Rogue Leader said:

(I mean it takes over 2 decades for the first DS to be fully operational, and then to build something more than 4x bigger takes less than 3 years? wtf...? 160km makes a lil more sense than 900km due to the logistics of it all I'd think...)

Also on DS2 there are 9 beams as the middle of the dish also produces a beam that converges on the focal point before firing (the orginal has 8 beams actually that converge supposedly but in the movie you can only see 7). As for the exact location of the beams/tubes aka superlaser elements... Each super laser element draws directly from the hypermatter reactor prior to firing. The 64 tubes are there on the original Death Star because apparently there are 8 tubes focusing into 1 of 8 converging rooms... Then from these 8 rooms the beam is channeled into the super laser element that converge again to create the planet cracking super laser. Thus your total of 64. =D

Check timestamp 6:40 as to where the location of the Emperor's throne room is on the first Death Star. As for the throne room local on DS2... it's totally ambiguous but if it's like the first Death Star it maybe located around the super laser dish area.

Well Ady said that this fact will be eliminated on the R saga..

Well im really glad about the 64 factor.. So you are saying the iconic death star barrel scene is actually one of the 8?

So its actually will be more interesting have a similar shot but have the laser come to our face instead of going away like ANH..

Even i found the idea of the throne room is in the dish or near it.. we concluded that this could cause uber perspective problems.. OR the tower pops up in different angle from the round dish and then all being solved with a much more interesting background ;)

-Angel