I'd rather see that sentinel in the game so empire has another large ship with an interesting role.

I've always like the theory that the panels are just a set up for a dozen manuver jets, allowing for fast maneuvering.

But as you can read, they are power collectors.

Maneuver jets on thin sticks would be less of an obstruction to vision and easier to replace instead of one big honking panel. Unless the panels do more than just house thrusters. They could be a type of armor as well as functioning as radiative surfaces or other functions we haven't conceived of yet. About the only thing the panels can't be are solar power panels, because even inside Mercury's orbit sunlight would not provide enough power for the maneuvers and speed we see TIEs performing in the movies, much less powering the lasers for any length of time...the surface area just isn't great enough and the solar flux just isn't carrying enough total energy even if the panels were 100% effecient.

The old LAAT could be deployed from orbit as seen in the original cell animated Clone Wars cartoon. These Rebels gunships can probably do the same, but I doubt they are made for extended missions in orbit, and they almost certainly do not travel in interplanetary or interstellar space on their own.

The pannels are mainly used for gathering solar and thermal energy to spark reactions in its reactor. The pannels are also used as armour to protect the pilots pod from direct hits. The energy being collected isn't the engery used to power the ships. Also all the laser weapons run on a seperate generator that can probably be used to power the craft in areas where the ties can't get a reaction in their reactors to power their ties.

Ugh, god this debate needs to stop happening.

And on spaceworthiness, their predecessors were also spaceworthy. Seems wrong to have transport these into atmo to be able to then use them in atmo. Illogical.

Storm trooper armour is air tight and fully usable in space is it also illogical that they need a transport?

Star destroyers transport invasion forces why is it odd they would carry speeders as well as AT-AT's and other ground forces?

Tie fighters after all Arnt designed to support ground combat, a slower but heavily armoured speeder is better suited to support storm troopers than a fast space superiority fighter is.

Look at the modern military they task planes and helicopters to suit the mission an a10 will decimate enemy armour but not excel at Ariel dog fights because that's not it's role.

I have to wonder then, is the regular Lambda just an executive transport? I figured it as one of the more favorable options when it came to moving personnel, but now we have the boarding/shuttle TIEs, the Lambda, and these things (which I like, a lot. It's the Imperial answer to the LAAT, which was a fairly practical gunship.)

What are the roles for these things individually? Is the Lambda just for interstellar transport while these things are for rapid advance and ground support? I have to wonder.

Maneuver jets on thin sticks would be less of an obstruction to vision and easier to replace instead of one big honking panel. Unless the panels do more than just house thrusters. They could be a type of armor as well as functioning as radiative surfaces or other functions we haven't conceived of yet. About the only thing the panels can't be are solar power panels, because even inside Mercury's orbit sunlight would not provide enough power for the maneuvers and speed we see TIEs performing in the movies, much less powering the lasers for any length of time...the surface area just isn't great enough and the solar flux just isn't carrying enough total energy even if the panels were 100% effecient.

The old LAAT could be deployed from orbit as seen in the original cell animated Clone Wars cartoon. These Rebels gunships can probably do the same, but I doubt they are made for extended missions in orbit, and they almost certainly do not travel in interplanetary or interstellar space on their own.

The pannels are mainly used for gathering solar and thermal energy to spark reactions in its reactor. The pannels are also used as armour to protect the pilots pod from direct hits. The energy being collected isn't the engery used to power the ships. Also all the laser weapons run on a seperate generator that can probably be used to power the craft in areas where the ties can't get a reaction in their reactors to power their ties.

*sigh*

This -> http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/FTL except replace every mention of "Element Zero" with anti-gravity, or repulsor lift.

It won't make you go ftl; (at least not nearly as fast as a conventional hyperdrive) but if you turn your mass to zero with the easy anti-gravity found in everything from starships to the little droid that flies your drink to do you, you can indeed get incredible velocities using a low-power, conventional ion engine.

Now add several thousand years of development to the ion engine and the solar collector, and bada bing, bada boom: you have a starfighter that can run indefinitely on starlight; only requiring a charge for it's blaster's capacitor banks.

You can't forget that the civilizations of Star Wars have complete technological mastery over mass and energy use and manipulation technology. Their problems are political, not technical. I would make a solid bet that most toasters in star wars run on latent heat-energy.

Edit: "Ion thrusters have an input power spanning 1–7 kilowatts, exhaust velocity 20–50 kilometers per second, thrust 20–250 millinewtons and efficiency 60–80%.^{[1][2]" -Wiki-freaking-pedia.}

Now, without getting too deep into the physics side of things.

