TF force made up entirely of B1 battledroids with their standard blaster rifles. At least so i've been told.

[The Silence and I]

Why are phasers thought ineffective against metals?

TOS:
What Are Little Girls Made Of?: Bulky androids are readily phasorized, presumably metal is used extensively in their construction, no?

The Omega Glory: Tracy phasorized many things in this episode seen and unseen, but most relevant is the large metal object next to Spock.

The Naked Time: It may or may not have been this episode but a stray phaser blasts a smoking hole into a thick support member around engineering somewhere.

TNG:
Heart Of Glory: A close range phaser blast can pierce the material used in the matter/antimatter reactor. Presumably the metallic main reactor housing isn't made of the cheapest low grade thin materials they could find?

The Neutral Zone: Not shown but Worf indicates blasting open a large metal door on the cryo ship would be easy. Data then notices the manual handle.

The Enemy: Geordi's phaser on a low setting is quite capable of melting a silvery unrefined metal.

Ok that last one was weak, but hey, TNG doesn't have much...

Movies:
The Undiscovered Country: A cooking pot is phasorized

Nemesis: Picard's phaser rifle blasts a very large hole in the metal door to the Scimitar's bridge--he steps through afterwards, that large.

Can we at least all accept hand phasers can damage metals?

********************************************************

I am amused by attempts to inflate the quality of B1 droids, neutronium spiked armor indeed
Those pieces of crap were made with the cheapest servos, computers and materials the builders could find, but it has been claimed they were covered in uber dense materials and only blasters can pierce it

A) Jar Jar (however strong he may be) is not heavy, yet he has enough mass to fling a B1 droid around like a rag doll--watch that sequence it should be painfully clear who is heavier... so, logically, the droids are not very heavy, and don't have neutronium spiked armor.

B) The thick plates in the factory were clearly for B2 droids not B1.

C) We see stray shots in AOTC that fuse some sand on the arena floor with some smoke and dust--hardly multi MJ discharges... Sure blasters CAN fire higher yields but the droids were falling left and right to low power shots and that is simply obvious if you look. Whatever armor (if any) they have is hardly worth having...

D) After finding the droids are not heavy what then should we think when a Jedi round house kick merely knocks a droid to the floor and leaves it there? You'd think that if immense force was needed to damage them any effective kick would fling them some distance... (not exactly phaser related, but this was brought up).

[Darth Yoshi]

Damaging metals isn't the same as being effective against armor. After all, I could bend a spoon, or dent a sheet of metal, but I'd be an idiot to say that I could destroy a suit of plate mail by myself.

[Darth Servo]

Why are phasers thought ineffective against metals?

Because thin packing crates consistantly provide excellent cover in firefights and phaser misses don't even scortch starship walls.

And its not "totally ineffective". Its just that the magic disappearing act doesn't seem to work and they are far LESS effective against dense metals than rock, flesh, water, etc.

TOS:
What Are Little Girls Made Of?: Bulky androids are readily phasorized, presumably metal is used extensively in their construction, no?

Before the androids were formatted, they appeared as a humanoid shaped blob. WHY should we assume thats metal?

The Omega Glory: Tracy phasorized many things in this episode seen and unseen, but most relevant is the large metal object next to Spock.

All I remember is a ceramic pot and a no-name ensign.

The Naked Time: It may or may not have been this episode but a stray phaser blasts a smoking hole into a thick support member around engineering somewhere.

It took Scotty several minutes to

TNG:
Heart Of Glory: A close range phaser blast can pierce the material used in the matter/antimatter reactor. Presumably the metallic main reactor housing isn't made of the cheapest low grade thin materials they could find?

Looked more like plastic to me.

The Neutral Zone: Not shown but Worf indicates blasting open a large metal door on the cryo ship would be easy. Data then notices the manual handle.

Worf always has been full of himself and his weapons.

The Enemy: Geordi's phaser on a low setting is quite capable of melting a silvery unrefined metal.

If it was something like lead, melting it isn't that great an accomplishment.

