SB.com ICS thread

[Mr. Oragahn]

All depends if they can pressurize it. One could imagine that under critical needs, they could jam the line, plus fill the side hangars as well.

They probably could if they needed to.

Well then there's not much debate.

Please notice that those particular Y-wings are very lengthy. Even gunships aren't so long, and the Eta are very very small, so you can park them more easily. Notice, on the ICS, the chainsaw pattern parking _-_-_-_-_-_ instead of ---------- (seen from above, north: hangar window, south: back wall).

As I also said, there's plenty of room and racks up there to store fighters above the others.
Plus the docking ports on the side which, both on the ICS and in the
show, are other hangars (on the ICS, you can notice the typical walls of a hangar as you find them on ISDs and the Death Stars).

What puzzles me is that ventral bay. On the ICS, it seems to lead to the flight deck, but we don't see any evidence that it's a hatch, and not just the artist cutting a hole here for the cross section's purpose. I watched the episodes and I can't spot evidence of a hatch on the floor, at the back of the flight deck.

That ventral bay could actually lead to other small hangars as well.

I don't find it impossible that a Venator could carry hundreds of fighters.

[Jedi Master Spock]

All depends if they can pressurize it. One could imagine that under critical needs, they could jam the line, plus fill the side hangars as well.

They probably could if they needed to.

Well then there's not much debate.

Please notice that those particular Y-wings are very lengthy. Even gunships aren't so long, and the Eta are very very small, so you can park them more easily. Notice, on the ICS, the chainsaw pattern parking _-_-_-_-_-_ instead of ---------- (seen from above, north: hangar window, south: back wall).

As I also said, there's plenty of room and racks up there to store fighters above the others.
Plus the docking ports on the side which, both on the ICS and in the
show, are other hangars (on the ICS, you can notice the typical walls of a hangar as you find them on ISDs and the Death Stars).

What puzzles me is that ventral bay. On the ICS, it seems to lead to the flight deck, but we don't see any evidence that it's a hatch, and not just the artist cutting a hole here for the cross section's purpose. I watched the episodes and I can't spot evidence of a hatch on the floor, at the back of the flight deck.

That ventral bay could actually lead to other small hangars as well.

I don't find it impossible that a Venator could carry hundreds of fighters.

There IS quite a bit of room for debate.

See, the Venator's physical structure allows for theoretically carrying up to 400-odd light craft on the flight deck and in the hangars - but that's not all a carrier does. Hypothetically, if you had VTOL craft, you could literally pack the surface of a Nimitz with many more aircraft, and then have the hangars full as well - but the question we are concerned with the most is not hypothetical capability, but actual practice.

A Galaxy class ship can hypothetically carry 20,000 troops and pack thousands of photon torpedoes into its cargo hold. There's no canonical room for dispute about this theoretical capacity.

However, what the T-canon and G-canon are showing us is not a typical deployment of 460 light craft by a Republic attack cruiser. Shadow of Malevolence[/url] gives us no more than one fighter per hangar, with none stored on the flight deck, in an actual deployment. We don't see them deploying fighters much, let alone by the hundreds.

Moreover, within the C-canon, there's a serious clone supply issue (thanks to Karen Traviss et al) and again, we rarely if ever see that number of fighters deployed.

What the T-canon and G-canon strongly point to - and, for that matter, what even the C-canon illustration in the ICS itself shows - is that while the Venator may have a theoretical maximum mission capacity of 460 light craft (assorted), its actual support capability is such that it generally carries only a few squadrons, doesn't stack them in overhead racks - instead putting perhaps 1 large fighter or Larty in a hangar, or a couple small fighters.

Another minor issue coming up in the SB.com thread, which I think is worth repeating a few things about:

Actually, nothing in the movies suggests the Y-Wings are bombers.

No, I'm saying you're making that claim up. There's no evidence that Lucas based his conception of Y-Wings and such off RL naval bombers.