With a mass of zero, force is almost cut out of the equation: we immediately match speed with the exhaust velocity.

Moving next to power requirements; that aforementioned toaster running for twenty minutes in the morning uses on average 5 kilowatt-hours.

So, in short. You could have a TIE fly at 20 km per second in vacuum, for five hours, with the power your toaster uses in twenty minutes.

Those are solar panels. Deal with it.

Ugh, god this debate needs to stop happening.

I will stop it right now.

TIEs could easily incorporate fuel cells of even modern day Earth tchnology to 'spark' their 'reactors' rather than relying on the solar energy that could be collected in deep space. Also since TIEs are generally deployed from capital ships or bases the 'reactors' could be 'sparked' by a seperate generator before the TIE even takes off.

There is no need to put giant honking panels on a starfighter for collection of energy. Radiating waste heat from extremely potent reactors, acting as secondary armor, housing maneuvering thrusters, enhancing sensors, basically any other function makes more sense than 'solar collectors'. I can't even remember what the origin was of the 'solar panel' argument is, but I suspect WEG is once again to blame.

Edit: the only way those solar collectors can collect enough energy for the highly maneuverable TIEs to use in any way is if it somehow is well over 100% effecient in all systems and has an effective total mass for the ship of maybe less than a kilogram. And there is no evidence of this in Star Wars.

And on spaceworthiness, their predecessors were also spaceworthy. Seems wrong to have transport these into atmo to be able to then use them in atmo. Illogical.

Storm trooper armour is air tight and fully usable in space is it also illogical that they need a transport?

Star destroyers transport invasion forces why is it odd they would carry speeders as well as AT-AT's and other ground forces?

Tie fighters after all Arnt designed to support ground combat, a slower but heavily armoured speeder is better suited to support storm troopers than a fast space superiority fighter is.

Look at the modern military they task planes and helicopters to suit the mission an a10 will decimate enemy armour but not excel at Ariel dog fights because that's not it's role.

I have to wonder then, is the regular Lambda just an executive transport? I figured it as one of the more favorable options when it came to moving personnel, but now we have the boarding/shuttle TIEs, the Lambda, and these things (which I like, a lot. It's the Imperial answer to the LAAT, which was a fairly practical gunship.)

What are the roles for these things individually? Is the Lambda just for interstellar transport while these things are for rapid advance and ground support? I have to wonder.

Maneuver jets on thin sticks would be less of an obstruction to vision and easier to replace instead of one big honking panel. Unless the panels do more than just house thrusters. They could be a type of armor as well as functioning as radiative surfaces or other functions we haven't conceived of yet. About the only thing the panels can't be are solar power panels, because even inside Mercury's orbit sunlight would not provide enough power for the maneuvers and speed we see TIEs performing in the movies, much less powering the lasers for any length of time...the surface area just isn't great enough and the solar flux just isn't carrying enough total energy even if the panels were 100% effecient.

The old LAAT could be deployed from orbit as seen in the original cell animated Clone Wars cartoon. These Rebels gunships can probably do the same, but I doubt they are made for extended missions in orbit, and they almost certainly do not travel in interplanetary or interstellar space on their own.

The pannels are mainly used for gathering solar and thermal energy to spark reactions in its reactor. The pannels are also used as armour to protect the pilots pod from direct hits. The energy being collected isn't the engery used to power the ships. Also all the laser weapons run on a seperate generator that can probably be used to power the craft in areas where the ties can't get a reaction in their reactors to power their ties.

*sigh*

This -> http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/FTL except replace every mention of "Element Zero" with anti-gravity, or repulsor lift.

It won't make you go ftl; (at least not nearly as fast as a conventional hyperdrive) but if you turn your mass to zero with the easy anti-gravity found in everything from starships to the little droid that flies your drink to do you, you can indeed get incredible velocities using a low-power, conventional ion engine.

Now add several thousand years of development to the ion engine and the solar collector, and bada bing, bada boom: you have a starfighter that can run indefinitely on starlight; only requiring a charge for it's blaster's capacitor banks.

You can't forget that the civilizations of Star Wars have complete technological mastery over mass and energy use and manipulation technology. Their problems are political, not technical. I would make a solid bet that most toasters in star wars run on latent heat-energy.

