20 minutes ago, bleachorange said:

Yes, the MC85s are a tad longer than the approx. I gave, but not necessarily containing more volume (though I dont really care one way or the other). The Resurgents are flatter only in silhouette compared to an Imperial class SD. Here is a look in profile.

Seen from behind though, the "wedge" is flatter (your ISD image was from The Essential Guide to Vehicles & Vessels, which is notorious for giving their versions of movie ships iffy proportions. Their SSD is even worse) :

ISD (fractalsponge version)

The superstructure is also a bit less bulky.

I did the calculations and an ISD exactly the length of the Resurgent would have 6x the volume of a regular ISD. I would estimate that the Resurgent would be around 5x the volume of a regular ISD.

I found a site that gave the volume of a 3.2 km Home One as around 5x the volume of a regular ISD. Given that the Raddus is a bit bulkier (and longer), I would ballpark it as 6x the volume of an ISD - slightly bigger than a Resurgent, but not by much.

I would disagree the wedge is flatter, the Resurgent's wedge appears to have the same angling and just has more stuff spread throughout the top rather than stacked in one place. But I digress. Again, my point was to say that I don't think the Raddus was a special behemoth in the way that was implied in the post my earlier post references. You say it is slightly more massive than a Resurgent? That's fine, I dont really care. I have no ego in this. Its like saying the Challenger 2 is the worlds heaviest tank (no idea if true, just an example) when there are other tanks in its' weight class. The Raddus not some aberration in ship design like the Executor class or the Supremacy. And that is the entirety of my point.

The former Rebel leadership must have collectively facepalmed when they saw the Raddus hyperspace into the Mega-star destroyer. "Why didn't we think about doing this vs both Deathstars"

2 minutes ago, Lord Tareq said:

The former Rebel leadership must have collectively facepalmed when they saw the Raddus hyperspace into the Mega-star destroyer. "Why didn't we think about doing this vs both Deathstars"

More like every time we know how something works, a troll with a camera swoops down and says "thats not how the force works!" And proceeds to rewrite how life, the universe, and everything work in star wars so that the answer is now 43.

Really, though, some literature will come out with some handwavium to help explain this.

1 hour ago, Lord Tareq said:

The former Rebel leadership must have collectively facepalmed when they saw the Raddus hyperspace into the Mega-star destroyer. "Why didn't we think about doing this vs both Deathstars"

They couldn't because they were all dead except Leia...

1 hour ago, bleachorange said:

More like every time we know how something works, a troll with a camera swoops down and says "thats not how the force works!" And proceeds to rewrite how life, the universe, and everything work in star wars so that the answer is now 43.

I believe you mean 42 lol.

9 minutes ago, ImperialCaptain2017 said:

They couldn't because they were all dead except Leia...

I believe you mean 42 lol.

Well, it used to be 42. But now its 43.

6 minutes ago, bleachorange said:

Well, it used to be 42. But now its 43.

I see. Well I guess that means it's back to the drawing board...

Given the cannon as we know it, I don't think there is any reason this couldn't have done before, or be done again. There was, really, nothing "special" about the scene. That being said, I believe this is going to go the way of the many other inconsistencies rife in the Star Wars universe. Like the Falcon making a run in parsecs somehow being an indicator of its speed, how every enemy superweapon is discovered just in time to destroy it after pretty much a single use, how star-fighter cannons can pinpoint and destroy armored weapon emplacements but not the wall of windows of command decks, why the commanders of mile long warships cruise at exactly the same horizontal plane close enough together to crash on a very regular basis, how a Jedi can proclaim "Only a Sith deals in absolutes!" or the more quoted line "Do or do not. There is no try," or how tech has stagnated for 10,000 years with no real explanation. Honestly, I think the best way to handle this is to just discount it. It's a plot contrivance, and not really a very well thought out one.
As to its effect on the game as a tactic, we see you can run out of fuel in the movie too; do we want to add fuel capacities and amount burned for varies maneuvers per class of ship added to Armada? Certainly it would add a new dynamic and level to the game...but I don't think it needs it.

12 minutes ago, Arowmund said:

As to its effect on the game as a tactic, we see you can run out of fuel in the movie too; do we want to add fuel capacities and amount burned for varies maneuvers per class of ship added to Armada? Certainly it would add a new dynamic and level to the game...but I don't think it needs it.

Certainly not. All it would do is complicate the game further and probably buff squads more. Dont get me wrong, i enjoy a good squadron fight and dont dislike them at all, but I dont think squads need more help at the moment.

As far as hyperspace goes, lets not worry about strategic level stuff or suicide tactics.

6 hours ago, bleachorange said:

My personal opinion is Rian just went with e=MC^2 because hyperspace ramming would look cool despite the damage that type of thing does to the integrity of past battle tactics and weapons design. I also think someone will swoop in and clean up the mess with some sort of convoluted reason as to why this wasnt done before and dont expect it to work going forwards.

