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[Kot]

I think we can just say that hyperspace ramming is possible, but it's not an efficient use of resources. It's the same as saying that kamikaze plane attacks in general are possible however they're a really poor use of resources, whenever you have the choice to do something else, you do the something else.

Kamikaze plane attacks are technically good use of resources if they all succeded, after all a plane is much cheaper than a carrier, but the problem is that the planes were often shoot down before hitting the ships and the damage often wasn't critical.
Neither of those problems applies here, especially since you don't even have to build a whole ship to ram someone, just make dedicated hyperspace missiles or torpedoes. After all, that is literally what we did in reality - missiles are now the primary weapon of choice for many tasks such as naval combat, long range bombardment (nukes) and anti-air combat. Missiles are literally unmanned ramming vehicles that go boom after hitting something.

Basically we can just assume that the amount of damage done with a big plasma  weapon over it's expected lifetime in a battle exceeds the damage done by firing hyperspace-engine things through the target, in terms of resource units needed to create the weapons. Basically, if you took the same amount of resources needed to create that rebel flagship, but instead used them to make a single huge plasma cannon (that doesn't have hyperspace engines), it would by necessity have done more damage than hyperspace ramming the enemy with the ship.

Probably yes, the damage would be greater, but the damage will be split over time during which the enemy is also shooting back. This is really simple, you're trading the ability for sustained firepower for the ability to deal a lot of damage instantly, especially since the hyperspace ramming seems to work against shielded opponents. You don't even have to kill the enemy ship outright, all it takes is for the hyperspace torpedo to cripple the enemy ship battle capabilities and then finish it off with regular weapons.

It's actually pretty easy to explain why hyperspace ramming is a thing you can do, but nobody normally does it.

No, it's actually really hard to explain why hyperspace ramming is a thing you can do, but nobody does it, since as shown by the example it has great capabilites and even if it's not a staple of space combat due to w/e reasons, it's very hard to justify that noone has weapons capable of it.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

1.) It's not a new technology. Like kamikaze wasn't a new technology. She just deciding to ram her ship into theirs ASAP to give the rebels as much time as possible. She had no idea it would work.

Tracking IS a new technology. That is literally what they say. Nobody ever made something that enabled you to track someone in Hyperspace, and First Order did. She could have no idea she could ram them, and yet "she decides to ram their ship".

Just to clarify, fleet combat has 100% taken place at greater effective ranges in Episodes 3 and 6. To be fair, Star Wars isn't the best at giving an accurate sense of scale in space combat so it's kind of a moot point--the range is pretty much always determined by plot. That said, the whole barely being able to outpace ISDs is an absolutely bogus looming threat. A.) No. B.) You're telling me that Mega Star Destroyer can't shoot for shit? Ridiculous. \

They literally say in the movie that they are too far away for their guns to work, which is why they are pursuing them in first place and waiting for them to run out of fuel instead of just, you know, gunning them down. Fuck scale, fuck that, I am going off what characters and plot tells me.

How does tracking being a new technology play into her decision to hyperspace ram them?

You're just reiterating what I said--but the plot of this movie violates the logic of the plot set up in movies that come before it so... It's dumb.

[Kot]

How does tracking being a new technology play into her decision to hyperspace ram them?

She had no idea it would work.

Answering the explanation that the ramming worked because only because tracker "peeks" the ship into hyperspace so it can be rammed. If she had no idea it would work, since the technology was new and Resistance had no idea how it worked, she must have thought it couldn't work and then the better option for her would be trying to shield the transports with the ship or something, not turn around and try to achieve... nothing really, at least that what she would have thought in this case.
That or she is a complete moron and had no idea it wouldn't work and just got lucky but then that is one of sloppiest explanations there can be.

[hector13]

I think we can just say that hyperspace ramming is possible, but it's not an efficient use of resources. It's the same as saying that kamikaze plane attacks in general are possible however they're a really poor use of resources, whenever you have the choice to do something else, you do the something else.

Kamikaze plane attacks are technically good use of resources if they all succeded, after all a plane is much cheaper than a carrier, but the problem is that the planes were often shoot down before hitting the ships and the damage often wasn't critical.
Neither of those problems applies here, especially since you don't even have to build a whole ship to ram someone, just make dedicated hyperspace missiles or torpedoes. After all, that is literally what we did in reality - missiles are now the primary weapon of choice for many tasks such as naval combat, long range bombardment (nukes) and anti-air combat. Missiles are literally unmanned ramming vehicles that go boom after hitting something.

