An age old question (ISD-I vs ISD-II)

[Crossroads Inc.]

Ok, so I'm arguing with a friend of mine while where playing the "Warlords" gamemod to Homeworld2. Basically he kicked the crap out of two of my ISD-I's with an ISD-II and is gloating about how superior they are to the Mk-I.

I make the argument that it is only because the game mod uses the WEG states of 86 Class-10 Turbolasers for a Mk-II vs the 12 Class-8 Turbolasers of a Mk-I. Continuing, I argue it is ludicrous to think that not only could you increase the over all Power of the main guns, but to increase the number not by twice, not by four time’s but by SIX times the guns of the MK-I is just insane. I ask where all this extra energy comes from if the reactor bulb is the same size

He counters that the Mk-I was just really inefficient and that the Mk-II can pump out a lot more energy to feed all of those 64 main guns. Plus he wants to know why the Empire would make a Mk-II that WASN'T more powerful then its predecessor.

I contend that the Mk-I was designed at the tail end of the clone wars, when there was still mop up duty to be done against large Capital sized warships the fragments of the Separatists. By the time of the Mk-II, no one really had big ships anymore and that those 64 guns were actually less powerful barrels prolly designed for picking off smaller frigates and such.

SO

I have a feeling this has been done before, but I figured I would call upon the Great Gurus of SD.Net to lend a hand in sorting out this matter.

[Kuja]

As I remember, the ISD-II was designed right after the battle of Yavin. The Empire had just taken a shit in its pants with the destruction of the Death Star and so approved production of the nasty motherfucker as a way to show that they were stronger than ever.

[Connor MacLeod]

The ISD-2 MAYBE could have a somewhat higher power draw - supposedly its more heavily armored (but still as fast as an ISD-1.) - given that the reactor looks to be pretty much the same size, this additional generation would have to come at the expense of internal space (and possibly operational endurance - using alot more fuel.)

Alternately it might have a heavier "throw" weight for brief periods due to logner recharge rates or larger capacitors to temporarily *store* more energy for additional shots.

[Lord Revan]

Personally I think while ISD2 might win a fight against an ISD1 it will very badly damaged after that.

[Darth Servo]

Plus he wants to know why the Empire would make a Mk-II that WASN'T more powerful then its predecessor.

Why does being "more powerful" automatically mean "we must wank the shit out of the thing"?

[Stark]

Guh. Warlords... ugh.

I've always considered ISD-Is to have better armament against heavy targets, and ISD-IIs to have a more flexible armament. It seems unlikely that the power output changed a great deal. ISD-IIs in Warlords are better because WEG said so.

ISD-Is/IIs have different size primaries, as noted: from a TL perspective, would this actually make a difference? If the total power to the weapons is similar, would less, stronger bolts be better or worse than more, weaker bolts? Course, in Warlords ISD-IIs have more AND more powerful weapons, but neh.

[Star Wars Fan]

ISD-1s have 2 heavy ion cannon turrets (out of the 16 big guns on either side)

bigger guns=bigger bolt, more powerful

[NRS Guardian]

According to WOTC stats the ISD-II's greater firepower comes at the cost of slightly weaker shielding, which is offset by more armor. The ISD-II can at the most, have 20% more firepower than the ISD-I. Any more and it's just wanky BS.
Considering ISDs of bith marks are seen serving side-by-side in TESB and ROTJ that they each have their own distinct advantages and disadvantages. ISD-IIs could have better electronics, and a greater ability to engage multiple targets. While the ISD-I could be designed to deliver as much fire to one target as possible. It could also be that the ISD-II is somewhat more efficient than an ISD-I, because of its more unified armament, having gotten rid of the two heavy quads and the two heavy ion cannon turrets. Just as the Dreadnought was more efficient than previous battleships because of a more unified armament. (Not a perfect analogy, I know. What with the quantum leap in technology, design, and engineering that the Dreadnought showcased; making every other battleship at that time obsolete.

[nickolay1]

Plus he wants to know why the Empire would make a Mk-II that WASN'T more powerful then its predecessor.

Why does being "more powerful" automatically mean "we must wank the shit out of the thing"?

Why doesn't anyone complain about the wanked-shitless Death Stars?

[tumbletom]

Plus he wants to know why the Empire would make a Mk-II that WASN'T more powerful then its predecessor.

Why does being "more powerful" automatically mean "we must wank the shit out of the thing"?

Why doesn't anyone complain about the wanked-shitless Death Stars?

Well technically, the death stars are gigantic so which makes them less wank and more believable

[nickolay1]

I'd have to say though, that the power to mass/size ratio appear to be approximately the same (note, I haven't done any calculations). Anybody care to prove otherwise?

[Aquatain]

I always though the ISDII's could deliver massive broardsides but ha a much slower rate of fire than the ISDI's.

[Perseid]

IIRC ISD MkI was designed for fleet engagements, going by SW databank MkI's had 60TL's and 60 Ion Cannons. This kind of setup would be ideal for engaging enemy ships since you can disrupt their electronics and then pound them into submission.

The MkII was designed as a mobile assault platform, again going by SW Databank the MkII had 100TL's but only 20 Ion Cannons.

