Lit Fleet Junkie Flagship- The technical discussions of the GFFA (Capital Ships thread Mk. II)

Unobtanium is a room-temperature superconductor from James Cameron's Avatar that is need in the 22nd Century to solve humanity's energy crisis. It is conveniently in a massive deposit underneath Hometree on Pandora, and is, therefore, guaranteed to make the "evil" humans attack the "primitive" Na'vi with their "evil" technology.

 

I watched a gameplay of that...and it looks really fun. (X-Wing: Alliance, I mean)

 

Yes I know that but why do you think it is stupid?

 

I don't think Avatar is saying technology is 'evil' I think it's warning that we badly mishandle it and it's true.

 

We generally have a pretty good understanding of most of the elements found in our universe; artificial and extra-dimensional ones are a source of the fantastical that are possible. Dark matter and energy are a good source for sci-fi too.

Heh, if they said Star Destroyers were made of neutronium, that'd explain only thousands of the things. Though simple and relatively small asteroid impacts wouldn't bother them in the slightest without shields.

 

I think you assume a bit much. I don't think we have a good grasp of muvh of anything.

 

Or we really do and we will just have to accept that Hyperdrives, Repulsors and Blasters are more akin to magic then real technology.

 

Sufficiently understood magic is indistinguishable from technology and all that jazz.

 

Hence, why I said the artificial constructs and transdimensional crossovers. We're fairly knowledgeable about most of the stuff that makes up our universe, it's just that we don't get to play with a lot of it due to the distances involved and the power required for dimensional/FTL travel.

And since there's really nothing of habitable worth in our solar system, you ain't going to see terrestrial human star destroyers, just the naval destroyers to control this planet. If there was another Earth-like planet in the place of Mars, you can bet we'd be building star destroyers (albeit of a different design than what we see in Star Wars). If there was several, well, we'd have had solar system war I by now.

And on another note, I wish someone would make a dynamic campaign Star Wars naval simulator in the likes of Silent Hunter 3/4.

 

I made a couple of my own KDY designs and I thought I'd share (actually, I have several from various manufacturers with many more coming); I've tried to make them practical and not "super ships", rather just some balanced fillers for my own tabletop wargame I've been designing over the years:

Masticator-class Star Destroyer (four prow SPHA-T guns being its gimmick); tiny hangar (blue square in trench) for a squad of recon TIEs and two TIE shuttles/boats; several heavy turbolaser turrets (some dual, some single); mainly designed for the gun line to support Imperials; heavier armor than an Imperial (the odd turtle shell plating), but similar shielding; plenty of internal and recessed anti-fighter weapons along the trench


Accipiter-class Fast Cruiser (Star Cruiser); fast warship designed to hunt down stragglers and do passes on weakened vessels; all heavy dual turbolaser turrets that have pretty good arcs of fire (hard to show such on a 2D side profile); dual bridges and sensor domes to have an increased C&C to find weakened vessels (say, a cruiser is losing its port shields; this fella will find that out quickly and swoop in for the kill); massive engines and acceleration; four torpedoes tubes on the prow; no anti-fighter weapons; no hangar at all (just one docking port on the starboard trench -- impossible to board this vessel for the most part)



Nothing flash, but I just thought I'd share; I like dagger designs.

 

I think Gorefiend secretly has hyperspace travel all figured out, he is just not telling.

 

And I give you, the Devorro-class Escort Destroyer (Star Destroyer)


Built upon the harsh lessons of TCW, where swarms of suicide Vulture droids devastated capital ships in addition to bombing runs from Hyena bombers; little in the way of internal weapons; many automated and externally mounted ball turreted laser cannons (a single solid hit is enough to kill a fighter) with the best sensor and targeting tracking available for the job; 3x2 dual medium turbolasers for self-defense against frigates and smaller; designed to escort larger Imperial Star Destroyers on a 1 for 1 basis from swarm attacks, a job which it is very capable of accomplishing; nowhere near enough built due to a lack of perceived small vessel swarm attacks in the immediate post-war period, though KDY is adamant that the threat hasn't gone away just because the war has, and they're promoting this class extensively; the lack of recessed and internal laser cannons allows for a higher level of survivability in case of a weapon housing taking a hit (it just blows away from the hull); it's capable of keeping up with the fast Imperial-class Star Destroyer due to not needing the high power requirements of heavy turbolasers; it continues the tradition of lessons learned regarding boarding parties by only having a single access port and with armor plating strong enough to resist most known penetrating boarding craft (like on the Accipiter-class Fast Cruiser); two large offensive tractor beam projectors mounted on the bow

Just a larger and updated Lancer-class in typical dagger form; well, it's how I would have made an anti-fighter Imperial warship after TCW.

 

It involves several jars of orange juice, a talking squid and a copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

 

On Hyperspace,

It appears to be another dimension where traveling in that medium crosses far greater distances for a given amount of time compared to the prime dimension. You're moving past the speed of light, but you really aren't at all.

