The size of Kuat Drive Yards

[Dark Primus]

This is more like a guess for anyone who wants to contribute to to this thread how large the shipyard complex is, unless there already is canon info on the shipyard stated somewhere in the EU books that I'm unaware of.

How many construction docks do you think the shipyard possess?
Can it be from 1000 - 10 000 or 10 000 - 100 000 or more?

[Darth Fanboy]

Wondering if that Boba Fett trilogy can shed any light on it. They have at the very least a capacity to build a Super Star Destroyer and have considerable defenses for it (Wraith Squadron: Iron Fist)

[Dark Primus]

Wondering if that Boba Fett trilogy can shed any light on it. They have at the very least a capacity to build a Super Star Destroyer and have considerable defenses for it (Wraith Squadron: Iron Fist)

Didn't it also have a large construction yard for an Eclipse?

[Gorefiend]

there is some info in the coruscant and the core worlds guide from wizards about the orbital installations and there is also this picture


yes they should have, after all palpi's personal destroyer was orginaly build there and only completed later on at byss

[Dark Primus]

*snip*

That picture makes me think they are building ships or perhaps parts of the total fleet inside large orbital facilities.

[NecronLord]

Wondering if that Boba Fett trilogy can shed any light on it.

Sort of. It doesn't give very big numbers. The action at one stage takes place on a series on interlinked yards capable of building an Endor sized fleet as a job lot though.

[Shinova]

And this is all privately owned?


Frickin rich bastards.

[PainRack]

Considering that Fondor was considered to be at least equivalent to Kuat, and that its production abilities was considered to have been "degraded" in the days of the Republic during the NJO, the fact that it was constructing tens of destroyer class vessels, forty other smaller types and had sufficient spare lots to refit elements of 3 seperate fleets, suggests a bare min of 160 lots, assuming 40 ships(squadron size) per fleet was sent to Fondor.

[Old Plympto]

Considering that Fondor was considered to be at least equivalent to Kuat, and that its production abilities was considered to have been "degraded" in the days of the Republic during the NJO, the fact that it was constructing tens of destroyer class vessels, forty other smaller types and had sufficient spare lots to refit elements of 3 seperate fleets, suggests a bare min of 160 lots, assuming 40 ships(squadron size) per fleet was sent to Fondor.

Because the Executor was constructed at Fondor, I thought the system belonged or was contracted to KDY?

[Kartr_Kana]

qoute:
Because the Executor was constructed at Fondor, I thought the system belonged or was contracted to KDY?

No Fondor was its own ship yards and was not contracted/owend by KDY. Palpy was doing his usual manipulations and ordered Executors from both companies. I gues it would be like the US gov ordering the JSF design from both Lockheed and Boeing, even though Lockheed won the design contest. Both KDY and Fondor claimed to have built the Executor, according to the X-wing series Lusankya was the other "Executor".

[NecronLord]

Because the Executor was constructed at Fondor, I thought the system belonged or was contracted to KDY?

IIRC, The empire assfucked them, and gave them both the contract, and with positively Lovecraftian Strategic Division of Labour, made them both think they were building the Excecutor, when one was building the Lusyanka.

[Darth Fanboy]

Wondering if that Boba Fett trilogy can shed any light on it. They have at the very least a capacity to build a Super Star Destroyer and have considerable defenses for it (Wraith Squadron: Iron Fist)

Didn't it also have a large construction yard for an Eclipse?

Probably so but that was not mentioned anywhere in the novel Iron Fist.

[Dark Primus]

Wondering if that Boba Fett trilogy can shed any light on it.

Sort of. It doesn't give very big numbers. The action at one stage takes place on a series on interlinked yards capable of building an Endor sized fleet as a job lot though.

That aint much, I got the impression the KDY was one of the galaxys' top three biggest shipyards, that would mean it can build lot more then just 40 Imperial star destroyers and one Star Dreadnaught? (excluding support ships)

A star destroyer can be completed in six months at war time at the Kuat Drive Yards, that would mean two star destroyers can be built at the same construction dock in one year.
If it only can build 40 star destroyers (excluding support ships) that would mean the shipyard only built 1600 star destroyers during the 20 years the Galactic Empire lasted, to me that doesn't make sense, it sounds horrible little.

But then again there are a dozen's of different types of star destroyers, some are much larger then ISD's so they must have tributed some extra figures too.

[Rogue 9]

The Drive Yards take up the Kuat system. Not a planetary orbit, the system. They're damned big.

I forget the source, but I read in one of the novels that there were construction facilities surrounding every planet in the system and some in free solar orbit. The one facility capable of building the Endor fleet as a job lot is not the only one there, not by a long shot.

[NecronLord]

That aint much, I got the impression the KDY was one of the galaxys' top three biggest shipyards, that would mean it can build lot more then just 40 Imperial star destroyers and one Star Dreadnaught? (excluding support ships)

A star destroyer can be completed in six months at war time at the Kuat Drive Yards, that would mean two star destroyers can be built at the same construction dock in one year.
If it only can build 40 star destroyers (excluding support ships) that would mean the shipyard only built 1600 star destroyers during the 20 years the Galactic Empire lasted, to me that doesn't make sense, it sounds horrible little.

But then again there are a dozen's of different types of star destroyers, some are much larger then ISD's so they must have tributed some extra figures too.

Don't forget, those fleets in RotJ are what Lucas thought big fleets would be. Minimalism doesn't just come from the EU.

[Dark Primus]

The Drive Yards take up the Kuat system. Not a planetary orbit, the system. They're damned big.

