StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Since it's officially released info, I don't know if the spoiler alert is needed... The Official Site has, through The Star Wars Show and an article, released info on two new vehicles that are showing up in The Last Jedi.

One of the vehicles is a walker that "walks" on its knuckles:

StarWars.com wrote:The AT-M6 (All Terrain MegaCaliber Six), named for the laser cannon on its back, dwarfs the Empire’s AT-AT; its simian-like gait stabilizes the cannon.

The other is a First Order capital ship with a huge gun for planetary bombardments:

StarWars.com wrote:The Dreadnought is classified as a Mandator IV-class warship, featuring two enormous orbital autocannons for large-scale bombardments and 24 point-defense anti-aircraft cannons on its dorsal surface. It’s also big — 7,669.72 meters in length, or 25,162.8 feet.

That it's a newer variant of a Mandator-class ship is of course interesting. The armament seems to be... insufficient and I must say that the large gun (a picture of the ship is found in the article linked to below) looks a bit strange.

StarWars.com

Not sure I like the design for the mandatory, seems like a drastic change in both role and previous descriptions. I do like that they are using the name, which implies that the Disney timeline has the other 3 mandators.

I know its me being overly critical but I feel like this Mandator is more closely related to the Resurgence class ships vs something along the lines of the Acclimators or the Venators which it probably would be more closely related to due to the first Mandators being pre clone wars era ships. It just feels like its got both too much detail and yet at the same time not enough detail at all to make it distinguishable.

I find both these designs boring.

I can't really find anything else to say about them.

Just when you thought the AT-AT was easy to tip over. Though this one does at least take advantage of its height advantage relative to an AT-AT.

Hate hate hate. A long design rant about why: http://fractalsponge.net/?p=2568

Terrible art aside, who the hell thought you needed a turret to engage a planet? Why not simply make the gun a spinal mount? This just looks like someone trying to be original by building a smaller, triangular Death Star. Almost as bad as the Torpedo Sphere, and even that had a reason for existence that made some sense. Why would you need a huge ass gun to do what a Star Destroyer can do in ten minutes? And how do 24 guns cover 8 kilometers of length?

On the AT-M6, everything down to the name is stupid (Megacaliber? Seriously? It's a laser.) Why the new walking style? What's wrong with nice, flat, level feet? Why is the cannon pointing up? It negates the height advantage entirely and destabilizes the whole thing from recoil. If indirect fire laser artillery is possible, then it makes much more sense to put it on something that doesn't move, or is at least a bit more stable. This whole thing is just bad.

In their defense (a faltering, uncommitted, easily-distracted defense with a "whatever" attitude), this is their chance to fuck with Star Wars canon, they are going to leave their mark (although "a skid mark in underwear" should have been identified as below minimum effort).

WALKER:

The front legs are very heavily armored, and you can see almost up to the forearm. And again, that’s my take on, “You can’t take these down with a snowspeeder.” They’ve armored up the front or maybe they just cut the ropes because they are too big now.

Not sure how adding more armor to the front legs makes it harder for snowspeeders to tangle them up in cables. A snowspeeder should still be capable of flying circles around one of these things while the Walker is unable to do anything about it just like the old Walkers.
It is not like the weapons of the snowspeeders were shooting out the front legs so... what is the armor actually defending against ?

Benefit of doubt: The armor prevents the cable from latching onto the front leg... so the snowspeeders latch onto the rear legs... and back to faceplanting walker. Not seeing much of a design improvement there.

Logically, if they are going with the idea that Bigger = Cannot be cabled due to more mass then they could have scaled up an existing AT-AT and left it the fuck alone.
If you were determined to put more weapons on it - some point defence, a shield or multi-directional turrets would have been sensible.
The AT-AT was supposed to be a transport vehicle - It seems this got hijacked into turning them into Main Battle Tanks

The way it looks: I would half expect the thing to sit up on it's ass like a Dog so it can fire the cannons into the air / space. Either as a potential artilery option or a very cumbersome Anti-Air function. That or these armored legs can be used as elevators and the Walker forcefully breaches with it's paws.

SPACESHIP:

Kevin Jenkins: Yeah, exactly. I spent a lot of time looking at real-world references. Looking at the big battleships, the Yamato and all those kinds of things from World War II, and the way those guns would lower or rise. So the idea of them coming out the bottom of the Dreadnought became a design feature, because rather than just being there pointing down, we wanted to imply the danger that they sort of unlocked themselves and then moved into position. Just like the big 14-inch guns you used to see on those old battleships. It was a capitol ship. That was what we were kind of going for.

This is the fundamental issue. This ship is being built around the guns and those guns are being built around a specific concept of looking cool.
This is the same shit that Star Trek Nemesis did with the Scimitar's insanely convoluted method of preparing to fire the super weapon.
Star Trek Into Darkness did this as well with the turrets swivelling onto the Enterprise.

