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I remember at one point it was something as stupid as there is a single, all encompassing field around the ship, but the bridge stuck out so far it was outside of that shield and needed its own.
The first movie was pretty explicit that Ray shields stopped lasers, not torpedoes. Particle shields presumably hold back torpedoes, atmosphere, and wayward Jedi. But again, prequels don't count. Just ask Disney.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: With shields, and my comment about the snub fighters? It does seem incongruous that a Super Star Destroyer wouldn't have shield comparable to a planetary installation.
I myself am unaware if there's a canonical (old or new EU) explanation for this. It could be they're by necessity different kinds of shields, or whether the fact a starship is always moving changes things any.
I believe the SSD's shields were knocked out before the fighter hit them. The Rebel fleet did concentrate all their firepower on it.
I think the intention of that sequence was to show that big radar dome above the tower explode to show that they'd lost effective shield cover, but the EU subsequently interpreted it to mean those domes were responsible for the ship's shields entirely. A concept that worked great in video games but feels really bone-headed otherwise.
Alot of this stuff came from a belief in the 90s (and certainly earlier as seen in parts of RotJ) that the Empire needed to be cripplingly incompetent in order for the Rebels to stand a chance against them at all - so it informs a lot of the groundwork of the expanded universe and even some elements like the shieldlessness of the ties and yes, those same dumb shield towers, still has purchase in the new canon.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: No. Star Wars technology is mature tech, most of it tens of thousands of years old.
I hear that a lot but it doesn't hold up in the actual materials: Ties have a clear iterative design even if we ignore instances where the EU said the Empire hadn't included shields on them because their ion engines interfered with them and they hadn't solved that problem yet. The X-Wing is often described in the old fluff as a revolutionary fighter design but they still tried to improve upon it with the E-Wing and by Legacy era its gone completely. Extending that backwards we see the Republic adopt 'new' technological ideas over the course of the Clone Wars which are in turn refined into things we recognize in the Empire, right down to the blasters they carry.
I'd read somewhere years back that a TIE fighter has no shield (and no lifesupport) because they wanted to keep it as small as possible, to fit more onto a star destroyer (wolfpack tactics and all that).
But to push against your idea a bit. . . I agree with Bob, and can pull some real life examples. Look at a car race like Le Mans. Automotive tech is by and large a "mature technology" but that hasn't stopped Porsche from making improvements to their boxer 6 engines. That didn't stop Ford from making improvements from the GT-40 to the GT-40 Mk II and Mk IV. The difference between a Lamborghini Diablo and a Huracan are staggering, and its down to a series of incremental improvements and making new use of "old" tech.
2019/08/08 15:28:29
Subject: Re:Does anyone still care about Star Wars?
Captain Joystick wrote: I think the intention of that sequence was to show that big radar dome above the tower explode to show that they'd lost effective shield cover, but the EU subsequently interpreted it to mean those domes were responsible for the ship's shields entirely. A concept that worked great in video games but feels really bone-headed otherwise.
Alot of this stuff came from a belief in the 90s (and certainly earlier as seen in parts of RotJ) that the Empire needed to be cripplingly incompetent in order for the Rebels to stand a chance against them at all - so it informs a lot of the groundwork of the expanded universe and even some elements like the shieldlessness of the ties and yes, those same dumb shield towers, still has purchase in the new canon.
Should probably clarify!
I was meaning the efficacy of the firepower levied at them, and the snub fighters being able to bypass the shields, on account their firepower wouldn’t be enough to punch through the shields.
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Captain Joystick wrote: I think the intention of that sequence was to show that big radar dome above the tower explode to show that they'd lost effective shield cover, but the EU subsequently interpreted it to mean those domes were responsible for the ship's shields entirely. A concept that worked great in video games but feels really bone-headed otherwise.
Most problems with the Force are a result of ideas that worked great in videogames...
That said, I need me some great Star Wars videogames....
Ensis Ferrae wrote:I'd read somewhere years back that a TIE fighter has no shield (and no lifesupport) because they wanted to keep it as small as possible, to fit more onto a star destroyer (wolfpack tactics and all that).
Thats the most common explanation and the one Lucasfilm had settled on well before the Disney acquisition, and they carried it through to canon now, I think.
But to push against your idea a bit. . . I agree with Bob, and can pull some real life examples. Look at a car race like Le Mans. Automotive tech is by and large a "mature technology" but that hasn't stopped Porsche from making improvements to their boxer 6 engines. That didn't stop Ford from making improvements from the GT-40 to the GT-40 Mk II and Mk IV. The difference between a Lamborghini Diablo and a Huracan are staggering, and its down to a series of incremental improvements and making new use of "old" tech.
