ISD Battlewagon

consequences · Post by **consequences** » 2003-02-13 11:29pm

Take an ISD, strip out the hangar bay, the AT-ATs, landing barges, 8500 of the stormtroopers, and however many crew can be replaced by automation without reducing combat efficiency(the Katana fleet slave-rigging would imply a reduction of 7/8ths, but the Dreadnaught was horribly overmanned to begin with, a crew reduction of 1/2 or less for an ISD would be much more likely).
How much additional space would this free up for generators, shields, redundant vital systems, and weapons?
How much more combat effective in a straight Cap-ship fight would the resulting ship be?

jaeger115 · Post by **jaeger115** » 2003-02-13 11:35pm

Without fighters, it'd be weakened, but with the extra power and more turrets, it's possible that the new ISD will put out more watts in its broadside than the old one. But I suspect the old ISD still will be more combat-effective than the new one because of the fighters.

consequences · Post by **consequences** » 2003-02-13 11:44pm

Why do you come to that conclusion? Between Turbolaser flak-bursts, cluster traps, and just turning the Star Destroyer away from the fighters and letting the Engine exhaust kill them, the life expectancy of a fighter strike not made by Rogue Squadron on an ISD is very short.
Also, the meanest Proton Torpedo calcs I have seen still put them at less than a third of the Acclamators Turbolasers, so it would take a strike of at least a hundred torpedo equipped fighters to bring the shields down in one salvo, presuming we weight the odds towards the fighters as much as is conceivably supportable from the available statistics
. In any case, an ISD has a single squadron of TIE bombers normally, capable of putting 24 Concussion missiles into space simultaneously. Their combined total ordnance might barely take down an unmodified ImpStar's shielding, if they survived to make 8 seperate bombing runs, and none of their missiles were shot down on the way in.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2003-02-13 11:49pm

Flak-bursts are a brain bug. A complete non-mechanism for this theory not withstanding, "bursting" of energy bolts should show energy release equal to the content of the bolt.

The multi-gigaton bolts are not bursting that bright. They're shield interactions.

Darth Garden Gnome · Post by **Darth Garden Gnome** » 2003-02-13 11:51pm

Illuminatus Primus wrote:Flak-bursts are a brain bug. A complete non-mechanism for this theory not withstanding, "bursting" of energy bolts should show energy release equal to the content of the bolt.

The multi-gigaton bolts are not bursting that bright. They're shield interactions.

Agreed. Consequences, you do notwant to go down that road. I've been down that road. It's ugly.

consequences · Post by **consequences** » 2003-02-13 11:55pm

Okay, drop the flak-bursts, proximity fused cap-ship torpedos would have the same effect.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2003-02-14 12:11am

PPOR. Where have we seen this tactic ever?

Darth Garden Gnome · Post by **Darth Garden Gnome** » 2003-02-14 12:16am

Illuminatus Primus wrote:PPOR. Where have we seen this tactic ever?

PPOR? Anywho, Diamond Boron missles worked off this principle. It would tak elittle effort to scale it up to "cap-ship" size fi necessary.

consequences · Post by **consequences** » 2003-02-14 12:18am

We have seen fighter missiles repeatedly detonated in the middle of Yuuzhan Vong squadrons, usually to great effect. Cap-ship projectiles would just make a bigger boom.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-02-14 12:56am

consequences wrote: . In any case, an ISD has a single squadron of TIE bombers normally, capable of putting 24 Concussion missiles into space simultaneously. Their combined total ordnance might barely take down an unmodified ImpStar's shielding, if they survived to make 8 seperate bombing runs, and none of their missiles were shot down on the way in.

Thats why you ripple fire your whole payloda in one pass, but use different settings of burn time and evasive path to get them all on target at one point.

TIE bombers however where designed for ground support, shipping strikes was a secondary role.

The Dark · Post by **The Dark** » 2003-02-14 01:46am

Question: What TIE Bombers? According to what I've read, the twin-hulled craft is supposed to be a boarding craft for hostile dockings. I think it was on Saxton's site, but I'm not 100% certain of that (and I lost the bloody URL to go check).

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2003-02-14 02:41am

Heh. heh heh...

Robert Treder · Post by **Robert Treder** » 2003-02-14 03:09am

The Dark wrote:Question: What TIE Bombers? According to what I've read, the twin-hulled craft is supposed to be a boarding craft for hostile dockings. I think it was on Saxton's site, but I'm not 100% certain of that (and I lost the bloody URL to go check).

That's a TIE Bomber.

This is a TIE Shuttle.

The ship on the right in this picture is a TIE Boarding Craft.

There are multiple twin-hulled designs.

Lord Sander · Post by **Lord Sander** » 2003-02-14 07:20pm

Illuminatus Primus wrote:Flak-bursts are a brain bug. A complete non-mechanism for this theory not withstanding, "bursting" of energy bolts should show energy release equal to the content of the bolt.

The multi-gigaton bolts are not bursting that bright. They're shield interactions.

So why do laser bolts burst around a LAAT too far away for it to be shields interacting (if LAATs even have shields, which I doubt). (AotC, chasing Dooku scene.)

Admiral Johnason · Post by **Admiral Johnason** » 2003-02-14 07:56pm

You never remove fighters. While we're on that topic, would it be a good idea to remove the troop bay, landing craft, and a few guns and then replace them with fighter bays, thus making the ISD into a carrier?

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-02-14 09:26pm

Why bother? The Empire has no shortage of conscript crew, and no shortage of space on an Imperator. You've turned an excellent multi role vessel into a single role one via a poor means. Better to start from scratch rather then having to deal with adding sutff into non optimal locations.

