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Star Wars Question

Why do starships have different colored Engine thrust?

The attached image is from Wookiepedia entry: Renegade Squadron

The image depicts Y-wings with a more orange-ish color, X-wings have a lavendar-ish one, the Corellian corvette has very light pink-ish ones, while the Millenium Falcon has light blue-ish thrust. I believe the Star Destroyers have similar colors to the Falcon's and the Super Star Destroyer has darker orange-ish colors.

Is there a correlation between the color of a starship's Engine thust and:

(1). Performance (Power and/or Acceleration)

and/or

(2). Powerplant (Engine type and/or Manufacturer)

JD
Why do starships have different colored Engine thrust?
 New1Superion2 posted over a year ago
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Star Wars Answers

MatMor said:
Hi!

If SW engines work more or less like real ones, the color variations should be probably due to the elements involved on the chemical reaction and/or the technology used to propel the ship. For example, combustive (+- orange), ion (+- blue) and plasma (+- purple) engines on the real world can emit different colors. Sometimes the "thrust line" itself shows color difference through its extension.

Performance could maybe change the intensity of a given color (e.g. from light yellow to bright yellow).

Regarding the manufacturer, the Millenium Falcon and the CR90 corvettes were built by Corellian Engineering Corporation, but have different thrust colors. Sienar built the TIE series and the Scimitar ship and they have different thrust colors also. Therefore, maybe the manufacturer itself was not determinant for the color.

Of course that, from a movie production point of view, the colors were probably chosen mostly for the sake of aesthetics.

See you!
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posted over a year ago 
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