The very many questions-not-worth-their-own-thread question thread XXIII

[ELITEOFWARMAN8]

A few. What's up?

I hate it. Damn confidence intervals this...that... Meh!

 

[Dachs]

But how is it even useful? Energy delivered via lasers is most effective when concentrated, hence lasers. If the lasers are spread out they will not concentrate and thus power is wasted. Even if set to converge, the beams will only converge over a vary narrow distance and will then diverge wildly to the point that you are limiting the beam's effective range as it will miss past a certain distance.

Except that they're obviously not lasers, but laser-directed (or -generated; there's not a lot of clarity there, in part by design) plasma weapons. They are zeroed and set to converge at a certain distance, which is generally adjusted prior to combat based on various assumptions.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

'Obviously'? They are called laser cannons! Every technical manual I read also went into detail about them as being laser systems, no plasma involved. (though this was ay least a decade ago and they could habe retconned) As far as zeroed and converged, that's exactly what I am talking about - you don't do that with lasers and it would make no sense. All you would do is spread out the energy of your weapon and cause it to miss when used outside the assumed range.

Lasers aren't plasma aren't cannon and they don't work the same.

Do not mistake my excitement for anger

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Seen from above, below or at most angles other than head on or directly behind, the S Foils are a bigger bullseye than the tie fighters solar panels by virtue of being bigger. Head on and directly behing, the tie also comes out ahead by only having 2 panels versus 4 S Foils. From the side, the X Wing is also a bigger target. So no.

A trade-off for things more important than solar panels. And it looks cooler. TIE fighter, are you even trying?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

It does look so much cooler, though I was always into the Y Wing myself. I read about the E Wing in one of my technical books and I loved it but it was never in any games or the novels I read.

Edit: Really, what the hell good was the TIE Fighter?

 

[bhsup]

They all fail compared to most any fighter in Babylon 5, the new BSG cylon fighters, hell, even the Delta Flyer.

 

[Dachs]

'Obviously'? They are called laser cannons! Every technical manual I read also went into detail about them as being laser systems, no plasma involved. (though this was ay least a decade ago and they could habe retconned) As far as zeroed and converged, that's exactly what I am talking about - you don't do that with lasers and it would make no sense. All you would do is spread out the energy of your weapon and cause it to miss when used outside the assumed range.

Lasers aren't plasma aren't cannon and they don't work the same.

Do not mistake my excitement for anger

Yeah, if you just look at what they do on the screen there is no way in hell they can possibly be lasers. This has widely been recognized for a long time. If it doesn't look like a laser and it doesn't act like a laser and it isn't used like a laser, it's not a freaking laser.

I dunno if you're using Incredible Cross-Sections or something similar, but most ekphrases of the weapons referred to as "lasers" in most SW media tend to describe them in a way that precludes them from being actual lasers.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Since when do any lasers in sci fi look like lasers? None do, you don't actually see a laser in a vacuum. At all. As far as how it acts - it isn't that far off either. It really depends more on the target being hit on what effect you'd get. Things could melt or explode or anything in between. I didn't have a cross-sectioms with an X Wing actually. It was a book all about the ships and fighters and it was thick and had a ton of designs. I had a cross section books but none with an X Wing.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

I read about the E Wing in one of my technical books and I loved it but it was never in any games or the novels I read.

E-wing? Does the Rebel Alliance have a spacecraft for every letter of the alphabet?

Edit: Really, what the hell good was the TIE Fighter?

They were the basis for the vastly more awesome Interceptor and Bomber variants. So there's that.

 

[Antilogic]

I hate it. Damn confidence intervals this...that... Meh!

That's actually one of the core statistical concepts that I use on a near-weekly basis. No scientific graph is complete without them!

They all fail compared to most any fighter in Babylon 5, the new BSG cylon fighters, hell, even the Delta Flyer.

B5 fan?

 

[ace99]

Pfft...Battlestar Galactica Vipers. Good old fashioned bullets with the occasional nuclear warhead. None of this fancy lasers nonsense.

