Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels, Mon Cal ship design

[RTN]

I was going to start a new thread on Mon Cal ship design as I recall that I read somewhere that all Mon Cal ships are different. It seems to me that they wouldn't all be different post-need for mass production and even if they were all different it seems to me that there would still be ship classes.

Ex)

Four ships look completely different and are all slightly different sizes. However, they all average out to have relatively similar cargo space, firepower, fighter support, ect; effectively, making them all the same class of ship. So I can say that these 4 are all MC80a's ect.

The other question was about the Essential Guide...

"Star Wars Essential Guide to ...
Written by various...
Published by Boxtree

These are a series of books with a compilation of Star Wars information on various subjects, it contains massive amounts of information on the expanded universe along with good illustrations. Only problem with them is some of the information has been known to be wrong, from time to time. "

Which things are considered to be wrong? -- its the only book I had regular access too.

Fixed spelling in the title of the thread, oh and welcome to the board. ~ Crown

[Darth Garden Gnome]

The thing you've got to realise about the Essential Guides is that they are heavily dependent on erroneous West End Game figures. The WEG folks did almost NO research when they made their figures; the Essential Guides just package these figures into niftier books. While they are a good resource, take anything said within with a grain of salt, at least until you get canon sources to back up what they have said.

Examples: Most prominantly, it follows the old WEG "Five-mile" SSD figure. Even though proper scaling from TESB, and the SSDs own conceptulization back in 1980 call for it to be 11 times as large.

They also cut the AT-AT's height in half, given proper scaling the AT-AT can be witnessed to be 30m tall, not 15.

In the Guide to Weps and Tech, they give SW blasters a grieviously short range, even when on screen evidence suggests otherwise. EX: They rate the T-21 Light Repeating Blasters range at max. 600m, even though at Hoth Rebel troops - who were using smaller rifles - were able to attack the Imperial AT-ATs from KILOMETERS away.

One more for ya; they gauge proton torpedoes and concussion missle ranges at 650m....SIX HUNDRED AND FIFTY METERS?!! These WEG guys create an inconsistencey within themselves. Why? In ANH, Luke's torpedoes had to travelEightyKilometers to reach the Death Star's reactor core. And WEG is the one who put up the 160KM in diameter figure! Those idiots.

If you want a good reference on SW capabilities, I suggest you go out and buy the SW: Episode 2 Incredible Cross-Sections; it is the best sourcebook for accurate figures (on spacecraft) out there.

[RTN]

The thing you've got to realise about the Essential Guides is that they are heavily dependent on erroneous West End Game figures. The WEG folks did almost NO research when they made their figures; the Essential Guides just package these figures into niftier books. While they are a good resource, take anything said within with a grain of salt, at least until you get canon sources to back up what they have said.

Examples: Most prominantly, it follows the old WEG "Five-mile" SSD figure. Even though proper scaling from TESB, and the SSDs own conceptulization back in 1980 call for it to be 11 times as large.

They also cut the AT-AT's height in half, given proper scaling the AT-AT can be witnessed to be 30m tall, not 15.

In the Guide to Weps and Tech, they give SW blasters a grieviously short range, even when on screen evidence suggests otherwise. EX: They rate the T-21 Light Repeating Blasters range at max. 600m, even though at Hoth Rebel troops - who were using smaller rifles - were able to attack the Imperial AT-ATs from KILOMETERS away.

One more for ya; they gauge proton torpedoes and concussion missle ranges at 650m....SIX HUNDRED AND FIFTY METERS?!! These WEG guys create an inconsistencey within themselves. Why? In ANH, Luke's torpedoes had to travelEightyKilometers to reach the Death Star's reactor core. And WEG is the one who put up the 160KM in diameter figure! Those idiots.

If you want a good reference on SW capabilities, I suggest you go out and buy the SW: Episode 2 Incredible Cross-Sections; it is the best sourcebook for accurate figures (on spacecraft) out there.

Though I agree that concussion missle and proton torpedo ranges should be several orders of magnitude greater than 650 meters (hell, even the X-Wing flight simulators gave missle and torpedo ranges about 6 kilometers), the torpedoes launched by Luke on the first Death Star didn't have to travel to the reactor core. The holographic respresentation and description, at least to me, sounded like the chain reaction wasn't when the torpedoes hit the core but a chain reaction occured as a result from entering the vent. And the chain reaction itself followed the vent towards the reactor core resulting in an immediate breach.

[Darth Garden Gnome]

Though I agree that concussion missle and proton torpedo ranges should be several orders of magnitude greater than 650 meters (hell, even the X-Wing flight simulators gave missle and torpedo ranges about 6 kilometers), the torpedoes launched by Luke on the first Death Star didn't have to travel to the reactor core. The holographic respresentation and description, at least to me, sounded like the chain reaction wasn't when the torpedoes hit the core but a chain reaction occured as a result from entering the vent. And the chain reaction itself followed the vent towards the reactor core resulting in an immediate breach.

No, the hologram showed the missles hitting the center of the Death Star figure. Also, the DS1 and the DS2 are the same basic design, why couldn't a missle just be fired into the un-finished side of the DS2 and let it collapse a shaft that leads to the reactor?

Instead they had to hit the reactor directly, as Luke did.

Anyways, we also have AOTC where Jango's missle easily traveled the distance of several hundred kilometers. Of course this was before any of these books were printed, I'm just saying.

