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

Dark Empire Sourcebook

Huh. Makes sense.

 

I wonder if Shipmaster Quarrie had a hand in designing the B/SF-17 bomber.

 

Re: ship speeds

There are a few new canon sources that explicitely touched upon ship speeds, namely the recent IncrediBuilds 3D wood models whose booklets were written by Ryder Windham and Michael Kogge, and Star Wars Super Graphic: A Visual Guide to a Galaxy Far, Far Away. I'm trying to make sense of all this, but I was never good at physics, so it's a bit difficult for me.

The Incredibuilds booklets each give the ship's maximum speed in atmosphere and in space. Atmospheric speed is expressed in kilometers per hour (which Kogge abbreviates as KPH or occasionally KMPH). Maximum speed in space is expressed in G -- for example, the Millennium Falcon's max speed in space is given as 3,000 G.

Now, Star Wars Super Graphic expresses ship speeds in realspace using "megalights per hour" (abbreviated MGLT). For example, the Millennium Falcon does 75 MGLT, while an RZ-1 A-wing interceptor does 120. This system, as we all know, was created by ILM during the production of Return of the Jedi.

Now, you're going to ask me what my problems with all that are. Here they come:

• As I've said, I'm not good at physics, but I thought G was a unit of acceleration, not speed. How can that be?
• If the MGLT unit means a megalight per hour, what's a megalight to begin with?
• What's the relationship between speeds expressed in G and speeds expressed in MGLT? Is there a formula behind this?

Can you guys help me make sense of it all?

 

G is indeed a unit of acceleration - and the main Legends sources that use G (Star Wars Incredible Cross Sections) make it clear that it's acceleration they are talking about. 1 G = 9.8 metres per second per second

"Megalight" as a unit of distance is a bit unclear. The Death Star opened fire on Alderaan at a distance of approximately 3 megalights (X-wing video game)

The range was roughly 6 planetary diameters according to Saxton (and the original ANH novel). (This would be 75000km, for Alderaan). That would make 1 megalight equal to 25000 km.

 

I wish there were a good new canon sourcebook to clear everything up, but new gen sourcebooks tend to be not too technical. I like technical, though.

I wonder if a canon reprint of Star Wars Incredible Cross Sections is going to happen.

 

Oddly, the game itself (based on estimates using top speed, and passing a stationary ship) had 1 MGLT be more like 3.6 km/h:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Megalight

just shows how big the disparity can be, depending on the source used.

The proposed 2,500,000 km/hr (assuming that 100 MGLT X-wings accelerate at maximum till they reach max speed, then travel toward the DS1 at max speed till they arrive) seems like it might be reasonably compatible with what we actually see in the movie.

 

Thing is, it was a mess in Legends. Now, they have an opportunity to make it right. But will they?

 

We know that Rogue One used ICS as its basis for things like the interiors of Star Destroyers (that collision scene):


http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Wars:_Incredible_Cross-Sections

so it makes sense that some of it is considered canon. Makes sense that it'll eventually get a reprint. Not much would need changing - most notably, the Falcon's length, which is way low at 26 or so m (late-period Legends has pushed it to over 34m and the newcanon sources have consistently gone with that).

 

There are already a few inconsistencies between canon sources re: ship measurements. Star Wars: Rogue One: The Ultimate Visual Guide gives the length and height of a TIE/l fighter as 7.24 and 8.82 meters, while the Star Wars: TIE Fighter Deluxe Book and Model Set gives them as 8.9 and 9.125 meters. Similarly, the Databank entry for the TIE interceptor gives a length of 9.6 meters, while TIE Fighter Deluxe Book and Model Set says 11.45.

 

True. Same with the DS1 - plenty of newcanon sources say 120km, plenty of newcanon sources say 160km. I figure the newer data for things like Rogue One, generally override the older data.

It'll be interesting to see if they actually stick with MGLT, or if they override their earlier mentions of it and say "Only accelerations in G matter - there is no maximum speed in space besides the speed of light"

I presume that the maximum speed in atmosphere only applies to controlled flight and manuevering - when a ship is on an "exit trajectory to space" it can dial the acceleration to full.

Otherwise, it would take too long to get out of Yavin IV's atmosphere and get to the Death Star.


