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

I would imagine that would have something to do with the Vengeance-class having a smaller overall volume with the same keel length as the Executor-class, which would significantly reduce the crew requirements of the class in comparison to its Executor-class cousins.

 

Legacy era ships would be nice. Eta 5 interceptors!
There is fan concept art of it online but that doesn't look like it was described.

 

Something interesting I discovered while looking up Cinefax in order to answer a question- the super-size Star Destroyer Tower prop in ROTJ wasn't the only one built. One was built for TESB as well:

http://thestarwarstrilogy.com/starwars/post/2014/05/12/Cinefex-2-August-1980-The-Empire-Strikes-Back

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That might explain why these two images:

Close up

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More distant shot

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have subtle differences - because they're different models.

A two-foot prop of the Falcon was built - and, I figure, attached to the huge tower:

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A two inch prop of the Falcon was built - and attached to the normal Avenger model. At least, that was what I remember being mentioned in From Star Wars to Indiana Jones - with the tiny Falcon prop being shown.

 

OK. Now that it's out - a few details.

THE HOLOCRON:
Design: Mon Calamari orbital shipyards
Length: Over 1300 metres
Speed: 60 mglt
Affiliation: Rebel Alliance
Weapons: 36 turbolasers, 36 ion cannons
Complement: 120 starfighters; A-wings, B-wings, X-wings, Y-wings, Rebel personnel carriers

"Almost 1300 metres in length, the MC-80 Star Cruiser Home One resembled a huge sea creature covered in irregular lumps and pods dotted across its hull. Of varying size and shape, these streamlined protrusions typically housed sensor pallets, deflector shield generators, turbolaser batteries and observation decks. At the fore, the ship sported a broad, spear-like bow ringed with weapons, while eight massive engine exhaust bells dominated the blunt aft quarter. Home One could function as a carrier vessel as well as a command ship, fielding up to 120 starfighters in a combat zone; usually in a mixture of X-wing, A-wing and B-wing classes. Smaller auxiliary ships, such as shuttles and cargo barges, were carried on board for other duties."

"Capable of matching an Imperial Star Destroyer with a sublight speed of 60 mglt, Home One used a Class 1 TriLuna 400 MGS star drive and hyperdrive system for interstellar travel."

"As the Admiral's flagship, Home One led the Rebels' motley assortment of starfighters and capital ships into attack at the Battle of Endor; her awesome array of weapons protected the craft from every quarter."

"As befitted an Admiral's flagship, Home One was capable of taking on all but the largest ships in the Imperial armada. Scattered in clusters across the hull were 36 Taim & Bak XV9 turbolaser cannons arranged in patterns of 12 cannons covering each arc of fire. The primary weapons were backed up by 36 Armek SW-7 ion cannon batteries, used to disable enemy ships.
Six Phylon Q7 tractor beam projectors on the dorsal and ventral hulls could capture disabled or damaged craft and direct them to one of many landing bays, or else take them in tow, although the rear quarter of the ship was not covered by a projector. The hull of an MC80 star cruiser was extremely tough and capable of surviving multiple hits. The fuselage featured a reinforced titanium alloy skin defended by a Serridge SEAL shielding system. The myriad transparisteel viewports that once dotted the ship's length in more peaceful times were plated over and sealed, toughening the craft still further - though sadly upsetting the aesthetic tastes of the Mon Cal designers in the process."

"A major part of the ship's strength stemmed from the multiple redundancy of many of its primary systems - for example, in comparison to Imperial ships of a similar size and volume, Home One had triple the number of shield generators, working in concert to forge a powerful energy barrier to incoming weapons fire. This kind of design also meant that the loss of one single component would not prove fatal, as critical functions could be re-routed to ensure the shield coverage was maintained."

"Like other Mon Calamari cruisers, Home One's bridge stations used a mixture of holographic display panels and control seats that moved and shifted under the direction of the user. Mon Cal crewmen used the movements of their bodies as part of the command interface, much as a human pilot might have used a joystick or a steering yoke. Owing to the differences in Mon Calamari physiology, the holoscreens on MC-80 star cruisers often seemed blurred or distorted to the eyes of species more accustomed to seeing in a different light spectrum."

"Home One had a crew of 5402 beings, although she could operate with a skeleton staff of 1220 people. A force of 78 gunners was carried, along with up to 1200 fully armed and battle-ready troops. The star cruiser could also carry 20,000 tonnes of cargo."

