When did these go out of service? (minor spoilers)

[NecronLord]

Does anyone know or care to speculate if/when the Empire retired or mothballed the following units from RotS?

• The Venator Star Destroyer (I doubt these would get retired, just relegated to support duty as the split-nose replaced them)
• The Eta 2 Actis Interceptor
• The V wing (This I imagine went out when the TIE fighter arrived.)
• The LAAT/i gunship.

[Lord Revan]

The Venator Star Destroyer (I doubt these would get retired, just relegated to support duty as the split-nose replaced them)

Don't know

The Eta 2 Actis Interceptor

probaly shortly after the Jedi purge as only a Jedi can pilot the damm effectively

The V wing (This I imagine went out when the TIE fighter arrived.)

I'd when TIE fighter or TIE/ln fighter whent into production

The LAAT/i gunship.

is it phased out?

[Darksider]

Wait.

Only a Jedi can fly an Eta-2?


I know they're starfighters designed for the Jedi, but where does it say that only a Jedi could fly them.

Venators carry 192 Eta-2s. There aren't enough Jedi to fly that many for the entire republic carrier fleet.....

[NecronLord]

probaly shortly after the Jedi purge as only a Jedi can pilot the damm effectively

I'm thinking that might be untrue, given how many of the things the Venator carries, I suspect they might be used as an interceptor by clone pilots too. Also, they support hyperdrive rings, which AFAIK, the early TIEs and V wings didn't.

is it phased out?

Hey. I said if or when.

[Firefox]

• The Venator Star Destroyer (I doubt these would get retired, just relegated to support duty as the split-nose replaced them)
• The Eta 2 Actis Interceptor
• The V wing (This I imagine went out when the TIE fighter arrived.)
• The LAAT/i gunship.

-The Venator would likely remain in service for some time following the Purge. I don't know if it would still be around by the time of ANH-RotJ, but despite its obvious design flaws, it wasn't a bad ship for ground support, apparently.

-The Eta-2s would probably go as soon as Order 66 was executed. Given that Jedi were the only ones capable of flying them, there's no need to keep them around. Only if they were equipped with sensor systems (and perhaps a deflector suite) would they be kept around.

-As Revan said, the V-Wing would probably go bye-bye once the TIE series went into production.

-The LAAT/i and /c may still be around by ANH, though with upgraded deflectors, sensors and weapons, of course.

[Darksider]

Again.

Where does it say that ONLY a Jedi could fly an Eta-2?

Do you realize how many the Venator's carry?

There are too damn many fighters for them to only have Jedi pilots.......

[NecronLord]

I'm really doubting that only the jedi can fly eta-2s. Given that the ETA-2 seems to have been a direct TIE ancestor, and that a non-force-sensative can fly the far more advanced TIE Defenders, I suspect it may be a case of Jedi pilots simply being associated with the Eta-2.

[Darksider]

Not to mention that the math doesn't add up.

192 Eta-2sX1000 Venators (Supposedly the amount the Republic uses during the Battle of Courescant)

=192,000

There WERE 20,000 Jedi at the beginning of the war, before attrition took them down.

The Republic must have other Pilots, or else the fighter compiments in the ICS are wrong.........

[Lord Revan]

It's said in ROTS novelization(or was it the ICS) that an Eta-2 lacks targeting systems and other system that a stardard TIE has, so while there's no reason why a clone couldn't pilot an Eta-2, Jedi are the only ones that can pilot it to its maxinium potential.

[NecronLord]

Well. That's true of any ship. Put Vader in a TIE Defender and... OK, that's just evil...

That said, the ICS shows a sensor display of some sort in Anakin's ship.

[Lord Revan]

yeah but the Eta-2 doesn't seem to have inboard sensors and has to rely on the astromech droid.

[NecronLord]

Humm. Let me get my ICS. That sounds highly unlikely.

[NecronLord]

Humm. It says that R2 'helps' lock on to targets.

[Lord Revan]

The novelization is more clear in aspect Both R2-D2 and R4-P17 are said perform scans and after R4 is destroyed Obi-Wan is unable scan anything.

[NecronLord]

Add to that, the V-19 Torrent starfighter, which alas, won't be in RotS. The Torrent seems to be an ancestor of the Assault Gunboat to me...

[Darksider]

Has the Torrent been retired from service by the time of ROTS?

If so, that's a damn short service period........

I wonder if the Torrent had design flaws..........

[Firefox]

I doubt it was retired by RotS, unless there were some significant design flaws. Its absence from the Battle of Coruscant doesn't mean it isn't in use elsewhere. Same with the Victory class Star Destroyer.

[NecronLord]

I think it might simply be a very expensive piece of kit. The Torrent has a lot of moving parts, and missiles.

While I'm at it, would anyone be interested in an effort at quantifying the complement of the Republic Cruisers in the Clone Wars?

[Alyeska]

If the Victory is still in service as of ROTJ and even late EU as well as the Dreadnaught still being used, I highly doubt the Venator was taken from service. They might have ceased construction, but its still a useful fighter platform.

[VT-16]

The Acclamators aren´t required to carry the same amount of vehicles, you know. The one launching all those LAATs could have exchanged AT-TE and SPHA carrying capacity for an increased number of LAATs and V-19s. The V-19s are mentioned in the ICS as an alternative to the V-wing-complement onboard a Venator.

I read somewhere the Empire manufactured a new series of gunships called AIAT/i or something. Mentioned in an issue of SW Insider or something.

Since the SW: Galaxies expansion pack "Rage of the Wookies" has ARC-170s, Belbullab-22s and Eta-2s as new playable ships and takes place in the OT era, I´d say they were still around, even if just in the hands of pirates or mercenaries.

[Darksider]

If the Victory is still in service as of ROTJ and even late EU as well as the Dreadnaught still being used, I highly doubt the Venator was taken from service. They might have ceased construction, but its still a useful fighter platform.

I think there's a shot at the end of ROTS of a Venator in Imperial-grey.

There's no reason to retire them, or even cease building.

With a few upgrades, a Venator could make an excellent fleet carrier

[Illuminatus Primus]

The Venators are probably just off-screen in the OT; in recent comics we've seen Acclamators and Acclamator-derivatives which are likely Clone Wars hold-overs. If Venators do not show more prominently, I suspect they may have been organized into reserve fleets in the Deep Core.

[Alliance SpecForceTrooper]

Ok,

so how many Acclamator's and Venator's do you think the Alliance got their hands on?

[Darksider]

None, given that the crews were apparently clone-only, and they were programmed to be loyal to Palpatine.

There wouldn't be any defectors, and I can't see the Alliance staging a risky operation to steal a 20-year old obselete carrier when their fighters have hyperdrives...........

[NecronLord]

I think the early clones are meant to suffer dieoff early too. Besides, the officer corps was apparently not clones.