Fuel Shortages In Star Wars = Death Stars?

[359]

I'd have to check out the densisty of protons that could be theoretically caught by a panel at various angles (maybe they cast some field - it would perhaps combine well with theories of minimal shielding on TIEs) and see if enough matter can be collected to be used in, say, fusion engines.

TIEs are confirmed to have no shielding in REB: "Fighter Flight".

[Mr. Oragahn]

I'd have to check out the densisty of protons that could be theoretically caught by a panel at various angles (maybe they cast some field - it would perhaps combine well with theories of minimal shielding on TIEs) and see if enough matter can be collected to be used in, say, fusion engines.

TIEs are confirmed to have no shielding in REB: "Fighter Flight".

OK, the EU got the upper hand here. Well thinking of it, shielding would have been deflecting... a bit counter intuitive to the idea of a collecting system. Not a loss I'd say.

[Lucky]

I base my numbers on 100% efficiency and all EMR assimilated, and they still don't sell the idea at all. The output is stupidly low.
T.I.E fighters ought to be more powerful than a Bugatti Veyron. Do you know how much power this car's engine can output?
If anything, if treated as solar panels, these large black-mesh appendages simply hinder the ship's performances in all possible ways.
Therefore there's nothing to deal with other than it simply does not work.

It's better to consider that solar panel has an entire different meaning in SW. A colloquial term, that's all.

Here, let's try another idea
Those panels are scooping solar winds, particularly their protons, somehow to be used in the ion engines.
There, the "solar panel" brainbug might be cracked.

I'd have to check out the densisty of protons that could be theoretically caught by a panel at various angles (maybe they cast some field - it would perhaps combine well with theories of minimal shielding on TIEs) and see if enough matter can be collected to be used in, say, fusion engines.

1) Let's take this line of logic to a logical extreme. YOu are also claiming that a T.I.E. Fighters can't fly because as far as we know, anti-gravity is impossible.

Just because "SCIENCE SAYS SO" is not a justifiable argument in this hobby when the source material says otherwise. Star Wars isn't the only setting to get outputs that require greater then 100% efficiencies from solar panels.

Republic Police Gun Ships, and T.I.E series fighters use solar gathering panels to help power the craft, and there is no ifs, ands, or buts about it. If this sort of thing really bothers you then I suggest you stay away from fiction as this sort of thing happens a lot.

2) I'm fairly certain that your idea of the panels somehow collecting particles for reaction mass won't add up any better then solar panels would. Propulsion in for starships in Star Wars, like a large amount of Sci-Fi is effectively magic.

[Lucky]

The issue in this case is not efficiency so much as total power generated. The amount of power a solar array will generate is proportional to how close you are to the nearest star. On a TIE fighter, even with an optimal angle, you're looking at a maximum of about 10 kW of power at 100% efficiency and the same light level as Earth. Put simply that is very little power for a flying star fighter.

I doubt internal combustion engines have the power to weight ratio a T.I.E. needs

The smallest fusion reactor design I know of that is being built is the size of a shipping container, the kind of thing you see 18 wheelers pulling. If the reactor needs to be at least the size of a shipping container then T.I.E. can't be use fusion, and fission is likely out do to real world limitation. Again the power to weight ratio is wrong, and I'm sure there's a container ship worth of other issues for why real world fusion/fission isn't an option.
(I guess Luke didn't use a fusion reactor to recharge R2-D2 on Dagobah because the reactor would be too small to work, and there would be no room for fuel.)

No matter how you cut the numbers don't add up properly, and you are assuming you know better then people in the setting. You're ignoring on screen evidence because science, and that just isn't honest. You are doing what you say people like Brian Young does.

Star Wars is a soft Sci-Fi setting, and so soft you could change it to pure fantasy without changing the plot, but that means that the writers of Star Wars don't really care what real world limitations a given technology they talk about. They could say T.I.E. Fighters are powered by hamsters running on wheels like the Enterprise-D is stated to be, and it would tell us just as much.

