Grand Admiral, First Order Central Command
Star Wars canon is horrifically inconsistent when it comes to things like range scale. You have stuff that talks about turbolasers being effective only at 10's of kilometers and weapons like concussion missiles used in the 100s of meters.
While the above can safely be dismissed as pure nonsense is does drive home the point that we never really see extended battle sequences in the movies and when we do it tends to focus on close-in fighting because, well, that's more cinematic.
Fortunately there's ways around this problem without using any hard numbers, and that seems to be the convention we tend to follow. What I'll detail below is what I assume to be the case. At its core, there's five range bands.
Close/Melee: Dogfighting range, or where strike craft get to when hitting a capital ship. Capital ships normally never get this close to each other unless it's ramming time. No weapons as far as I can tell are designed for operation in this range band, and most are inoperable entirely. I do assume that this is where antimissile octets shine, that last ditch line of defense.
Short: The domain of defensive weapons and, apparently, most warheads. This is troubling for me to accept, since it's quite the opposite of real-world missiles, but there's relative consistency that missiles and the like are a short-range high-damage weapon. This would be a broadside battle (as seen at Endor and Coruscant).
Medium/Standard: Defined by the general effective range of a turbolaser, Medium is a large range band (imo) and weapons get increasingly effective and accurate the closer you get to 'Short.'
Long: Two fleets reverting on opposite sides of a gravity well would probably start off here. Conventional Mass Drivers can technically be effective here but lack the velocity to sustain any sort of accuracy. Turbolasers tend to dissipate and lose power, or something.
Extreme: One edge of a system to the other, more or less. Projectile weapons can theoretically hit stuff at this range but if the target can maneuver, probably not. With a Long-Range HVC and good targeting computers, you might get someone. Once.
Range bands get progressively larger the higher you go. I also tend to assume that weapon fire is generally more effective the closer you are (basically a damage multiplier) largely due to increased accuracy. Heavy turbolasers at close range pack a serious punch.
So how does this line up with how you all feel?
While the above can safely be dismissed as pure nonsense is does drive home the point that we never really see extended battle sequences in the movies and when we do it tends to focus on close-in fighting because, well, that's more cinematic.
Fortunately there's ways around this problem without using any hard numbers, and that seems to be the convention we tend to follow. What I'll detail below is what I assume to be the case. At its core, there's five range bands.
Close/Melee: Dogfighting range, or where strike craft get to when hitting a capital ship. Capital ships normally never get this close to each other unless it's ramming time. No weapons as far as I can tell are designed for operation in this range band, and most are inoperable entirely. I do assume that this is where antimissile octets shine, that last ditch line of defense.
Short: The domain of defensive weapons and, apparently, most warheads. This is troubling for me to accept, since it's quite the opposite of real-world missiles, but there's relative consistency that missiles and the like are a short-range high-damage weapon. This would be a broadside battle (as seen at Endor and Coruscant).
Medium/Standard: Defined by the general effective range of a turbolaser, Medium is a large range band (imo) and weapons get increasingly effective and accurate the closer you get to 'Short.'
Long: Two fleets reverting on opposite sides of a gravity well would probably start off here. Conventional Mass Drivers can technically be effective here but lack the velocity to sustain any sort of accuracy. Turbolasers tend to dissipate and lose power, or something.
Extreme: One edge of a system to the other, more or less. Projectile weapons can theoretically hit stuff at this range but if the target can maneuver, probably not. With a Long-Range HVC and good targeting computers, you might get someone. Once.
Range bands get progressively larger the higher you go. I also tend to assume that weapon fire is generally more effective the closer you are (basically a damage multiplier) largely due to increased accuracy. Heavy turbolasers at close range pack a serious punch.
So how does this line up with how you all feel?
