Something big

[Lord Revan]

Didn't the novelization say that Scarrif had all rejects from imperial military who where more or less utterly imcompetent but too well connected to execute or kick out, granted IIRC that was what Tarkin thought of them so it might not be a 100% unbiased opinion.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Alternately the simplest/quickest way for the un-ioned ISD to avoid the collision is, in that situation, a bad idea, as firing up the main drives at full power means a) closing on the Rebel fleet and b) diverting power from shields and weapons.

[fractalsponge1]

Liking the Legator a lot, the level of detail is markedly higher than previous ships, it seems. Lots of windows too . Those big domes must be like 100m across... Scanner range for [light]days.

I'm glad you bought up power density because I've been pondering over it too. As to your main line of enquiry, perhaps power efficiency reduces as reactor volume increases? Can't think of any canon support for that possibility though... Besides the fact that we don't see much of Corvettes being 1-shotted by larger ships.

I don't know if you use the cross sections as references, but the Tantive IV's reactor is in full view here: http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/origi ... b50103.jpg Looks like a pretty small (13-15m diameter, going by ICS) semi-sphere connected to those coils which are presumably a 'power converter'-type thing (a la 3 and 4 in the Death Star elevation plan here: http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/sta ... 1105191248 )
(Basically I don't think those coil things are actual reactor space, but subsidiary power generation equipment.)

So I would put volume at only 883 cubic metres. Very small indeed. Much smaller than the ISD's volume (what is that, btw?)

Do you have a figure for how many watts per cubic metre of reactor volume? This is what I was wondering, as I've been trying to figure out the ISD's volume so I can give the Fulgor a sensibly-sized reactor. I've decided to maximise the space, and given it a reactor which might be overkill:
It's ~1.15e6m3, which I hope is significantly smaller than that of an ISD. I went by your figure of ~380 ISDs being on par with a single Assertor, whose main reactor is (iirc) 1600m in diameter and a full sphere (2.42e9), which makes the ISD's primary reactor (assuming they all have the same primary:secondary reactor volume ratio) 6.3e6. That makes the Fulgor about 18% as powerful as an ISD, which seems about right, wouldn't you say? I know it doesn't bare direct relevance to your thoughts about corvettes, I've just been wondering.

Returning to the corvette question, perhaps weapon accuracy is the key. Perhaps your calculations are right, and corvettes simply are super soft compared to larger ships - but they use their superior speed and much smaller size (as well as their ECM) to stay well out of the way of larger ships in normal engagements. Going by some other discussions on SD.net, as well as the ICS (DBY-827's 10 light-minute range), perhaps corvettes just completely avoid destroyers under normal circumstances. It would be pretty tough to target a 150m target moving at 0.1c at a range of several light minutes lol.

The Assertor main reactor is roughly 810m in radius, and the ISD reactor by my estimate is roughly 125m in radius. The discrepancy is due to me designing the Assertor with large secondary reactors (spine and hull), and an adjustment for higher efficiency for large reactors. Basically it's taking the high power-density approach much farther down to its logical conclusion - cram the hull full of machinery and let the crew sections hang on for dear life on the surfaces and edges.

The Fulgor estimate is within range, though I'd have guessed that it was a spherical reactor and ~10% ISD power. The difference in volume in your cross section (which looks pretty damn cool btw), can be all engines, given that Fulgors are intended to be starfighter-overhauling fast (and proportionately lightly armed).

Effective accuracy would be a good explanation to corvettes being squishy. Though "being one shot by immensely larger craft" is not really a disqualifier for designs that are very useful in their own right. They can be squishy and in amazingly high demand all the same. After all, that seems to be what starfighters are in the setting too.

[fractalsponge1]

Alternately the simplest/quickest way for the un-ioned ISD to avoid the collision is, in that situation, a bad idea, as firing up the main drives at full power means a) closing on the Rebel fleet and b) diverting power from shields and weapons.

Or the second one was ionized too, but offscreen.

[Shroom Man 777]

The second ISD at Scariff? I think it wasn't ionized. It was still fighting and causing a problem, hence the desperate scheme to use the Hammerhead to ram the ionized ISD into the un-ionized ISD... if the second ISD was ionized then Raddus and the Rebel fleet would've had less problems with the Scariff defenses.

I just think the second ISD's crew never noticed that the first ISD was being rammed into them until it was too late. Probably because they never considered the idea.

A competent commander would've had the non-ionized ISD go in front of the disabled ISD to provide cover or something...