Movies:
The Undiscovered Country: A cooking pot is phasorized

Correction: made disappear into thin air. Cooking pots aren't usually made out of dense metals. Usually they're aluminum or other light weight material of similar density to the above items.

Nemesis: Picard's phaser rifle blasts a very large hole in the metal door to the Scimitar's bridge--he steps through afterwards, that large.

The door was shattered, not vaporized/disappearing act and VERY thin. It behaved like opaque glass would.

Can we at least all accept hand phasers can damage metals?

Depends on the metal, its density. An who ever said "totally ineffective"? The argument is far LESS effective than against low density materials.

I am amused by attempts to inflate the quality of B1 droids, neutronium spiked armor indeed
Those pieces of crap were made with the cheapest servos, computers and materials the builders could find, but it has been claimed they were covered in uber dense materials and only blasters can pierce it

You think it ridiculous to cut corners on one part but not do it on another?

Whatever armor (if any) they have is hardly worth having...

Any armor is better than the armor in Trek which is non-existant.

D) After finding the droids are not heavy what then should we think when a Jedi round house kick merely knocks a droid to the floor and leaves it there? You'd think that if immense force was needed to damage them any effective kick would fling them some distance... (not exactly phaser related, but this was brought up).

The Jedi damaged the internal circuitry directly with the force.

[Batman]

Movies:
The Undiscovered Country: A cooking pot is phasorized

Correction: made disappear into thin air.

Thus phasorization. As opposed to vaporisation.

[The Silence and I]

Movies:
The Undiscovered Country: A cooking pot is phasorized

Correction: made disappear into thin air.

Thus phasorization. As opposed to vaporisation.

Thankyou Batman.

Because thin packing crates consistantly provide excellent cover in firefights and phaser misses don't even scortch starship walls.

The packing crates are a silly brainbug much akin to storm troopers successfully shielding themselves behind logs in ROTJ (yes, the all mighty blaster, set high enough to kill stormtroopers behind their armor, was repeatedly stopped by a log several stormtroopers were hiding behind). For all we know packing crates must be repeatedly subjected to extreme conditions and are built like tanks, using the best materials available, which happen to be highly resistent to phasers on standard parameters. For all we know blasters are also a chain reaction weapon and are useless against marble, wood and for the hell of it, cheese. Trek's worst is dug up and displayed frequently, want to know what I can find in Wars?

Before the androids were formatted, they appeared as a humanoid shaped blob. WHY should we assume thats metal?

That is just a peculiarity of its construction. Finished androids have an internal metalic structure, the first android Kirk phasorizes leaves a small pile of rubbery skin, unknown stuff and shiny metallic bits and pieces. Roger Korby tore his hand near the end and we see a shiny metallic understructure. No, the androids were composed partly of metal. What do you expect they were? Clay?

Pics: Pile of remains hand

All I remember is a ceramic pot and a no-name ensign.

I do not remember a ceramic pot, but there I was refering to this
It is not quite as large as I remember, but it is of metal (and other things) and is some kind of equipment (transmitter I think) that Spock was trying to fix.

It took Scotty several minutes to

Was that hole blasted out? Was it smoking? Was it from a stray phaser shot? NO! Of course that isn't the one I was talking about!!! I refer to a shot taken at Kirk which missed and hit a metal beam near the floor, blasting (as in flash and smoke) a hole most of a foot across. The torn edges appeared to be around an inch thick. Not the bloody hole Scotty was meticulously cutting in his attempt to open the door to engineering.

Looked more like plastic to me.

Somehow I doubt it would be made of anything so easily melted as plastic... especially given their known ability to make at least one metal transparent...

Worf always has been full of himself and his weapons.

So? He is an expert and knows what a phaser can and cannot do. His suggestions are always correct, 'a phaser set to level __ should do it' is always right on. His speciality is weaponry after all--his aim has nothing to do with his knowledge so don't bring it up.

If it was something like lead, melting it isn't that great an accomplishment.

I did type the very next sentance in the hope no one would actually feel the need to point that out again...

The door was shattered, not vaporized/disappearing act and VERY thin. It behaved like opaque glass would.

