Someone on TFN has the ICS- extracts, no firepower- spoiler?

[Connor MacLeod]

I still don’t think the ven’s fighter capacity is official, it it has to be far less, or the empire forgotten everything about shipbuilding.

Or maybe the Empire is quite simply far less fighter-oriented. We've seen in the EU that they CAN build decent starfighters if they wish to (TIE Defenders, TIE avengers, etc.) They simply choose not to.

What you apparently don't realize is that hangar space for all those big-ass fighters eats up internal volume, which means that there is just much less space inside the ship to dedicate to other duties (fuel supply and consumables, crew/trroops, ground vehicles, offensive weapons, armor, etc.) Plus, with a good enough point defense and strong enough shields, you don't *need* fighters.

(And this still doesn't address that most SW fighters tend to be "micro fighters.")

Edit: And regarding the 5/8-mile "super Star Destrroyer", anyone who has actually looked at the WEG ship and compared it to images from the movie (or in the EU, like the Guardian, the Vengeance from Balance of Power, etc.) can tell that the two ships aren't even the same. They're named differently. Different fighter carrying capacities. Different armaments. Different dimensions. Their visual appearances, while similar, are still too different to be the same ship (engine placement, cityscapes, the fantail, the bridge, etc.)

[Gorefiend]

Actually, by firepower calcs, it should be able to. But when you hold it back (Executor), or use inferior crews (Lusankya), it might be defeatable. When they aren't depicting fighter-wank situations, they show very well the strength of larger ships.

Aye, I agree they can easily have the energy and weapon power output of several smaller ships and give a good fight to several standard warships, but it’s still not likely that they can go head to head against 1000 warships at the same time.

For example, Harrsk's Shockwave could blow away a Vic with a single blow.

I thought the Shockwave was just an modified isd with some very heavy turbolasers and it just scored a lucky hit, but ill check again.

Chimaera handily disabled an Assault Frigate at Sluis Van within an extremely short time,

The Chimaera (an ISD) can certainly take out something like an assault frigate, after all they are just pimped up dreadnaughts. ^^

and Iron Fist managed to disable Mon Remonda despite being at some wierd angle so the Mon Remonda has better firepower.

Yes I always licked that fight, it shows very well why super ships like the Iron Fist have quit some trouble in battle, because of firings arcs and them just being very large targets. The Iron Fist takes beatings from several sides by vessels that are far less powerful then she is, but they are many of them and she cant concentrate all firepower at one single target, while the rebel fleet can concentrate its entire firepower against one single ships.

[Connor MacLeod]

2.) Destroyers (excluding DDGs which don't count) are primarily defensive/protective in nature, and do not need to manuver/accelerate all that much. Of course, it also has a partial carrier function, so its not strictly a "dedicated" destroyer anyhow (if thats in fact what the term "Destroyer" is meant to mean in this instance. (in fact, if it carries hundreds of fighters, it has a far more dedicated carrier function than even an ISD.)

DDGs don't count? DDGs are still escorts. In fact, a DDGs most important role is air defense in a modern CVBG.

.. and Guided missile destroyers also use missiles as their primary weapon (since they are, after all, guided missile destroyers.) Rather different from "Star Destroyers" last time I checked. (And that's aside from the fact that its not a "guided missile Star destroyer".)

And of course, there's also that big-ass carrier function. DDG's don't carry huge numbers of fighters (and not in that variety, either.)

[Illuminatus Primus]

The x-wing novels go down the drain if you change that fact, for one. They are both established EU information of the same standing, but if we are at a preference editing spree across all sw.

What a tool. How long has this asshat been here, guys? I've missed it on my dumbass-dar.

Let's see, the class-designation of the Executor's class has been changed from the plainly imbecilic "Super-class" to the Executor-class, and the former was an oft-repeated X-Wing series factoid. Or how about its false length at 8 kilometers versus the actual length of 18+ kilometers?

Oh wait, it didn't go down the drain already, and you're full of shit.

I for one can’t stand 400+ fighter venis, lets get ride of those first and make isard smarter while your at it.

The decision is not made on the stupid whims of people who cannot punctuate, but on common sense. The amount of volume needed to hold and service fightercraft ought to be scalable amongst different warships. If the piddly Nebulon-B can carry the squadron your vaunted sources claim, than the Venator-class ought to have hundreds of fighters.

They are fine fighting ships just a bit overpriced for what they can really do. Sure on paper the kuati tell your they can take down entire fleets, the fact just is they don’t. It still looks very impressive if you bring along a space cruiser of more then 10km length in a galaxy where 1 km warships are already consider to be top of the line. The fact just seems to be that economies of scale don’t work to well for sw shipbuilding expect in bulk freight shipping and that only because you just need more space, not actually functional war technology.

