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I was looking at the Wookiepedia article for the Republic Blockade Runner. It claimed that it had to be from 100m to 150m "because it's a corvette". I did quick pixel count on the length of the ship and the size of the bridge view ports and if I correctly remember the size of the viewports in game it should be much closer to 200m. Of course the view ports you see in-game are from the "Hammerhead"-cruisers so I'm probably wrong. Does anyone have a better scaling of the ship?

Also wookiepedia claims that the Inexpugnable-class tactical command ship is 3,100m, but the Hammerhead's are only 315m. It sure looks like it would take a lot less then 10 Hammerhead's bow to stern to match that length. Maybe four just eyeballing it.

Does anyone have better numbers for these three ships?

Give it a couple days-- the Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide just came out, so stuff's still being added. I think the "blockade runner" gets an entry in the guide-- though I'm not certain-- and if so someone'll put up the proper length eventually.

The lengths for both the Hammerhead and Inexpugnable came from the same guide, though, yeah-- the Inexie seems a bit overly large.

Well, I've been asking if the Foray-class is that ship. It's set at 155 meters in the book.

So they didn't give the Hammerheads a new name in the guide? That's weird. If only we had some visual reference that we could scale off of. For either one so we could scale them ourselves.

What's Foray-class VT?

The thing in the OP. It was confirmed by someone with the book. 155 meters long.

The "Republic Blockade Runner" is now the Foray-Class Corrvette and is 155 meters long. Cool thanks VT

Man, can't the EU come up with any ships that aren't piddly shits?

It looks like it should be bigger, even if only much closer to 200m. I think the people who right these guides just pull number's out their asses.

If the command ship is really 3km in diameter then the hammerhead's should be ~750m and the "Foray" closer to 500m. All that's just from eyeballing so if they hadn't just crapped numbers out it would have been better. Also that would have pushed the proto-interdictors much closer to SD length. Visually the ships look much closer to this then they do to 155 meters and 310 meters. [sarcasm] But notice how nice and easy it is? The support ship is half the length of the main cruiser and the main cruiser is one tenth the length of the command ship! It's nice and orderly!! [/sarcasm]

Illuminatus Primus wrote:Man, can't the EU come up with any ships that aren't piddly shits?

Yes, but those are gigantic shits, viz. the Eclipse.

The Eclipse isn't half as shitty or stupid or sad as stuff like the Mandalorian ships and "Dreadnaughts" (they can't even spell it correctly) or even worse - dare I say it - stuff from the old Tales of the Jedi series.

If we had a bunch of one-off dick-compensating ships in a hierarchy trying to outdo each other (you know, the wank common to every franchise except SW), at least it'd be easier to explain their role or give them a logical job rather than sad ass 300 or 600 meter turds.

Smaller ships in greater numbers means you can cover more space simultaneously. In an era of peace the biggest threat would be pirates. Most pirates we see operate small craft, either "Q-ships" or old surplussed military models that were designed to hunt pirates and smugglers in the first place. So in peace time you shouldn't need something much bigger then the 150m-300m combat ships cause they're only facing freighters and patrol craft. Have some 600m capital ships for when you face the occasional larger enemy or find a pirate base to attack.

Larger ships (1km+) are only really useful when fighting a war, where you're going to be facing enemy navy's, not pirates. We see this in the PT, and the PT EU where the Republic Judicial's use the Republic Cruisers which are only 115m long IIRC. And one of the most famous pirates of the day (I think Cohl was his name) has a bunch of fighters and his largest ship is a gunship. I can't remember if the exact length was ever mentioned, but for some reason I think it was about 75m long. Once the war started in earnest the Republic starts building and employing much larger warships to counter the Separatists warships (which they'd been building for years because Sideous knew the war was coming and had his minions prepare). It's only with Palaptine at the helm of the Empire that we see a series of larger warships.

If earlier conflicts didn't last long enough for the truly big ships to be completed and sent to the front lines then all we should see is fleets of smaller ships pulled of anti-interdiction duty and pressed into front line service backed by a few larger ships acting as command ships and the center of the line. Which is what we tend to see until the Imperial era.

We both know that all of that is really just strained post facto excuses for small-minded authors.

We need a blockade runner that's a fast battleship. One that runs blockades by scattering them.

Darth Raptor wrote:We need a blockade runner that's a fast battleship. One that runs blockades by scattering them.

Something like a SW version of the panzerschiffe, which could theoretically outfight any faster vessel and outrun any slower vessels?

True, but in the case of this "Republic Blockade Runner" which has been apperantly been named the Foray class corvette, the Hammerhead and the Inexpungable class command ship, this theory fits very well. The Foray and the Hammerhead are perfectly designed for the pursuit of smaller ships.

