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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

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. Noash_Retrac

    Noash_Retrac Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 14, 2006
    Wookieepedia seems to indicate Tuke's K-wing was destroyed (I never got round to reading Tyrant's Test but I do own it).

    Wookieepedia makes the Resolve a Nebula-class Star Destroyer and I think I read somewhere else that it was a Nebula/Defender-class.

    And yeah, the Cracken's Threat Dossier pictures are awful. Who authorised them??
     
  2. Chris0013

    Chris0013 Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 21, 2014
    There was an awful lot of awful back in the day....but at least they got pics and not just silhouettes or nothing.
     
  3. Nobody145

    Nobody145 Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Feb 9, 2007
    Sure sounds like Tuketu's K-wing was destroyed when they took out the shipyard, at least in the novel itself (no idea about any other sources). That's the last time he's mentioned in the book as well. And it fits the situation, heroic sacrifice and all to take out the shipyard.

    No idea about the Resolve, its just called a New Republic Star Destroyer in the novel itself, so I can only go off Wookieepedia (especially as I don't own the Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia).
     
  4. Thrawn McEwok

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

    Registered:
    May 9, 2000
    And now we're talking about the New Class ships again. That's the question that this thread was originally started to discuss, oh, fifteen years ago. :p I'm mildly boggled to realise that stalwarts like @Daneira and @Noash_Retrac have absolutely no reason to know that. :p

    Yeah, the idea is that there's a 700m hull and a 1040m hull, each of which has both a capital ship and a carrier variant - the Defender-class designation is applied to both hulls, because both designs originated as part of a plan called the "Defender project", along with the Defender starfighter. :p

    The carrier variants are straightforward - the 700m "Defender Carrier" and the 1040m "Endurance-class fleet carrier" - but there's a lot of inconsistency in the capital ship designations. The 1040m version is never actually referred to unambiguously in the Black Fleet novels at all (I doubt the Fifth Fleet is supposed to have any), and was identified as the Nebula-class in the author's FAQ, but as the Defender-class in Cracken's Threat Dossier; the 700m capital ship is a more subtle form of confusion - the type is consistently identified as the Majestic-class, and is normally described as a cruiser of some sort, but the author of the trilogy evidently intended the type to be referred to by the alternative "Star Destroyer" designation as well, and specifically for Resolve to be a ship of this class.

    Anyway, someone looked at the Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia, and apparently the book doesn't assign a specific class to the Resolve.

    Yeah, the novel sort of gives that sense, but we don't get anything specific.

    Also, something that's been pointed out on the wookiee page for the gunship Vanguard - there's a flash-forward where Commodore Brand says that all the NR ships destroyed during the scouting passes were caught because they were using their thrusters to counteract gravitational effects and maintain a steady course and speed; Vanguard wasn't doing that, which implies that the ship survives, in spite of being completely mission-killed and perceived as vaped by the POV characters.

    Not sure if that's just a continuity error, or a deliberate subtlety about POV and reliability, but that sort of thing is why I was asking what the other publications say on this topic.

    The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia apparently says nothing relevant. See below for more.

    If you have a source, I'd be grateful. :D

    Wookieepedia appears to have inferred that the ship was Nebula-class based on the "New Republic Star Destroyer" designation, but authorial intent was evidently that the Majestic could be called a "Star Destroyer" (cf. the opening description of the Fifth Fleet, "Angular Star Destroyers guarded fat-hulled fleet carriers" - that's pairs of Majestic-class ships escorting the Endurance-class carriers in each task force), and NRSD may have been intended as a generic prefix.

    A retired flag officer of the Bothan Navy - I think he drew them himself. :p

    OOU, all the internal illustrations in Cracken's Threat Dossier seem to be the work of one artist, whose main interest was probably not drawing spaceships - I think the pics of Teneniel and Zsinj are atmospheric and characterful, and aliens like the Kwa and Omogg look good (even if Omogg, as a methane-breather whose masked helmet is explicitly described in Courtship, shouldn't just be playing sabacc in a sleeveless vest and ammo bandolier :p).