This is rich. He proposes that 10 km ships make good psyops weapons and then in the same rant states that its shitty economics. THEY WILL NOT BE IMPRESSED WITH THE TEN KM SHIP THEN, BECAUSE THEY WOULD HAVE BUILT 100 SHIPS OF EQUIVALENT MASS BUT COLLECTIVELY SUPERIOR IN COMBAT, AND IT WOULD BE IMPOTENT TO SCARE PEOPLE.

A Maus tank doesn't scare people if it can barely move and the Soviets built fifty T-34s for the same price, jackass.

I can't believe it when people make a false claim, then state exactly why their claim is stupid.

Better yet, this rant is misinformed, because it clearly pays to build in bulk in SW. An Executor is worth merely twenty ISDs, yet massing more than one hundred times as much. A Death Star I is worth a score of SECTGRU, despite massing at least thousands, if not millions of times more.

Most of the SSD is likely taken up just for powering it (and getting it into hyperspace which seems to far more difficult with larger ships, after all their must be a reason why all really large ships require massive hyperspace drives and are still very slow in hyperspace, and that most warships don’t get much longer then ~ 2km), it also carries along a army and a crew of around a million. Add to that lots of support ships needed for getting your army down to a planet, 2 garrison bases, heavy shields, the armament of 8 1,6km long star destroyers…. you get the picture I think.

No, not when those same troops are carried proportionally by a much smaller mass in ISDs (each of which has one of those bases). Not to mention your power and hyperspace rant is simply absurd and stupid and not based in any canon. It also ignores the Death Star I and II which scale in firepower quite well down to the ISD, and are not as prohibitively expensive/useless as they would be if Gorefuck's argument held a few molecules of dihydrogen monoxide.

Sure the 144 figure strikes me as low as well, but it could most likely take along more if it gets ride of the fleet of support ships it carries. In the imperial era they properly took away most of the venis fighters to house landing ships, as with other imperial vessels, or they scraped them (because they are just very ugly maybe ).

Evidence? Oh yeah, you're just biased in favor of came-first whimsical BS EU. My mistake.

[Connor MacLeod]

Oh boo-fucking hoo. As if the piddly little name of the Star Destroyer matches up to other ridiculous problems. (like the Incredible Disappearing Astromech Torso with the new droid fighter.)

You mean Jedi fighter? The torso doesn't disappear actually, it sticks out the bottom .... or so I heard.

Yes and I've heard differently (on good authority, no less.). (Hell you even notice this problem in the Clone Wars (ep 21 in fact at the end.)

[Connor MacLeod]

Ah yes. It was long past due for Primey to go ballistic on someone.

[Illuminatus Primus]

2.) Destroyers (excluding DDGs which don't count) are primarily defensive/protective in nature, and do not need to manuver/accelerate all that much. Of course, it also has a partial carrier function, so its not strictly a "dedicated" destroyer anyhow (if thats in fact what the term "Destroyer" is meant to mean in this instance. (in fact, if it carries hundreds of fighters, it has a far more dedicated carrier function than even an ISD.)

DDGs don't count? DDGs are still escorts. In fact, a DDGs most important role is air defense in a modern CVBG.

.. and Guided missile destroyers also use missiles as their primary weapon (since they are, after all, guided missile destroyers.) Rather different from "Star Destroyers" last time I checked. (And that's aside from the fact that its not a "guided missile Star destroyer".)

And of course, there's also that big-ass carrier function. DDG's don't carry huge numbers of fighters (and not in that variety, either.)

Did I say otherwise. You said DDGs were not escorts. That's exactly what they are. DDGs equip AEGIS precisely to defend CVBGs from AShM swarms, TASM to defend against other warships, and ASROC to defend against submarines. Its missiles reflect its escort well quite clearly. DDs equip many missiles as well (believe it or not we've progressed from the age of rolling depth charges of the ass of ships for ASW).

As an addendum, if we nitpick the means of delivering destructive energy to the target all warship classification terms belong historically to ballistic-trajectory solid projectile-firing weapons. I don't think we've discussed any ships using such weaponry in their primary role.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Ah yes. It was long past due for Primey to go ballistic on someone.

Glad y'know me, sweetie.

[Gorefiend]

Or maybe the Empire is quite simply far less fighter-oriented. We've seen in the EU that they CAN build decent starfighters if they wish to (TIE Defenders, TIE avengers, etc.) They simply choose not to.

Yes, I mentioned that a few posts back, about the empire stuffing their ships full of support ships instead of fighters.

