Resource Vehicle and Ships Discussion and Help Thread

Mod Note: Please use this thread for help/discussion on vehicles and ships, including but not limited to space combat and warfare.


Well I hope this is the proper place for this.

I've been working on a fan fiction for some time now and none of my friends are as heavy into the technical aspects and EU as I am. Though I do hesitate to say technical as this is probably more rule of cool. Still I could use some opinions on whether it sounds plausible(?), coolness level, things I could change etc etc. I think I wrote most of this in the middle of the night so it's not my top tier work, but I think for the most part it gets across what I wanted it to.
---------------
The Victory Garde-I Class-Star Destroyer, Also known as the Victory G-I Class-Destroyer, and colloquially the "VeeGee," was an ad hoc unofficial variant of the Victory 1 Class Star Destroyer.
Characteristics/History

With the introduction of the Imperator Class Star Destroyer into the fleet, and the phasing out of the older Victory Class Star Destroyers into secondary roles many ships found themselves delegated to Outer Rim system defense, and planetary defense roles. Where the glaring problem of the older design hampered its continued service. Thanks to its under powered LF9 sublight engines the Victory I many times couldn't keep up with newer vessels.
The Victory Garde design was originally the brainchild of Admiral Ky Soon Shin, an Outer Rim Admiral. With the numerous Venators that were simply abandoned in deep space it was simple enough to salvage the necessary parts to retrofit his star destroyers. Each Venator was stripped of three of its primary engines, and tertiary engines along with its main batteries and many of its point defense laser cannons.

Thanks to the already sturdy space frame, only minor reinforcements of the hull were required in the engine mounts and stardrive sections to permit the installation of the new engine mounts. The tertiary engines were mounted on the port and starboard wing structures. The DBY-827 dual heavy turbolaser turrets were mounted on either side of the command tower. The point defense laser cannons were mounted mostly along the trench, while other were placed along the hull to help provide adequate starfighter defense. The missiles launchers were re positioned to either side of the wings. Ion Cannons were added as well, to allow the Victory Garde to disable escaping smugglers. Thanks to the more powerful reactor on the Victory Class it could provide adequate power to all its weapon systems.

Despite not being officially recognized by the Imperial Navy hasn't stopped the spread of this variant to other sectors in the Outer Rim. Although each ship is usually slightly different due to financial reasons, or availability of parts. Though most can be recognized thanks to the very bright drive flare, and over sized main batteries.


Armament
DBY-827 Dual heavy turbolaser turret (8) (4 starboard/4 Port)
Point defense Laser Cannons (50)(20 starboard/20 port/10 fore)
Heavy turbolaser cannons (20) (10 starboard/10 port)
Heavy Ion Cannons (15) (5 starboard/5 port/5 fore)
Concussion Missile Launcher Silos (20) (10 starboard/10 Port)
Tractor Beam Emitters (10)


Mav Edit: While we usually don't allow threads asking for individual help and direct you to the Writer's Desk, I'm going to change this thread to a general Ship Help thread since we don't really have one.

 

This could be interesting. Would it also be possible to answer questions and share ideas regarding space warfare and starfighter combat as depicted in the GFFA?

A sort of revived Fleet Junkies thread, if you will.

 

Fleet Junkies... that's what I was trying to think of. I knew there had been something I just couldn't find it. But it was a long time ago so a new thread would be a good idea.

Yeah, adding combat and space warfare is a good idea! As long as it has to do with ships (Not of the relationship kind. ) or vehicles, that should be fine.

 

Ha, first post and I've already done something cool :3

 

Phantomvector

Seven words into your piece, I got bored and abandoned it. You can take that two ways:

a) I'll be no help on this one;

b) Maybe tone down how hard your science is.

 

Phantomvector - I read your blurb in its entirety. Some questions:

1. What is your goal with the blurb? Are you writing a story, or just creating fanon?
2. What year is this? I assume towards 19 BBY - given the DBY-827 is more of a Venator-class turbolaser. Definitely adequate for those evolving more directly from the Venators, but by the time of 0 BBY to 4 ABY, the models have definitely evolved - you could safely go with a non specific dual/heavy turbolaser at that point.