Add in that he clearly doesn't understand much about the Star Wars universe he was given to play in I completely agree. TLJ was all kinds of lazy. This sort of heroic sacrifice should be beautiful but this just seemed like such a cheap way out of the mess the writer made. I'm still having trouble seeing it as other than a lazy excuse for a grrrrrrrrrlllll power moment.

7 hours ago, bleachorange said:

No, they aren't the 2 largest starships known in the galaxy. Every Resurgent Star Destroyer is the same size (~3km long) as the Raddus was. Now, these ships in general ARE much larger than those seen in the Galactic Civil War (excepting the Executor class, because I dont think the Eclipse is canon anymore, unless I am mistaken?) and so maybe the mass shadows thing still works as we previously understood it to work with hyperspace still being another dimension rather than just going literally FTL.

My personal opinion is Rian just went with e=MC^2 because hyperspace ramming would look cool despite the damage that type of thing does to the integrity of past battle tactics and weapons design. I also think someone will swoop in and clean up the mess with some sort of convoluted reason as to why this wasnt done before and dont expect it to work going forwards.

There's actually a pretty simple explanation for why it worked this time, but normally wouldn't:

11 minutes ago, Freeptop said:

There's actually a pretty simple explanation for why it worked this time, but normally wouldn't:

That only accounts for why a single ship could not normally pull this off against an overwhelming and/or well-prepared force. It does not account for its non-use in relatively balanced engagements, surprise attacks, or planetary defense systems...

I find it kinda interesting everyone's take on the raddus drive. Some dismiss it, others love it, and some hate it. It's too far, not far enough, and just right at the same time.

The reality of the situation is the darkest that any star wars group of protagonists have faced. Complete utter and total annihilation, no hope, only one chance to save the fleeing resistance. The reason why this was never done before is one simple fact as stated earlier; they had nothing to lose, not even the people running away. In other situations that ramming is a viable option, the fight is already decided, and only an insane move might change the outcome. You don't use it against the death star because you have a plan to kill it without sacrificing a large asset. Yes many large ships did get destroyed in the battle of endor, but there was still the plan and it hadn't fallen apart totally yet.

20 hours ago, DiabloAzul said:

That only accounts for why a single ship could not normally pull this off against an overwhelming and/or well-prepared force. It does not account for its non-use in relatively balanced engagements, surprise attacks, or planetary defense systems...

You keep talking about "ramming", as in, with ships. Of course that's expensive and wasteful and only worth it as a desperation move.

But if relativistic ramming works (i.e. it is possible and effective and does not get shrugged off by shields), then relativistic missiles do too.

A missile needs only three components to work: speed, mass, and way to point it in the right direction. And they're all cheap.

• Mass is a non-issue. Rocks, scrap metal, you name it. Stick shields on it for extra effect, if you want.
• Aiming is straightforward. Point, shoot. You don't even need on-board guidance but, again, for bonus points you could throw in a droid.
• As for speed, well, everyone and their dog have hyperdrives in SW. Warships have hyperdrives. Starfighters (except TIEs) have hyperdrives. Shuttles have hyperdrives. Large freighters have hyperdrives. Small transports have hyperdrives. Rusty buckets of bolts languishing in junkyards have fast hyperdrives.

The point is, if the Rebellion could build (or buy) X-Wings and Y-Wings and A-Wings and B-Wings, they could build (or buy) anti-ship hypermissiles for significantly less money.

Yes, starfighters are not replaceable across all roles, but tell me: which would you rather have when faced with an ISD (or 5)? A dozen X-Wings, or a dozen unstoppable relativistic insta-kill WMDs?

As for planetary defense, my point is that it takes an ISD (or 5) to lay siege to a planet. But it only takes a very fast rock (or 5) to vaporize said ISD...

...because, according to TLJ, shields don't stop very fast things.

(Unless, of course, what actually happened in TLJ is that neither the Supremacy nor the other Star Destroyers had their shields up at all.)

My headcanon für Hyperspace jump:

Mass in Hyperspace are much less Mass in real space. So you need really big Ship(with really big and expensive drives) for this and really perfect Timing(luky Strike).

So you need für a deadstar a other deadstar. Or are Planet with Hyperspace for starkiller Base.

Is Work in Progress.

Sry for my Englisch

2 hours ago, DiabloAzul said:

You keep talking about "ramming", as in, with ships. Of course that's expensive and wasteful and only worth it as a desperation move.

But if relativistic ramming works (i.e. it is possible and effective and does not get shrugged off by shields), then relativistic missiles do too.

A missile needs only three components to work: speed, mass, and way to point it in the right direction. And they're all cheap.

