Supermassive Star Destroyers: where do you draw the line?

[PREDATOR490]

Size dosent matter as long as it reasonably fits the role its meant to fufil and is given reaslistic attributes that reflect that size and role.

Having a ISD with a superweapon laser tacked on as well as everything and the kitchen sink is silly unless its reasonable to the universe its in.
In that regard I would say the Imperium ship is alright from the standpoint that its meant to be an intergalactic invasion ship and if the Empire can build Death Stars, Eclipses etc then the general idea of making such a ship isnt too far fetched just so long as it maintains continuity with the univerese in construction time, cost, role and technology.

[K. A. Pital]

Why not do a sphere like most of these other huge superweapons/carriers, when you get to near/DS I levels in size?

Yeah, always bugs me. All those wanky shapes of superships, when the sphere is technically the optimal space warship design, especially for a larger mothership-type vessel.

[Ghost Rider]

But why a dagger shape? Why not do a sphere like most of these other huge superweapons/carriers, when you get to near/DS I levels in size?

Because the dagger shape is the shape the ISD is in, and we have to have them all be oversized ISDs!!!!

Honestly pure lack of imagination, simple as that.

[Ritterin Sophia]

But why a dagger shape?

Because the wedge shape allows the ship to train most of its weapons on an opposing ship without having to increase it's profile, and when they're in long range combat that can help.

[Ghost Rider]

But why a dagger shape?

Because the wedge shape allows the ship to train most of its weapons on an opposing ship without having to increase it's profile, and when they're in long range combat that can help.

Ah, and here we have unimaginative, since a SPHERICAL design is a better choice as a ship gets larger.....especially in Space.

But hey keep repeating this conjecture.

[VT-16]

Because the wedge shape allows the ship to train most of its weapons on an opposing ship without having to increase it's profile, and when they're in long range combat that can help.

I meant "why a dagger-design for supermassive ships? Why not build a spherical structure instead if you're gonna increase the mass so much anyway?"

[Stofsk]

Because a giant dagger looks cooler than a giant ball.

[Darth Wong]

Because a giant dagger looks cooler than a giant ball.

Perhaps a better starship design would be two giant balls, with a long cylindrical main fuselage.

[Stofsk]

Because a giant dagger looks cooler than a giant ball.

Perhaps a better starship design would be two giant balls, with a long cylindrical main fuselage.

You can have an opening at the end of the cylinder section, where thousands of tiny one man fighters can launch out. First one to make a 'trench run' wins.

[Ryushikaze]

About the size where I can comfortably hold a planet in the docking bay.

Not really, but I recently played Xenosaga 3 and the image of Abel's ark easily englufing the planet michtam is stuck in my head.

I suppose though, that too big only comes about as a matter of practical use. If you're a good size for your intended purpose, good on ya.

[LaserRifleofDoom]

That I find to be especially irritating is when idiots scale up the bridge superstructure with the rest of the ship. The Executor didn't have a super-duper huge bridge structure. You could hardly even see it.

[Darwin]

The Executor and Vengeance classes are the best looking of the super-stardestroyers, easily. Imperators/Imperials are already larger and more powerful than 99% of the other warships out there. There's just no need for a large number of bigger, more wankish SDs.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I would have liked the Eclipse better if they didn't have that funny bow.

[FTeik]

The Executor and Vengeance classes are the best looking of the super-stardestroyers, easily. Imperators/Imperials are already larger and more powerful than 99% of the other warships out there. There's just no need for a large number of bigger, more wankish SDs.

No, no, no, the other way around. We need other warships larger and more powerful than ISDs. We need a justification for all kinds of SSDs used by the Empire.

[VT-16]

Well, from the Dorling Kindersley line of books, we have in the SSD-bracket Star Cruisers, Star Battlecruisers and Star Dreadnoughts (I know Saxton has Star Battleships as well, but you might as well make them synonymous with Star Dreadnoughts, like in recent history).

