StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Ok, a lot of contention, mostly mine, in the Wraith/Rouge thread. So lets hash it out here instead.

The Night Caller, IMO, is a fanboy abortion of a Corellian Corvette. The fact that the author wants the reader to believe that you can shove a squadron of fighters into the frame of a Corellian Corvette is asinign.

Wraith Squadron p144

The dot grew until Piggy could make out its shape. It was not the Implacable, nowhere near so formidable a vehicle: it was a Corellian corvette, a long, narrow vessel with a blocky engine housing at one end; at the other end, the bow looked like an ancient war-hammer head turned sideways.

Even at this distance and through the crude imager of the datapad, Piggy coud see a bright vertical slit of light appear at the bow as the hold doors there were opened. Two large silhouettes emerged from the light and rapidly grew as they came closer.

They resolved themselves into TIE fighters.

This snippit shows that in fact the author does want the reader to think that the Night Caller is the standard Corellian Corvette and that TIE fighters can fly out of the bow of the ship.


Wraith squadron p 150

"It has been very heavily modified from the standard corvette, Commander. Where the Tantive IV had a luxury quarters deck beneath the bridge, Night Caller has eliminated the deck, I suspect to make extra room in the bow hold for the four TIE fighters. The bow has also been widened, the hull armor on the sides of the bow narrowed, electronic appartus that should be between bulkheads there moved somewhere else. The topside hold has been converted into a skimmer hangar. There are no laboratories; that's where the luxury quarters are located."

Flipping throught the ICS, the hammerhead portion of the Corvette is only two decks high with one of them being the bridge. That only leaves one deck able to house the the bow doors and forward hold. They would be too small to have TIE fighters egress from it. Also, the central tube is too small for TIE fighters to be able to be stored in as a forward hold. If the forward hold is suppost to be the hammerhead, then perhaps two could be squeezed in, but then you no longer have room for the bridge.

Wraith Squadron p159-160

They welded metal sheets approximately the size of TIE fighter solar array wings between the escape pods hanging from the corvette's flanks. they stowed two of the ball shaped escape poks in the belly hold and painted the others the same dark Imperial shade as TIE fighters. Then Wedge personally flew the two remaining TIE fighters to dock them at the empty escape pod hatches. The end result was that from any scrutiny except close examination, the TIE fighters looked like escape pods-and would actually be faster and safer to launch than out of the bow hold.

With the TIE fighters out of the bow hold, Kell and Cubber dsassembled the braces designed to hold them. They used that metal and more from the belly hold to fabricate a new set of braces and rails, three rows of them, one above the other, built at the very rear of the hold.

It would require delicate piloting, but an X-wing could now use repulorlifts to back into the bow hold and accept instructions from a ground-guiding crew member to slide into rails spaced to accommodate their strike foils. Once they reached the rear of the rails they could be locked there by metal brackets lowered into place.

This gave them an array of three X-wings by three, the strike foils on each row overlapping one another slightly. With the bow doors open, the X-wings in the center column could launch quicky and in relative safety; the six along the sides would have to launch a little more slowly, but the guidance rails would probably keep accidents from happening.

With nine X-wings in the bow hold and two more up in the top hold, Night Caller could now carry eleven X-wings and two TIE fighters.

Now the central tube that couldn't hold a TIE fighter has three rows of X-wings. Even if you use the wedge shaped hull that creates the bulk of the Corvettes volume, it represents around 25% of the length of the total ship, which would be around 37.5 meters. Now the X-wing is 12.5 meters long so three end to end is exactly 37.5. This leaves no room for the bulkheads, nor any armor nor equipment.

Even if you increase the size of the wedge shaped hull to accomadate the nine fighters, if just barely, you have now dedicated the bulk of your internal volume to the storage of the fighters with very little left over for the fighters support equipment, let alone the Night Caller's equipment, crew quarters, support equipment, ect...

Again, turn to your ICS and cram two fighters into the hammerhead portion, and nine into the wedge shaped hull portion. What do you have left? Deck one and two by the turbo lasers. They are small chunks of space. The main tube behind the wedge shaped hull and the docking rings. Again, small portions of the ship to cram all the other things a starship would need.

The Night Calller is meant to be a Corellian Corvette. But it is a total fanboy wank off to one. It is every bit as bad as a two squadron capable Nebulon and IMO every bit as bad as a squadron of fighters killing a capship. If in fact the Night Caller does exist as a 150m corvette, then it would actualy be simple for a squadron of snub fighters to demolish her since it would be a hollow shell with little in the way of structual intergrety.

Blah.[/quote]

The night caller was a heavilly modified covette.
In fatcs its more akin to a connie-refit in ST.
Specilically it was totally rearanged internally and was broader in the hammer-head.

