1 minute ago, Noosh said:

Well played sir, well played. I must admit that we are in danger of putting this threat into a tangent.

Yes, lets not do that again.

I dig the idea of the FO having a MASSIVE mobile base to repair/build stardestroyers and such. It makes perfect sense, how would the New Republic know of the FO's real power if it was constantly on the move.

I'd love a scene where the FO started off as a battered Imperial Remnant...they build this ship and it can scrap an ISD2 and turn into into a RSD.

1 hour ago, Megatronrex said:

Yes, lets not do that again.

You were killing me. Never had so much fun with geometric shapes.

3 minutes ago, Noosh said:

You were killing me. Never had so much fun with geometric shapes.

Not like those Platonic Solids who only want to be friends.

1 hour ago, Drasnighta said:

Not like those Platonic Solids who only want to be friends.

Curse them and their geometric uniformity!

General Hux: Emperor Snoke! Salute!

Snoke: I have to run. If I walk, the movie will be over.

56 minutes ago, Boris_the_Dwarf said:

General Hux: Emperor Snoke! Salute!

Snoke: I have to run. If I walk, the movie will be over.

https://youtu.be/Fwn358yvWjM

Love the design of the ship.... Hate the class name.

I agree with most that the "Make it like the OT but bigger" mentality is wearing thin but in this one ship it actually makes sense. If this was designed to be a mobile capital, command center and ship yard for the FO then it should be HUGE.

But calling it Mega class seems extremely juvenile, the new walkers are meh at best, the new whatever that other planetary bombardment ship is looks horrible. The Raddus looks cool but suffers from the make it the same but bigger trope.

It's not really that different from "Super" - and has a bit more background in scientific notation than "super" does.

If scientists can name dinosaurs "Supersaurus" and "Megaraptor" what's wrong with "Super-class" and "Mega-class"?

In scientific notation, "mega" refers to "million" - "megajoules" "megatons of TNT" etc. So "Mega-class" is 1 million times as powerful/good, as "regular-class".

7 hours ago, Ironlord said:

It's not really that different from "Super" - and has a bit more background in scientific notation than "super" does.

If scientists can name dinosaurs "Supersaurus" and "Megaraptor" what's wrong with "Super-class" and "Mega-class"?

In scientific notation, "mega" refers to "million" - "megajoules" "megatons of TNT" etc. So "Mega-class" is 1 million times as powerful/good, as "regular-class".

How dare you use some kind of logic here! Begone with you!

Talking about mega destroyers:

https://mobile.twitter.com/pablohidalgo/status/900605313396690944

The Voltron Destroyer:

On 9/15/2017 at 6:22 PM, GrandAdmiralCrunch said:

Talking about mega destroyers:

https://mobile.twitter.com/pablohidalgo/status/900605313396690944

The Voltron Destroyer:

Objetion!

3 hours ago, Noosh said:

Objetion!

Overruled.

You may continue counselor.

On 9/15/2017 at 6:22 PM, GrandAdmiralCrunch said:

Talking about mega destroyers:

https://mobile.twitter.com/pablohidalgo/status/900605313396690944

The Voltron Destroyer:

It looks like it has an ISD sunken into the hull of it. lol

2 hours ago, cynanbloodbane said:

Overruled.

You may continue counselor.

In the case star v. destroyer, I contend that the defense's case is lacking. Of course they would have you believe that this is just ONE star destroyer, that happens to have yet another smaller star destroyer type growth on top. But as it is plain for ALL TO SEE, that is clearly two distinct star destroyers glued together!!!! And therefore should not be treated as a cripple in the eyes of the court. Furthermore, the erroneous mass provided should be rectified and damages paid to my client for "Over enthused massing".

On 9/5/2017 at 1:47 PM, Freeptop said:

I also like how three arms all fit into the one slot on the left-hand side (R2's left, that is), somehow don't interfere with each other's ability to operate, and somehow only take up a shallow compartment.

They don't. He has 4 slots on his front for large arms; two of them vertical, one left, and one right, and two horizontal. We get to see most of them deploy during the movies at one point or another. Nevermind. I'm looking at the wrong arms. You're talking about 11, 17 and 44, right?

On 9/5/2017 at 1:47 PM, Freeptop said:

I'm fine with just figuring that BB-8's tools can reach out through telescoping or folding arms (not too different from how R2's do, really), and that the interior of the ball doesn't necessarily rotate the same as the exterior (in fact, it's likely it wouldn't in order to work in the first place - see how the Sphero toys work, for example).

