Orbital Combat

[CRMcNeill]

As part of the re-statting of the Snowspeeder, I came across a wrinkle regarding orbital combat. While they are generally atmosphere-only, speeders under WEG's description can actually operate up to low orbit, several hundred kilometers above WEG's arbitrary 50km edge-of-space. This is on top of how capital ships have orbital ranges measured in kilometers, while orbital defense weapons like the v-150 have ranges measured in SUs.

I'd like to see some form of uniform concept for orbital combat at varying altitudes, as well as some general ideas as to where ranges transition from SUs to kilometers (I.e. at what point is a ship in the same SU as a planet, and how many kilometers up it is when it does.

For discussion's sake, the real world, generally-agreed-upon boundary between space and the atmosphere for Earth is 100 km.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[jmanski]

Planet size is the issue. But I think you have your answer: on a Terran-sized planet 100 km and under would be in meters while over 100 km would resort to SU.
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Blasted rules. Why can't they just be perfect?

[CRMcNeill]

[CRMcNeill]

Plus, per Wikipedia, Low Orbit runs from 160 kilometers all the way up to 2,000 kilometers, and any object that drops below 160 kilometers suffers rapid orbital decay. Based on the RAW, capital ships would have to drop below 150 kilometers for their turbolaser to even have a chance of hitting the ground...
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[CRMcNeill]

Just for some background, per Wikipedia, Earth Orbit is broken up into the following categories:

Low (160 km - 2,000 km)
Medium (2,000 km up to Geosynchronous Orbit, or 35,786 kilometers)
High (Anything above the height of a Geosynchronous Orbit and still orbiting the planet)

_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[garhkal]

Perhaps then the issue is when WEG said airspeeders can operate outside of atmosphere (250KM) then..
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Zarn]

The 100 km limit is the Kármán line. It is, quite simply, the edge after which wings won't give any lift, and is therefore often considered the boundary between the atmosphere and outer space. Obviously, the Kármán line would vary with the thickness of the planet's atmosphere, and the gravity of the planet - not the size, per se.

Repulsorlift vehicles don't use wings for lift - but might use wing-like control surfaces. Letting an airspeeder zoom around above the Kármán line doesn't seem like much of a stretch for me, but might warrant a reduction in Maneuverability if one wanted to simulate to that level.

You don't get a stable orbit below 160 km. However, if you're a Star Destroyer closing in for some gunnery practice, , you're pushing a lot of energy into maintaining your altitude. You're not really orbiting anything, you're actually flying (or powering) in the same altitude as LEO.

Besides, I would think it would be spectacular if a Star Destroyer's doing a close approach maneuver. Sort of an aerobrake maneuver on a massive scale.

If you had some time, and wanted just to push kinetic energy into a target, something like a cee fractional strike (a dumb, heavy iron rock from an asteroid belt or something similar accelerated to a significant percent of lightspeed) would likely be more effective. However, it isn't particularly Star Wars-y, and I would guess planetary shields might be able to rebound something like that.

[CRMcNeill]

[cynanbloodbane]

[CRMcNeill]

Exactly. As near as I can figure, a straight repulsorlift drive does not just neutralize gravity but redirects it, providing both lift and thrust from the same medium. I'm reaching here, but if the ANH novel is accurate, repulsorlifts only operate in the presence of a gravity well of some kind, which to my mind implies something more than simple neutralization of gravity. For truly high performance vehicles, a repulsorlift has to be augmented by some sort of booster or other sort of auxiliary drive, as seen on multiple vehicles throughout the films.

If this supposition is correct, the primary limiting factor for altitude range on repulsorlifts would be the efficiency of the drive (as in, its ability to convert gravitational pull into both lift and thrust), which will actually drop off as the gravity field weakens.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[garhkal]

Well, looking at practically all air/repulsor speeder units, most have a real low flight ceiling.. Only the cloud cars are high altitude operating..
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[CRMcNeill]

[garhkal]

[CRMcNeill]

And all the writings of Kevin J. Anderson were authorized by Lucasarts as well, so obviously the bar isn't set too high. Since when is WEG a paragon of canonical authority? We find errors in their stuff all the time here. As such, I question all sources if I find something questionable, and especially when WEG's own published information is internally inconsistent.

And if repulsorlifts function the way they are described as functioning in multiple sources, a 250 meter maximum altitude makes absolutely no sense, as it derives lift from pushing against the local gravity field, not the ground underneath it.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[garhkal]

As i said above though, not all repulsors are limited that badly, just some. Which imo makes sense.. NOT al repulsorlift vehicles should be atmospheric capable.
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!