Lit Complete Vehicles Rerelease: Lets dissect the Home One and Medical Frigate amongst other new stuff!

Canon according to what? We have sources like X-Wing: Alliance, SW:Empire at War or the ROTJ, that imply a size between 2,500 - 3,200 meters for HomeOne and ~1,500 for ordinary MC80. Larger ships would make more sense considering all the things the MC-cruisers - and especially the HomeOne - are supposed to do:

- hold their own against ISDs,
- bring Executor's shields down with combined fire in a short amount of time,
- have hangar-space for 120 fighters
and now even hold an atrium, complete with lake and atrium.

Not to forget, that HomeOne was supposed to be the largest ship in the rebel-fleet, a fleet that included 3 kilometer long Bulwark-class BCs and TradeFederation-BSs.

And shame on you, Nick for forgetting about the MC90s, which are supposed to be the first "real" warships built by the MonCals and not converted luxury-liner or exploration vessels.

I've recently done some (very) rough calculations on the size of Executor-, Assertor- and Viscount-classes:

- Executor (using formula for a pyramid): 19,000 meters long * 6,300 meters wide * 2,100 meters high / 6 = 4,19e10 m^3 less 25% for the fantail = 3,14e10 m^3
- Assertor (using formula for a pyramid): 15,000 meters long * 7,800 meters long * 2,220 meters high / 6 = 4,33e10 m^3 less 25% for the fantail = 3,25e10 m^3

Imagine my surprise, when I realized, that Executor- and Assertor-class have almost the same volume. However, in a one on one fight Executor has a clear disadvantage, because of its huge hangar-space.

The killer however is the Viscount-class:

17,000 meters long * 5,200 meters wide * 3,400 meters high, it would fill a box with a volume of 3e11 m^3. If we take only half of that for the ship itself, we would get a volume of 1,5e11 m^3, almost five times larger than an Executor or Assertor and more than 1,500 times larger than an ISD.

I would greatly appreciate it, if somebody could confirm or improve my calculations, but I'm more than ever convinced, that the du......s writting the majority of official material have no clue about geometry or at least, that space has three dimensions. Which of course also puts the tactics they provide us with in a more than questionable light.

 

while clearly in a fictional universe errors do happen and are of course not the fault of the EU but the moviemakers since all models used for spacescenes do not fit all others used in other scenes, it is obvious that one can simply not use onscreen ratios to determine any realiable universal size or volume.
it would be great if possible and if that level of detail would be done by moviemakers but it is hardly necessary to do so.

that said,...

"hold their own against ISDs"
=> see my earlier posts, that is not a matter of size but of firepower and tactics/tech which can easily be done by smaller ships too as other sources showed. Mon Cal have better shields and thus can with smaller ships tackle larger Imperial ones easily for some time longer than an imperial ship the same size would have done against a larger imperial one

"bring Executor shields down (...)"
=> again tactics and Mon Cal tech are the solution: big generator powering turbolasers is enough, does not need a bigger ship around it. shipsize does not always equal turbolaserpower/generator size.

"aquarium/atrium in middle"
=> I see no issue there. Also since converted from luxury liners and freighters, MonCal ships easily pack starfighters in the larger luxurious spacious rooms of the ship that merely had to be reinforced with the hull and added shield generators.

largest rebel warship...
well the TDF Lucrehulcs the Rebels used they only used before they had Mon Cal assistance and those got used up in the early rebellion times before TESB. Not seen them in any source beyond that actually! As for Bulwark Cruisers... I guess largest means largest of regular fleet. Bulwarks they had only a few, and the Mon Cal ships still are the largest the Rebels have with Bulwarks being nearly all lost before ROTJ too maybe or at least not tied to the rebel main fleet but rather belonging to certain Rebel groups only?i know that bit is like faking statistics but if the government can do it


while I would love to have consistent numbers and relations on screen, it is like with hyperspace travel times and some other issues no longer possible to keep consistent. still they are trying their best and I am thankful for that and enjoying the ride.

 

In light of the brief Q&A with Filoni, I find it interesting that the old Clone Wars data was retained. A retrench to the original material from the Clone Wars Vehicles Guide?

Do you mean the 2.5 km Mark IIIs, that were in use with the New Republic? The Mark Is, created during the Clone Wars, were pegged at 1 km. The Mark IIs, as far as I'm aware, have never been statted.

 

The Separatist Dreadnoughts (Providence looking) and Destroyers (enlarged Recusant looking things with a hangar) are difference vessels than the ones from RotS and its ICS.

