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In Star By Star mentions the Bilbringi Shipyards builds roughly 500 ships, mostly escorts like corvette to frigate size and at least two star destroyers.
For SW universe I find that to be a very low number for a major shpyard. It was also stated NR were loosing ships faster than they could replace them. That’s odd.

NR does control Kuat Drive Yards, Mon Calamari shipyards, Rendili shipyards and probably some other major ones. If these shipyards helped the Empire to reach the million figure of warships in 20 years than shouldn't the NR have at least tens of thousands more ships since the YV entered the galaxy to Star By Star, that is about two years time I think.
Apparently EU books scales the ship figures down considerably.

I find the numbers of ships in the books to be very low. Wouldn’t be reasonable to think that Kuat Drive Yards alone could build ships at a much faster rate and numbers than what the YV can?

The fact that the NR is losing ships faster than they can replace them shouldn't really come as a surprise. In times of heavy fighting, both sides typically lose material faster than it can be replaced.

With regards to the shipyards themselves, I don't see that there's a particular problem. Bilbringi isn't the largest shipyard by a longshot, and there are numerous other important worlds that produce starships for the NR cause. If you've read through Destiny's Way, the book mentions a battle involving dozens of squadrons of capital ships on both sides, which would actually be significant given that it represents only the force that both sides can spare from their huge defensive front lines.

Then there's always the money issue. Ships aren't free and I get the distinct impression the NR doesn't have as heavy taxes as the Empire did.

Sluis Van, Gyndine, Fondor, etc.

Luke also mentions in a later book that the NR's war production is finally up and running, and that the NR is building ships faster than it was losing them. I think he said that in Destiny's Way, but I can't remember for sure.

Still, the usual EU minimalism is rearing its ugly head.

consequences wrote:Still, the usual EU minimalism is rearing its ugly head.

Not this time. Actually Denning gets the scope right. There are that few ships there they made the huge move to decentralize all their yards after Fondor was nearly wiped out in an attack. They have that few ships there because most of the shipyards were taken off line and moved around.

Master of Ossus wrote:Luke also mentions in a later book that the NR's war production is finally up and running, and that the NR is building ships faster than it was losing them. I think he said that in Destiny's Way, but I can't remember for sure.

Yeah it does. Basically the ship building process starts by building a driod, which builds another, which builds a factory to build more driod's, which in turn build ships and harvest resources. The only limit to the rate of expansion is raw material and money. The process however takes some time to get going.

I suspect most yards had switched over to mainly civilian production, and had to reconstruct their capacity to produce the need very heavy weaponry and armor.

Not to nit pick, but isn't it the GA and not the NR now?

Something to do with a low number of ships could be that the GA and more focused on peace than war? I mean they weren't exactly expecting a war so why would they need to have a mass amount of ships?

Dorsk 81 wrote:Not to nit pick, but isn't it the GA and not the NR now?

It is now, but at the time it was still the NR

Something to do with a low number of ships could be that the GA and more focused on peace than war? I mean they weren't exactly expecting a war so why would they need to have a mass amount of ships?

For a galaxy sized civilization, a low number of ships should be a few million. But the Vong first arrived on the scene with a thousand cruiser + type ships and started whipping ass. No excuse there.

Ender wrote:For a galaxy sized civilization, a low number of ships should be a few million. But the Vong first arrived on the scene with a thousand cruiser + type ships and started whipping ass. No excuse there.

Did we ever get an exact figure for the YV numbers fresh into the galaxy? It could provide a rough idea of how fast shipwombs churn out ships.

So far I know there are no exact figures of YV ships.

Not really.Early in the series,before Coruscant fell,it was estimated by the Republic Command that there were a few thousand YV ships in the galaxy,.
This is misleading however,as more and more ships were entering the galaxy.


I should also note this.For the Correllian system attack,the Fondor shipyards refitted an entire fleet with hyperwave thingajimmy as well as meeting her construction quota.This isn't concrete,as the words "elements of First and Third" fleet fudge the data a bit,but this should suggest that the Fondor shipyards has upwards to 200 lots(Fifth fleet size in the Yevethan crisis) .

PainRack wrote:Not really.Early in the series,before Coruscant fell,it was estimated by the Republic Command that there were a few thousand YV ships in the galaxy,.
This is misleading however,as more and more ships were entering the galaxy.

And not to mention the ships being grown since the destruction of Sernpidal.