Otherwise it looks pretty decent - the only other thing I am wondering is with the evolution into Imperators/Imperials, what becomes of this ship? Is there a reason they must resort to "modifying" older ships? With the Vic II, the Imperial I, the Imperial II, there are many evolutions that are past Vic-I. By the time of the later films, one would assume even Bellator-class was being used (3 ABY was the date given IIRC). I guess my interpretation of the Imperial Navy was that they were efficient, uniform, and were at the top of their game, thus would not need to resort to modifying ships on a large scale.

 

One point, after reading through the impressive list of weaponry I have to point out that there are no aft mounted weapons and even if those turrets can swivel it still leaves a bit of a defensive gap, aside from that I think that an imperial commander would be reluctant to use something they would see as cobbled together and other imperial crews may look down on them for it. Personally i think this kind of large scale jury rigging is more suited to the rebellion or the imperial warlords that cropped up after the emperor's death , like Zsinj.

 

This was written off my phone so I apologize if it's confusing but I hope I expressed my self properly.

1. Writing a story, it's going to be the main 'hero' ship.

2. Haven't quite figured out the year yet but I was thinking a few years before Yavin. They used the DBY-827 because they were what was available on the Outer Rim.

The reason they modified an older ship is because I figure that the inner Rim and Core worlds would be well defended, Golan Defense Platforms and fleets of imperial star destroyers and support ships. But that's hundreds, maybe thousands of worlds and thousands of ships needed to defend the inner rim and core worlds. Not mention the trillions of credits the emperor probably threw at the Death Star the empire probably wasn't as well off as they wanted everyone to think. Not to mention that the empire didn't allow local militia so the imperial navy had to handle everything from pirates and smugglers to rebels. That's a lot of work and resources. So I doubt they had the credits or resources to afford to place an adequate defense over every world(even if they could I doubt they cared to do so, let's face it the moffs were corrupt, and many times they were the high admirals in charge of defending their sectors and they probably have only limited military training, or maybe they didn't like an admiral and withheld ships and resources) and older ships like the Victory were probably reassigned to the outer rim on planetary defense because it was the cheaper option. Plus the Victory-II was a limited run production, so they are a somewhat rare ship.

To sum up that long winded paragraph, pretty much... I figured that the empire simply wouldn't have the ships or resources to put their best foot forward every time. Especially on the Outer Rim, so they do what they have to do to get their jobs done. If that means gutting older ships to make their old ships better, they'd do it. Does that make sense?

It already felt weapon heavy and I'd removed or nerf'd the weapons already to make space for the new ones. Plus it has missiles and lots of them :3 but you do make a good point. I just didn't want to make it too ridiculous, you know?

As I said above, it's mostly about necessity. Some times you need heavy firepower and if it isn't fast enough to be used it's worthless. Like for example several Venators fell into the hands of pirates, and you can't expect patrol craft and bulk cruisers to take one on, not without heavy losses.

 

Maybe it was the time of day last time.

This time, I read half of it, had a WTF moment at the mention of Venators being abandoned in deep space - wouldn't that pose a hyperspace hazard? - then carried on reading.

So, given what you regard as deficiencies with your bog standard Victory-class, once you have parked it alongside one of these abandoned Venators, why did you not just take the Venator?
Its bigger than the Victory, has the weapons you want, class one hyperdrive.

I didn't even know that Venators got abandoned like that, seems like a massive Jump the Shark moment, but if that is what the EU says..., so, I don't get the practicality of customising your Vic with parts off an presumably intact, space-worthy capital ship?!

Can the spaceframe of your Vic support the DBY-827 heavy turbolasers? They seem very big, from the book I have showing the Venator cutaway. All the other weapons I have no problems with, as regards size.

Also, what are the shields like on this Victory Garde thing?