I really don't know enough about cars to speak about them with any degree of confidence, but my understanding is that innovation with how you implement known technology still puts them in the 'maturing' category as opposed to say, a stapler or a bicycle, where no truly meaningful innovation has happened in 80-100 years and one can expect it to remain the same for as long as the need for such a device remains.
But even compare the amount of technological change you see in high-end cars today with what we see in the ships of Star Wars: where we go from the Z-95 and the ARC-170 to the X-Wing and people see a lineage despite them all being radically different from each other. (Admittedly, the choice to make the sequels feature next-gen x-wings and ties does rattle this a bit, but both have in-universe excuses)
LunarSol wrote:That said, I need me some great Star Wars videogames....
I liked X-Wing Alliance as a kid, unfortunately it and the XWAU mod are pretty unstable on windows 10.
More recently I actually like Battlefront 2 in its current state, it's grindy as all get-out but if you don't take it seriously enough to be suckered into the loot boxes you're left with a pretty decent shooter that looks great irregardless of the license - and the story mode ain't half bad.
But A-Wings are smaller than TIEs and have shields and hyperdrives. It gets even worse if you countenance the prequels and their tiny little fighters. (I like to call them fightelehs.) Sure, TIEs are mean to be cheaper to build in bulk, but all the OT evidence points to cheap, even disposable, hyperdrives and shields.
TIEs are honestly pretty huge assuming the cockpit can actually fit a human being.
The Shields thing is weird. Mostly it seems to exist as a videogame convention to give Rebels a health bar when outnumbered. In the first movie where the distinction is largely made, they seem to sometime protect against a shot, but more often than not the X-Wings go down just as easily as the TIEs.
2019/08/08 17:09:09
Subject: Re:Does anyone still care about Star Wars?
I had that exact argument with a friend to the point where I made him sit down and watch the whole death star battle, to prove to him that Ties were just as capable of taking down x-wings as vice-versa.
Of course, actually watching with that in mind, we realized Darth Vader is the only imperial scoring any confirmed kills in a fighter in that entire sequence.
TIEs are what they are because they were cheaper to manufacture enmasse.
And when you’re trying to hold an Empire in an iron fist, quantity makes sense.
In the new EU, particularly the new Thrawn novels and Rebels, the TIE Defender was part of the Tarkin initiative. And man, had Hera’s cell not effed over the production lines, the Rebellion would’ve been crushed.
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But to push against your idea a bit. . . I agree with Bob, and can pull some real life examples. Look at a car race like Le Mans. Automotive tech is by and large a "mature technology" but that hasn't stopped Porsche from making improvements to their boxer 6 engines. That didn't stop Ford from making improvements from the GT-40 to the GT-40 Mk II and Mk IV. The difference between a Lamborghini Diablo and a Huracan are staggering, and its down to a series of incremental improvements and making new use of "old" tech.
I really don't know enough about cars to speak about them with any degree of confidence, but my understanding is that innovation with how you implement known technology still puts them in the 'maturing' category as opposed to say, a stapler or a bicycle, where no truly meaningful innovation has happened in 80-100 years and one can expect it to remain the same for as long as the need for such a device remains.
But even compare the amount of technological change you see in high-end cars today with what we see in the ships of Star Wars: where we go from the Z-95 and the ARC-170 to the X-Wing and people see a lineage despite them all being radically different from each other. (Admittedly, the choice to make the sequels feature next-gen x-wings and ties does rattle this a bit, but both have in-universe excuses)
Off topic I know, but, as someone who "specialized" in innovation studies during my MBA, The automotive industry as a whole is a mature industry, and there certainly are "meaningful innovations" within the last 80-100 years in both staplers AND bicycles (however, in both staplers and bicycles they are incremental innovations, because of the maturity of the technology).
To go with your SW example, there may be leaps and bounds of "minor" technologies from the Z-95 and ARC-170s to the X-Wing. . .but the X-Wing is the "ford pickup" of fighters: it's the "best" and most "optimal" configuration, so we settle on that idea as a platform, and then make incremental improvements to the next-gen X-wings that Poe is flying in the new trilogy. Within the SW universe we still largely see, depending on the size of ship/vehicle some form of "manual control". . . Fighters and freighters like the Millennium Falcon use some form of joystick control, compared to other series' like Trek where it is almost entirely digital (except in emergency plot point #700 where naturally we need to rely on this ancient tech that nobody has used in forever). Even the newer/newest ships in the SW universe use some form of physical/tactile control, which shows a certain level of maturity to their tech (whether its stagnation or a ceiling to their understanding of in universe science, I dunno)
2019/08/08 19:17:57
Subject: Re:Does anyone still care about Star Wars?
