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

Discussion in 'Literature' started by AdmiralWesJanson, Sep 12, 2005.

  1. Jedi Ben

    Jedi Ben Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Jul 19, 1999
    Solution: Stop buying the ******* books. You'll feel a little better knowing you haven't supported dubious production practices.
     
    Last edited: Nov 21, 2019
  2. Nobody145

    Nobody145 Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Feb 9, 2007
    Its kind of hard to buy less than zero books. You'd think with all of Marvel's resources they would put out a higher quality product, especially with IX coming out soon. Or maybe its because RoS is almost here that they figure its time for easy cash-ins, hm.
     
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  3. The2ndQuest

    The2ndQuest Tri-Mod With a Mouth star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Jan 27, 2000
    I'm a couple years behind now on the comics (I'm catching up on the novels this year, comics next year) but even from the very start of the new Marvel series they were clearly tracing (or using as direct reference) film still frames for character shots. Doesn't surprise me that that practice has expanded to the ships (albeit now from fan sources).
     
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  4. vncredleader

    vncredleader Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Mar 28, 2016
    I have not been to my store in a while, I really ought to cancel that from my pull. TBF I didn't buy allegiance
     
  5. Jedi Ben

    Jedi Ben Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Jul 19, 1999
    Marvel is very much in favour of easy money.
    Which is the only card you have, especially as Marvel focuses more on the monthly sales.
     
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  6. Thrawn McEwok

    Thrawn McEwok Co-Author: Essential Guide to Warfare star 6 VIP

    Registered:
    May 9, 2000
    Agreeing with everyone else that the Pellaeon-class is excellent at the same-but-different thing - that design is immediately recognizable as a "big pointy space battleship" with all the associated Star Wars subtext that carries, but gets away from the usual tropes of vertically-symmetrical arrowhead and raised bridge structure.

    (And something else I just noticed - the configuration of the engines/lower stern and ventral hull of the Interdictor in REBELS, where they had no detailed guidance from earlier depictions and were largely "filling in the blanks" of the design, is very close to that of the Pellaeon - consciously or otherwise, that may have been a homage, so now I'm going to imagine that represents a specific line of design evolution in the pre-reboot Remnant - a linaeage from the Vindicator / Interdictor / Enforcer hull to the Pellaeon, presumably with the 35 ABY Bloodfin design from the Caedus storyline somewhere in the middle?)

    Something else that just hit me courtesy of that juxtaposition of REBELS and the Remnant - the "Imperial frigate" in FH3 is an Arquitens. :eek: I know that the Arquitens wasn't designed until about seven years after FH3 was written (seems like longer in some ways), but the idea just fits, and I'm pretty sure that the hull's described somewhere as having a triangular appearance broadly resembling a scaled-down ISD...?

    And I also overlooked that of course Airen Yage, the captain of that frigate, is an ancestor of Rulf and Gunner. :oops: That, I think, was deliberate.

    - The Imperial Ewok
     
    Last edited: Nov 22, 2019
  7. Sinrebirth

    Sinrebirth Mod-Emperor of the EUC, Lit, RPF and SWC star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Nov 15, 2004
    Is it odd that I thought the Widowmaker was a Acclamator frigate?

    Much as a 400m variant turned up in TUF?
     
  8. Nobody145

    Nobody145 Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Feb 9, 2007
    How many dagger-shaped frigates do we have anyway? The Arquitens is one, of course, then there's the Acclamator. There was the Imperial-II class frigate (I think the Rand Ecliptic was classified as that in one of the WotC sourcebooks, maybe Rebellion era).

    SWTOR has the Terminus-class frigates, I think. And then Legacy had the Ardent-class fast frigate (another Legacy design I liked).

    And nu-canon has the Raider (from FFG and then used in Battlefront II), though that was more of an anti-starfigher corvette.