Said dimension apparently doesn't stop at the galactic boundaries, since companion galaxies are known and traveled to.

Perhaps the dimension stops when it gets far enough away from the mass of a galaxy? Which would be why they seem to be bound to the prime galaxy and a couple of companions close by.

 

It appears to essentially be a fourth spacial dimension, although I've always rather been surprised that Saxton's interpretation is that it is truly FTL.

 

I've never read what he postulates regarding such.

Though I know he's big on tachyonic matter, which might be one way to explain FTL communications and sensors (in addition to hyperspace being just FTL travel). Though I think all of that violates causality, just like time travel does. You know, you'll receive the FTL communications before they're even sent.

Extra-dimensions are probably more feasible though, the same with "warp bubble" types drives.

 

That's why I was surprised that a physicist wouldn't go with the easier answer. The whole "gravity shadows" concept pretty much solidifies the extradimensional theory of hyperspace.

 

Tachyonic matter would be some pretty interesting stuff if it exists. Just got to go big or go home when it comes to explaining Star Wars tech, or with the tachyons be back at home before you left

If I had to write a cursory explanation of Star Wars power sources I would just left as exotic matter supplemented with mater/anti-mater and fusion reactors.

 

I suppose you could add some clause to relativity that states if something is moving faster than C (such as a sensor scan), then if the emitting vessel and the vessel it picks up both contain some form of time dilation limiting device (which both would need if they were to move faster than C), then..., FTL would be in the realm of possible.

Hence, if you wanted to be "omniscient" and see the future without a dilation limiting device, it wouldn't matter as you'd be...at the end of the universe's life.

 

I give you the Acies Ordinata-class Star Cruiser:


She might look at little odd, but as the name implies, she's meant to form up on the gun line and face her opponents at range; if you have a look, all the thick plating is facing forward (apart from some mentioned later), and if you're looking at her dead on, that's all you have to shoot at. Even the main battery turrets are armored thickly. The hangar amidships ventral side is armored, as is its munitions storage. The reactor at the aft is also armored in case it's flanked. The armor plating is made to be replaced at the depot if a piece is damaged (just "weld" another on).

For the most part, the "fluff" goes; Republic fleet officers were urgently requesting a capital ship capable of taking on an Invincible-type Dreadnought one for one and winning -- no more and no less (they kinda got sick of losing a good crew when a Venator goes up; even if they eventually win with 3 to 1 odds). I'm assuming Praetor-class Star Battlecruisers were too rare and important to have on call for any chance Invincible-type sighting, so the request was made and sent to KDY and CEC to come up with something quickly (the armor plating comes from CEC battleships, which is about all they contributed), relatively cheaply so as to be made in enough numbers to have one hanging around most systems with its Venator escorts.

22x2 very heavy turbolasers; similar to Munificent-types in power but since there's a much larger reactor, they can fire longer at higher settings (not all of them letting off though); only the dorsal 2, ventral 2, and trench 2 can fire directly forward, and all 6x2 can be fully charged all the time. Unmasking more guns by moving port or starboard will tend to push the reactor and use up fuel quickly if they're all at full power. So yeah, it's equivalent of 6 Munificent-types at full power when on the gun line. Whilst it can train a large number directly to port or starboard, she'll run out of fuel quickly with all of them letting off (probably enough for a decent battle, but then she'd have to withdraw and refuel rather than stick around). So, she technically could fight off a couple of those CIS heavy destroyers on either side, albeit at the expense of being spent.

Plenty of anti-fighter cannons and a dozen or so medium Ion Cannons; about the same number of craft as an Imperial, though Interceptors (whatever type) in place of the bombers (whatever type), and lots of boats for S&R and AWACS

 

I had forgotten about this rather interesting ship design. It is a shame we never got to see its S-Foils in action.

The engines seem Corellian but the rest of the design doesn't...of course CEC designs are very diverse, but on the other hand even ships made by other companies can use CEC parts.

 

I would prefer they make the vessel a mainstream CEC design that in this instance was used by pirates. CEC needs more military vessels, plus a small, fast, well armed vessel is typical for Corellians. The Corellian Navy in the post-ANH era utilized PPB's, heavy fighters, gunships, corvettes, and other small attack craft primarily. Even by the time of the Second GCW, the Corellian Navy lacked a large number of big capital ships.

--Adm. Nick

 

I always assumed it was supposed to be something like one of those kit bashed Pirate Cruisers that WEG mentioned in it's Rebel Privateers! Article.

 

I actually thought it was really cool how Grievous just ordered the thing to be target practice.

My CEC battleship design is only about 900 meters long (Han's comment referred to vessels around that size in my game and he was just trying to look tough when a couple of mile long Imperial cruisers showed up); it just didn't seem right to make it on the scale of KDY designs. 100-300 for corvettes and gunships, with 400-600 for frigates, destroyers and cruisers.

Mah Corellian BB: