Relative Value of an SSD

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

Did it ever occur to you, that EU writers did't even had a clue of the abilities of commandships? They had butchered it so cruel, that it isn't even funny.
It is only a hint, that most EU writers hadn't even a clue what they are writing there, or hadn't bother to resaerch and think first.

It is not really that they don't do research. I think it is more that SW EU authors write results that are Plot Requirement based. They set up impossible scenarios for their good guys (but they aren't good enough to really make the impossible possible,) and then try to solve them by bending the rules, deux ex machinas, and dealing with intangibles (translation: making the enemy stupid and inept.)

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

A.) Wedge acquired eighty-some freighters that he equipped with capital scale warhead launchers acquired through Talon Karrde (Wayne Poe has pointed this out numerous times before.)

We all know that Drysso's a dummy.

Here's the one problem with this scenario. The maximum simultaneous torp salvo measured was about 80 torpedoes. That's equivalent to about ONE Victory Star Destroyer's missile tubes.

I doubt those capital grade torpedoes would be vastly more powerful again than what goes on the Victory.

At this rate, a few Victory-I Star Destroyers can beat the Executor. Not very good.

[Rogue 9]

A.) Wedge acquired eighty-some freighters that he equipped with capital scale warhead launchers acquired through Talon Karrde (Wayne Poe has pointed this out numerous times before.)

We all know that Drysso's a dummy.

Here's the one problem with this scenario. The maximum simultaneous torp salvo measured was about 80 torpedoes. That's equivalent to about ONE Victory Star Destroyer's missile tubes.

I doubt those capital grade torpedoes would be vastly more powerful again than what goes on the Victory.

At this rate, a few Victory-I Star Destroyers can beat the Executor. Not very good.

A VSD has eighty missile tubes?

[YT300000]

Yet based on an EU writer, the second Death Star construction was supplied by a single company.

But that's not so unbelievable, XTS is a huge uber-corporation which spans a galaxy, so it must have the resources to do such a thing. Also, only giving the contract to one company keeps the project more secret.

[Kitsune]

But that's not so unbelievable, XTS is a huge uber-corporation which spans a galaxy, so it must have the resources to do such a thing. Also, only giving the contract to one company keeps the project more secret.

So, if I understand we may be talking about a comany which carries 30% to 50% of a Galaxies trade. I would not call that a company anymore. "Uber" is the right word. The owner of the company might really have more power than the Emperor

I believe in the old saying "Any secret can be kept by two people if one of them is dead unless tehy are a politician." The Emperor might have believed it was a secret but in reality, everybody who was somebody knew.

[Kitsune]

It is not really that they don't do research. I think it is more that SW EU authors write results that are Plot Requirement based. They set up impossible scenarios for their good guys (but they aren't good enough to really make the impossible possible,) and then try to solve them by bending the rules, deux ex machinas, and dealing with intangibles (translation: making the enemy stupid and inept.)

That is the center of my argument, neither Lucas or his other writers have a clue in many cases, they have no basis for what can and cannot happen, and they leave us guessing. That is why I have given up on the Star Wars Novels.

[Rogue 9]

But that's not so unbelievable, XTS is a huge uber-corporation which spans a galaxy, so it must have the resources to do such a thing. Also, only giving the contract to one company keeps the project more secret.

So, if I understand we may be talking about a comany which carries 30% to 50% of a Galaxies trade. I would not call that a company anymore. "Uber" is the right word. The owner of the company might really have more power than the Emperor

I believe in the old saying "Any secret can be kept by two people if one of them is dead unless tehy are a politician." The Emperor might have believed it was a secret but in reality, everybody who was somebody knew.

Yeah, basically. XTS = Xizor Transport Systems. It was run by Prince Xizor, who had a palace on Coruscant that rivaled the Emperor's and was larger than Vader's, IIRC. Xizor often had audiences with the Emperor, and in fact was on the other end of the Emperor's Holonet discussion with Vader in TESB. He was wildly rich, fabulously powerful, a leading (if unofficial) Imperial noble and advisor, and owner of the largest shipping company in the galaxy. XTS was the logical recipient of the contract and the corporation best able to handle it.

[Burak Gazan]

*tangent mode on

Ah yes, Xizor the Magnificent....legend in his own mind....

Cutout template for a mary sue if there ever was ..... give me a break , as if a Dark Lord of the Sith wouldn't crush him like the insect he is and move on.

More bad writing/minimalism, nothing to see here, move along, move along......

[YT300000]

as if a Dark Lord of the Sith wouldn't crush him like the insect he is and move on.

His ability to fight is irrelevant. His vast amounts of money, and ships made him the third most powerful being in the galaxy. Remember, he was also the underlord of Black Sun.