[RTN]

Though I agree that concussion missle and proton torpedo ranges should be several orders of magnitude greater than 650 meters (hell, even the X-Wing flight simulators gave missle and torpedo ranges about 6 kilometers), the torpedoes launched by Luke on the first Death Star didn't have to travel to the reactor core. The holographic respresentation and description, at least to me, sounded like the chain reaction wasn't when the torpedoes hit the core but a chain reaction occured as a result from entering the vent. And the chain reaction itself followed the vent towards the reactor core resulting in an immediate breach.

No, the hologram showed the missles hitting the center of the Death Star figure. Also, the DS1 and the DS2 are the same basic design, why couldn't a missle just be fired into the un-finished side of the DS2 and let it collapse a shaft that leads to the reactor?

Instead they had to hit the reactor directly, as Luke did.

Anyways, we also have AOTC where Jango's missle easily traveled the distance of several hundred kilometers. Of course this was before any of these books were printed, I'm just saying.

Well after watching the flight path those fighters and the Falcon took to get to the reactor on DS II I'd claim that it was because they're payloads didnt have the mobility to bank enough to make it to the center. Now Jango Fett's missle obviously was much better than that as it followed the fighter with extreme ease. But then I'm forced to point out, he's a Bounty Hunter and doesn't use standard equipment.

[Darth Garden Gnome]

Well after watching the flight path those fighters and the Falcon took to get to the reactor on DS II I'd claim that it was because they're payloads didnt have the mobility to bank enough to make it to the center. Now Jango Fett's missle obviously was much better than that as it followed the fighter with extreme ease. But then I'm forced to point out, he's a Bounty Hunter and doesn't use standard equipment.

The actual reason would be jamming. But the Rebels have much more money that Jango will ever have (even after his Kamino job), and they could afford similar torpedoes, if not better ones by the of ROTJ. The fact that they didn't would be because of jamming.

But riddle me this; why would a missle detonating in the middle of the shaft damage the reactor? In the novelization of ROTJ, Wedge is worried his bombs won't damage the DS's reactor, so it doesn't make any sense for a bomb thatisn'tdirectly channeled into the reactor (as Wedge and Lando's were) to damage it.

[RTN]

But riddle me this; why would a missle detonating in the middle of the shaft damage the reactor? In the novelization of ROTJ, Wedge is worried his bombs won't damage the DS's reactor, so it doesn't make any sense for a bomb thatisn'tdirectly channeled into the reactor (as Wedge and Lando's were) to damage it.

What happens to a gun when you plug the barrel?

[Darth Garden Gnome]

What happens to a gun when you plug the barrel?

I hope you're not saying that the reactor won't have anywhere to channel its energy off into.

If so, thats ridiculous. The Death Star hadthousandsof thermal exhaust shafts, the important thing about the one the Rebels bombed was that it leaddirectlyto the reactor. Because of jamming, it would be impossible for the missle to maneuver once inside the DS1's superstructure, so the shaft they bombed had to be a straight line to it. And whaddaya know, it was.

[RTN]

What exactly did the shaft vent anyway? That could be pretty important.

[Utsanomiko]

I thought the term thermal exaust port was pretty self-explanatory, if I recall the dialogue properly...

[Darth Garden Gnome]

What exactly did the shaft vent anyway? That could be pretty important.

Heat. Hence the name, "thermal" exhaust port. But it was one of thousands on the Death Star's surface. What was important about the one the Rebels bombed? It lead directly to the reactor, it didn't have to maneuver, because that would've been impossible given the jamming.

So we know that the durability of the reactor would require a direct hit, and the only way to aquire a direct hit would be to travel the entire distance ofeightykilometers to hit it.

Therefore, the missles aboard Luke's X-Wing had a range of at LEAST (this is NOT a maximum) 80km.

[RTN]

I thought the term thermal exaust port was pretty self-explanatory, if I recall the dialogue properly...

Well despite me having watched those movies more times than I can remember, I coudn't remember if it was a thermal exhaust port or if the thermal exhaust port was tech from some other universe I read.

[Sea Skimmer]

No, the hologram showed the missles hitting the center of the Death Star figure. Also, the DS1 and the DS2 are the same basic design, why couldn't a missle just be fired into the un-finished side of the DS2 and let it collapse a shaft that leads to the reactor?

The Death Star 2 used millions of tiny shafts with turns that where far too small for any weapon to enter

[RTN]

Fair enough, what about the Mon Cal ship classifications?

[Howedar]

We see several visually indistinguishable Mon Cal cruisers in ROTJ. The ship uniqueness bit seems to me to be hyperbole at best and EU bullshit at worst.

[Darth Garden Gnome]

Fair enough, what about the Mon Cal ship classifications?

Mr. Saxtonhas done a superb job on classifying the known types of Mon Cal Cruisers from ROTJ and the EU. Your questions should be answered there.

[RTN]

We see several visually indistinguishable Mon Cal cruisers in ROTJ. The ship uniqueness bit seems to me to be hyperbole at best and EU bullshit at worst.

EU... European Union bullshit??

[RTN]

Fair enough, what about the Mon Cal ship classifications?

Mr. Saxtonhas done a superb job on classifying the known types of Mon Cal Cruisers from ROTJ and the EU. Your questions should be answered there.

ah, yes. I've seen this person's work before. It was quite detailed and well done.

[RTN]

The only thing I question on Mr. Saxton's site is that a good number of his ship classes are artist's preliminary sketches and renderings. Just because they were "unused" doesn't necessarily mean that they were meant to be new classes. Although I do like having pics for the new classes.