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Are Buzz Droids Effective in Attacking and/or Disabling Capital Ships?


Darth Andrew

Are buzz droids effective in attacking and/or disabling capital ships?  

17 members have voted

  1. 1. Are buzz droids effective in attacking and/or disabling capital ships?

    • Yes
      6
    • No
      10
    • Unsure
      1


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Currently over at the Imperial Assault II mod forum, fellow members (myself included) are arguing if buzz droids would be used to attack and disable capital ships or not. I say no, seeing how their tools are used to cut through starfighter armor, and not the hull of a capital ship. Plus, the sources I trust (starwars.com and Wookieepedia) give no mention of them doing such an action. So what do you think? And if anyone has an official source proving if buzz droids do or do not attack capital ships, please post it! :)

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Its not mentioned. But I would think they excell at the role. During battle there is no way a capital ship can deploy personel to get rid of them, while the buzz droids can slowly cut thru weak points, or attack devices like turbo lasers.

 

On the other hand, against freighters seems to be its traditional role, which they do not excel at. I mean, things can be easier if they would just walk to a freighter's engine unit or cockpit, sick out a demolition charge, and boom goes a freighter. It is much more effective than what is shown on Ep III. Now, against things like transport and bombers they would do a much better job.

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From a strictly technical perspective I don't believe the Buzz Droid wouldn't be very effective at damaging a Capital Warship... the armor plating is far denser and thicker than for a smaller fighter craft and the thinner materials/armor used on them.

 

Also the Buzz Droids tools for gaining entry are insufficient for the job of tackling a capital ship, at best they would be an irritant. ;)

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Well, if you use Buzz droids against a capital ship (or any big ships for that matter) then the aim for the buzz droids is weaken but not destruction.

 

Simply put, the buzz droids should be set to damage weak installments on the hull. There are spots on a big ship that is weak in armor but really difficult to hit, for example, the laser turrets and cannons and directional thrusters.

 

Well damaging such systems will not destroy the big ships, but they will reduce their effectiveness, sometimes by critical amounts.

 

Think of the below cases:

 

1) Sopme of the turning thrusters are weakened, so CIS ships can get a nice rake shot at its engine.

 

2) Main laser turrets are damaged, and only function at 50% effeciveness.

 

3) 30% of Anti-freighter turrets turning error, unable to track targets.

 

4) Communication towers damaged, command/coordination range reduced.

 

5) Hanger Door mechanism damaged, allow 3 minutes or repair procedure (which even 5 seconds can mean life and death)

 

All of the above does not destroy the ship, but can have extreme effect to the battle as a whole.

 

This is even more effect when you take into account that most giant structures in star wars have small but potentually deadly weak points.

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1) Sopme of the turning thrusters are weakened, so CIS ships can get a nice rake shot at its engine.

Attacking a thruster is not something that can be done normally, especially since most combat manuvering in Star Wars is Repulsor based so there are no manuvering thruster nozzles.

 

2) Main laser turrets are damaged, and only function at 50% effeciveness.

Impossible, Turrets on a Warship are very heavily armored, and couldn't be effected by a small Droid.

 

3) 30% of Anti-freighter turrets turning error, unable to track targets.

So are anti-fighter turrets... not to mention that an incoming Buzz Droid projectile would be a target for these turrets.

 

4) Communication towers damaged, command/coordination range reduced.

Again, unlikely due to the towers large size, and the Buzz Droids possess inefficient tools for this kind of job.

 

5) Hanger Door mechanism damaged, allow 3 minutes or repair procedure (which even 5 seconds can mean life and death)

Sorry but the mechanism to a door is under armor, that's the whole purpose of a door like this on a spacebourne military vessel. The door opening would also be protected by a force field, not to mention the troops inside the flight bay could easily blast the Buzz Droids with their weapons.

 

Sorry, the little Buzz Droids are just not meant for Capital Ships.