[Kitsune]

Yeah, basically. XTS = Xizor Transport Systems. It was run by Prince Xizor, who had a palace on Coruscant that rivaled the Emperor's and was larger than Vader's, IIRC. Xizor often had audiences with the Emperor, and in fact was on the other end of the Emperor's Holonet discussion with Vader in TESB. He was wildly rich, fabulously powerful, a leading (if unofficial) Imperial noble and advisor, and owner of the largest shipping company in the galaxy. XTS was the logical recipient of the contract and the corporation best able to handle it.

That puts a whole new spin on the discussion based on this. I cannot think of a modern example similar but does not disbute the point that even with a galaxies' resources, a Death Star could potentially tax them.

Now, back to SSD cost effectiveness

[Rogue 9]

*tangent mode on

Ah yes, Xizor the Magnificent....legend in his own mind....

Cutout template for a mary sue if there ever was ..... give me a break , as if a Dark Lord of the Sith wouldn't crush him like the insect he is and move on.

More bad writing/minimalism, nothing to see here, move along, move along......

A Dark Lord of the Sith did crush him like the insect he was and moved on.

[Burak Gazan]

Yeah, he's also the richest dead asshole this side of Coruscant.... Besides, I never mentioned his so-called fighting skills; simply that he's just more criminal scum the Empire would scrape off their boots

Now, back to SSDs

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

A VSD has eighty missile tubes?

Yes, in WEG. I understand they may have changed this in WOTC, but WEG built the Vic-I. And Stackpole assumes the 80 missile Vic (see Isard's Revenge)

[Connor MacLeod]

A.) Wedge acquired eighty-some freighters that he equipped with capital scale warhead launchers acquired through Talon Karrde (Wayne Poe has pointed this out numerous times before.)

We all know that Drysso's a dummy.

Here's the one problem with this scenario. The maximum simultaneous torp salvo measured was about 80 torpedoes. That's equivalent to about ONE Victory Star Destroyer's missile tubes.

I doubt those capital grade torpedoes would be vastly more powerful again than what goes on the Victory.

At this rate, a few Victory-I Star Destroyers can beat the Executor. Not very good.

Why? Should we assume the Executor or Death STar's missile tubes are equivalent to a VSD's? What about the missile tubes on an Acclamator? A Torpedo sphere?

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

Why? Should we assume the Executor or Death STar's missile tubes are equivalent to a VSD's? What about the missile tubes on an Acclamator? A Torpedo sphere?

If you go by WEG (who invented the concussion missiles for both the Executor and the Victory,) they are the same '9D Capital scale' damage.

A torpedo sphere carries supposedly specialty torpedoes, and are a different situation. There is no given yield on the Acclamator missiles.

We could always give arbitarily large yields to the weapons used to rationalize things. Those things COULD have yields close to miniature superlasers for all we know (we'd need those yields to explain away the even more absurd scene in IR where EIGHT torpedoes on STARFIGHTERS collapsed a Golan shield - something that was compared to a Star Destroyer.)

But seriously, how likely do you think it is that those little freighters would carry far larger yield weapons than the stuff usually carried on Capital Vessels? Especially since their weapons are generally black market stuff filched from Imperial munitions stores?

[Connor MacLeod]

Why? Should we assume the Executor or Death STar's missile tubes are equivalent to a VSD's? What about the missile tubes on an Acclamator? A Torpedo sphere?

If you go by WEG (who invented the concussion missiles for both the Executor and the Victory,) they are the same '9D Capital scale' damage.

That's completely irrelevant to the point. You're assuming there is only "one" kind of capital-scale missile. (I might point out that in the novels the VSD's missiles are used for anti ship work, whereas in WOTC they appear to be meant purely for planetary assault.)

Speaking of the novels, we know the following:

a volley of missiles from a VSD-1 can collapse the shields of a Mon Cal cruiser (REf: Isard's Revenge.)

We know ISDs have shielding comparable to Mon Cal cruisers (Ref: various, most notably WEG and the SWTJ)

We also know an Executor can survive collision with three Star destroyers moving at relatavistic speed (the latter which are destroyed in said collision.) Ref- Archie Goodwin comics.

Were your assumption true, an ISD's shielding is equivalent to the Executors. Furthermore, the Executor have been destroyed by collision with the Star Destroyers (whose own shields were clearly downed by the collision.). Given that this is inconsistent with known evidence, your "assumption" is clearly faulty.

A torpedo sphere carries supposedly specialty torpedoes, and are a different situation. There is no given yield on the Acclamator missiles.

Both are still capital ships, and thus they carry capital-scale missiles. Have you seen the size of the missile launchers on an Acclamator?

