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[Kot]

Yeah, but we had that in form of Galaxy Gun before. The shit can go through hyperspace but not explictly hit in hyperspace. Once something starts hitting in hyperspace we start having problems.

The problem with Hyperspace ramming is not that it "shouldn't work" technically, because fuck that shit it might work, it's not like we know the science in new canon (and old canon science was handwavium all together), the problem is that it produces questions suchs as why for instance they don't ram X-Wings in Imperial ships bridges while they also have shields up at the same time, and more importantly internally in the movie - why the fuck didin't they do it earlier, since their situation was so desperate and all they knew was that they're going to die, might as well ram First Order fleet in hyperspace using one of the three ships they have and try to get away with the remaining two while First Order is in disarray and so on. It's just that ramming creates a lot of possibilities that are hard to justify as to why they weren't used more in canon. The point is it was usually said it doesn't work in old canon specifically due to those questions, and if you think my jimmies are rustled over this, you should see the roleplayers which went absolutely batshit over "YOU CAN DO THAT?!?".

[Bumber]

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.

You must have missed the part where Finn and the gang had to slip past it to sneak on board.

[Reelya]

[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?]

Remember the first Death Star wasn't shielded at all. The second Death Star was shielded, but it was a planet-based shield generator. We can assume that the shield in Return of the Jedi wasn't a viable ship-borne device. I can't think of a single reference to deflector shielding in either New Hope or Empire, the planet-based shield in Jedi was the first reference to shielding in the original series, I believe.

I'm not really up on the EU stuff at all, but in the main movies, how many ships actually have ship-carried shields? This isn't Star Trek.

[hector13]

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.

You must have missed the part where Finn and the gang had to slip past it to sneak on board.

That part was scoured from my mind ‘cause it was silly.

[Taricus]

Remember the first Death Star wasn't shielded at all. The second Death Star was shielded, but it was a planet-based shield generator. We can assume that the shield in Return of the Jedi wasn't a viable ship-borne device.

I'm not really up on the EU stuff at all, but in the main movies, how many ships actually have ship-carried shields? This isn't Star Trek.

Pretty much everything apart from TIE fighters (Barring Vader's fighter). Hell, I'd go so far as to presume the death star was shielded too, just that the rebel fighters got through the shield.

[Reelya]

If even X-Wing fighters have deflector shields, then they are in fact not actually that powerful. For a decent shield that could stop any physical object hitting Death Star II, they needed a planet-scale installation. They certainly would have made a portable "shield projection ship" if that was viable.

Ships crash into each other all the time in Star Wars and everything is wrecked in the immediate vicinity. So any ship-carried shield isn't going to protect you from a hyperdrive-speed ship ramming you. The existing shields don't in fact protect you from things running into you at even low speeds. In all likelihood then, the existing shields merely improve your odds vs plasma blasts, but nowhere near 100% protection even for that.

[Taricus]

The second death star was destroyed by fighter craft flying inside of it. Going by the fact that the first death star had fighter bays stocked with TIEs I'd hazard the shield does not activate against fighters or the lie. If they did, the death star wouldn't have had hangars.

What does stop hyperspace ramming is the precision of it. You're not gonna know where anything is outside of your immediate drop-point  aside from a mass shadow, which only show up on anything of a specific size and larger; you can't detect a ship because ships don't have a mass shadow, or enough of one, to lock onto.

[Kot]

What does stop hyperspace ramming is the precision of it. You're not gonna know where anything is outside of your immediate drop-point  aside from a mass shadow, which only show up on anything of a specific size and larger; you can't detect a ship because ships don't have a mass shadow, or enough of one, to lock onto.

As long as you see it you can do it. You don't even need to see it by yourself, as you could have guidance ships or something, considering instantenous interstellar communication is a thing in Star Wars. Just relate the position of enemy compared to nearby mass shadows and send coordinates to the hyperspace ramming thing.

This is slowly turning into Arms Race thread, isin't it? Empire would be one damn scary people if any Forenians ever shared the knowledge with them.

[hector13]

The second death star was destroyed by fighter craft flying inside of it. Going by the fact that the first death star had fighter bays stocked with TIEs I'd hazard the shield does not activate against fighters or the lie. If they did, the death star wouldn't have had hangars.

Well for hangars you just need to keep the atmosphere in, and allow the ships to get out.

I mean, you have their own weapons foring through their own shields, so either shields can be switched off for certain things, or they can have temporary, controlled holes in their shields to allow their shots and fighters through.

The second DS does shoot some ships with its cannon, though I can’t remember if that’s before or after the shield goes down.

[Reelya]

Yup, an energy wall that keeps air in is actually fairly feasible even in reality. It only needs to exert in excess of 1 ATM of pressure, e.g. it needs to have more pressure than the air does against your skin. However, when something heavier pushes through it, you'd expect to lose a little air. Perhaps have two layers of shielding and between them you have a pocket of vacuum which recycles any stray particles.

[Taricus]

Very few ships can receive or send messages while in hyperspace. And with hyperspace travel being what it is you can't change course once you're in motion and it does take a bit to get to point B from point A. Once you combine that with planetary orbits and you're gonna be in for a long wait.

