How Powerful is an ISD?

[Knife]

So the real question isn't how many guns each ship has, especially light and medium guns, rather reactor output.

Presumably, the Venator, which, IIRC, is intended as a carrier, makes design compromises to allow for a huge landing bay; an ISD, on the other hand, is not only larger, but also has a larger percentage of volume to dedicate to power generation because a (relatively) huge landing bay is not an intention of the class.

*shrug* hard to tell, though really. ICS on both show alot of 'open space' so does it matter if it's hangar space or raw material space? However, that point is moot, since both the 'raw material' and the 'hangar deck' are in the bow of the ship (or atleast midship). In both, their reactors and fuel storage are usually the vast majority of the aft 1/3 of the ship.

[NRS Guardian]

To clarify the whole Hand of Thrawn duology incident where 3 ISDs are supposed to defeat 60+ NR ships. The ISDs were only supposed to mop up then BDZ Bothawui leaving no witnesses after the factions had all but destroyed each other and when the ISDs revealed themselves the factions had already been fighting each other for several minutes and some of the smaller ships had been destroyed or crippled and virtually every ship had either had its shields depleted or received at least light damage. Plus, the ISDS were driven off when a planet full of Bothans launched every combat capable ship they had to reinforce the remaining NR ships.

[Darth Wong]

I don't actually put much stock in ZahnVerse tactical balances. That's a SW universe where a couple of hundred 600m long Dreadnaught goldfish-ships could change the balance of power in the entire galaxy, for fuck's sake. Realistically a single Executor-class ship could cleave through all of them with ease.

[Cykeisme]

Does anyone know the exact number of 1.1km long Venator-class ships were involved in the Battle of Coruscant? If I'm not mistaken there were over a thousand, and that was merely the system defense fleet and Obi-Wan's Open Circle Armada taskforce.
Zahn's idea that a couple hundred small warships could be a major power is blown right out of the water right there, even without quantifying the relative power of the ships.


By the way, does anyone have specs on Admiral Galak Fyyar's ship, the Doomgiver? It certainly appears larger than an ISD, but it's kind of hard to tell from the brief cinematics. I think it appears only in Jedi Outcast, where, sadly, it is sabotaged and destroyed.
Assuming there are no stats, I suppose it could be scaled against the starfighters (X-Wings, Y-Wings and TIE/Ln) or the assault lander pods that are docked in rows on its underside.

[Jim Raynor]

Someone on TF.net once scaled the ship to 500-600 m, based on some concept art which showed how one of its landing pods compared to an X-wing or TIE fighter. I don't know how accurate that concept art is though. It would be great if someone with the game could do some scaling. IIRC, an AT-ST was shown near or inside one of those pods at some point in the game.

[Jim Raynor]

Venators have 16(?) Ship to ship heavy TL and 2(?) Medium.

ISD-I has 6 VHeavy TL, 2 Heavy Ions and a large number of medium turbolasers (60+)

ISD-II has 64 Fairly Heavy TL and the same number of medium TL.

I don't have the ROTS ICS on me at the mo, feel free to correct me.

ISDs having 60/100+ medium turbolasers is an assumption based on WEG's garbage stats. The WEG stats for ISDs were not for secondary weapons, they were supposed to be for ALL the ships' guns. They were just stupid and acted like every turbolaser was the same. Since the G-canon models contradict this, those stats should be completely thrown out.

Although the ROTS ICS doesn't tell us how many Venators it would take to engage an ISD, it implies that a Venator is roughly a match for a Victory, since they can take on a similar number of Recusant light destroyers (4-6). The Venator leans more towards a carrier role, but it is NOT just a carrier ship.

[Cykeisme]

Hang on, when we're comparing relative effective power of Venators and ISDs, are we taking into account their fighter complement or not? Do fighters make enough of a difference to change the outcome if both the ships launched their entire fighter complements?

Someone on TF.net once scaled the ship to 500-600 m, based on some concept art which showed how one of its landing pods compared to an X-wing or TIE fighter. I don't know how accurate that concept art is though. It would be great if someone with the game could do some scaling. IIRC, an AT-ST was shown near or inside one of those pods at some point in the game.

Crap, upper limit of 600m? That's tiny! I thought the ship was meant to be huge, at least 5-10 kilometers in length.

