Venator-Class SD: Ship of Riddles

Eh, what makes more sense and what's canon is rarely something that agrees.

 

It would be more accurate to say that the Fighter-game mechanics, which are of themselves non-canon, and the technical details from the X-Wing novels which were based nigh directly upon those very mechanics, are, in the former case explicitly non-canon, and in the latter case incompatible with latter canon without the caveat that Rouge Squadron and NR-Bomber groups carry extremely high-yield Proton Torpedoes.

In short, fighters alone are worthless against capital ships.

As far as the Venator?s lack of presence in the post-Empire era, we know from various sources that a large portion, if not an outright majority, of the Imperial Fleet was retained in the Core systems, and there is a definite possibility that the remaining VnSDs were in fact deployed in the Core systems, where the Rebels and New Republic necessarily avoided major fleet engagements.

The Imperial-fratricidal infighting after Palpatine?s two deaths is a very good scapegoat for missing Imperial ships; the Warlords of that era threw entire Sector Fleets against each other, and it is possible many Venator?s were lost by the New Republic era.

 

Just that TPM (the fighter-attack on the DroidControlShip), ANH (the empire doesn't view a starfighter as threat) and ROTJ (Ackbar: "If we concentrate our (capital ship)fire on their shieldprojectors our fighters might have a chance.") agree with me and not the lower canon of games and EU-novels.

I'm willing to give the majority of those who disagree with me the benefit of the doubt. So they are not dishonest, but ignorant of evidence from the movies, that

a) contradicts their believes
and
b) tops their sources in terms of credibility by standing higher on the canon-ladder.

 

The X-Wing books were hideously skewed to the X-Wings being able to take on ridiculous odds.

The only ray of light came when they used a fleet of concussion missle firing freighters to send dozens upon dozens of concussion missles and torpedos into the SSD during THE BACTA WAR, and even then it too the arrival of a second ImpStar Deuce to turn the tide.

However, in the same novel Wedge takes out a cap ship with a lucky shot to the bridge.

I almost willing to buy that X-Wings can slip under shields or that cap ships can neutralize shields long enough to squeeze a torpedo through, but a dozen X-Wings vs an ISD? Especially the damage these things are supposed to inflict?

No, I just don't buy it. Then again, I never understood why the blast shields on the SSD at Endor were not shut to protect the bridge against torpedos and kamikazes.

If the blast doors are thought to be able to negate the explosion of an A-Wing at full velocity slamming into them, then the rest of the hull should be pretty resistant to all but sustained heavy capship weapons fire.

 

in regards to an earlier comment reg. fighter capacity. it does seemlogical to assume that a number that high is the MAXIMUM capacity, whereas if such a ship was assigned for a basic recon or patrol it would probably have less fighters on board.

one thing that i'm confused about still, even after eading all these responses is why the empire would get rid of 'em.

there was a mention of them in Empire At War, above the Coruscant map in multiplayer, one could capture a dock facility or something and according to the little pop-up from the astromech, a venator could be built as a unit, but for some reason, no matter which side i was playing as, i couldn't build them.

they also appear in the expansion (forces of corruption) but as derelict hulks above Honoghr

 

They were going to be in EAW but they took them out at the last minute for balance reasons. I guess that pop-up was some redundant code. If I recall correctly they were still in the game occassionally being used by the AI pirates (not the Consortium, the generic random pirates).

I suppose there's a question as to whether because they only removed them for balance reasons whether we can read into that that the Empire was still meant to be using them offscreen.

If nothing else, it means LFL aren't actually against the idea, so it's probably just a matter of time before we actually see them pop up in Rebellion or something. I was quite surprised they weren't added into Forces of Corruption to be honest.

 

If the blast doors are thought to be able to negate the explosion of an A-Wing at full velocity slamming into them, then the rest of the hull should be pretty resistant to all but sustained heavy capship weapons fire.

I think that's the point. They're not and when the shields are down, you're kriffed.

Star Wars is about individual heroes defeating ridiculously large odds. Hence, 300 Jedi Knights could take on 6,000,000 battle droids at the Battle of Planet Thermopolus.

And to correct an above mistake. Game mechanics are non-canon. Books render them immediately C-canon. Star Destroyers are not as durable as the Emperor would have you believe....

