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

Didn't at least one Legends comic show the Executor in atmosphere? In the newcanon the Ravager ends up there, but it's not for long and it is not clear if it was designed to be capable of flying into atmosphere and out again.

 

I feel obliged to note that the Imperial-era debut of the E-wing is from Yoda Chronicles, while the idea that ISDs could act as big pointy flymos was introduced in The Force Unleashed.

I am far more sympathetic to the first of these ideas than the second. Rogue One is Rebel propaganda anyway.

- The Imperial Ewok

 

I'm not a super Legends devotee but I always visualized ISDs and certain fighters as non-atmospheric and absorbed enough EU lore to feel backed up on that. In fairness to R1, it was Rebels that showed an ISD in atmospheric flight before R1, and although it struck me as "wrong" I had to admit right away that it looked cool... which is exactly how I felt about the the Venators in the sky in TCW before that. And then along comes R1 and... it looks even cooler in live action. And of course the reason you didn't have this kind of thing in the OT was how much of a pain it would've been to composite it all and have it look decent.

WRT the fighters, I think you can chalk up the overall impression to ESB where I always felt it to be implied that X-wings must be bad in the atmosphere or else there'd be no need to go at the walkers with snowspeeders. And this even seems to be backed up in the PT: in both cases fighters just kind of take off and leave in atmospheres and do their biz in space, whereas specialized craft like speeders and gunships do the atmosphere stuff. Again the slow slide starts in TCW where you get Y-Wings doing bombing runs against planetary targets with fighter support. I think that's kind of interesting because the Prequels totally could have shown that, but didn't.

 

Starfighters flying in atmosphere is fine I think. Not as good as a dedicated atmospheric fighter, but they can still do it.

 

Acclamators being a troop carrier / assault ship kind of makes sense to be able to do what it does. Embark and disembark the entire complement without risking the troop shuttles and such to heavy fire.

 

I dunno, I imagine the reverse would be true. An Acclamator is a much bigger target, and there's probably much fewer suitable landing sites for such a large ship. Which means the enemy can just concentrate all their heavy defenses near those sites and blow you out of the sky.

Also, the act of trying to touch down something as lightweight as a helicopter in real-life is already a very delicate operation. Trying to do the same with a massive space battleship just...does not seem possible to me.

 

The way the Falcon lands at Cloud City in ESB is interesting - the one time I think we've seen a reasonably large ship touch down on-camera in canon. Rather than a delicate fixed-skid landing like a helicopter, some sort of heavy-duty suspension in the skids is used to absorb the impact of the landing and make for an easier ride for those aboard the ship - I'm not sure if the jets we see kicking in at this point are thrusters giving the ship a final boost of lift, or simply heavy-duty pneumatics in the suspension system absorbing the impact.

- The Imperial Ewok

 

There were also those Lucrehulk core ships that landed on Geonosis while the rest of the ship stayed in orbit. Although then they were vulnerable to ground fire until they reached orbit again, so not sure if that was a good thing or not. Well, the Lucrehulk was originally a giant freighter until they were upgraded for the Clone Wars.

And supposedly the Disney+ versions of the Star Wars movies are all in 4K. I'm not sure if they look better or if my eyes just aren't good enough. The Battles of Coruscant, Endor and Scarif sure do look nice though. I wonder how long until they announce 4K discs for all the movies (maybe a giant box set by next year). Its nice to have the Fox fanfare back in the beginning too. And now back to watching Darkwing Duck (well, actually I should be sleeping, but too many childhood memories).

 

Flexibility...can either land itself...or get in really close and help provide cover when it deploys troops closer to the ground....or even stand of in orbit for bombardment.

 

Notably, we see an Acclamator get easily shot down by a handful of flak guns on Ryloth.

And the battlefront book confirmed a long standing headcanon of mine - that a capital ship in atmosphere has to devote so much of its energy to its repulsarlifts that its shields and weapons are weakened, leaving the whole thing vulnerable.

So while capital ships can fly in atmo now it seems like it is a bad idea to do so in pitched combat.