    I'm guessing that either there was seriously crazy time pressure, or else he was really bored by the work, and in addition he was presumably working off second-hand notes from the sourcebook writers rather than the books and author's FAQ. I always had a strange appreciation for those pics, though, wacky as they are. Some, like the Majestic and the towed array, are actually pretty nifty. IMHO. And the Defender now looks remarkably like the REBELS version of the old cruiser/carrier, which I think is really neat. :D

    *Ewok ducks hastily behind a log* :p

    I know what you mean, but Tuke doesn't have that many scenes in the trilogy as a whole, and the way the novel breaks away leaves things ambiguous. See my reply on this to @Noash_Retrac, too?

    Yep. See above.

    Anyway, the generic update: the Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia turns out to say absolutely nothing about the class of the Resolve, and has only a minimal sub-entry for Red Flight.

    Next thing I need to check is the third edition of the Slavicsek Guide to the Star Wars Universe, from nineteen years ago. :p Anyone got a copy? :D

    Slightly alarmed to realise that the time-distance between now and then is pretty much the same as the time-distance between then and ESB. :eek:

    - The Imperial Ewok
     
    Last edited: Jan 19, 2019
  5. Noash_Retrac

    Noash_Retrac Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 14, 2006
    @Thrawn McEwok

    Not exactly a stalwart when it comes to the New Class. I just liked the idea the New Republic was moving on from older vessel types to form a more uniform navy. Then along came NJO and suddenly the old class of ships was back for "nostalgia" purposes.

    Would it have killed anyone if all the new Star Destroyers in NJO were Republic, Nebula or a new class of Star Destroyer?
     
  6. blackmyron

    blackmyron Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Oct 29, 2005
    Checking my old notes, I can't find anything that labels the Resolve definitively as a "Nebula/Defender-class". I could check the original SWE (somewhere in storage), but I doubt that it would have anything different than the CSWE.

    @Thrawn McEwok - I remember how delightful - and how much a headache - the whole Black Fleet Crisis was here. Remember the mysterious 3 SSDs in the Black Fleet? Or the obviously wrong "SSD Aramadia" from the Coruscant and the Core Worlds RPG supplement? [face_laugh]
     
  7. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    Some Republic-class ones, at least. turned up. And the NJO comics showed both Republic-class and Cracken-style Defender-class Star Destroyers.
     
  8. Tuskin38

    Tuskin38 Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Jul 15, 2010
    I'm not sure if this fits here, but saw this cool twitter thread on the (out of universe) history of the Dornean gunship.

     
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  9. Thrawn McEwok

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

    Registered:
    May 9, 2000
    I think they were going for "movie recognizability" with the new-build ISDs and Mon Cal ships.

    If I had to explain this, I'd say that this is because the tightly-designed New Class designs lacked a type which could carry both a large fighter contingent and roundhousing guns-and-armour, and that while these "retro" types are prominent in the novels, there may only handful of them (I count five ISDs, two Mediator-class Mon Cal cruisers plus an unspecified number being defensive at Mon Cal in TUF, and Viscount). The "backbone" ships are the Ranger-class gunship and the Republic-class cruiser, which can be thought of as new variants of the New Class hulls. And as @Iron_lord pointed out below, we got two more "modern" ships in the Invasion comic - the Reptavian and Dragonsnake.

    One thought which struck me recently is that most of the Yevethan SDs end up in New Republic hands (Essential Chronology, I think), and the quality of Yevethan new building might have given the NR a renewed appreciation of the old Imperial designs.

    Actually, that would be a huge help. See PM. :D

    That's one that my continuity-completist POV has always puzzled over how to explain. Clearly sort-of intended to be Intimidator. But not. :oops:

    There are Republic-class cruisers in the NJO, but they're something different, described as a KSE design, and cheap enough that even the Peace Brigade can get one; I headcanon them as an "economy" version of one of the larger New Class hulls, mixing hangars with a less expensive armament/armour/shield fit than the SD variants (I had a vague idea they were called 1km ships somewhere, but I can't find that reference now)...