Imma gonna try to take some screenshots of the ship from the cinematics, the landing pods in the game, etc, and do a rough scaling of my own to confirm their work.

[Knife]

Hang on, when we're comparing relative effective power of Venators and ISDs, are we taking into account their fighter complement or not? Do fighters make enough of a difference to change the outcome if both the ships launched their entire fighter complements?

.

We're dealing with capship weapons in the giga/tera/ and even peta range. A couple hundred fighters with kilo/mega range won't make a differnce in the problem. If attack craft have missiles in the giga, then sure, but the fighters only figure in with how many attack craft they can down.

The eventual answer to the question will be answered if we can figure out how much juice the ISD can pump out. The RotS ICS tells us the Venator output. We're just missing the Imperator.

[Cykeisme]

Whoa, what purpose do starfighters serve then? Even their missiles are three or more orders of magnitude below capship guns..?
If they contribute virtually nothing to a battle, and designing a capital ship to incorporate hangar bays can be a detriment to its performance in ship-to-ship combat, why are they used? Am I missing some facet of the reason why starfighters exist?


Oh, regarding the Doomgiver.. I took a good look at it in the cinematics relative to the assault pods and starfighters, and well, without doing scaling calcs, it isn't that big.. definitely less than a kilometer. I'll defer to the figures on The Force forums.
I kind of got the mistaken idea that it was huge from Kyle mentioning "They use a tram system to get around.. this must be one big ship." Considering he was an Imperial officer and Alliance-employed mercenary for decades, and the fact that he's been aboard ships like the Arc Hammer and even the Executor itself, I figured that if Kyle said a ship was big.. it's big.

[Medic]

Whoa, what purpose do starfighters serve then? Even their missiles are three or more orders of magnitude below capship guns..?
If they contribute virtually nothing to a battle, and designing a capital ship to incorporate hangar bays can be a detriment to its performance in ship-to-ship combat, why are they used? Am I missing some facet of the reason why starfighters exist?

Depends on the books you read.

Remember the Bacta War where a salvo of a few dozen proton torpedoes (less than a hundred IIRC) can take down the shields on one side of a command ship? All my books are in La Mesa so please, someone double check that.

What I do remember much more clearly is that just Rogue Squadron (that's only 24 torps simultaneously) is able to take down the shields of a Victory on one side, but if it rolls and they hit the other side, the original side's shields will be good. That's as wanked as torpedoes get, but you'll also see them much weaker -- depends on the books you read unfortunately.

[Crazedwraith]

Remember the Bacta War where a salvo of a few dozen proton torpedoes (less than a hundred IIRC) can take down the shields on one side of a command ship? All my books are in La Mesa so please, someone double check that.

More than a hundred. It was something like three hundred targeting sensors on the Rogue's Station corresponding with an equal amount of launchers on the freighters.

Quoting from Paperback copy of "The Bacta War" Pg 290:

"Sir we have multiple proton torpedeo and concussion missile sensors locked on to us."
"How many?"
"Many sir. Over three hundred." Waroen looked up. "We're dead sir."

and later on page when the Luskanya comes under attack (pg 306):

Drysso stared at his aide. "How many incoming torpedeo tracks Lieutenant Waroen?"
"Twenty, Sir"
Two per X-Wing. Survivable. "You see, only twenty."
"Wait Sir, now I have twenty-four"
"No matter"
"Now I have forty, no eighty, Eight zero."

The attack collapsed the Lusankya's bow shields.

Oh and the earlier Corrupter incident took place after some Gands joined them. The warhead count was 24 torps and 6 missiles.

[NecronLord]

That is of course, bullshit, and can only be explained by the Lusyanka being a piece of crap that hadn't received proper maintainance.

[NecronLord]

Whoa, what purpose do starfighters serve then? Even their missiles are three or more orders of magnitude below capship guns..?
If they contribute virtually nothing to a battle, and designing a capital ship to incorporate hangar bays can be a detriment to its performance in ship-to-ship combat, why are they used? Am I missing some facet of the reason why starfighters exist?

They would, realistically, serve limited roles in extending strike range, commerce monitoring, ground attack, and so on.

