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Darth Servo wrote:How about these possibilities:

1) Less charging time between shots(don't have any actual evidence unfortunately).
2) Off-axis firing.

1) For a planet killing terror weapon I think the charging time is nearly unimportant. It is logical only if the DS2 was intended to do more fighting against capital ships. And I think the single superlaser is not the most effective way to do this.
2) Possible, however not only the dish has been enlarged but the whole station.

In the hungarian translation of the novelization of RoTJ (based on James Kahn: Return of the Jedi. Ballantine Books, New York, 1983) they are referred as "energiacsatorna" two times. It can be translated back to english as energy-channel. Could someone quote the original (I mean english) book?

vakundok wrote:1) For a planet killing terror weapon I think the charging time is nearly unimportant. It is logical only if the DS2 was intended to do more fighting against capital ships. And I think the single superlaser is not the most effective way to do this.

Unless there are two shielded planets in the same system that need the smackdown.

2) Possible, however not only the dish has been enlarged but the whole station.

So? A bigger dish means you need a bigger support structure.

vakundok wrote:In the hungarian translation of the novelization of RoTJ (based on James Kahn: Return of the Jedi. Ballantine Books, New York, 1983) they are referred as "energiacsatorna" two times. It can be translated back to english as energy-channel. Could someone quote the original (I mean english) book?

I have a paperback copy of the original novelisation with the SE cover, but not in Iowa City. On his Death Stars section of SWTC, Saxton refers to them as "reactor shafts".

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

I would prefer that only the original English terms be used, as terms from foreign translations would be suspect in accuracy.

How to make a Death Star... Should be fun.

Didn't they feature that on Blue peter the other week?

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:I would prefer that only the original English terms be used, as terms from foreign translations would be suspect in accuracy.

Exactly. That is why I asked for someone to quote the original.
And I would like the same (or an other) someone to quote the prologue of the same novelization. Itt tells about the DS2 being nearly twice as big as DS1 while still only halfway constructed. It can be intrepreted in more ways, but it canot be interpreted to support the 160/900 km diameters theory.

Visuals > Description

Illuminatus Primus wrote:Visuals > Description

Not to mention order of Canon.

Illuminatus Primus wrote:Visuals > Description

So how do yuo figure the DS2 is 900km in diameter? I've never seen anything to suggest that...

Darth Servo wrote:

vakundok wrote:1) For a planet killing terror weapon I think the charging time is nearly unimportant. It is logical only if the DS2 was intended to do more fighting against capital ships. And I think the single superlaser is not the most effective way to do this.

Unless there are two shielded planets in the same system that need the smackdown.

2) Possible, however not only the dish has been enlarged but the whole station.

So? A bigger dish means you need a bigger support structure.

Well I think that the second planet would accept imperial control without delay. The Death Star (at least the DS1) was designed to be a terror weapon and was envisioned to use only very few times.
A twice as large dish (as the one we saw) could be placed on DS2 without further enlarging the station, but they kept the ratios. And the whole station being basicly the "dish support structure" sounds unlikely to me.

Darth Garden Gnome wrote:

Illuminatus Primus wrote:Visuals > Description

So how do yuo figure the DS2 is 900km in diameter? I've never seen anything to suggest that...

Saxton figured it, and I was criticized within this topic when I did not use it.

Besides I asked whether which was the higher level the novelization or what the modeler said? Especially since it seems (to me) that what the modeler said contradicted the visual.

I made some rough estimates:
Unless we state that the schematics shown by Ackbar was very disproportionate the structures which through the attack happened were really huge (0.0048 to 0.011 * the diameter) and the tunels we saw were nearly neglidible parts of them (those white paneled parts still being 200 to 440 metres in height).

I think we can safely file their apparent size in the holo-display as visual exageration.

Oops! Originally I used images from Saxton's page, but I have just taken some shots from the SE and it seems slightly different! The most important change is that the tunnels now have a middle line within them. So, the revised numbers are (0.00623 to 0.01092 * diameter for the structures) and (0.00156 * diameter for the center lines). But the latter is extremly rough.
There are two pissibilities:
1: Exageration as suggested by Spanky The Dolphin. It is logical since the internal structure was not shown (or remained unseen) before the magnification.
2: The center line can be the tunnel we saw, inside some huge machinery. It is somewhat less likely but still a possibility.

vakundok wrote:Well I think that the second planet would accept imperial control without delay.

OR they would try and make a run for it.

