Editing Star Wars Setting (section)

==Technology==
Star Wars appears to be a fairly standard sci-fi world (because it ''set'' that standard), but there's many subtle nuances that are easily missed
* Hyperdrives take ships to Hyperspace where they can travel and arrive at other destinations at FTL speed. However, massive objects such as planets and stars exist in hyperspace as mass shadows and colliding with them is fatal. Using a hyperdrive takes careful calculation to not only arrive on target, but avoid hitting anything on your way there. 
** Each hyperdrive has a class, which multiplies travel time. At the time of the Rebellion, the standard was 2x, with newer/upgraded ships often packing class 1x and the Millennium Falcon (proclaimed to be the fastest ship in The Galaxy) had a class 0.5 as a result of modifications that made it unreliable. Anything larger than a fighter has a backup hyperdrive of much higher class (typically double digit) to ensure the crew can limp to the nearest populated system in the event of failure of the primary drive.
** Most travel occurs along the great hyperspace lanes, where the way is known to be clear and calculations are more established.
** Vehicles have to start up their shields ''after'' they complete their jump, which makes them vulnerable if you can predict where they are coming from. This makes launching an attack purely to target any reinforcements possible.
** Hyperspace itself [[Warp|is weird]], and standard procedure is to avoid looking outside long term during travel to prevent people from going nuts. Communications while in hyperspace (except to ships making the same jump) are near impossible. Leaving hyperspace without the ship you came in on is impossible, and ejecting someone during travel ensures their death.
*** Disney Retcon: In Rebels, the Ghost ejected its shuttle in hyperspace, resulting in it quickly (and violently) returning to sublight speed in normal space.
** There's a handful of instances of of hyperdrive failures sending people to Otherspace, an alternate dimension populated by a ship graveyard and hostile bug aliens with organic technology.
** One thing that's often overlooked is that modern hyperdrive technology is adapted from the dark side powered hyperdrives of the ancient Rakata after they lost the ability to use The Force and could no longer travel to maintain their empire. The result is that even [[Adeptus Mechanicus|experts don't have a total understanding of ''how'' Hyperspace works]].
** Hyperdrive is quick, a good hyperdrive capable ship can get you across the galaxy in at most a couple of days.
** Interdictor ships are capable of generating artificial gravity well to stop travel through their path and prevent ships from getting away. These first appeared in the Mandalorian Wars of the Old Republic, using spammed tractor beams to fake gravity wells, but these couldn't keep pace with hyperdrive improvements and disappeared till a superior successor technology was developed in the Imperial era. During the early days of the New Republic, Admiral Ackbar devised a tactic of using of such ships to prevent ''ally'' movement, ordering one to power up if it detected sabotage on a planned target had failed so the incoming attackers would be pulled from hyperspace far enough away to retreat. It would be Thrawn however that would prove the true master of such maneuvers, developing a system that allowed reliable same-system hyperspace jumps during tactical combat, hence it's name, Thrawn Pincer. Thrawn himself nicked that idea from Plo Koon and Saesee Tin when they wanted to bomb a planet but also bypass the superior blockade around the planet.
* FTL communication comes in four forms, all with their own issues.
** Holonet: The best known method for FTL communications. Vaguely comparable to the early internet, with news, primitive BBS, email, and some other stuff. Quite rare once you get past the developed core areas, and expensive to use both in setting it up and bandwith costs. Only military command vehicles and those for heads of state are likely to have personal holonet transceivers.
** Subspace relay: The cheaper alternative to the holonet is subspace relays. Relatively slow and has problems with dropped communications, but still FTL. Most capital ships have subspace transceivers, and some smaller vehicles are known to have them as upgrades. Comparable to snail mail, with shopping being a mail order order system like the Sears Catalog (view catalog, send order and payment, await shipping) rather than online shopping.
** Hyperspace Courier: Has all the problems of courier communication, and all the problems of hyperspace combined. Despite these faults, it's often the only choice for the most remote systems or if someone is disrupting the above two (like in a war) and always the only way to send physical goods.
** The Force: Occasionally powerful Force users are seen communicating via The Force across very long distances. This requires both parties be strong in The Force and have a very close connection. Even then being able to do anything more than sense the other is in danger is a crapshoot.
* Blasters use energy to excite special gas that is then expelled to deadly effect. Most blasters have an alternate stun setting which provides less-lethal takedowns. Stun setting is quite reliable and consistent even on physically tough species like Wookiees, though it's not safe to use on pregnant women and outside of specialized stun-only blasters the range is rather low. Despite being energy weapons, they have quite a kick. Routinely dismissed as "slow" despite multiple sources contradicting this idea. How fast they are is somewhat debatable (and differs depending on which canon), but they're considered more advanced than Slugthrowers (detailed below), implying that Blasters are better overall, including in projectile speed. 
** [[Stubber|Normal firearms]], known as slugthrowers, are also present. Compared to blasters they're cheaper, cause bleeding, are far more dangerous to block with a lightsaber (it'll usually just melt the slug and make you get hit with molten metal instead), can be suppressed, and lower maintenance requirements, but have less initial stopping power, lower capacity, can't stun, make far more noise without a suppressor, and have heavier ammo. Considered more primitive than blasters, which is why you rarely see them (well, that and the powers that be preferring Star Wars to not be rated R).
** Ion weapons disrupt electric systems, but cause little structural damage and only minor burns on living creatures. This allows them to disable droids or ships without totally destroying them, making them important in capturing them. 