We could always give arbitarily large yields to the weapons used to rationalize things. Those things COULD have yields close to miniature superlasers for all we know (we'd need those yields to explain away the even more absurd scene in IR where EIGHT torpedoes on STARFIGHTERS collapsed a Golan shield - something that was compared to a Star Destroyer.)

But seriously, how likely do you think it is that those little freighters would carry far larger yield weapons than the stuff usually carried on Capital Vessels? Especially since their weapons are generally black market stuff filched from Imperial munitions stores?

Post-Endor Empire. Things are alot different now, especially since Isard fled from Coruscant. We also don't know the exact size of the freighters, either (sizes were never given) or the missiles. For all we know the missiles were optimized for low acceleration/endurance and tracking, but extremely high-yields (They were used at a distancec of only a few kilometers, after all.)

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

More like WEG and the official world tends to assume there is one weapon.

Read above and you'd see I agree with you on the POSSIBILITY of these weapons. Plausibility is another matter. You've speculated on a very specialized purpose weapon. Which means it'd be even rarer and even harder to find.

Ultimately, it comes down to this:

You create a very special one-time combination of missile, coordination and so on to Force-Rationalize the result, with the result that the net chance of making it reappear are so small you might as well have discarded it.

I just look at the dispar and say "Hell, just discard it." It winds up being effectively the same.

While we are on this line of topic, I personally wonder how you solve that 8-torpedo for a Golan fiasco in Isard's Revenge. Those are starfighter torpedoes, and there is a limit to how big a fighter-torp can be.

[Sharp-kun]

While we are on this line of topic, I personally wonder how you solve that 8-torpedo for a Golan fiasco in Isard's Revenge. Those are starfighter torpedoes, and there is a limit to how big a fighter-torp can be.

Fan wank. Stackpole's notorious for it. A pity, since a lot of the stuff he writes would be very good otherwise.

[Super-Gagme]

I'm sorry but I don't understand the constant reference to WEG. The RPG license is now in WOTC hands and anything they write about something WEG covered should be officially WOTC > WEG. This is in terms of source not gameplay, just so nobody bitches.

[consequences]

I'm sorry but I don't understand the constant reference to WEG. The RPG license is now in WOTC hands and anything they write about something WEG covered should be officially WOTC > WEG. This is in terms of source not gameplay, just so nobody bitches.

Fuck that. WOTC makes Fucking X-Wing seem like the model of fairness when it comes to Starfighter vs. Capital Ship Combat. They have no idea what they are talking about, and their material flatly contradicts just about every naval fight ever written in one of the novels, or portrayed on-screen. Or do you honestly think that the laser cannons on a TF 'battleship' are more powerful than the Heavy TL batteries on an ISD?
WEG may have gotten a lot of things wrong, but they at least attempted to have some consistency. WOTC is just shitting all over the SW universe.

[Rogue 9]

That's what WotC does. The one thing I know of that they've done right is 3rd Edition D&D. (And 3.5, IMO, but there are people who will argue that.)

[Tribun]

More like WEG and the official world tends to assume there is one weapon.

Read above and you'd see I agree with you on the POSSIBILITY of these weapons. Plausibility is another matter. You've speculated on a very specialized purpose weapon. Which means it'd be even rarer and even harder to find.

Ultimately, it comes down to this:

You create a very special one-time combination of missile, coordination and so on to Force-Rationalize the result, with the result that the net chance of making it reappear are so small you might as well have discarded it.

I just look at the dispar and say "Hell, just discard it." It winds up being effectively the same.

While we are on this line of topic, I personally wonder how you solve that 8-torpedo for a Golan fiasco in Isard's Revenge. Those are starfighter torpedoes, and there is a limit to how big a fighter-torp can be.

Well, having played the games, I at least knew, that there are in fact at least SEVEN types of different missiles for starfighters:
-Missles
-Advanced Missles
-Torpedos
-Advanced Torpedos
-Heavy Rockets
-Heavy Bombs
-MagPulse Torpedos

Possibly much more exist.
That indicates, that also for capital ships there is a vast arrey of different missle weapons.

[Rogue 9]

Well, having played the games, I at least knew, that there are in fact at least SEVEN types of different missiles for starfighters:
-Missles
-Advanced Missles
-Torpedos
-Advanced Torpedos
-Heavy Rockets
-Heavy Bombs
-MagPulse Torpedos

Add ion pulse to that list. XWA.

[Illuminatus Primus]

I think the EGtVV has made a referece to "proton rockets," which may be another name for heavy rockets.

[Lord Pounder]

A-Wings carry Concussion Missiles IIRC.