I forget the source, but I read in one of the novels that there were construction facilities surrounding every planet in the system and some in free solar orbit. The one facility capable of building the Endor fleet as a job lot is not the only one there, not by a long shot.

Aah thanks for the info =)

[Illuminatus Primus]

qoute:
Because the Executor was constructed at Fondor, I thought the system belonged or was contracted to KDY?

No Fondor was its own ship yards and was not contracted/owend by KDY. Palpy was doing his usual manipulations and ordered Executors from both companies. I gues it would be like the US gov ordering the JSF design from both Lockheed and Boeing, even though Lockheed won the design contest. Both KDY and Fondor claimed to have built the Executor, according to the X-wing series Lusankya was the other "Executor".

Fondor is most definitely subordinate to KDY in one way or another during the reign of the Galactic Empire.

[Elheru Aran]

Didn't it also have a large construction yard for an Eclipse?

Probably so but that was not mentioned anywhere in the novel Iron Fist.

Could said construction yard have simply been moved to Byss with the Eclipse? IMO it's possible that during construction of some extra-large ships, they're built from their own individually made construction frame (somewhat like the one they used on Enterprise-D while it was orbiting Earth after BoBW, though that one was probably standardized to different Starfleet craft), and considering the size of the Eclipse, that frame would certainly qualify as a shipyard on its own. I think it's plausible enough that once the Eclipse got big enough and had enough engine power and hull strength, it could've simply gone to hyperspace straight to Byss, and completed construction there, construction frame and all. Possible? Too far out? *shrugs*

[Publius]

Fondor is most definitely subordinate to KDY in one way or another during the reign of the Galactic Empire.

Fondor Yards, "second perhaps only to the yards at Corellia and Kuat," was a competitor in the ship construction market, but apparently did not benefit from many Imperial defense contracts. The Essential Guide to Planets and Moons states:

Though the stardocks at Kuat were the primary builders of the Empire's prestigious Star Destroyers, Fondor was unexpectedly handed the contract to manufacture the Super Star Destroyer Executor. The first in a new line of staggeringly huge naval warships, the Executor would serve as Lord Darth Vader's personal flagship. The Empire demanded total secrecy and closed off the system to all nonmilitary traffic. The Fondor executives were outraged that they could no longer serve their best clients, but the mammmoth project took up nearly all their resources, and they knew better than to risk Vader's anger. If they did their job well, they might be able to steal more lucrative military contracts from their competitors on Kuat.

Notice that Fondor's best customers are nonmilitary clients. Although KDY subcontracted much of its work(as mentioned in the Dark Empire Sourcebook), it appears that this particular contract was let without so much as informing KDY that its design was to be manufactured elsewhere.

[Illuminatus Primus]

How could Fondor build a Kuat design? To me this is like someone announcing that the first of the 7E7s would be built by Airbus.

[El Moose Monstero]

How could Fondor build a Kuat design? To me this is like someone announcing that the first of the 7E7s would be built by Airbus.

Perhaps the Kuat ship building and Kuat design corporations are seperate - to give them more chance at making money, even if they've got their hands full with a major construction project or have all shipyards full when the empire is looking for a new ship class, they can still get their designers working on a new ship knowing that it'll get contracted to someone else for building but that they'll still some profit out of it.

[Publius]

How could Fondor build a Kuat design? To me this is like someone announcing that the first of the 7E7s would be built by Airbus.

It is quite simply a matter of Kuat Drive Yards not knowing that Fondor Yards was undertaking the construction of the Executor. The Imperial Navy placed an identical order with Kuat at the same time, and there is no reason to believe that KDY was privy to the internal cloak and dagger of the Imperial Navy's budget office. Indeed, the fact that both KDY and Fondor claimed to have manufactured the Executor indicates that they did not know that the other was filling an identical contract. If that were not sufficient, a word or two from the autocratic Galactic Emperor or his pet Sith Lord would probably suffice to convince KDY of the wisdom of allowing a competitor to infringe on copyright.

Furthermore, the Dark Empire Sourcebook indicates that KDY routinely subcontracts work to other companies (it goes so far as to say that "the majority of their factories are usually franchised out to the local governors of poor planets"), not to mention the fact that The Illustrated Star Wars Universe claims that the "docking and starship repair yards" of Imperial Center construct "spherical self-contained colony vessels, Imperial Star Destroyers, and huge luxury yachts," while the Galactic Emperor leaves "other, more sophisticated space construction centers in other systems, notably the Kuat Drive Yards and the Rendili and Loronar space construction facilities, for assembling his largest battleships and special weapons platforms." Compare this with the claim in The Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels which indicates that Rendili StarDrive "hasn't won a major military starship contract in over a decade," and it seems probable that KDY was obliged to subcontract work for the Imperial Starfleet to competitors like RSD and Loronar Defense Industries in order to meet the Starfleet's orders.

[Old Plympto]

Which brings us to the question what actually happened to KDY execs when news disseminates out of the Fondor's Executor's launch and induction into Death Squadron. Was it a closely kept secret? And if news reached them, what sort of WTF!!!! reaction did they have?

[Lone_Prodigy]

Well, they probably went half-berserk to find out that the Emperor had had a colossal ship with the volume of 100+ ISDs (the first of a line of vessels and the flagship of Vader's fleet, no less!) built at Fondor instead of KDY. All that money and influence, down the drain...

[Stofsk]

The Drive Yards take up the Kuat system. Not a planetary orbit, the system. They're damned big.

Where is that stated? Awesome.