It also proved that a couple ships could take out the behemoth anyway; thus such ships easily become a waste of resources.

1) This is basically 100% wrong. Anikin failed in his mission, and even with his ass pull and even with the force on his side(read PIS) he and Obi-Won's fleet only managed to send the Malevolence back to dry-dock for repairs and up-grades.

Three Republic ships did not take down a damaged Malevolence. Obi-Won goes so far as to say that his three Republic Attack Cruisers are basically unable to do enough damage because it was just too big, and even the extremely lucky shot by the Y-Wings only caused the Malevolence to scrap the mission and head by to dry-dock for repairs

The Republic had PIS on their side when it came to the Malevolence's fighter screen. The CIS didn't give the Malevolence the number of Vulture Driods it could have had if not should have had, and Grievous took out his own fighter screen.

In order to exploit the weakness on the ion cannon you need to first get past the fighter screen and the anti-aerospace guns, get your fighter into a crevice barely large enough for even the tiniest fighter to fit, and then time your torpedos to hit just as the ion cannon is firing, but after a short stint in dry-dock this weakness would likely be removed with some minor modifications to the hull and shields.

In order to exploit the bridge tower weakness, you need to get past the fighter screen with enough fighters in tect, get past the AA guns, and then have all the fighters fire in rapid sucsession, and even if you succeeed, you've only killed the command crew, and the ship is still nearly perfect operating condition..

In order to exploit the airlock you need to have already done a size able amount of damage, and removed the fighters.
(Oddly, it seems that this is a relatively common flaw given Obi-Won and Anikin expected it to work.)

If you need to board the enemy ship, and crash it into a planet, and only succeed do to favorable bouts of PIS then design is rather solid as by your standard every other design is even worse.

Build a large enough ship, and it will dominate space combat no matter how flawed simply because it is so large.

2) The Malevolence's design was flawed, and could have been easily improved, but the weapons and tactics worked well even with the flaws.

In Germany there was a severe economic depression following WWI, but there was no significant lack of resources as they were still able to rebuild their military for WWII. And with Japan, if I remember correctly, it was more for political reasons than economic, but I'm not to familiar with the Pacific theater in WWII.

Japan is a relatively small and resource poor island nation.

Germany was invading many areas do to the resources in the areas

I was more referring to the United States during the war which implemented ration systems. As almost the entire economy was devoted to war making, hence the term Total War, there were significant resource shortages felt by the general public. Such rationed items included: sugar, oil, metal, meat, cloth, rubber, and several others.

So while there are resource shortages they are introduced by a state of Total War, not due to the lack of sufficient resources to support the population. As an analogy, power was diverted from life support to shields.

The Republic was fielding an army measured in the low millions with ill trained and supplied planetary defense forces that stay on a given planet if that., and before the clones they only had the P.D.F. The Republic was nowhere near total war footing

Perhaps the fuel they use requires materials not found on all planets, or perhaps Malastare can just produce much more. And again, its positioning in the outer rim is probably a large benefit due to its positioning. It could possibly be close or closer to systems which lack fuel production. There are many explanations more likely than the whole Republic is running out of fuel.

That would put some rather odd requirement for their reactors as the fuel is just pumped out of the ground. The useful thing about fusion in the real world is that you just need hydrogen, and hydrogen is common

[359]

No matter how you cut the numbers don't add up properly, and you are assuming you know better then people in the setting. You're ignoring on screen evidence because science, and that just isn't honest. You are doing what you say people like Brian Young does.

Excuse me!? I am ignoring nothing in the canon. Primary due to the fact that those things being solar panels has not been established in the canon. Unless of course that database you linked to is canon.

1) This is basically 100% wrong. Anikin failed in his mission, and even with his ass pull and even with the force on his side(read PIS) he and Obi-Won's fleet only managed to send the Malevolence back to dry-dock for repairs and up-grades.