    For some reason I thought the Widowmaker was a Nebulon-B but my memory of the FH trilogy is really fuzzy. Though yeah, the Legacy Yages probably are related, even if the NJO Yage went missing and not sure if their survival was ever confirmed. Probably, but just a minor NJO loose end (they were in orbit around Zonoma Sekot before it jumped and probably just took a long while to get back to known space).
     
  9. AdmiralNick22

    AdmiralNick22 Retired Fleet Admiral star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    May 28, 2003
    Speaking of Legacy comic ship designs, I still maintain that the capital ships in that series were some of the best we ever got. The Pellaeon-class Star Destroyer and Scythe-class main battle cruiser in particular. The Ardent-class and ShaShore-class as well. There were some misses (the Sabertooth-class) and most of the fighters were atrocious (I'm looking at you, CF9 Crossfire), but overall the designs by Sean Cooke for that series were stunning.

    I'll add- I can totally see the Scythe-class fitting into the Sequel Era canon. The design blends well with classic Rebel/NR designs, plus a 600m cruiser would be very much in keeping with the peacetime NRDF wanting smaller ships.

    --Adm. Nick
     
  10. Havoc123

    Havoc123 Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jun 26, 2013
    There's a few fan-made ships that really fit the Legacy aesthetic.
    [​IMG]
    This one isn't even a Star Wars design, but it looks like it fits really well with the whole cathedral look of the Pellaeon, along with the guns being primarily in the middle.

    [​IMG]
    The second is EC Henry's Nebulon, it really looks like it could be a Nebulon of the Legacy Era.
     
  11. jedisor

    jedisor Jedi Master star 2

    Registered:
    Apr 22, 2011
    It's doing a really bad job of not being a Star Wars design.
     
    Last edited: Nov 22, 2019
  12. The2ndQuest

    The2ndQuest Tri-Mod With a Mouth star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Jan 27, 2000
    Ooh, that one is very cool. It feels like an armored Nebulon but if the Nebulon was still supposed to be a mostly Imperial ship.
     
  13. Thrawn McEwok

    Thrawn McEwok Co-Author: Essential Guide to Warfare star 6 VIP

    Registered:
    May 9, 2000
    You're going to have to remind me of the TUF reference? [face_thinking]

    Yeah, I think the Raider is officially a corvette, and the Imperial type from the MMPORG is actually a destroyer.

    I can't quite get my head around the Acclamator being a frigate rather than a cruiser or a Star Destroyer (I assume that Battlefront II was using the term in the "next size-bracket down from a destroyer" sense).

    But that still gives us the Arquitens (325m officially, though IIRC bridge-tower scaling made me suspect the design was smaller), the KDY Imperial II-class frigate (400m per WARFARE), and the Ardent (400m per Wookieepedia, not sure what that's based on), all of which belong in the ~200m-400m frigate bracket... interestingly, they represent a chronological succession of types - Prequel-era, OT-era, Felpire...

    Took me a while to find this, but the frigate is a "white wedge of abomination" from Nom Anor's POV in TFP (chapter 33, pp. 288-289 in my UK edition) - that implies a triangular ship. :D

    The description also suggests a distinct "drive section" aft, and an obvious "rear tower". What we know beyond that is that the frigate has a "cramped bridge", a surprisingly extensive communications suite that can coordinate on a large scale (like the "command cruiser" variant of the Arquitens), and that there's a small "flight deck" (perhaps comparable to the "aft hangar" of the Thunder Wasp in the first Thrawn novel); this can carry a squadron of TIEs, but they're not normally assigned, and even before they're assigned, the Jade Shadow has to dock side-by-side with a boarding airlock. All that fits pretty neatly with the Arquitens. :D

    Kriff, I just realised - Arien Yage is implied to be more than just a former sensor officer to Pellaeon, the sort of aide who's on first-name terms with him and all that. That potentially means Rulf and Gunn are descended from the Old Man. :eek: :D

    The big torpedo foil would also fit with the NRDF's emphais on retaining the torpedo as an exclusively "federal" weapon...