What you apparently don't realize is that hangar space for all those big-ass fighters eats up internal volume, which means that there is just much less space inside the ship to dedicate to other duties (fuel supply and consumables, crew/trroops, ground vehicles, offensive weapons, armor, etc.) Plus, with a good enough point defense and strong enough shields, you don't *need* fighters.

Aye, also mentioned that in the post about why the ssd is not all that almighty, because most of its space is most likely needed for something else, and as a reason why the empire might have changed it’s fighter policy over the ven over-carrier, if your stick 400+ fighters in a 1km frame something important to fighter operations just has to get blown up when the ship is hit.

Edit: And regarding the 5/8-mile "super Star Destrroyer", anyone who has actually looked at the WEG ship and compared it to images from the movie (or in the EU, like the Guardian, the Vengeance from Balance of Power, etc.) can tell that the two ships aren't even the same. They're named differently. Different fighter carrying capacities. Different armaments. Different dimensions. Their visual appearances, while similar, are still too different to be the same ship (engine placement, cityscapes, the fantail, the bridge, etc.)

The eu these days makes the ssd 12,8kms long (or so starwars.com says). The thing is, not only west end game has the same weapon and armament stats for the ssd, starwars.com lists them as well, as do wizards of the coast (though there is a typo on their site making the ssd 12,0 km) and most other eu sources. I am just wondering why everyone keeps going back to blaming weg they just made the best of what they were told to do, like anyone else, I would blame lucasfilms for not giving them the 12,8 (or 17,6 as some claim) right away.

[Connor MacLeod]

Did I say otherwise. You said DDGs were not escorts. That's exactly what they are. DDGs equip AEGIS precisely to defend CVBGs from AShM swarms, TASM to defend against other warships, and ASROC to defend against submarines. Its missiles reflect its escort well quite clearly. DDs equip many missiles as well (believe it or not we've progressed from the age of rolling depth charges of the ass of ships for ASW).

Point out where I said they weren't escorts. The only denial in my original post was that they weren't primarily defensive in nature. Is that somehow untrue? Last I recall the DDGs do in fact have a strong offensive capability (about as good as what a guided missile cruiser can deliver.) (The missiles part is simply yet another reason why they don't count.)

Edit: the "Primarily defensive" comment in fact alludes to their escort function, since to "protect" something they have to be escorting it.

As an addendum, if we nitpick the means of delivering destructive energy to the target all warship classification terms belong historically to ballistic-trajectory solid projectile-firing weapons. I don't think we've discussed any ships using such weaponry in their primary role.

So a missile is the same as a gun? Don't be obtuse. SW has missiles, and they are functionally distinct from guns. Moreover, the "guided missile cruiser/destroyer/frigate" classification makes it obvious that armament does matter. In fact, armament is one of the key distinctions for most warships (like battlecruisers, battleships, and "torpedo boats.")

[Connor MacLeod]

Yes, I mentioned that a few posts back, about the empire stuffing their ships full of support ships instead of fighters.

So why is the Venator's fighter complement a problem exactly? It simply menas that to accomdoate that many fighters they had to give something up in return. Its not as if they could say, accomodate 400 X-wings and Y-wings as well.

Aye, also mentioned that in the post about why the ssd is not all that almighty, because most of its space is most likely needed for something else, and as a reason why the empire might have changed it’s fighter policy over the ven over-carrier, if your stick 400+ fighters in a 1km frame something important to fighter operations just has to get blown up when the ship is hit.

So? Its a design trade-off. Just like the design of an ISD is. I don't see what the problem is exactly.

The eu these days makes the ssd 12,8kms long (or so starwars.com says).

That simply means there is maybe yet ANOTHER large warship out there. Its not like there isn't evidencee for such (What about Jerec's Vengeance? The Alleigance at Mon Calamari? Admiral Giel's command ship?)

The thing is, not only west end game has the same weapon and armament stats for the ssd, starwars.com lists them as well, as do wizards of the coast (though there is a typo on their site making the ssd 12,0 km) and most other eu sources.

And they most obviously can't all be right. Mistakes do crop up in books after all. And you can get conflicting reports/descriptions. Its not as if text or dialogue is somehow sacredly perfect.

either the 5 mile length is wrong and the stats apply to the 8 mile ship, or the 5 mile ship and 8 mile ship are separate vessels and we never got stats for it. Either is equally plausible. What matters is rationalizing it in such a way as to salvage the information in as complete a form as possible (and creating them as distinct warships that are mistaken and misidentified does so - since you are gonna have to throw them out anyhow.)

I am just wondering why everyone keeps going back to blaming weg they just made the best of what they were told to do, like anyone else, I would blame lucasfilms for not giving them the 12,8 (or 17,6 as some claim) right away.

