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Starships of the Galaxy (New)

Posted: 2007-12-13 04:10pm
by Fingolfin_Noldor
I went to Borders today and found this book which apparently just came out. There are some interesting details there. For starters, they totally did away with the earlier stats. There are no more "60 turbos 60 ions" for ISDs anymore. They group them in batteries and so forth. I will post the details later.

Some interesting info:

Lusankya - She was lowered encased in a repulsor lift cradle covered up and packaged as a "Large Shield Generator". Plus, she has 10 less Heavy Turbolaser batteries than the normal Executor Class and traded that for more Point Defence batteries.

Home One - Again she's listed as an MC80, but with more weapons (about 2 extra turbolaser batteries and 1 extra heavy ion batteries. I'm still irritated by this.

Jerec's ship is stated to be different from the Executors, but having the same specs apparently.

And somewhat a tip of the hat to Saxton: The Star Destroyer designation is typically applied to Dagger shaped ships, but "the designation is general enough to be applied to many other heavily armed capital ships. However, during the time of the Empire, the term "star Destroyer" comes to be colloquially associated with Imperial class star destroyer. Some larger ships, such as the Executor-class Star Dreadnaught and the Eclipse, are often referred to as Star Destroyers, though this is not an official designation and more of a generic descriptor."

There's some other crap like "A squadron of B-wings responsible for destroying one ISD at the Battle of Endor" but I won't comment much though it is possible retcon it as saying they had the support of a Mon Cal Cruiser.

Posted: 2007-12-13 05:11pm
by VT-16
"A squadron of B-wings responsible for destroying one ISD at the Battle of Endor"
That's what the old McQuarrie concept art showed, so it's not taken out of thin air.
Of course, SOTE shows a Strike cruiser being taken out by Wedge's X-wing only when its shields were focused on protecting its rear, which faced a Rebel fleet, so that's my rationalization for fighters powning capital ships.
Jerec's ship
Said to belong to a class or is it a singular vessel?
Home One - Again she's listed as an MC80
No problem. X-wing Alliance called the Liberty type an MC80 Star Cruiser Type 2, which effectively makes the Home One type a Type 1, thus differentiating them.

Posted: 2007-12-13 06:26pm
by Fingolfin_Noldor
Apparently it's applied to a singular vessel. There's no mention of other ships of the Vengeance type.

The thing I do not quite understand is how many barrels each battery has. Do the no. of gunners per battery imply the no. of barrels or ?

The Pellaeon SD is also listed with similar firepower to the ISDII though slightly more in terms of some +1 weapon bonuses and some torpedo tubes.

Re: Starships of the Galaxy (New)

Posted: 2007-12-13 06:30pm
by Warsie
Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:I
There's some other crap like "A squadron of B-wings responsible for destroying one ISD at the Battle of Endor" but I won't comment much though it is possible retcon it as saying they had the support of a Mon Cal Cruiser.
As VT-16 said, that was taken from McQuarrie's artwork

Image

see the other stuff there too. cool
http://www.flickr.com/photos/heilemann/sets/152728/

EDIT: a later post of mine
ME! wrote:I also forgot to add in; the old Essential Chronology says that was the Devastator that was destroyed....no, that was another picture with Devastator being attacked with more than B-wings; sorry.

EDIT: I forgot as well. I think there was another McQuarrie painting just like that; instead the DS was half-built and the B-wings looked more like from the movies... I think.

EDIT 2: That scene has been done in other scenes; interestingly the ROTJ Star Wars Manga before Ackbar orders all fire on Executor; they have a bunch of scenes interestingly similar (well one of them) involving a group of B-wings.

Re: Starships of the Galaxy (New)

Posted: 2007-12-13 06:37pm
by Fingolfin_Noldor
Warsie wrote:
Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:I
There's some other crap like "A squadron of B-wings responsible for destroying one ISD at the Battle of Endor" but I won't comment much though it is possible retcon it as saying they had the support of a Mon Cal Cruiser.
As VT-16 said, that was taken from McQuarrie's artwork

Image

see the other stuff there too. cool
http://www.flickr.com/photos/heilemann/sets/152728/
I am aware of that picture. The book itself had a small copy of it. The only thing that comes to mind is, what the B-wing is capable of carrying that can penetrate the shielding. The damage done is quite understandable if the particle shields are down.

