Gritsucker quoting Mike Wong... That’s a good quote. In general I do like MW’s work (
www.stardestroyer.net ), and the scientific analysis he makes, but don’t agree with all of his conclusions. I’d like to see someone scientifically comparing sci-fi as serially as he does with a more impartial point of view.
I feared that trekkies would have delirious of grandeur, but it seems that Mike Wong readers are the ones.
Anyway let’s try to avoid the vs. debate.
About the phaser vs turbolaser discussion. I think they are even, and if they’re not we’ll make them even.
IMHO Turbolasers have shorter range and do less damage, but they shorter reload time and are smaller. Their damage rating may be slightly higher than phasers.
Phasers should have longer range do higher damage and have accuracy bonus, but bigger and with longer reload time. Like with WMGs, the first volley of fire will be powerful, but if you can’t kill the target with it, you’re in trouble.
About SW shields, there are separate ray shields and particle shields. As stated in the rebel debriefing the exhaust port in the Death Star was ray shielded but not particle shielded. That’s maybe because of its normal function, a particle shield would have blocked the particles it was supposed to exhaust.
There’s also the possibility that the Death Star shield worked somehow like the Gungan bubble shield, permeable only to slow moving objects.
Anyway normally ships carry a combination of both shielding systems what protects them from any kind of weapon. I don’t see a reason why in the mod SW shields need to be stronger or weaker than ST shields.
Planetary shields are a different story, and should be much stronger than ruin se4 shields. We have many examples that state that bombarding a shielded planet is useless (and most SW planets are shielded). The rebel shield in Hoth was umbrella shaped, so the Empire was forced to use ground troops, when bombarding from space would have been easier. The more advanced Imperial shield in Endor, not only prevented bombardment and troop landing but also protected the Death Star in orbit.
Such a strong planetary shield may be unbalancing, so I think it should be weakened in the mod, but it should still be strong enough to absorb all damage made by a small enemy fleet.
About ship sizes. In starwars most triangular ships, regardless their size, are called Star Destroyers, and of course have nothing to do with se4 destroyer. And you’re right, star wars ships are very big, according to my estimations imperial star destroyers are far beyond an se4 baseship.
About speed, hyperspace is the fastest FTL propulsion method, and should be represented by ship having more strategic movements. And they should also be relatively slow and not maneuverable in combat. Unfortunately there’s no way to simulate this in SE4, I tried a negative Combat Movement ability but it didn’t work.
There are cloaking devices in star wars, but they are not common because they are very expensive. A cloaked ship is invisible, but also blinded to the visible universe, and you can explode if you attempt to jump into hyperspace while cloaked.