The shields on an Imperial-class Star Destroyer are very tough, unless its commander is unwise enough to jump into a Rogue Squadron novel, but where the Imperial-class has been fitted with gravity well domes, sometimes called a Dominator-class, the power diverted to them, weakens the shields, so presumably, that would be an issue on your Victory Garde too, for the same reason?

 

I would definitely go closer to 19 BBY if you are going to be using the DBY-827. With the speed of evolution of heavy turbolasers and the complete change in shape, you could probably "fanon" a next generation one, but that'd be up to you.

My intepretation, and feel free to use EU to go against this, is there is the Imperial Navy and within it are the Planetary Defence Forces as well as the Naval Forces. Planetary Defence was made of mostly citizens and run by the Empire, whereas the Naval Forces were standard and organised by the Empire. The Empire did not allow "independent" militia, but they did allow planets to build a militia that was Imperial sanctioned (AFAIK). That of course meant meeting standards, and having Imperial Academies... but, I see no reason why they could not. If you look at Rebels, (for example) they have Academies on planets, they train soldiers under the Imperial banner, and then they go forth as part of the Imperial forces. My belief is that the Navy would be very similar.

There is also a lot of old EU (for example, referring to Firmus' backstory) that insists on the existence of fleets that belong to the systems, such as the Axxilan antipiracy fleet - which are still allowed to exist, despite being not "Imperial" in name. That in itself is something to look at.

I can totally see that older ships were being used in less "prime" locales/systems/etc. But if you are using this ship under the Imperial Navy, I would honestly make the ship a one-off, versus a run of heavily modified ships. The Empire was very well off, despite the tension between Navy/Government and issues with ships that are inevitable in such a huge Galaxy. For all the thousands and hundreds of thousands of planets, there are taxpayers, resources, corporations, production lines, factories, shipyards...etc. There is just as much support for the Empire as there is resistance.

I would give the Empire a little more credit here.

 

I would not put too much store in the idea that there were no local fleets.

Militias, to me, are armed men on the ground. Can't really comment.

Some allied regions and corporations were allowed to maintain space forces. Corporate Sector, Centrality, Hutt Space, anybody who maintained massive shipyard facilities, eg. Corellia and Kuat Drive Yards, could **** you up if you jumped in without authorisation.

The Empire would have dealt with Mon Calamari long before Endor, but for their fleet. Plus, how could planets, donate ships to the Rebel cause, without a system force to pull them from.

Planets might be too small a unit for the Empire to notice, or Imperial officials paid to look other way.

Buy up starfighters; cobble together some Uglies, get a big vessel to provide some punch, one of these Venators?

 

Yeah, I mean that must be hundreds or thousands of them just floating around in space.

Why they don't take the Venator? Easy, Manpower. A Victory with a full complement is about 5,000 and the Venator runs 7,400.

Part of the reason they decided to upgrade the ship(s?) is because of a lack of ships and resources which include manpower. So they simply wouldn't have the personnel to crew it. Plus I would imagine that they stripped it of at least the hyperdrive, probably the computer core, among other things. Of course they decided to leave most of the weapons cause fan fiction! So they just cut out what they needed, either left the rest or took what they could on board to sell off later.

I'm assuming the Victory can handle the larger guns, according to the wiki it was clad in a apparently very hardy version of durasteel enough that it was noted, and I assume something similar was used in its frame.

I wouldn't be surprised the impact on the shielding isn't that significant. The Imperial Star Destroyer has a Solar Ionization Reactor, which puts out 7.73x10 to the 24th. The Victory has the same type of reactor on a smaller scale. Even if the power output was cut in half, the Victory still outputs more energy then the Venator. Not to mention that the gravity field generators probably need a lot more power then laser cannons. Though that is a good point.

Actually the DBY-827 has roughly the same firepower as a main battery off of a Imperial-I Class Star Destroyer with apparently a much more efficient design. Can't really write out a response now, but you do make a good point something to research. Its kinda nice having people to talk to, especially who are more knowledgeable then I am

 

Glad you are enjoying being here, so early.