You could say Invisible Hand and its sisters were rarer, downsized Dreadnoughts; after all, they are listed as a modified Providence (the Providence may very well be the larger variant, such as Invincible). The 2 kilometer long Destroyers that look like Recusant-class light destroyers are probably just heavy destroyer variants. There's no reason why something can't be scaled up, especially when they're mostly automated.

Anyway, I've ordered the book too. Looking forward to the illustrations of the Escort Frigate and Home One.

 

When the quote "largest of the Rebel Star Cruisers" was written in the ROTJ novelization, the Bulwark-class and the Lucrehulk-class didn't exist. Therefore, you cannot simply assume that an old 1983 quote applies for vessels introduced by the EU decades later.

Again, you can choose to retcon that, but it doesn't make it right.

Um, where did I forget forget the MC90? I only said that the Mediator-class was the successor to the MC80 series, which is what the EGTW stated. For me, that statement from the EGTW doesn't exclude the MC80A, MC80B, or MC90 series of cruisers. Rather, it meant that the MBC was the spiritual (or perhaps visual, in terms of hullform?) successor to the MC80 series, which was the backbone of the Alliance Fleet.

You should know me better, old friend. It is physically impossible for me to forget a Mon Cal cruiser design.

--Adm. Nick

 

Also there is always the rest of the fleet

Actually they seem to have lost the only one they got running before Yavin.

 

shows up under "Episode III" on the TOS Encyclopedia, and General Grievous' entry also mentions being in a "Separatist dreadnaught" at the Battle of Coruscant.

Are called "Recusant-class Light Destroyer" in the Clone Wars Incredible Vehicles.

The Munificents are also larger - 1199m compared to the ICS's 825m. As are the Lucrehulks, from 3170m in diameter to 3356m in diameter.

When Filoni was asked directly about it at the last Celebration, he said they were intended to be the same ships as the movies. When Jason Fry was asked about the numbers, he said they came straight from LFL.

I'd prefer consistency rather than change back and forth. But there's nothing to support actual separate classes other than fan theories.

 

Nice of them to respond so quickly, I was wrong about the last bullet.

I will take a look to see if I notice anymore. The Invisible Hand page is pretty packed, so it understandable they needed to move things around or delete them.

 

Nope. It's not even a standard layout, but the specific medical frigate fitting.

No, but the size was never defined in VP besides a vague description by a single character, and WotC gave us both a specific size and imagery for the ship. Which was then made into a hash in the favor of preserving "authorial intent" when other sizes like the Executor were simply retconned, and other authorial intent (like K-Mac) were simply ignored or overruled. How many specific mentions of the Executor class being 5 miles or 8km (or 12.8km) were simply overruled, when a single quote in VP has to be preserved?

When the Viscount was first described, we didn't have solid stats or art for the class. Therefore you cannot simply assume that a vague quote by a teenage girl is the be-all end-all that overrides solid numbers on ship size

 

My main issue with WOTC's sizing of the Viscount was their intent - that they wanted to make a NR-equivalent of the SSD for their miniature game.

The other problem was that the size was tied to the Mediator, which was unlikely to be the 8.5 km sized ship that was assumed off the Viscount's size.

 

The episode guide stated that the enlarged Recusant (Grievous'/Separatist Destroyer) was based on a vessel seen in RotS*. The only vessel it can be based on is the Recusant light destroyer, which is around 1 kilometer long; the new one is around 2 kilometers long. The size difference is too large for it to be the same vessel. The different physical features alone, such as the bridge and docking bay (the bay needing to be in proportion with the 1 kilometer Recusant), then you could say it's just a variant.

*This episode is filled with numerous new starship models, including the Separatist destroyer (based on a ship design seen in Episode III)

That's from the guide.

 

And again, the Incredible Vehicles guide lists it just like the other larger vessels. There's no mention in the text of "rescaling" or "smaller sized" versions. It's a nice fan theory, like I said, but there's nothing to support it.

Again, Filoni indicated that the ships in the show were intended to be the same ships from the movie. As the different lengths indicate, there appeared to be a concerted effort to standardize sizes for all the ships. Did you not notice that the Munificents are almost 50% larger?

 

This is odd- if anything needed removing- it was the controversial energy figures, not interesting story snippets.

Still, I've seen people complaining that the Quaestor incident is not consistant with other sources- which suggest hyperspace collisions would have no effect on the realspace object the ship in hyperspace collided with.

Maybe that's why it was removed?