Posted: 2007-12-13 06:43pm
by Jim Raynor
Sounds good. I can't wait to hear about the new ISD stats. It's also nice to see the "Star Destroyer" classification being generalized. WEG fanwhores are gonna hate this. :lol:

Still, it seems like whatever cool new book comes out that's not written by Saxton himself always has a few remnents of stupidity. How can Jerec's Vengeance have the same exact stats as the Executor-class? That's pretty lazy, even if you ignore the scaling that's been done to show that the ships are in completely different weight classes. And Home One continues to get less respect than it deserves.

The author is obviously aware of the online tech discussion, so why does this stuff go uncorrected?

Posted: 2007-12-13 06:51pm
by Fingolfin_Noldor
Well, the ISDII stats are as follows:
5 heavy Turbolaser Batteries
5 Turbolaser batteries
4 Heavy Ion cannon batteries
2 tractor beam batteres

Heavy Turbolaser Battery (5 gunners)
Attack: +15, Dmg 11d10x5

Turbolaser Battery (5 gunners)
Attack: +15, Dmg 8d10x5

Heavy Ion Battery (5 gunners)
Attack: +15, Dmg 3d10x5

Tractor Beam Battery (5 gunners)
Attack: +15
What puzzles me is whether this is actual game mechanics and not game mechanics. I recall there were 6 turrets + 2 Quads Turbos. So ..... I have no idea what it all means. In the text later, they mention "20 turbolaser batteries". Either this is a typo, or God knows.

As for the Vengeance, no idea. In verbatim: "The latter vessel served as the command ship for the Dark Jedi named Jerec, and though visually distinctive, it had the same specifications as the other SSDs."

Well, the Executor stats are as follows:
25 heavy Turbolaser Batteries
25 Turbolaser batteries
25 Heavy Ion cannon batteries
8 tractor beam batteres
25 Heavy Concussion Missile Batteries

Heavy Turbolaser Battery (5 gunners)
Attack: +15, Dmg 11d10x5

Turbolaser Battery (5 gunners)
Attack: +15, Dmg 8d10x5

Heavy Ion Battery (5 gunners)
Attack: +15, Dmg 3d10x5

Tractor Beam Battery (5 gunners)
Attack: +15

Heavy Concussion Missile Battery (5 gunners)
Attack: +15, Dmg 10d10x5
I pretty much like it that the CMs are similar power to a turbolaser. Makes hell a lot more sense now. Note that for the Lusankya, she traded 10 Heavy Turbos and 15 Concussion missile launchers for 25 point defence laser cannon batteries.

Posted: 2007-12-13 09:11pm
by 000
Any length given for Pellys?

Posted: 2007-12-13 09:15pm
by Fingolfin_Noldor
000 wrote:Any length given for Pellys?
Length wasn't given, but stated to be less than that of a ISD. Shocking, yes I know.

Even more shocking was the 6mth consumables. I have no idea whether that is a typo, or ....

Re: Starships of the Galaxy (New)

Posted: 2007-12-13 09:29pm
by Warsie
Fingolfin_Noldor wrote: I am aware of that picture. The book itself had a small copy of it.
okay, thx.
The only thing that comes to mind is, what the B-wing is capable of carrying that can penetrate the shielding. The damage done is quite understandable if the particle shields are down.
If X-wing Alliance and such are reputable here (people here hate the "fighter wankery" and such); there are "heavy rockets" and "space bombs" which could be focused on a certain portion of the ship; a weakly-shielded portion that were synchronized when fired and such would impact the shield in quick succession; temporarily taking that shield down.

Also the book states a CRS was also involved; so that could have weakened the shields.

I also forgot to add in; the old Essential Chronology says that was the Devastator that was destroyed....no, that was another picture with Devastator being attacked with more than B-wings; sorry.

EDIT: I forgot as well. I think there was another McQuarrie painting just like that; instead the DS was half-built and the B-wings looked more like from the movies... I think.

EDIT 2: That scene has been done in other scenes; interestingly the ROTJ Star Wars Manga before Ackbar orders all fire on Executor; they have a bunch of scenes interestingly similar (well one of them) involving a group of B-wings.

EDIT 3: What is your avatar?

Posted: 2007-12-13 09:39pm
by Stark
It's not 'hating fighter wankery' to ignore game mechanics. I'd like to ask where exactly a B-wing is supposed to stow this ordnance, since it's a few wings, a cockpit and an engine block. You know, how the games show the warheads coming out of the front of the engine? lol

Frankly, since it's not in the movie and stupid, I just ignore it. It's rationalisable, but it's not canon and it supports all kinds of nonsensical bullshit so I hate it.