The ship looks like garbage and for all the bullshit... it is completely pointless.
If they are that caught up in trying to remain thematic - Keep the old models and either spruce them up with finer details like making them bigger and / or making a refit.

This is even more frustrating because... what are the actual chances of seeing either of these vehicles beyond a few very specific scenes the story requires ?
All the resources being devoted to making these new models could have been devoted to showing the old models doing more.

Specifically: The standard ISD is supposed to be capable of planetary bombardment and logically should be more than capable of doing so. What does this new ship do with 2 guns that the ISD cannot ?

What's the problem with the art department at Lucasfilm? Is Doug Chiang still the lead artist there?

ray245 wrote: ↑2017-08-26 02:44am What's the problem with the art department at Lucasfilm? Is Doug Chiang still the lead artist there?

He's not listed to have worked with TLJ. Apparently, he's the Vice President and the Executive Creative Director at Lucasfilm these days.

Ooh, new dreadnought!

Hope that this, and the brief glimpses we get of starship combat in the teaser, means we'll be getting a proper fleet action in this film.

A fleet action would be much better if they had good ship designs.

Given that this "dreadnought" is apparently meant as a planetary bombardment ship and/or monitor, it's chances of participating in a true fleet engagement as anything other than a big dumb target seem minimal.

Anyone want to bet we see that dreadnaught get destroyed by Starfighters?

Given that they specifically mentioned those 24 turrets being for fighter defence...yeah, it's going down to Poe and the gang.

And really, two giant kinetic weapons and 24 point-defence guns on a giant fucking dreadnought? Urgh! Fuck you Disney!

EDIT: If that's all you want to give it, fine, but don't call it a Dreadnought, as that conjures up images (even for non Star Wars fans) of big, heavily armoured and heavily armed battleships built to slug it out with other battleships. Not bombard things from afar! That's a damn monitor's job!

The Dreadnought is classified as a Mandator IV-class warship, featuring two enormous orbital autocannons for large-scale bombardments and 24 point-defense anti-aircraft cannons on its dorsal surface. It’s also big — 7,669.72 meters in length, or 25,162.8 feet.

Unless everyone involved in this monstrosity is completely stupid - This sounds like it is only describing the weapons on the underside of the ship.
One would assume the Ventral side will have at least an equal amount of cannons. Not much of a redemption to say the least but the alternative is even more stupid.

Lets build an 8km warship that only has weapons on it's belly which are going to be pointed at a planet... no chance that defending warships or fighters are going to attack from any other direction.
I can fully expect the justification will be that all of the ships power is being devoted to the super-cannons so additional weapons cannot function. Additionally, it is supposed to be escorted so naturally it can barely defend itself.


The design mentality does not bode well for my interest in this new film. It appears the design mentality is to try and "One-Up" the previous films for no apparent reason other than the fanboy desire to add their own mark to Star Wars even when it is stupid. The last film was basically ANH complete with them essentially making a bigger Death Star and a bigger Star Destroyer.

Now... we have a bigger Super Star Destroyer and a bigger AT-AT.

I am having visions of this being the setup for a rehash of the Battle of Hoth and the big super guns being justified as being able to overcome a planetary shield. The new shit ATs are built to defeat Snow speeders. Apparently, none understood that the use of Snow Speeders was an insanely desperate strategy and partly forced by the environmental problems.

I wonder if this film will even recognise that after the events of TFA, X-Wings are literally shown sniping troopers next to friendlies.
With that kind of capability and accuracy, it is going to need one helluva a contortion to justify these bigger ground vehicles as being resistant to spaceship weapons and why no one decides to use spaceships against them.

Instead, perhaps some BIGGER Snow Speeders.... because at this point fuck it.

Eternal_Freedom wrote: ↑2017-08-26 04:32pm Given that they specifically mentioned those 24 turrets being for fighter defence...yeah, it's going down to Poe and the gang.

And really, two giant kinetic weapons and 24 point-defence guns on a giant fucking dreadnought? Urgh! Fuck you Disney!

EDIT: If that's all you want to give it, fine, but don't call it a Dreadnought, as that conjures up images (even for non Star Wars fans) of big, heavily armoured and heavily armed battleships built to slug it out with other battleships. Not bombard things from afar! That's a damn monitor's job!

24 point-defence guns seems light given the swarms of fighters and the relative ineffectiveness of individual anti-star fighter guns in canon, but I don't see why the number of big guns is so important. I mean, a dreadnought in the real world has fewer guns than a Napoleonic man of war, but no one could doubt that the dreadnought is more powerful.

Actually, the armament mix sounds very, very much like that of the Clone Wars-era subjugator class in a sense- two big guns (though the Subjugator's were broadside ion canons, not kinetic weapons) and a bunch of fairly light guns/anti-star fighter armament.