Given the fact that 10 star fighters did that much damage It clearly can be done. Which in turn shows how vulnerable such ships can still be. Even the Executor was taken down by star fighters. Now it's not terribly likely in either case, but it was considered to be a good enough plan with a fair chance of the clones being able to pull it off. The only doubt was if they had enough fighters to absorb losses. It seemed like they wouldn't be too worried if they just had another five or ten.

This is a common theme throughout Star Wars, how important single people are in these vast civilizations and engagements. The small starfighter taking down the giant Deathstar.

Japan is a relatively small and resource poor island nation.

Germany was invading many areas do to the resources in the areas

Yes, that's called strategic planning. But the reason for war was another thing entirely. I mean sure, essentially all conflicts come down to control over resources, but in this situation it is far more complex than they simply didn't have enough resources.

The Republic was fielding an army measured in the low millions with ill trained and supplied planetary defense forces that stay on a given planet if that., and before the clones they only had the P.D.F. The Republic was nowhere near total war footing

Actually in the episode TCW: "Pursuit of Peace" we hear how the Republic is devoting all its resources to the war effort at the cost of providing for domestic needs. This is the definition of total war. Sure, this shouldn't be so much of an expenditure, but we also hear about before the war. Before the war there weren't so many cases of loss of basic utilities. So while the republic's economy is probably by no means strong, it isn't too weak to function normally either.

That would put some rather odd requirement for their reactors as the fuel is just pumped out of the ground. The useful thing about fusion in the real world is that you just need hydrogen, and hydrogen is common

Well, that's what the canon shows us so the realism is irrelevant.

[Lucky]

Excuse me!? I am ignoring nothing in the canon. Primary due to the fact that those things being solar panels has not been established in the canon. Unless of course that database you linked to is canon.

1) The scripts for the OT state they are solar panels.

2) We aren't talking about a fan site like Wookiepedia. Starwars.com is the official Star Wars web site, and is owned and run by the owners of the property. If there is some source to contradict the information I will take that into consideration, but there is nothing to contradict the information, and if it is wrong it should be rather easy for Disney to correct it.

Given the fact that 10 star fighters did that much damage It clearly can be done. Which in turn shows how vulnerable such ships can still be. Even the Executor was taken down by star fighters. Now it's not terribly likely in either case, but it was considered to be a good enough plan with a fair chance of the clones being able to pull it off. The only doubt was if they had enough fighters to absorb losses. It seemed like they wouldn't be too worried if they just had another five or ten.

This is a common theme throughout Star Wars, how important single people are in these vast civilizations and engagements. The small starfighter taking down the giant Deathstar.

1) Anikin's squadron was only successful do to their timing. Had they tried that earlier or later they would not have caused the power surge, and the weakness would easily be removed by adding shields or armor. It didn't help that the Malevolence seemed under staffed, and Grievous was an idiot.

Anikin's plan was a last ditch, "we have no other options but a suicide mission" type thing, and it failed even with his mission kill from an unknown weakness that really can't be expected to be used reliably and Grievous being a tactical moron and taking his own men out. They had to board the thing, and crash it into a planet while activating its hyperdrive the Malevolence was so unbeatable.

2) The Executor was taken down by the entire Rebel fleet. Given the shear size of the Executor, it should have been able to handle the Rebel fleet, but for some odd reason they under armed it.

3) The first Death Star would not have been destroyed had Tarken not been a total moron, and deployed his anti-fighter defenses, and let's not forget that the only reason the Rebels had the plans was PIS in the first place.

That moron who let the escape pod get away over Tatooine should be killed for the good of the species he was so stupid. Let's just forget we have a vast slave race of robots everywhere.

4) The Jedi were wiped out by order 66 do to not investigating the clones. One look at the biochip, and order 66 wouldn't have worked. 10ish years, and the Jedi never checked.

The common theme in Star Wars is that people do mind numbingly stupid things or are just mind numbingly stupid, and then "bad" stuff happens.

Yes, that's called strategic planning. But the reason for war was another thing entirely. I mean sure, essentially all conflicts come down to control over resources, but in this situation it is far more complex than they simply didn't have enough resources.