The stats look pretty random. It seems they just replaced 'gun' with 'battery' and used similarly meaningless numbers to give them wiggle room. Not that anyone expected more.

Posted: 2007-12-13 09:42pm
by Warsie
Fingolfin_Noldor wrote: Even more shocking was the 6mth consumables. I have no idea whether that is a typo, or ....
You could say that was back before the Sith-Imperial War when the Empire was "in peace". Also given how the Sith-Imperial War went the GA was really busy with secessionist movements and the Empire did not need to rely as much with long-range deployments; many were willing to help....

didn't NR warships have similar stats?

Posted: 2007-12-13 09:45pm
by Warsie
Stark wrote:It's not 'hating fighter wankery' to ignore game mechanics. I'd like to ask where exactly a B-wing is supposed to stow this ordnance, since it's a few wings, a cockpit and an engine block. You know, how the games show the warheads coming out of the front of the engine? lol

Frankly, since it's not in the movie and stupid, I just ignore it. It's rationalisable, but it's not canon and it supports all kinds of nonsensical bullshit so I hate it.
I remember someone talking about extra pods added onto the B-wings; in a similar way as extra fuel was added on the S-foils of X-wings

Posted: 2007-12-13 09:59pm
by GrandAdmiralJello
If they haven't specified exactly how large a battery is then they're being pretty lazy. At least the Starship battles specifications for Executor upscaled the individual guns into several thousands, which made sense.

Now it's difficult to see if the new figures are sensible or unreasonable.

Posted: 2007-12-13 10:03pm
by Fingolfin_Noldor
GrandAdmiralJello wrote:If they haven't specified exactly how large a battery is then they're being pretty lazy. At least the Starship battles specifications for Executor upscaled the individual guns into several thousands, which made sense.

Now it's difficult to see if the new figures are sensible or unreasonable.
It's quite possible they are just trying to avoid the issue altogether.
warsie wrote:didn't NR warships have similar stats?
If by anything, the Pellaeon is practically a clone of a Nebula Star Destroyer, with greater troop carrying capacity, and practically similar design traits, like low profile etc. etc.

Posted: 2007-12-13 10:04pm
by GrandAdmiralJello
Seems likely. That's why I think it's lazy of them.

Posted: 2007-12-13 10:17pm
by Illuminatus Primus
So the Executor has only 5 times the heavy batteries of the ISD? Jesus, I can't believe there are fanboys who cling to every RPG stat as the essence of the canonical warship.

Posted: 2007-12-13 10:21pm
by GrandAdmiralJello
Weapon: Turbolasers (2,000, fire-linked in groups of 8 ); Fire Arc: 20 batteries front, 15 batteries right, 15 batteries left, Attack Bonus: +2 (–8 size, +2 crew, +2 fire control, +4 battery fire), Damage: 7d10x5, Max Range: Long.

Weapon: Heavy turbolasers (2,000, fire-linked in groups of 8 ); Fire Arc: 20 batteries front, 10 batteries right, 10 batteries left, 10 batteries rear; Attack Bonus: +6 (–8 size, +2 crew, +8 fire control, +4 battery fire); Damage: 10d10x5; Max Range: Long.

Weapon: Assault concussion missile tubes (250, 30 missiles each); Fire Arc: 10 front, 15 right, 15 left, 10 rear; Damage: 9d10x5; Missile Quality: Ordinary (+5).

Weapon: Heavy ion cannons (250); Fire Arc: 20 batteries front, 10 batteries right, 10 batteries left, 10 batteries rear; Attack Bonus: +6 (–8 size, +2 crew, +8 fire control, +4 battery fire); Damage: 8d10x2; Max Range: Long.

Weapon: Tractor beams (40); Fire Arc: 20 front, 10 right, 10 left; Attack Bonus: +2 (–8 size, +2 crew, +8 fire control); Damage: Special; Max Range: Short.

Weapon: Point laser cannons (500, point defense); Fire Arc: 25 batteries front, 25 batteries left, 25 batteries right, 25 batteries rear; Attack Bonus: +14 (+0 size, +2 crew, +8 fire control, +4 battery fire); Damage: 2d10x2; Max Range: Point blank.
Remember that? That was nice for the whole five minutes it was canon.

