Lit Fleet Junkie Flagship- The technical discussions of the GFFA (Capital Ships thread Mk. II)

They could have flown through the shields.

 

Was there an actual Paladin-class corvette in there, or just something similar? And is one of these a name for the "Corellian gunship" type?

Oh, definitely. I wasn't suggesting otherwise - just raising a question about the fact that there are two "shield generators" on the bridge tower, in the hope that someone might have an interesting answer!

Presumably the same way that the X-wings fly through the shield of the Death Star in ANH?

Just a random compliment?

Summarised answers for speed and compactness...

* I'm not excluding Daala's pocket superweapons, but I'm not sure what they can tell us that's useful about a normal shield and armour?

* To be honest, I started with the thought that the hull plating on the Seppie ships didn't look like armour (too limited, vulnerable from below), and was surprised that the cross-section diagrams had attributed the plating exactly the range of alternative rationales that I'd imagined. The level of collaboration with ILM on the Prequel books also means that this may have been the movie designers' intent. And while there's no point at all in trying to maintain continuity after the reboot, I continue to respect all the official material - to take another example, I'm continually impressed by the quality of the continuity catches and saves in the WEG sourcebooks (for example, they caught right back in 1987 that the X-wing's engine nacelles are intruded into by large, asymmetrical equipment bays housing two distinct sets of equipment that are not part of the engine - the upper pair, pointing up, contain "stabilizers" - which we see Artoo trying to fix in ANH - but the lower pair, pointing down, contain the landing gears).

* I can't see anything in the novel about Isolder's shield deflecting rather than just blocking blaster bolts, but maybe I'm missing something?

* I'm going to have to go through all the Echo Base sources. I think the cross-sections book does says that the AT-ATs did walk through like we see on Naboo. What source(s) are you thinking of?

* I'm going to have to think about hangar shield mechanics and oscillation - one other though that might be relevant is that some shields may be "one-way". Can a ship's own weaponry go through a shield from the back? Turn that around, and maybe a ship can enter a hangar that's got the shield active on the internal side...

* We see the X-wings nudging through the main deflector in ANH. A long way out from the surface.

* A shielded torpedo would need to be the size of an X-wing, to carry a strong enough power/projector system and an engine that would give that power/projector system enough performance - easier to build a shielded fighter that fires smaller torpedoes.

* I was thinking that the "paired" design of Gungan shields (two side-by-side systems for a single shield, each also consisting of a separate generator and projector module) might represent a parallel to the Imperial command tower. But that's speculative, so I didn't want to preempt. Also, the "forward batteries" are groups of guns, not a power source for the deflector. Is that mistranslated in the German dub?!

* The question of the distances involved in "layered" shields is one that's hard to answer - the one example we know of is the Death Star's main shield being supported by the specific ray-shields protecting points like the exhaust shaft.

Aye, I know all this, and as a matter of "personal headcanon", I'm not convinced either way about whether these are shield generators - the other greeblies that resemble twin globes are actually parts from a model-kit of a Nazi battleship, specifically pairs of anti-aircraft fire-control positions.

All I'm really asking is - if they are shield generators (as at least some official material claims), is there anything indicating how they work? Do they project separate shields that are not designed to overlap? I'd assume so, to distinguish the Imperial system from the Mon Cal version. But if so, are they steerable, as the aft shield on the Falcon apparently is (in contrast to the power-switching of the X-wing and the presumably fixed shield arrangements of the Mon Cal)...?



- The Imperial Ewok

 

I thought the Death Star didn't have a shield...for whatever reason? But if X-wings can fly through shields then doesn't that render the plot of ROTJ moot?

 

I know "no screenshots" and all, but I'm most curious about those "Corellian gunship types" and their variants. Does anyone have any idea if those things are based on existing models of any kind, or completely new? That'd be an interesting thing to spend resources on without going ahead and kitbashing a DP20 out of essentially the same parts, or bits of a Consular or whatever -- there are certainly enough DP20-related bits spread across any number of wireframes from the prequels through the animated shows and it was as likely of an inclusion in that fleet as anything, and moreso than some of the real oddities.

 

That's one I haven't been able to get a read on. They appear again when the fleet departs, but I haven't been able to notice them in any other scene and so nothing but a few from the front. When we have a clearer pictures we may figure this out. To me, it seems largely new.