Its more of a popular hobby for some people around here. You get people blaming lots of things (or complaining about things.) Some people complain about Dark Empire (mainly about Jedi/Palpatine wanking). Some just complain about the EU in general. Some complain about specific authors (like Zahn.) Its just the way the board is. You'll even get people complaining about the complainers.

[Gorefiend]

What a tool. How long has this asshat been here, guys? I've missed it on my dumbass-dar.

Let's see, the class-designation of the Executor's class has been changed from the plainly imbecilic "Super-class" to the Executor-class, and the former was an oft-repeated X-Wing series factoid. Or how about its false length at 8 kilometers versus the actual length of 18+ kilometers?

Oh wait, it didn't go down the drain already, and you're full of shit.

Naming it something different doesn’t make it a different ship. As eu replaces itself over older sources we have to assume the ssd in x-wing were all meant to be 12,8km (as far as I recall the standing eu length for the ssd). The problem for me with making the ssd much stronger (not just larger) in hinsight would be the fact that the tactics in x-wing would not have worked, but that’s just mho.

The decision is not made on the stupid whims of people who cannot punctuate, but on common sense. The amount of volume needed to hold and service fightercraft ought to be scalable amongst different warships. If the piddly Nebulon-B can carry the squadron your vaunted sources claim, than the Venator-class ought to have hundreds of fighters.

Is was being sarcastic anyway, I never said that a ship like the ven does not have the capacity to hold that much, if it is supposed to stays in continuity and they better give a good reason why it is given such a over the top fighter load compared to all later ships.

This is rich. He proposes that 10 km ships make good psyops weapons and then in the same rant states that its shitty economics. THEY WILL NOT BE IMPRESSED WITH THE TEN KM SHIP THEN, BECAUSE THEY WOULD HAVE BUILT 100 SHIPS OF EQUIVALENT MASS BUT COLLECTIVELY SUPERIOR IN COMBAT, AND IT WOULD BE IMPOTENT TO SCARE PEOPLE.

who in the star wars galaxy beside the empire had the ability to build something like it? It’s not like the rebellion had it’s own kuat drive yards. It scared the enemies of the empire pretty well as far as we know and that’s what it is build for.

Better yet, this rant is misinformed, because it clearly pays to build in bulk in SW. An Executor is worth merely twenty ISDs, yet massing more than one hundred times as much. A Death Star I is worth a score of SECTGRU, despite massing at least thousands, if not millions of times more.

Sure it’s cheaper to build in bulk, the problem seems to be, that you don’t get any real improvements in fighting abilities beyond a certain size.

No, not when those same troops are carried proportionally by a much smaller mass in ISDs (each of which has one of those bases). Not to mention your power and hyperspace rant is simply absurd and stupid and not based in any canon. It also ignores the Death Star I and II which scale in firepower quite well down to the ISD, and are not as prohibitively expensive/useless as they would be if Gorefuck's argument held a few molecules of dihydrogen monoxide.

Its not as absurd as you might think, their must be a reason why warships normally don’t get much longer then ~ 1,5-2 km, most likely either because it does not make tactical sense, or economic. The DS also seems to requires a huge hyperspace drive to propel it a long at a very slow speed compared to it’s size.

Btw. I cant quit follow your isd/ds comparison, would you mind to expand that point?

Evidence? Oh yeah, you're just biased in favor of came-first whimsical BS EU. My mistake.

Öh… the thing with support ships vs fighter capacity is pretty logical, if your chuck out support ships you get more space to house fighters, and the part about the venis is just a wild guess, after all none of us knows what the empire did with them.

So why is the Venator's fighter complement a problem exactly? It simply menas that to accomdoate that many fighters they had to give something up in return. Its not as if they could say, accomodate 400 X-wings and Y-wings as well.

´

just look up a bit

So? Its a design trade-off. Just like the design of an ISD is. I don't see what the problem is exactly.

Isds have more or less protected hangars, in a ship like the ven you cant really find a spot that wont be doing something for fighter operations with that much fighter stuff in it. It just strikes me as a very bad design idea that sort of goes against the stats for later ships.

That simply means there is maybe yet ANOTHER large warship out there. Its not like there isn't evidencee for such (What about Jerec's Vengeance? The Alleigance at Mon Calamari? Admiral Giel's command ship?)

Vengeance is called a super star destroyer variant build by kdy.
Allegiance should most likely be a ssd like the executor, but the guy drawing dark empire should be beaten to death anyway. The dark empire sourcebook just calls it a commando ship, so know one really knows.
Admiral Giel's command ship? Same problem as with starships in comics in general, either they are not supposed to be a normal ship, or the artists are just very bad at drawing.