About the fighters - I think the Tie striker is my favorite of the new tie variants because I do like its niche, being an atmosphere specialized version of the tie. Regular ties can fly in atmo, and the striker can fly in space, but both are better in their native elements

 

Check this little tid-bit out:

 

Presumably we can alter the "atmosphere capable" to refer to landing. Acclamators need to land since they are upgunned troop transports. Senators are multi role carrier/destroyer/troop transports. Victory 1s were probably designed with a similar ethos, but trading most hanger space from the venator for more combat capability. And a heavy missile armament would work well in the atmosphere to avoid turbo laser attenuation and attack over the horizon. But the need for more combat specialized ships to deal with the seppy lucrehulks and bulwarks saw the vs 2, stripping out most the troop capacity, repulsors, and landing equipment in favor of heavier conventional armament and more powerful sublight engines. And the ISD was an attempt to build a superior design to the refit of walex blissex's refined vsd, but lira Essex was both under a time crunch and not as skilled, so the ISD was heavily flawed in comparison, though functional and more powerful. Her political connections won out though, and the ISD kept the lack of landing capability from the vsd 2 it was meant to supplant.

 

Dark Empire showed ISDs in an atmosphere (over Nar Shaddaa) and the Executor with ISD escorts was doing atmospheric maneuvers in one of the old Marvel stories. So this is not new to the Disney Canon. SW: Underworld supposedly would have featured ISDs in an atmosphere on Coruscant, if the 1313 concept art is to be believed.

You don't really need that when you can hover like Cloud City.

 

Re-posting this from my Endor to Jakku thread, as it is relevant for this threat too!

So, my copy of The Rebel Starfighters Owners' Workshop arrived yesterday. We get info on all five main Alliance fighters, plus the variants used by the New Republic and Resistance. Given that these are sourcebooks that confirm/reinforce prior things we've discussed, I will not be using spoiler tags. Tons of relevant stuff, especially around the military disarmament acts of the New Republic.

• We learn that Leia was actively pushing the Resistance to strengthen their connections with IncoFrei-Tek, the Mon Calamari shipyards, and Slayn & Korpil.
• In addition, the Resistance is looking for contacts in "defunct" starship builders like Koensayr Manufacturing and Kuat Systems Engineering.
• This is the first confirmation, as best I can tell, that both those companies were out of business by the time of TFA.
• Kuat Systems Engineering secretly supplied the Resistance with specialized tools to maintain their RZ-2 A-wings with.

A few other cool tidbits:

• The T-70 X-wing continued in production once the NRDF switched to the T-85, with ships being produced/sold to member navies.
• Production of T-70's, T-85's, RZ-2 A-wings, and the BTA-NR2 Y-wing was limited under the Military Disarmament Act.
• RZ-2 A-wings were used by the NRDF for long-range recon missions and anti-piracy actions.
• The BTA-NR2 Y-wing was commissioned by the NRDF, but was more popular in the various member world navies as a patrol craft.
• The use of proton torpedoes in the NR-era seems restricted. Interestingly enough, while the T-70, T-85, and RZ-2 all had torpedo launchers, the BTA-NR2 Y-wing did not. These were added by the Resistance when they acquired these Y-wings.
• I suspect that the NR regulated torpedo usage and if the Y-wing was more of a dedicated planetary defense craft vs. a mainline navy fighter, this could explain why it wasn't equipped with one initially.

--Adm. Nick

 

Wait, five? X-, Y-, A-, B-wing and...Z-95?

 

U-wing.

--Adm. Nick

 

But that's more of a shuttle/transport and not a starfighter, right?

Edit: Okay so apparently Wookiepedia lists it as a "starfighter/supporf craft". Huh, oh well.

 

So happy the T-85 has torpedoes.

 

It's possible the BTA-NR2, was built with the possibility to add launchers later.

 

Hmm...

 

Straight up tracing art has happened way too much in the mainline marvel series. Ships, faces, entire scenes. It's absolutely ridiculous.

 

Tracing official content is whatever to me, but the tracing of fan content is pretty egregious.

 

And they didn't even cut off the pegs tsk tsk.

 

I happen to agree with Eckhart's Ladder on this. Tracing is lazy. Marvel artists need to pick up their game.

 

I am really curious as to the behind the scenes. Like if someone as talented and meticulous as Luke Ross is doing it then that speaks volumes about how the SW editors function. I would not be shocked if they face serious crunch and have to worry about getting traded out for someone like Larroca who will trace every freaking line.