"Home One had several landing bays of various size and volumes dotted about its large hull, capable of deploying ships such as captured Lambda-class shuttles and up to 10 full squadrons of Alliance fighter craft. During the Battle of Endor, Home One's main ventral hangar bay was damaged by a collision with an Imperial TIE Interceptor."

"The blimp-like shape of the MC80 star cruiser Home One was an example of the unique starship design that typified Mon Calamari vehicles."

"The powerful MC80 considerably evened the odds for the Alliance, as the Mon Calamari star cruiser was virtually on a par with the Imperial Star Destroyers, despite its vastly different appearance."

"Master strategist Admiral Ackbar was responsible for Home One and other Mon Calamari vessels being placed at the disposal of the entire Alliance, and also led the entire Rebel Fleet at the Battle of Endor."

"In order for the Rebellion's daring assault on the Emperor's forces to succeed at the Battle of Endor, a seasoned naval officer had to be placed in charge of the spaceborne combat elements. There was no better person for the job than Admiral Ackbar, and it was fitting that he headed the operation to destroy the second Death Star from the bridge of his personal flagship Home One, an MC80-class Mon Calamari star cruiser. It was Ackbar's petition to join the Rebel Alliance that first allowed ships like Home One to become part of the Rebel starfleet and stand toe-to-toe with the Empire's mighty Star Destroyers. Without the help of these distinctive and powerful warships, the Rebellion's war for freedom might have faltered at its most desperate hour."

"Like many MC80 vessels, Home One was conceived as a civilian craft without weapons of any kind. Almost cylindrical in shape, the flowing organic lines of this vessel indicated its most unique nature - for the Mon Calamari, constructing a starship was something more akin to a work of art than a mere exercise in shipbuilding. Even though they may have possessed similar systems, Mon Cal designers ensured that no two star cruisers were exactly identical, hand-crafting every vessel with care and detail. While this increased the aesthetic beauty and grace of these starships, it did mean that maintenance could be problematic for technicians from other species - although the Mon Calamari themselves saw their design philosophy as eminently logical."

"Revered by their creators, the MC80-class ships were as much a statement of Mon Calamari personality as they were elegant - and formidable - warships. Built to explore space and make peaceful contact with alien civilisations, Home One was pressed into military service to defend the Rebellion on the orders of Admiral Ackbar, who offered his race's shipbuilding skills to the Alliance when Dac, the Mon Cal homeworld, broke away from the rule of Emperor Palpatine. Home One had many sister ships over Endor, such as the later MC80a variants that resembled winged rays, the ill-fated Medical Frigate Liberty, and the MC80b craft Mon Remonda."


Notable oddities ("New information"?)

I don't remember Mon Remonda ever being stated to have been at Endor in the older LEU material. Or the MC80a being described as resembling winged rays, for that matter - I think TEGTW went with the reverse - MC80a is cylindrical, but the "liner" MC80 variant is winged, (and the Exploration variant of the MC80 is also cylindrical)

Having it say "Almost 1300m" in one place and "Over 1300m" in another is a little odd. "Approximately 1300m" in both places would have been more consistent, if consistency mattered.

The reference to Home One being "Ackbar's personal flagship" is a bit of a variance from The Truce at Bakura, in which Ackbar has a different "personal Star Cruiser" - which he prefers, and having only transferred to Home One for the duration of the battle, because it was better able to act as a command ship.

Finally - while all the photos are of Home One - the line diagram isn't. Like with the Executor - it comes from the Essential Guide to Vehicles & Vessels. And is of a winged MC80.

 

Interesting stuff. Not a ton new, but I did like the confirmation of Home One-type cruisers have weapons banks in group of twelve. Based on the description of the bow being "ringed" with weapons, I am guessing that the forward bank of twelve includes the four large single shot barrels, which the port and starboard broadsides each have a dozen turbolasers and a dozen ion cannons a piece. Assuming a powerful generator, that is formidable firepower that can take on "all but the largest" (ie, Executor) Imperial ships.

The bit about the Mon Remonda being at Endor sounds like a mistake. In LEU canon, she didn't come into service until over a year after Endor. MC80B cruisers were the first serious new muscle to enter the NR Fleet in this period.

That bit about the Liberty being a medical frigate stems to a mislabeled source for years ago, though I forget which one.

--Adm. Nick

 

Could be, if it isn't a retcon after all.

 

Given that the Separatist Dreadnought is just over 2 km long - and given that the first one actually seen in TCW, was the Invincible (Admiral Trench's ship) - does anyone think it would be an interesting retcon, to make the "Invincible-class dreadnought" in the Han Solo Adventures series, into this class?