And they most obviously can't all be right. Mistakes do crop up in books after all. And you can get conflicting reports/descriptions. Its not as if text or dialogue is somehow sacredly perfect.

either the 5 mile length is wrong and the stats apply to the 8 mile ship, or the 5 mile ship and 8 mile ship are separate vessels and we never got stats for it. Either is equally plausible. What matters is rationalizing it in such a way as to salvage the information in as complete a form as possible (and creating them as distinct warships that are mistaken and misidentified does so - since you are gonna have to throw them out anyhow.)

Hmm… negtvs gives it 12,8km and the “normal” weapons and other stuff west end gave it. It seems all the newer sources just uped the length, nothing about the other stats. and that one is the most up to date source as far as i know.

Its more of a popular hobby for some people around here. You get people blaming lots of things (or complaining about things.) Some people complain about Dark Empire (mainly about Jedi/Palpatine wanking). Some just complain about the EU in general. Some complain about specific authors (like Zahn.) Its just the way the board is. You'll even get people complaining about the complainers.

I second the complaining about dark empire, it should never have been made.

[Connor MacLeod]

Re: the weapons of the Venator-class issue, we should really wait to see the ICS. I would be very surprised if it hasn't labelled each individual type of weapon to let us know what it's talking about, and in particular, it may well have an inset picture (as the ICS series often does) of the guns we see in the trailer.

Given what I've seen/heard, I'm becoming even more pessimistic. I'm wondering if someone else (an editor) didn't butcher Curtis's own work for some reason...

1. Power level of the cannons in the trailer: at best, indeterminate- there is a potential hit by a blue bolt that destroys a Separatist Mass Driver (on what ship is unknown)- but we don't know if it came from the guns seen in the trailer.

I'm not especailly impressed by the outputs (since they hit inside the ship there is atmosphere, and hence.. fireballs.) That and the crews/battle droids nearby (whose durability is known.)

Its possible the weapons aren't attacking by just "energy." Maybe its more of a force/momentum weapon. (some sort of force-field weapon like a seismic charge.) It might strike like some sort of high-
momentum/low energy impact.

2. The bolts appear to arc: This would tend against them being turbolasers as previously observed.

The Visual dictionary seems to label them as a "Republic Star Destroyer laser cannon" or some shuch (given the screen grabs.) This doesnt seem to be consistent though. The VD labels the ARC-170 as having projectile launchers, but from what I can see of the ICS screen grabs, they're labeled as targeting lasers or something. And if this is like any of the previous VDs I'm betting they go with the "plasma weapon' definition for blasters/laser cannons.

3. Using point defence guns against an enemy capital ship: if the trailer is any indication, then the point defence guns were still effective in destroying the opposing guns of the other ship.

Not sure from the trailers, but I question whether every hit we see can simply be treated as a "weapons port hit?" It might work, but it seems like a rather tenuous idea to hang one's hopes on.

Of course, if its a projectile cannon, they might carry very powerful payloads in a small package (those missiles look to be 1- 1 1/2 meters long and maybe .3-.5 meters in diamater.. about the size of a seismic charge, I'd gather.)

Maybe that is the limit of their effectiveness in a broadside situation. This is up in the air until we actually see what the Venators point-defence laser cannons look like.

I'd prefer them not being laser cannons period. I suppose tht one might argue they are "long range" point defense weapons - firing at a more distant target would not require a large turn radius, and the close spacing like that would allow large numbers of such guns to be mounted in there. (of course, the same can work for projectile weapons too, but you still get better flexibility with the projectile example.)

There is however a blue flash before the Separatist mass driver in the trailer explodes, so perhaps this is a bolt/shield interaction?

Maybe, but active deflectors would actually make things worse. I prefer assuming the shields are weakened or knocked down (in specific areas at least). The flashes might be from the "atmospheric shields' though.. or maybe its waste gasses.

b]In particular[/b]- watch the ring of the "window" around the gun- it glows brilliantly. After just watching it again, its definitely a bolt shield interaction/ flak burst that destroyed the mass driver. Cool detail for me!

Maybe. Then again, if the blast didnt' harm any nearby crews (organic or not), it might not be a good thing either. I don't doubt that the shield-interaction flashes could kill a person (its energy, after all.) I only see a few problems:

a - Do Turbolasers emit ALL their energy as visible light, or is some of it in the nonvisible spectrum. AFAIK its the former, which might put limits on the "emission" (the blast might literally be brighter than the sun if the output is high enough.) This would be true in the case of the fireball/vapor cloud in any case, though.

b. - It doesn't seem to account for the absorption/retransmission functions. Most if not all the energy absorbed is likely going into the heat sink, ,and I don't recall if bleed-through was allowed. And when its reradiated from the heat sink, its going to be away from the ship (and in the form of neutrinos.)