I see Vespasian (SDN resident whom I debated on ST.com, IIRC) still has a poor grasp of the G level canon. He doesn't seem to notice that at Yavin, the heavier two-man Y-Wings were assigned the job of torpedoing the shaft, while the lighter, faster, nimbler X-Wings (with more guns) were assigned to escort them - clearly marking, in 1977, the Y-Wing as a bomber and the X-Wing as a fighter.

As far as basing his concepts on RL fighters, I have always felt that the Y-Wing's nacelle-based design was inspired by Star Trek. However, Lucas has always paid homage to the fighters of old. See the Star Wars P-38 for an example from ROTS. See interviews with Lucas to learn about the movie "The Dam Busters" which inspired the original trench run.

Regarding Lucas and WWII, we might note that Lucas has reportedly wanted to make a WWII film for a long time, and the Indiana Jones films focus on Nazis, of course. Within Star Wars, Darth Vader bears a powerful resemblance to Herman Göring - and Chancellor Palpatine's rise has sharp similarites to Hitler. And before Lucas's white-clad physical comedy crew took the stage, "stormtrooper" referred to Nazis.

[Mr. Oragahn]

There IS quite a bit of room for debate.

See, the Venator's physical structure allows for theoretically carrying up to 400-odd light craft on the flight deck and in the hangars - but that's not all a carrier does. Hypothetically, if you had VTOL craft, you could literally pack the surface of a Nimitz with many more aircraft, and then have the hangars full as well - but the question we are concerned with the most is not hypothetical capability, but actual practice.

A Galaxy class ship can hypothetically carry 20,000 troops and pack thousands of photon torpedoes into its cargo hold. There's no canonical room for dispute about this theoretical capacity.

However, what the T-canon and G-canon are showing us is not a typical deployment of 460 light craft by a Republic attack cruiser. Shadow of Malevolence[/url] gives us no more than one fighter per hangar, with none stored on the flight deck, in an actual deployment. We don't see them deploying fighters much, let alone by the hundreds.

Moreover, within the C-canon, there's a serious clone supply issue (thanks to Karen Traviss et al) and again, we rarely if ever see that number of fighters deployed.

What the T-canon and G-canon strongly point to - and, for that matter, what even the C-canon illustration in the ICS itself shows - is that while the Venator may have a theoretical maximum mission capacity of 460 light craft (assorted), its actual support capability is such that it generally carries only a few squadrons, doesn't stack them in overhead racks - instead putting perhaps 1 large fighter or Larty in a hangar, or a couple small fighters.

Clearly, it would be a mess to move all those ships around, and it's absolutely not practical at all. The flight deck clear would be a minimum requirement.

[Jedi Master Spock]

Clearly, it would be a mess to move all those ships around, and it's absolutely not practical at all. The flight deck clear would be a minimum requirement.

For a "typical" deployment at least.

And when you calculate for that, well, we might be able to fit about a third of the listed ICS complement.

Might be able to fit, for example, the 40 Larties plus the 36 ARCs, averaging almost two per hangar. Or 192 V-wings, by cramming about four per hangar. Or 192 Jedi interceptors. That's packing them in the hangars.

More realistically - i.e., as we actually see in illustrations and onscreen - we have half the density in a hangar, to give you room around the small craft. Hangars in Star Wars are generally spacious. So count: 12 ARCs in their own hangars, 12 LAATs in their own hangars, a couple hangars for shuttles, 24 V-Wings packed two to a hangar, and 24 interceptors packed two to a hangar would add up to 50 hangars.

That's six squadrons of armed small craft, coincidentally the same number generally ascribed to ISDs in the EU. We see 22 hangars on the side we can count, so 50 is a pretty generous count... and if we believe the EU talk about 72 TIEs per ISD, the Venator doesn't seem much more of an aviation cruiser than the Imperator.

[Jedi Master Spock]

OK, I was going to finally leave off the commentary, and then you two started talking about blaster bolts. And you're both getting some things wrong.

One. A sub-light glowy bolts would pretty much have to be material in some fashion. Maybe it's a self-contained tibanna packet with next to no mass, but it should be something physical.

