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

I think to some degree form is going to follow function with capital ship designs - as we've noted, the MC80B and MC90 adopted a general wedge-shape to the hull, and I'm willing to bet the Mediator would follow that pattern as well. The Legacy-era Mon Cal ships seem to have adopted the "cross of fire" aesthetic, which might well hearken back to the Rendili Hammerhead-class of the Old Republic. That's not to say manufacturers won't still place their own unique design quirks on a ship class, but there are going to be certain commonalities within a particular role. For that matter, some ships might show obvious influence from multiple manufacturers - Corellian drive systems on a KDY dagger hull with Mon Cal shield blisters and a Rendili forward blade, for example.

 

More FFG is awesome for Fleet Junkies- apparently the Medium Transport expansion for the X-Wing game skipped over the obvious Bright Hope and went for some more obscure names for the Transport: Quantum Storm and Treasure Trove. Also, Tarn Mison X-Wing pilot! Woo!

 

IIRC, Rendili is known for adapting all sorts of design, making them probably the most eclectic of the major ship builders.

 

Isn't the Vicstar what happens when Rendili and Kuat collaborate, whereas the Republic-class is what happens when Rendili and Dac collaborate?

 

Rendilli was not involved with the Republic-class design, that was Mon Cal and Walex Blissex on his own. Calling it a Rendilli product was a political ploy.

 

For some reason Wookieepedia cites Cracken's Threat Dossier as saying Rendili StarDrive manufactured them, not just Walex.

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

Did a later source retcon Rendili Stardrive as still part of the Empire during that time- or was Cracken's Threat Dossier misinterpreted by the page editor?

EDIT: The Essential Guide to Warfare, at least, does mention the "political ploy"- maybe that was a retconning source?:

p207:

The ship was billed as a Rendili StarDrive design - a bit of political theater intended to woo Rendili away from the Empire, as its bulbous, organic lines were a tip-off that it had been inspired and built by the Mon Calamari.

However, the Dreadnaught-class Heavy Cruiser was also covered in bulges.

 

Why would there be a need to "woo Rendili away from the Empire"? RendiliStarDrive has lots of small and medium-sized facilities in the Outer and Middle Rim (areas, that are largely controlled by the Rebel-Alliance at least 2 ABE) and the Empire hasn't been Rendili's best customer for some time, if you look at capital ships only (customs vessels, freighters and deepdocks are another matter).

 

Possibly because the company itself was accepting contracts from the Empire as late as 10 ABY:

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

and the Rebels New Republic wanted them to stop.

 

Not to mention that Rendili itself was under Imperial control at the time of the construction of the Republic-class.

Those were probably appropriated by the NR and used by the REC et al.
Rendili corporate - and the main shipyards - were under Imperial control. Rendili was only shut out due to KDY's near-monopoly, which all things considered was probably ended for practical reasons post-Endor as a policy.

 

That would fit with the notion of the Nebula-class being a REC refinement of the Republic-class design.

TEGTW p207:

And the Nebula-class Star Destroyer (formally renamed the Defender once it was made part of the program) refined the core of Blissex's Republic design in a new angular hull, augmenting the earlier craft's firepower while shrinking its dimensions further to 1,040 meters, which earned the Nebula the tag "pocket Star Destroyer".

 

Republic Engineering Corporation is an interesting beast; between about 10 and 14 ABY it seemingly manages to snap up an utterly massive contract with the New Class Program despite being in its infancy. In theory, the New Class ships are designed to make up the bulk of the New Republic fleet, giving REC a near-monopoly on warship production. That doesn't seem to make sense, given that by that point the Mon Calamari Shipyards had been providing capital ships to the Rebellion and Republic for over a decade, KDY was in New Republic hands, and CEC warships were still making their way into fleet service. Despite landing what would seem to be a dream contract for a shipbuilder, within a decade REC seems to have faded off the radar.

Makes me wonder if REC wasn't an umbrella for a number of different shipwrights to pool resources and design teams, possibly including Fondor, Duro, and SoroSuub but maybe even including KDY, CEC, and Rendili.

 

Fondor was one of the yards it used. The old EGVV mentioned it was financed by the NR's corporate supporters, whereas the EGTW explicitly stated it was a consortium of shipbuilders.

 

Fondor was angry with the Empire for closing the star system so that there could be absolute secrecy on the Super Star Destroyer project (not getting into argument on size or anything), then to top it all off, the Fondorians finally capitulated when the Empire moved SSD project to Kuat.

 

It had a precursor though- Republic Fleet Systems:

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

If the capabilities of the old corporation carried on to the new one, that might help explain why it got the big contract- especially if other capable corporations joined the consortium.

 

Creating warships that incorporate the technologies of all member worlds is something that we see in Star Trek. The ships of Starfleet are the result of the technological knowledge of all member races of the Federation. Sure, the hull may follow human design standards, but the vessels are filled with Vulcan, Andorian, Tellarite, and every other Federation members tech.

