Clone Wars CGI Series

[Mike DiCenso]

What was the nature of the crash?

Plot device. ;-)

Either way, for it to survive even in that state shows pretty good engineering.

Without the video to view, it's tough to make comparisons.
-Mike

[l33telboi]

Another week, another episode. Didn't care much for this one, but then that's probably because everyone’s favorite Gungan was involved.

Only thing interesting in the versus debate sense was that clone armor seemed quite susceptible to corrosive acids, and the Jedi got hit with the nerf bat. Not only was Dooku actually captured (he wasn't faking, like I originally thought) but Anakin and Obi-wan was as well.

The sneak-peak for next weeks episode showed rather interesting though:

[ILikeDeathNote]

Only thing interesting in the versus debate sense was that clone armor seemed quite susceptible to corrosive acids

It's pretty interesting to see that the clone trooper shrugged it off pretty easily too. Though the planet's air was perfectly breathable (the Clone Troopers were the only ones with any kind of breathing apparatus, of course as part of their armor) but he didn't seem concerned about his armor being compromised one bit.

[2046]

As for debate reference stuff, the Republic shuttle they're in gets the crap beaten out of it after getting shot down in aerial combat. Two sub-kiloton missiles strike the shuttle at car-crash velocity if that. The result is damage to the flammable port wing in addition to engine damage, bringing down the shuttle.

(((I thought fighters were supposed to have megaton-yield weapons! I'm shocked, shocked, at the error.)))

The shuttle crash lands at low velocity, though there is a long slide-out. The wings break away but appear to remain structurally intact. The passenger compartment is split in half but both halves remain structurally intact. The pilots are killed by the impact. One passenger is lost due to restraint failure. Large pieces of debris litter the area, suggesting additional failures of the undercarriage.

All in all, not a *terrible* performance, but certainly less impressive than it could be. However, next week features one of those wee Republic cruisers hitting the ground, possibly with more impressive effect, so we'll see.

[Mike DiCenso]

Interesting screencap there showing the sub-kiloton hull impacts to the Republic cruiser as well as what looks to be.... WWII style flak bursts... Complete with little puffy black clouds, no less! All are sub-kiloton, too. No massive nuclear dedonation style explosions; heat and shockwaves, ect. It looks like something you could fly a squadron of B-17 bombers through.

All in all, not a *terrible* performance, but certainly less impressive than it could be. However, next week features one of those wee Republic cruisers hitting the ground, possibly with more impressive effect, so we'll see.

Yes, but we'll also be comparing this to Star Trek crash events like the Delta Flyer crash in "Once Upon a Time" [YOY, Season 5], as well as the crash of Tuvok and Neelix's shuttle in "Rise" [YOY, Season 3], which remained intact and at least in the case of the DF, was repaired and returned to flight not long afterwords.
-Mike

[Praeothmin]

Yes, but we'll also be comparing this to Star Trek crash events like the Delta Flyer crash in "Once Upon a Time" [YOY, Season 5], as well as the crash of a Tuvok and Neelix's shuttle in "Rise" [YOY, Season 3], which remained intact and at least in the case of the DF, was repaired and returned to flight not long afterwords.

Don't forget the crash of Voyager in the alternate timeline, which yielded an almost intact ship, as well as the crash of the Dominion ship in DS9, which was said to have survived an impact embedding it in 90 meters of stone...

[Mike DiCenso]

I know. But I was saving those two, along with the crash and slide-out of the E-D saucer section for a comparison with whatever happens with the Republic cruiser's crash in the next episode.
-Mike

[l33telboi]

Well, that was certainly one of the better spacebattles I've ever seen.

Again there are a few interesting bits of tech info that can be gained. We have an all-out capship battle inside the atmosphere, again. Munificent-class Frigates firing at Venator-class Stardestroyers, with a number of shots missing and streaking towards the surface of the planet.

A Venator jumps to hyperspace while inside the atmosphere, it's said to be extremely dangerous, but apparently also possible.

Then we have another interesting bit with a Republic Frigate (when did they change the designation?) hurtling towards a star, but managing to slingshot around it at the last minute. Yeah... slingshot around the sun in what looked like a few seconds... with the star being something like a few 100km wide when looking at the curvature… and the Frigate traveling a few times its own length per second.

Don't ask me how that all is supposed to work out.

[Mike DiCenso]

Well, that was certainly one of the better spacebattles I've ever seen.

Again there are a few interesting bits of tech info that can be gained. We have an all-out capship battle inside the atmosphere, again. Munificent-class Frigates firing at Venator-class Stardestroyers, with a number of shots missing and streaking towards the surface of the planet.

What kind of damage were the capships taking in this battle? If we aren't seening gigaton level explosions, or any serious explosion whatsoever, it goes a long way towards contradicting ICS.

A Venator jumps to hyperspace while inside the atmosphere, it's said to be extremely dangerous, but apparently also possible.

Interesting, as that would potentially contradict a number of novelization and EU material on how hyperdrive works.