 

[Antilogic]

I really appreciated how B5 started to try and move space combat in a more... believable direction, with better accounting of momentum, ship countermeasures, and the like. The latest incarnation of Battlestar Galactica was amazing.

Side note: can anyone else tell that B5 customs was obviously written in a pre-9/11 framework?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Oh yeah! Well Star Trek shuttle craft are....


....well they are...

...lame.

 

[Gamemaster77]

What can you use a leaf blower for...other than blowing leaves?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Blowing snow, terrorizing dogs, blowing out birthday candles, simulating chain saw noises in haunted houses, launching small objects, drying paint, masking other noises.

 

[madviking]

What can you use a leaf blower for...other than blowing leaves?

Well the engine in a leaf blower can be removed from the actual thing and be used for a variety of uses since it's a pretty small but high horsepower engine.

 

[Antilogic]

Sneak up on unsuspecting small children and use it on them.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Can you turn it into a flamethrower?

 

[Dachs]

E-wing? Does the Rebel Alliance have a spacecraft for every letter of the alphabet?

No. Eventually the conceit wore off. But still:

X-wings, Y-wings, A-wings, and B-wings are all well known.

The so-called V-wing airspeeder was employed as a stopgap measure to battle the World Devastators on Mon Calamari during the reborn Emperor's campaign to destroy the galaxy.

E-wings were developed as part of the "Defender program", a New Republic rearmament initiative in the aftermath of that same campaign, designed to recoup the extremely severe losses suffered at the hands of the so-called Dark Empire. E-wings were named less because of their shape and more because of their mission: they were designed as escort starfighters to protect the new class of capital ships that made up the bulk of the rearmament program. K-wings were the complement, a heavy-bomber alternative to the Y-wing and B-wing that debuted during the Orinda campaign.

A lot of programs centered around extending the life of the basic T-65 X-wing design, but later ones improved it. There were about a zillion variations, of which the XJ and StealthX are probably the most notable.

For a time, the New Republic employed the REC Defender, a fairly esoteric design that didn't survive the Bastion Accords (the agreement that ended the Galactic Civil War). Its name bears no connection to the "Defender program", which referred to a class of superdreadnaughts (paired with Endurance-class fleet carriers) that married the best elements of the ISD and MC-80 designs.

By the time of the events of Legacy, the GA seems to have switched to a starfighter command comprised largely of CF9 Crossfires, a fairly weird design that is frankly really hard to justify so I'm not even going to try. Here's a brief ekphrasis from the Essential Guide to Warfare:

The Incom CF9 "Crossfire" was the favored starfighter of the Galactic Alliance during the Sith-Imperial War, a multi-role successor to the Rebel starfighters of earlier generations.

Designed to complement the Scythe-class cruiser, the diminutive CF9 was essentially a flying engine, with the cockpit perched above the thrusters and the main weapons carried on a wide horizontal wing across the bow. This contained a powerful brace of six proton torpedoes, while its trailing edge pivoted into a vertical strike foil to deploy the starfighter's full attack armament of four IX9 wingtip cannons. [Note that Fry does not describe them as "laser cannons".]

Due to its attack-oriented design [to put it lightly] the Crossfire wasn't as maneuverable as traditional escort starfighters or the Empire's new TIE Predator. Instead, it relied on a pair of aft-facing twin blasters operated by a rear gunner, who defended the starfighter - and any capital ships it was escorting - against attacks from astern.

Some aspects of the design proved problematic. [No kidding.] The vertical wing interrupted the pilot's field of view, and holographic attempts to erase it proved more distracting than the wing itself. The cramped rear gunner's seat also proved superfluous in dogfights. Nonetheless, pilots loved the Crossfire due to [Stockholm syndrome] the durability of its shields and armor - and because the sturdy cockpit doubled as an escape pod.

While the single-pilot CF9B was never put into production, the gunner's position was often modified for other purposes, especially by squadrons that remained loyal to Admiral Gar Stazi during the Second Rebellion.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Yeah...I looked up that up, and I have to say, what was the design bureau smoking?