    If you have references to an RSD (beyond Reptavian, and my endnote suggestion that this is another name for MC80Bs :p) I'd be interested. :D

    Appropriate for the topic of the Fifth Fleet. General A'baht's old ride. :D

    Though I note in re-reading Tyrant's Test that he has a personal E-wing in a hangar on Endurance as well (he offers Luke the use of his plane), which might suggest he was a fighter pilot originally (though the Dornean's "gunship navy" is also page canon in the BFC). And yes, this happens in rl too - I remember watching a documentary a few years back and discovering that the retired Air Marshal who runs the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight commutes to work in a Spitfire. :eek:

    - The Imperial Ewok
     
    Last edited: Jan 21, 2019
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  10. Havoc123

    Havoc123 Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jun 26, 2013
    In my mind, the NR just ended up using the already existing Imperial infrastructure, hence the mass use of Imperial Star Destroyers by the New Republic. KDY was adept at making ImpStars, so they just invested heavily in what works. Optics were largely unimportant, as the Empire isn't the hated entity it is in NuCanon. Meanwhile MonCal Shipyards continued to be the second dominant shipyard for the NR, and so MonCal Cruisers became produced at a similar pace as ImpStars, which gave them a fleet that's roughly 50/50 KDY/MonCal. We know the Anakin Solo was a brand new Imperial II-class, it wasn't an old one produced, so its pretty much confirmed the NR/GA kept up production of Imperial Star Destroyers.

    Considering that the ImpStars were so good at their role, its unsurprising they remained in service for so long. We see an ImpStar or two pop up as an active vessel in the Legacy comics, so I think the GA likely used ImpStars while the Fel Empire/Remnant built the new Pellaeons eventually, and the Scythes mostly saw usage in very important fleets, until they more or less replaced the ImpStars after the Fel Empire reacquired Kuat, likely during the Alliance-Fel Cold War.
     
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  11. Fire Dog

    Fire Dog Jedi Knight star 1

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    Mar 1, 2017
    (There are Republic-class cruisers in the NJO, but they're something different, described as a KSE design, and cheap enough that even the Peace Brigade can get one; I headcanon them as an "economy" version of one of the larger New Class hulls, mixing hangars with a less expensive armament/armour/shield fit than the SD variants (I had a vague idea they were called 1km ships somewhere, but I can't find that reference now)

    There was a mention of one in Star By Star, The Falcon flew under one that was drifting and on fire.
     
    Last edited: Jan 22, 2019
  12. DarthCane

    DarthCane Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 30, 2002
    Granted we see reference to tricked-out new variants of the ISD like the Mon Mothma and Anakin Solo, but my thought was generally that KDY built about 25,000 of the darn things for the Empire and the ones that surrendered or defected were available. Even if they were a problem to crew and maintain, you wouldn't have to look hard for spare parts.

    Come to think of it, if the NuCanon NR had anything like the Asset Tracking Office, they should have been monitoring the salvage coming off of Jakku.
     
  13. Darth Zack

    Darth Zack Jedi Master star 1

    Registered:
    Nov 1, 2012
    I was thinking about Fleet Junkie stuff just now and I wondered how quickly warships can be built in Star Wars (though I have also thought about the subject in the recent past). Apparently in Legends the Mon Calamari shipyards could build a single Star Cruiser in a year's time. The Death Star II was apparently "fully operational" after only four years. Then of course there is the twenty-five thousand ISDs in the span of two decades. According to Wikipedia a modern warship can take up to a decade to be constructed. That is a considerable difference considering the fact that Star Wars ships can be considerably more massive than real world vessels.
     
  14. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

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    Sep 2, 2012
    HMS Dreadnought (which was built in 1 year) might be the template for the aforementioned Mon Cal construction time.
     
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  15. Thrawn McEwok

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

    Registered:
    May 9, 2000
    I don't actually disagree with any of what you're saying, but the issue is that the NR don't seem to produce new ISDs before the NJO. The largest early-NR ships are generally around 1.2km, and the New Class program tops out with 1km ships. In 12-16 ABY they were using Teradoc's old VSD yard (and presumably Teradoc's old workforce) to build Endurance-class carriers.

    All the ISDs whose origins are specified are captured from Imperial forces, starting at Endor. I think the ISDs that show up in Star by Star are the first that are explicitly new NR building. So the question's why they switch back.

    From a certain POV, of course, you could say that they had enough simply with the captured hulls, because they used a lot less of them than the Empire did, and didn't need new building, but there seems to have been a perception that smaller hulls were to be preferred going forward. This is why I wonder if the Black Fleet, both as a threat and then a stock of surrendered hulls, may have proved influential. On a quick check, I don't see anything saying that Rejuvenator was absolutely new in 25 ABY, which makes me wonder if she was a Yevethan hull surrendered eight years earlier - new and improved by ISD standards, and influential for that reason...