Then we have another interesting bit with a Republic Frigate (when did they change the designation?) hurtling towards a star, but managing to slingshot around it at the last minute. Yeah... slingshot around the sun in what looked like a few seconds... with the star being something like a few 100km wide when looking at the curvature… and the Frigate traveling a few times its own length per second.

So with the supposed 1e23 watt shields, these vessels are scared of crashing at relatively low velocity into an ordinary star? Hmmmm....
-Mike

[l33telboi]

What kind of damage were the capships taking in this battle? If we aren't seening gigaton level explosions, or any serious explosion whatsoever, it goes a long way towards contradicting ICS.

Just so you know, the ICS doesn't claim gigatons, it claims teratons for capships and scaling would suggest ISDs are in the petaton region, if not the double-digit petaton region.

The damage seen was pretty much the same we see in the picture I provided earlier.

Interesting, as that would potentially contradict a number of novelization and EU material on how hyperdrive works.

Since then I've found two interesting bits of news:

The script described the battle over Quell as happening in space, but it was moved to the upper atmosphere for dramatic effect as the show entered preproduction. Of course, such an altitude shift creates all sorts of problems for a hyperdrive, according to established lore on how such devices operate near planets.

And:

The Resolute turns away from the volatile frigate just as the smaller ship's hyperdrives engage, rocketing away from Quell at unimaginable speeds. Yularen orders the frigate's trajectories plotted, though he knows the odds of their survival are slim -- a jump like that through a gravity well is extremely dangerous.

Both from the episode guide.

So with the supposed 1e23 watt shields, these vessels are scared of crashing at relatively low velocity into an ordinary star? Hmmmm....

It was heavily damaged, so there's no real problem there.

I just thought the whole scene and how out-of-scale it was was rather cringeworthy.

[Mike DiCenso]

The individual 200 gigaton ICS TL figure is what I was refering to. Since the planet's atmosphere was not serious disrupted as these bolts flew through it and there were no crustal plate shattering kabooms of the gigaton through petaton variety, that would be a serious contraction, regardless.

The fact that these ships are taking damage from what would be likely even sub-megaton shots is really telling.

As for the near-collision with the star, the oft-touted neutronium hull plating should have been able to shrug off that off. So either way, it looks to be another loss for ICS.
-Mike

[Mr. Oragahn]

Interesting screencap there showing the sub-kiloton hull impacts to the Republic cruiser as well as what looks to be.... WWII style flak bursts... Complete with little puffy black clouds, no less! All are sub-kiloton, too. No massive nuclear dedonation style explosions; heat and shockwaves, ect. It looks like something you could fly a squadron of B-17 bombers through.

Admittedly, are there many shows that would show nuclear firepower exchanged between ships in atmosphere, with one miss triggering a nearby blinding nuclear fireball that would mask the whole battle?

Besides, the shots that land on the armour are still partially soaked up by said armour. Although I wouldn't be surprised that it would fail against gigajoule weaponry, there's evidence shields can take much more. Once shields are down, the story is not so glorious anymore.
Of course, that flies in the face of claims that troutium imbued armour can soak up reasonable fractions of the energies the zettawatt-shields routinely endure.

[Mr. Oragahn]

A Venator jumps to hyperspace while inside the atmosphere, it's said to be extremely dangerous, but apparently also possible.

Surprising, but you bet it has to be dangerous, when even a simple nebula can force a fast CIS warship to circle it.

That said, in terms of consistency, I know the EU had a few such incidents, deemed dangerous as well, but maybe it should be time we see why they're considered dangerous?

[Mr. Oragahn]

So with the supposed 1e23 watt shields, these vessels are scared of crashing at relatively low velocity into an ordinary star? Hmmmm....
-Mike

Well, nobody would like to crash into a star, but ships with thousand g accelerations and e23 watt shielding would surely deal with such a situation with less hysteria.
Now, it all depends how luminous the star was, but in the case of our sun, it would surely be manageable. It only outputs in the e26 W region, and when you divide that over its whole surface, it's falling well under what the shield rating.
The star would need to be a blue giant to actually threaten the ship if it was flying through the photosphere.
That said, the cruisers have something more like gigatons per sec.
Padmé starship in E2:ICS, the yatch, has a 2e18 W peak shielding capacity.
A Republic Cruiser (from TPM) is more than two times longer and considerably larger. The Naboo Cruiser, AOTC, already has a peak shielding rate of 6e12 W, more than 1.4 GT/sec already!

[ILikeDeathNote]

I would imagine that there are more common sense reasons for wanting to avoid a collision with a friggin' star. There comes a point where, if nothing else, a star becomes a rather dense thing to ram into the closer you get to its center, and the seconds-later collision with the planet clearly showed that the ship could not survive a collision with a planetary surface in a flightworthy condition at that velocity (and it seems as if it was going at a slower velocity than what it had been when it nearly collided with the star.)

And once again, I repeat, since this bears repeating - common sense.