RPG damage statistics are useless, but it seems that this new guide is going for the "less but more powerful" approach.

Posted: 2007-12-13 10:39pm
by Illuminatus Primus
Don't you know, Jello, its CANON. If RPG stats are CANON that's all that matters. No argument, no discussion, no reason. They must be equal to everything else.

Posted: 2007-12-13 10:53pm
by GrandAdmiralJello
Hm, actually, things may not have changed much at all.

If we look at the armaments listed there, we see 45 total batteries in various overlapping arcs. The new figures list 25 batteries total: that could work just fine with the 20 forward batteries.

20 forward, 5 aft. The flanks each split the 20 for 10 and then add some from the back.

Either way, there's enough to say that 25 batteries = 2000 turbolasers and Executor hasn't been reverted to minimalism at all. They just wanted to be sneaky about it.

Posted: 2007-12-13 10:54pm
by Illuminatus Primus
We still have the ISD with 5 heavy batteries to the Executor's 25. What gives? The Executor ought to have at least 100 times the total firepower of the ISD.

Posted: 2007-12-13 10:59pm
by Fingolfin_Noldor
Illuminatus Primus wrote:We still have the ISD with 5 heavy batteries to the Executor's 25. What gives? The Executor ought to have at least 100 times the total firepower of the ISD.
I personally don't get it either. What's more, they threw in this weird tidbit about the Lusankya trading heavy weapons for defensive weapons. I have no clue why they did that.

Looks like another round of idiocy defending these stats.
GrandAdmiralJello wrote:
Weapon: Turbolasers (2,000, fire-linked in groups of 8 ); Fire Arc: 20 batteries front, 15 batteries right, 15 batteries left, Attack Bonus: +2 (–8 size, +2 crew, +2 fire control, +4 battery fire), Damage: 7d10x5, Max Range: Long.

Weapon: Heavy turbolasers (2,000, fire-linked in groups of 8 ); Fire Arc: 20 batteries front, 10 batteries right, 10 batteries left, 10 batteries rear; Attack Bonus: +6 (–8 size, +2 crew, +8 fire control, +4 battery fire); Damage: 10d10x5; Max Range: Long.

Weapon: Assault concussion missile tubes (250, 30 missiles each); Fire Arc: 10 front, 15 right, 15 left, 10 rear; Damage: 9d10x5; Missile Quality: Ordinary (+5).

Weapon: Heavy ion cannons (250); Fire Arc: 20 batteries front, 10 batteries right, 10 batteries left, 10 batteries rear; Attack Bonus: +6 (–8 size, +2 crew, +8 fire control, +4 battery fire); Damage: 8d10x2; Max Range: Long.

Weapon: Tractor beams (40); Fire Arc: 20 front, 10 right, 10 left; Attack Bonus: +2 (–8 size, +2 crew, +8 fire control); Damage: Special; Max Range: Short.

Weapon: Point laser cannons (500, point defense); Fire Arc: 25 batteries front, 25 batteries left, 25 batteries right, 25 batteries rear; Attack Bonus: +14 (+0 size, +2 crew, +8 fire control, +4 battery fire); Damage: 2d10x2; Max Range: Point blank.
Remember that? That was nice for the whole five minutes it was canon.

RPG damage statistics are useless, but it seems that this new guide is going for the "less but more powerful" approach.
Do we now have TWO conflicting stats?

Posted: 2007-12-13 11:00pm
by GrandAdmiralJello
And the Lusankya still falls to fighters.

But yes, the 5 to 25 thing makes zero sense.

EDIT: Yes. Those stats came out late last year.

Info here

Posted: 2007-12-13 11:02pm
by Fingolfin_Noldor
GrandAdmiralJello wrote:And the Lusankya still falls to fighters.

But yes, the 5 to 25 thing makes zero sense.

EDIT: Yes. Those stats came out late last year.

Info here
Oh those.

So what the heck is going on now? Has the monster grown a few more heads? :x

Posted: 2007-12-13 11:03pm
by Stark
Warsie wrote: I remember someone talking about extra pods added onto the B-wings; in a similar way as extra fuel was added on the S-foils of X-wings
Great source there. Too bad the picture isn't in the movie or even suggested, the game mechanics are irrelevant, and everything we see shows us the opposite (even the fucking huge ARC-170s being 10 times the volume of B-wings and apparently doing the same job). Bah EU sucks, etc etc.