Also it didnt have a vental bow dual turbo laser.

Robert Brown actually addressed the Night Caller on his site before he took it offline. The only reasonable conclusion was that while this was indeed a Corellian Corvette, it wasn't of the general type described by the CR90, but rather a different "CVE" type of far greater internal volume and tonnage.

How exactly is it a fanboy wank off of a corvette? You think he jizz's over the corvette so much he did this? OR it was a plot device in the story and you really need to seek anger management. The fact that you took the time to point all this out just to insult it tells me you REALLY have to get out more man

Super-Gagme wrote:How exactly is it a fanboy wank off of a corvette? You think he jizz's over the corvette so much he did this? OR it was a plot device in the story and you really need to seek anger management. The fact that you took the time to point all this out just to insult it tells me you REALLY have to get out more man

To take a cannon starship and twist and contort it to make it over in your image (plot device or not) is fan wankery. Same thing goes for the fighter capability of the Nebulon B.

And actually, it took me a little less than an hour to find the book, find the quotes, and arrange my thoughts on it.

Robert Brown actually addressed the Night Caller on his site before he took it offline. The only reasonable conclusion was that while this was indeed a Corellian Corvette, it wasn't of the general type described by the CR90, but rather a different "CVE" type of far greater internal volume and tonnage.

Yeah, his site was one of my first thoughts when I started the thread but it has been down for a while now and I never copied or saved any of the info on his site.

there is a very different model of the standard corvette out there known as the Assassin class. I suspect that the Night Caller is it. thus applying basic Corvette stats may not apply.

The CRV classification is just that= a classification nothing more... Any vessel of the proper size can be catagorized as a Corvette. The Corellian ship yards probly make many Corvette type vessels.. Who knows. Then agian Star Wars isnt real... But from what ive read the Corellian ship yards are quite well known and large so... blah blah blah... they probably have/do make more than a few diff type of Corvettes.

We know from the book that the Night Caller was custom built. The science labs/luxury quarters was missing, thus enlarging the hanger bay. Also the X-Wings didn't all fit in the hanger bay. Mention is made of somethign along the line of "8 fighters in the main hanger, with the other 3 in the top hold" I'll get an exact quote tomorrow. Night Caller was built to carry a larger number of Starfighters and the Wraiths just improved on that design bu installing wing over wing brackets and dumping the Empion Mines Night Caller was charged with deploying.

Ender wrote:there is a very different model of the standard corvette out there known as the Assassin class. I suspect that the Night Caller is it. thus applying basic Corvette stats may not apply.

The Assassin appeared in RotJ. It's (officially) the same size as a CR-90.



Look closely at the top right hand side. It strongly resembles the official one. The engine wash colour shows that it is probably not a CR-90.

IIRC, Brown has a schematic with this hugely bulged center and large hammerhead.

This isn't the first "example" of a carrier-Corvette. The WEG campaign "Darkstryder" had the Farstar, which had very wide midsections to house starfighters.

I do think the Assassin class corvettes were only 150 meters tho too.

From what I have read the idea that the Night Caller was merely a corvette seems a bit limited. Minelayer perhaps, or possibly even a patrol frigate. I seem to remember somewhere it was said that the name Corellian Corvette wasnt so much a official desgnation as just a colloquial name for vessels of similar shape. Though it might have been dubbed by the Wraith squadrons pilots as a corvette I dont believe it fulfills the actual designation of a corvette. I also seem to remember it stood toe-to-toe with an ISD? If it was your generic Corvette (Tantive IV) then it wouldnt have taken much to blow it apart.

Corvette Small, generally slow escort-type vessel, generally intended for ASW. Best suited for coastal work but sometimes employed as a seagoing vessel. Often seem to be heavily armed for their size, but generally are lacking in things like sensors, electronics, reloads, range and accomodations.

IMHO, I dont believe it ever was a corvette, that it was just a lazy way of naming a target ie: impstar deuce, squint etc....

just my 0.025credits

Lord Pounder wrote:We know from the book that the Night Caller was custom built. The science labs/luxury quarters was missing, thus enlarging the hanger bay. Also the X-Wings didn't all fit in the hanger bay. Mention is made of somethign along the line of "8 fighters in the main hanger, with the other 3 in the top hold" I'll get an exact quote tomorrow. Night Caller was built to carry a larger number of Starfighters and the Wraiths just improved on that design bu installing wing over wing brackets and dumping the Empion Mines Night Caller was charged with deploying.

If it was a wholly different class, then why would the Wraith techie compare it with the T4. He stated that the luxary compartments in the hull like the T4 are missing. Why compare it with the T4 if it is a totally diferent class and there fore different internal layout?