Also I see no evidence of compete mastery of mass and energy in Star Wars...unless you mean Luke's mention of teleporting or time manipulation, which was meant to be in jest. Mastery of mass/energy would include conversion of one to the other, and would mean the Second Deathstar would have been constructed as fast as energy could be fed into a 'mass printer' instead of requiring materials and parts being brought in from offsite.

(Yeah in know mass and ineria are seperate, and zero mass would still have inertia, but we have no evidence of either 'mass reduction' or 'inertia reduction' in SW)

I suppose if there was a technology that could effectively seperate inertia from mass then perhaps it would be possible to power everything that flies in space with a 9 volt battery. If this technology was in use in Star Wars then EVERY ship from giant frieghters to tiny star fighters would be insanely maneuverable and arbitrarily fast.

Also I see no evidence of compete mastery of mass and energy in Star Wars...unless you mean Luke's mention of teleporting or time manipulation, which was meant to be in jest. Mastery of mass/energy would include conversion of one to the other, and would mean the Second Deathstar would have been constructed as fast as energy could be fed into a 'mass printer' instead of requiring materials and parts being brought in from offsite.

(Yeah in know mass and ineria are seperate, and zero mass would still have inertia, but we have no evidence of either 'mass reduction' or 'inertia reduction' in SW)

Yes ... every ship does have inertia-dampening tech. You couldn't walk around the Falcon doing maneuvers in an asteroid field if it didn't. You'd be ... chunky salsa.

Yes ... every ship in star wars is arbitrarily powerful. If you prefer something more ... light-hearted, play Kerbal Space Program for two days and then tell me how much of your soul you would trade for a single-stage-to-other-planet-and-back ship, let alone a hyperdrive. The only thing that slows a fighter down in-atmosphere is air-resistance.

Mastery over mass and energy, does not mean creation from nothing of either. You would still need the mass-energy of a small moon to be transported to a certain area, and with the leaps in transportation they have, it could very probably be cheaper just to build it out of "real" matter than to manufacture matter on-site. (Mass-to-energy-conversion loses a lot as heat. Going that route, you'd probably need triple or more the mass-energy of a small moon to 3-d print a death star. That's expensive, no matter how you slice it.)

They use technologies we've dreamt of for centuries (speeders, electro staves, clean water from atmospheric moisture) to herd nerfs; I think they can do a solar-powered space-ship pretty well.

Oh and repulsor lift tchnology is only effective out to 6 planetary radii as per the oldest published canon, the original Star Wars novelization in 1976. Having zero mass in deep space with no gravity well to use you repulsor lift against won't do you much good. I guess that's why almost every ship we see has big engines with huge exhaust nozzles for effective sublight travel.

Oh and I guess every other TIE besides the Fighter uses bent wings with smaller surface area because they....don't need as much energy collection potential? A different type of radiative surface (noted in that the 'wings' of Fighters and Interceptors are vastly different in more than just size and shape) would allow for smaller wings.

Sorry...some things just set me off. TIE Fighters having solar panels is one of em.

And on spaceworthiness, their predecessors were also spaceworthy. Seems wrong to have transport these into atmo to be able to then use them in atmo. Illogical.

Storm trooper armour is air tight and fully usable in space is it also illogical that they need a transport?

Star destroyers transport invasion forces why is it odd they would carry speeders as well as AT-AT's and other ground forces?

Tie fighters after all Arnt designed to support ground combat, a slower but heavily armoured speeder is better suited to support storm troopers than a fast space superiority fighter is.

Look at the modern military they task planes and helicopters to suit the mission an a10 will decimate enemy armour but not excel at Ariel dog fights because that's not it's role.

I have to wonder then, is the regular Lambda just an executive transport? I figured it as one of the more favorable options when it came to moving personnel, but now we have the boarding/shuttle TIEs, the Lambda, and these things (which I like, a lot. It's the Imperial answer to the LAAT, which was a fairly practical gunship.)

What are the roles for these things individually? Is the Lambda just for interstellar transport while these things are for rapid advance and ground support? I have to wonder.

Uh, yeah actually. The Lambda is indeed intended to be an executive shuttle. It's smaller, sleeker, has tons of weapons and ain't all that slow. Usually with escort. Its passenger area sure is dank, however. Eugh.

These things are for occupation-based-patrol and law enforcement, while Sentinel Shuttles are for multi-range infantry deployment and suppression.

Oh and repulsor lift tchnology is only effective out to 6 planetary radii as per the oldest published canon, the original Star Wars novelization in 1976. Having zero mass in deep space with no gravity well to use you repulsor lift against won't do you much good. I guess that's why almost every ship we see has big engines with huge exhaust nozzles for effective sublight travel.