Two. Even photons "drop" in a gravity field. Basic principle to bear in mind: Uniform acceleration and a uniform gravitational field behave very similarly. If you had photons magically tucked in a spiral ala ICS, and that spiral moved forward at a net 100 m/s, it would drop accordingly.

Which brings us to three. The only way to have slow-moving bolts not drop in atmosphere is if they somehow have lift associated with them. Things that have effective lift in atmosphere include aerofoils, repulsorlifts, and helium balloons.

Personally, I prefer to take the visuals with a grain of salt regarding bolt speed, for reasons I've discussed before...

[Mr. Oragahn]

OK, I was going to finally leave off the commentary, and then you two started talking about blaster bolts. And you're both getting some things wrong.

One. A sub-light glowy bolts would pretty much have to be material in some fashion. Maybe it's a self-contained tibanna packet with next to no mass, but it should be something physical.

Two. Even photons "drop" in a gravity field. Basic principle to bear in mind: Uniform acceleration and a uniform gravitational field behave very similarly. If you had photons magically tucked in a spiral ala ICS, and that spiral moved forward at a net 100 m/s, it would drop accordingly.

Which brings us to three. The only way to have slow-moving bolts not drop in atmosphere is if they somehow have lift associated with them. Things that have effective lift in atmosphere include aerofoils, repulsorlifts, and helium balloons.

Personally, I prefer to take the visuals with a grain of salt regarding bolt speed, for reasons I've discussed before...

I don't recall denying the lack of effect of gravity on bolts.
There's nothing to really explain here, since it requires a massive use of technobabble.
Favourites are:

1. Tibanna gas' antigravity properties when properly managed. It appears that one of the artworks for the initial Lambda shuttle indicated the presence of tibanna in the central fin for stabilization purposes. Science: total BS.

2. All guns use an offshot of repulsorlift tech and manage to charge bolts with anti gravity properties (borrow the EU's explanation as to how repulsorlifts are created). Science: BS.

But globally, merged together, they'd sorta "work".
It's still better than anything else imho, and in fact could even be expanded upon to "explain" how flak bursts stop in space.

Note that as far as I'm concerned, gravity has not been a part of my own arguments with Vympel, and Vympel also thinks bolts contain matter.

[l33telboi]

Note that as far as I'm concerned, gravity has not been a part of my own arguments with Vympel, and Vympel also thinks bolts contain matter.

No, he specifically argued that they contain no matter of any kind just now.

...And SB seems to be down again. What's with that place lately?

[Mr. Oragahn]

Note that as far as I'm concerned, gravity has not been a part of my own arguments with Vympel, and Vympel also thinks bolts contain matter.

No, he specifically argued that they contain no matter of any kind just now.

To say the least, actually understanding his position on this has been more than complicated.
I recall him saying he didn't believe bolts were massless:

1:

You said that the blaster fires a massless beam. A massless particle must travel at the speed of light. Since blaster bolts don't, they cannot be massless.

And you bring up this utterly irrelevant nitpick to a throaway comment in another thread here ... why? Did I claim that blaster bolts travelled at c here? Or anywhere else? Blaster behavior is bizarre and virtually unexplainable without some sort of exotic proposition as it is. Congratulations, you're a decade late and are discussing one of the biggest hair-pullers in SW in an unrelated thread.

Yet you bring "exotic propositions", he scoffs at them and deem them unacceptable, stupid, ridiculous and so on so forth.

2:

Accusing you of "setting up a false dilemma between photons and gas", strongly implying that he'd rather pick something else, possibly between the two (what about the galvened particles from the novelization?), likely aiming towards a composite phenomenon (which mirrors what he said by "composite phenommena" posts earlier in that thread).
Yet, he restates that the bolts' "mass is such that they're obviously and indisputably unaffected by normal gravity," only to follow with the precision that "[even] massless doesn't mean completely unaffected by gravity, you know."
I love how he continually brags about his superior stance on terms of science compatibility, and back then, went on arguing that bolts are even less affected by gravity than photons. :|
Which incidentally would require even more energy to generate, in order to deal damage to ships and shields. Here come the yottaton cannons on ISDs.
At which point you realize that the people in SW would be so stuck in a dogma of massive waste of energy that would be so laughable, you could not ever imagine the designers ever reconsidering railguns/coilguns as primary weapons.

