2 hours ago, nameless ronin said:

Maybe if they engaged the hyperdrive and flew into it...

At best, such an attack would probably disable a number of systems in that area, but not totally destroy the Death Star.

Even Holdo's suicide charge didn't completely destroy the Supremacy (much of the ship still seemed operational, if not battle-ready or able to travel either through subspace or hyperspace), and the Death Star is vastly larger and likely with a much higher mass (bearing in mind that physics in Star Wars is just plain weird); it'd be akin to smashing a cruiser into a planet and expecting the planet to be destroyed along with the leaping ship and all aboard being reduced to sub-atomic particles.

Granted, aiming the cruiser at the firing dish for the Death Star's primary weapon would undoubtedly take said weapon out of commission and save whichever planet was about to get blown up, but completely destroying the Death Star isn't likely to happen.

11 hours ago, Daronil said:

Then they could. Note that I never said I thought having stats for the DS were a bad thing . I just said that it seemed odd that the reason behind Bendu not having stats seems like precisely the reason the DS stats were unnecessary. In other words, I wasn't saying the DS shouldn't have stats, but that Bendu should .

As to the rest, I can't really make my argument without Rebels spoilers, so let me know when you've watched it and we'll continue.

Just as a side-note, I would still argue that a rebel group in charge of an MC80 cruiser would still only be able to attack aspects of the Death Star (turrets, a particular shield generator, etc). As Motti said, "Any attack against this station would be a useless gesture." Even the Executor crashing into DS2 barely made a dent - I doubt all batteries from the entire Alliance fleet at Endor would have done much more than scratch the paint.

I actually love the idea of having a series of attacks against the DS and have passed on your suggestion in my “wish list” on another post. I’ll actually take a look at designing something like this if/when I have time. I appreciate the non-spoilers and will PM you to discuss it all when I finish up the series in a few days so we can chat about it!

5 hours ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

At best, such an attack would probably disable a number of systems in that area, but not totally destroy the Death Star.

Even Holdo's suicide charge didn't completely destroy the Supremacy (much of the ship still seemed operational, if not battle-ready or able to travel either through subspace or hyperspace), and the Death Star is vastly larger and likely with a much higher mass (bearing in mind that physics in Star Wars is just plain weird); it'd be akin to smashing a cruiser into a planet and expecting the planet to be destroyed along with the leaping ship and all aboard being reduced to sub-atomic particles.

Granted, aiming the cruiser at the firing dish for the Death Star's primary weapon would undoubtedly take said weapon out of commission and save whichever planet was about to get blown up, but completely destroying the Death Star isn't likely to happen.

If two proton torpedoes, albeit in the right location, can destroy a Death Star I imagine a well-aimed Destroyer full of weapons ordnance impacting at hyperspeed could do quite a bit more than take out a number of superficial systems. Completely destroy it? Probably still only if the core reactor gets damaged sufficiently, but with what’s essentially a hyperspeed ultratorpedo that should not be impossible.

4 hours ago, nameless ronin said:

If two proton torpedoes, albeit in the right location, can destroy a Death Star I imagine a well-aimed Destroyer full of weapons ordnance impacting at hyperspeed could do quite a bit more than take out a number of superficial systems. Completely destroy it? Probably still only if the core reactor gets damaged sufficiently, but with what’s essentially a hyperspeed ultratorpedo that should not be impossible.

it's a common misconception that two proton torpedoes at the right location destroyed the Death Star. They didn't. They set off a chain reaction which culminated in the overload of the primary hypermatter reactor, which is what destroyed the Death Star.

A jumping cruiser might be aimed just so to actually hit the reactor and set it off... maybe. But it would be no more likely to work, in my opinion, than shooting torpedoes into the exhaust port in the first place.

When the Raddus hit the Supremacy , the damage it caused was along a single line. It sheared off one "wing" of the Supremacy , but the ship itself was still functional. Nobody was racing around evacuating - in fact, there was plenty of time for Hux and Kylo Ren to have 'chat' in the throne room before eventually organising the landing party for Crait. The Supremacy was 60km across - so about half the diameter of DS1, but it was a B2 bomber in shape, so it's mass, compared to a sphere with twice that diameter, was pretty small.

I think that if the Raddus had hit the DS it would have punched a hole through it initially, and then left a couple of "exit wounds" made by the hyperspace-shrapnel, which was what took out the rest of the star destroyers in TLJ. Again, they weren't vapourised by a huge chunk of something, they were transected by pretty small but extremely high speed objects.

I'm not saying that hyperjumping the fleet into the DS would scratch the paint - that was in reference to all the ships opening up with turbolasers - but it would still be a long way from destroying the DS, and the Alliance would be down exactly one fleet.

10 hours ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

At best, such an attack would probably disable a number of systems in that area, but not totally destroy the Death Star.

Even Holdo's suicide charge didn't completely destroy the Supremacy (much of the ship still seemed operational, if not battle-ready or able to travel either through subspace or hyperspace), and the Death Star is vastly larger and likely with a much higher mass (bearing in mind that physics in Star Wars is just plain weird); it'd be akin to smashing a cruiser into a planet and expecting the planet to be destroyed along with the leaping ship and all aboard being reduced to sub-atomic particles.