 

Simply no, since the EU is by default an extension of the original source-material - the movies - and should adhere to them.
And the modelmakers and special-effects-people gave sizes or at least yardsticks towards the size of certain vessels (like Executor - "eleven times as long as the common star destroyer" or DeathStarII - "over fivehundred miles in diameter").

You obviously don't understand why size matters - irrespective of what Yoda - who isn't always right by the way - may claim. A bigger vessel has more volume, therefor more space for its reactor and fueltanks. It will also have greater surface, where you can place shieldgenerators and weapons-turrets. At the same time such a vessel will probably be slower and less manouverable, because of its greater mass. All those things influence the firepower and the tactics available to the vessel's commander. You can't seperate them.

And no, Mon Cal don't have better shields. They have individually weaker shield-generators, but more of them. So if one goes down, the next comes online. IIRC, they have three, were comparable imperial vessels have only one. So that means more space taken up for shieldsystems (space that isn't available for other things like fighter-hangars or weapons) and probably higher maintainance required.

Why would a big power generator not need a bigger ship around it? You'd need additional space for recoil-bracing, cooling-system, fuel/ammution, and so on. Do you think those things will appear out of thin air because of "tech"???

Aside from that nothing suggests, that MC-technology is superior to imperial tech (it is a civil war after all) and at the time of ROTJ we're still locking at converted luxury-liners vs proper warships, if we go with the official line. The MonCalamari might have different priorities, which would give them some much needed advantages, but those aren't massive game-changers.

The point is, the space taken up by the aquarium is space, that isn't used for other things an MC-cruiser would desperately need when fighting a supposedly larger ISD.

 

The ones from SW:Rebellion. IIRC, they were originally three kilometers long, not 2.5.

 

In case of the Invisible Hand "modified" doesn't refer to its scale, but the fact, that much of its stern contain hangars and storage-rooms for fighters and ground-vehicles, while unmodified Providences have the space filled with thrusters and reactors. To quote the RotS:ICS "Thrusters and reactors usually fill the stern of Providence-class ships - Invisible Hand's expansive hangars are a major design modification.

Aren't the Separatist Dreadnoughts - the large ships like Admiral Trench's invincible supposed to be based on thousand year old Sith-designs?

 

Well, if my calculation on the volume of Viscount are correct they massively overdid it. They could have made the Viscount ten kilometers long and she would have still been a match for an Executor (this would have also worked better with the Mediator). As it is now the Viscount is almost five times as large.

 

Problem is the movies are not internally consistent here either.

Though they are not better warships just because they are bigger either, a large part of an ImpStar for example is devoted to its invasion capacities and storage. An MC 80 is at fully staffed with some 5000 people, an ImpStar needs more than 7 times as much crew, whilst hauling along close to 10000 troopers and all their equipment and supplies for the whole thing to keep going for 6 years.

Somewhat debatable, as the system certainly makes them less vulnerable to knock out hits the ImpStar often take when one of its generators goes down, of course the technology is likely about the same, but they use them very differently.

Space they can easily spare as they do not haul along an invasion army.

No but they likely have a far easier time to set up supplementary weapons generators then the Imperials, given how everything comes in "blisters" and each ship is refitted differently, whilst ImpStars roll of mass assembly lines with standard parts.

Well they do use very different ship building methods and Shadow of Mindor does hint at that some stuff they put in their Cruiser is tech not know to the Empire. Could of course just be small things, like better ways of conducting energy or such things, as whilst "technology" in the GFFA somewhat stagnant, they do keep working on way to make what they have better.

They do not need to be massive, they just happen to be good enough to stare down ImpStars.

Very little compared to the space 50 Battle Walkers and the pre-fabricated garrison base must take, or that throne room that comes with each ImpStar.

Actually they are not given a size in Rebellion.

 

Gorefiend you made my point for me! excellent

Also it is important to note that the MC cruisers can hold longer against ImpStars for various reasons:

-different designs for each internally mean no Imp can guess where to hit for shieldgenerators or else and may guess only while MonCal officers know the blueprints of the ISDs and where to target them
-the habit of multiple generators instead of one big one makes it way easier to cool them and place them in different parts of the ship, especially for shields but also for other systems if they would use the same trick there. Their shields keep returning.. their turbolaser batteries keep recharging no matter what you hit for quite some time
-add to that MC cruisers most of the time working in synch in formation against single stardestroyers so they do not expose themselves to their guns for a longer time, passing by, turning striking again f.e. as seen in some tactics in WEG rpg, they pack quite a punch without taking a lot of hits. It needed a Death Star to take them out while SDS burned by the dozens over Endor! Only rebel capital ships I saw go down where killed by the Death Star. not by ISDs
-concentrated fire: MCs concentrate fire on vital stardestroyer parts as ISDs fire randomly most of the time due to not knowing where to hit the vital systems.