Post by **weemadando** » 2003-02-14 09:46pm

Damnit, I was thinking you meant creating a MASSIVE version of the b5 raider battlewagon that carried ISDs...

SPOOFE · Post by **SPOOFE** » 2003-02-14 10:04pm

Just looking at the internal guts of an ISD from the original ICS, it looks like, if you were to remove all the landing bays and half of the living space, you could probably have enough room to almost double the size of the main reactor.

Assuming that double the size means double the available energy, well... make of that what you will.

Grand Admiral Thrawn · Post by **Grand Admiral Thrawn** » 2003-02-14 10:07pm

Lord Sander wrote:
Illuminatus Primus wrote:Flak-bursts are a brain bug. A complete non-mechanism for this theory not withstanding, "bursting" of energy bolts should show energy release equal to the content of the bolt.

The multi-gigaton bolts are not bursting that bright. They're shield interactions.
So why do laser bolts burst around a LAAT too far away for it to be shields interacting (if LAATs even have shields, which I doubt). (AotC, chasing Dooku scene.)

Those looked like explosives, not energy blasts.

Lord Sander · Post by **Lord Sander** » 2003-02-14 10:26pm

Grand Admiral Thrawn wrote:
Lord Sander wrote:
Illuminatus Primus wrote:Flak-bursts are a brain bug. A complete non-mechanism for this theory not withstanding, "bursting" of energy bolts should show energy release equal to the content of the bolt.

The multi-gigaton bolts are not bursting that bright. They're shield interactions.
So why do laser bolts burst around a LAAT too far away for it to be shields interacting (if LAATs even have shields, which I doubt). (AotC, chasing Dooku scene.)
Those looked like explosives, not energy blasts.

The Geonosian fighter only has a laser cannon.

Post by **Kuja** » 2003-02-14 10:26pm

Lord Sander wrote:So why do laser bolts burst around a LAAT too far away for it to be shields interacting (if LAATs even have shields, which I doubt). (AotC, chasing Dooku scene.)

LAATs do have shields.

Grand Admiral Thrawn · Post by **Grand Admiral Thrawn** » 2003-02-14 10:28pm

Lord Sander wrote:
The Geonosian fighter only has a laser cannon.

Which is a Modular Orb and by definition can be switched with a different weapon.

Darth Garden Gnome · Post by **Darth Garden Gnome** » 2003-02-14 10:37pm

SW shields can extend away fromt here hull to great distances, which in turn would allow blasts to dissapate on a greater surface volume. Thus, said blasts can "explode" some distance away from a ship and still be interacting in shields.

nightmare · Post by **nightmare** » 2003-02-15 04:56am

Darth Garden Gnome wrote:SW shields can extend away fromt here hull to great distances, which in turn would allow blasts to dissapate on a greater surface volume. Thus, said blasts can "explode" some distance away from a ship and still be interacting in shields.

That's the excuse, yes. Nevermind that it means they should never use hull-hugging shields since they would be less useful (which is what they normally do). Nevermind that they increase the target area. Frankly, I find it much less idiotic to read the quotes and interpret them as they mean what they say rather than making up excuses against flak-bursting because it doesn't fit your particular view of how it should work. But alas, I skipped that debate because there's no point in debating people who refuse to be objective to other possibilities. (Which, I belive, is what Connor McLeod accused me of doing. The old scotsman is a hardhead). They can keep their interpretation, I still haven't seen any good reason to change mine. Which I WOULD DO, if I see something better than "it can't work because I say so". I bet I will get someone jumping on that train again, but I currently see no point in debating it.

To at least TRY to avoid a thread hijack, I will get back to the original question.. instead of converting ISDs, multi-purpose vessels, into battlewagons, why not deploy some Allegiance-class SDs instead.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2003-02-15 12:00pm

nightmare wrote:
Darth Garden Gnome wrote:SW shields can extend away fromt here hull to great distances, which in turn would allow blasts to dissapate on a greater surface volume. Thus, said blasts can "explode" some distance away from a ship and still be interacting in shields.
That's the excuse, yes. Nevermind that it means they should never use hull-hugging shields since they would be less useful (which is what they normally do). Nevermind that they increase the target area. Frankly, I find it much less idiotic to read the quotes and interpret them as they mean what they say rather than making up excuses against flak-bursting because it doesn't fit your particular view of how it should work. But alas, I skipped that debate because there's no point in debating people who refuse to be objective to other possibilities. (Which, I belive, is what Connor McLeod accused me of doing. The old scotsman is a hardhead). They can keep their interpretation, I still haven't seen any good reason to change mine. Which I WOULD DO, if I see something better than "it can't work because I say so". I bet I will get someone jumping on that train again, but I currently see no point in debating it.

They'd have to use non-hull-hugging shields in a open body craft like the LAAT due to the inherent harmful shield interactions, dipshit.

Stop whining and bitching.

If a....2 kiloton energy bolt exploded its energy, it would create a 2 kiloton blast. "Flakbursts" are equal to maybe a grenade or a pack of chemical explosives.

Conservation of energy asstard.

Besides, if you want to box in a target, you shoot normal bolts around it. If you want to hurt a target, you shoot it, itself.

2 kilotons in a spherical blast would be enormously less efficient than the 2 kiloton bolts.

Thus, supposed flakbursts do not observe the characteristics that should be associated with a flakburst (equal energy as carrier bolt) and are completely useless and no one would design such a thing.

The only other available conclusion is that they are shield interactions.

If shield interactions are harmful, the only thing you could do in an open body craft like the LAAT is have non-hull-hugging shields.

And in some cases possibly mass-driver projectiles (as GAT suggested).

Don't bullshit without thinking again.