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

Just a thought...and if not Maul then Ezra or Sabine when they take ownership of it would do so.

 

While it is about time to introduce new tech to star wars, or in this case wider use of tech already existing in SW since the Sharu, I am always wary of the implications of the introduction or mass use of a specific technology. The why can it be used for this but not that, or it would have been handy there too arguments obviously. But using pocket space for smuggling sounds fun, but it should not be a mass market technology. I can see Aphra or someone like her use ancient tech that cannot be replicated like that though!

Well designed ships and fitting sets are a rarity sadly. Sometimes I think all others are a weird joke by some Q twisting spacetime for fun.

Exactly, the corridor to the shuttle is the main issue. Even if we assume its sideways doors are no rooms and simply storage compartments, we'd need an extra level for the shuttle corridor to make sense. But looks up or down the ladder wells make any extra levels near impossible. And lets ignore the crawlspaces one or two episodes made use of only that have to go between rooms and levels too! I also recall a minor issue with the corridors to the docking ports to either side but that is easily retconned. Need to look up my old research data and pics for details!
That aside it mostly works but another issue is that the shuttles lower docking port leading to the ladder to the main room does not match the VCX's main room location and ladder when docked.

I know Filoni got a 3D model of the VCX with interior rooms in it, as seen blurry in backdrop of one of his interviews for Rebels once. But that one did not adress the issues sadly.

Now if the Corridor behind the cockpit could be lifted to reach the shuttle and lowered to the main room... that'd solve things but I doubt that is possible without stretches of credibility given no likewise angles seen in either use of it?

Even a hyperspace-tug needs no shower
Well unless that thing they showered in was for washing some cargo or stuff in transit.

Given lack of space I think it uses miniaturized Tie-technology for drive systems and all that.

 

Fair enough.

I try and avoid actual speculation these days - I don't want anyone to imagine that my random headcanon has any authority!

I dunno - the Falcon is the only SW ship that I think's really hard to make sense of, but that's very much part of the Falcon's charm, and has more to do with Kasdan's use of forced perspective than anything else.

What others do you have in mind?

There are three ladders: one at the front which connects the cockpit, the forward gun position and the hold, the upper and lower parts of which are visible in different pictures here - this is the "main" ladder between decks:



Then there's one in the centre of the ship which goes up from the central lobby to the upper gun turret, as visible here:



... and which also goes down through a floor hatch to the rarely-seen engineroom behind the cargo hold, as visible here:



And there's a third ladder at the back in the crew lounge, which goes up to the corridor leading to the shuttle dock (on the same level as the upper turret) which is the ladder visible here...


(I think some concept art for that space is online somewhere, but I can't find that immediately)...

There looks to be no problem with deckspace - the boxy raised section bethind the gun turret is where the upper corridor to the shuttle dock goes - so the actual reuse of the same corridor CGI is the one part I'm not sure about (as you say, where do those doors go?) - but maybe even that fits in just fine.

Can you point me to an episode with a "crawlspace"?

Logical.

I'm now wondering if Beckett had a bigger ship with a hangar-bay, hyperdrive and shower that simply wasn't shown on screen, and they just showed the shuttle to simplify the narrative...

- The Imperial Ewok

 

The design was originally created for an unreleased video game according to the artist's description:

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/ykN8xJ
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/3de6mE

 

Could still be used in universe for something.

 

It already was.

 

Are you talking as the Starhawk itself of something else...it looks (to me at least) that while it is the same basic shape it has some significant differences it total shape. Kind of like Victory SD compared to Imperial SD.

 

Welcome to day 9999999... of waiting for the (hopefully) eventual release of Rise to Power


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

The first link is the original concept art which eventually evolved into what we have now. The second link is concept art for the Squadrons version, which is the prototype, which would explain it's differences from the FFG version.

 

How about Lego Freemakers Starscavenger?

The crawlspace was in the very first episodes where Ezra is hiding in it. It starts in the main lobby's storage compartment next to the third ladder. The hatch behind Chopper in your pic and from there he went through the entire ship before someone, Zeb I think, pulled him out.

As you laid it out it all makes sense, but when looking at a crossection of the Ghost, the ladders can not add up on all levels.

The first cockpit ladder is fine. Central ladder between turret sand engineering room below is ok too. The third ladder to the shuttle does not fit where it would have to enter the shuttle. Exiting the main lobby it either can go up to the corridor to the shuttle, but we see no ladder there, or it goes right into the shuttle for which it is in the wrong place. While the shuttle can dock both ways into the main ship, be it nose or aft door first, only one position aligns the shuttles ladder hatch with the Ghosts topside hatch in the shuttle docking ramp (only if docked nose first when the aft door is of no use does it align).