 

The old Venator Class Star Destroyer/Fleet Carrier had one big flaw during combat. The forward open flight deck made for an inviting target. So as soon as the Victory Class II Star Destroyer, Imperator/Imperial Class I Star Destroyer, and Star Galleon Escort Carrier were in full number the VenSD/FC and VicSD Class I were disarmed and sold to Imperial loyal entities (for example the Corporate Sector Authority). A few of the VenSD/FC might have even fallen into the hands of independent Rebel cells (pre-dating the Rebel Alliance) and bold space pirates. This prompted Emperor Palpatine to order remote detonation devices aboard big Imperial ships.

Later during the New Galactic Republic era the Republic Engineering Corporation built the Endurance Class Fleet Carrier. This Star Destroyer variant might be a follow-up design to the old VenSD/FC. The ECFC certainly seems to have taken on the role once performed by the Old Galactic Republic ship. It is also interesting to note that theoritically the ECFC design solved the VenSD/FC combat weakness. Instead of a forward open to space flight deck the ECFC had an aft mounted hanger deck. This aft mounted hanger deck seems to be better armored or at least better shielded from enemy fire (being positioned closer to the ship's main engines and aft 'thrusters').

It is my sincere hope that the new updated Starships Of The Galaxy RPG book will give us more info on all this. Most importantly a better full color picture of the ECFC (and the rest of the Defender Program/Fifth Fleet ships). In the meantime I have some Defender Program/Fifth Fleet illustrations I can share with you. They are like blue-print schematics. They are based on official sources, but tweaked just enogh to have that proper SW feel. Let me know if you'd like to see my work.

 

And C-Canon is still trumped by G-Canon. Not to mention, that we have several C-Canon sources, that contradict the X-Wing-novels (TTT, HoT, BFC, LCT).

@Ulkesh:

The Endurance-Class-fleet carrier can't have taken up the role of the VNSD, since it is a pure carrier with no offensive capabilities of its own. BTW, what role does the Star Galleon play in your argument? Aren't you confusing the Star Galleon with the "Escort Carrier"?

 

I'm well aware that game mechanics are not canon. I think Stakepole seemed to take a lot of his cue from them though, which is a shame.

Also, my point was; why with all that heavy weapons fire did they not just automatically close the blast doors? There's no real reason to leave them open as the don't need to "see" that way and the human eye could never track ships fast enough.

Also, the whole idea that there's no back-up CIC just strikes me as silly.

In the case of the X-Wing books, Wedge downs an ISD with one photon torpedo through the bridge.

We've seen G-canon of ISD's taking heavy fire from cap ships and staying intact. The idea that a snubfighter can launch a single torp and blow it to kingdom come is a little silly.

I'm not saying they can't achieve hull breaches, but looking at the sheer SIZE of an ISD you can see that a single torpedo isn't going to be a shipkiller, and I'm still back on not understanding why there's not a flying bridge for flag officers who want to watch the battle and a CIC for the real control center.

It just gets silly that the Imps keep making the same mistake and letting snubs one-shot them.

 

Wrong.

"George gave me a rule about the battle droids where a Jedi can take out about 20 standard battle droids, about 10-15 super battle droids, but a Jedi versus a destroyer droid is a push because of the shield -- Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan run into that. So they have to think to solve these problems to get around these droids."

-Dave Filoni, Clone Wars director

 

I mean unbalanced in the sense of that they didn't have a comparable craft to give the Rebels, so took them out to avoid the Imperials having an advantage in the number of units. I imagine in all practical gameplay sense they weren't much different from just a VSD with a different model -- so, yeah, I doubt they were unbalanced in a "too powerful" sense it was just a case of "why do they need two medium destroyers that do the same thing?"

I think it was mentioned on the developers boards or somewhere like that back when it was released as the demo had lots of extra ships but when they weren't included in the final version people complained -- so whether it actually was due to balance or not, it's the excuse they gave at least.

 

My personal take on the venator is that it was reactor stressed, if you look at the maximum reactor size it could hold compared to a vicstar or ISD it isn't even in the same order of magnitude. The conclusion I draw from that is the Venstar had to make a choice in combat: power the shields or power the guns, something the vicstars and ISDs didn't have to balance. In a one sided engagement the venstar could unleash hell with its large weaponry and take out targets at long range before they were a threat. In an engagement that may become a slugging match it was better for the venstar to dump its fighter complement early, make a few hard hitting shots and hope that it had superior numbers to survive the battle. Additionally, though I have no evidence for it, the venstar may have been built very quickly and rushed into service resulting in sub-par construction. A few thousand would have to been under construction after geonosis in a republic that was known to be adverse to building up its war machine to meet the numbers implied by the ICS and ROTS.