It had varying thicknesses but was around an inch and solid. It does appear to have shattered, but metals don't do that (it looked like metal and every other door and bulkhead on the entire ship is metal) typically. There has been speculation that phaser chain reaction effects can follow micro fault lines if you will, explaining why rocks shatter and explode into nothingness instead of simply vanishing like humans do. A similar thing could easily explain the door.

Depends on the metal, its density. An who ever said "totally ineffective"? The argument is far LESS effective than against low density materials.

There does seem to be a correlation to density, but B1 droids are not dense so it isn't really an issue. Low density and normal density metals can be phasorized, without evidence to the contrary we assume B1 low density armor is not going to stop the phaser reaction due to other exotic properties we can't even guess at. If it ain't very dense we can't assume it will simply wont work.

You think it ridiculous to cut corners on one part but not do it on another?

Read what I go to some effort to type. I have to explain and re-explain almost every other point I try to make with you--and only you. I rarely have to reword some part of every post unless it is you responding. It is getting tiresome.

Plain English.
A) B1 Droids have craptastic servos and computers (watch them repeatedly miss targets by decimeters* at spit ball range)

B) B1 droids are destroyed by blasters set so low that stray shots hardly perturb sandy ground.

C) The Trade Federation was clearly unwilling to invest in enough intelligence or hardware performance to actually hit the broad side of a barn with a glowing neon bull'seye.

D) The Trade Federation was clearly unwilling to invest in enough material quality to protect their droids from a sporting blaster let alone combat weaponry.

The question I have for you: Given the above evidence why might you think the Trade Federation might have gone to the expense to outfit each of these craptastic shitty uberly cheap and worthless excuses for target practice with a sheath of high quality expensive armor material that is just thin enough to never stop any modern weapon?

*A decimeter, for clarity, is 10 cm, also a tenth (1/10) of a meter, which is 100 cm.

Any armor is better than the armor in Trek which is non-existant.

A pointless statement, everyone who has ever stepped mouse into this forum knows this.

The Jedi damaged the internal circuitry directly with the force.

A good and workable explanation when the droids are force pushed. I am not talking about that, and I expected you to at least notice.
Ask yourself why, in a demanding battle with your very life at stake you, a Jedi, would want to waste effort and concentration delivering a non fatal kick to a droid that you are also force pushing. Answer? You don't. Either kill it with just a push or just a kick, any other combination is an exceedingly stupid waste of concentration. Exceedingly. Stupid.

[/irritated sarcasm]

[Darth Wong]

The packing crates are a silly brainbug much akin to storm troopers successfully shielding themselves behind logs in ROTJ (yes, the all mighty blaster, set high enough to kill stormtroopers behind their armor, was repeatedly stopped by a log several stormtroopers were hiding behind).

Have you performed calculations to show that it is trivially easy to blow through a thick tree? Especially with primarily thermal weapons as opposed to something like an armour-piercing bullet? There is certainly much more mass in a thick log than there is in an empty packing crate.

For all we know packing crates must be repeatedly subjected to extreme conditions and are built like tanks, using the best materials available, which happen to be highly resistent to phasers on standard parameters.

Impossible since we know they're quite light and can be knocked over easily.

For all we know blasters are also a chain reaction weapon and are useless against marble, wood and for the hell of it, cheese.

Find examples of SW weapons initating an obvious slow-propagating chain-reaction such as we have seen for phasers on numerous occasions.

Trek's worst is dug up and displayed frequently, want to know what I can find in Wars?

I hope you can do better than the bullshit you've tried so far.

Given the above evidence why might you think the Trade Federation might have gone to the expense to outfit each of these craptastic shitty uberly cheap and worthless excuses for target practice with a sheath of high quality expensive armor material ...

Nice exaggeration. Since when is an ordinary piece of iron (the most likely type of material being used for a cheap battledroid since it's the most common metal in existence) a "sheath of high quality expensive armor material?" What is your theory for the many cases in which phasers were basically useless against things like packing crates and doors? Just chalk it up to "brainbug?" This brainbug happens to be canon.