If anything it certainly seems computer science in the Star Wars universe has stagnated - basically every user interface has either unintuitive buttons, knobs and switches or self determination and a wacky personality.
Bringing it back to Holdo's ramming action, if per Doc the reason it works is on account of their ship's fancy new shields working so well versus the First Order's fancy new shields having a critical flaw (where does that come from Doc? The TLJ novelization?) then it still seems that these technologies are advancing in the setting - and reason enough for my why no one had tried it in earlier films.
I'm curious what that means for the setting though - the First Order is pushing technological superiority super hard, with snazzy new battle cruisers, a mainline fighter that has the bells and whistles its predecessor stripped away for speed and agility while still being faster and more agile, and any number of completed and implemented Empire research projects, including hyperspace tracking - something thought impossible in setting where hyperspace travel has been in use for thousands of years.
The shield refresh rate allowing hyperspace jump onto the planets surface thing is legit dialogue in Force Awakens. So that part we know is good. The only assumption we are making is that the same shield is used on the ship in TLJ.
That is indeed a nice looking TIE, I wish I could say that I hadn't gotten any SW items though as my bank balance could have done with the rest.
On the TIEs thing, as well as ease of production and manouverability (ha!) it was said that a reason that TIEs didn't have shields and hyperdrives was to make the chances of a successful defection less. That didn't work out too well.
I envy how your love of X-Wing has allowed you to keep loving SW, ingtaer. When X-Wing first came out, I was still pretty meh on SW as a result of the PT. But the game really brought back the magic for me and then TFA made me feel very hopeful as well, although in hindsight its flaws are pretty stark. Now that X-Wing has long exhausted the OT material (and much of the classic EU stuff), the new waves are mostly stuff I don’t recognize because Disney SW is something I can’t be bothered to follow.
Being hard into the game certainly means that I can take a bit more enjoyment out of all the films/tv/books than a lot of people seem to, as a new flashy ship appears and for me that is something new and exciting to blow up on the table top!
I will say that I really dislike the prequels, sequels and Resistance but they have not soured my perception of the franchise as a whole because (as well as the above reason) they all have at least something good to take out of it (namely pretty space ships blowing each other up) as well as there being such a wealth of other material around the universe that if I get disheartened with it I just dive into a different portion. I found TLJ a massive let down but rather than rage or whine about it I reread the original Thrawn books then got hyped to see a new type of A-Wing and bomber in X-Wing. Its like when kids are acting up, you may wish for a second to drown them but it doesn't stop you loving them.
Also on X-Wing, so hyped to get second edition Epic! Very little info so far but what has been shown looks cracking and also like most of the flaws of v1 have been fixed. Thankfully the buy in looks reasonable as well.
On parle toujours mal quand on n'a rien à dire.
2019/08/11 11:05:49
Subject: Re:Does anyone still care about Star Wars?
Apparently way back in '81 , or thereabouts, NPR did a 5 hour long radio adaptation of A New Hope
did anyone catch this at all when broadcast ?
Apparently it embellishes or develops some of the relationships a bit more ?
The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all
We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be.
"the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king,
Not old enough myself, but yeah, I've heard this recording, and the followup one they did for Empire and they're both really good. They didn't get around to doing Jedi for many years later so its mostly entirely recast and not so great.
I always felt the guy playing Han was miscast though. In my head I picture him as Rick Moranis in the Han Solo costume. Big thick glasses and all.
Apparently this was a thing back in the day, I remember as a youngster my grandmother would let me entertain myself with her old record player and one of said records was a pretty good radio drama version of Black Hole.
But until Disney+ launches, there’s not a great deal to talk about.
Also, anytime a Star Wars thread is started, it’s roughly two pages before it just descends into the shocking, previously unheard of revelation that some didn’t enjoy The Last Jedi.
I for one hold TLJ up as one of the better films. It's certainly better then the prequels.
John Prins wrote:I just wish that the Disney movies actually told the more interesting stories that barely get mentioned. Like Luke's Jedi Academy couldn't have been several movies all by themselves? Nah, let's do another Death Star, only this time make it bigger and make the Rebellion even smaller, because we're too scared to not remake A New Hope.
Don't forgot Lucasfilms bombed hard with the prequels and their garbage tv shows before Disney rescued them just like they rescued Marvel. Yes the Jedi Academy and EU would have been awesome. A Kyle Katarn movie would have been awesome. A NO God Dang Jedi or Sith/ Just Starfighter battles movie would have been great. The problem is Disney wanted to do something to recapture the magic of a New Hope. Then the neckbeards and incels bitched so the next film was something original and while the opening scene with the bombers is a let down, the rest of film was great. I love snarky Luke, the casino planet getting wrecked, Finn and Rose, Holdo's awesome last stand. etc. etc. But then the neckbeards and incels whined that it wasn't like the originals, and how dare women have agency.