[Captain Seafort]

The second ISD at Scariff? I think it wasn't ionized. It was still fighting and causing a problem, hence the desperate scheme to use the Hammerhead to ram the ionized ISD into the un-ionized ISD... if the second ISD was ionized then Raddus and the Rebel fleet would've had less problems with the Scariff defenses.

IIRC the problem wasn't with the active defences but the shield gate - they needed to disable it in order to open a hole in the shield to allow transmission of the plans. Their solution to the problem was to start chucking ISDs at the gate.

[Shroom Man 777]

True. I think it was still fighting though, and it's continued combat capabilities could complicate the Rebels' bombardment of the shield gate...

[Weedle McHairybug]

BTW, Fractalsponge has gotten the second WIP set of the Inexpungible-class Command Ship up. Just an FYI.

[Shroom Man 777]

Has Ansel done the Arquitens-class light cruiser yet?

[Weedle McHairybug]

Say, Ansel? Think you can make a render of the TIE/AG Aggressor, TIE Oppressor, TIE/IT Interdictor, and maybe the TIE/PH Phantom? Oh, and probably the TIE Heavy Bomber as well (you know, this one: http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/sta ... 0622062926)? I'd like to see a further expansion of the TIE reserves.

[fractalsponge1]

Say, Ansel? Think you can make a render of the TIE/AG Aggressor, TIE Oppressor, TIE/IT Interdictor, and maybe the TIE/PH Phantom? Oh, and probably the TIE Heavy Bomber as well (you know, this one: http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/sta ... 0622062926)? I'd like to see a further expansion of the TIE reserves.

The only one that has a chance is the Phantom, or at least the similar looking variant I posted earlier. Most attempts to expand the TIE genre have been miserable failures aesthetically, imho. The Legacy era comic stuff was the closest I've seen to some decent looking "modern" (in and out of universe) TIE variants.

On a technical basis, I think a natural stretch would be an Interceptor MkII - standard cockpit ball, slightly extended aft for engines, and Hunter/Advanced X1-style plyons and fairly standard Interceptor wings as a new standard sublight light fleet fighter - shields, six gun fit with modular mount for light ion, roughly early-model Avenger performance.

[Weedle McHairybug]

Say, Ansel? Think you can make a render of the TIE/AG Aggressor, TIE Oppressor, TIE/IT Interdictor, and maybe the TIE/PH Phantom? Oh, and probably the TIE Heavy Bomber as well (you know, this one: http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/sta ... 0622062926)? I'd like to see a further expansion of the TIE reserves.

The only one that has a chance is the Phantom, or at least the similar looking variant I posted earlier. Most attempts to expand the TIE genre have been miserable failures aesthetically, imho. The Legacy era comic stuff was the closest I've seen to some decent looking "modern" (in and out of universe) TIE variants.

On a technical basis, I think a natural stretch would be an Interceptor MkII - standard cockpit ball, slightly extended aft for engines, and Hunter/Advanced X1-style plyons and fairly standard Interceptor wings as a new standard sublight light fleet fighter - shields, six gun fit with modular mount for light ion, roughly early-model Avenger performance.

Okay, fair enough. I guess I could make those renders myself when I perfect the XPS methods. BTW, what program do you use to develop the various ships? Might want to use that program myself in the future if I ever get a chance to do rendering.

[fractalsponge1]

I use 3dsmax.

[Abacus]

Damn...that thing is going to be fast.

[Commander Veers]

ISD reactor by my estimate is roughly 125m in radius. The discrepancy is due to me designing the Assertor with large secondary reactors (spine and hull), and an adjustment for higher efficiency for large reactors. Basically it's taking the high power-density approach much farther down to its logical conclusion - cram the hull full of machinery and let the crew sections hang on for dear life on the surfaces and edges.

Ah - that makes a lot more sense of things. Thanks. I've been trying to tell people that in YouTube comments for videos where dreadnoughts are discussed, because there's this misconception that the Executor is more powerful than the Assertor . All borne of the odd line on wookieepedia which states that the Executor is the most powerful Imperial Dreadnought. Very few people have any idea of the basic principle that reactor output is the most important factor influencing a ship's capabilities.

I amended the reactor size, output is now roughly 11% of the ISD's. Reactor's still pretty huge, but a lot more reasonably sized horizontally than before. I've gone with an acceleration of 4800G, seeing as the thing has massive engines for its size. I also figured that it's sometimes used as a scout ship in larger naval operations. The link to the submission is here, it will be updated fairly regularly: http://www.planetminecraft.com/project/ ... navy-ship/

And you have a point about starfighters. If they're viable, then why not corvettes too? Moreover, corvettes are a particularly effective counter to fighters - so where one exists, the other must also.