I worked out that 19 or 20 seconds of maximum acceleration (3700G) gets an X-wing to its maximum speed, at least. So most journey time can be spent at constant velocity.

 

So is the Raddus going to be the ship we see in the teaser trailer of Poe, BB-8 and Resistance troopers running down the corridor of Poe's Black One ship blowing up?

 

There should be no difference between the 2. There's nothing special about atmosphere in comparison to a vacuum other than heat transfer, and you can simply simulate the same atmosphere aboard a ship if air was some important factor, but the energies that are being dealt with are far past the region of uncompressed air cooling.

There's nothing saying they couldn't do that. But, you still need to put the energy into it and outdo the opposing side's potential energy, and having impenetrable shields by themselves don't offer much advantage other than for planetary ramming attack, but there's nothing saying the planet can't have a stronger shield that a hypothetical large shielded KE missile. Echo Base most likely had a larger power generator than Executor and its escorts combined, hence they couldn't get through it (this is where the Death Star would come in handy; it shot through Scarif's shields just fine).

DS-II was incomplete, and DS-I had shields, just of a kind that could be passed through by going slow enough like on Starkiller Base and what you see on warships.

 

Starkiller Base's shields were impervious to "slow speed Starfighters" - Han was only able to get in because he dropped out of hyperspace under the shield (it had a refresh rate, which meant that it was possible for hyperspeed ships to slip in between refresh cycles.

This required almost impossibly good timing - Han was taking a great risk.

 

I'm currently reading Aftermath: Empire's End and I read Mon Mothma's thoughts with distress.

With the most generous estimation, given what we see in Return of the Jedi, the Rebel fleet includes 26 cruisers, with various supporting frigates and corvettes. Totaling fewer than 100 capital ships. For a major galactic power to have less than 300 capital ships in its armed forces is laughable in my opinion.

The analogy of the pre-Endor Empire fleet I feel is quite accurate. If a few hundred capital ships represents a bunch of splinters and the Imperial Starfleet at it's height is represented by a tree. However, how the Imperial fleet could be so dessimated in ONE YEAR is quite beyond me.

Actually the size and functioning of the New Republic government as described in the Aftermath trilogy is quite unbelievable for having only one year after the Battle of Endor to be established.

 

The visible SFX composites we see on screen at any one given time are not supposed to be taken literally. They are implicit. The Rebel Fleet is implied to have hundreds or even thousands of capital ships sent to Endor, in addition to their fighters.

Just the same, I don't understand why people take the Imperial fleet numbers so literally - 1 SSD and 20-40 Star Destroyers? How do we know that's not supposed to be 200 just out of frame?

And we see the skies of Jakku in Star Wars Battlefront and will again in BF2, there are dozens or even hundreds of MC80 Liberty types alone combatting equal amounts of ISDs and the sole SSD Ravager, to say nothing of other supporting craft. Does not the Aftermath Trilogy imply the same?

 

Feel free to provide examples where this is implied.

 

"In a remote and midnight vacuum beyond the edge of the galaxy, the vast Rebel fleet stretched, from its vanguard to its rear echelon, past the range of human vision. Corellian battle ships, cruisers, destroyers, carriers, bombers, Sullustian cargo freighters, Calamarian tankers, Alderaanian gunships, Kesselian blockade runners, Bestinian skyhoppers, X-wing, Y-wing, and A-wing fighters, shuttles, transport vehicles, manowars. Every Rebel in the galaxy, soldier and civilian alike, waited tensely in these ships for instructions. They were led by the largest of the Rebel Star Cruisers, the Headquarters Frigate." - Return of the Jedi novelization, Alan Dean Foster

That's the earliest implicit reference to the size of the Rebel fleet, stretching "past the range of human vision."

Additionally, later in the novel, it refers to entire "battalions" of starships:
"The Rebel fleet broke out of hyperspace with an awesome roar. Amid glistening streamers oflight, battalion after battalion emrged in formation, to fire off toward the Death Star and its Sanctuary Moon hovering brightly in the close distance."

It also refers to "the massive Imperial fleet could be seen flying in perfect, regimental formation, out from behind Endor in two behemoth flanking waves -- heading to surround the Rebel fleet from both sides, like the pincers of a deadly scorpion." The Imperial fleet also being described as a "blanket of ships."