    The CF9 was hardly sleek, but had the look of a powerful ship - the firepower and toughness of a B-wing with the straight-line speed of an E-wing?

    Nifty designs - where's that first one from? - but I like that the Pellaeon and the Ardent are both triangular.

    That's the idea, apparently. As I headcanon the Nebulon-B as being ultimately a Hutt design from KDY subsidiary Ubrikkian, I could happily see this as a "re-body" (complete with added hangar bay) for the Imperial market...

    - The Imperial Ewok
     
    Last edited: Nov 22, 2019
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  14. Chris0013

    Chris0013 Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 21, 2014
    Back to the Rebel Starfighter Workshop Manual and the A-Wing.

    I am not a fan of how the A-Wing came about...basically it is the Rebels taking a bunch of R-22s and stripping them down to their frame and rebuilding them. The problem I see with this is that there would have been a limited number of R-22s. To me it would have made more sense if the R-22 was the original...then KSE after a number of years took another look at it and using updated systems built the RZ-1 and they found their way to the Rebels. Maybe some of the people at KSE are Rebel Sympathizers and are doing basically what Slayn and Korpil did with the B-Wing,
     
  15. Thrawn McEwok

    Thrawn McEwok Co-Author: Essential Guide to Warfare star 6 VIP

    Registered:
    May 9, 2000
    Yeah, I sort of lost track of the earier post by @Iron_lord on the new Rebel Starfighter Workshop Manual.

    I've not seen the book (yet) but I always assume that the Rebellion built additional spaceframes, perhaps to a modified design - there's a fundamental difference (which I discussed in excesive detail over in the TIE Fighter thread) between the fighter that we see in REBELS and the fighter we see in Return of the Jedi. I have headcanon on how to resolve the difference, but I'll try and take a look at the book myself before offering my random fanboy opinion. :p

    I also suspect the new size of 6.9m is still too big for the fighter we see in Return of the Jedi. Would be interested to know if I'm just wrong there. :p But regardless, way closer to screen canon than 9.6m. :D

    - The Imperial Ewok
     
    Last edited: Nov 23, 2019
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  16. Chris0013

    Chris0013 Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 21, 2014
    This I just chalk up to art style and wanting to use McQuarrie's design in Rebels...like all the callbacks to the concept art.
     
  17. Thrawn McEwok

    Thrawn McEwok Co-Author: Essential Guide to Warfare star 6 VIP

    Registered:
    May 9, 2000
    Well, that has the advantage of being a rational option! :D

    But I'll add, quickly and for fun, that the A-wing Mk. II from TLJ shares the same cockpit and guns as the REBELS version rather than the Return of the Jedi version - that's because both are drawing on the same piece of RMQ concept art, but has the result of suggesting a lineage between the REBELS design and the TLJ design, as if the Mk. II was designed on the basis of that specific variant...

    - The Imperial Ewok
     
    Last edited: Nov 23, 2019
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  18. Chris0013

    Chris0013 Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 21, 2014
    They do say in the OWM that Rebel Pilots and Mechs had input into teh Mk. II....so that could speak to the similarities in universe.
     
  19. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    Saxton puts the 60 cm A-Wing as 1/12 scale (speculative) which would make it 7.2m.

    http://www.theforce.net/swtc/exhibit/scale.html

    The Wookieepedia Legends A-Wing page puts 7.0m as about right - using the Millennium Falcon Owner's Workshop Manual:

    https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/RZ-1_A-wing_interceptor/Legends

    A size analysis of the studio model used for Return of the Jedi suggests that the length of the ship is half as long as the documented 9.6 meters. Star Wars Technical Journal of the Rebel Forces states the model is 60 cm long and the pilot figure a 1/8 scale action figure, which results into a length of 4.8 meters. However, it should be noted that it is entirely possible the 1/8 figure was only used because it fit in the cockpit of the model.

    Another way to determine the size by comparing the headroom of the pilot with the relative size of the cockpit to the entire fighter, would be to compare the cockpit film set with the studio model.