[Vympel]

A) B1 Droids have craptastic servos and computers (watch them repeatedly miss targets by decimeters* at spit ball range)

C) The Trade Federation was clearly unwilling to invest in enough intelligence or hardware performance to actually hit the broad side of a barn with a glowing neon bull'seye.

Say what? You do realize that for the most part in the films they're fighting *Jedi*, right, and if the Jedi didn't swing their lightsabres- they'd be dead. When fighting Naboo security forces they do inflict casualties (and fight them to a standstill, forcing them to take another route)- and against Clonetroopers they simply get blown to dust by gunship attack.

[Typhonis 1]

Actually fanboy the opening post said that there were no TF Tanks or armored vehicles sent just battle droids and all a droideka is is a mobile repeating blaster unit....much like an M-60 machinegunner in an infantry squad.

[Darth Fanboy]

And back to the original post, I ask again, are these B-1 droids armed only with blasters? Or are there the various configurations as seen in games such as Galactic Battlegrounds and Battlefront?

Its blasters only, otherwise there probably wouldn't be any dissent regarding which army would come out on top.[/quote]



@Typhonis ^

[Darth Fanboy]

thats why I was led to believe it was just b1s. my mistake

[SylasGaunt]

Say what? You do realize that for the most part in the films they're fighting *Jedi*, right, and if the Jedi didn't swing their lightsabres- they'd be dead. When fighting Naboo security forces they do inflict casualties (and fight them to a standstill, forcing them to take another route)- and against Clonetroopers they simply get blown to dust by gunship attack.

Well there was that little incident where a battledroid missed Amidala, who was standing open from only a few meters away.. Padme of course then immediately blew it away.

[The Silence and I]

Say what? You do realize that for the most part in the films they're fighting *Jedi*, right, and if the Jedi didn't swing their lightsabres- they'd be dead. When fighting Naboo security forces they do inflict casualties (and fight them to a standstill, forcing them to take another route)- and against Clonetroopers they simply get blown to dust by gunship attack.

Well there was that little incident where a battledroid missed Amidala, who was standing open from only a few meters away.. Padme of course then immediately blew it away.

There's more too.

In the hanger scene the pilots, who are totally exposed and weaponless, manage to not get hit for the most part. From a few paces the droids miss by a significant amount with frequency. Even the supposedly superior superbattle droids manage to miss (as one example) Mace Windu before he retreats and jumps--I don't mean they shoot Mace blocks, I mean they shoot, Mace blocks a few shots and the rest fly off half a meter to the left or right of his head. They missed. From spit ball range.

Count the frequency of fire and then count the frequency of blocked shots throughout both movies; you will find the droids fire much more frequently than the Jedi block. There is reason for this...

[Vympel]

Well there was that little incident where a battledroid missed Amidala, who was standing open from only a few meters away.. Padme of course then immediately blew it away.

Which scene?

There's more too.

In the hanger scene the pilots, who are totally exposed and weaponless, manage to not get hit for the most part.

There was kind of other stuff going on at that point. Like shooting at people with actual guns.

From a few paces the droids miss by a significant amount with frequency. Even the supposedly superior superbattle droids manage to miss (as one example) Mace Windu before he retreats and jumps--I don't mean they shoot Mace blocks, I mean they shoot, Mace blocks a few shots and the rest fly off half a meter to the left or right of his head. They missed. From spit ball range.

Tell me how many missed.

Count the frequency of fire and then count the frequency of blocked shots throughout both movies; you will find the droids fire much more frequently than the Jedi block. There is reason for this...

The Droids don't fire at full auto in both movies, the Super Battle Droids do in one. Also, your claim that the Super Battle Droids fire much more frequently than the Jedi block is BS- for the most part, they don't show us a Jedi blocking an SBD's fire- only the SBD firing. Given the dead Jedi and their ability to block shots fired at a slower rate, the solution is quite obvious.

[harbringer]

In ATOC there is a scene where the B1 is cut by a light sabre from shoulder to waist from memory the armour (the edge of which glowed as it cooled) was reasonably thick and may in fact be an inch though it would take work to measure exactly. This is the only instance I know of of onscreen footage showing exactly how thick the armour/chassis was.