Does anyone know how large Kuat Drive Yards is, or how many ships it can build?

Dark Primus wrote:Does anyone know how large Kuat Drive Yards is, or how many ships it can build?

Hmm, as far as i can recall from quotes in The Essential Guide to Planets and Moons, the shipyards basically span the entire system and judging by that much industrial capacity i wouldnt be supprised if they could churn out hundreds or even a thousand Star Destroyers in a year.

Rightous Fist Of Heaven wrote:
Hmm, as far as i can recall from quotes in The Essential Guide to Planets and Moons, the shipyards basically span the entire system and judging by that much industrial capacity i wouldnt be supprised if they could churn out hundreds or even a thousand Star Destroyers in a year.

Well we know KDY built at least 25,000 ISD's in around 20-25 years, likely far more since the Empire was losing them in action and they'd need replacements. They also had time for many lesser classes and a number of Executors. No doubt they also built a large numbers of the cruisers and battleships we see in Dark Empire.

Sea Skimmer wrote:Well we know KDY built at least 25,000 ISD's in around 20-25 years, likely far more since the Empire was losing them in action and they'd need replacements. They also had time for many lesser classes and a number of Executors. No doubt they also built a large numbers of the cruisers and battleships we see in Dark Empire.

Well the Empire can build 2/3 of the DS2 in 6 months. I don't know how many ISDs that would equal to, but if you did the math that should give you a reasonable estimate for how many ships KDY could put out in a years time.

Assuming the Fondor shipyards build rate is comparable to other shipyards and have not detoriated(as noted in the novel in NJO,the attack on the Fondor shipyards),an star destroyer requires a year to be built.

So,that would approximate out to a thousand ISDs per year.

Darth Garden Gnome wrote:Well the Empire can build 2/3 of the DS2 in 6 months. I don't know how many ISDs that would equal to, but if you did the math that should give you a reasonable estimate for how many ships KDY could put out in a years time.

I'm not seeing the correlation between single systems worth of private shipyards, and the Death Star II, which had the resources of the whole Empire behind it.

Sea Skimmer wrote:I'm not seeing the correlation between single systems worth of private shipyards, and the Death Star II, which had the resources of the whole Empire behind it.

Yeah, brainfart. Thinking KDY builds ISDs so KDY builds all the Empire's ships = saying dumbshit. Just ignore little old me.

Darth Garden Gnome wrote:Yeah, brainfart. Thinking KDY builds ISDs so KDY builds all the Empire's ships = saying dumbshit. Just ignore little old me.

I see…

The DS2 wasn't built by any yard, only raw materials where brought to the site and fabricated into parts as needed. I suspect the Empire had a bunch of world devastator sized construction driod's at Endor to do most of the work. IIRC Saxtons site has a picture up of the Executor being built by a bunch of kilometer+ length construction vessels so those may be a staple of ship construction, along with the the huge skeletal frames often associated with starship construction.

IIRC the Bounty hunter Trilogy had Kuat building well over a hundred Star Destroyers and larger craft at once.. I know it was in fact a pretty damn large fleet.

Sea Skimmer wrote:

Rightous Fist Of Heaven wrote:
Hmm, as far as i can recall from quotes in The Essential Guide to Planets and Moons, the shipyards basically span the entire system and judging by that much industrial capacity i wouldnt be supprised if they could churn out hundreds or even a thousand Star Destroyers in a year.

Well we know KDY built at least 25,000 ISD's in around 20-25 years, likely far more since the Empire was losing them in action and they'd need replacements. They also had time for many lesser classes and a number of Executors. No doubt they also built a large numbers of the cruisers and battleships we see in Dark Empire.

So around 1000-2000 would be quite accurate when accounting for the capacity taken by other capital ships and the few SSD class vessels they built. I wouldnt doubt them providing a large percentage of the ships seen in DE since they are the largest shipyard in the galaxy afterall.

PainRack wrote:Assuming the Fondor shipyards build rate is comparable to other shipyards and have not detoriated(as noted in the novel in NJO,the attack on the Fondor shipyards),an star destroyer requires a year to be built.

So,that would approximate out to a thousand ISDs per year.

His Divine Shadow gave me some interesting numbers for Kuat Drive Yards about two years ago. KDY can build ships half the speed compare to other shipyards, so at KDY would have it's Star Destroyer ready to make their first flight while while at another shipyard the SD would still be laying in the slipway, still be giving hull plating to the ships' skeleton.