• Mass is a non-issue. Rocks, scrap metal, you name it. Stick shields on it for extra effect, if you want.
• Aiming is straightforward. Point, shoot. You don't even need on-board guidance but, again, for bonus points you could throw in a droid.
• As for speed, well, everyone and their dog have hyperdrives in SW. Warships have hyperdrives. Starfighters (except TIEs) have hyperdrives. Shuttles have hyperdrives. Large freighters have hyperdrives. Small transports have hyperdrives. Rusty buckets of bolts languishing in junkyards have fast hyperdrives.

The point is, if the Rebellion could build (or buy) X-Wings and Y-Wings and A-Wings and B-Wings, they could build (or buy) anti-ship hypermissiles for significantly less money.

Yes, starfighters are not replaceable across all roles, but tell me: which would you rather have when faced with an ISD (or 5)? A dozen X-Wings, or a dozen unstoppable relativistic insta-kill WMDs?

As for planetary defense, my point is that it takes an ISD (or 5) to lay siege to a planet. But it only takes a very fast rock (or 5) to vaporize said ISD...

...because, according to TLJ, shields don't stop very fast things.

(Unless, of course, what actually happened in TLJ is that neither the Supremacy nor the other Star Destroyers had their shields up at all.)

I think the missiles would be very expensive to have the mass of the Raddus, not to mention its nuclear reactor. I don't think just a rock would help. Most of the damage may have come from the reactors of the first stricken ships exploding. Furthermore, as others have pointed out, getting the timing right was critical. She could have gone into hyperspace too early, and done no damage, or too late, and done too little.

As for the shields, I think it was a specific gimmick of Starkiller Base that its shields refreshed just slow enough for the Falcon to slip in while it was down. Different shields refresh at different rates, and different ships travel at different speeds, so it is not a given that any projectile traveling through hyperspace can pierce any shield.

25 minutes ago, GhostofNobodyInParticular said:

I think the missiles would be very expensive to have the mass of the Raddus, not to mention its nuclear reactor. I don't think just a rock would help. Most of the damage may have come from the reactors of the first stricken ships exploding. Furthermore, as others have pointed out, getting the timing right was critical. She could have gone into hyperspace too early, and done no damage, or too late, and done too little.

As for the shields, I think it was a specific gimmick of Starkiller Base that its shields refreshed just slow enough for the Falcon to slip in while it was down. Different shields refresh at different rates, and different ships travel at different speeds, so it is not a given that any projectile traveling through hyperspace can pierce any shield.

If the shield isn’t visible, then it has that “gimmick”.

“A fractional refresh rate that stops things slower than light speed.”

now, we do have instances of visible shields... but not around any ship so far that I am aware of. The closest we get to seeing it is the distortion of the N2 in Ep1

And that’s not s gimmick of all planetary shields, as the ones around Scarif are visible, and it is stated in Thrawn that DS-11 planetary shields have s telltale distortion effect as well...

https://www.quora.com/What-would-happen-if-a-feather-going-almost-the-speed-of-light-hit-me

A small reactor/capacitor, a hyperspace engine. Full disposable, cheap and could relativistically vaporise a ISD.

But for the sake of the movie i ignore that bit and just enjoy the visuals.....

27 minutes ago, GhostofNobodyInParticular said:

I think the missiles would be very expensive to have the mass of the Raddus,

1) Mass is cheap. Plenty of rocks around.

2) The whole point of relativistic collisions is that a projectile can vaporize a target several orders of magnitude more massive. You don't need to build (m)any Raddus-sized missiles, because you don't need to destroy (m)any Supremacy-sized targets. But an anti-ISD missile for a fraction of the cost of a single snubfighter? Yes please.

39 minutes ago, GhostofNobodyInParticular said:

Most of the damage may have come from the reactors of the first stricken ships exploding.

Sorry, but, no. That fits neither the observed phenomenon (the Supremacy and accompanying SDs were torn apart, not caught in an explosion) nor real-life physics (insofar as SW follows them, anyway). Not to mention that, if hyperspeed isn't even a requirement, you're lowering the bar for this kind of weapon.

47 minutes ago, GhostofNobodyInParticular said:

Furthermore, as others have pointed out, getting the timing right was critical. She could have gone into hyperspace too early, and done no damage, or too late, and done too little.

So? Aiming artillery and calculating ICBM trajectories is also tricky. Nothing that the professionals couldn't figure out with a bit of science (and a lot of trial and error). If it can be done, it can be done. And if it's worth it, it will be done.

52 minutes ago, GhostofNobodyInParticular said:

Different shields refresh at different rates, and different ships travel at different speeds, so it is not a given that any projectile traveling through hyperspace can pierce any shield.

My point about shields wasn't about the TFA gimmick at all. It was that (as evidenced by the Supremacy annihilation - but also by the ISD crash at Scarif and by the asteroid field scene in ESB) even the strongest shields can/will be overwhelmed by sufficiently powerful collisions.