[evillejedi]

Corvettes are viable simply because in a day to day across a vast swath of the galaxy they are probably the largest ship in an engagement, typically protecting against commerce raiding or other pirate activity. Even with tens of thousands of Star Destroyers roving around the galaxy, it is still clear that ISDs are constantly being shuffled around to deal with more important/percieved threats and the larger battlecruiser and dreadnoughts seem to be parked strategically and politically to power centers and critical facilities unless dispatched by an Oversector Command.

Given some of the engagements where smaller vessels are in mixed company with larger vessels it is likely that the deflector shield capabilities of small vessels are substantial. Certainly a concentrated strike from a larger ship would be instant death and sustained bombardment of smaller weapons would lead to eventual heat death, but being hit by potshots must be survivable, otherwise there would be no reason to take smaller ships into an engagement. I think this leads to some interesting questions about the dynamics of shielding.

For example, If deflector shields primarily dissipate incoming energy in two ways, pure deflection/scattering (energy never reaches the ship hull) and mechanical/thermal routing of the impact through the inertial dampers/tensor fields to the neutrino radiators (kinetic and radiated energy transmitted through the ships systems); Is the relationship between the 'deflection' portion of the shielding protection tightly coupled or loosely coupled to power used? If it is highly coupled, then reactor power matters substantially for survivability and there is a trade off between offense and defense capabilities. If it is loosely coupled, then the reactor capability to the shield generator hardware beyond some base maintenance power level is not that important and the more important factor is the integrated shield generation hardware and the ships inertial and thermal management systems. Obviously projected surface area would also be a consideration for the strength and power draw of shielding. The fact that mon cal ships have more shield generators/backups/distributed systems and don't have the reactor capacity for heavy weaponry seems to indicate that the loosely coupled model is more likely and this would give a pretty good explanation of the survivability of small ships at the same time.

TLDR; does a specific level of deflector capability in watts require an near equivalent order of magnitude reactor draw with a linear response? or is the reactor power draw required for shields much lower order of magnitude than their effective deflection capability rating and essentially a constant for a certain integrated shield/ship system?

[fractalsponge1]

My assumption is that there is a heat buffer that shields can take before failure - "loosely coupled". The problem is that while we know the rate at which this buffer can be dissipated in some cases, we have no numbers on the size of the buffer. So, I can see small ships having relatively large buffers but being relatively unable to dissipate it after it's full. Most of it is guesswork, hence the 10s of maximum reactor power and 35% reactor power dissipation rule of thumb. Those numbers can be totally wrong, and whatever the actual numbers there must be a wide range of capability depending on role.

I do think high surface area ships are harder to shield, just makes sense. Heavy damage-resistant ships should tend to be compact.

[Abacus]

I imagine that most ships have heat sinks, or a cooling system that takes advantage of the coldness of space itself, to help off-set a certain level of heat accrued by active shielding (ie taking fire). However, just like all systems, it can be damaged and/or strained beyond its limits and therefore leads to eventual shield failure.

[Shroom Man 777]

The vacuumicness of space means that the coldness of space doesn't really do much to dissipate heat. Things actually stay war for long in space. Neutrino-based heatsink cooling whatevers as Curtis and Wong and others mention should be considered.

[Patroklos]

There is also the classic scifi problem of where you can evacuate heat to if you are encased in a shield. There is some mechanism to pass energy through them at least one way given ships can fire through them but I doubt whatever that is appropriate for heat dissipation on the scales we are talking. SW ships are tanking their heat.

[Shroom Man 777]

Dump the heat into hyperspace?

[fractalsponge1]

Well don't neutrinos work because they barely interact with anything? I.e. you can shoot neutrinos through shields to dump heat, but there's not much point shooting neutrinos as a weapon to bypass shields because they basically bypass everything?

[Rhadamantus]

Well don't neutrinos work because they barely interact with anything? I.e. you can shoot neutrinos through shields to dump heat, but there's not much point shooting neutrinos as a weapon to bypass shields because they basically bypass everything?

That many neutrinos at a close distance might still be dangerous.

[Abacus]

My apologies fractal, where were the stats for the Legator-class again?

[Patroklos]

Well don't neutrinos work because they barely interact with anything? I.e. you can shoot neutrinos through shields to dump heat, but there's not much point shooting neutrinos as a weapon to bypass shields because they basically bypass everything?

Only if your neutrino generating technology is sufficiently efficient. If its like a laser or other particle acceleration you are probably creating more waste heat from the process than energy sequestered into the product.