Viscount stats unveiled; SSD mess resolved

[Jim Raynor]

I don't think a couple hundred TIEs being assigned to the Executor is an adequate explanation, nor do I think it would be a "do everything" brain bug to give the Executor thousands of TIEs. The WEG numbers were just plain retarded, there's no reason to "rationalize" them as opposed to just throwing them in the trash where they belong. The ISD is hardly a dedicated fighter carrier, and it has 72. A real-life 300 m aircraft carrier can carry 85+ planes. This isn't about giving the Executor a freaking huge fighter complement so much as it is giving it a complement that makes sense in proportion to other SW ships.

[VT-16]

as it is giving it a complement that makes sense in proportion to other SW ships.

In proportion to other ships? Why can't that extra space be used to house systems in support of sensors, shields and weaponry instead of more fighter bays? Make the Executor-class more dedicated to capital ship combat.
Or would the scaling up of the ISDs limited fighter space really reach thousands of fighters on an Executor sized vessel?

EDIT: Wait, doesn't the Ex mass hundreds of times more than ISDs? In that case, you would absolutely be right. There is enough space there. My bad. :)

[Jim Raynor]

OK, I don't know how the volume compares exactly to an ISD (again, the ISD already that lacks an emphasis on fighters). But according to ITW and SWTC, it's over a hundred times the size of an ISD. Let's assume that the Executor is only 0.25 times as dedicated to carrying TIEs as the ISD is (yeah right). These extremely conservative assumptions still lead to the Executor being able to carry over 1,800 TIEs.

[VT-16]

Yes, I realised that finally. :P

But if this persists, what consequences would it have for the Executor's design, with such a low number of fighters and still we see big hangar apetures? Since an ISD looks almost able to fit inside them, I would reckon Victorys and Acclamators in need of maintenance and repairs would benefit greatly from docking inside there.

[Connor MacLeod]

Why can't the Executor and Co just project Imperial power like regular battleships, and leave dedicated troop transports and fighter carriers to handle planetary landings?

We don't need a do-everything brainbug in this sci-fi universe, as well. There should be some degree of specialization. Even ISDs don't have that much space devoted to fighters and AFVs.

Probably because thats how the primary canon has the bloody ship looking to begin with (and ships like it.) There's not much you can do with a great gaping hole in the underside of the ship except as a hangar for fighters and landing craft.

[Connor MacLeod]

OK, I don't know how the volume compares exactly to an ISD (again, the ISD already that lacks an emphasis on fighters). But according to ITW and SWTC, it's over a hundred times the size of an ISD. Let's assume that the Executor is only 0.25 times as dedicated to carrying TIEs as the ISD is (yeah right). These extremely conservative assumptions still lead to the Executor being able to carry over 1,800 TIEs.

We already know it can carry (and does) carry thousands of TIEs. The Knigt Hammer in Darksaber was explicitly stated to carry it.

The Knight Hammer's launching bays were
packed with thousands of TIE fighters and TIE
bombers, fully loaded and ready to be
deployed, but Daala decided against it.

And we know the Knight Hammer was as large as the Executor.

[NRS Guardian]

I figure the Executor carries around 7200 fighters, that's fits the proportion of an ISD. Plus it dovetails nicely with the number of fighters estimated to be at Endor. Afterall, we see a big hangar it has to be used for something. So it's not like by suggesting that the Executor has thousands of fighters we're trying to take away from its capabilities as a warship. Also, it does make sense that as a commandship it would have facilities to support a fleet, especially if its out at the ass end of the galaxy.

[Connor MacLeod]

The orginal WEG stats were for fighters assigned to the Executor. They might have the space for the fighters, but that doesn't mean that the fighters were assigned. An easy retcon would be that 250 fighters= dedicated fighters assigned to the Imperial Navy operations, with other fighter assets assigned to Army operations.

The original stats for the "SSD" don't really need to be forced into consistency with the fighter complmeent (Darksaber) or the wepaons complement (ITW:OT), since visually they are demonstrably distinct ships (the "5 mile" WEG SSD is only superficially similar to the movie Executor (in terms of engine complement, dimensions, ratios between various elements such as tail section, cityscape, and bridge tower relative to the rest of the ship, etc.)

Adding ten of thousand of fighters means more crew, droids, space, power, fuel, munitions assigned to them other than shields, firepower and speed.

An Executor is 100x larger than an ISD (volume wise its pretty close, its been awhile since I did any calcs.) A Venator SD can carry close to 400 fighters, plus complmenets of ground troops, and yet still mantain a respectable offensive armament of HTLs and lighter guns, and is FAR less massive than an ISD (probably 1/2 to 1/3) If an Executor were 100x larger than a Venator (conservative in a linear-scale-up) it would be able to house 40,000 fighters roughly, easily. With plenty of space leftover for other things.

