system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[Star Wars] Is technology improving or just adapting to new situation?

If we go back to the era of the Old Republic and compare the tech they had back then from blasters to droids to engines has much changed between the time of Revan and the time of Luke Skywalker? The laser pistol that is most common in Knights of the Old Republic looks fairly similar to the DL44 blaster favored by Han Solo, the droids seem to be similar both in size and intelligence, hyper drives are obviously a thing back then.
gpt
The short answer is: both. There is in fact technological improvement - but it's often set back by major conflicts that leave worlds burning, or otherwise adaptations of existing tech to new ways. Hyperdrives in the Film Eras are faster and more reliable than they are in the Old Republic eras, shields and armor plating are better, droids are smarter and more reliable, blasters have more stopping power, reactors are stronger and more efficient. Just a thousand years before KotOR happens lightsabers required external battery packs attached by cables, then they introduced internal power packs for them. After that they don't really *need* to change, except for more efficient parts.

Even the Death Star tech isn't new, Yoda mentions in one of the Clone Wars story reels that in the distant past Jedi and Sith fought with capital ships using the kyber crystals in their weapons - the Death Star is simply that kyber weapon tech scaled up massively.