Given the existence of Battleship Island I'm not so sure. The place is right out of Warhammer 40,000

Actually in the episode TCW: "Pursuit of Peace" we hear how the Republic is devoting all its resources to the war effort at the cost of providing for domestic needs. This is the definition of total war. Sure, this shouldn't be so much of an expenditure, but we also hear about before the war. Before the war there weren't so many cases of loss of basic utilities. So while the republic's economy is probably by no means strong, it isn't too weak to function normally either.

1) The problem is that some of the richest systems seem to have joined the CIS leaving the Republic poor. The Trade Federation was seemingly the only shipping company in the Republic, and it left for the CIS a long with a number of other wealthy groups.

It sounds more like a break down of a fragile logistical system.

2) If the Republic was devoting all the resources it could to the Clone Wars, why are there so few troops? Really, if the Republic was seriously fighting the war then there should be huge numbers of volunteer troops.

Well, that's what the canon shows us so the realism is irrelevant.

We see fuel being mined on Bespin in TESB.

[Jedi Master Spock]

Well, as far as the solar panels go, what I pointed out in the other thread is that while it's absolutely nowhere near combat requirements, it could conceivably power life support, station-keeping drives, etc; and it could be very directly dual-purpose in terms of a very black surface that functions as a passive solar input in "patrol" mode and a radiant heat sink in combat mode.

Given how much more power is required for combat performance, those savings might not seem terribly impressive, but it certainly makes sense in terms of an emergency back-up power system, and if it's effectively "free" to put heat sinks / solar panels in the S-foils you were already adding for maneuverability purposes, why not?

I think the fuel shortage stuff in terms of scripting was not added with due consideration of technology and economy, but it is there and it does point systematically to limitations.

As regarding fusion only needing hydrogen, Star Wars fusion reactors might need "enriched" hydrogen, i.e., deuterium or even tritium, at which point you need to either have an enrichment process or do a lot of filtering. Tritium has a half-life of 12 years, while deuterium is stable, so tritium-based fuels (I would suggest, chemically, pointing to some variety of hydrocarbon as your hydrogen-delivery mechanism) would be very expensive.

[2046]

Excuse me!? I am ignoring nothing in the canon. Primary due to the fact that those things being solar panels has not been established in the canon. Unless of course that database you linked to is canon.

1) The scripts for the OT state they are solar panels.

Technically, it says "solar fin".

Leia's ship was hit in the "main solar fin of the Rebel craft", and Vader's TIE and its two buddies are noted thus:

"Three TIE fighters, Vader flanked by two wingmen, dive in a
tight formation. The sun reflects off their dominate solar
fins as they loop toward the Death Star's surface."

Later:

"Vader's damaged ship spins out of the trench with a damaged wing.

EXTERIOR SPACE AROUND THE DEATH STAR.

Vader's ship spins out of control with a bent solar fin,
heading for deep space."

One could either argue that the film replaces Leia's solar fin with something else but that the TIEs do have them, or else argue that both the spinning thingy blown off of Leia's ship and the TIE wing solar fins serve the same purpose and gathering sunlight ain't it. The context of everything suggests the solar fin on Leia's ship was tied to the reactor and its loss caused reactor shutdown (or required it, as per the radio play).

That would make sense for a radiator.

[Picard]

To add to this, most fighters seen (TIE, X-Wing, B-Wing) have large surfaces that would be ideal for heat radiators. Only exception seems to be Y-Wing, but it seems to be a bomber not intended for heavy maneuvering or frequent use of energy weapons anyway, so it might not require them.

[Mr. Oragahn]

Well, as far as the solar panels go, what I pointed out in the other thread is that while it's absolutely nowhere near combat requirements, it could conceivably power life support, station-keeping drives, etc; and it could be very directly dual-purpose in terms of a very black surface that functions as a passive solar input in "patrol" mode and a radiant heat sink in combat mode.