4. The Venator hangar gun: I would surmise its probably mounted on the roof of the hangar. I highly doubt its an SPHA-T or some other kind of vehicle. As I said, silly. Its likely that the Venators launch all their fighters before joining battle, and so its free to fire away after that point.

I suspect its nto mounted on the roof. I think its mounted on the rear "edge" of the hangar (the under the "floor" of the rear Hangar. Possibly an axial mount running along the length of the ship (and hooked up straight to the reactors.. placement ought to be right.) Might have off axis firing capability.

As for being an SPHA-T - its possible, but I am doubtful given the beam looks different from the SPHA-T beams I remember from AOTC, and it looks wider.

[Vympel]

Yes and I've heard differently (on good authority, no less.). (Hell you even notice this problem in the Clone Wars (ep 21 in fact at the end.)

I haven't seen the new Clone Wars

[18-Till-I-Die]

Vympel, anyone could you give a link or web site for MF.COM, i dont know what it is and i'm dying to see the ICS screen shots.

[Vympel]

+http://www.millenniumfalcon.com/phpbb/v ... php?t=3478

If you're anti-spoiler, the entire website should be off-limits

[18-Till-I-Die]

+http://www.millenniumfalcon.com/phpbb/v ... php?t=3478

If you're anti-spoiler, the entire website should be off-limits

Many thanks man

[Chris OFarrell]

Woho! The Z-95 gets a mention as well!

[Gorefiend]

where? @ headhunter, i don't see a quote about it.

PS: just spotted that an ssd carries three garrison bases ;]

[Vympel]

Given what I've seen/heard, I'm becoming even more pessimistic. I'm wondering if someone else (an editor) didn't butcher Curtis's own work for some reason...

I suspect it was an editorial decision that saw the exclusion of shield, power and firepower figures, but I doubt that would be the reason for any weapons related issues like what to call so-and-so weapon. One thing I do find frustrating is the lack of continuity between the VD and the ICS- the VD labels the secondary tube on top of the ARC-170 laser cannons as a "projectile cannon" while the ICS labels it as a rangefinder. Though it could be both, the ICS is pointing to a very specific place and the VD picture is very general.

EDIT: ah crap, you mentioned that too.

I'm not especailly impressed by the outputs (since they hit inside the ship there is atmosphere, and hence.. fireballs.) That and the crews/battle droids nearby (whose durability is known.)

Its possible the weapons aren't attacking by just "energy." Maybe its more of a force/momentum weapon. (some sort of force-field weapon like a seismic charge.) It might strike like some sort of high-
momentum/low energy impact.

Also possible. I like a bolt/shield flakburst better- if you see the Mass Driver firing in another part of the trailer you can see the same glow come on and off- maybe they need to quickly de-activate the shield to fire a physical projectile out?

The Visual dictionary seems to label them as a "Republic Star Destroyer laser cannon" or some shuch (given the screen grabs.) This doesnt seem to be consistent though. The VD labels the ARC-170 as having projectile launchers, but from what I can see of the ICS screen grabs, they're labeled as targeting lasers or something. And if this is like any of the previous VDs I'm betting they go with the "plasma weapon' definition for blasters/laser cannons.

They did? I missed this screen-grab ... I didn't see that in any of the VD scans.

Not sure from the trailers, but I question whether every hit we see can simply be treated as a "weapons port hit?" It might work, but it seems like a rather tenuous idea to hang one's hopes on.

Of course, if its a projectile cannon, they might carry very powerful payloads in a small package (those missiles look to be 1- 1 1/2 meters long and maybe .3-.5 meters in diamater.. about the size of a seismic charge, I'd gather.)

It also might be sheer "why not" factor. If you're a gunner and you've got targets in front of you, why not take the opportunity? In all liklihood you have information from the main batteries which are busy hammering away, throwing more fuel into the fire so to speak wouldn't hurt.

I'd prefer them not being laser cannons period. I suppose tht one might argue they are "long range" point defense weapons - firing at a more distant target would not require a large turn radius, and the close spacing like that would allow large numbers of such guns to be mounted in there. (of course, the same can work for projectile weapons too, but you still get better flexibility with the projectile example.)

Agree.

Maybe, but active deflectors would actually make things worse. I prefer assuming the shields are weakened or knocked down (in specific areas at least). The flashes might be from the "atmospheric shields' though.. or maybe its waste gasses.

Yeah, what I was proposing was that the bolt only partially made it through the shield, much like the shot that disabled the Tantive IV- ie. the shields finally failed. The flash is clearly defined along the entire circumfrence of the window, so it leads me to think it might be indicative of deactivation. As above, its also present when the Mass Driver fires, so I think it was a deliberate addition.