Oh and I guess every other TIE besides the Fighter uses bent wings with smaller surface area because they....don't need as much energy collection potential? A different type of radiative surface (noted in that the 'wings' of Fighters and Interceptors are vastly different in more than just size and shape) would allow for smaller wings.

Sorry...some things just set me off. TIE Fighters having solar panels is one of em.

It's ok, I don't blame you.

I own a bunch of TIEs; I have to defend them, no matter how silly the man in charge of techno-babble was being.

Edit: Heck, think of the Raider. I'm still trying to figure out a reason for solar panels on a ship that has room for a large reactor, and the only reason I've come up with is that if I saw a panel-less raider in a catalogue next to the paneled version, I'd pick the one with panels because dude, they look cool.

I suppose if there was a technology that could effectively seperate inertia from mass then perhaps it would be possible to power everything that flies in space with a 9 volt battery. If this technology was in use in Star Wars then EVERY ship from giant frieghters to tiny star fighters would be insanely maneuverable and arbitrarily fast.

Also I see no evidence of compete mastery of mass and energy in Star Wars...unless you mean Luke's mention of teleporting or time manipulation, which was meant to be in jest. Mastery of mass/energy would include conversion of one to the other, and would mean the Second Deathstar would have been constructed as fast as energy could be fed into a 'mass printer' instead of requiring materials and parts being brought in from offsite.

(Yeah in know mass and ineria are seperate, and zero mass would still have inertia, but we have no evidence of either 'mass reduction' or 'inertia reduction' in SW)

Yes ... every ship does have inertia-dampening tech. You couldn't walk around the Falcon doing maneuvers in an asteroid field if it didn't. You'd be ... chunky salsa.

Yes ... every ship in star wars is arbitrarily powerful. If you prefer something more ... light-hearted, play Kerbal Space Program for two days and then tell me how much of your soul you would trade for a single-stage-to-other-planet-and-back ship, let alone a hyperdrive. The only thing that slows a fighter down in-atmosphere is air-resistance.

Mastery over mass and energy, does not mean creation from nothing of either. You would still need the mass-energy of a small moon to be transported to a certain area, and with the leaps in transportation they have, it could very probably be cheaper just to build it out of "real" matter than to manufacture matter on-site. (Mass-to-energy-conversion loses a lot as heat. Going that route, you'd probably need triple or more the mass-energy of a small moon to 3-d print a death star. That's expensive, no matter how you slice it.)

They use technologies we've dreamt of for centuries (speeders, electro staves, clean water from atmospheric moisture) to herd nerfs; I think they can do a solar-powered space-ship pretty well.

Antigravity tech suggests manipulation of reference frames, not tinkering with inertia.

If the tech to convert energy to matter was 100% effecient then there would be no heat loss. And if the Death Star was being constructed in a star system (which it was) then all the energy you need is being thrown off in all directions by a nearby star. Who knows, maybe there's a gigantic 'solar syphon' that is transported to construction sites that actively pulls material and energy from a system's primary. Actually if Star Wars tech has somehow discovered how to use zero-point energy fluctuations to generate power, then you could create a machine that could build anything given enough time. Makes you wonder why there's slaves and poor people and crime if the problem of generating energy and materials has been completely solved.

Back to the original issue, the police "gunship." How is this thing sleeker than a larty? For what definition(s) of the word? It's not bad-looking, at least by YV-666 standards, but I wouldn't consider it sleek by any measure.

And on spaceworthiness, their predecessors were also spaceworthy. Seems wrong to have transport these into atmo to be able to then use them in atmo. Illogical.

Storm trooper armour is air tight and fully usable in space is it also illogical that they need a transport?

Star destroyers transport invasion forces why is it odd they would carry speeders as well as AT-AT's and other ground forces?

Tie fighters after all Arnt designed to support ground combat, a slower but heavily armoured speeder is better suited to support storm troopers than a fast space superiority fighter is.

Look at the modern military they task planes and helicopters to suit the mission an a10 will decimate enemy armour but not excel at Ariel dog fights because that's not it's role.

I have to wonder then, is the regular Lambda just an executive transport? I figured it as one of the more favorable options when it came to moving personnel, but now we have the boarding/shuttle TIEs, the Lambda, and these things (which I like, a lot. It's the Imperial answer to the LAAT, which was a fairly practical gunship.)

What are the roles for these things individually? Is the Lambda just for interstellar transport while these things are for rapid advance and ground support? I have to wonder.