This thread is good for me too. Now that I know about these Venators, I can address my lack of tractor beam projectors.

My own specialty (read, I had to make up my ****, cos lack of info) are Immobiliser 418 interdictor heavy cruisers; and not being an maritime engineer, I don't understand the necessity for a complete ship crew.

Okay, you say the engine and computer core might have been taken. But, if you have found a fully intact Venator, boarded it with your equivalent of an Away Team, accessed the bridge, sliced the ship codes / found the ignition key behind the sun visor, what is it about not having 7,400 crew ready to board, that qualifies as a show-stopper?

After all, some Imperial ships that defect to the Alliance, they don't have the manpower either. West End Games' writers have the Alliance doing massive retooling, and replacing a lot of crew functions with droids.

A lot more faff than me, but the Alliance does not consider inability to meet the same crew numbers, an obstacle.

 

The Computer core is like a CPU in a desktop... or maybe the motherboard? So even if they had the proper access codes to start up the rest of the ship, it wouldn't work unless they brought a computer core that was programmed to handle all the autonomous functions the original computer core was programmed for. Plus without a hyperdrive they'd have to tow the ship through hyperspace(If possible) or go the long way.

While you could fly the ship with a single person, its more about running the ship. You need engineers of several kinds, sensor officers, communication specialists, weapon officers and probably a plethora of other kinds of crewmen and officers I don't know about off the top of my head to properly crew a ship. While still a massive undertaking, it is probably easier, cheaper, and quicker to simply modify the Victory then pretty much both redesign, and rebuild the Venator to accommodate automated systems.

Plus honestly using droids can be more expensive, at least up front compared to using sentient beings if you want to get quality droids. I mean look at the battle droids used in the clone wars, they're somewhat slow and complete cannon fodder, I'm not sure you'd want them crewing a ship, especially if they're in such high demand.

 

Though I couldn't exactly tell you who does what and how many it takes to do things aboard them, perhaps the best point of comparison I can think of for capital ships in the Star Wars universe would be the officers and crew of a supercarrier—which can be well north of 5,000 people per ship, including the air wing. Keeping in mind that Star Destroyers are able to defend themselves in a ship-to-ship fight and send troops, vehicles and defenses down to planets, as well as field several squadrons of starfighters, the basics of their day-to-day operations seem fairly similar. And just like how no sane navy would send a supercarrier anywhere without a support fleet of cruisers and destroyers, the Empire would doubtless deploy additional ships to serve as a screen for an Imperial-class Star Destroyer.

Something to think about, anyway.

 

*pokes head in*

Most of the contents of this thread is over my head, but perhaps this thread in the Literature forum might be some help:

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

 

Thank you, Goodwood.

Fair points, however in the films, we have not seen the Imperial-class star destroyers offered anything in the way of escorts apart from TIEs acting as pickets.

The SSDs have the ISDs as pickets, sure.

Ah sorry, I should have emphasised where I said fully intact.

Yeah, I don't think the West End Games writer for that particular article - Rebel Alliance Sourcebook - converting what looks a lot like a Rendili Stardrive Dreadnaught heavy cruiser into an Rebel Assault Frigate, really thought through what he/she was suggesting.

I haven't seen anything to suggest the Alliance has drydocks capable of mounting such an effort for capital ships.

The pilot droids, same B1 model, blue shoulders, have different software to the basic brown ones that carry an E-5 and say "Roger roger." Larger vocabulary for a start. They got the Trade Federation blockade to Naboo and did not crash into the planet, which is probably more than I could have done.

I'll stop here. It sounds like your protagonists have a military or engineering resource equivalent to the Galactic Empire or Imperial Navy, whereas my angles are based on being a smaller outfit, eg. Booster Terrick's group having the Errant Venture; any group where having your own star destroyer would be a massive boon in the first place.

Therefore, parking it next to a significantly larger SD, the choice to board and commandeer the bigger one would seem logical.

I think for me, what you have done, would make more sense if you had visited the site of a significant Clone Wars space battle, and removed all that from a wrecked Venator, rather than a perfectly good one.

