Something big

[JointStrikeFighter]

Looks much better now with the extended prow.

[fractalsponge1]

Capacity - I'm thinking at least 12 wings. This is if the ship had twice the proportion of internal volume dedicated to fighter ops as an ISD, and that's already a fairly generous alottment than what it might be. At least reinforced 6-division Corps troop capacity, probably more, and enough bay space to handle really heavy metal for them.

Part of the mandible hangar bays (no racks, as these seem to want to destroy my computer):


The small bays would have racks for 36 starwing-sized heavy fighters, or a wing of 72 /ln or /I's. That's not counting what could cycle through the doors at the back of the bay. There are 9 of these bays on each mandible, plus the large hangars, ventral bay hangars, and the forward facing hangars at the ship's mouth. This is adding up to something like 24 wings of rack space. Figure> 1600 snubfighters. Larger bays would be for either transports/landers for ground complement or even more fighter rack space.

[Ekiqa]

Why would a fighter carrier have such a large ground component? Seems like a waste of space on a carrier. There should be dedicated assault ships for troops and equipment, as otherwise they'd be useless in a non-planetary assault battle.

[fractalsponge1]

Space for.

[Ekiqa]

Space for.

Use that space for extra fuel storage, ammunition storage, TIE spares, increase the snubfighter component. If it's dedicated, make it dedicated. All it is now, is just a super-sized ISD, with a weak gun armament.

[fractalsponge1]

Who says the internal arrangements can't be modular? The flexibility of a carrier is that it can carry all kinds of craft. If you need it for a planetary assault, carry more troops and landers. If not, fill in with racks for more fighters. And how do you come to "just a super-sized ISD" when the space allocations are totally different?

The rationale for the gun armament I've already gone over.

[Ekiqa]

Who says the internal arrangements can't be modular? The flexibility of a carrier is that it can carry all kinds of craft. If you need it for a planetary assault, carry more troops and landers. If not, fill in with racks for more fighters. And how do you come to "just a super-sized ISD" when the space allocations are totally different?

The rationale for the gun armament I've already gone over.

I think the gun armament is perfectly fine.

As for the rest, the way you had been talking was that it carried both fighters and troops AT THE SAME TIME. Not seperately, which makes sense.

As for the suped up ISD, if it carried troops and fighters together, there is not much difference between it and an ISD, except size and capacity.

[Captain Seafort]

As for the suped up ISD, if it carried troops and fighters together, there is not much difference between it and an ISD, except size and capacity.

An the fact that it's carrying proportionally more of either than the ISD.

Designing it to carry both (or either) would make it a lot more flexible, so that if it's full capacity of fighters or troops weren't needed for a given operation it could be sent alone, rather than having to send multiple ships, and saves on design work as the same basic design could be used as a dedicated fighter-carrier or troop-carrier.

[fractalsponge1]

As for the rest, the way you had been talking was that it carried both fighters and troops AT THE SAME TIME. Not seperately, which makes sense.

As for the suped up ISD, if it carried troops and fighters together, there is not much difference between it and an ISD, except size and capacity.

By that definition, an Executor is just a souped up ISD, since it carries at least a Corps with fighters; of course the point is they can all multi-role, just at different scales. All the troops on an ISD or an SSD are almost useless in most ship-to-ship actions, but they still can and do carry them. Would you adjust the balance it if there are multiple ships available? or if the squadron it's attached to doesn't do any ground assault? Probably, but that doesn't mean a single ship can't carry both at once.

[fractalsponge1]

bit more:

[fractalsponge1]

Some more bits:

[Vympel]

Looking at this stuff, if you had made a ship model for Battlestar Galactica, they definitely would've put it in the show. They did it for the "Berzerk" design in Razor after all (put it next to the Pegasus at the Scorpion Fleet Shipyards).

[fractalsponge1]

Never really got into the new BSG series stuff, know someone who did work on it though. Rough schedule :p

Last update till next week - out of town for the weekend:

[Crossroads Inc.]

Interesting choice of weapons.. Those are all Light Turbolasers arn't they? (Light for a heavy capital ship anyway)

[fusion]

Interesting choice of weapons.. Those are all Light Turbolasers arn't they? (Light for a heavy capital ship anyway)

Not really, those are the octuplet heavies on ISD II... So not really...