there are more reasons

 

Just because WOTC gave us an image and a length doesn't make their decision right. They put little to no research into the idea of making the Viscount a 17km ship other than their desire to suddenly have a good guy SSD equivalent so that their game had balance. That to me is the worst sort of reasoning to overrule the original spirit of what we saw in VP. I still laugh at how people don't get that. We get two distinct comments in VP that clue us into the length:

1. The Mediator is described as "an updated and more heavily armed and armored version of the Mon Calamari star cruiser."
2. The Viscount is described as "nearly twice the size of the battle cruiser they had left behind between Osarian and Rhommamool."

I love that you keep making fun of the fact that a "teenage girl" must of made a mistake, when that quote I listed above in NOT dialogue from Jaina, but descriptive prose. And again, I point out that EVEN if Home One were suddenly switched to a 3.2km length that the Viscount should never be anything larger than 8km.

But hey, we have all argued these same arguments so many times before that I am not sure if we all shouldn't be certified as being insane.

--Adm. Nick

 

I agree that WotC changed the Viscount to fit the needs of their game. But then again, so did Lucento, when he had a mere pair of Star Defenders judged sufficient to defend Corellia against anything less than an assault by the primary Yuuzhan vong fleet, or when Viscount joined Guardian, an Executor class, as a long range gunship at Mon Calamari.

My issue remains that in order to preserve a single line that can easily be attributed to the viewpoint of the teenage girl who is the viewpoint character in the scene, "Authors intent" in this case was deemed so important that we ended up with a retcon that gave us a "prototype" Viscount that is seen fighting as an equal to the Executor class when her "larger sisters" are nowhere to be found. Authorial intent has been overridden before (especially K-Mac: Continents and seas on Coruscant, K-Wing design, retired NR SSDs, remember those?), so what makes this case so special?

Falling back on the "No two Mon Cal designs are exactly alike" is a poor attempt to cover the mess. A 3KM Viscount is 1/180 the volume of the 17Km Viscount class. That's like saying the Home One and the MC-30 Corvette are the same class, but Mon Cals don't build two ships the same- a statement which we know to be wrong as we see multiple identical or near identical copies of several distinct classes of Mon Cal ships at Endor.

Yes, WotC changed the Viscount to fit their needs. That change was then consistent, until the desire to preserve a single line resulted in a retcon nearly as ridiculous as Boba Fett escaping and falling into the same rancor 3-4 times.

 

Minimalists did that for decades regarding WEG stuff that didn't make sense. As of now, the HO is the largest ship in the Rebel fleet. That would nominally beat out both Rebel Lucrehulks and Bulwark Mk. IIIs.

The Home One type I would assume to be 1,3 km.
The Home One itself as filmed for ROTJ and Star Tours decades later doesn't correspond to this at all. Unless ILM intended the Rebel corvettes, transports and frigates to be much smaller than they're listed as.
I have a feeling any possible HO appearance in Rebels or the Sequel Trilogy will follow this and not written third party sources. Otherwise, ILM would have made the model smaller for Star Tours: The Adventures Continue.

 

Note that "no two ships alike" line regarding MonCal shipbuilding most likely refers to interior design more so than exterior look given visual proof of similiar looks existing. They may look alike but everything inside is different driving the Imps nuts!

 

As AdmiralNick22 has pointed out in the past, Saxton's 3000m estimate was based mostly on using one ship that he thought was a 150m Corellian Corvette, as a "yardstick"

It turned out to be a 90m Dornean Gunship:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Braha'tok-class_gunship

 

Yet EGTW has the line about the size usually being 1,2 km. A nice little nod by Jason. There's also the 500 m Calamari cruise liner in Riders of the Maelstrom. Literally using the Liberty publicity shot for depiction.

So we have two sources for reference of different sizes and a source for Calamari/Quarren designs being scalable (EGTW, again).

Can someone outline where these detachable shuttles are:

Nice strawman, there. That was just one of several shots, all showcasing ships with known lengths before that gunship-article was written. Funny how you're using film visuals combined with an EU source, when Nick also pointed out the enlarged Nebulon-B next to a corvette in the very same film. Not to knock you down, Nick, but if they can use visuals in their arguments, so can I.