 

Placeholder

Sorry for the double post.

Unsure if anything will come of this, but it has occurred to me, that based on some other Fanfic resource threads, it might be an idea to index links to different pages on that Fleet Junkies Flagship thread, in the event that they discuss different ships in coherent blocks.

Lazy K, cheers for the thread link.

 

Oh, my protagonist is the Imperial Navy I've never liked how more often then not the Empire is always the bad guy, for good reason, but to say that everyone in the Imperial Armed Forces is either stupid, corrupt, or evil or some mixture of the three ain't right.

They are however not well equipped or supplied, due to being on the edges of the empire, and why they raid old Venators for stuff. As I said before, they probably stripped a good amount of equipment off the Venators, enough to dissuade small pirates gangs from trying to put in the effort, but groups like the Black Sun would have the money and resources to restore Venators to working order. The imperials in my story are somewhere between those two. They can't salvage the whole ship, but they can take what they need.

Its not a perfect thing, but I like the Victory

 

Yeah, I ran a Victory once. Nice ship.

 

I mean, I can't say no to the idea, but I still suggest being careful - the cobbled together ships are usually used by smugglers/criminals in the old EU (uglies being one example of ships like this, they are mentioned enough to be fairly well known), so the line should be drawn very thickly there to ensure these aren't the standard. I look at Rebels even - they encounter Imperial ships quite often, all of which seem to be uniform and organised well. Lothal and the other areas they travel to are certainly not Inner Rim.

My personal opinion still stands strongly that the Imperial Navy did not require it. If a syndicate like the Black Sun could refurbish a ship, or afford it, imagine what the Empire could do. I would be sure the backstory is very solid as for why these specific groups would need it.

 

I agree with Volshe.

Your whole premise just seems flawed. Granted....ohhh, this Admiral Ky Soon Shin is one of your characters.

So, protagonist spaceship or not, you have multiple SDs to go around.

If he is that badly supplied, where does he get the dry docks and cranes and **** from?

 

I don't think the DBY-827 will fit on the sides of an Victory-class that well, now... they did develop an octuple turbolaser mount for the Victory II-class, so you could use those instead (they'd be smaller than the ISD II mount, but still a nasty surprise).

As for abandoned Venators... a small number were scrapped or sold off (and fell into pirate hands), but most weren't abandoned and remained in service with the Empire as Star Destroyers. You have to remember that the Galactic Empire's fleet is several orders of magnitude larger then the Old Republic.

The Victory-class wasn't so much phased out as reclassified as a Heavy Cruiser, where it would serve alongside many older ships like Bulk Cruisers, Dreadnaught-class Heavy Cruiser, Acclamator-class Assault Ships, and newer ships like the Vindicator-class and Immobilizer-class.

 

Well, what would you suggest for upgrading a Victory? I didn't have any other really sensible ideas when it came down to it. The Venator idea fit in the canon, according to the wiki, "After the end of the Clone Wars, Many Republic Venators were abandoned and left to drift in space." Makes it sound like they weren't stripped of equipment or anything like that. So they'd be easy to salvage, and sell off the hulls. They would have a home port, or any imperial shipyard could upgrade the ships.

Also he is based off of, Yi Sun-Sin, who is probably the greatest Korean naval commander who many historians place on the same level of awesome as Horatio Nelson. Probably the best example of this is when he took 13 ships against a Japanese fleet of over 300 ships, and won without any lost ships while sinking or damaging about 30 Japanese ships. He was so successful that the government feared him, in addition to nearly being executed twice he was often denied the men and supplies he needed.

That's not a bad idea actually, wonder how hard that would be to acquire though.

As qouted above, the way its worded made me think they dropped a good amount of them.

That's what I was thinking. It'd be a pretty small fleet. A squadron/battlegroup at best. 2-3 Victorys, with only 1-2 being upgraded. A couple dreadnought cruisers, a few carracks/tartan/guardian light cruisers, a couple frigates, and some patrol craft.