Furthermore, the idea is to rationalise/retcon WEG stats. 250 dedicated space fighters, with additional TIEs and other spacecraft for Imperial Army ranging up to the thousands of TIE is good enough.

So why do you have to force the two figures to fit neccesarily, when the stats don't even neccesarily represent the same vessel?

Alsothe DS WAS meant to project imperial power as well, thus why Lemelisk remarked that she was to carry fighters and garrison troops.

The Death STar was a regional command and power-projection platform. The SSD's like the Executor were Sector-level platforms.

[Ender]

From the ROTJ Radio Drama

THREEPIO: Good gracious, look at the size of that capital ship. It must be a hundred times as massive as the rest.
HAN: Super Star Destroyer. What a monster.

[nightmare]

Ironically they keep the same number of ion cannons. (Maybe they're implied to be octets too, so there are 2000 ion cannon sor so as well per ship.)

Weapon: Heavy ion cannons (250); Fire Arc: 20 batteries front, 10 batteries right, 10 batteries left, 10 batteries rear; Attack Bonus: +6 (–8 size, +2 crew, +8 fire control, +4 battery fire); Damage: 8d10x2; Max Range: Long.

That would have been consistent, and more consistent with the older WEG stats. But apparently we get 50 5-gun batteries.

As for torpedoes, I doubt its 30 launched per salvo, but rather 30 reloads per tube. (although each of htose 250-300 or whatever may be a 'battery" too... If we go by the "Base" eight stuff again... ~2000 missile tubes. Why not.)

I'd like that, but it's not 2000 tubes according to the WOTC stats. 30 reloads in 250 launchers is nothing special. Vic 1 anyone?

The laser cannons, no clue. For all we know they're also "batteries" (which could mean 8-gun batteries) so that its really 4000 laser cannons. (which, if you factor in the usual rate of fire for lasers, probably means tens of thousands of shots a second from the laser batteries combined.)

Weapon: Point laser cannons (500, point defense); Fire Arc: 25 batteries front, 25 batteries left, 25 batteries right, 25 batteries rear; Attack Bonus: +14 (+0 size, +2 crew, +8 fire control, +4 battery fire); Damage: 2d10x2; Max Range: Point blank.

That's now 100 5-gun batteries.

I don't really like the gun update. At least WEG had wiggle room in the word "batteries". These do not since it specifies the batteries. Hell, the damage rating isn't even per gun as far as I can tell, it's per battery, just like before. They actually made the ship weaker than before. I think the DR stats may make up for it, though, but that can't easily be converted to WEG for a comparison.

Aside from finally getting something on the Viscount, the length retcon is the only good thing about the preview. Well, maybe except one thing:

"In addition, the Viscount has a complement of dozens of additional shuttles, troop transports, drop ships, and landing barges, for a total of about 300 carried craft."

The keywords being in addition[/. The Ex didn't have 200 support ships in addition; the number included fighters. This, however, implies an add-on. Which means the Ex gets 144 extra combat and support craft. That's 72% better than before, although it's still only a tiny bit of what it should be for a ship this size. Ditto for the Vis, of course.

[nightmare]

Ironically they keep the same number of ion cannons. (Maybe they're implied to be octets too, so there are 2000 ion cannon sor so as well per ship.)

Weapon: Heavy ion cannons (250); Fire Arc: 20 batteries front, 10 batteries right, 10 batteries left, 10 batteries rear; Attack Bonus: +6 (–8 size, +2 crew, +8 fire control, +4 battery fire); Damage: 8d10x2; Max Range: Long.

That would have been consistent, and more consistent with the older WEG stats. But apparently we get 50 5-gun batteries.

As for torpedoes, I doubt its 30 launched per salvo, but rather 30 reloads per tube. (although each of htose 250-300 or whatever may be a 'battery" too... If we go by the "Base" eight stuff again... ~2000 missile tubes. Why not.)

I'd like that, but it's not 2000 tubes according to the WOTC stats. 30 reloads in 250 launchers is nothing special. Vic 1 anyone?

The laser cannons, no clue. For all we know they're also "batteries" (which could mean 8-gun batteries) so that its really 4000 laser cannons. (which, if you factor in the usual rate of fire for lasers, probably means tens of thousands of shots a second from the laser batteries combined.)