Granted, aiming the cruiser at the firing dish for the Death Star's primary weapon would undoubtedly take said weapon out of commission and save whichever planet was about to get blown up, but completely destroying the Death Star isn't likely to happen.

Plus, logic says that if hyperspace ramming was a tactic there would be a defense against it. Even if a ramming cruiser could only cripple the superlaser, the Death Star would not be all that useful.

I got it a few weeks ago, but have yet to read it, so I can't confirm. That said, it's my understanding that the novelization for TLJ goes into additional detail that experimental shield tech installed on the Raddus contributed to the effect of Holdo's jump. A perfect storm of circumstances led to what we saw on screen.

Oh, one more thing regarding Dawn of Rebellion , how come Warfare and Lightsabre are in as new skills? Haven't they been in since pretty much the start? I've certainly had them both in OggDude's character generator since I've had it.

14 minutes ago, Daronil said:

Oh, one more thing regarding Dawn of Rebellion , how come Warfare and Lightsabre are in as new skills? Haven't they been in since pretty much the start? I've certainly had them both in OggDude's character generator since I've had it.

It's the first explicitly cross-line book.

Warfare was added in AoR. Lightsaber in FaD. Someone running, say, pure EotE wouldn't have info on them.

20 minutes ago, Daronil said:

Oh, one more thing regarding Dawn of Rebellion , how come Warfare and Lightsabre are in as new skills? Haven't they been in since pretty much the start? I've certainly had them both in OggDude's character generator since I've had it.

6 minutes ago, Nytwyng said:

It's the first explicitly cross-line book.

Warfare was added in AoR. Lightsaber in FaD. Someone running, say, pure EotE wouldn't have info on them.

Yep. The preface for that section even says as much. It specifically says that these are skills that are not included in all three lines. Warfare is only in AoR and Lightsaber is only in F&D. All other skills are shared by all three lines.

Ah, thanks, folks. This is what comes of being a latecomer.

I got EotE when it first came out, but never played it. I didn't start running a campaign until I had AoR and FaD, so I never even noticed those two skills weren't in the original! Cheers.

15 hours ago, nameless ronin said:

If two proton torpedoes, albeit in the right location, can destroy a Death Star I imagine a well-aimed Destroyer full of weapons ordnance impacting at hyperspeed could do quite a bit more than take out a number of superficial systems. Completely destroy it? Probably still only if the core reactor gets damaged sufficiently, but with what’s essentially a hyperspeed ultratorpedo that should not be impossible.

As korjik noted, the proton torpedoes in and of themselves didn't destroy the Death Star. It's outright explained in the briefing room sequence of ANH that the torpedoes, with a precise hit (and only a precise hit) are setting off a chain reaction, exploiting a design flaw that was later established by Rogue One as being a deliberate inclusion on the station's design rather than the glaring oversight that Legends/EU originally painted it as.

13 hours ago, Daronil said:

it's a common misconception that two proton torpedoes at the right location destroyed the Death Star. They didn't. They set off a chain reaction which culminated in the overload of the primary hypermatter reactor, which is what destroyed the Death Star.

A jumping cruiser might be aimed just so to actually hit the reactor and set it off... maybe. But it would be no more likely to work, in my opinion, than shooting torpedoes into the exhaust port in the first place.

When the Raddus hit the Supremacy , the damage it caused was along a single line. It sheared off one "wing" of the Supremacy , but the ship itself was still functional. Nobody was racing around evacuating - in fact, there was plenty of time for Hux and Kylo Ren to have 'chat' in the throne room before eventually organising the landing party for Crait. The Supremacy was 60km across - so about half the diameter of DS1, but it was a B2 bomber in shape, so it's mass, compared to a sphere with twice that diameter, was pretty small.

I think that if the Raddus had hit the DS it would have punched a hole through it initially, and then left a couple of "exit wounds" made by the hyperspace-shrapnel, which was what took out the rest of the star destroyers in TLJ. Again, they weren't vapourised by a huge chunk of something, they were transected by pretty small but extremely high speed objects.

I'm not saying that hyperjumping the fleet into the DS would scratch the paint - that was in reference to all the ships opening up with turbolasers - but it would still be a long way from destroying the DS, and the Alliance would be down exactly one fleet.

The Raddus wasn’t loaded up with live ordnance and its reactors were largely depleted at the time. Most of its impact was pure momentum - a really, really large bullet going really, really fast. I imagine a cruiser carrying its normal load of weapons (or preferably more) with reactors at capacity (Mon Cal cruisers go heavily redundant when it comes to defensive capacity) should do quite a bit more damage considering it would presumably penetrate the outer shell before exploding. Again, probably not enough to take out the DS altogether unless a core reaction would be started - but if it were a deliberate, planned course of action the result should still be devastating.

