a battle to end all battles

[Keon]

Well, if that's the power of a ship, why don't they use it? Seems kinda dumb not to.

[Ivan2006]

As I tried to point out to you on the old forum, the numbers given for Star Wars are completely out of whack with what the weapons actually do. That's the same point I was trying to make there.

IIRC, I said something about 40k Lance weapons being able to turn a city into a crater and you responded that SW weapons were stronger because of the energy output, which is wrong or an ISD would be able to one-shot a planet.

EDIT: Found the energy of a Heavy Laser. Not even a turbolaser.

200 gigatons (4.3x10^23 J) is the ammount of energy scientists figure was released by the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs. It is equivalent to the rest energy of 3.5 million Kg(via e=mc^2).

Edit2: and that was just me stating how ridiculous that level of power was.

Can you give me a link to the weapon powers, please? I haven't been able to find them on Wookieepedia. Remember that 7.73 x 10^26 is the power for the entire ship, not for a weapon.

Interestingly, acording to Wookiepedia, an ISD doesn´t have a single laser weapon, just Turbolasers, which are actually glorified, false-named Plasma cannons and Ion cannons, which are supposed to short-circuit enemy electronics.

[Avenger_7]

As I tried to point out to you on the old forum, the numbers given for Star Wars are completely out of whack with what the weapons actually do. That's the same point I was trying to make there.

IIRC, I said something about 40k Lance weapons being able to turn a city into a crater and you responded that SW weapons were stronger because of the energy output, which is wrong or an ISD would be able to one-shot a planet.

EDIT: Found the energy of a Heavy Laser. Not even a turbolaser.

200 gigatons (4.3x10^23 J) is the ammount of energy scientists figure was released by the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs. It is equivalent to the rest energy of 3.5 million Kg(via e=mc^2).

Edit2: and that was just me stating how ridiculous that level of power was.

Can you give me a link to the weapon powers, please? I haven't been able to find them on Wookieepedia. Remember that 7.73 x 10^26 is the power for the entire ship, not for a weapon.

That's the number YOU gave me...

EDIT: Found the source! Star Wars: Incredible Cross Sections - mention 200 gigaton turbolasers and 70 trillion gigawatt shield dissipation.

Edit2: Apparently, if you calculate the shield strength of an ISD as it can be shown in the movies, it comes out to 400 gigatons, which would require average turbolaser yield in the tens of megatons for consistency. Still nothing to sneeze at, but not world ending by any means. For the record, this indicates that the Imperium of Man and the Galactic Empire are on equal terms technology wise, but the Imperium has far superior manufacturing capabilities.

[Chairman_Tiel]

Are we seriously comparing Star Wars and Warhammer 40k again?

The latter is ridiculously overpowered for the sole sake of being ridiculously overpowered; there's no genuine contest.

[Ivan2006]

Well, it would definetly be more interesting to compare 40k with LJSI, as they are somehow equal in power...

[Avenger_7]

Although you can say the same thing about both of them...

...You are 100% correct, Tiel.

[҉]

Interestingly, acording to Wookiepedia, an ISD doesn´t have a single laser weapon, just Turbolasers, which are actually glorified, false-named Plasma cannons and Ion cannons, which are supposed to short-circuit enemy electronics.

I'm pretty sure they've got a couple of point-defense lasers too, although I could be wrong. It'd be a bit odd if they didn't; nearly all large ships have at least a few. Turbolasers are the primary weapons for most ships in Star Wars. The term refers to both laser and blaster weapons, though. I don't think I've ever seen an ion cannon called a turbo laser.

Well, if that's the power of a ship, why don't they use it? Seems kinda dumb not to.

There are a lot of things on a twenty-kilometer ship that need power. It would kinda suck if, for example, life support turned off every time you fired the cannons. A large part of that power will be directed to weapons, but lots of it has to go to other stuff. Equally important is that that large part of the power has to go to thousands of weapons. IIRC, Executor has something like fifteen thousand weapons batteries. Each individually isn't that powerful. Now, the Death Star had one big weapon, and that could kill a planet. The Death Star is an order of magnitude more powerful than Executor, though.

EDIT: Found the source! Star Wars: Incredible Cross Sections - mention 200 gigaton turbolasers and 70 trillion gigawatt shield dissipation.

Edit2: Apparently, if you calculate the shield strength of an ISD as it can be shown in the movies, it comes out to 400 gigatons, which would require average turbolaser yield in the tens of megatons for consistency. Still nothing to sneeze at, but not world ending by any means. For the record, this indicates that the Imperium of Man and the Galactic Empire are on equal terms technology wise, but the Imperium has far superior manufacturing capabilities.