Basically we can just assume that the amount of damage done with a big plasma  weapon over it's expected lifetime in a battle exceeds the damage done by firing hyperspace-engine things through the target, in terms of resource units needed to create the weapons. Basically, if you took the same amount of resources needed to create that rebel flagship, but instead used them to make a single huge plasma cannon (that doesn't have hyperspace engines), it would by necessity have done more damage than hyperspace ramming the enemy with the ship.

Probably yes, the damage would be greater, but the damage will be split over time during which the enemy is also shooting back. This is really simple, you're trading the ability for sustained firepower for the ability to deal a lot of damage instantly, especially since the hyperspace ramming seems to work against shielded opponents. You don't even have to kill the enemy ship outright, all it takes is for the hyperspace torpedo to cripple the enemy ship battle capabilities and then finish it off with regular weapons.

It's actually pretty easy to explain why hyperspace ramming is a thing you can do, but nobody normally does it.

No, it's actually really hard to explain why hyperspace ramming is a thing you can do, but nobody does it, since as shown by the example it has great capabilites and even if it's not a staple of space combat due to w/e reasons, it's very hard to justify that noone has weapons capable of it.

Were the First Order ships shielded though? They did say the Resistance ships were faster; perhaps they had to take power from elsewhere (like shields) to keep up.

[Kot]

I don't know, but that sounds like dumb idea.
TBH, fuck it, the amount of mental gymnastics and required "what if" to excuse the thing is not really worth it, as really it was just some goddamn

[Egan_BW]

[Who decided not to put shields on the death star's exhaust port?! If that sort of thing works why don't the rebels just use x-wings to shoot photon torpedoes down the exhaust ports of every imperial capital ship?]

[NJW2000]

[Who decided not to put shields on the death star's exhaust port?! If that sort of thing works why don't the rebels just use x-wings to shoot photon torpedoes down the exhaust ports of every imperial capital ship?]

It's not like Star Wars is hard sci-fi though. It's space opera: heroes journey + space buddhism + the sci-fi props they had on studio, the universe's logic isn't the point. For example, the explosion made sense visually and intuitively: big important good guys thing hits evil other big thing.

[hector13]

Well the explosions make noise in space. Star Wars subtitle isn’t “This is How to Physics”.

[Egan_BW]

In some ways this movie feels like a focused rejection of the idea that star wars should be hard in any way whatsoever. It should be explody and not take time to teach the nerds at home how a shield generator works. It's explosition.

[Dorsidwarf]

[Who decided not to put shields on the death star's exhaust port?! If that sort of thing works why don't the rebels just use x-wings to shoot photon torpedoes down the exhaust ports of every imperial capital ship?]

You know, there was an entire movie based around this one plot point...

[Egan_BW]

[Who decided not to put shields on the death star's exhaust port?! If that sort of thing works why don't the rebels just use x-wings to shoot photon torpedoes down the exhaust ports of every imperial capital ship?]

You know, there was an entire movie based around this one plot point...

Which, vitally, came out after the original.

[Dorsidwarf]

It's been a while since I watched it but didn't some random light fighter crash into the Executors bridge in RotJ, instantly causing it to crash and burn? Why not complain that that violated the continuity of the Star Wars universe, if one fighter hitting the incredibly exposed and obvious bridge of an imperial capital ship can destroy it instantly (remember, capital ship weapons aren't much use against fighters so given the general higher skill level of the rebellion pilots, why weren't they just blowing up the bridge of every stat destroyer they encountered?

[NJW2000]

Suicide runs are SO not the rebel style. Unless, you know, they are.

[Taricus]

A: The Executor's shields went down
B: The rebellion just doesn't have the manpower or fighters to waste in suicide attacks
C: The bridge being destroyed didn't blow up the entire Executor, that was the rebel fleet doing that via concentrated firepower.

[Putnam]

B: The rebellion just doesn't have the manpower or fighters to waste in suicide attacks

🤔

Anyway, on the topic of hyperspace missiles: Starkiller Base is actually explicitly said to be a hyperspace weapon, so that's definitely not out of the picture.