    Oh, I think there's always been something symbolic in redeeming the symbols of oppression.

    [​IMG]

    Interesting! Can you tell me what chapter that's in? Thanks! :D

    Also true - wrecked or otherwise unused hulls. Commenor apparently gets a decent-sized fleet by pulling old ISDs off the scrapheap.

    :p

    There's a difference between design time and construction time. Sci-fi spaceships are probably simpler to design, because they don't have to achieve the fine balance of weight and shape required to do a sharp turn at 30 knots in a heavy sea (or a high-g aerial turn at supersonic speeds), which is what takes up a lot of the effort in designing high-performance ships (and planes); they really just need to make sure that the engines push them in the right direction, and that's especially simple if they can "balance" their steering with sci-fi tech like repulsors and etheric rudders - and the Empire, in particular, is also supposed to have used modular mass-production techniques, assembling larger structures from standardized units, which speeds things up considerably (you see this a bit in the REBELS cartoon, with all the Imperial ships, from the smallest to the largest, sharing corridor, detention block and crew quarters units - many of which are also seen in ANH; smaller cruisers even carry the same hangar-bay complex as the ISD). That sort of modular process also speeds up production, too.

    I'm personally inclined to think that the DS2 was probably assembled using components and sub-assemblies that had been rolling off production lines ever since Ep.II or earlier, and (though a lot of other fans definitely don't like this one) that a lot of those 25,000 SDs were comparatively small 600m ships (or perhaps even administrative fictions hiding DS2 construction).

    - The Imperial Ewok
     
    Last edited: Jan 25, 2019
  16. Greybook

    Greybook Jedi Padawan star 1

    Registered:
    Apr 29, 2018
    What we mostly don't account for is the scale of the Star Wars universe. And the technological level. We achieve miracles by 3d printing. In the SW universe we see whole shipyards dedicated to singular design.

    It makes sense that any kind of factory would streamline their production to downsize costs and upscale production.

    I can imagine a standard SD imp deuce being service ready in three months at say: Kuat shipyards. Specialized assembly docks working with pre-made standardized modules.
    Shakedown cruises in the Inner rim. Might also explain the huge buildup in the inbetween ep III and IV.

    Sent from my G8341 using Tapatalk
     
    Last edited: Jan 25, 2019
  17. Long Snoot

    Long Snoot Jedi Master star 2

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    Mar 1, 2018
    I believe that the Empire forced factories of all kinds to be converted for their own needs in order to make weapon production faster and faster. In Solo we can see CEC heavily focusing on TIE and ISD production, none of which are actually Corellian designs. In addition to private ones like KDY and CEC, the empire built its own factories all around the galaxy (something that I don't recall being done by the Legends or Canon new republic). The imperial complex on Lothal doubles as a production facility for both Sienar and Kuati designs, and the lack of actual laws to protect the environement allows the Mining Guild to provide a constant supply of materials with its ore crawlers. The way Lothal landscape changes between seasons shows how heavy industrial production is there (and presumably in many other planets).
    The reason Mon Calamari cruisers take so much to be built is that they are all manufactured locally and without a severe abuse of the planet's resources.
     
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  18. AdmiralNick22

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

    Registered:
    May 28, 2003
    Speaking of leadtimes for warship design and construction, in the new canon, we've got several instances of VERY quick lead times. Consider that between Endor and Jakku (essentially a period of a year), the New Republic is able to field the following new designs:
    • MC85 star cruiser
    • Starhawk-class battleship
    • Starfortress Bomber
    • Free Virgilla-class Bunkerbuster corvette
    On top of that, we go from a situation at the time of the Battle of Endor where the Alliance can field barely a few dozen MC80's, to a period a year later where the New Republic deploys huge numbers of them at Kuat and Jakku. Considering that Mon Cala isn't confirmed liberated until at least pre-Endor (a fuzzy line in Moving Target implies that Mon Cala isn't under Imperial control anymore), we don't have a long period where warships were being constructed. A few things to consider/contemplate:
    1. Post-Endor, the New Republic's main shipyards are Mon Cala, Nakadia, and Corellia.
    2. The Starhawk's are apparently built from surplus Imperial parts... but still require design and construction time.
    3. MC85's are the new canon's MC90- albeit larger and more powerful.
    4. All three major yards were basically under Imperial control until Endor... leaving little time to work.
    All of this points to the galaxy's ability to ramp up starship construction in wartime. Or, that the Empire's desire to overmilitarize made it easy for the New Republic to start building ships and accessing resources. In the case of the MC85, I suppose we could assume that it was a design that Mon Calamari Rebels were working on in exile. Perhaps Quarrie had a Mon Cala think tank that was designing potential warships for the Alliance? As for the sudden appearance of many more MC80's, I'm guessing that the Mopn Calamari shipyards were put to work immediately converting any remaining merchant navy, city ship, or exploration cruisers that they had. Corellia is a bit easier to imagine. There is nothing that says the Bunkerbuster is a brand new hull. Corellia may have simply taken a hull they were already building and modified it into a tough combat cruiser.