Alright. I've got Incredible Cross-Sections at home, so I'll be able to look at it in a few hours. I'll get back to you on that.

How are you supposed to calculate ImpStar shields from the movies? I don't think they ever say anything about how strong they are.

[Avenger_7]

How are you supposed to calculate ImpStar shields from the movies? I don't think they ever say anything about how strong they are.

I believe it comes from the Battle of Endor scene and a stated time and shield percentage from the asteroid scene in TESB, calculated by impact velocity and number of asteroid hits taken by an ISD.

[Ivan2006]

Executor?
I thought we were talking about 1.6km ISDs? Because it´s them with the nigh number of power.
And actually, I think they use XX-9s as point-defense...

[҉]

Executor?
I thought we were talking about 1.6km ISDs? Because it´s them with the nigh number of power.
And actually, I think they use XX-9s as point-defense...

We're talking about both. 7.73 x 10^26 W is from Executor. I don't know the specific numbers for ISDs. The calculations of shield strength Avenger is talking about is for an ISD.

ISDs and Executor should both have point-defense lasers. Like I said, pretty much all warships do. They may not be specifically labeled as such, though.


Avenger, it seems like it would be difficult to get good numbers from that. You'd have to know the velocity and mass of all the asteroids, and be sure that you see all the ones that hit. You would at the very least have an extremely high rate of error. It's good for a guesstimate, I suppose.

[Ivan2006]

There were entire planets that, throughout their history, did not expend as much power as an Imperial-class ship did in one hyperspace jump.[18] The hyperspace generator was located along the ship's ventral surface.[23] A massive solar ionization reactor bulged from the ventral spine, annihilating hypermatter as fuel to power the ship. Auxiliary reactors flanked the main reactor and the three reactors were connected to the three main engines. In addition, the backup engines were connected to additional reactors as well.[22]

[҉]

There were entire planets that, throughout their history, did not expend as much power as an Imperial-class ship did in one hyperspace jump.[18] The hyperspace generator was located along the ship's ventral surface.[23] A massive solar ionization reactor bulged from the ventral spine, annihilating hypermatter as fuel to power the ship. Auxiliary reactors flanked the main reactor and the three reactors were connected to the three main engines. In addition, the backup engines were connected to additional reactors as well.[22]

That doesn't mean anything. There are lots more planets that never expend any power at all, because they aren't colonized. But the point remains, that hypermatter reactors take a ton of power. I mentioned in an earlier post that it takes a ridiculous amount of energy to jump a ship the size of Executor to hyperspace, and that applied to ImpStars too, although not as much. Their peak power is about 7.73 x 10^23, a thousandth of Executor's.

[Keon]

Okay, so how many ISD's does it take to kill a planet? A bunch.

How many overloaded/unshielded/just open and blazing with the light of a few suns right in low orbit/ ISD hypermatter reactors would it take to kill a planet? Less than one.

[҉]

Okay, so how many ISD's does it take to kill a planet? A bunch.

How many overloaded/unshielded/just open and blazing with the light of a few suns right in low orbit/ ISD hypermatter reactors would it take to kill a planet? Less than one.

Not quite. A hypermatter reactor is capable of producing that much energy, but they don't release nearly that much into normal space when they fail because a lot of it goes back into hyperspace. That's why ImpStars don't kill entire fleets when they blow up. It's still a hell of an explosion, especially when using nonstandard reactors (as the crew of the Battle Lance would testify, if they still had multiple atoms stuck together), but it's not a supernova.

[Ivan2006]

Okay, so how many ISD's does it take to kill a planet? A bunch.

How many overloaded/unshielded/just open and blazing with the light of a few suns right in low orbit/ ISD hypermatter reactors would it take to kill a planet? Less than one.

Not quite. A hypermatter reactor is capable of producing that much energy, but they don't release nearly that much into normal space when they fail because a lot of it goes back into hyperspace. That's why ImpStars don't kill entire fleets when they blow up. It's still a hell of an explosion, especially when using nonstandard reactors (as the crew of the Battle Lance would testify, if they still had multiple atoms stuck together), but it's not a supernova.

According to Wikipedia, to destroy an earth-sized planet, about 2x10^32 Joules are required.
It would still take months for an Executor´s generator to produce the power required to shatter a planet.
Assuming no other energy consumption or power losses during storage as well as a 100% effectivity when turning electric energy into ray energy to create the blast that shoots the planet.