Given how much more power is required for combat performance, those savings might not seem terribly impressive, but it certainly makes sense in terms of an emergency back-up power system, and if it's effectively "free" to put heat sinks / solar panels in the S-foils you were already adding for maneuverability purposes, why not?

I think the fuel shortage stuff in terms of scripting was not added with due consideration of technology and economy, but it is there and it does point systematically to limitations.

As regarding fusion only needing hydrogen, Star Wars fusion reactors might need "enriched" hydrogen, i.e., deuterium or even tritium, at which point you need to either have an enrichment process or do a lot of filtering. Tritium has a half-life of 12 years, while deuterium is stable, so tritium-based fuels (I would suggest, chemically, pointing to some variety of hydrocarbon as your hydrogen-delivery mechanism) would be very expensive.

Quoted because, well, JMS actually posted.
Never forget.

[Mr. Oragahn]

I base my numbers on 100% efficiency and all EMR assimilated, and they still don't sell the idea at all. The output is stupidly low.
T.I.E fighters ought to be more powerful than a Bugatti Veyron. Do you know how much power this car's engine can output?
If anything, if treated as solar panels, these large black-mesh appendages simply hinder the ship's performances in all possible ways.
Therefore there's nothing to deal with other than it simply does not work.

It's better to consider that solar panel has an entire different meaning in SW. A colloquial term, that's all.

Here, let's try another idea
Those panels are scooping solar winds, particularly their protons, somehow to be used in the ion engines.
There, the "solar panel" brainbug might be cracked.

I'd have to check out the densisty of protons that could be theoretically caught by a panel at various angles (maybe they cast some field - it would perhaps combine well with theories of minimal shielding on TIEs) and see if enough matter can be collected to be used in, say, fusion engines.

1) Let's take this line of logic to a logical extreme. YOu are also claiming that a T.I.E. Fighters can't fly because as far as we know, anti-gravity is impossible.

Where do I claim that?
I'm not getting where taking the extreme has pushed you, but it seems to be far from any point I made.

Just because "SCIENCE SAYS SO" is not a justifiable argument in this hobby when the source material says otherwise. Star Wars isn't the only setting to get outputs that require greater then 100% efficiencies from solar panels.

Unless you prove that the stars in SW output, like, a hundred times or more energy than ours, and that humans in SW can magically resist that kind of radiation, I think I'll stick with science, thank you.

Republic Police Gun Ships, and T.I.E series fighters use solar gathering panels to help power the craft, and there is no ifs, ands, or buts about it. If this sort of thing really bothers you then I suggest you stay away from fiction as this sort of thing happens a lot.

There are plenty of its and bits because as far as we know, they only talk about solar panels.
In other words, we only know that these panels are related to the power feeding of the ships, AND that they're related to anything solar.
Based on this alone, my scooping theory is quite solid and fits rather well if, for a moment, you're willing to consider that there can be more to a "solar panel" than the simple definition we have here on Earth, as the usual layman term.
The only unknown factor I haven't had time to check on is the density of particles such panels could theoretically collect, with perhaps the help of some lateral force fields.

A third idea (or more precisely a second plausible one) would be that the panels themselves host micro-fusion reactions. The link with the lexical field of anything solar is quite tenuous, but we're looking for the fusion = star relation here.
Now, losing thermal energy through simple black body radiation isn't that efficient. Besides, losing heat is the latest thing you want to main a fusion reaction actually. So right now, without thinking more about it, I wouldn't know how to legitimize the shape and exposition of the panels.

Interestingly enough, I could combine both theories into one: they collect protons AND the reactions occur in the panels, but it's not exactly necessary.

2) I'm fairly certain that your idea of the panels somehow collecting particles for reaction mass won't add up any better then solar panels would. Propulsion in for starships in Star Wars, like a large amount of Sci-Fi is effectively magic.