I think I remember the scene with the SBD firing on Mace and it was I believe attempting to prevent the Jedi simply jumping away (it was right on target then tracked upward n a deliberate motion). I don't believe this is evidence of bad markmanship as the droid was on target to begin with.

The droid doesn't fly apart when hit by a blaster anything less than a clone trooper heavy rifle (designed to take out droids - the only viable opponant). That constitutes as evidence they are armoured and designed to minimise blaster hits (we know the output of the blaster from ICS etc). If a phaser has trouble with metal on anything bar the highest settings, then the troops are dead due to the fact blasters have no trouble killing an un/armoured foe and the numerical disadvantage.

Anyone with the theory of phasers being highly effective against the B1 etc. needs to show that all examples of phasers hitting ARMOURED droids with armour present in more than an inch of either steel or advanced composite/alloy (and yes the TF may use good armour material due to having the same forges producing droideka's). Otherwise I believe the phasor will melt the armour to a degree but not one that will affect the droid before it kills the RS.

[SylasGaunt]

Which scene?

Immediately after Amidala pulls the guns from the throne.

[Darth Servo]

Which scene?

Immediately after Amidala pulls the guns from the throne.

You mean the one when the Viceroy was confused about which chick was the real queen? And need we remind you, the Trade Fed wanted Amidala alive to sign the treaty legitimizing their occupation of Naboo?

[The Silence and I]

The packing crates are a silly brainbug much akin to storm troopers successfully shielding themselves behind logs in ROTJ (yes, the all mighty blaster, set high enough to kill stormtroopers behind their armor, was repeatedly stopped by a log several stormtroopers were hiding behind).

Have you performed calculations to show that it is trivially easy to blow through a thick tree? Especially with primarily thermal weapons as opposed to something like an armour-piercing bullet? There is certainly much more mass in a thick log than there is in an empty packing crate.

That there is more mass in a log than an empty crate is hardly in dispute. My beef with the scene is not so much that the shots didn't penetrate the entire log, blowing it to splinters in the process (although from what I've heard I must wonder why they didn't do that--surely they could have without using up all their juice?) it is more that shots hitting very near the top edge of the log resulted in nothing more than a flash and some smoke. Maybe you are more forgiving but I expected weaponry capable of penetrating the oh so vaunted stormtrooper armor to at least blast a small chunk of something from a dead log when it hits... If you really want calculations I can try something but I really didn't think I'd meet resistence on this.

For all we know packing crates must be repeatedly subjected to extreme conditions and are built like tanks, using the best materials available, which happen to be highly resistent to phasers on standard parameters.

Impossible since we know they're quite light and can be knocked over easily.

You assume they must be dense to achieve this hardiness, which is going to hard to support. More importantly, we know phasers are highly mutable. TOS type II phasers demonstrated the ability to cause heavy damage to thick metal, as well as complete phasorization of metals. Clearly the Federation has the technology to give a type II phaser the ability to readily deal destruction to metals, so the remaining question is why TNG type II phasers do not do the same, even when clearly on a high setting.

I've thought some about this and think the answer may be their expected use aboard starships--having a weapon that can cause severe damage to a ship's insides can be bad in many situations, StarFleet could well have opted to use a phaser particle mix that favors the lighter, organic elements and is of relatively little use against the metals used in starship construction. This way the phaser is still just as lethal against common agressors and is far less likely to damage your own vessel.

We know phasers can be made more (and presumably less) effective against various materials--TOS phasers sucked against silicon for example, but this was remedied later. TOS phasers also did just fine against metals, but of course TNG phasers do not, but TNG phasers jusst love rocks and silicone. Voyager's phasers had trouble dealing with the Kazon hulls at first IIRC, but at later encounters their phasers had no such handicap. So you should see where I am getting with this; TNG/DS9 phasers are less effective against metals by design, but given time and preparation this can be changed.

For all we know blasters are also a chain reaction weapon and are useless against marble, wood and for the hell of it, cheese.