Star Cruisers are the smallest of the three groups, like in rl, and include ships like the Allegiance (from Dark Empire), the smallest SSD ever recorded. I guess it's so small, it might alternately be called a "destroyer leader", since the Star Destroyers following it aren't that small, comparatively. We see it function as a command & communications ship during the Battle of Mon Calamari, sending footage from the battle to Palpatine.
In ROTJ, the Falcon passes by a multibridged tower that most likely belongs to the Communications Ship mentioned in the novelization (it caused the jamming of the fleet in the film). Based on comparisons with the Falcon and an ISD tower in ESB (Avenger), if this ship had similar dimensions to an ISD, it would be three times as long (4,8 km). A Star Cruiser.

Then there's a variety of large KDY warships around Byss in DE (some of which get sent out in the "wave attacks" on the rest of the galaxy during Operation Shadow Hand). They look like thin, scaled-down versions of the Eclipse and Sovereign classes, and probably fit either a heavy cruiser or light battlecruiser role, based on the relation between the superstructures and the command towers.

Jerec's Vengeance is most likely a Star Battlecruiser, since it's one of the larger vessels seen in the Empire, yet its hull is much thinner compared with the Executor class. (Scaling with a CR90 corvette passing underneath shows its height at a couple hundred meters only and that with the miniscule command tower. Basically, battlecruisers trade off armor for bigger engines.)

Giel's flagship is most definitely a Star Dreadnought, it completely dwarfs all the battlecruisers seen previously in the Marvel comics and its trench superstructure is similar to the Executor's when compared with a small starfighter.

The DK books also neatly explained the relationships between Star Destroyers/Super Star Destroyers and WEG's old system, by having them work on different scales. This explains why ISDs function as destroyers who follow bigger ships around in large campaigns, while being battleships themselves in smaller campaigns. And clears up the whole "cruisers that work the same as frigates yet they're called cruisers" that WEG left us with.

[lance]

What was the Eye of Palpatine? Was it on the same scale of a SSD?

[Connor MacLeod]

Because a giant dagger looks cooler than a giant ball.

Perhaps a better starship design would be two giant balls, with a long cylindrical main fuselage.

You mean an Inverted Lexx

[Batman]

I don't see where you get the inverted from, that's basically what LEXX WAS.
And I happen to agree with the dagger shape because in a single-directional confrontation, it's a reasonable approximation of a cone, which would be the ideal shape to get all your guns to bear on the target (as opposed to a sphere which would inevitably have half of them pointing AWAY from it).

[GunDoctor]

More ships, bigger ships, brig 'em on. I've always had the impression from the films that all we ever get is a small slice of the picture. Important bits, yes, but a small slice nontheless. I mean this a Galxy sized Republic/Empire we're talking about here. When I first found out that the giant ship in ANH was a Star-Destroyer, I knew that I didn't want to fight a Star-Batleship. And then ROJ showed us one.

So yeah, I don't mind more Star-Warships. I DO find the SSD nomenclature to overused, innacurate, and annoying. Sure the Rebels used it, but they're not military experts are they? Mostly a bunch of civilian insurgents with a beef with the Empire, not exactly graduates of interstellar Annopolis.

And why wedges? Why not? We can build it, and it looks cool. They tried the spherical Battle-Planetoid thing, twice; didn't work very well did it?

[Jim Raynor]

What was the Eye of Palpatine? Was it on the same scale of a SSD?

The Eye of Palpatine was only referred to as a "Dreadnaught," since in real life the "Star Dreadnaught" term originated in Saxton's books, which came much later. However, it was said to be bigger than a SSD, so if that weird ship was to be given a normal classification, I would assume would be a Star Dreadnaught.

[FTeik]

Well, from the Dorling Kindersley line of books, we have in the SSD-bracket Star Cruisers, Star Battlecruisers and Star Dreadnoughts (I know Saxton has Star Battleships as well, but you might as well make them synonymous with Star Dreadnoughts, like in recent history).