In reverse order, I find it incredibly unlikely that the interior rotation being different from the exterior would help at all. The tools exist on the outer surface, after all.

Secondly, you're both missing an important point. Droids don't evolve naturally, they are created. If the "ball" form-factor has been determined to be superior, then all the things they are supposed to be interacting with will be redesigned to fit that. As proof, I offer the X-Wing. BB-8 has far less surface area to work with; it is pretty much out of the question that he could work in the same socket as an R2 unit. Instead, he works in a socket designed for a BB unit. No reason that there wouldn't be similar changes in other locations, too.

Of course, now that I've said this, JJ will show a single starfighter variously using a BB unit, and R2 unit, and a protocol droid in the same socket, because he never thinks about these things.

1 hour ago, JgzMan said:

They don't. He has 4 slots on his front for large arms; two of them vertical, one left, and one right, and two horizontal. We get to see most of them deploy during the movies at one point or another. Nevermind. I'm looking at the wrong arms. You're talking about 11, 17 and 44, right?

In reverse order, I find it incredibly unlikely that the interior rotation being different from the exterior would help at all. The tools exist on the outer surface, after all.

Secondly, you're both missing an important point. Droids don't evolve naturally, they are created. If the "ball" form-factor has been determined to be superior, then all the things they are supposed to be interacting with will be redesigned to fit that. As proof, I offer the X-Wing. BB-8 has far less surface area to work with; it is pretty much out of the question that he could work in the same socket as an R2 unit. Instead, he works in a socket designed for a BB unit. No reason that there wouldn't be similar changes in other locations, too.

Of course, now that I've said this, JJ will show a single starfighter variously using a BB unit, and R2 unit, and a protocol droid in the same socket, because he never thinks about these things.

If the exterior can rotate separately from the interior, then it doesn't matter which of the opening door panels in the exterior sphere is available to open - BB-8 would then be able to rotate the interior around to bring the appropriate tool to the door that can open in the right place. That may only be 6 tools, but any of the 6 would be available without having to move the exterior around to use them. That's all I really meant by that comment.

Considering how much R2 was able to accomplish with just the data jack, saw and the electro-shock-whatever-it-was, I feel like BB-8 can get by with 6 tools!

Also, as a software engineer who works on robots for a living, I'm quite familiar with where droids come from, thank you very much

2 hours ago, JgzMan said:

In reverse order, I find it incredibly unlikely that the interior rotation being different from the exterior would help at all. The tools exist on the outer surface, after all.

I'm not an engineer but we only know of one tool. Its possible the others work as Freeptop says.

On 9/18/2017 at 7:12 AM, BlueSquadronPilot said:

It looks like it has an ISD sunken into the hull of it. lol

It looks like it docks a Resurgent class to it, so maybe it's actually a bolt-on weapons platform. Or it can service other ships as a local auxiliary ship, which is an interesting idea for what is essentially a siege platform, and fits into the idea of FO using space-based mobile bases and not using fixed planetary resources as much.

On 9/20/2017 at 0:48 PM, Freeptop said:

then it doesn't matter which of the opening door panels in the exterior sphere is available to open

This is a good idea, but demonstrably untrue. A quick check of imagery shows that all the doors are different shapes. It's certainly possible that a large door could let a small tool through, but a small door couldn't let a large tool out. It's possible that an internal rotation gives each door multiple options, but there would still need to be a way to ensure that the right size of door is available. It would be more sensible to simply have a large door in "face," rather then have a few arbitrary "limited selection" faces. The major exception to this idea might be while the droid is in-socket; only small tools needed in the front, so only small doors required. Even so, seems silly to deliberatly install a limiting factor for no good reason. However, it strikes me as more likely that one door covers one tool. (or possibly three)

On 9/20/2017 at 0:48 PM, Freeptop said:

Considering how much R2 was able to accomplish with just the data jack, saw and the electro-shock-whatever-it-was, I feel like BB-8 can get by with 6 tools!

On the one hand, yes. On the other hand, I suspect that a great many of R2's tools are intended for maintenance of a starship. The electro-shock thing is, officially, a welding tool. (or at least, it was once)

BB-8, however, has many doors. Many more than R-2. Could be that R2 had multiple tools behind each door, could be that most of the colored squares on his head are tool-doors, (at least one of them has an extending arm, IIRC) or possibly BB-8 just has more tools then R2. It's a few decades later; surely they have come up with some new tools. At the very least, they have probably moved on to USB 17, or something.

On 9/20/2017 at 1:34 PM, Forresto said:

I'm not an engineer but we only know of one tool. Its possible the others work as Freeptop says.

