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

Third place I'm posting this... relevant in all threads, especially this one.


--Adm. Nick

 

NO MC75? ARRRGH WHY FFG

 

If you look at the models, these are both the designs from Rebels, which appeared earlier. MC-75 will be Wave 7 I expect.

 

Yeah, when you consider the lead times to conceptualize, approve, design, and ultimately create a new model for the game, the MC75 Profundity probably is a Q3/Q4 launch. These Rebels designs have been around a lot longer, so it was easier to incorporate them into the game. I'm still wondering what the new Imperial ship would be. Lord knows they don't need another ISD sized ship (those buggers are tough enough to take down!), but I would personally love more small Imperial ships. Something like the Lancer frigate would be a great add, plus help balance against the strength of Rebel fighters.

--Adm. Nick

 

I dunno how FFG handles canon ships in their designs, the only one that's total EU as far as I'm aware is the Assault Frigate (for the time being). If they are interested in adding Legends ships, they could do Dreadnoughts or Vindicators or whathaveyou. If they're only going forward with "real" content (shipwise that is I know there's a large variety of character flags), they could implement the Venator star destroyer for Imperials, since we saw those at the end of ROTS. And let me tell you, I'd pay a pretty penny for high quality Venator models, it is one attractive ship, easily top 5. At any rate I don't know what their plans are, it could be anything, maybe even a plus size Executor the same way X-wing has the GR75, CR90, and Gozanti.

 

Well, the EU was a staple for the first two waves, with the Victory-class, Gladiator-class, and Assault Frigate Mk.II all being pulled from older sources. When you consider canon movie warships from the OT-era, they've covered most as well. In the case of the Rebels, other than the barely seen Dornean gunship, the wingless MC80, and the MC75, all movie ships are now launched or announced. For the Empire, obviously they pulled heavily from canon sources like Rebels and some from the EU too, but the only major movie warship missing in the SSD.

I don't doubt we'll get the MC75 in the next wave, but I really doubt the Dornean gunship will be released. Ditto the wingless MC80, as we already have two vessels of that class. Honestly, outside of the MC75, the only ship I'd truly love to see released for the Rebels is the good ole DP20 Corellian gunship. I've always loved those ships.

For the Empire, releasing the SSD is next to impossible. I don't mean in terms of scale, but rather in terms of usability in a game. It would be too large for a 3x3 or 6x3 play area. Increasing the game space would be problematic, as you already need a massive table to successfully setup a 400 point game for each side on a 6x3 map AND have room for cards, tokens, etc.

It's definitely fun to imagine what else they will release. At this point, the only would I'd nearly guarantee is the MC75, because the ship and Admiral Raddus became so iconic in Rogue One and are popular with fans.

--Adm. Nick

 

Victory and Gladiator were canonized in Tarkin I believe? I remember the MC30 is still EU, though considering it was in ROTJ concept art it will probably be pulled back in for something else. Interestingly enough, Wookieepedia chose to put the DP20 back into their Canon section because small badly drawn little versions appear in the background a couple comic issues and that new Atlas. Additionally here are some other Mon Cal ship concepts I found on google images.

 

Victory, yes (and a few others: Secutor, various classes of interdictor) - but not the Gladiator - at least, not yet.

 

The bottom most ship has always been a fav. I'd love for that to be a post-Endor warship fielded by he New Republic. It's got a mix of Mon Cala & CEC elements, it would look great alongside classic NR designs too.

--Adm. Nick

 

If Echo of Hope was not stated to be an MC80 I would have preferred it being that design as the new Mon Cala ship. I would say I want it to be the new MC90 but I still have hope (an Echo of Hope if you will) that the old MC90 might be brought in somehow. Maybe each trilogy will bring in a new class Mon Cala ship.

 

Honestly, if they decide to introduce a new Mon Cala warships (which I fully expect to see in 8 or 9), I'd prefer they be more ambitious. I love the old MC90, but it is still basically a copy of what we see in ROTJ. One of the reasons I loved the Scythe-class battle cruiser from Legends is that it was both unique AND had familiar elements. I've always wanted to see a winged Mon Cal cruiser that is vertical instead of horizontal. Something closer to, say, a Minbari cruiser from B5. It should be organic looking, have blisters, but avoid being simply another flying "pickle ship".

--Adm. Nick

 

I never liked those legacy era designs at all, I hope they add creative new ships but I hope they steer as far clear of those as possible. I consider it a bullet well dodged when looking through the Rogue One artbook seeing direct copies of those designs planned as the MC75 instead of the design we got, which is vastly superior, and shows that it is possible to make interesting new Mon Cal designs without making them look like "pickles" or those bland legacy designs which don't look very star wars-y in my opinion.