Not really. There's nothing magic about expelling energized particles.
There are even interesting discoveries made about microwave propulsion.
The real magic lies in the potential existence of mass lightening tech that can be activated in deep space, for more or less linear trajectories. Of course the mass of the fuel itself would be reduced, and at some point, either deep inside the thruster or once far from the aft of the ship, it would leave the mass lightening field and regain its normal mass, and thus lose a lot of its speed (and therefore, that's the interesting point, create a more condensed cloud of particles at the end of the thruster, which by its simple existence might push the shp furter, along the possibility that the still lightened particles would come into contact with the cloud of "normal" hot particles and push against them).
But since acceleration formulae involve square factors, there's perhaps something to look at there.

[Mr. Oragahn]

The issue in this case is not efficiency so much as total power generated. The amount of power a solar array will generate is proportional to how close you are to the nearest star. On a TIE fighter, even with an optimal angle, you're looking at a maximum of about 10 kW of power at 100% efficiency and the same light level as Earth. Put simply that is very little power for a flying star fighter.

I doubt internal combustion engines have the power to weight ratio a T.I.E. needs

The smallest fusion reactor design I know of that is being built is the size of a shipping container, the kind of thing you see 18 wheelers pulling. If the reactor needs to be at least the size of a shipping container then T.I.E. can't be use fusion, and fission is likely out do to real world limitation. Again the power to weight ratio is wrong, and I'm sure there's a container ship worth of other issues for why real world fusion/fission isn't an option.
(I guess Luke didn't use a fusion reactor to recharge R2-D2 on Dagobah because the reactor would be too small to work, and there would be no room for fuel.)

It's said to be a fusion core I think, in the novelization.
You're switching standards when they suit you. One moment you say SW is near pure magic, and the next moment you deny fusion engines because the craptastic fission plants we have today are ridiculously huge.

Besides, not a single "fusion" reactor today works. They're all theoretical. Right now, the idea of putting a star in a bottle is akin to chasing a pink unicorn.

But there's a catch, because science tells us that there are fuel sources which, if they could be fused, would provide massive amounts of power for very little mass.
The only liberty taken in SW, therefore, is the assumption that they have reached the technological level needed to run a self contained, self perpetuating fusion reaction at a small scale, in a very safe way.

No matter how you cut the numbers don't add up properly, and you are assuming you know better then people in the setting. You're ignoring on screen evidence because science, and that just isn't honest. You are doing what you say people like Brian Young does.

The "people in the setting" means the characters. Whom we hardly ever hear talking about solar panels, even less what they're supposed to be.

As for on screen evidence, what do you mean?
There's quite none as far as the whole idea of "solar panels" is concerned.

Star Wars is a soft Sci-Fi setting, and so soft you could change it to pure fantasy without changing the plot, but that means that the writers of Star Wars don't really care what real world limitations a given technology they talk about. They could say T.I.E. Fighters are powered by hamsters running on wheels like the Enterprise-D is stated to be, and it would tell us just as much.

No actually that is you being dishonest right now, alongside appealing to ridicule.
SW never claimed to be stupid. Hamsters powering a ship IS stupid unless we're dealing with some super hamster we don't know and we'd probably not call those hamsters, nor would Star Wars really be taken seriously for such a silly idea.
Remember, SW is at first a serious setting with humour on top, like many great stories.

You, you're working backwards and assuming that your "Looney Toons + ACME tech" argument works.
Well, nope, it fails.

[Mr. Oragahn]

Well, as far as the solar panels go, what I pointed out in the other thread is that while it's absolutely nowhere near combat requirements, it could conceivably power life support, station-keeping drives, etc; and it could be very directly dual-purpose in terms of a very black surface that functions as a passive solar input in "patrol" mode and a radiant heat sink in combat mode.

Given how much more power is required for combat performance, those savings might not seem terribly impressive, but it certainly makes sense in terms of an emergency back-up power system, and if it's effectively "free" to put heat sinks / solar panels in the S-foils you were already adding for maneuverability purposes, why not?

This works until you think about the fact that a small percentage of the thermal energy that is pushed out of the reactors alone (which are incredibly small, yet provide such accelerations meaning that we're dealing with super energized and compressed exhaust), would be enough to power all the stuff onboard.
SW has fusion engines and force fields, and nanotechnology. They're quite well expected to be able to recycle some of that energy for powering all the mundane crap aboard.