Maybe. Then again, if the blast didnt' harm any nearby crews (organic or not), it might not be a good thing either. I don't doubt that the shield-interaction flashes could kill a person (its energy, after all.) I only see a few problems:

a - Do Turbolasers emit ALL their energy as visible light, or is some of it in the nonvisible spectrum. AFAIK its the former, which might put limits on the "emission" (the blast might literally be brighter than the sun if the output is high enough.) This would be true in the case of the fireball/vapor cloud in any case, though.

b. - It doesn't seem to account for the absorption/retransmission functions. Most if not all the energy absorbed is likely going into the heat sink, ,and I don't recall if bleed-through was allowed. And when its reradiated from the heat sink, its going to be away from the ship (and in the form of neutrinos.)

I have no idea about a (turbolaser nature- steer clear!), but with regards to b, its never really stated how the heat absorbed by the shields of any ship really makes its way anywhere.

I suspect its nto mounted on the roof. I think its mounted on the rear "edge" of the hangar (the under the "floor" of the rear Hangar. Possibly an axial mount running along the length of the ship (and hooked up straight to the reactors.. placement ought to be right.) Might have off axis firing capability.

Yeah, thats probably a better idea actually.

[Cabwi Desco]

RIght first of all can we get a topic split? this kinda went from a ICS discussion to an SSD discussion

Reasons for an SSD carrying only 144

-They are NOT dedicated carriers, theyre more like battleships where the figthers just supplement the already awesome firepower.

-Most of the interior space is taken up by other vehicles and garrison bases, then you have things like skiprays, lambdas, scimitars, and Landing craft. I'm quite sure if you cleared out the rest of the vehicles, bases, etc, you would have enough space for over 200 fighters but due to the fact that there is all that other shit in there makes it just not possible.

-Were they didcated carriers they would probably dedicate most of their internal space to hangars. and as we know there are akready 3 visible hangar bays on the ventral surface of a SSD

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

Reasons for an SSD carrying only 144

That might be the way to rationalize it if you had to. Not the same as whether it really makes a shit of sense. Even then, it doesn't really bridge...

-They are NOT dedicated carriers, theyre more like battleships where the figthers just supplement the already awesome firepower.

Neither is the ISD.

-Most of the interior space is taken up by other vehicles and garrison bases, then you have things like skiprays, lambdas, scimitars, and Landing craft. I'm quite sure if you cleared out the rest of the vehicles, bases, etc, you would have enough space for over 200 fighters but due to the fact that there is all that other shit in there makes it just not possible.

No go. The SSD only carries 4x the troops, 2x the fighters, 1.5x the ground assault walkers (AT series) and 3x the bases on well over 5x the volume (and that's the official crap). Proportionately, if true, then the SSD should use less percentage of space than the ISD on fighters, craft and troops. And don't even discuss the 17.6km True Version.

-Were they didcated carriers they would probably dedicate most of their internal space to hangars. and as we know there are akready 3 visible hangar bays on the ventral surface of a SSD

Precisely, so why are there only 144? The large ventral bay is some 4.7km long (on the 17.6km ship), longer than all of the ISD!

[Meest]

I suspect it was an editorial decision that saw the exclusion of shield, power and firepower figures, but I doubt that would be the reason for any weapons related issues like what to call so-and-so weapon.

I think in general they are going for broader appeal. Not sure how well they sell but all the scientific notation could be viewed as a turn off for some readers (wanting to keep the magic ). Still makes no sense, because I thought that's how they are billed, for people who want to see in depth how everything is built/works.

[SpyderGS]

The downsize in fighter compliments could simply be due to a shift in tactics and doctrine. With the increasing size of capships by the time of ANH, and their resepective shielding and firepower increases, fighters may simply be obsolete, or at the very least another tool in warfighting.
Star Wars: A New Hope said:

...the Empire doesn't consider one man fighters to be a threat or they'd have tighter defenses...

Tactics dictate design. At the time of the PT it may be that the newly resurgent capital ship design programs had not taken into account the power of fighters available at that time.

Just a thought.

[Connor MacLeod]

I suspect it was an editorial decision that saw the exclusion of shield, power and firepower figures, but I doubt that would be the reason for any weapons related issues like what to call so-and-so weapon.

Curtis's style of writing is rather distinctive. It should be relatively easy to spot whether or not "alterations" were made. And given that we have a prior ICS book and two ITW books to use as reference, we can compare them and note any changes.

One thing I do find frustrating is the lack of continuity between the VD and the ICS- the VD labels the secondary tube on top of the ARC-170 laser cannons as a "projectile cannon" while the ICS labels it as a rangefinder. Though it could be both, the ICS is pointing to a very specific place and the VD picture is very general.