Then, again, there is at least one tool that cannot easily be brought to bear on a target, and at least one "face" that prevents the other tools from being brought to bear. Why do this? Best case scenario is that this one tool needs a special mounting that can't be spun around, while the others are happy enough to go zoom. But that single point defeats the entire design; you're still going to have to come up with a method to properly align a specific face, AND you have to program the spinning tool chest. Better to go all one way, or all the other way.

6 hours ago, JgzMan said:

This is a good idea, but demonstrably untrue. A quick check of imagery shows that all the doors are different shapes. It's certainly possible that a large door could let a small tool through, but a small door couldn't let a large tool out. It's possible that an internal rotation gives each door multiple options, but there would still need to be a way to ensure that the right size of door is available. It would be more sensible to simply have a large door in "face," rather then have a few arbitrary "limited selection" faces. The major exception to this idea might be while the droid is in-socket; only small tools needed in the front, so only small doors required. Even so, seems silly to deliberatly install a limiting factor for no good reason. However, it strikes me as more likely that one door covers one tool. (or possibly three)

On the one hand, yes. On the other hand, I suspect that a great many of R2's tools are intended for maintenance of a starship. The electro-shock thing is, officially, a welding tool. (or at least, it was once)

BB-8, however, has many doors. Many more than R-2. Could be that R2 had multiple tools behind each door, could be that most of the colored squares on his head are tool-doors, (at least one of them has an extending arm, IIRC) or possibly BB-8 just has more tools then R2. It's a few decades later; surely they have come up with some new tools. At the very least, they have probably moved on to USB 17, or something.

Then, again, there is at least one tool that cannot easily be brought to bear on a target, and at least one "face" that prevents the other tools from being brought to bear. Why do this? Best case scenario is that this one tool needs a special mounting that can't be spun around, while the others are happy enough to go zoom. But that single point defeats the entire design; you're still going to have to come up with a method to properly align a specific face, AND you have to program the spinning tool chest. Better to go all one way, or all the other way.

The irony here is that I was originally saying that I don't really care how practical or realistic BB-8 is, since I don't particularly think R2-D2 is all that realistic...

That said, as an engineer, coming up with a method to properly align a specific face and programming the spinning tool chest are the kind of things engineers get paid to do. Speaking as someone who works in robotics, both of those fall into the category of "solved problems." For that matter, even if the internal tools were always behind the same door and BB-8 had to make sure to rotate the proper door to the desired position in order to use it - that's just a planning and controls problem. I kind of feel like if early 21st century robotics can do it (albeit, requiring larger hardware), then it should certainly be possible in Star Wars

In Star Wars they have star system killing weapons that bend the rules of space tome relativity. I'm sure they can figure out how to get two sphere's to allign.

I like it when designs are clunky like this because it means they van be improved which means characters and techology in universe can evolve as it would in real life. Yeah maybe the whole design is bad, maybe we'll see better astromech units thirty years after the sequel movies?

13 hours ago, Freeptop said:

The irony here is that I was originally saying that I don't really care how practical or realistic BB-8 is, since I don't particularly think R2-D2 is all that realistic...

Well, sure, but why agree when we can have an interesting argument?

13 hours ago, Freeptop said:

For that matter, even if the internal tools were always behind the same door and BB-8 had to make sure to rotate the proper door to the desired position in order to use it - that's just a planning and controls problem.

Yes, but would it be an upgrade from the model that doesn't have to do that? What is gained?

We should assume that SOMETHING is gained, even if it's just the improved mobility that is claimed by JJ, or whoever. Tradeoff - extra mobility for less convenient tools. Worthwhile? Could be. I could even see the standard R2 unit remaining for normal people, and the BB model being marketed as an all-terrain version for people who go on adventures with their droid.

13 hours ago, Forresto said:

I'm sure they can figure out how to get two sphere's to allign.

No-one said they couldn't. Just that it's an inconvenience for BB-8 to have to move away from whatever he's working on and dance around in order to bring the correct face to bear. This is, arguably, a downgrade from the R2 model, which keeps all the tools in front.

Not sure if anyone mentioned it, but Rhode Island is 60km across.

For reference.

11 hours ago, Eggzavier said:

Not sure if anyone mentioned it, but Rhode Island is 60km across.

For reference.

I did - back when I thought it was 60km long, before Pablo revealed that it was 60km wide, not long:

On 01/09/2017 at 11:36 AM, Ironlord said:

Now that I look it up: Rhode Island (one of the smallest states) is 60km by 77km:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhode_Island

So - "as long as Rhode island is wide".