    The size comparison chart found in the 2011 reference book Millennium Falcon Owner's Workshop Manual also depicts an RZ-1 A-wing. By using the well documented sizes of the Millennium Falcon and the X-wing as a scale, the resulting A-wing size is roughly 7.0 meters.

     
  20. Sturm Antilles

    Sturm Antilles Former Manager star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 22, 2000
    I was re-reading X-wing - The Bacta War a couple of years ago, and noticed that A-wing Mark IIs appeared in that novel, in just one scene. From page 320:

    "The droid complied with a beep. Wedge glanced down at the image the droid painted on his monitor. 'That's an A-wing.'
    Gate corrected him with a bleat.
    'Okay, a Mark II A-wing.'"

    There is no Legends tab for them at Wookieepedia. Interestingly enough, the Canon entry mentions that they were introduced at 7 years ABY, which in Legends matches up with the same exact timeframe of The Bacta War. If that Canon history is from Pablo Hidalgo in one of the Visual or Cross-Sections guides for The Last Jedi, I wouldn't be surprised if he was simply recanonizing that minor, one-time novel reference. He has been known to dig up obscurities like that.
     
  21. Thrawn McEwok

    Thrawn McEwok Co-Author: Essential Guide to Warfare star 6 VIP

    Registered:
    May 9, 2000
    Yes, but that would imply that the REBELS version of the A-wing is a separate design variant, whatever the underlying reasons are for the difference. In your previous post, you seemed to be arguing (quite rationally) that we can simply ignore all the differences as visual impressionism.

    I don't want to seem like I disagree with you with any intensity (I'm a fan of that sort of argument!), and my contrasting personal fanboy headcanon carries no weight at all here - I'm just saying, to round out the range of options, that we don't have to say that the differences from the Jedi version are just a matter of this being an animated series (and speaking personally, regardless of my penchant for "visual impressionism" I think the integrity of the REBELS designs is generally fantastic). :p

    As you say, the SWTC size is "speculative", and I don't know what the chart in the Haynes Falcon book is based on (is this lineart or a VFX capture?), though the figure is certainly less than the classic 9.6m derived from WEG - the studio model and the cockpit set are the only real clues to figure out what size the on-screen fighter in Jedi is. If those scaling details about the studio model are accurate, 4.8m seems about right. The plan for the cockpit set is one thing I can't remember ever seeing, though...

    Hang on. Here we are. :D "New Fighter. Preliminary plans and elevations" from August '81.

    Scaling doesn't seem to be exact, but the fuselage was designed in ten modules of 2 ft each, so the overall fuselage was 20 feet, which is pretty much 6 metres, while the total length including thrusters and rear vanes was about 24'9" / 7.5m - but the thrusters at that date were still using external rudders closer to the pre-production design reused in REBELS, and this detailed schematic of the side guns shows that the design wasn't actually finalised until early '81. Regardless, that moves us away from the ~5m of the studio model, and gives a pretty good fit with the 6.9m figure of the new Haynes manual...

    That auction record has decent-quality scans of an awesome collection of blueprints, btw - everything imaginable for the ESB Falcon and the TMP/TWOK Enterprise, plus extra goodies like the Executor bridge and the AT-ST cockpit (go and look for yourselves, and have fun!)...

    This is right up there with "oh, wait, the Imperial Palace was always the Jedi Temple" and "what, Shawknyr's his Force-sensitive navacomp?!" as one of my favourite ways that re-reading since 2012 brings the pre-reboot into even better focus...

    - The Imperial Ewok
     
    Last edited: Nov 23, 2019
  22. blackmyron

    blackmyron Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Oct 29, 2005
    It is important to note, though, that the manufacturer of the Mark II in The Bacta War is Incom.

    From the various (EU) sources, it seems to me that the A-wing was introduced prior to the Battle of Yavin as custom changes to the base R-22 Arrowhead; there was no mass manufacturing, each one had to be built individually. The Alliance was always looking for a way to mass manufacture them, and they freed a planet (Abridon, as depicted in the Force Commander game) shortly before the Battle of Endor to produce from scratch A-wings for the first time.