 

Indeed! I always took it that in ANH they entered the gravitation zone of the Death Star, a stellar object, instead of them penetrating its shield.

Yeah WEG really noticed a lot of details and design issues like landing gear hiding holes. Great catch there.

Have to check for that later!

Exact sources I have to look up later when back home!

We have several different examples of that actually. Planetary shields need to be dropped for ground based cannons to fire through (Hoth). We do not see that with shipbased weaponry though like the weapon emplacements that fire from hangar-like spaces within the ship outward. Begs the question if these sections are not shielded by main shield and can drop individually or if they have the gun barrel tips extending just beyond the tight shield to fire outside of it or if they do fire through it one way. These sections use shields like hangars do after all to keep the air in despite gunners wearing fully enclosed helmets.

How to scientifically make a shield oneway though, hmm. Unless weaponry is attuned to the oscillation cycle so it can fire through which outsiders do not know (to use our Trek example again for this).

Nice nod to the paired design of Gungan shields, I'd like of they go that way for the Stardestroyer domes but which dome do you need to destroy then? It'd suffice to destroy one to take out both's functionality.

As for forward batteries... might have been just my bad memory conflating "Increase power to the forward deflectors" with batteries from two different scenes. Rewatch will clear it up.

Also a stellar object like the DS would be concerned about stellar object impacts and use particle shields over ray shields, with ray shields probably only in critical areas. I can see X-Wings fly through Rayshields but not particle shields. As Alpha-Red noted in ROTJ they can't fly through the DS2 shield projected from Endor. In Rogue One they cannot pass a planetary shield. Why would X-Wings be able to fly through the DS1 shield then? I saw them entering its gravitational zone, not pass through the shield or am I missing something?

Interesting that you mention the power management system of X-Wings as different from the Falcons steereable shields. I always saw it as both systems working together. You can use power management and/or steer them. At least capital ships can do that in addition to altering shield range.

First Order SDs have only one shield dome if I recall right? Why choose that then? Hmm? Or do they have secondary ones elsewhere?

 

"The battle station is heavily shielded and carries a firepower greater than half the starfleet. Its defenses are designed around a direct large-scale assault. A small, one-man fighter should be able to penetrate the outer defense."
"We're passing through the magnetic field! Hold tight! Switch your deflectors on, double front"

These two may lead to "it has a shield which only fighters can get through". A lot of EU novels tend to have shields that can be passed through - makes sense that the Death Star's would be one of them. TCW tended to the "object must move very slowly relative to the shield barrier, to pass through" approach (same as Dune)- with droideka shields at least.

 

Thx for the quotes and your mention of Droideka shields and how to penetrate them indeed is a great help to confirm that part of the theories. Man, TPM really did a lot for Shield-technology more than any other movie!

The quotes though highlight two separate points that often are conflated mistakenly. Heavily shielded regarding torpedo attacks is not the same as the magnetic (gravitational) field of the station! Penetrate defenses does refer not to shields but the weapon turrets too slow to track and target starfighters designed to thwart off fleets of capital ships!!!

Deflectors double front equally refers to enemy fire incoming soon, less to help penetrating any shield.

 

The Death Star novel, at least, presents that battlestation as having only rudimentary shields (but enormous amounts of defensive weaponry).

 

On the question of the shielding of Tarkin's technological terror...

The novel refers to the barrier as the "outer shields", and they're the "magnetic shields" in the shooting script. The change to "passing through their magnetic field" in the finished movie is paralleled by "We are opening the magnetic field" in the added voiceover when the Falcon is brought through the hangar-bay entrance, so a shielding function is still seems implied.

A @Iron_lord says, this part of the attack also seems to relate to the "outer defenses" from the Rebel briefng...

I'd guess that the shield at Endor is that much stronger, specifically to prevent the sort of attack that we saw at Yavin. The Hoth shield also appears to be impervious to spaceships (although possibly the issue there is to do with their speed and the strength of their own deflectors which would make them really easy targets, but I'm just mentioning that alternative for thoroughnes).

Remember, Endor or Hoth is much larger, and is a largely inert object that can absorb and radiate the excess energy (this was I think originally SWTC fan-theory, but seems logical, and is nodded to at least in pre-reboot canon, for example in the text accompaying the cross-section diagram of the battle of Hoth), whereas a battlemoon is all power-generation equipment and crew spaces, and already requires significant cooling already (hence the exhaust-vent vulnerability they exploit at Yavin). The phyical limits on shield strength and energy management are much lower.