2 hours ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

As korjik noted, the proton torpedoes in and of themselves didn't destroy the Death Star. It's outright explained in the briefing room sequence of ANH that the torpedoes, with a precise hit (and only a precise hit) are setting off a chain reaction, exploiting a design flaw that was later established by Rogue One as being a deliberate inclusion on the station's design rather than the glaring oversight that Legends/EU originally painted it as.

The design flaw was there. That’s the point. There was a weakness to exploit.

15 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:

The Raddus wasn’t loaded up with live ordnance and its reactors were largely depleted at the time. Most of its impact was pure momentum - a really, really large bullet going really, really fast. I imagine a cruiser carrying its normal load of weapons (or preferably more) with reactors at capacity (Mon Cal cruisers go heavily redundant when it comes to defensive capacity) should do quite a bit more damage considering it would presumably penetrate the outer shell before exploding. Again, probably not enough to take out the DS altogether unless a core reaction would be started - but if it were a deliberate, planned course of action the result should still be devastating.

Well, we're delving into make-believe physics when we're talking about hyperspace, but even if we just look at the ship moving at relativistic velocity, then having the whole thing packed with ordnance and fully charged reactors would make very little difference. All adding ordnance would do is add some extra mass, because the damage is done by the disincorporated fragments moving at near lightspeed (or exceeding lightspeed, if you go with the idea that the Raddus was already in hyperspace when it hit the Supremacy ). If you effectively atomise a ship's hull then the shrapnel is no different from atomised explosives.

It would be a little like packing a couple of hundred kilograms of TNT around a W-300 nuclear warhead.

Think we are off topic again. There are those that like The Lame Jedi and then there are the rest of us. Let’s leave out the explicit references to the film that should never have been.

16 minutes ago, Khazadune said:

Think we are off topic again. There are those that like The Lame Jedi and then there are the rest of us. Let’s leave out the explicit references to the film that should never have been .

What does Batfleck v Miracleman have to do with anything?

6 hours ago, Nytwyng said:

What does Batfleck v Miracleman have to do with anything?

Well played sir. Well played.

Just noticed something, and I don't know if it has come up yet, but the Inquisitor's TIE weapons block lists a "hyperspace tracking" tracer. So in regards to Episode 8...

12 hours ago, bsmith23 said:

Just noticed something, and I don't know if it has come up yet, but the Inquisitor's TIE weapons block lists a "hyperspace tracking" tracer. So in regards to Episode 8...

That's covered in Ep IV and Ep II. A physical beacon has always been possible. It's how they found the rebel base on Yavin by bugging the falcon, and how Obi-Wan tracked Jango Fett to the bug planet whose name escapes me. Ep 8 introduced the bugless version.

On 21/04/2018 at 1:42 AM, korjik said:

Plus, logic says that if hyperspace ramming was a tactic there would be a defense against it. Even if a ramming cruiser could only cripple the superlaser, the Death Star would not be all that useful.

I mean, that tactic is 'Shoot at the thing trying to ram you'. That was pretty much the only reason it worked, the First Order got cocky and completely ignored the cruiser until far too late, even whilst it was turning to face them and charging hyperdrive.

Overconfidence is their weakness, and all that...

1 hour ago, Talkie Toaster said:

I mean, that tactic is 'Shoot at the thing trying to ram you'. That was pretty much the only reason it worked, the First Order got cocky and completely ignored the cruiser until far too late, even whilst it was turning to face them and charging hyperdrive.

Overconfidence is their weakness, and all that...

Lol. “The thing trying to ram you” is moving at hyperspeed. It could initiate its suicide run from a safe distance, if that’s the plan.

Assuming that the run up into lightspeed is that long. There is a maximum distance after which the ship is in hyperspace.

I would think that something the size of a cruiser has a run up distance that puts in in sensor range of the target. Talking about something the size of the Death Star, it could put more than enough turbolaser shots in the path of the cruiser to turn it into a fine mist that just massages the shields.

2 hours ago, korjik said:

Assuming that the run up into lightspeed is that long. There is a maximum distance after which the ship is in hyperspace.

I would think that something the size of a cruiser has a run up distance that puts in in sensor range of the target. Talking about something the size of the Death Star, it could put more than enough turbolaser shots in the path of the cruiser to turn it into a fine mist that just massages the shields.

I imagine that, if we were trying to get it right, this would be a setup involving one torpedo ship and one or more spotter ships. The spotters are there to provide exact coordinates for the torpedo to use in its astrogation calculations. The torpedo exits hyperspace at the optimum attack distance, already aimed in the right direction, and uses the targeting data provided by the spotters to immediately speed up. Shouldn’t leave a lot of opportunity for suppressive fire.

The real point is that How Stuff Works In Star Wars depends as much on what the writers think is cool as on actual physics or even logic. Sometimes that’s great, such as having battle sounds in space; sometimes not so much, such as having space bombers that apparently can’t fly faster than a propeller-driven WWII bomber did 70-odd years ago here on planet Earth. It doesn’t get explained why, it just has to be exciting.

Exciting would have been nice

On 11/14/2017 at 9:29 AM, 2P51 said:

Bingo.

20K HT.