Find examples of SW weapons initating an obvious slow-propagating chain-reaction such as we have seen for phasers on numerous occasions.

There are none I am aware of, but you do realize the sarcasm? In other words I was not being entirely serious, due to my frustration with Darth Servo.

Given the above evidence why might you think the Trade Federation might have gone to the expense to outfit each of these craptastic shitty uberly cheap and worthless excuses for target practice with a sheath of high quality expensive armor material ...

Nice exaggeration. Since when is an ordinary piece of iron (the most likely type of material being used for a cheap battledroid since it's the most common metal in existence) a "sheath of high quality expensive armor material?" What is your theory for the many cases in which phasers were basically useless against things like packing crates and doors? Just chalk it up to "brainbug?" This brainbug happens to be canon.

I'll make this quick.
A) You are missing the reason I posted that. I was attempting to show why I thought the idea (which was presented seriously, go look for yourself) that B1 droids had neutronium enhanced armor--and hence why they would be absolutely impervious to phasers--was completely silly in light of the cheapness of the rest of the droids' components. Hence I most certainly do not think whatever the droids were armored with was a "sheath of high quality expensive armor material."
B) I have introduced my theory above; I do consider that to be a brainbug but I am aware it is unfortunately canon. I simply didn't want to discuss it intelligently with Darth Servo because I am now of the opinion that to attempt that is pointless; I expect he would start off by not reading and finish it off by offering nothing except cold contempt for the subject at hand. If there is zero chance of making any progress then formulating a theory is a waste of time. I did do so when you asked, but I expect I am not wasting my time replying to you.

[SylasGaunt]

You mean the one when the Viceroy was confused about which chick was the real queen? And need we remind you, the Trade Fed wanted Amidala alive to sign the treaty legitimizing their occupation of Naboo?

Except it's not the confused viceroy doing the fighting, and this is after he's sent most of his droids off chasing what he THINKS is the real queen. Remember, he'd already told the droids that Padme was just a decoy so they had no reason NOT to blow her head off.

[Darth Servo]

Except it's not the confused viceroy doing the fighting,

He IS the one calling the shots though.

and this is after he's sent most of his droids off chasing what he THINKS is the real queen. Remember, he'd already told the droids that Padme was just a decoy so they had no reason NOT to blow her head off.

They had no reason TO blow her head off either. They didn't want a lot of blood on their hands. They wanted a clean capture operation. A lot of dead Naboo wouldn't look too good for them with teh senate.

[SylasGaunt]

They had no reason TO blow her head off either. They didn't want a lot of blood on their hands. They wanted a clean capture operation. A lot of dead Naboo wouldn't look too good for them with teh senate.

Yet they've been firing with deadly force on the guard intrusion for the last few minutes. Furthermore they'd already dispatched a number of their group to catch the real queen. What you're suggesting is that the droid DELIBERATELY missed to avoid bloodshet instead of blowing away the now armed assailant in the same room as the viceroy.... riiiiiiight.

[Darth Servo]

What you're suggesting is that the droid DELIBERATELY missed to avoid bloodshet instead of blowing away the now armed assailant in the same room as the viceroy.... riiiiiiight.

False dilema fallacy. There is middle ground between shooting to kill and delibrately missing.

[SylasGaunt]

What then is the evidence you have that this droid was trying to do anything more than it appeared to? You talk of many dead Naboo being bad for the Trade Federations PR but in this case it was only as I recall, two armed combatants attempting to capture the head of the Trade Federation. There is absolutely no reason for them not to use deadly force as they have been throughout the entire damn movie.

Remember these are the same people who tried to gas and kill two ambassadors, why would they use kid-gloves on armed rebels?

[Darth Servo]

There is absolutely no reason for them not to use deadly force as they have been throughout the entire damn movie.

The only "evidence" of deadly force used against the people of Naboo was a forged holonet transmission allegedly from Sio Bibble. You think that was reliable evidence?

Remember these are the same people who tried to gas and kill two ambassadors, why would they use kid-gloves on armed rebels?

Easy to pass off as an accident, like a plumbing rupture.