I found these fanmade recreations of the Ghost and even they use tweaks to make it work for a 3D model like adding some downward angle to the crew quarters corridor that is not on screen, or different heigths for that corridor and the shuttle access one, just to name a few.




And here we see how the ladders do not line up: The ladder access to the lower hatch of the Shuttle would be right in the kitchen, not the main room. Also while the central ladder may connect to the Shuttle corridor, when seeing people look up and down it in the show we see no extra level or corridor access in the tube.






I should dig out and upload my own Ghost maps I played around with to better illlustrate my points, cause these found fanmade ones are not good and flawed sadly even if doing terriffic work in some parts.

I still pity they designed an epic ship for Enfys Nest and the gang and we never got to see it aside concept art. I am sure Beckett got something of his own too. I even tend to headcanon he had something akin to Solo's later TFA ship, the Eravana... it got hangar and fits the bill for everything needed. And would be nice full circle for Han to use such himself later on.

 

Kudos, @Tuskin38 for the links and @Senator Wan for the identification of the game in question as Rise to Power. Interesting that according to the designers, the CGI asset was worked up around 2014-2015, before TFA was released, but that the "ax blade" description from Life Debt was already available...

When they say that "the prototype" was "adapted in Star Wars: Squadrons" - does that mean this specific design, or the game as a whole...?

Interesting how these nod in terms of layout to the MC140 and the StarFortress, too...

I think a design that only appears in LEGO form has some flexibility in terms of design detail.

Thanks. I don't see a problem here though. There's a very narrow crawlspace (smuggling compartment?) between the decks, that's accessible from inside the 'fresher in the crew lounge and from the roof of the gunnery position at the front.

The third ladder goes up to behind the hatch at the front end of the corridor leading to the shuttle dock. We see that in the original preview short...

Chopper goes into the crew lounge:



... (then up the ladder, through a hatch) and along the corridor to the back of the shuttle:



... then back out of the shuttle, along the corridor, and through a hatch (to the top of the ladder space):



And then there's a confusing hard cut to the cockpit door.

The question of how to get to the bottom hatch of the shuttle is confusing, I agree - but that's a separate question - and I guess there could be a crawlspace between the engines, accessed from where we see Ezra enter the crawlspaces...

Short version: the only puzzle I can see with the VCX-100 design concerns whether the back corridor to the shuttle can be the straight copy of the forward corridor that's shown here, and whether some sort of additional crawlspace to access the bottom hatch is practical. We can be sure that there is some sort of access, though, opening off the aft ladder in the crew lounge...

I'd argue that the tweaks in the first of those two pics are unnecessary - the top of the ship slopes upwards more than that, so there's no need for the corridor to angle down. The second one is better - there's a lot of cargo bay and ramp added in, but the upper half of the ship seems absolutely right (except for maybe making the crew lounge extend too far back): the shuttle access corridor is a different height. That's the whole point

I don't see the problem. The aft ladder goes up behind the corridor hatch. The central ladder only goes to the gun turret.

The only details that maybe don't fit into the hull properly involve the immediate access to the shuttle. From the hatch into the shuttle-access corridor, down the ladder and forward to the cockpit and down again to the ramp and hold, everything fits in.

Just quoting this one because this is really useful to illustrate what we do and don't see in the show. The main deck seems pretty much right here. The upper deck looks a bit confusing and a bit imaginary (the corridor to the shuttle should be wider), and the hold deck shows a lot that isn't seen on screen - the only places on this deck in the show are the forward gun position/ramp, the cargo hold directly behind that, and the central lobby immediately behind (the engineroom). I'd imagine the areas beyond that are just engine spaces.

But the imaginary stuff is all added. The only space that may need to be tweaked to be different from what we see on screen is the upper corridor to the shuttle.

Feel free to share!

Interesting - maybe they planned to use the Erevana, which is why there's no evidence of design work...?

- The Imperial Ewok

 

The ship design itself. The design in Squadrons is a bit different from the design in the table top game because it's the first prototype of the entire class, which could explain the differences.

 

Hmm, so I posted this almost exactly two years ago...

...and today I came across this video, which was uploaded almost exactly one year ago...


So to summarize the video and answer my own question, it was WEG that came up with some ship stats that favored the X-wing, because it's a game and you need some weak enemies for the players to beat up. Then the X-wing games came along, and also needed lots of weak enemies for the player to beat up, so they went along with that. Then the X-wing novels came along, and went along with what was in the computer games...and by then the idea of TIEs as cheap deathtraps was established in canon and it's been with us ever since.

