Turbolaser
Current Understanding
The release of Attack of the Clones: Incredible Cross-Sections spurred more research into the nature of turbolasers. Dr. Curtis Saxton asserts that turbolasers consist of an invisible lightspeed beam that is the primary damaging component and that the visible, slower-than-light bolt traveled along the beam as waste glow.
Some initially considered the description silly and dismissed it. Obviously, they thought, the delay between the activation of the weapon and the destructive output (which usually coincides with the arrival of the bolt) means that the weapon's output did not travel at lightspeed.
Others proposed that a turbolaser cannon fired a weak beam that ramps up in power, and that the visible bolt's apparent velocity is timed by the targeting computer to arrive at the target when the cannon's beam had finally ramped up to a damaging output level. The Ramp-Up Theory was born.
The Ramp-Up Theory explains several peculiar instances of turbolaser behavior:
- Bolt vector redirection from an ISD firing on an asteroid (if the beam is redirected, the bolt must travel along the changing path of the beam)
- A turbolaser bolt fired by the Executor harmlessly travels through an A-wing[1] (the beam was still ramping up)
- Damage before impact on an asteroid (mistimed bolt meant the beam ramped up enough to be destructive before the bolt arrived)
- Relatively consistent timing between firing and impact (typically 3 or 4 frames), regardless of range
- Bolts remaining in front of Wedge's X-wing in Return of the Jedi despite the X-wing pulling up[2] (another instance of bolt vector changing in mid-flight)
The description found in the AotC:ICS agrees with various other printed sources, as well. For example, Shadows of the Empire mentions an invisible beam with an ionized marker.[3]
- ↑ Picture of turbolaser bolt passing through an A-wing
- ↑ Animation of Wedge attacking TIE Interceptor
- ↑ Shadows of the Empire, page 326