Star Cruisers are the smallest of the three groups, like in rl, and include ships like the Allegiance (from Dark Empire), the smallest SSD ever recorded. I guess it's so small, it might alternately be called a "destroyer leader", since the Star Destroyers following it aren't that small, comparatively. We see it function as a command & communications ship during the Battle of Mon Calamari, sending footage from the battle to Palpatine.
In ROTJ, the Falcon passes by a multibridged tower that most likely belongs to the Communications Ship mentioned in the novelization (it caused the jamming of the fleet in the film). Based on comparisons with the Falcon and an ISD tower in ESB (Avenger), if this ship had similar dimensions to an ISD, it would be three times as long (4,8 km). A Star Cruiser.

Then there's a variety of large KDY warships around Byss in DE (some of which get sent out in the "wave attacks" on the rest of the galaxy during Operation Shadow Hand). They look like thin, scaled-down versions of the Eclipse and Sovereign classes, and probably fit either a heavy cruiser or light battlecruiser role, based on the relation between the superstructures and the command towers.

Jerec's Vengeance is most likely a Star Battlecruiser, since it's one of the larger vessels seen in the Empire, yet its hull is much thinner compared with the Executor class. (Scaling with a CR90 corvette passing underneath shows its height at a couple hundred meters only and that with the miniscule command tower. Basically, battlecruisers trade off armor for bigger engines.)

Giel's flagship is most definitely a Star Dreadnought, it completely dwarfs all the battlecruisers seen previously in the Marvel comics and its trench superstructure is similar to the Executor's when compared with a small starfighter.

The DK books also neatly explained the relationships between Star Destroyers/Super Star Destroyers and WEG's old system, by having them work on different scales. This explains why ISDs function as destroyers who follow bigger ships around in large campaigns, while being battleships themselves in smaller campaigns. And clears up the whole "cruisers that work the same as frigates yet they're called cruisers" that WEG left us with.

I meant large warships used by other factions, not large warships used by the Empire. The TF-battleship and MC-Cruisers like the HomeOne are a good start, but not enough.

[VT-16]

The later models of the Bulwark-class are also good, they were basically the Rebels' best ships in Rebellion. If nothing else is written about the Rebellion ships that haven't been detailed yet, the other large cruisers at the top of the scale in the game would probably be more comparable to Imperial Star Cruisers as well.

[nightmare]

The Mon Cals are the victims of this "pleasure cruise ship" nonsense. In theory, the MC90 should be able to match the ISDI, and the Mediator battlecruiser that followed should more than match the ISDI/II.

That only applies to the early ships. An MC90 is quite capable of matching an ISDII.

My limit is practicality. The Death Stars are largely empty for no apparent reason, and the overkill of the first one was replaced by even more overkill in the next one. DS1 is pretty much the upper end of what's practical, if you consider it to be a siege engine. As a warship it's an utter failure for the simple reason that it can only be in one place at a time, and a fleet of smaller ships can achieve the same and more result, albeit not as impressively. DS2 was decidedly beyond any military necessity; it only works as a symbol of the Empire's limitless power, which it does quite nicely.

If you add EU to it, we get the much smaller but still capable superlasers, and necessary size for an efficient siege engine drops dramatically. I don't have a problem with regular warships equipped with them, except that it's iffy what their power scale is. You can rationalize tech improvements from building the Death Stars, but "one-third power of the DS1's superlaser" wrapped up in a 15 klick long ship? Damn, that's impressive... and ludicrous. If one was to take this as a measure of the Empire's scientific abilities, it's breathtaking.

[weemadando]

But why a dagger shape? Why not do a sphere like most of these other huge superweapons/carriers, when you get to near/DS I levels in size?

A dagger shape allows you to get more weapons on and given fire arc, while minimising your target profile from all but the top and bottom projections.

[Connor MacLeod]

But why a dagger shape? Why not do a sphere like most of these other huge superweapons/carriers, when you get to near/DS I levels in size?

A dagger shape allows you to get more weapons on and given fire arc, while minimising your target profile from all but the top and bottom projections.

Which only applies if you don't line your guns along a fixed axis in a broadside configuration along the sides of the ship. (Yes, I know, the wedge-shape thing seems to be a holdover frfom WEG, but it doesnt make sense given the placement of the heavy guns.)