Then he speaks of "A thousand deadly dogfights and cannon bombardments were erupting all over the skies, while the Death Star laser beam methodically disintegrated the Rebel ships." Are we to assume that the Death Star only managed to kill the two cruisers we see on screen or that it fired at every opportunity it could that we did not necessarily witness off camera?

Then the next page, one of the only direct mention of concrete numbers of capital ships: "With little else to lose, Ackbar decided to try Calrissian's strategy. In the next minutes, dozens of Rebel Cruisers moved in astronomically close to the Imperial Star Destroyers -- and the colossal antagonists began blasting away at each other, like tanks at twenty paces, while hundreds of tiny fighters raced across their surfaces, zipping between laser bolts as they chased around the massive hulls."

Shall I continue to the script itself, or shall I await the retreat to "not canon?"

 

It's been a very long time since I read the Return of the Jedi novelization. By James Kahn no?

Anyways, that's more like it. It's still a shame the scale of the armed forces are so inconsistent throughout Star Wars media.

 

Yup. He also wrote the Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom novelization, and the Poltergeist novelization.

 

Again nonspecific, but:

52 EXT SPACE - REBEL FLEET
The vast Rebel Fleet stretches as far as the eye can see. Overhead a
dozen small Corellian battleships fly in formation. Fighters and
battlecruisers surround the largest of the Rebel Star Cruisers, the
HEADQUARTERS FRIGATE.

80 EXT SPACE - REBEL FLEET
The vast fleet hangs in space near a blue planet. A giant Rebel Star
Cruiser is up at the front, but now the Millennium Flacon roars up to a
spot ahead of it, tiny in comparison.

82 EXT SPACE - REBEL FLEET
We are treated to an awesome sight: first the Millennium Falcon, then
Ackbar's Star Cruiser, then, in large segments, the huge fleet ROARS
INTO HYPERSPACE. And disappears.

From the Return of the Jedi screenplay by George Lucas, Lawrence Kasdan, and Michael Arndt.

Additionally, here is a shot at the end of the Battle of Endor just before the Death Star explodes, showing an unbroken line of Mon Cal cruisers (of multiple types) GR75s, CR90s, and Nebulon Bs that continues beyond the frame of the camera.



I didn't graduate college and suffer the indignity of literature and social studies professors endlessly whining for more quotations and citations for nothing.

 

And you're right about the author I only remembered Alan Dean Foster who ghostwrote the first, while Donald F. Glut wrote the ESB novelization, and James Kahn wrote the ROTJ novelization.

 

Yes, so as for the Rebel fleet at Endor, we're somewhere in between he 26 Cruiser plus support ships that can be identified on-screen and "the vast Rebel fleet stretched, from its vanguard to its rear echelon, past the range of human vision. Corellian battle ships, cruisers, destroyers, carriers, bombers, Sullustian cargo freighters, Calamarian tankers, Alderaanian gunships, Kesselian blockade runners, Bestinian skyhoppers, X-wing, Y-wing, and A-wing fighters, shuttles, transport vehicles, manowars."

That's fine for me, as it allows each person to scale the galaxy to their liking. Not all media gives this kind of flexibility though.

 

There's still the Battlefront Jakku skyboxes (though I don't know how and whether BF2 will differ from 2015), but they also stretch as far as the eye can see both horizontally and vertically. I've never made an attempt to count the little skybox models or sprites, but if it's 3x the size of the Rebel fleet at Endor, then Endor was Battle of Coruscant tier.

 

For those interested, new fractal design is up. His take on the Kuati Procurator-class star battlecruiser, with some influence from the old Marvel comics Imperial battlecruisers.

Spoiler

 

While I prefer "kite" to "triangle" for the Victory, I'm OK with "triangle" for older designs. I wonder - is this the oldest model of Procurator (the two-century old model) or is it the latest model - the last one produced before the design was discontinued shortly before the Clone Wars in favour of the Praetor?


This also reminds me a bit of the very first Star Destroyer prop, which would eventually evolve into what we see in the movies:

In the context of the newcanon - given that the Praetor has been recanonized, and given that they've been drawing from ICS, I think it might be worth recanonizing the Procurator too, and making this its official appearance.