Let me know what you come across?!

Replies to some specific points, many of them in the form of additional questions...

* Is the shield at Hoth dropped for the cannons to fire, or for the transports to get out?

* Good point that some shipboard weaponry appears to project through a shielded aperture, and thus potentially through the defensive shields. But these shields are at the ship's surface - is that just the particle shield, which WEG portrayed as generated directly against the hull suface? Or are they in gaps between other shields projected further out? Or is there no direct relationship between these apertures and the main shield? Is there some advantage to using these "shielded" openings (which generally appear to have blast-door gunports built in) over enclosed rotating turrets?

* Agreed that a Gungan-style double shield generator would make sense for the Star Destroyer tower modules, but I'm not specifically committed to this, or even to the modules being shield projectors (although I suspect they were envisaged as such in the Endor sequence). The idea of giving the system complexities similar to the Mon Cal design seems confusing, too. As you say, the First Order Star Destroyer only has one, asymmetrical bridge module, specifically identified in the cross-section as such. "Bridge deflector shield projector". Does this reflect a change in tech, or are there shields elsewhere compensating for the coverage provided on Imperial ships by a second separate tower-top projector? Should we envisage techs working the starboard generator at Endor, frantically trying to rotate the deflector round to the front? Or unable to do so because of Ackbar's capital-ship bombardment?

* I think that steering a shield would be excessive "workload" for a fighter pilot, and works better with a dedicated crewmember. A capital ship can probably both angle deflectors and re-route power to strengthen them. On the other hand, a capital ship with a complicated arrangement of shields might require a lot of complicated "juggling" of power, frequency and deflector interaction to achieve particularly sophisticated adjustments. I get the sense that capital ship deflectors generally run at "full power", and that switching between them is designed to maintain the barrier. Steering the position of the barrier mechanically may be the preferred solution beyond that. The system we see with the X-wings, where you have two shields and can shift all the power into one of them at a flick of a switch to double standard strength, may be specific to fighters, combining an input that's simple enough for pilots and an arrangement of deflectors that's simple enough to allow this.

- The Imperial Ewok

 

DJ came back?

 

@Thrawn McEwok

An actual Paladin-class. Given that we've heard that LFL emptied their "digital pantry" to compose the shot, this is unsurprising. Heck, Pablo confirmed that the Rogue One models for the Dornean gunship and Hammerhead corvette started with the Rebels versions, then were upgraded to movie quality.

Of all the ships reused, I beyond happy they chose to make the MC75 star cruiser (and variants of it) so prominent in the fleet. It truly is one of the best looking Mon Cala designs. It's sleek and deadly. It's got elements of a blue whale (the main central hull), but the towers and ventral fins give it a shark vibe too.

@bsmith7174

Either DJ, or someone who "acquired" the Libertine from him. The ship is supposed to be one of a kind, so I'm assuming it is in fact the one we see in TLJ.

@Ton_G

Yeah, I haven't (after several viewings and pouring over shots online) been able to see any other angle of the "Corellian gunship" looking vessel other than a front on shot. I'm still holding out hope for some special book or featurette that shows us the digital models of the free worlds fleet!

--Adm. Nick

 

Maybe the magnetic field/shields indeed is neither particle nor energy shields but simply to divert asteroids and other objects around the moving DS Battlestation. Likewise Hangar shields allow ships and shots through from what I recall seeing yet keep it only airtight.

Case in point ROTS when Obi and Anakin approach the Invisible Hand of Grievous. The Hangar is airtight and shots and ships can pass through, but they had to destroy an extra shield that protects the hangar before entering it without opening it up to space! So two different shields for one hangar. One for airtight, one for protection.

I agree that the ROTJ shield is stronger and exclusively for defense, like planetary shields at Scariff.

The shield is dropped for both given they go together. They have a tight window that has transports travelling at the trajectory of the shot right behind the shot.

Nice to know WEG envisioned particle shields closer to the ship than particle ones. If a ship increases shield range to envelop others, does that account for both or just energy shield then?

We had in multiple books (X-Wing etc.) that they targeted the gaps between overlapping shields or where in NJO Jedi Force guided weaponry into the tight spots where shields overlap right down to the surface. Maybe weaponry is not unshielded but the tiny gaps between shields are hard to hit and those they use to fire outward? Though with moveable turrets this sounds too complicated given shields would have to move and adapt to their movements.