Plus cooling down stuff in space with panels alone isn't particularly impressive, is it?
Coping with the thermal excess due to the weapons and thrusters alone is very hard when you don't have high speed convection to rely on.

As regarding fusion only needing hydrogen, Star Wars fusion reactors might need "enriched" hydrogen, i.e., deuterium or even tritium, at which point you need to either have an enrichment process or do a lot of filtering. Tritium has a half-life of 12 years, while deuterium is stable, so tritium-based fuels (I would suggest, chemically, pointing to some variety of hydrocarbon as your hydrogen-delivery mechanism) would be very expensive.

Well, diesel fusion still sounds good and the Empire would have a monopoly on resources, more than the Republic and CIS combined due to the massive wastes and destructions caused by war.

[Mr. Oragahn]

Excuse me!? I am ignoring nothing in the canon. Primary due to the fact that those things being solar panels has not been established in the canon. Unless of course that database you linked to is canon.

1) The scripts for the OT state they are solar panels.

Technically, it says "solar fin".

Leia's ship was hit in the "main solar fin of the Rebel craft", and Vader's TIE and its two buddies are noted thus:

"Three TIE fighters, Vader flanked by two wingmen, dive in a
tight formation. The sun reflects off their dominate solar
fins as they loop toward the Death Star's surface."

Later:

"Vader's damaged ship spins out of the trench with a damaged wing.

EXTERIOR SPACE AROUND THE DEATH STAR.

Vader's ship spins out of control with a bent solar fin,
heading for deep space."

One could either argue that the film replaces Leia's solar fin with something else but that the TIEs do have them, or else argue that both the spinning thingy blown off of Leia's ship and the TIE wing solar fins serve the same purpose and gathering sunlight ain't it. The context of everything suggests the solar fin on Leia's ship was tied to the reactor and its loss caused reactor shutdown (or required it, as per the radio play).

That would make sense for a radiator.

If the ship was powered by a fusion reactor, then the loss of a cooling system would be the least of possible nuisances. The issue with fusion is to maintain heat and pressure after all.
Btw, wouldn't firing lasers left and right by taping into the residual heat around the powering systems not be a good way to vent out the excess of energy?
Eventually, the damning part of losing a cooling system would have to do with lacking the capacity to cool down a rather critical component that would regulate or supervise the fusion reaction, yet somehow be rather sensible enough that its loss would trigger the loss of power from the power plant, perpahs as a safety measure by shutting down said plant.
But having such a sensible system be so exposed and tied to a panel outside of the ship, leaving said ship at the mercy of any kind of random hazard, that sounds stupid.
When you think of it, it means that simply being exposed to star light might hamper the efficiency of this cooling system as it would be heated up by sunlight. And let's not even talk about any kind of minor friction with gases and else.
Sorry guys, we're now unable to use our fusion core because we're presently cruising at a distance of .0031 AU from the local bright star. Please switch off any non critical systems, including holoplayers and vibromassage chairs. Thank you.

Besides, in the movie, the major explosion on Tantive IV hardly involves the loss of anything looking like a passive cooling system. I mean, unless we start to consider the very obvious radar system to be the cooling system now.

[Mr. Oragahn]

To add to this, most fighters seen (TIE, X-Wing, B-Wing) have large surfaces that would be ideal for heat radiators. Only exception seems to be Y-Wing, but it seems to be a bomber not intended for heavy maneuvering or frequent use of energy weapons anyway, so it might not require them.

Y-wings have two front cannons and some configurations have weapons mounted on the dome too. That combined to two large engine assemblies really tells another story about the need of large, exposed passive cooling systems.
I mean, passive systems suck big donkey balls in a setting called Star WARS, not Star Cruisin' (yes OK, they do have cruisers, but you get my point).

If anything, a good old steam pipe might be the best way to expel heat ASAP. :D
J/K... barely.