"It has been very heavily modified from the standard corvette, Commander. Where the Tantive IV had a luxury quarters deck beneath the bridge, Night Caller has eliminated the deck, I suspect to make extra room in the bow hold for the four TIE fighters. The bow has also been widened, the hull armor on the sides of the bow narrowed, electronic appartus that should be between bulkheads there moved somewhere else. The topside hold has been converted into a skimmer hangar. There are no laboratories; that's where the luxury quarters are located."

Direct reference to the T4.

Is it possible that the T4 wasn't a standard corvete either? It was an Ammbassador's / Consulors ship so someone that important may have had a custom designed ship.

Perhaps the generic Corvette archetypes have similar internal layouts for the habitation section? That would explain his direct comparison to the T4 better.

FYI the Night Caller was originaly designed to carry 4 Ties and probably hold room for a shuttle as well as the mines. The Wraiths tossed the mines and kept the shuttle (IIRC it might have just been docked, not in the hanger area). They altered the hanger so that it could hold 9 X-Wings in a 3x3 setting. This was VERY cramped and it took good piloting to get in and out. The other three X-Wings were stored in the cargo bay where they couldn't be used. The Rogues further kept two of the Ties stashed in the remaining bay area. They then ditched two of the escape pods and altered it so Ties could be placed on quick release racks up there.

Ideally the Night Caller could be used as an escort carrier or deep strike interceptor carrier. Replace the X-Wings with A-Wings and you can carry nine of them easily. Replace all 4 of the escape pods with Tie-Interceptors for quick release and you have yourself a nice little pocket carrier. Of course such a ship would fare horribly in capitalship combat.

phongn wrote:Perhaps the generic Corvette archetypes have similar internal layouts for the habitation section? That would explain his direct comparison to the T4 better.

I do like this idea, particularly since I've seen the T4 also referred to as a "Blockade Runner"-type Corvette, suggesting they were of different types for different reasons.

Alyeska wrote:FYI the Night Caller was originaly designed to carry 4 Ties and probably hold room for a shuttle as well as the mines. The Wraiths tossed the mines and kept the shuttle (IIRC it might have just been docked, not in the hanger area). They altered the hanger so that it could hold 9 X-Wings in a 3x3 setting. This was VERY cramped and it took good piloting to get in and out. The other three X-Wings were stored in the cargo bay where they couldn't be used. The Rogues further kept two of the Ties stashed in the remaining bay area. They then ditched two of the escape pods and altered it so Ties could be placed on quick release racks up there.

Ideally the Night Caller could be used as an escort carrier or deep strike interceptor carrier. Replace the X-Wings with A-Wings and you can carry nine of them easily. Replace all 4 of the escape pods with Tie-Interceptors for quick release and you have yourself a nice little pocket carrier. Of course such a ship would fare horribly in capitalship combat.

IIRC correctly the shuttle was theirs and was only docked.

Crazedwraith wrote:

Alyeska wrote:FYI the Night Caller was originaly designed to carry 4 Ties and probably hold room for a shuttle as well as the mines. The Wraiths tossed the mines and kept the shuttle (IIRC it might have just been docked, not in the hanger area).

IIRC correctly the shuttle was theirs and was only docked.

Yep. The shuttle was the Narra, which was assigned to Wraith Squadron.

Yep, it was docked outside. One of Admiral Trigit's first comments when Night Caller arrived at the planned ambush zone (not realizing it was under the Wraiths' control) was that it had picked up a new shuttle.

Alyeska wrote: Ideally the Night Caller could be used as an escort carrier or deep strike interceptor carrier. Replace the X-Wings with A-Wings and you can carry nine of them easily. Replace all 4 of the escape pods with Tie-Interceptors for quick release and you have yourself a nice little pocket carrier. Of course such a ship would fare horribly in capitalship combat.

I don't think that would work. The X-Wings where parked wing over wing and even then it was a tight fit.

Lord Pounder wrote:

Alyeska wrote: Ideally the Night Caller could be used as an escort carrier or deep strike interceptor carrier. Replace the X-Wings with A-Wings and you can carry nine of them easily. Replace all 4 of the escape pods with Tie-Interceptors for quick release and you have yourself a nice little pocket carrier. Of course such a ship would fare horribly in capitalship combat.

I don't think that would work. The X-Wings where parked wing over wing and even then it was a tight fit.

A-Wings are markedly smaller then X-Wings and would fit much more easily. Tie-Interceptors provide for excelent fire support. If you wanted a special ops ship you could even put Avengers or Defenders in the escape pod location.