I have often wondered why we don't see something similar in Star Wars. For example, the Galactic Federation Triumvirate could commission a warship that incorporates the best of Mon Cal, KDY, CEC, SoroSuub, REC, Rendili, Duro, and every other major producer into a standardized vessel. The added bonus would be that you could then produce the warship at any of the participating designers shipyards. The government spreads the contracts around (awarding them based on either percentage of tech involved in the design or who can produce them most effectively) and ensures that every yard gets at least a piece of the action.

--Adm. Nick

 

Properly because those planets have old rivalries and most of their economy is based around shipbuilding, in which there little bit of special technology is what gives them the competitive edge.

 

When was it retconned into an Executor-class? I can't recall anything in TEGTW actually saying what class those Star Dreadnoughts Megador and Dominion were.

The Knight Hammer was at least described as being the same size as the Executor (by Pellaeon) and Callista, when boarding it, recalls her studies of the Executor.

Regarding "41m sensor domes" I'm wondering if that figure refers to the height of the dome above the surface of the tower, rather than the diameter?

Using the factoid that the "mini-Falcon" model filmed attached to the Avenger was 2 inches long or about 5cm, and applying the 620:1 size ratio needed to upscale the 259cm Avenger model to 1 mile long, we get a 31m long Falcon:



the Avenger's domes do not look to be 4/3 as big as the Falcon is long to me.

 

I've always wanted to see Megador and Dominion assigned to some of the more obscure Star Dreadnought classes. The Bellator model by my count has 14 engines, which at least puts it closer to Megador's description. For that matter, we still have no depiction of the Mandator-class ships; Megador might be one and I'd like to think Dominion is one, possibly even an old Mandator-II. The Sovereign-class hulls were stated to have all been destroyed as of the JAT and the Assertor has too many engines (28!), on top of the fact that I think it's too powerful to fit the bill. Megador and Dominion seem to get My Friends ... and Zoidberg billing in comparison to the Reaper, rather than being ships of equal or superior power to an Executor.

 

Makes sense. While, at the time, the 8km SSD in Destiny's Way would have been intended to be an Executor, I like the notion of there being at least one "8km SSD" reference that doesn't get retconned. Solution- make that ship a Mandator-II.

The 12.8km Mandator-III has also never been described- maybe the Megador could be a Mandator-III and the Dominion a Mandator-II (since the Bellator was basically a slight redesign of the Mandator-II for extra speed, and shorter length.

 

Could the different number of engines been a post Anx Minor rebuild? Pellaeon may not have been able to scrounge up the usual engines, and so substituted a bunch of smaller ones.

 

It's possible that Executor-type engines are extremely expensive and difficult to make.

Might be the reason why the Assertor doesn't have them, but has many smaller ones instead.

Still, the possibility that the Megador was never an Executor-class in the first place, is an interesting one.

 

Maybe the Megador was one of those one off, vanity project designs built by the likes of Moffs and other potenates?

Or it could be a Vengeance class.

 

Going to the Dac shipyards for a moment, how long did they continue to double their annual output of Star Cruisers after Endor?

By 25 ABY, that would give us a figure of around 32,000 Star Cruisers being built annually at the absolute minimum (assuming that Operation Shadowhand completely reset Dac's shipbuilding capability to zero, assuming that Shadowhand caused only a pause as opposed to a complete reset would give us a 25 ABY figure of about 1 million Star Cruisers).

Now I'm pretty maximalist, but where the hell would the NRDF find enough qualified personnel to crew all those ships? It's not like they relied on droids the way the Separatists did.

 

The Vengeance had very few engines- only 11:



Concerning the number of Star Cruisers- early books, like Ambush at Corellia, suggest the New Republic fleet was somewhat lacking during the later periods

"Can't we bring in ships and troops from elsewhere?" Han asked.
"That would cost a tremendous amount of money that we just don't have," Leia said. "Besides which, there's not much call for warships or armies at the moment, thank the stars. Most of the forces have been disbanded. We've got lots of New Republic and captured Imperial ships, but most of them are mothballed, or being broken up for scrap. And a lot of the supposedly active-duty ships are in drydock getting upgrades. What few ships are effective are on duty in other sectors."
"There must be some sort of forces in reserve," Han said.
Leia shrugged helplessly. "There are, but there aren't many. And what reserves we do have will take time to activate. We're stretched awfully thin. Readiness is at its lowest ebb in years."

More recently, we find that the fleet would have been keeping the Imperial Remnant "bottled up" during this period- which was why so few were available for other things.

In the Second Imperium crisis (Young Jedi Knights) - since they didn't have time to build a lot of new ships, they focused heavily on refurbishing old ships in mothballs. Y-wings, for example, got new equipment- modernized engines, tactical systems, central processors, etc.