So in the new core set we get a plethora of new pilots and a handful of upgrades. Each of the generic pilots text speak of the many advances in construction each of the new craft underwent. Yet the rebels/resistance are still using proton torpedoes? I bring this up because this is the munition card we are given in the core set. I'm not trying to complain but couldn't we get something dare I say... Newer?

I get what you are saying. However, if it works and isn't broken, don't fix it...

Given the difference between regular Proton Torpedoes and Advanced Proton Torpedoes, I hesitate to speculate on the characteristics of Advanced Advanced Proton Torpedoes.

Advanced Advanced Proton Torpedoes

Attack: 10 dice

Range: Special

Attack (target lock, focus, stress):

Discard your target lock, spend a focus, and gain an additional stress to perform this attack against a ship you are touching.

You may convert up to ten blank or [eye] results to [kaboom] results.

We still use 500-lb bombs and 0.50-cal machine guns 70 years after WWII.

The F-18 dates from the late 70s and it is still a formidable machine. And considering that you are supplying fleets across a galaxy, makes sense to keep a trusted design for decades if necessary.

What? We're still using lead (pointed) bullets 200 years later? That's dumb, we should be using lasers by now...

I was going to say that the Lee Enfield rifle entered service before WWI and only came out of service as the L42 in the mid 80s in the British Army as it was still one of the worlds finest bolt action sniper rifles.

Most military kit has a shelf life of 20 to 30 years at least.

We used '58 pattern webbing' from well unsurprisingly 1958 until about 1990.

And then you've got stuff like the 1911 .45 acp... plenty of those still knocking about a century later. I shot one a month or two ago!

What always seems odd to me is that there is supposedly forward technological progress in the 70 or so years covered by episodes 1-7 when the overall level of technology has remained the same for thousands. It seems like in star wars the limits of technology have been reached and all that may be possible is choosing different configurations of that tech.

They've been around since at least 32 years before anh. So obviously a staple warhead

Technology doesn't really change in a galaxy far, far away.

I was going to say that the Lee Enfield rifle entered service before WWI and only came out of service as the L42 in the mid 80s in the British Army as it was still one of the worlds finest bolt action sniper rifles.

Most military kit has a shelf life of 20 to 30 years at least.

We used '58 pattern webbing' from well unsurprisingly 1958 until about 1990.

And then you've got stuff like the 1911 .45 acp... plenty of those still knocking about a century later. I shot one a month or two ago!

Lee Enfield is still in service with Canadian Rangers, a mostly Inuit reserve patrol organization that watches over Canada's North. Only now is it being replaced due to a lack of spare parts.

Didn't someone mention having proton torpedoes in KotOR 2? Heck, Star Wars tech stagnates at a comparable rate to the tech in the Foundation series.

Technology doesn't really advance in the Star Wars universe, as several people have noted.

All the way back to the Old Republic era, you can find TIE fighter and X-Wing analogs being commanded by ships that vaguely resemble Star Destroyers.

They're all still sporting blaster cannons and proton torpedoes.

Hey, if it ain't broke... let JJ put his mark on it.

I get what you are saying. However, if it works and isn't broken, don't fix it...

but if it doesn't work, is it broken?

"war..War never changes"

What? We're still using lead (pointed) bullets 200 years later? That's dumb, we should be using lasers by now...

I also want my flying cars **** it. Isn't the Jetsons supposed to be in the year 2000?

Well not to give SWTOR credit, but Proton Torpedoes were used back then too.

3500 years ago.

This topic was more for fun than anything else, but on a serious note they can develop cloaking technology for small ships, apparently a new weapon that can wipe out entire star systems now (ep vii) but still use warheads who knows how old?! How about multiwarhead proton torpedoes? That's just of the top of my head.

... I shot one a month or two ago!

What did it ever do to you!?

You've also got to remember that neccesity is the mother of invention.

Real world 'innovation' usually happens during wars to break the attack/defence paradigm of the time.

(bullets made armour obsolete, the machine gun made the line abreast attack obsolete, the tank made barbed wire and the machine gun less effective and obsolete against the tank etc)

If in the SW universe nothing makes a proton torp obsolete then there is no need to invent a new type if the old one still does the job, albeit with 'advanced' versions etc

Also the scale of the galaxy. In the real world the biggest armies in the world (say china for example) have the logisitical nightmare of training and equipping 3 million men under arms (if mobilised) with the same uniforms and small arms and crewed weapons. By comparision the British Army today is a tad under 100,000 personel.

Now if you're the Galactic empire with *billions* of guys to train and equip to a standard you're going to want cheap, reliable, easy to maintain and easy to train on *standardised* kit, making new stuff gives you real logisitics problems if you transfer troops from one sector to another as you'd have to train them on new kit, issue them new webbing etc.

So you see the same TIE fighters, the same DL44 blasters, armour for stormtroopers thats got commonality of parts.

Putting a 'real world' slant on the nonesense that is star wars there

Logistics is the key, what people forget is logistics and infrastructure.

For example if we bought the 100,000 guys in the British Army new G36E rifles and lets say we got them all or a bargain fire sale price of £10 each the cost would not be £1 million. It would be far higher. everyone would need new webbing pouches for the different magazine, amouries would need new racks fitting, as would every vehicle. Armourers would need new tools and retraining on them, the troops would need retraining on it. It would probablycost ten times the actual unit cost.

Which is why armies keep using stuff for as long as they can *or* they adapt it slightly so that it can be used with little retraining or refit.

Back to star wars its why the Z95 is popular with the rebels as a trainer as if you can fly a Z95 you can fly an xwing as its very similar, likewise airspeeders and Y wings. Cuts down on crew retraining costs according to all the 'lore'

Technology doesn't really change in a galaxy far, far away.

Science actually supports this.

Isolated groups advance more quickly.

When the whole universe is connected via hyperspace travel, there is no imperative to advance during times of peace.

Most technological advancement probably took place during times of war.

In our world technology races ahead in war time and the knock on effect generally benefits society as a whole..

A lot of modern medical proceedures come from the horrific injuries of the Great War (and the fact that people started surviving injuries that would previously have killed them), plastic surgery comes from fixing burned up fighter pilots.

The japanese and the nazis did some stuff that you just couldnt have done ethically in any other society but we indirectly learned from it.

We have atomic energy becasue of the race to build a bomb and wartime ICBM primitve tech gave us the apollo programme

Oh and the internet was a military application.....

when people are happy they have no need to race ahead and design things to screw over their neighbours

Proton Torpedos have been around since the old republic era over 4000 years before yavin, however Advanced Torpedos exist, it could be speculated that while the warhead is the same type, they have a larger warhead, better guidance systems, more advanced thrusters etc. Hence the better yeild and tracking.

Military technology really only the evolves during time of conflict. We see new technologies during the glad ic civil war, by none during the relative peace of the republic.

So in the new core set we get a plethora of new pilots and a handful of upgrades. Each of the generic pilots text speak of the many advances in construction each of the new craft underwent. Yet the rebels/resistance are still using proton torpedoes? I bring this up because this is the munition card we are given in the core set. I'm not trying to complain but couldn't we get something dare I say... Newer?

Militaries continue to use old equipment as long as it performs well. The BAR was used near the tail end of WW1 and saw use up to the Korean War(?).

Lore wise munitions are actually good.