    The Starhawk is one that is particularly interesting, as we know so little about it. It was built at shipyards around Nakadia, in the Bormea Sector. Not hard to imagine Nakadia being a colony world of Chandrila (Life Debt mentions Chandrilan colonies), perhaps one that maintained Chandrila's PSF during the last days of the Old Republic. It's hatchet shaped, armed to the teeth, and at least as big as an MC80, probably bigger. Surplus Imperial parts aside, what was the basis for the hullform? A scratch build? Or a classic Rebel conversion?

    There is a lot to discuss and unpack here. Thoughts?

    --Adm. Nick
     
  19. comradepitrovsky

    comradepitrovsky Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 5, 2017
    I would wager, dollars to donuts, that immediately after the fall of the Empire all of the rebel-aligned companies and designers got a ****load of money to fund all the projects that they had been drawing up during the war. The war's necessities meant that they often had to use the weapons that were useful for the moment, rather then the ones that were the best designed - you're flying ships because that's the one that you can find, rather then the ones you want to. But after the Empire collapses, you now have all the resources to build your wunderwaffe that you've had on the drawing boards since Episode IV.
     
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  20. Tuskin38

    Tuskin38 Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jul 15, 2010
    The new canon rationalizes the DS1's apparent long construction time by saying the Super Laser was holding it back. The Main structure had been finished for years, they just needed a working Super laser. So the DS2 seemingly being built pretty fast is because they already had working Super Laser tech. Plus they would have had the experience from building the first.

    Speaking of the DS1, apparently it's 160km in the new canon? Comes from the Rogue One Visual Guide, which I do own, I guess I didn't notice or forgot.
     
    Last edited: Jan 27, 2019
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  21. P4KISTAN

    P4KISTAN Jedi Master star 1

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    Jun 3, 2013
    I like to think that the Mon Calmari had a pretty big share of the overall starship market. With the victory on Endor you can imagine certain worlds/planetary forces that use MC's pitching in what they have to the early NRDF.
     
  22. Darth Zack

    Darth Zack Jedi Master star 1

    Registered:
    Nov 1, 2012
    Trying to make the second Death Star so much larger and more powerful seems like it was a mistake. A version with the improvements of the Death Star II but at the size of the first Death Star, or even smaller with a less powerful Prime Weapon could have been built rather rapidly. Imagine if the Empire had built one or more of these Death Stars in time for Hoth.

    The Essential Atlas showed that several local shipyards were devoted to the construction of Imperial-class Star Destroyers exclusively. Yes this is Legends, but I wonder whether such a shipyard, if seized by the Alliance, could be reconfigured to build Starhawk-class battlecruisers using parts meant for the construction of Star Destroyers. Seizing such shipyards could be a major factor in Rebel successes following the Battle of Endor.
     
  23. Daneira

    Daneira Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jun 30, 2016
    I think the Starhawks were constructed solely at Nadiri Dockyards.

    Hopefully one of these days we find out what they actually look like.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
     
  24. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    At least initially, it was only "nearly twice as big" as the first Death Star. It wasn't till Curtis Saxton that it became more than 5 times as wide, and nearly 180 times the volume (would have been, once complete). The fact that this is so problematic, may be partly why the newcanon reverted to a "nearly twice as big" size again.
     
  25. Tuskin38

    Tuskin38 Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jul 15, 2010
    The DS2 is only 200km, which is only 40k more than the DS1.
     
    Last edited: Jan 28, 2019