As far as vertically oriented designs go, I suggested the Mola Mola (that big Hawaiian sunfish) as aquatic inspiration, and I've seen a variety of vertical spaceship art. Check out this design from http://jepray.deviantart.com/art/Sarzan-Endural-Frigate-262282601

I'd wager that LSG tries their hand at a vertically oriented spaceship design in the near future as they experiment with the new trilogy, Rebels, comics, and beyond, since it's sort of their "last frontier" that they haven't really touched yet even within their experimentation within Rebels and TCW especially. The closest we got was the Skystrike Academy which was basically a reworked Star Destroyer pointing down and used as a static station instead.

And slightly related, there's this alien design from Wayne Barlowe's Expedition that takes the same sort of cues.

 

There is one iconic vertically oriented spacecraft:

 

Not exactly "news" or anything "important," but there's a bit of trivia I wanted to share with you guys. That transport appeared in "No Sympathy", a Rebels comic by Martin Fisher and Bob Molesworth. Fisher told me it's an unused McQuarrie design from ROTJ for a Rebel ship (which can be seen in the Making of ROTJ book). Probably aThradian design.

 

So I went back and did some viewing and for those who like to say that the Star Destroyers in Rebels never deploy more than four TIE Fighters at a time.



I did some counting and there are 30 TIE's in that scene. Proof that a trio of Star Destroyers can carry that many starfighters. Those TIE's would have put an end to the Rebels swiftly.

And yet, in this scene from Secret Cargo



Not a single TIE. Not. A. One.

So, anyone care to posit an in-universe theory for this? Out of universe, it's very obvious that Rebels just can't afford to animate that many TIE's for each episode. But to quote Obi-Wan, "That is a feeble excuse"

 

It was just a near-derelict freighter, why send TIEs?

 

What ship is that? It literally looks like the inspiration for the blade of the Scythe-class.

--Adm. Nick

 

That, my friend, is the Pride of Higara.

Successor to the original colony ship - From the Homeworld games.

 

The Mothership from Homeworld and the Pride of Hiigara, the successor from Homeworld 2 which is that ship, are indeed iconic.

 

In Secret Cargo they had the Ghost caught in a tractor beam, they thought they had her dead to rights. In ANH we didn't see TIE fighters chase the Tantive IV either (and I'll never call it "Tan-tuh-vee" Pablo, it's always been "Tan-tivv" to me)

 

There is something impressive about a massive spaceship, with a vault to house 600,000 people in cryo for the longer journey from the outer rim of a galaxy to the core, a manufacturing center capable of producing just about anything from fighters to capital ships with a resource offloading system to support it, a large hangar complex to transport a host of fighters, corvettes, and auxiliary vessels, and a special Far Jump hyperdrive core. The Pride of Hiigara didn't have the vault for the cryo-trays, since that was for the Mothership's journey to find Hiigara, but it still had all of the other features.

 

I think it comes down to mission parameters. TIE Fighters are useful for combatting other fighters or light freighters. They don't do so well against capital ships or in pursuits that can jump in and out of hyperspace without warning. ISDs are pretty versatile ships without the fighters....

 

Unless speed is involved which is why Carrack cruisers or something similar would be nice to see again.

 

Well at least Legacy gave us a new class of Vong ship and Invasion (before it's cancellation ) showed quite a few new interesting desings (and a few old ones, as it features the Defender Star Destroyer. And I still don't get why Wookieepedia uses it as a source for a New Republic use of the Victory II-class frigate.

I like this theory a lot. Almost makes me wish the Mon Remonda didn't beat a 19-km behemoth...

Couldn't the nomad ship still be a Mandator? I haven't read the comic yet, but do we ever see it's stern?

Despite being one of the first Star Destroyer classes introduced, they have never been featured very prominently, which is a shame as they are my favourite class of capital ship. And even when they are featured, often times I'm a little disappointed when they don't possess the X-Wing-style deployable split wings.

It's probably too late for that, as they have been featured on the Cover of Darth Vader 9 already:

Spoiler

The design is pretty much the same as it has been in Empire at War and Star Wars Armada from Fantasy Flight Games.

But so far image-wise Blade Squadron hasn't really given us anything new, has it?

Speaking of Fantasy Flight Games, now that they are producing a TIE Aggressor model for X-Wing, has anyone of you been flying one in Star Wars Galaxies? I've always wondered what the turret view looked like, or if it was third person only.

 

Season Finale Trailer for Rebels: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_C17TSUgftI

Red Y-wings now canon! I knew I had seen some in the Mid-Season trailer.