A twice as large dish (as the one we saw) could be placed on DS2 without further enlarging the station, but they kept the ratios. And the whole station being basicly the "dish support structure" sounds unlikely to me.

All this assumes that the dish is the ONLY part of the superlaser. The fact is that a huge network of equipment exists between the dish and the main reactor at the station's core. It's NOT just a matter of making the dish bigger to make an off-axis weapon.

Darth Garden Gnome wrote:

Illuminatus Primus wrote:Visuals > Description

So how do yuo figure the DS2 is 900km in diameter? I've never seen anything to suggest that...

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

Also, Richard Edlund of Industrial Light & Magic, regarding the effects of RotJ stated a figure of ~500 miles. (courtesy of Wayne Poe's website).

vakundok wrote:

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:I would prefer that only the original English terms be used, as terms from foreign translations would be suspect in accuracy.

Exactly. That is why I asked for someone to quote the original.
And I would like the same (or an other) someone to quote the prologue of the same novelization. Itt tells about the DS2 being nearly twice as big as DS1 while still only halfway constructed. It can be intrepreted in more ways, but it canot be interpreted to support the 160/900 km diameters theory.

Noone?
I thought that you were fullfilled with official material and now I am really surprised that noone can rapidly quote from a (low level) canon resource.

The dish on the DS2 is as big as the entire DS1

I would package it with a giant microwave, capable of cooking a planet so fast that the Rebels would barely have time to think about how they were steaming hot on the outside, yet still luke-warm on the inside.

In all seriousness, though, there's not really a lot to improve upon after the DS2. I guess that I would try to improve its shielding capabilities, to allow it to protect itself more easily. I may also install larger defense weapons to provide greater protection, but I would primarily try to make the thing smaller so as to allow it to slip in to a system without necessarily having to engage the majority of their fleet, first.

Master of Ossus wrote:I would package it with a giant microwave, capable of cooking a planet so fast that the Rebels would barely have time to think about how they were steaming hot on the outside, yet still luke-warm on the inside.

In all seriousness, though, there's not really a lot to improve upon after the DS2. I guess that I would try to improve its shielding capabilities, to allow it to protect itself more easily. I may also install larger defense weapons to provide greater protection, but I would primarily try to make the thing smaller so as to allow it to slip in to a system without necessarily having to engage the majority of their fleet, first.

If you have a Death Star and want to blow up the planet, why would you care about the system fleet? Its pretty unlikely it can even slow you dont, let alone force a withdraw. I doubt being smaller would help away. Mulit cubic kilometer objects are hard to miss.

How about combining the following:

Death Star Superlaser dish (for shield penetrating and planet cracking)
Off-axis capacity for each of the component beams
World Devastator Tractor-furnace-assembler combo
Galaxy Gun Missile system

So it can go into one star system, blow up the various fleet ships there, destroy one planet, launch missiles against another part of the galaxy, and rebuild them in-system. As long as the ship exists, it is a threat to any planet in the galaxy.

Just make Darksabers the can be put on SSDs or even SDs.

In reply to the original question:

Since the engineering plans for the DS2 are already in hand, I would save the months or years of design time and simply build another DS2.
If possible I would like the ability to use the constituent beams, that collect to form the superlaser, to individually target capships, if this functionality cound be included into the design before the construction has advanced to the critical point for alterations in the superlaser design.

This approach would give the Emperor a fully functional, coreworld shield breaching, planet killer with the full propaganda impact envisioned in the DS1/2 (planet is blown up, not just 'steamed in own ocean' or melted) in the shortest possible time; and if possible including the ability to get by against capships without an oversized protective cordon of capships.
(I would of course suggest more aggressive use of the onboard fighters then Tarkin employed, and possibly carrier support, but that is tactics, not design.)

The only other DS2 system I would like to have upgraded in a full redesign would be the hyperdrive, to achieve a faster response time against insurrectious worlds, but this is not as important as getting the thing build without years of redesign to include it, and may just be too expensive (cost-ineffective) anyway.

I would make sure the DS3 had a big giant ball-pit, and a candy factory.

Take the DS2. Expand it. Add multiple shipyards that can build up to Executors. Build smaller ones for fighters, and plants for other things needed. Large training facilities will be used to train a crew.


I'll add huge WD furnices. After a planet is destroyed, you scoop up the bits and start making whatever you need.


Oh, and I'd had tens of thousands of fighters. And LOTS of long range HTLs and anti-fighter missles. It'll be able to kill a fleet instantly.