    The Last Jedi VG indicates the RZ-2 is 'decades old' at the time of the movie, and the ICS details that one of the big fixes was the 'swivel mount' lasers that allow the A-wings to fire behind them - exactly as the Mark IIs were described by The Bacta War. It's pretty clear that they are meant to be the same ship.

    Essential Guide to Warfare indicated that Incom was taken over after the Battle of Endor by the FreiTek defectors that originally left with the X-Wing design, and the manufacture of the A-Wings were turned over to them.

    So, is there a way to harmonize EU and Disney canon? There is! Kuat Systems Engineering - which would be likely involved in any development of the A-wings considering they created the base craft - was spun off by KDY during the Rebellion Era and bought out by a group of Alliance-sympathizers before Endor. I can see that the new Incom - which incorporated FreiTek as a division - could have also merged with KSE as a major supplier for the NR military machine. As such, saying "Incom" and "KSE" were the manufacturers is both true. :-B
     
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  23. Chris0013

    Chris0013 Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 21, 2014
    It could (in universe) very simply be a different rebuild between Rebels and RoTJ...just to be explain the difference in the design style. And TLJ is input from pilots and mechs being that Rebels design is superior (in their opinion).
     
  24. Chris0013

    Chris0013 Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 21, 2014
    So...did anyone ever crunch the numbers on the Gladiator-class hanger access? Will Lambdas and Sentinels have clearance to get in and out?
     
  25. Thrawn McEwok

    Thrawn McEwok Co-Author: Essential Guide to Warfare star 6 VIP

    Registered:
    May 9, 2000
    Been ages since I look into this - do we know for sure that there was a factory (which would be a great idea, IMHO), or did they just have some "police" R-22s to share...?

    And while the Alliance might not have been able to produce A-wings in truly tremendous numbers, do we know the date at which they were able to equip the Cracken Flight Group with thirty-six including remounts? Wasn't that back before Hoth?

    (An aside - the reduction of the A-Wing group in size from the 72 planes of the Imperial wing which defected has always seemed puzzling, and might reflect a perception of the availability of airframes - but they would have only had four squadrons of actual TIE Fighters, plus one each of attack planes (TIE/gt or TIE Bombers) and sensor pickets (TIE Reconnaissance or TIE Vanguard). Perhaps they retained a support element of other planes, or the specialist pilots were rotated to other units - either way, that would provide a context for repurposing one more squadron out of A-wings...?)

    Not quite sure what you're saying here - the swivel mount is I think part of the movie VFX miniature and has certainly been part of the narrative since the Star Wars Sourcebook - the earliest Alliance versions had an up/down pivot, but the fullly-rotating cannon was introduced well before Endor, and the Mk II just gets an improved version (haven't checked The Bacta War yet, but that's how ICS reads to me)...

    On the other hand, I don't think the version in REBELS has this feature. [face_thinking]

    Yes, I know. :p

    That's really nifty. :D There's a lot of confusion there because Aliance types tend to say "Incom" when they mean "FreiTek" and the fighters are actually built by what used to be FreeDac, but I really like the idea that KSE was part of the same organization.

    And hmm, won't KSE have the production jigs for the A-wing? [face_thinking]

    True enough - but all I'm saying is that if the REBELS version is designed at 9.6m or some other size that doesn't match the Jedi version, we can (potentially, speculatively, optionally) explain that in terms of an extensive design revision. Compare the Focke Wulf, which was produced in a ridiculous number of different variants with the fuselage and wingform redesigned to various extents...

    Has the Lambda got an official height yet? :p The REBELS one is the only version I know of that's consistently scaled - the Jedi version has the full-sized model (without a tailfin) and the VFX miniature (for which I know of no accurate measurements) to choose from. :p

    - The Imperial Ewok