Given the FO design is specifically called bridge defelctor I guess they must have others elsewhere. Or they designed them less obvious as targets and hid them under fake turrets and windows finally!

I'd like to see techs trying to move shields and the like. Like good old naval battles where they try to quickly turn a ship around or out of fire zones to show them the other side guns blazing. Not everyone had rotating gun emplacements like Hapans... now imagine Hapan shields: rotating shield generators between gun emplacements... no shield can fail without being replaced instantly! I need to patent this!

Agreed!

 

Are there still 2 types of shields?? Particle and ray shields...one blocks energy and the other blocks solid objects??

From The Wook....

 

Is there any reason to have only one and not the other? And if you're planning on flying through a shield, do you want to take the chance that it's only a ray shield and not a particle shield?

 

Right, they're so sparsely used that I keep thinking they must be based on *some* existing film or animated wireframe, or else they'd be less "offhand" -- as it is the reskinned Crucible is more prominent! But aside from looking like DP20s as they've historically been drawn (ANH concept art), I can't think of where anything all that much like them has been onscreen -- they don't seem to actually use Consular parts although that's the closest onscreen analogue I can recall.

 

I knew they upgraded the existing renders, but I wasn't sure if we saw a Paladin-class ship rather than a "kitbash" like the modified version of the GX-9 with Imperial Shuttle wings - unless that's specifically the Crucible in the foreground, salvaged and upgraded by Hondo?

* I also like the idea that DJ showed up.

* I share your enthusiasm for the MC75 (which also reminds me of a classic America's Cup yacht), but I also like the more abstract "modernist" designs from Jedi, which give a similar sense of "leviathans in the depths of space" without such literal references. The "wingless Liberty" is probably my favourite Mon Cal ship.

* I'm now wondering if the "Corellian gunship" and the "Nebulon-BF" might actually be digital mattes rather than complete 3D models...

Possibly, but I think the script references and novel show that the intention was for the barrier that the X-wings fly through to be the main deflector.

* What makes you think the Invisible Hand hangar has multiple deflectors? You're right that the shield arrangement apparently allows fighters to deploy from inside, while retaining the air and preventing the Jedi getting in - a complicated double-sided barrier. But I'm pretty certain that the ship has one multi-purpose shield, and that's why the blast door closes very rapidly when the generator is knocked out. Also, why does the barrier cause a problem for the Jedi - are their fighters unable to get in at all, or does this mean that they're moving too fast, or that the barrier would affect pilots? Or are the fighters coming out equipped with better shields?

* At Hoth, I'm not sure whether they need to drop the shield to use ion cannon. The fact that they only fire to cover the transports could be tactical - by making the ships fly out on a pre-planned line of fire they ensure the Imperials are in the perfect position to be shot, and the ships would possibly also mask accurate sensor readings of the ion bolts and cannon emplacement from the Imperials.

* If the particle shield has to be physically on the surface of the hull, then the particle shield can't project out. Not sure how consistently that idea was ever respected, though.

* I like your observation that "gunport" emplacements are easier to work through gaps in shield perimiters than turrets are.

* Agreed that there must be additional deflectors on the Finalizer, whether the projectors are disguised or just different-looking. But, without contradicting that, maybe the single projector module on the bridge is like a fancy modern radar array, and has multiple fixed panels covering different directions, in contrast to the single rotating generator suggested on the older Imperial designs...?

* I like the idea of Hapan shield projectors rotating like their guns - perhaps the reason this isn't mentioned is that this isn't nearly as unusual? Now you have me wondering if there's anything said about Hapan ships' shields...

Of course, all this is based around the idea that the bridge domes are shield generators, which I'm not particularly militant about.

I suspect so - the idea of "particle shields" being something separate is based on the fact that the exhaust port in ANH lacks close-range protection against projectiles, although I'm pretty sure the terminology isn't used explicitly in the movies.

- The Imperial Ewok

 

Three of the ships from resistance do show up in TROS, no screen caps from the movie, but the photo real versions of the models are at the bottom of this page. Spoiler warning for the series finale.
https://www.starwars.com/news/buckets-list-extra-the-escape-part-2-star-wars-resistance

the page also says there’s mining guild fighters in the battle.

 

As seen in The Rise of Skywalker...

