StarDestroyer.Net BBS

ClaysGhost wrote:Any mass-energy should be affected by a gravitational field. With, say, light rays, the velocities involved are so great that the deflection is tiny, but at those bolt speeds I don't see that working. Either they don't feel the gravitational force, or they are a by-product from something else that is continuous and is travelling rapidly.

Which is exactly my point. The theory that the visible bolt is simply a process of decay along an invisible beam is the only explanation which fits that observation.

Given the assumption that the laser cannons on a starfighter are functionally identical to turbolasers, just orders of magnitude weaker, the AotC novellization argues that turbolasers are not FTL weapons.

Jango Fett states that most Delta-7 pilots use R3-D droids because the droid is better at keeping the guns targeted, and the fighter is so manueverable that a pilot who isn't careful can shoot the nose cone off with his own lasers. Only Jedi or extremely skilled pilots can handle the Delta-7 with an R4-P astromech, which is better at astronavigation.

This suggests that the main damage dealing capability of a laser cannon is in the STL portion of the beam, since no pilot would be able to interact with an FTL bolt fired from a weapon on the starfighter. Unless you want to assume that the designers of the Delta-7 are so blitheringly incompetent they designed gun on servomotors that would allow them to shoot the ship they're mounted on.

FTL bolts? WTF??????????

Kerneth wrote:Given the assumption that the laser cannons on a starfighter are functionally identical to turbolasers, just orders of magnitude weaker, the AotC novellization argues that turbolasers are not FTL weapons.

Jango Fett states that most Delta-7 pilots use R3-D droids because the droid is better at keeping the guns targeted, and the fighter is so manueverable that a pilot who isn't careful can shoot the nose cone off with his own lasers. Only Jedi or extremely skilled pilots can handle the Delta-7 with an R4-P astromech, which is better at astronavigation.

This suggests that the main damage dealing capability of a laser cannon is in the STL portion of the beam, since no pilot would be able to interact with an FTL bolt fired from a weapon on the starfighter. Unless you want to assume that the designers of the Delta-7 are so blitheringly incompetent they designed gun on servomotors that would allow them to shoot the ship they're mounted on.

Movie Visuals > Novelisation.

Especially considering who wrote it.

Darth Wong wrote:

SirNitram wrote:That seems most likely, however, you will not get more recoil from gas being released than by MT or GT of energy!

Is everyone allergic to numbers? Let's take a 6 megaton blast, assuming those big turrets weren't firing max-power blasts at the fighters. It would have 8.4E7 kg*m/s of momentum, hence an equal and opposite reaction.

Let's say the TL dumps out 100 kg of gas when it fires a blast like this. If the gas is ejected at an average velocity of 840 km/s, it would equal the recoil of the energy in the bolt. This is a pretty high velocity and we don't really see it, but then again, we could be looking at a particle stream which is not visible to the naked eye.

Pardon the delay, had to find some clips to work from with maths so I didn't make more of a twit of myself.

Yes, I see that the recoil from the gas ejection is equal to a blast from this math. The problem is not that, it's that if there are two beams, one at lightspeed, they must be fired at different times. Indeed, they must be fired at different times even if one is merely faster than the other, or all shots would have the target effected before the hit(While only some are). There is only one recoil from each shot, not two. That's the crux of my criticism.

As for the invisible beam, I've never disputed that part of it is faster than the other, or that part is invisible. I'm just pointing out it cannot be moving at lightspeed. I do, however, enjoy seeing Illuminous backpedal from supporting it while attacking me.

The Death Star superlaser moves at lightspeed, or very close to it.

Hang a minute, how do you figure?

Planetary diameter(Assuming Alderaan is Earth sized)

1.27E7 m(Derived from your constants page)

The Death Star apparantly sat at 6 planetary diameters distance.

1.27E7 m
x 6

7.62E7 m

Or about 76,200 Km. Now, I have the Rings .mpg from the big whine-fest from DarkStar, so let me see if I can surgically remove the transit time.

The video clip I have starts after the main gun has fired, and Leia reacts, and then the beam impacts at about 1.3s in. Assuming this is an accurate representation(I can think of no reasons not to, but there may be), the beam propagation speed is ~58,000 Km/s. This is a fraction of cee, certainly, but it's only 19% of cee, not 'very close' unless all relativistic speeds are very close.

Then again, there's undoutably math errors there.

However, AOTC nullifies your claim. The SPHA-T barrel experiences an initial recoil upon firing and then returns to its original firing position WHILE THE CONTINUOUS BEAM IS STILL BEING EMITTED. So there's no reason to dismiss the idea that the visible bolt is a carrier on a short-duration beam with a brief power ramp-up curve, since the recoil you mention looks the same as the recoil on a known continuous-beam design.

I really have no idea what's with those. It may be that my criticisms are invalid, but I don't see any other explanation for the thing I pointed out.

Only other thing my research cropped up was notes of gigaton-level recoil from Slave Ship, what a steaming load of good that does.

Saxton's page says the propagation time to propagate was less than a second tho.

http://www.theforce.net/swtc/ds.html#nature

The maximum range of the superlaser is something on the order of 50 million kilometers. It would be utterly nonsensical to have this kind of range if it didn't propagate at superluminal speeds.

Durandal wrote:The maximum range of the superlaser is something on the order of 50 million kilometers. It would be utterly nonsensical to have this kind of range if it didn't propagate at superluminal speeds.

Why?
If it propagated at C it would take 148 seconds to traverse that distance(its 47mkm), given that we're firing at a planet I don't see the problem.

What are they gonna do? Take evasive action