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

I like the brutish design a lot. Besides, we've had enough rehashes of old ships. The kitbashed "MC95s" were utterly ugly and lazy, thank god Ahsoka's actually introducing new designs to canon.

 

I'm with you on this one. Moreso because I prefer Mon Cal designs as the heavy-hitters of the New Republic but also because the Starhawk is just too simple a design in my eyes. Plus still don't think we've had a chance to see classic Mon Cal vessels shine on screen (if not the MC80 some novel MC class could easily be showcased). I also would not mind seeing some newer smaller 300-600m cruisers of other lineages entirely though. Let's see some new Sorosuub ships or Roche vessels or an altogether different species.

I prefer the Starhawk remaining a very limited production run ISD recycling project for some stop gap Jakku era fleet until the MC85s and MC9- lines rolled out.

 

I assume more than four were built because of Armada


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Armada has a starhawk mk 2 class at least.

As an aside, I watched the new young jedi adventures:

Spoiler

The YV-865 Aurore class freighter dates back to the high republic or at least it had a very similar predecessor.
Fair number of what I think are new ship designs, mostly of the shuttle and light freighter range. I particularly liked the ship used by ace and her team.

 

I'm more of a fan of the MkIIs. Some art even looks like it gives them proper hangars.

 

They're a bit overrated, but I do like their design (even if they are basically a oversized tug made out of salvage). I'm not the biggest fan of them being built out of salvaged Star Destroyers (each ship would require multiple captured SDs to build), but it does make sense from a resources standpoint where there is most likely a material and equipment shortage because of the war, and any ships being repair or already under construction would get priority of these resources.
One thing I do wonder is how much of the ship is salvaged from Star Destroyers and how much is new? Is it just equipment like guns, shields, tractorbeams, power generators; or does it also include hull panels, corridors and rooms?

Interestingly enough, the Starhawk MK2 could actually be a retrofitted Unity. Comparing the twos art the MK2s markings match closely with the Unity's (both are the only images I saw with the NR marking on the front trench). The Unity's card also appears to be the only named Starhawk that can be made a MK2 in the game.

I'm hoping we get a full Endor-esque flyby of it. Partially because it'll be good reference material for things like working out its size, and partially because it just looks cool!

 

The Marks 1 and 2 are identical, with the Prototype being a completely different design. Only the Mark 1 has been mentioned in canon, so I'm pretty sure the 2 is just something for FFG. FFG also divided the Venator into 2 Marks, but as far as we know in canon, there's only one Venator-class.

 

There's quite a few differences between the Starhawk prototype and standard design.
The prototype in Squadrons is shorter in length, and it's proportions and details are different; while keeping the same general shape. It appears to be missing the four Star Destroyer domes, it appears to have 16 octuple batteries (model I used from Squadrons is missing the weapons but you can see where they should be) compared to the standard's 10, and the number and shape of the engines are different.

 

Personally I headcanon that the mk2s are the ones that are purpose built from scratch, while the mk1s are the recycled star destroyers.

 

Ah yes, they never really did anything with the Onagers. And I'd really like to know more about the Qaz-class, seems to be at least SSD-level in firepower.

But I'm most excited to see whatever monstrosity Thrawn brings back from the Unknown Regions.

 

Wonder if eventually it will be revealed that Gozanti being made for hundreds of years.

 

Toyota of star wars?

 

I could see that. Transports are mostly cargo space after all, so baring some internal upgrades there isn't much reason to change the basic design/hull layout over time.

XD

 

I could easily see only four being built. If they had more we would have seen them at the Battle of Jakku.
That doesn't necessarily mean that more weren't under construction (they built 3 of them in only a couple of months, so could easily imagine another 1-3 being under construction), but that pesky disarmament act (taking away all the fun ships) may have scuttled any plans to finish them.

 

In the TLJ Expanded Edition, Leia hopes Inferno Squad returns from the Outer Rim with Resistance allies equipped with a task force of Starhawks - I think that implies more were built, and were still in service by the time of TLJ.

What likely happened is that although a decent number of Starhawks were completed, the demilitarization and NR politicians' contempt for such a "warlike" vessel promted them to be retired. Starhawks then made their way into planetary security forces in the Outer Rim, while the ships we see in Ahsoka became the NRDF's workhorses. Those seem to be 1.5km tops, so would be less powerful, more versatile, and project a more benign "image" than the huge, brutalist Starhawk. Much easier to stomach for the pacifist NR bigwigs.

 

It also strikes me as conceivable that some independent PSFs could have built their own Starhawks. The design being recycled from derelict ISDs means they're probably more budget-friendly than an equivalent large capital ship built from scratch would be.

 

That would make sense. While the disarmament act would restrict how many each group could own, we do have some proof that the NR does allow large ships to be owned by other groups (basically all the MC85s seen in the sequels).
According to Wookieepedia Starhawks are cheap to build; they cost around 60,000,000 credits (ISD is listed as 150,000,000), but I imagine this price could vary depending on if they have to purchase the salvaged parts or not - it would still be cheaper than buying brand new parts and materials. I could also see the NR encouraging the construction of Starhawks as a way to use up some of the salvage from scrapped ISDs, and also gives them another way to recoup some of the cost of scrapping them.

If we go with Vthuil's theory of PSFs constructing Starhawks then it could be possible that enough were built to create a task force of Starhawks.
I do agree it's likely that the NR would have retired any Starhawks that might have been built after Jakku, as they were quite willing to retire other similar sized ships (the Raddus) to meet personnel and disarmament targets. I do hope though that the Unity managed to stay in service because of its role during the Battle of Jakku; either in a ceremonial role or maybe as a museum ship (cue Battlestar Galactica music).

The versatility and smaller crew sizes of the new ships in Ahsoka is probably the biggest reason they ended up replacing larger ships like the Starhawk and MC85.
The NR reduction in personnel after the disarment act means that they need to be more efficent with how they distribute their personnel to meet their obligations to protect member worlds and NR space. They can crew either one Starhawk, that can only be in one place; or multiple smaller ships, that can be in multiple places. Also I have a theory that if the Ahsoka ships are transports, that they may be able to get around some of the ships limits imposed by the disarmament treaty, by claiming that they aren't warships (with of course an option to refit them into warships later if needed).

 

Speaking of Starhawks, the Thrawn's Revenge mod for Empire at War has added Starhawks as a completely optional unit for the New Republic, plus Hera as a hero unit in the Prototype Starhawk from Squadrons. Right now it just uses the default tractor beam ability until they can come up with something unique for it.

So if you ever wanted to lead a fleet of Starhawks against the EU Imperial warlords, here you go.

 

I thought Leia wasn't serious about that and was just having fantastical musings. It's like hoping a million dollars just fell from the sky to your lap. There weren't really Starhawks to scoop up but she wished there were.

 

Spoiler: Ahsoka clip

Hyperspace ring is rather unexpected.
Seems like ships from 0:24, that are slightly different from Shin's fighter, will be "expendable villain fighters" for this series.