Anyway, I'm getting bored of this topic already. Ultimately it's a matter of suspension of disbelief, and therefore entirely subjective. So I propose we agree to disagree and move on to more interesting things... what's the weather like over there?

4 minutes ago, DiabloAzul said:

1) Mass is cheap. Plenty of rocks around.

2) The whole point of relativistic collisions is that a projectile can vaporize a target several orders of magnitude more massive. You don't need to build (m)any Raddus-sized missiles, because you don't need to destroy (m)any Supremacy-sized targets. But an anti-ISD missile for a fraction of the cost of a single snubfighter? Yes please.

Sorry, but, no. That fits neither the observed phenomenon (the Supremacy and accompanying SDs were torn apart, not caught in an explosion) nor real-life physics (insofar as SW follows them, anyway). Not to mention that, if hyperspeed isn't even a requirement, you're lowering the bar for this kind of weapon.

So? Aiming artillery and calculating ICBM trajectories is also tricky. Nothing that the professionals couldn't figure out with a bit of science (and a lot of trial and error). If it can be done, it can be done. And if it's worth it, it will be done.

My point about shields wasn't about the TFA gimmick at all. It was that (as evidenced by the Supremacy annihilation - but also by the ISD crash at Scarif and by the asteroid field scene in ESB) even the strongest shields can/will be overwhelmed by sufficiently powerful collisions.

Anyway, I'm getting bored of this topic already. Ultimately it's a matter of suspension of disbelief, and therefore entirely subjective. So I propose we agree to disagree and move on to more interesting things... what's the weather like over there?

Cold. Which I just learned is unseasonable for this time of year.

I think she was trying to run away and, without an astromech droid to plot the course, hit Snoke’s ship by mistake.

Oops...

10 hours ago, Freeptop said:

There's also the simple cost problem. Ships don't exactly grow on trees, and outside of the Battle of Endor, we've always seen the Rebellion/Resistance portrayed as being desperate for more ships and material. "Relatively balanced engagements" basically don't exist (not even at the Battle of Endor, where they were outnumbered, but attempting a desperate attack anyway with the sole purpose of eliminating the Death Star II while the Emperor was aboard). If you use them for a surprise attack, you're pretty much ordering a suicide mission, because now you don't have a ship anymore.

As for planetary defense systems, I'm not even sure what you're trying to claim here. If you're advocating using this tactic to take them out, it runs into the same problem of the ship being destroyed before it can accomplish its goal. If you're saying they could have used this tactic as a planetary defense system, then that's even more nonsensical - you don't use a single-shot weapon as defense against a siege, generally speaking...

Using a ship to ram another one is purely a desperation tactic. If you've got the ability to produce lots of ships, then you're going to use them as reusable weapons, not as one-shot battering rams that have a high chance of failing at their task. If you don't have the ability to produce lots of ships, you definitely don't want to throw them away by using this tactic.

Then there's the simple fact that you'd have to find enough people willing to give up their lives to make this possible. For all the talk about using droids for such purposes, there are apparently some sort of reasons in the Star Wars Universe why that wouldn't be possible - otherwise these ships would already be highly automated, with droids running most systems in the first place. Whether it's cultural, or qualitative, using droids to pilot warships is apparently out of the question, once you get out of the prequel era. I'm guessing it's a combination of cultural along with an Empire-led purge of the knowledge necessary to develop droid armies/navies.

I think it is mostly a stigma thing from the Clone Wars at least by the time of the GCW and the ST, the especially the GCW. When you had a large war with tons of battle droids you probably want to have those things be as far away from vital systems as much as possible. Granted those droids were all following their programming but still there is a whole galaxy wide stigma about droids going around killing lots of people.

9 hours ago, DiabloAzul said:

(Unless, of course, what actually happened in TLJ is that neither the Supremacy nor the other Star Destroyers had their shields up at all.)

(Spoilers)

Despite the film saying that the FO took over the galaxy in effectively days to a week I really wouldn't be all that surprised if with Hux they they were in fact so inept that they didn't turn their shields on, that is pretty in line with his rather foolish character at the moment based off TLJ.

Having just seen the movie, I did appreciate how "hard" science fiction collided -literally- with the star wars universe. All of the sudden the light switch gets turned on and everybody realizes they should be throwing rocks with mass drivers and the most dangerous thing is a suicidal astromech droid piloting a iron based asteroid with a hyperdrive.

Just now, mhd said:

Having just seen the movie, I did appreciate how "hard" science fiction collided -literally- with the star wars universe. All of the sudden the light switch gets turned on and everybody realizes they should be throwing rocks with mass drivers and the most dangerous thing is a suicidal astromech droid piloting a iron based asteroid with a hyperdrive.

So CR90B's with engine techs?