Also, from a vs. debate perspective, don't kinetic guns make this ship a perfect Borg-killer? It wouldn't have mattered much once, and probably still doesn't, but since the ICS numbers got de-canonized in the Great Disney Canon Massacre, and I'm not sure (correct me if I'm wrong) weather they were ever reconfirmed, its nice to be able to have something to point to and say "it doesn't matter how strong the shield are vs. turbolasers, this thing will go right through Borg cubes."

Except there's nothing there saying those autocannon are projectile weapons. Wars uses the term cannon generically for all sorts of weapons. Blaster, laser, ion, turbolaser...'Auto' just means it's a rapid fire one, essentially.

Well, I was going off Eternal_Freedom's post, describing them as kinetic weapons.

Yeah, the use of the term "cannon" means absolutely nothing about the design in Star Wars, I'm well aware.

Sorry, was going exclusively by the information from the link in the OP.

The Romulan Republic wrote: ↑2017-08-26 06:28pm

Eternal_Freedom wrote: ↑2017-08-26 04:32pm Given that they specifically mentioned those 24 turrets being for fighter defence...yeah, it's going down to Poe and the gang.

And really, two giant kinetic weapons and 24 point-defence guns on a giant fucking dreadnought? Urgh! Fuck you Disney!

EDIT: If that's all you want to give it, fine, but don't call it a Dreadnought, as that conjures up images (even for non Star Wars fans) of big, heavily armoured and heavily armed battleships built to slug it out with other battleships. Not bombard things from afar! That's a damn monitor's job!

24 point-defence guns seems light given the swarms of fighters and the relative ineffectiveness of individual anti-star fighter guns in canon, but I don't see why the number of big guns is so important. I mean, a dreadnought in the real world has fewer guns than a Napoleonic man of war, but no one could doubt that the dreadnought is more powerful.

Actually, the armament mix sounds very, very much like that of the Clone Wars-era subjugator class in a sense- two big guns (though the Subjugator's were broadside ion canons, not kinetic weapons) and a bunch of fairly light guns/anti-star fighter armament.

Also, from a vs. debate perspective, don't kinetic guns make this ship a perfect Borg-killer? It wouldn't have mattered much once, and probably still doesn't, but since the ICS numbers got de-canonized in the Great Disney Canon Massacre, and I'm not sure (correct me if I'm wrong) weather they were ever reconfirmed, its nice to be able to have something to point to and say "it doesn't matter how strong the shield are vs. turbolasers, this thing will go right through Borg cubes."

Despite the low official gun counts for the subjugators we see at least dozens of firing point at a time from different sections of the ship in the show, so they are obviously inaccurate and it likely has a very well-rounded armament.

Maybe so. But in terms of having a couple of really heavy guns, plus a bunch of anti-starfighter guns, there is precedent for that much at least.

Mange wrote: ↑2017-08-26 10:02am

ray245 wrote: ↑2017-08-26 02:44am What's the problem with the art department at Lucasfilm? Is Doug Chiang still the lead artist there?

He's not listed to have worked with TLJ. Apparently, he's the Vice President and the Executive Creative Director at Lucasfilm these days.

I think this is where Lucas's departure can be clearly felt. Yes, Lucas was not the one designing those ships, but he's the one offering his ideas on what kind of design is considered acceptable as the director.

So they can dig all the Ralph Macquarrie design for all they want, but I don't think Ralph Macquarrie was the only one responsible for the look of Star Wars. The prequels design was a deliberate choice by Lucas to basically drag all the artists screaming and kicking to do something more interesting than the Z-95 that we saw in the old EU.

Instead of Victory-class, we get the Venator-Class and Accumulator-Class. We get the ARC-170 instead of the Z-95s. I'm not sure if Lucasfilm can find anyone that has a director with a sense of good art director like George Lucas. They are focusing on hiring directors that are more focused on script-writing and actor-direction, but they aren't really hiring directors known for their art direction and visual sense.

I suppose Gareth Edwards is one example, but they reshot the final part of his movie.

PREDATOR490 wrote: ↑2017-08-26 05:16pm

The Dreadnought is classified as a Mandator IV-class warship, featuring two enormous orbital autocannons for large-scale bombardments and 24 point-defense anti-aircraft cannons on its dorsal surface. It’s also big — 7,669.72 meters in length, or 25,162.8 feet.

Unless everyone involved in this monstrosity is completely stupid - This sounds like it is only describing the weapons on the underside of the ship.
One would assume the Ventral side will have at least an equal amount of cannons. Not much of a redemption to say the least but the alternative is even more stupid.

You can count the point defence guns on the dorsal side - there are exactly 24. There are no visible guns on the ventral side, except for the First Order™ GigaCaliber™ Sixty-Nine™ DoubleBenis:DDD™.