Uh, yeah actually. The Lambda is indeed intended to be an executive shuttle. It's smaller, sleeker, has tons of weapons and ain't all that slow. Usually with escort. Its passenger area sure is dank, however. Eugh.

These things are for occupation-based-patrol and law enforcement, while Sentinel Shuttles are for multi-range infantry deployment and suppression.

That's why it's always bothered me (even back in 83) that the same type of shuttle is used by VIPs like Vader and the IMPERIAL SOVERIGN as well as transports crews delivering 'parts and crew' to an outpost on a forest moon. Maybe that's why Han and the rest were more than a bit worried about the imperials falling for their ruse, they were using a stretch limo as a U-haul.

Oh and repulsor lift tchnology is only effective out to 6 planetary radii as per the oldest published canon, the original Star Wars novelization in 1976. Having zero mass in deep space with no gravity well to use you repulsor lift against won't do you much good. I guess that's why almost every ship we see has big engines with huge exhaust nozzles for effective sublight travel.

Oh and I guess every other TIE besides the Fighter uses bent wings with smaller surface area because they....don't need as much energy collection potential? A different type of radiative surface (noted in that the 'wings' of Fighters and Interceptors are vastly different in more than just size and shape) would allow for smaller wings.

Sorry...some things just set me off. TIE Fighters having solar panels is one of em.

It's ok, I don't blame you.

I own a bunch of TIEs; I have to defend them, no matter how silly the man in charge of techno-babble was being.

Edit: Heck, think of the Raider. I'm still trying to figure out a reason for solar panels on a ship that has room for a large reactor, and the only reason I've come up with is that if I saw a panel-less raider in a catalogue next to the paneled version, I'd pick the one with panels because dude, they look cool.

Looks cool. That's it.

People keep thinking everything needs a reason. Star Destroyers look like they do purely for aesthetic reasons. Same thing with moncals...they like that look so just make it happen.

Oh and repulsor lift tchnology is only effective out to 6 planetary radii as per the oldest published canon, the original Star Wars novelization in 1976. Having zero mass in deep space with no gravity well to use you repulsor lift against won't do you much good. I guess that's why almost every ship we see has big engines with huge exhaust nozzles for effective sublight travel.

Oh and I guess every other TIE besides the Fighter uses bent wings with smaller surface area because they....don't need as much energy collection potential? A different type of radiative surface (noted in that the 'wings' of Fighters and Interceptors are vastly different in more than just size and shape) would allow for smaller wings.

Sorry...some things just set me off. TIE Fighters having solar panels is one of em.

It's ok, I don't blame you.

I own a bunch of TIEs; I have to defend them, no matter how silly the man in charge of techno-babble was being.

Edit: Heck, think of the Raider. I'm still trying to figure out a reason for solar panels on a ship that has room for a large reactor, and the only reason I've come up with is that if I saw a panel-less raider in a catalogue next to the paneled version, I'd pick the one with panels because dude, they look cool.

Well the Raider answers it. It's for heat dissipation. A big reactor, those massive engines- that sh*t's gotta' get hot and that heat has to go somewhere. I imagine that little picket has quite the thermal signature as a result.

And on spaceworthiness, their predecessors were also spaceworthy. Seems wrong to have transport these into atmo to be able to then use them in atmo. Illogical.

Storm trooper armour is air tight and fully usable in space is it also illogical that they need a transport?

Star destroyers transport invasion forces why is it odd they would carry speeders as well as AT-AT's and other ground forces?

Tie fighters after all Arnt designed to support ground combat, a slower but heavily armoured speeder is better suited to support storm troopers than a fast space superiority fighter is.

Look at the modern military they task planes and helicopters to suit the mission an a10 will decimate enemy armour but not excel at Ariel dog fights because that's not it's role.

I have to wonder then, is the regular Lambda just an executive transport? I figured it as one of the more favorable options when it came to moving personnel, but now we have the boarding/shuttle TIEs, the Lambda, and these things (which I like, a lot. It's the Imperial answer to the LAAT, which was a fairly practical gunship.)

What are the roles for these things individually? Is the Lambda just for interstellar transport while these things are for rapid advance and ground support? I have to wonder.

Uh, yeah actually. The Lambda is indeed intended to be an executive shuttle. It's smaller, sleeker, has tons of weapons and ain't all that slow. Usually with escort. Its passenger area sure is dank, however. Eugh.