 

Personally, I tend to think of it as being like the design philosophy of Japan and the United States in the Pacific War - emphasizing speed and maneuverability above all was fairly effective at first, particularly in the hands of their aces, but as the other side started developing counter tactics and more powerful fighters that had similar speed and maneuverability while being more durable, they lost their edge and became fodder, especially as experienced pilots died and they had to rely more on rookiees who had trouble getting the most out of their agile yet fragile fighters.
(In this analogy, the Tie Defender would be like the Shinden - excellent plane, but too little too late)

At least, I felt like in X-Wing Alliance, the Tie Fighter was more than a match for most civilian type fighters, like Z-95s and R-41s.

Plus, I believe new canon has TIE Fighters show up pretty soon after Revenge of the Sith, so it is a decades old design by the time of the OT, where most rebel fighters seem to be fairly new in that time frame

 

Y-Wings are even older but it, along with all the starfighters the prequels introduced have shields, hyperdrives and lack all the other weaknesses established for the TIE. After the prequels it's clear that the X-Wings and the like weren't an advancement in tech, they just went back to being good.

 

Still, Y-Wings are usually portrayed as bomber types who get slaughtered by Ties in dogfights.

It isn't that shields help that much - after all in the movies X-Wings still go down to any sustained fire from a tie - it is that X-Wings have shields while also being nearly as fast and maneuverable as a Tie.

 

Rogue Squadron 64 will forever make me think of Y-wings being slow as molasses.

 

I really like the transition TCW/ROTS show in the Republic Navy's fighter philosophy. First it's just medium sized fighters/bombers like the Torrent and the Y-Wing, then the main line z95 gets more compact and by the end of the war there's a clear line dividing the extremely compact and bare-bones V-Wing and Eta-2 and the very large and heavy ARC-170. The V-Wing would be used as reference for all the shield-less TIE line fighters, while the ARC was probably replaced by large vessels such as the Xg-1 Star Wing or the Missile Boat.

 

@Tuskin38 - that makes sense about "prototype". Thanks!

Agreed very much with @MercenaryAce about the Wildcat-vs-Zero (or indeed P-40 vs Nakajima) subtext in the X-v-T dynamic, going right back to ANH.

The TIE being a "short-range fighter" in contrast to the hyperspace-equipped Rebels is screen canon since 1977, and certainly isn't a WEG idea, just as there's a visible contrast between the TIE's twin-blasters and the larger arrays of guns and launchers on the X-wing and the Y-wing - I don't know if the lack of shields was also established in pre-WEG material (Marvel comics, Guide to the Star Wars Universe, Han-and-Lando novels?) but the idea is certainly appropriate as an analogy to the way the Japanese emphasised maximum performance at the expense of ruggedness (and the idea of using ion engines which give extreme realspace range is also a nice fit with the Zeke's very long mission endurance). The essential contradiction between a design emphasis on high performance that requires very skilled pilots and a command emphasis on expendability is also a good match with the trap that the IJN fell into...

And... @DurararaFTW @MercenaryAce @Daneira





Seriously, @Alpha-Red - great topic!

@Long Snoot - I really like the idea that the big fighters from Ep.III look forward to the big fighters from X-v-T, but the Droid Starfighter, the N-1 and the Delta-7 all show that the compact superiority fighter goes back beyond the V-wing...

- The Imperial Ewok

 

Oh yeah I mentioned the V-Wing and Eta-2 because they are the first ones to remove life-support and shields in favor of performance (droid fighter aside obviously). Although it's likely that, outside of the advanced Republic or CIS navies, cheaf PSF/mercenary/pirate fighters may have already made this sacrifice before for budgetary reasons.
And about TIE weaponry in '77, I always thought green lasers=more advanced (before this was retconned into something else).

 

Spoiler

New lander, clearly based off the First Order troop transport (though arguably superior in terms of less exposed bridge and heavier weaponry). I like that the turrets are the same model as the Zeta-class shuttle and the engines look strangely familiar too.


Confirmed side hangars and good look at the bridge. I think I could be seeing a structure that looks kind of like one of the Acclamator's "landing legs" on the bottom but I am not sure. It would make sense for a ship of this size to be able to do so.

 

Thinking that

Spoiler

troop ship will be Din's new ride.

 

Spoiler

Could fit, although the small viewport could make interior shots too claustrophobic. Of course they could also have Din customise it or introduce a new variant that fits the narrative, like they did with the ITT variant a few episodes back. Out-of-universe I think they needed a transport small enough to fit inside the Arquitens, as something like a Lambda or a Sentinel shuttle would probably be too tall. The hatch on top may even allow it to connect under a Gozanti.

 

It is a very cool transport design, evoking the first order transport of the future while having a distinct and noticeably imperial looking silhouette.

...though I have to admit part of me would have loved it if they used some of the stormtrooper transports from TIE Fighter...

 

Suggestions for the new troop ship class....they should dig into the old EU for ships that fit the role that have not pictures.

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/M-class_Imperial_Attack_Transport

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Pacifier-class_assault_boat

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/H-10