 

You do not attack Capital ships this way anyway, you use Assault Shuttles or Breaching Pods full of troops for this. ;)

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Attacking a thruster is not something that can be done normally, especially since most combat manuvering in Star Wars is Repulsor based so there are no manuvering thruster nozzles.

Manuvering in an atmosphere is Repulsor based, a Repulsor only works when it has a gravitational force to repel, so in space thrusters would be used.

I agreed with everything else though.

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I don't think "cutting" rould be the right word against big ships.

 

It would be more akin to pinpoint surgical sabotage.

 

No matter how heavily armored a ship is, there are always those tiny weak spots that is necessary for its function, like sensors for turrets and what not. Obviously trying to hit those spots with a starfighter requires some improbable pin point accuracy, and possable help of the Force. Not so for Buzz droids. Once its attached to the hull its virtually impossable to hit at by defence turrets (yes its a serious case of trench run syndrome) All a buzz droid need to do is to get clsoe to one of those devices and make a few correct slices...

 

No, I never suggest drilling a big hole on blast door or a turret itself. More like jamming the turning mechanism or cracking that targeting sensor or dislocating that forcefield gate.

 

Obviously the job would be easier if buzzdroids have a built in thermo datonator.

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Have we all forgotten about Blasters? These theorectical exploding Capital Ship Infiltrating Buzz droids are totally redundant, we see in ROTS that a second of superlaser from the belly of a Venator can break a CIS Frigate in half. Manufacturing these new droids would just be too much effort for such a little result.

 

Now, as Poiuy said, about the drilling into a Cap. ship, to do so the sheilds would of course have to be down meaning that this ship would be in the thick of battle to have sustained that extent of damage. You couldn't just select a ship far away and fire one of those pods with the buzz droids in, with the sheilds they are useless.

If the sheilds are down then why wait for a droid to drill into the ship, (the turrets couldn't hit it but fighters could target it.) get a tri-fighter to blow a hole in the hull?

 

Even the Buzz droids that were in ROTS were overkill, it was just an unnecessarily complicated way of doing a job that a well placed blaster hit could do.

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Manuvering in an atmosphere is Repulsor based, a Repulsor only works when it has a gravitational force to repel, so in space thrusters would be used.

While I have no doubt that Repulsors work like that for atmospheric manuvering, I do have an issue with there being 'thrusters' in Star Wars on the ships as we never see any used, except possibly an odd one.

 

[Puts on Geek Hat]

 

Gravetic Drives like they would have in Star Wars would not require a gravity field of a planet to operate, if you can simulate gravity on board a ship you can indeed have a gravetic drive system.

 

Star Destroyers would need one especially since they have no visable maneuvering thrusters, nor did the Falcon, any of the fighters, nor did the Death Star, heck the Death Star didn't even have any main thrusters, they have to have gravetic drives that has to be able to function away from stellar bodies.

 

Also we see no firing thrusters in any Star Wars scene, except ones when a ship is landing, but that could also be heat exchangers disspersing the extra heat generated by the 'Repulsors' in an atmosphere.

 

It is also my understanding that in Star Wars the term 'Repulsor' applies to all gravetic based propulsion systems. ;)

 

[Takes off Geek Hat]

 

Even the Buzz droids that were in ROTS were overkill, it was just an unnecessarily complicated way of doing a job that a well placed blaster hit could do.

I completely agree!

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Well, buzz droids can bypass the shield of a ship...

They can't, if they could then the sheilds would be pretty useless, any old projectile could get through, on ROTJ that they had to pull up because the sheilds were still up on the Death Star, I Imagine that it would have been quite a funny sight if Lando hadn't realised that the sheilds were still up...

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So, you mean those shields have to be disabled when a starfighter enters and/or leaves the ship?
Watch Episode III again, especially the beginning when the duo are heading towards the Invisible Hand. Obi-Wan yells about the shields being still up, and Anakin promptly blows them up. So I would assume the entrances to hangers have their own shields, and they are disabled when craft enter/leave. Though I would think otherwise, I guess that's how it works.
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