Best lines being:

"It's just that simple. It was never my argument that the bolts simply do not contain gaseous matter."
"To make something clear - I don't think they're lightspeed weapons. I just think there's an invisible portion of the bolt that for some reason, sometimes outrun the visible portion and causes damage prior. That doesn't mean it's moving at c.", but goes on quoting sources such as:
SWTC: "Blasters fire intense pulses of focused light, combined with packets of accelerated high-energy particles."
NEGTW: "A blaster fires a concentrated beam of high-energy particles."
EGWT: "The most common sidearm is the high-energy laser/particle beam weapon commonly called a blaster. The excited gas passes into the actuating blaster module, where it is processed into a beam comprised of intense energy coupled with light."
"The cannon's laser actuator combines high-energy blaster gas with a large power charge.
The actuator's prismatic crystal produces the high-energy beam of charged particles coupled with light."

All quotes pointing to a composite beam of light AND matter, and of course, involving such elements, they would obviously be more subject to gravity than photons only, not less.

I think that he actually gets lost in his own beliefs, and as erratic and fluctual as they are, he doesn't seem to maintain a cohesive opinion on what makes bolts.

...And SB seems to be down again. What's with that place lately?

The server might be overcrowded. I wonder how much they pay per month, but they may likely have a cap on what they can upload per month, and I know providers tend to deliberately cut access to servers without even warning you when they feel you over taxed their abilities.

That or there's been some maintaining problems.
Right now it seems to be back, but there clearly are times when the server lags.

Still, we have to be grateful for the fact that we're given an opportunity to talk freely without having to pay for the server.

[Mr. Oragahn]

I'd like to point out that bolts can deal damage to fighters and cargos through shields.

- Millennium Falcon suffering internal damage by TIE strafing (although this could be due to a surge due to bad mechanics).
- The droidekas Anakin are shooting require very little firepower to get downed, considering the missing bolts that do very little to surrounding walls and crates. More importantly, when the droidekas are directly hit, they start to explode while their shield is still up!
- Anakin's fighter's starboard wing gets hit twice within a second, yet there's no difference to observe between the first and second impact. Anakin looses control of the ship, yet is able to put shields up again later on, in the hangar.
- Luke's X-wing, apparently endangered by flying through a "large" fireball, hit by one bolt in a series of three (the other two miss), hull burnt and some piece near Artoo is burning), yet shields are still working as Luke will be hit again by two bolts fired by Vader.
- Obi-Wan's fighter hit multiple times, yet ALL impacts show the same degree of damage.

The EU in general would have you believe that when shields are down, they're down for good, and that no bolt goes through as long as they're up.

It's rather clear that shields do let a given amount of energy permeate if they are overwhelmed.

As a side note, Vympel ranting about people's concerns regarding the lack of ballistics for solid shells is embarrassing.

[Jedi Master Spock]

Apparently Vespasian has been reading here. Although not carefully:

Oh, and before you go, tell JMSpock he needs to rewatch ANH if he thinks the Y-Wings making a trench run (which the X-Wings totally never attempted) proves they're bombers. Thanks, appreciate it.

Which were assigned the primary attack run, and which were riding escort and trying to prevent enemy guns (and fighters) from downing the others?

The Y-Wing is more of a bomber, and less of a fighter. Both are multi-role, of course, but the distinction was crystal clear in ANH - it's no wonder that every single EU source following up on the movies has made the same classification, from picturebooks (VD, ICS, EGVV) to fiction (Thrawn trilogy) to computer games (X-Wing series) to tabletop games (SWCC, SWRPG).

I also eagerly await Vespasian's demonstration that the P-38 in ROTS wasn't inspired by a RL WWII fighter. Let me know if he ever makes a credible argument to that effect, because I will want to read it.

[Jedi Master Spock]

I find it very interesting what CommanderRazor is doing.