** [[Sonic Weaponry]] exists, but it's considered an odd fork (as powerful as a slug thrower with none of its benefits) by everyone outside of water worlds and Jedi hunters.
* Repulsorlifts keeps vehicles, industrial equipment and some droids floating off the ground a good distance. Most spacecraft have repulsor systems as well, which is how they're able to operate in atmosphere despite their poor aerodynamics.
* '''[[Robot|Droids]]''' aren't a true species, but are playable in all RPGs. They're supposed to be really smart appliances, but Star Wars technology is so fucked up that a few develop sapience if left on too long without formatting. Despite this droids aren't considered people by the galaxy at large because sapient droids are as rare as non-evil [[drow]] and most of the time leaving droids running for a long time just makes them slower and buggier until they can't do their jobs anymore, like Windows, or, at best, overly attuned to a specific user. That a good number of sapient droids have learned to bypass that pesky "no killing" clause doesn't exactly encourage experimenting with it and trying to replicate it either.
** Class 1 droids are designed to preform scientific applications like medicine or lab work. Since they were designed to be used in fixed locations most, but not all, have limited mobility.
** Class 2 droids are designed to preform technical labor like repair work. Since they are expected to work within artificial locations they are generally on wheels or treads and have short, non-human shapes. One notable subcategory of Class 2 droids are Astromech Droids (like the famed R2 series), which are designed to plug into fighters and bombers where they function as a co-pilot, navicomputer and in-flight repair.
** Class 3 droids are designed for human interaction, with jobs like translator or chef. Some lower end Class 3 droids were made for positions like waiter. Almost all of them are roughly human shape, with the main exception being those built by and for non-humans that instead resemble their intended masters.
** Class 4 droids are the most varied but have one thing in common that clearly separates them: They are made for combat and (except for a few armed with only stun weapons) don't have programming against killing. Class 4 droids vary in intelligence from blaster turrets with some targeting AI to clever and ruthless assassins/commandos. Even [[Android|Human Replica Droids]], designed to be indistinguishable from humans, are technically Class 4. Many Class 4 droids have their nature obfuscated by building them into the shell of a Class 1 or Class 3 droid.
** Class 5 droids are made for manual labor like heavy lifting or a power generator with legs. They are barely intelligent, rarely have names and almost never become sapient. They are however cheap and quite common.
* Cloning: Fairly realistic on most accounts. You take a gene sample, use it to make an ova, grow it in an exowomb and decant it as an infant you raise to adulthood. The main difference is that SW cloners are much, much better at it, with a vastly higher success rate compared to real life plus the ability to do accelerated aging for army building. The Kaminoans are the best at this. Generally, Force-Sensitives can't be cloned, and when they are, they most often come out as physically and mentally unstable nutjobs who need to be put out of their misery. "Perfect" Force-Sensitive clones are exceedingly rare, to the point that (again), most in-universe consider it impossible. Palpatine bent the rules a bit by creating soulless husks that his spirit would hop between if one of the bodies would die, but this was generally only a temporary solution, as every clone body he inhabited would quickly shrivel and age at a rapid pace. 
* Cloaking devices come in two types. 
** The first was dependent upon crystals that became rare due to overharvesting. Use of a superweapon for deep excavation allowed an imperial research project to toy with the idea of fitting an entire squadron of fighters equipped with one.
** The second, the hibridium model, used a different rare material and was developed near the end of the Empire, though didn't see use till after the fall. It was substantially (though still only relatively) cheaper but had two unique drawbacks. The first was that it also blinded the ship to the world outside and rendered it unable to communicate as well. These problems would briefly be overcome with the use of the Force instead. Afterwards the Remnant gave up on it as mostly useless, and agreed to ban it during the peace treaty with the New Republic.
** Personal "stealth field" generators also seem to exist, unrelated to these. They simply dampen sound and bend light to make the wearer harder to spot and difficult (but not impossible) to see. Presumably these aren't upscaled for vehicle use because of the real world problem with such a concept of being completely useless against any sensor beyond just human level vision (still being blatantly obvious to thermal, as well as radar if they're big enough ect.).
* In many ways, while technology is advanced it's still in the mindset of 1983, if not 1977. As mentioned above, the internet (at least the interplanetary one) is quite primitive and poorly connected. Even though everyone has a tiny radio set (Comlink), there's no such thing as cellphones (you have to broadcast to a channel and hope whoever you want to hear something is listening). Aside from portable computers, which are quite expensive, and datapads, which still have limited functionality, most non-droid technology only does one thing. Unlike the 1913 rail and M-Lok equipped guns of the 90s onward, weapon accessories either need to be made for a single model or hand-fitted by an expert. Video games are either professional simulators or extremely primitive.
* Energy shields come in several variants
** Ray shields protect from energy weapons but are useless against physical attacks. Most ships are equipped with ray shields.
** Particle shields protect from physical attacks but are useless against energy attacks. Generally only bigger ships are equipped with particle shields while smaller ships such as fighters only have ray shields.
** Planetary shields are the reason why ground battles happen and why orbital superiority isn't enough to secure a planet. They can withstand even the most severe bombardment for weeks, with only weapons like the Death Star being capable of penetrating them almost instantaneously. As a result, it is generally more feasible to land troops on the planet.
* [[Lightsaber]]s are the most iconic weapon of the setting, being plasma-based melee weapons only used by crazy space [[wizard]]-[[monk]]s.
* [[The Force]] isn't so much technology as something in between a religion, [[magic]] and [[psionics]]. This is ''the'' element that turns Star Wars from [[Space Opera]] into [[Science Fantasy]].