[Lord Revan]

anyway isn't still suppose to be a carrier of some sort?

If so that could explain lighter then typical weaponary (most modern carriers have on the bare minium of self defence weaponary (russians being the notable exception))

[Captain Seafort]

Interesting choice of weapons.. Those are all Light Turbolasers arn't they? (Light for a heavy capital ship anyway)

Not really, those are the octuplet heavies on ISD II... So not really...

This thing is twice the length and something like ten times the mass of an ISD, so they are pretty light relatively speaking.

Anyway, as Revan said, this is a carrier not a gun warship.

If so that could explain lighter then typical weaponary (most modern carriers have on the bare minium of self defence weaponary (russians being the notable exception))

In this case I say the best analogy is with WW2 carriers - they typically carried destroyer-weight guns, just as this ship does.

[Knife]

Interesting choice of weapons.. Those are all Light Turbolasers arn't they? (Light for a heavy capital ship anyway)

nah, the lights are on the platforms on the terraces, if you look at earlier posts.

In this case I say the best analogy is with WW2 carriers - they typically carried destroyer-weight guns, just as this ship does.

While I accept, yet don't like the two tiered system and other wise cramming SW ships into WWII analogues due to the wannabe fighter dynamic, doesn't mean you can't push the analogy too far.

We've yet to see, minus planet busters, turbolasers mounted larger than realitively the same size of SD weaponry.

[Marko Dash]

We've yet to see, minus planet busters, turbolasers mounted larger than realitively the same size of SD weaponry.

since they were never really shown in the movies most of the writers have failed to include them in the EU.

there were those massive bolts exchanged during the battle of endor, were these seen before or after the loss of the Executor and the admirial's cries for increased firepower?

[Crossroads Inc.]

Like I said, Light, 'realtivly' speaking... For the most part Turret size is indicator of overall strength, The barrels on those guns are slim and smalll... for a ship of that size... Personally I don't have a problem with this because as others have said, its a Carrier... I only make a point because others say that the Octo Turrets have the same strength, per barrel, as the huge turrets of the ISD-MK1, something thats always rubbed me the wrong way.

[fractalsponge1]

Well I think the analogy of WWII carrier armament stands; self-defense against lighter weight craft, i.e. destroyers. Low caliber, high rate of fire to hit. I imagine in "normal" long range Star Wars fleet combat, both sides would be maneuvering in and around the envelope of effective fire determined by ECM. In such a fight, larger ships may be worn down by time-on-target squadron salvos from small craft if they don't have the power-to-weight ratio to evade, or if their weapons can't land enough hits to ward off or destroy their attackers.

Venator turbolasers are around 1.5x the power per shot as an ISDII gun, if we're working off 1e25W for the ISD and the published 3.6e24W for the Venator, assuming that all that power can all be routed through each gun and an equivalent rate of fire. The main guns of an ISDI have probably ~ 4-5x the energy per bolt of the guns on the ISDII, possibly also with a slower rate of fire. The power fed through each turret must still comparable, but the ISDII will put out a hail of lower-energy bolts compared to fewer, but more powerful shots from an ISDI. The ISDI is probably good for delivering large amounts of energy fast to breach the shields of a big target, but the ISDII better for killing more agile ships by throwing a larger pattern of shot around a manuevering target being fuzzed out by ECM. Some ships might mix it up, combining damaging, slow firing weapons to take on slow moving, powerful capital ships and a battery of smaller caliber secondary weapons to more efficiently engage small craft.

There's some nonsense EU fluff about ISDIIs being much more powerful than ISDIs, but that's probably just counting barrels without taking into account likely differences in per bolt yield and rate of fire.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Thank you fractal for summing up my point better then I ever could... You are right, Ive met people who have said that ISD-IIs have 8times the firepower of a One purely on barrle numbers... So thanks for making sense of the whole thing.

[fractalsponge1]

Some updates: more armament, trench getting in.

[fractalsponge1]

I've been having very little time to work on this lately, but here's an update:

[fusion]

I've been having very little time to work on this lately, but here's an update:
-snip-

You call that little amount of work???!!! That is more than I can do in a month...
Anyways are you giving the ship two bridges?