Hell, even mid system hyperspace jumps we're basically unheard of until thrawn in the old EU played silly buggers with a couple of interdictors and kicked in a lot of the new republic's shit as a result.

As for shields, they're generally the sort of thing that's always on and you can seemingly fire through them in the case of ships.

[Kot]

Very few ships can receive or send messages while in hyperspace. And with hyperspace travel being what it is you can't change course once you're in motion and it does take a bit to get to point B from point A. Once you combine that with planetary orbits and you're gonna be in for a long wait.

I don't mean send messages in hyperspace. Send them before with calculated coordinates and then fire away.
Travel time why anti-ship combat usage would probably need to be done at inter-planetary distances at most, but for instance bombarding enemy ground installations could be done from the other side of galaxy, because as far as travel time is concerned planets also move in very predictable patterns, and all you need is something powerful enough to calculate the point at which you need to strike, and they totally have that, considering you have to do the same thing, except purposefully miss, during regular hyperspace jumps.

[McTraveller]

I finally saw Ep VIII last night.  Overall I happen to think it is actually one of the stronger movies, but not without its flaws.  I think it actually advances the story rather than just introduce new characters and give lip service to the previous generation.  There was enough real despair and underlying thread of the conflict between light and dark in each of us, and philosophical issues of "good and bad are made up words" that make the bigger story fairly compelling.  Even the campy lines about hope and suns and all that.  Personal sacrifice, giving up the momentary victory to save what you love instead of destroying what you hate - those are all pretty big themes that I think are often missed in western cultures these days - I mean, people don't even understand in world events why people would be willing to risk their lives for various ideals, let alone against helpless odds.  The stuff about arms dealers, too, that's a pretty heady thing to put in that movie.

I feel like the movie maybe could have had an even darker tone had it not been catering so much for kids, but it's not a bad balance.  As it was though - I'd have to consider when I'd take my kids to see it. Lots of people dying in that movie, even as "sanitized" as a ship going up in a ball of space-fire may be.


Some things to keep in mind though - it's obvious that Disney is making the series more aimed at a younger audience.  If you approach the series with that mindset a lot of things make a bit more sense.  Remember folks, the movie makers are not making the movie for current Star Wars fans so much as they are trying to make new lifelong Star Wars fans.  They are trying to get kids at younger ages.

That said, things I liked:

• Actual new story progression.  Much more than the simple "let's introduce some new characters" of Ep VII, we had progression about the nature of the Force, etc.  For those of us who don't spend massive amounts of time in the EU for instance, this is welcome.
• Aside from the technical issues, the cruiser lightspeed jump was one of the most visually stunning elements I've ever seen in a Star Wars movies.
• I'm still not sure who these folks are saying there are no "wide shots" in this movie - there were actually way more than I was expecting.  Think of all the stuff at the Jedi temple complex where there is no or almost no dialog, just exposition of Luke's daily life through imagery.  There was basically no words at all with Luke's last moments, just shots of the suns-set.
• Some character building of the main 4 - I thought it was pretty decent for each of them, working through the various situations.  You don't have to like the characters, but the way the development is done is actually better than most movies these days. And that's kind of scary/impressive.
• Did that little kid at the very end force-pull the broom into his hand, or did I dream that?

My dislikes, and most of them are technical:

• There were actually few instances of green-screen failure. By that I mean there was a discernible layering of the characters into their surroundings. The worst of these was during the hangar-in-flames fighting and escape of Fin and Rose.
• The flight mechanics of ships in the Star Wars universe is baffling.  Why do ships require fuel to move at constant speed? Why do capital ships all seem to move at the same speed? That is - the Resistance fleet moves away from the New Order fleet initially to get range, but then the New Order fleet apparently keeps the same range from then out. This just suggests a response lag, not a difference in thrust / speed capability.  Small aside: why would a ship start drifting aimlessly just because it ran out of fuel?  Apparently this part of space is either dense fluid or uses Eve Online space mechanics.
• Snoke really needed some development. First of all, a prosthetic costume or animatronic would have been way better than that CGI mess. Also, he's supposed to be this badass, but we only get a couple menacing holograms and one "in person" scene where he basically Dies of Hubris (there's probably a TVTropes for that).  No "mystery" like we had with the original Emperor, no real evidence of why people fear him other than his overt use of power, etc.  But where did he come from? You'd think if you had this many super-powerful dark side adepts around, they would be more obvious...
• You can use a stampede as a story element, but having your heroes ride the stampeding animals is... reaching.  Plus the stampeding animals were a bit too emotive.  A horse is expressive, but doesn't have a simian face like whatever those were.  Somewhat related: I don't quite understand the little bird-things that Chewie befriended. They seemed kind of like fluff (see what I did there?)
• Too much special effects money spent on odd choices - fix the greenscreen and get rid of that little greedy thing throwing coins around.

[Dorsidwarf]

No, the kid definitely used the Force to grab the broom. It was an emphasis of one of the films messages - that the Force isn't a magic power only for special wizards, it's a part of the whole universe and to think you can snuff it out or control it is nothing but hubris.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

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.

Well that's definitely not how hyperspace works?

@McTraveller, please tell me how the story has progressed in a meaningful way and how the characters have developed at all?