All other armaments stayed the same, so in theory a MkII could out slug a MkI due to more TL's which would allow them to bring down the shields faster. But 2 MkI's would be too much for a MkII to handle.

[Crossroads Inc.]

See the thing I always got out of it was, yes, the Mk-II DOSE have 64 guns on it's sides. BUT I'd imagine those guns to be signifactnly more weak then the Über turrets of the Mk-I. That basically, it was made for shooting a LOT of smaller targets, while the Mk-I was made for taking on a few BIG targets.

[Big Phil]

For a reasonable (although non-canon) explanation, you can look at real world examples of improvements on the same class of warships.

Arleigh Burke Flight I doesn't have a helo hanger, while Flights II and III do, and have improved electronics. The armament is identical in all ships, however.

Russian Krivak I, II, and III frigates are all different in terms of armament and firepower, as well as electronics.

Later models of ships in most navies have incremental improvements to electronics or weaponry, but you don't usually see a ship go from carrying two guns and eight missiles to carrying 20 guns and 200 missiles.

In other words, the SD Mk II is uber-wank, and is in my opinion a goofy idea.

[NRS Guardian]

The ISD-II as seen in TESB and ROTJ isn't wanked at all. Plus, like Crossroads said: although the ISD-II has 64 guns to the ISD-I's 16, they are individually smaller and by inference less powerful than those used by the ISD-I. Plus the gun count isn't quite that bad considering the ISD-I has 2 heavy quads that the ISD-II doesn't. So the ratio is actually 64:24. BTW, the barrels of the ISD-I's heavy quads are about the same size as the barrels of the individual HTLs in the ISD-II's octuple batteries.

[Jalinth]

Later models of ships in most navies have incremental improvements to electronics or weaponry, but you don't usually see a ship go from carrying two guns and eight missiles to carrying 20 guns and 200 missiles.

In other words, the SD Mk II is uber-wank, and is in my opinion a goofy idea.

To use your analogy, the MkI to MkII is a navy having a frigate optimized for anti-submarine warfare and then having the next generation of frigate optimized for an anti-aircraft/anti-missile role. The threat picture changed and so did the ship armament. Throw in some equipment/weapon rationalization and improvement, and the MKII (movie version) isn't that unreasonable.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Again, back to the main point, it's not the 64 guns that make it "Über Wank" ((the physical model of the Mk-II show this from the movie)) th point of contention are those claiming that they are STRONGER then the 12 main guns on the Mk-I

[Lord Sabre Ace]

To use your analogy, the MkI to MkII is a navy having a frigate optimized for anti-submarine warfare and then having the next generation of frigate optimized for an anti-aircraft/anti-missile role. The threat picture changed and so did the ship armament. Throw in some equipment/weapon rationalization and improvement, and the MKII (movie version) isn't that unreasonable.

It would make sense, then, that they were comissioned after Yavin because the Battle of Yavin showed that fighters could be a threat to larger ships.

[JointStrikeFighter]

Jalinth wrote:

To use your analogy, the MkI to MkII is a navy having a frigate optimized for anti-submarine warfare and then having the next generation of frigate optimized for an anti-aircraft/anti-missile role. The threat picture changed and so did the ship armament. Throw in some equipment/weapon rationalization and improvement, and the MKII (movie version) isn't that unreasonable.


It would make sense, then, that they were comissioned after Yavin because the Battle of Yavin showed that fighters could be a threat to larger ships.

Shouldm't a similar issue been apparant during the cloe wars as well? During the Clone Wars the CIS preferred to employ larger numbers of less capable ships, meaning that a larger number of less powerful guns would have been an advanatge?

Perhaps when the ISD-I came out its designers felt that it was so powerful even when fitting larger but less numerous guns it was still easily capable of deafeating swarming smaller ships, but in the case of the ISD-II the lessons were learnt and a less powerful, more numerous guns were fitted.

[InnocentBystander]

[quote="Crossroads Inc."]Ok, so I'm arguing with a friend of mine while where playing the "Warlords" gamemod to Homeworld2. Basically he kicked the crap out of two of my ISD-I's with an ISD-II and is gloating about how superior they are to the Mk-I.[quote]

I'm a little confused by this, ISD-I's in Warlords have a dozen or so torpedoes, between the two of them they should be able to disable the majority of the ISD-II's turrets in a salvo or two. I know lasers are supposed to be able to shoot them down, but I've only seen this happen on occasion.

You are playing .45 right?

[Edward Yee]

Why does being "more powerful" automatically mean "we must wank the shit out of the thing"?

Beats me. Go ask B&B and the fans who "militarized" Star Trek. Yes, yes, wrong forum, but the same mentality might apply here with the ISD-II's "uber-wank" allegation. If anything, it's one of the least creative ways to upgrade something to the realm of plausibly being an upgrade, or even to fanwank.

Now that I think about it, I don't see why the VSD-II was apparently weaker than the VSD-I and lost its atmospheric capability in return for more guns and faster sublight speed.

P.S. Did Tarkin actually land a VSD-I onto the crowd, or was it another capital ship?

[Ghost Rider]

Try NOT to necromance?