Some people dislike the notion of "capital/fighter" grade projectile cannons, and would prefer everything to be energy weapon. And others dislike the idea of massless beams and prefer a "projectile/particle beam/plasma bolt" idea. That's part of the problem - authors are going to disagree in temrs of their perspective of the Star Wars universe, and unless one person is given virtual carte blanche to portray their viewpoint as dominant (unlikely), such conflicts are quite simply going to occur. And you can't really get away with playing "favorites" among authors either - (at least not publicly) since that is tantamount to bias.

Besides, I *hate* having someone just tell me what I'm supposed to believe or not. I prefer checking it out myself.

EDIT: ah crap, you mentioned that too.

The rangefinder/projectile thing? YEah. Maybe it has a dual purpose though (there might be a rangefinder attached to the projectile mountings.)

Also possible. I like a bolt/shield flakburst better- if you see the Mass Driver firing in another part of the trailer you can see the same glow come on and off- maybe they need to quickly de-activate the shield to fire a physical projectile out?

There's nothign wrong with assuming that the primary damage mechanism is from the energy content of the beam, ,but since certain levels of energy would carry inevitable side effects (think TDiC) holding to just that can come and bite you on the ass. (Slave-1 and the Kamino platform in AOTC - were it not for the shielding rationalization, there'd be more difficulty where that was concerned.)

They did? I missed this screen-grab ... I didn't see that in any of the VD scans.

Did you see the screen grab of the trooper with green markings on his armor (he looks like he's rushing at you?) On the lower-left hand side under the "data file" box you can see an oval image describing it - its partly cut off though.

It also might be sheer "why not" factor. If you're a gunner and you've got targets in front of you, why not take the opportunity? In all liklihood you have information from the main batteries which are busy hammering away, throwing more fuel into the fire so to speak wouldn't hurt.

Well for one thing this assumes that all the gunports are exposed to relatively lower-powered fire like that. Or it makes the assumption that the shields are down, whatnot. Not impossible, but it tends to be too circumstantial for my liking (unless absolutely neccessary.)

Whats MORE annoying is that those Separatist "mass drivers" actually seem to have larger "portals", which gives them far better fire arcs.

Then again, thats not as if thats the only dumb design feature on the Acclamator. That overly-tall twin-bridge setup is dumb. I'd prefer a more traditional "bridge tower"

Yeah, what I was proposing was that the bolt only partially made it through the shield, much like the shot that disabled the Tantive IV- ie. the shields finally failed.

Maybe, but don't you find the idea of multiple shots like this just coincidentally encountering shields JUST weak enough to let those low-powered bolts through sort of odd?

The flash is clearly defined along the entire circumfrence of the window, so it leads me to think it might be indicative of deactivation. As above, its also present when the Mass Driver fires, so I think it was a deliberate addition.

We know from TPM that shields can "glow" in the presence of atmosphere or water.. its possible the "glow" effect is the interaction of solid matter with the shield (again, the projectile, waste gasses, whatnot.) The "gasses" being ejected look to be fairly luminous, I might add.

I have no idea about a (turbolaser nature- steer clear!), but with regards to b, its never really stated how the heat absorbed by the shields of any ship really makes its way anywhere.

A.) is the big thing IMHO, and I'm generally leaning towards some or most of the energy of a TL bolt being emitted as non-visible photons.

b.) Nope, but its speculated on. It can't be re-released as photons or EM radiation (Curtis covers the problems with this rather nicecly on his power technologies page.) "how" isn't strictly important except for the neccessity of being able to plausibly describe an unknown mechanism (you know how Darkstar was unable to explain his "MUM", right?) But the absorption factor is rather neccesary because otherwise where is the energy going to go? Think about weapon and shield interactions in the movies when on-planet and the problems dumping MJ-GJ-TJ level energies into atmospheres. (Slave-1 and the Kamino platform come to mind, the SPHA-Ts and the core ship, LAAT rockets fired at capital ships, etc.)

I suspect its nto mounted on the roof. I think its mounted on the rear "edge" of the hangar (the under the "floor" of the rear Hangar. Possibly an axial mount running along the length of the ship (and hooked up straight to the reactors.. placement ought to be right.) Might have off axis firing capability.

Yeah, thats probably a better idea actually.

Not much of one. Those guns still have far less effective coverage than turrets, and they still prevent hangar operations when firing (its also possible the waste heat/radiation from the guns - decayed visible lphotons and what not, might pose a danger that close to the hangar.)

On the other hand, off-axis firing gives them fairly good coverage on anything in front of or below the hangars (an improvement in the fact that the ship has at least SOME decent ventral heavy weapons coverage, unlike an ISD) , and it protects the hangar (a dangerous weak point in such vessels with the belly hangars... like the Imperial Communications ship frrom ROTJ.)