 

I forgot about the physical hangar doors that close just as they fly into the Hangar... one of these days I need to make time for some rewatches. With memory failing me, I guess I did get older on my birthday last week after all!

My point was that in the midst of battle, the Invisible Hand had shields up through which the Jedi could not enter the hangar. Not the hangar-shield that keeps it airtight only. They had to destroy a generator right next to the hangar opening to be able to enter. This is not the main shield generator for the entire ship though. And their hit seems to have destroyed more than just the shield so the hangar baydoors were automatically activated to seal the hangar off.

Did we see Seppie fighters leave the hangar before they hit the shield or landed? Not that I can recall.

Sounds logical, especially given the rotating design would leave a tiny window where shots could get through the oscillation cycle if fast enough.

Doubt it was ever portrayed consistently enough so should work both ways.

Let me know if you find anything, got busy days ahead.

I surprisingly found a point in favor of your interpretation: We have more examples of Starfighters ignoring/flying right through shields (ray shields at least):

In TLJ the Raddus has the shields up when Kylo Ren and his Ties fly right through them into the superstructure to fire at the Hangar!

So, maybe one can fly through rayshields with a fighter who behaves like a projectile which is not inhibited by them. Much like the Trade Federation Droids walk through the Gungan ray shields. But didn't the TDF battle tanks fire projectiles too at the Gungans that did not pass through? If so they had particle and ray shields in one, which only allowed slow moving objects through, no highspeed stuff like shots and projectiles. Thus maybe there is a certain topspeed at which one can enter or leave the hangar savely and anything faster will get stopped by the hangar shield? In battle like with Kenobi and Skywalker moving slow though means they would be shot at and killed before making it in, so they had to get in fast and take out the hangar shield.

If this speed gambit is true, ANH makes sense in that the X-Wings flew through the DS deflector slowly like through a Hangar shield and only then accellerated to attack speed opening up their S-foils.

 

Second one would make a decent starfighter. And if Lucasfilm's willing to release CGI models of puny scum ships from the Allied Fleet, they'd better do the same for those beefy new Mon Cals.

 

@Thrawn McEwok

Ooh! I never made the connection between the MC75's main hull and the racing yachts from the America's Cup! I totally see it now.

Don't worry, I still love the original MC's from Jedi. My first SW ship love was Home One.

--Adm. Nick

 

EDIT: this is a bit brisk because I accidentally hit "send" mid-draft...!

Nice.

As usual, they've tweaked the geometry - the Fireball's engine seems to have been enlarged, Yeager's racer has ditched the astromech and plated over the canopy section behind the pilot's seat, and Blue Ace has acquired fancier gun detailing and a raised cowling around the engines. As these are the Aces, though, we can put that down to deliberate modification - they've been up-engined, or in the case of Yeager's ship, probably installed a built-in navacomp....

No worries! A few observations...

* The component destroyed by Skyguy seems to control both access and exit from the hangar, which suggests a single complex barrier.

* We do see tri-fighters launch from the hangar, through the deflector, earlier in the opening sequence of Ep. III.

A few more general observation that are a wave to the rest of the thread:

* Any canon information on particle shields will be useful.

* Ditto on Hapan shields.

* The point that the TIEs apparently attack the Raddus through the shield is fairly solid information for typical capital-ship deflectors in current movie canon.

* At Yavin, the X-wings "accelerate to attack speed" once inside the perimiter of the battle station, which at least supports the idea that passing through the perimiter was something best done at slow speed.

* The space battle at Naboo in TPM is also interesting - we see Naboo torpedoes impact against the surface of the command sphere and one of the sensor dishes - this appears to have no effect, suggesting that the surface is tightly shielded against them (though maybe we just don't get the right camera angles afterwards - we also see a TF droid fighter collide with part of the command tower, though I'm not clear if any damage was done here). Is this a "particle shield"?

* Also in TPM, wasn't there some suggestion that the N-1 was able to get into the hangar because droid fighters were flying out, suggesting that a deflector can be adjusted to perform different roles depending on the situation?

You know I like smaller ships better.

- The Imperial Ewok

 

None of the ships have astromechs in those renders. But the droid slots are still there on all 3.

 

It says freighters and while I haven't watched the show I wasn't able to find anything about MG freighters in Resistance. Could it actually mean "Rebels MG freighters" and refer to the Zygerrian ships you can see in the battle?