But there's just one tiiiiiny thing I should comment on, in case anyone is fooled by the inclusion of an actual number:

Actually if a bolt was "pure light", since it moves at c, in a normal gravity well the effects would be immeasurably small, and therefore, not readily observable. You're talking about drops of 0.04 of a nanometer over a kilometre of travel or thereabouts IIRC.

Hang on. So the ICS model for a photon beam is that the light is traveling in a spiral path, hence the low propagation speed.

Now, yes, photons "drop" (bend is the usual term) very slowly in gravity compared to how fast they go, but if each photon is spiraling enough to propagate forward at a net km/s, it's going to tuck 3 kilometers of path length in every centimeter the bolt moves forward, something Vympel seems not to be understanding here.

Basically speaking? Add it all together, and the photon-swirl blaster bolt "drops" at something that looks suspiciously like g. A little physics comprehension, for the record.

[Mith]

I find it very interesting what CommanderRazor is doing.

I find it a rather good solution. Putting this more into effect would cut down on the massive amounts of bickering and flamming that naturally occurs and actually forces both sides to present real arguments rather than just usint strawmans other tricks to avoid answering, as Leo1 saw would happen when he didn't properly address the challenge; he lost.

[Mr. Oragahn]

I find it very interesting what CommanderRazor is doing.

I find it a rather good solution. Putting this more into effect would cut down on the massive amounts of bickering and flamming that naturally occurs and actually forces both sides to present real arguments rather than just usint strawmans other tricks to avoid answering, as Leo1 saw would happen when he didn't properly address the challenge; he lost.

True, this methodology has more advantages than drawbacks. I actually did employ it beforehand, against Leo1, in a previous lengthy debate about flak bursts and firepower.
All in all, it's effective if only to provide a concise view on one particular argument.

Now, as far as I am concerned, I'm still waiting for Leo1 to consider the points I made about the various displays of firepower (including the missing shots at Hoth and the destruction of a generator feeding a shield supposedly powerful enough to repel a fleet yet goes down in a megaton firework), the overwhelming evidence of FLAK, including the LAAT's destruction and the presence of explosions far from the LAAT, after it has deployed the Jedi and some clones (Leo1 claims that the shields were down, and I also asked him why they'd need to be, just to know), the Death Star's reactor output considering we know, from the latest EU, how it works, and how it didn't threaten Yavin IV when it exploded despite the limited defenses present on Yavin IV (theater shield claimed by Saxton, pardon, the Complete Locations), and finally the whole very interesting point about escape velocity and repulsors, which was in its infancy at this point.

But first I have to address TC Pilot/Lord Vespasian's fallacy about the Endor shield.

[Mith]

Last time on Spacebattles: ICS Wars!

With the combined might of l33tboli, Mr. Oragahn, Mith, and local veterans, the officers were able to finally pin down the nefarious Point45 to a single position. After days of bombarding the thick skull of Point, Moderator Commander Razor finally put one between the n00b's eyes, putting an end to his reign of stupidity!

Sorry, I've been watching too much Clone Wars. In any case, thus far it seems that all the major players for SW dropped out by mid-part 2 and Point 45 was banned for his usual crimes in the beginning of part 3.

Thus far, the thread is up to 56. For anyone who ceased to follow along, here are the links:

Part 1
http://forum.spacebattles.com/showthread.php?t=140646

Part 2
http://forum.spacebattles.com/showthread.php?t=142073

[Jedi Master Spock]

Towards the end of thread 2 it was getting to the point where I wasn't willing to give the arguments a fair read-through. Too high a ratio of noise to signal. I will say, though, Mith - I think you've gotten a bit better at the VS debate stuff in the past year.

The banning of Point45 leaves me slightly blinking; by the time CommanderRazor acted, nothing had changed for a while, and the rest of you were flaming back at him in full measure, insult for insult. Granted, he is still very bad at debate (I debated Point45 for some time on ST.com) so it was probably justified by the codex of SB.com debate-specific rules in addition to traditional "flaming" rules.

I'm not sure, but while watching the latest ICS threads, I think SB.com moderation might have become a little less biased regarding ICS threads. I was amazed to see the discussion not locked down.