A) The large drives and the linear hull designs mean greater straight line acceleration since most of the structural stress will be from compression sources rather then shearing forces.
B) The wider set of the engines should also help the turn radius
C) The bow chaser turbolasers are very larger and since they are mounted in an almost spinal configuration any recoil will also be translated to primarily compression force on the hull, meaning that heavier guns then normal for that size can be mounted.

Unfortunately while this makes them perfect for chasing down smaller ships it leaves them very weak against ships of the same size or larger. They are forced to make fast slashing attacks with their bow guns, but once they start their turns for the next attack run their flanks and rear are open to turreted enemy fire.

The Inexpungable makes a nice compliment for them since it appears to be designed to engage enemy's from any direction with almost the exact same fire power in each direction. You could use several of them to directly engage the enemy while the smaller faster ships attack the enemy flanks.

Quick question on the Inexpungable class. Those large bulges that the heavy turbolasers are mounted on could those be reactor assemblies? If so having a dedicated reactor for each "battery" would increase both the rate and strength of the turbolasers. Also if it's really 3,100 meters long those are some huge guns. Bigger then anything we see in any of the movies with the possible exception of the Munificient bow guns.

Back to my theory. So before the start of the Mandalorian wars the Republic Navy is equipped with these three ship classes. They work perfectly for the job they do. Chasing pirates and the Inexpungable is big enough with enough fire power that they think they're good. Then the War starts and all of a sudden their cruisers and corvettes are getting their asses handed to them in large scale fleet engagements and any time they bring in an Inexpungable their enemy jumps away. A new design is need, enter the Leviathan.

Larger then the cruisers but smaller the the command ships these new battleships are designed specifically for fleet engagements. Heavy broadside capability replaces the bow chasers allowing them more freedom in how they maneuver while still bringing guns to bear. Heavier shielding gives them the survivability needed in large scale fleet engagements. While the addition of grav-well generators allows them to keep the enemy from running to hyperspace.

Similar story for the Centurion Class. The Inexpungable lacks the medium and light turbolasers to engage larger numbers of smaller corvette, destroyer and similar or smaller classes. It's massive cannon's become a liability since there's nothing (that I've seen) in the Mandalorian armada of a similar size. The Centurion is designed to replace the Inexpungable (according to wookieepedia) and lacks the super heavy cannons. It's smaller and relies on medium and light turbolasers since it doesn't need anything heavier. Since its smaller it should also be cheaper to produce.

Before the fleet can switch over to the Leviathan and Centurion, Revan defeats the Mandalorians at Malachor V ending the war. A few of the new vessels are already in the fleet and are deployed to Malachor V in order to give the Republic an edge. One of those is the Ravager which is later salvaged by a Dark Lord of the Sith. Another vessel, (Revan's flagship?) the Leviathan survives and becomes the core design of the new Sith fleets.

I know I'm filling in some of the blanks with assumptions and maybe there's a source that completely invalidates everything I just posted. If there is I'm sure someone will bring it up.

They didn't really cover much of anything from the TOTJ, which could seriously use some updating, however you still have some larger sith and republic vessels that are not covered (including the republic cruiser seen in the dark lords of the sith which could be multiple km long)

I am mainly disappointed in the size of the mandalorian dreadnaught, after some discussion with Dustin Weaver (the artist that drew most of the ships in the ongoing KOTOR comics) and some sketches he gave me for reference I was very tempted to say it was overall longer than the Inexpugnable, but it is about a third the size it should be in the end.... The basilikan battleship doesn't bother me as much because it is pretty tall and the reactor would be rather large inside the football helmet shaped hull (at least on par with an ISD before efficiency adjustments)

The Inexpugnable is an incredibly massive craft (well into the GCW era Star Cruiser, star battleship range), if those are reactors with integrated guns, they are utterly enormous (approaching the size of entire mon cal cruisers) even assuming inefficiencies in gunnery you could pretty much look at it as having 6 munifiscent bow guns but with adequate generation to keep them fed.

I have no problem with the Hammerhead size (it was corvette sized in the games, there is no reason to make it larger, it had some decent anti fighter weaponry and two larger front facing guns, but it really is just a light patrol vessel) So I would complain more about the lack of a good mid range workhorse frigate in the 400-600m range. (which maybe the leviathan was supposed to address?) the Centurion fits nicely into a fleet escort for the Inexpugnable essentially as an analogue to a victory star destroyer.