Might make a bit more sense than having the Corporate Sector use ships some 3000 years old.

 

Ah the Invincible background is pretty epic though, plus the Han Solo novel already mentioned the thing was supposed to be really old.

 

It did? I suppose it doesn't really need retconning. Still, it does seem like the sort of thing that the Story Group would do, in order to upgrade the Han Solo books from "Legendsverse" to "Lucasverse".

 

Based on what evidence?

 

Based on how they already changed Bane. The Witches of Dathomir. Various other things.

"Making things fit in to their conception of them" is a signature trait of the Filoniverse.

Now - would they upgrade the Han Solo books at all? I doubt it.

But if they did - we know they have a habit of changing things.

 

Was not Bane and the nightsisters already changed at least two-three times before tCW used them?

 

True enough. For a ships example - the Headhunter went through many iterations - before finally a four-engined ship like an X-wing without the wing-split and the astromech became the norm.

TCW went with a 2-engined Headhunter that looked a bit different from any previous iteration.

 

Even ignoring the doctrine of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," it just doesn't make sense to me as a potential retcon. They're visually different, they have different lengths, and the only thing they really have in common is the name Invincible and a shared design connection to Rendili. Going off the old Legends canon, the Separatist Dreadnought was (presumably) built by the Free Dac Engineers based off stolen Mon Calamari/Rendili designs, while the Invincible-class was built by Rendili/Vaufthau based on Alsakani designs. Sure, none of those things are new Canon now, but awkwardly cramming the Invincible-class back in and retconning for retconning's sake isn't going to satisfy anybody when they could just as easily reintroduce the Invincible-class as is.

As for the 3,000 year old ship designs still seeing use, there's a lot of precedent. Hammerhead-class and Dreadnaught-class see a lot of use across multiple eras and they're presumably not the same ships as the earliest vessels to roll off the production line. I imagine they'd incorporate armament upgrades, newer computers, better shielding, etc., even if they still use the same basic hull design.

 

Fair enough. Though I think in Scourge it actually said the CSA Dreadnought Resolute, underneath an encrusting of modern armor and weaponry, had an ancient hull. But hulls may be the kind of thing that is built to last, in this setting.

 

That is an interesting thought. How many of the republic ships have been around for X generations, and just continue to be upgraded and retrofitted as the technology advances.

 

So, Rebels....

TIE fighters do TIE fighter things. Gun power is fairly pathetic (current day fighter autocannons) for a ship able to exit the atmosphere at least once.

Though I'd chalk that up to designer ignorance (ships can fly into space but they can't hit like a 1000 pound JDAM?), i.e., when the TIE is drawing on Ezra, but before it can fire it's blown away..., too bad the debris would continue on and kill Ezra anyway. Yeah, plot, but you need not write something in just so you can include it.

 

Do TIEs "hit like a 1000 pound JDAM" most of the time in the Legendsverse?

 

Forced perspective and it was further away?

 

We don't see TIE fighters enough, other than when they're killing shielded fighters/bombers. Seriously, they can take out a speeder bike without killing someone next to it/on it. Sure, they could use lower powered blasts, but that doesn't make much sense for the evil Empire that's totally cool with overkill.

There's plenty of other fighters and bombers hitting that hard in OT, PT and CW though.

 

The look of the ISD-I is growing on me.

TIE fighters are stored standing on their wings and on the deck in the hangar -- they're probably launched that way too (doesn't seem like there'd be any reason for them to be dropped like the ISD-II in RotJ when they can just fly out here). That's off the main ventral opening.

"Imperial Star Destroyer" is what they call it, though the IA officer that it's tasked to calls it a "destroyer".

 

Doesn't appear to be.

The TIE is coming in at around 100 MPH., and at about 50 yards away it's blown apart.

The problem is that its destruction is if someone put a bomb inside it and blew it up whilst it was hovering and not moving.

The fragments, flames and other residual effects would still hit the ground in the same way it was going due to gravity and inertia.

The only way it wouldn't is if it was vaporized, but vaporizing a TIE 50 meters away from someone would kill them anyway.

 

Haven't seen the episode yet, but good point. Would be nice to see the standard TIE be a bit more effective, and weaponry used planet side be of a more expected caliber.

 

I do recall that a TIE in ESB only created some flaming debris on an asteroid about a meter or so wide.

I suppose you can say its blasters are generally anti-personal rather than anti-starship; close support and harassing freighters rather than simply blasting the latter apart like say an ARC-170.

 

*just came across this interesting little comment*