Bottom line, is Disney's take on Star Wars may have it's flaws, but it's in a much better place then Star Wars was post Episode 3 Vader does a Noooooooo!
My beloved 40K armies:
Children of Stirba Order of Saint Pan Thera
KingmanHighborn wrote: The problem is Disney wanted to do something to recapture the magic of a New Hope. Then the neckbeards and incels bitched so the next film was something original and while the opening scene with the bombers is a let down, the rest of film was great. I love snarky Luke, the casino planet getting wrecked, Finn and Rose, Holdo's awesome last stand. etc. etc. But then the neckbeards and incels whined that it wasn't like the originals, and how dare women have agency.
Bottom line, is Disney's take on Star Wars may have it's flaws, but it's in a much better place then Star Wars was post Episode 3 Vader does a Noooooooo!
And that's where all these conversations fall down isn't it? It was the "neckbeards and incels" who done all the bitching and moaning, as opposed to the tens of thousands of just normal people who didn't like the films for what ever reason... It would be nice, just for once, to have this conversation like rational reasoning adults without people throwing histrionics, wild hyperbole or insults around.
How about lots of people didn't like the films because, shock I know, they didn't like it! That doesn't mean you cant like it, it doesn't matter one jot to me that you liked it when I didn't. I thought both new films were awful, the first because it tried to hard to be a New Hope mkii, the second because I thought the pacing was awful and the continuity was terrible.
Can't fault people too much when the damage control response these days is to flood the internet with "Those complaining are racist/sexist/man babies. Buy tickets to show them how virtuous you are" articles
BlaxicanX wrote: A young business man named Tom Kirby, who was a pupil of mine until he turned greedy, helped the capitalists hunt down and destroy the wargamers. He betrayed and murdered Games Workshop.
Ehhh, it's not like the nerd community doesn't have a problem with an alt-right underbelly. See the last few Marvel movies and the whining about how dare Disney have female characters, etc etc.
I prefer to buy from miniature manufacturers that *don't* support the overthrow of democracy.
ScarletRose wrote:Ehhh, it's not like the nerd community doesn't have a problem with an alt-right underbelly. See the last few Marvel movies and the whining about how dare Disney have female characters, etc etc.
Yup. That's the sad truth.
ingtaer wrote:
And that's where all these conversations fall down isn't it? It was the "neckbeards and incels" who done all the bitching and moaning, as opposed to the tens of thousands of just normal people who didn't like the films for what ever reason... It would be nice, just for once, to have this conversation like rational reasoning adults without people throwing histrionics, wild hyperbole or insults around.
How about lots of people didn't like the films because, shock I know, they didn't like it! That doesn't mean you cant like it, it doesn't matter one jot to me that you liked it when I didn't. I thought both new films were awful, the first because it tried to hard to be a New Hope mkii, the second because I thought the pacing was awful and the continuity was terrible.
Except there wasn't tens of thousands of people, just a very loud minority. The voice of the 'normal' people spoke with their dollars at the box office, the sales of merchandise, etc. The conversation is about Star Wars, and there is a lot of alt-right crybabies infesting nerd community while 'normal' people enjoy the films. I already explained why they went with a similar story to a New Hope (even though there's a lot of differences too.)
As far as TLJ goes the pacing and continuity were just fine. It was an extended chase scene plus the typical Jedi stuff. Though again, cranky, jaded, snarky Luke was a treat. That aside while that may be 'your' gripes with it, the majority of people that have disliked have used opinions that are almost always boiled down to alt-right yapping.
The other thing to consider is if the internet was around back when Empire Strikes Back came out there would have been blogs galore about how it ruined Star Wars, and then how Return of the Jedi (the best film in the series) ruined Star Wars, etc.
Truth is Star Wars will probably still be relevant even when we're dead and gone.
My beloved 40K armies:
Children of Stirba Order of Saint Pan Thera
I am a member of loads of SW groups on various media and yes I can say lots of people didn't like it (and lots did) and I have seen a minority "of people that have disliked have used opinions that are almost always boiled down to alt-right yapping." Perhaps you should go to places which are not so toxic? Though that's all I have to say about that as I don't want to see yet another thread dragged into the same horrible rabbit hole until it has be put out of our misery.
So, has anyone read the new Thrawn book yet? I am still waiting for my copy thanks to a mix up with deliveries and would like to hear peoples opinions, did enjoy the last two (though not as much as the original trilogy).
Children of Stirba 
Order of Saint Pan Thera 