Oh, regarding the Doomgiver.. I took a good look at it in the cinematics relative to the assault pods and starfighters, and well, without doing scaling calcs, it isn't that big.. definitely less than a kilometer. I'll defer to the figures on The Force forums.
I kind of got the mistaken idea that it was huge from Kyle mentioning "They use a tram system to get around.. this must be one big ship." Considering he was an Imperial officer and Alliance-employed mercenary for decades, and the fact that he's been aboard ships like the Arc Hammer and even the Executor itself, I figured that if Kyle said a ship was big.. it's big.

The ship was seemingly intended as collossal by the level makers, while the cinematic model maker(s) didn't make it anywhere near as big.

[Crazedwraith]

That is of course, bullshit, and can only be explained by the Lusyanka being a piece of crap that hadn't received proper maintainance.

I should of mentioned an earlier quote rates most these as capital scale warheads. Which might make a difference.

[Darth Wong]

The problem is that there are other books (not to mention the events of the ROTJ Battle of Endor) which contradict the notion that a few dozen starfighters can take down a capship on their own. So yes, it makes more sense to think that these particular capships weren't in good shape (not inconceivable, given that starships are complicated devices and require maintenance in order to work properly; modern air fighters can't even fly at all without proper maintenance).

[Noble Ire]

The problem is that there are other books (not to mention the events of the ROTJ Battle of Endor) which contradict the notion that a few dozen starfighters can take down a capship on their own. So yes, it makes more sense to think that these particular capships weren't in good shape (not inconceivable, given that starships are complicated devices and require maintenance in order to work properly; modern air fighters can't even fly at all without proper maintenance).

Aren't the battles in the X-Wing books non-canonical because they are based on game mechanics? I'm not sure where I heard that, but it does make sense, and helps clear up some of the difficulties the books pose to continuity.

[SirNitram]

The problem is that there are other books (not to mention the events of the ROTJ Battle of Endor) which contradict the notion that a few dozen starfighters can take down a capship on their own. So yes, it makes more sense to think that these particular capships weren't in good shape (not inconceivable, given that starships are complicated devices and require maintenance in order to work properly; modern air fighters can't even fly at all without proper maintenance).

Aren't the battles in the X-Wing books non-canonical because they are based on game mechanics? I'm not sure where I heard that, but it does make sense, and helps clear up some of the difficulties the books pose to continuity.

You probably heard it from a moron or possibly a liar. They've been part of continuity, but thankfully, are generally overruled in their depiction of uber-starfighters.

As for 'What use starfighters?', it's likely there's parts of a capital ship where shielding is weaker, or where they can perform surgical strikes. In such a situation, starfighters may be able to, for example, damage a sensor or knock out a gun, assisting their capital ship.

[Knife]

Whoa, what purpose do starfighters serve then? Even their missiles are three or more orders of magnitude below capship guns..?
If they contribute virtually nothing to a battle, and designing a capital ship to incorporate hangar bays can be a detriment to its performance in ship-to-ship combat, why are they used? Am I missing some facet of the reason why starfighters exist?

Starfighters would still have a bunch of roles in combat. In large fleet battles, fighters and interceptors would screen capships from smaller attack craft (gunships/blastboats/missileboats/heavy assualt starfighters, ect) that have weaker shields as compared to capships and are vulnerable to starfighter weaponary.

In other circumstances, fighters would be good for extened patrol and interdiction of smaller or non military craft. Pirates shouldn't normally have military grade shielding and weapons, so would be more vulnerable to lower weapons yields. Also, starfighter sized craft are probably cheap enough and number enough, that a capship can pepper an area with them to act as scouts or recon craft.

It's just that they are worthless against large capships like a SD. In RotJ, fighters engaged capships when their shields failed, the fighters made straffing runs on vital targets on the capships. Not that they had a chance to destroy the ship, rather they were reducing it's combat effeciency.

[NecronLord]

You probably heard it from a moron or possibly a liar. They've been part of continuity, but thankfully, are generally overruled in their depiction of uber-starfighters.

Actually, he probably heard it from me, as I've claimed that their technical depiction of space combat is less canonical than game mechanics, because the space combat scenes (certainly in Stackpole's books) are supposedly based directly upon how the games play.

[Noble Ire]

You probably heard it from a moron or possibly a liar. They've been part of continuity, but thankfully, are generally overruled in their depiction of uber-starfighters.

Actually, he probably heard it from me, as I've claimed that their technical depiction of space combat is less canonical than game mechanics, because the space combat scenes (certainly in Stackpole's books) are supposedly based directly upon how the games play.