I'd pretty much agree with the previous post otherwise, possibly revan took the leviathan specifically because of the grav well would be useful.

basically I think what we see with the republic at this time is similar to the state it was in before the clone wars, the local navies are providing most of the assault deterrent and the republic is essentially playing galactic cop and peace keeper on the worlds it sees as valuable. When the Mandalorian wars start becoming a problem to republic member planets, the locals are unprepared for concentrated assaults and the republic are utterly unprepared to defend against hit and run strip mining tactics (the levithan design would become a key element in stopping the mandalorian mobility) The mandalorians also have no qualms about depopulating worlds simply to send a message or Stripping worlds for resources and this would be terrifying to the republic populace.

In fact this leaves plenty of room for unseen battlewagon vessels to be parked in orbit around key worlds as wetnurses to scared populaces, because the Mandalorians would be bold enough to strike anywhere just for the sport of it and need something of incredible deterrent that would be able to decimate their mobility.

If the Inexpungable is that big why does it have so few heavy, medium and light turbolasers? Where's the point defense? Don't get me wrong I think it's a really cool ship and I love the idea of a KotOR era vessel having that kind of firepower, its just the gaps in defenses.

As for the Hammerhead and the Foray the only problem I had with its size was that, the rough scaling I did made it seem longer. I also got the impression from the game that the Hammerhead was bigger then a corvette. It seemed to fill the role that the Imperator does in the Empire. A long range stand alone patrol vessel that was also the backbone of the fleet. Not some piddly CR90 analog. I don't really have a problem with the Foray being a CR90 analog, it's just the quick scaling I did made it look more like 200m. Not really a big complaint since it seems to fill that kind of support role in the game, just hoping it was a little longer.

I don't know if the wookieepedia numbers for the weapons are accurate but they are extremely minimalistic. Unless their assuming multiple gun batteries like real world artillery. According to Wookiepedia (again I don't know if there numbers are correct) the Centurion only has 6 medium turbolaser batteries, 6 ion cannon batteries, tractor beams and proton torpedo launchers. That's for a 1,200 meter warship! The Leviathan is even worse 4 turblasers for a 600m warship? Impossible! Especially when you can see the whole side of the ship is lined with quad-barreled turbolasers from front to bow.

Once I get back from deployment I'm going to watch the cut scenes on my computer that can actually play KotOR and figure out the actual number of guns, etc.

I do like the semi-diversifying of the fleets, with Inexpugnables being Lucrehulk size (and a nice Rendili connection with the Lucrehulk's engines), the Centurion being slightly bigger than a Venator (but more massive?), and 600m and 318m cruisers being produced up the vazoo. I think they spend 10 days or so on each Hammerhead. And the Foray-class was made to flood the spaceways before the Mandos showed up.
On top of that, the 5 initial Inexpugnables were just the prototypes, the production got underway after the Swiftsure became the standard.

Also, re: the dreadnaught. It's 1,360 meters, sure, but the thing is shaped like a brick. It's got to be several times more massive than an Imperator, for sure. Even the old TOTJ battleship seems massive despite being 752 meters long. It stretches out in three dimensions, almost like a core ship.

was the Swiftsure the name of one of the prototypes or is it a completely different class?

What's the Rendili/Lucrehulk connection? Hoersch-Kessel manufactures the Lucrehulk IIRC.

where did you read 10 days for a Hammerhead?

Sure the diversifying is nice, but the number of weapons on each ship is ridiculously small. That needs to be changed stat

It's refitted after the Courageous goes down. Becomes the template for the production model.

The Lucrehulk's engines are made by Rendili. According to people who read the book, Hammerheads are numerous, with one being turned out every 10 days.

I really don't care about weapons-numbers. I care about weapon-capabilities.

I didn't know that about the Lucrehulk.

Do you know what the difference is between the prototypes and the production models?

I agree with you that the number is less important then the capabilities of the weapons. Still 6 medium turbolaser batteries for a 1,200 meter ship is a ridiculous number, no matter how fast and how powerful those turbolasers are. Unless it's a larger number of guns slaved to 6 different firing computers kind of like the Hapan Battle Dragons.

Do you remember where you heard 10 days for the Hammerhead production?

Yes, the fleet junkies thread on tfn. It's from the book according to the poster, who's also a generally reliable guy.

Cool thanks

If SW is at a technological plateau for most of its know history, how well would these 3,000 year old ships match up against their modern counterparts?

CR90 vs Foray

Nebulon-B vs Hammerhead

Leviathan vs Rendili Dreadnaught

Inexpungable vs Lucrehulk

mando dread is between 14 e6 and 18e6 depending on the thickness of the front and rear blade so it is very tiny, and the reactor is probably 1e6
to be ISD volume/ reactor volume it needs to be 2400m

leviathan is 11 e6 with probably a 1e6 reactor

Ravager is about 50e6 with a 4e6 reactor