The victory as mentioned is much more suited to being used alone and is a more rounded vessel (vic II's have ion cannons, big bonus for patrol missions).

Personally fighter complements in WEG need to be seriously increased. An ISD has rack space from the ICS for over 300 ties, let alone actually using the bays (it could hold 3000 if you converted the main bay and adding 3000 pilots to a ship with 35,000 people on board is trivial, just take off the troops) anyway, the important thing to remember is how the empire used ISDs and tie fighters for 'peace time' operations. An ISD would be dispatched to a system and drop a small force of ties and run off to the next system, rarely are more than a few ties or shuttles needed to handle anything for a couple of hours, otherwise other escorts of the ISD would be involved, if a landing was needed you would have to commit a significant number of ties to subdue the planets fighter defenses (you don't BDZ a planet unless you are trying to make a point). Both of these factors seem to indicate to me that an ISD had many more ties available, though maybe 72 was the operational limit of launching easily without causing a traffic jam and maintanence issues.

 

Yeah and we see some Jedi break that rule. So what?

 

So 300 Jedi, based on George's own estimation (and by the films and by the EU, etc.), could not take 6,000,000 droids. They would be outclassed by several orders of magnitude, thus making such a battle a pointless and bloody last stand. See: Geonosis Arena.

 

Someone pointed out that they think the Defender Program - Endurance Class Fleet Carrier had NO offensive capability. I guess strictly speaking that is true, but in a serious pinch I'm sure the ship's small number of defensive batteries and starfighter squadrons could be used to some effect until a battle dedicated ship could arrive.

Also it makes sense that the ECFC provided a modern alternative to aging Old Galactic Republic and First Galactic Empire designs. Design wise the ECFC is not all that different from the old VenSD(FC)s. Granted the ECFC has fewer starfighters than the older VenSD(FC). But that may just be a reflection of less need for larger number of starfighters (especially during the relative 'peacetime' just before the Vong War. In other words it generally takes fewer starfighters to do the job during the New Galactic Republic era.

With the arrival of the Yuuzhan Vong the need for a more robust carrier design became apparent. After all the small spaceframe of the ECFC could only support two wings of starfighter. Plus the ECFC was built with a five month limitation on its supply range. That was done to prevent the military of the New Galactic Republic from becoming an occupation force. The Vong War changed this attitude. The development of the Galactic Class Battle Carrier proves this. The GCBC can most likely support four wings of starfighter. Plus it can operate as a battle dedicated ship and it most likely is a return to a supply range like the older Imperial designs.

I know some of you 'fish hugger's' out there will think I've forgotten the Mon Cal contributions. I have not. I just don't like the Mon Cal design philosophy. I hate organic lumpiness. I'll focus on the less well known Kuat/Corellian/Rendili designs. Let some 'fish hugger' argue the Mon Cal side of things. Plus this topic is supposed to focus on the seeming disapperance of the VenSD(FC) design from the post-Clone War era. Basically I agree with the school of thought that this older ship design is present - only off-screen...er, uh...off-page.

 

Cheers! Still feels overpowered.

BTW, if I were looking up Clone War and pre-Clone War era starships on Wookieepedia would I be looking for Judicar Forces? What were the fleets called pre-Clone Wars? Or what were the capital ships prior to the Acclimator and Venators?

 

Wedge vs. VSD. Not as impressive as it seems. First it gets hit with a full salvo of 22 torpedos and 2 concussion missiles, which overload the topside shields and put a few holes in it. It rolls, presenting fresh shields. Wedge is fortunately under it, so he has a good shot at the unshielded side. The Valiant shows up from nowhere, and engages, with the firepower of roughly a carrack cruiser. A second salvo is fired, but is withstood by the lower shields. Wedge takes the opportunity of closing with the command tower, which is under heavy fire from the Valiant, and distracted. Close in, he puts two torpedos into the bridge. Corruptor is badly hurt, between the loss of the bridge and the fire from Valiant. Crew abandon ship, and the VSD drifts into the Graveyard, where it is finished off by asteroids.

Far more than a 1 shot kill.

 

I have a simple belief.

Fighters can take out capital ships but that's what starfighters are FOR on ships.

 

On the other hand, Victory Star Destroyers were only ever sold to groups that were quite buddy-buddy with the Empire - e.g. the Corporate Sector. I would imagine the Hutts and Mandalorians didn't acquire the ships through an Imperial surplus sale - Grand Theft Starship is more likely.

Exactly. If starfighters are completely incapable of harming capital ships, then what's the point of deploying them in fleet battles at all?