These things are for occupation-based-patrol and law enforcement, while Sentinel Shuttles are for multi-range infantry deployment and suppression.

That's why it's always bothered me (even back in 83) that the same type of shuttle is used by VIPs like Vader and the IMPERIAL SOVERIGN as well as transports crews delivering 'parts and crew' to an outpost on a forest moon. Maybe that's why Han and the rest were more than a bit worried about the imperials falling for their ruse, they were using a stretch limo as a U-haul.

Yeah. It is extremely weird.

To be fair, as of RoTJ, The Imperial Shuttle was the only real known Imperial transport. The Imperial Shuttle however, looked important enough that EU writers were like "Yeah okay let's make this an officer shuttle."

The funny part is, one could argue that Lucas' addition of The Sentinel- a much heavier, obviously troop transport one, was actually a nod to this concept, offering a much larger, bulkier troop transport in contrast to the sleeker, fast one.

S'kinda cool actually.

Back to the original issue, the police "gunship." How is this thing sleeker than a larty? For what definition(s) of the word? It's not bad-looking, at least by YV-666 standards, but I wouldn't consider it sleek by any measure.

Certainly not sleeker. But it is WAY more efficient.

If the wings on the Raider are for radiation of waste heat, they make be angled and textured in a way to actually reduce the heat signature.

If the wings on the Raider are for radiation of waste heat, they make be angled and textured in a way to actually reduce the heat signature.

True as this is, it would still have a pretty hefty signature compared to other ships of its class. It's certainly leave a trail.

I have to wonder then, is the regular Lambda just an executive transport? I figured it as one of the more favorable options when it came to moving personnel, but now we have the boarding/shuttle TIEs, the Lambda, and these things (which I like, a lot. It's the Imperial answer to the LAAT, which was a fairly practical gunship.)

That was always my assumption.

The Lambda-class shuttle is for transporting officers and ship personnel.

The Sentinel-class landing craft is for transporting and landing large amounts of ground forces.

The Theta-class landing barge is for landing AT-ATs.

This Imperial Transport is for transporting squads of Stormtroopers and for boarding actions(just like the one in the X-Wing games).

The TIE Shuttle is for...I dunno. When you only need to transport 4 people someplace, and don't want to waste starship fuel?

Yeah technical readouts said they are solar panels and its been that way for decades.

It is a pity that they didn't show how they got the AT-ATs down to the planet. I'm sure that would've been another big nerd fight.

It is a pity that they didn't show how they got the AT-ATs down to the planet. I'm sure that would've been another big nerd fight.

It would have been cool to see the landers. Probably got it down with a single lander, proper.

It is a pity that they didn't show how they got the AT-ATs down to the planet. I'm sure that would've been another big nerd fight.

It would have been cool to see the landers. Probably got it down with a single lander, proper.

Drop pods...

That's what Theta class transports are. Glorified Drop Pods.

Don't give me that single phrase answer crud- do you have any idea how hard it'd be to make a drop pod for a friggin' AT-AT? A proper drop pod is used only by the crew inside of it- so you would need to be able to access the controls from the AT-AT. Furthermore, you would need to pack enough fuel, have good enough parachutes- be they airbrakes or what-have-you, and they would have to be able to take the impact of landing, even with the thrusters and chutes, with an AT-AT inside of it AND its own mass.

That would be a DISASTER economically speaking! But, what's this?



Oh. Almost exactly that. But there's a real big difference here. Y'see, Drop Pods are single use and disposable. You COULD retrieve them sure but, why? Why on earth would you do that? That's just bound to fail. You want the least possible amount of failures during a drop. So with this in mind, you design a ship that can carry an AT-AT. Unless you're crazy and design one that can carry friggin' four of the blasted things..! Which has been done.

These things have super power repulsorlifts and sublight engines, and can be deployed from a Star Destroyer. Now, the Star Destroyer can not carry the absolutely MASSIVE barges but it can carry the single-AT-AT ones.

So, why use a drop pod when you have a perfectly re-usable vehicle? Drop Pods are for the rapid, difficult-to-stop deployment of special forces or other commando units.

Not siege weapons.

I wouldn't be surprised if they had something that just carried them down now.

After all, AT-STs are now carried underneath Gozantis. AT-ATs could have something similar. So you wouldn't have to bring them down in big ugly dumpsters.

In fact, a Gozanti could probably carry an AT-AT. It's twice the length of one.

The other option would be to just land the Star Destroyer, and let all the AT-ATs walk out. Which would probably be EASIER than having 20 ships to transport them down separately.