Indeed, I knew I read it somewhere here. I suppose it's a good question to ask Chee, for those who can still post on the OS, that is.

[Illuminatus Primus]

In the ROTJ novelization (which outranks lower EU sources), Admiral Ackbar refers to the ISDs as "supervessels" and says that there has never been a point-blank engagement of such vessels before. So while there are larger and more powerful vessels out there, ISDs are much more powerful than previous classes of warship and are part of a class which he calls "supervessels".

Based on other EU information, I would presume that by "supervessel", he refers to a ship that can single-handedly take on large numbers of vessels below this class. It isn't necessarily a size-based classification, since it does not appear to include the 2 mile wide Trade Federation battleships used in the Clone Wars. It may be that the ISD2 is just very densely packed with weaponry, whereas previous warships had a relatively large cargo capacity.

Perhaps this reflects a school of military thought following the Clone War, where most designs supplanted pure combat efficiency for the ability to land on a planet's surface or deploy large amounts of troops and organic armor and support naval aviation. Compared to the school of thought producing the Venator-class, the Imperator-class and certainly most of her brethren, both large and small, would certainly be a supervessel, pushing such concerns as the troop and fighter capacity and support by the wayside in favor of much stronger protection, speed, and armament. This would explain why the Battle of Coruscant in ROTS was not counted by Ackbar in his remarks about the lack of precedent for Endor.

Another thing which should be noted in light of the ROTJ novelisation is that it uses the term "Star Destroyer" generically, in reference to Imperial capital ships as a family. The "communications ship" significantly outmassed the commonest one-mile Star Destroyers (Imperial/Imperator-class) considerably, but the ROTJ novelisation dubs it simply a large "Star Destroyer." One must consider the TESB novelisation regards the Executor as a "Star Destroyer" as well. If the entire family of trans-galactic operating dagger vessels are "Star Destroyers" and "supervessels," than perhaps "supervessels" distinguish the new generation of powerful trans-galactic warships from the lesser, weaker, shorter-ranged ships belonging to the regional and parochial fleets which had previously been the order of the day as described in AOTC ICS when referencing the significance of the Acclamator-class introduction.

The classification and tactical and strategic behavior of STAR WARS naval assets is a very contentious issue, mainly because the novelists and authors over the years have been completely incompetent in depicting realistic pan-galactic scales and consistency from one source to another. In addition, the movies are not much help either. And then nothing resembles reality wet-navies, and as if things couldn't go worse, the relationships which seem to pan-out when you look at the way shields, drive systems, armor, weaponry, etc. operate in SW, does not fit at all with the storylines. Its a big mess, and only broad approximations, guesstimations, and vagueries can be determined. I suggest you examine Dr. Saxton's SWTC Catalog of Warships and also look at Mr. Sykes' fine site www.domuspublica.net ; specifically the essay "Rattling the Saber: Sectors, Oversectors, and the Strategic Forces of the Galactic Empire". You might also want to PM our member Ender, because he has some highly detailed analyses and hypotheses at his disposal. You will probably notice there are a lot of agendas about here, trying to maintain technical realism, internal technical consistency, continuity with the Expanded Universe, continuity with the films, and consistency with real-world paradigms all in varying degrees in states in many confusing packages from different people, all believing their portrayal would be best. Decide your thoughts for yourself. People can't even agree what "Star Destroyer" means. And strictly speaking, neither can the official LFL authors.

[NecronLord]

I suggest you examine Dr. Saxton's SWTC Catalog of Warships

You know, I think it's a very safe bet that Mike's seen that page before. I seem to recall him quoting it now and then.

[Connor MacLeod]

I suggest you examine Dr. Saxton's SWTC Catalog of Warships

You know, I think it's a very safe bet that Mike's seen that page before. I seem to recall him quoting it now and then.

That's not why he did it. He's probably showing off again.

[Illuminatus Primus]

I suggest you examine Dr. Saxton's SWTC Catalog of Warships

You know, I think it's a very safe bet that Mike's seen that page before. I seem to recall him quoting it now and then.

I'm not talking at Mike, I KNOW HE KNOWS CURTIS SAXTON AND HIS WARSHIP CATALOGUE, BECAUSE I AM NOT A FUCKING RETARD.

I was expanding on a point Mike made, and the post was addressed to the OP.

[Connor MacLeod]

Jesus. Lighten the fuck up.