Weapon: Point laser cannons (500, point defense); Fire Arc: 25 batteries front, 25 batteries left, 25 batteries right, 25 batteries rear; Attack Bonus: +14 (+0 size, +2 crew, +8 fire control, +4 battery fire); Damage: 2d10x2; Max Range: Point blank.

That's now 100 5-gun batteries.

I don't really like the gun update. At least WEG had wiggle room in the word "batteries". These do not since it specifies the batteries. Hell, the damage rating isn't even per gun as far as I can tell, it's per battery, just like before. They actually made the ship weaker than before. I think the DR stats may make up for it, though, but that can't easily be converted to WEG for a comparison.

Aside from finally getting something on the Viscount, the length retcon is the only good thing about the preview. Well, maybe except one thing:

"In addition, the Viscount has a complement of dozens of additional shuttles, troop transports, drop ships, and landing barges, for a total of about 300 carried craft."

The keywords being in addition[/. The Ex didn't have 200 support ships in addition; the number included fighters. This, however, implies an add-on. Which means the Ex gets 144 extra combat and support craft. That's 72% better than before, although it's still only a tiny bit of what it should be for a ship this size. Ditto for the Vis, of course.

I figure the Executor carries around 7200 fighters, that's fits the proportion of an ISD.

Actually the Ex has a comparatively larger hangar (counting both ISD hangars) and as a volume ~1000 times more than an ISD. Something like 100,000 fighters would be more correct and still leave it mostly empty.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Fighters aside, the numbers never factored in System Patrol boats, Skipray blastboats etc., whereas we knew that all ISDs and probably Star Dreadnaughts had those ships.

[Jim Raynor]

The ion cannons aren't too bad, since they're heavy ion cannons. If you ignore the retarded 60/60 ISD stats and just go with what the ICS says, then the ISD I only has 2 double heavy ion cannons. If each ion cannon on the Executor is a single barrel, then the ship has 62.5 times the number of ion cannons of the ISD I. If each of the Executor's ion cannons is a double, then it has 125 times as much.

[Connor MacLeod]

Ironically they keep the same number of ion cannons. (Maybe they're implied to be octets too, so there are 2000 ion cannon sor so as well per ship.)

Weapon: Heavy ion cannons (250); Fire Arc: 20 batteries front, 10 batteries right, 10 batteries left, 10 batteries rear; Attack Bonus: +6 (–8 size, +2 crew, +8 fire control, +4 battery fire); Damage: 8d10x2; Max Range: Long.

That would have been consistent, and more consistent with the older WEG stats. But apparently we get 50 5-gun batteries.

Noooo.... Look at the TL/HTL batteries:

Weapon: Turbolasers (2,000, fire-linked in groups of ; Fire Arc: 20 batteries front, 15 batteries right, 15 batteries left, Attack Bonus: +2 (–8 size, +2 crew, +2 fire control, +4 battery fire), Damage: 7d10x5, Max Range: Long.

Weapon: Heavy turbolasers (2,000, fire-linked in groups of ; Fire Arc: 20 batteries front, 10 batteries right, 10 batteries left, 10 batteries rear; Attack Bonus: +6 (–8 size, +2 crew, +8 fire control, +4 battery fire); Damage: 10d10x5; Max Range: Long.

It says "fire linked in grroups of eight" which should technically make 500 batteries for HTL and TL combined... yet the fire arcs indicate there 50 batteries for TLS and 50 for HTL in various arcs... so the "battery" should actually be "400", which it isn't.

I'd like that, but it's not 2000 tubes according to the WOTC stats. 30 reloads in 250 launchers is nothing special. Vic 1 anyone?[/q uote]

Um, its a matter of interpretation. You do realize stats can be rather open ended, right? (There's a reason why we generally only take stats with a hefty grain of salt.) (BEar in mind that according to WOTC, the concussion missiles on a Victory are purely for planetary bombardment IIRC.. thats what that "assault" Concussion missile entry means.)

Weapon: Point laser cannons (500, point defense); Fire Arc: 25 batteries front, 25 batteries left, 25 batteries right, 25 batteries rear; Attack Bonus: +14 (+0 size, +2 crew, +8 fire control, +4 battery fire); Damage: 2d10x2; Max Range: Point blank.

That's now 100 5-gun batteries.

Not neccesarily. See above regarding the Ion cannons.

I don't really like the gun update. At least WEG had wiggle room in the word "batteries". These do not since it specifies the batteries. Hell, the damage rating isn't even per gun as far as I can tell, it's per battery, just like before. They actually made the ship weaker than before. I think the DR stats may make up for it, though, but that can't easily be converted to WEG for a comparison.

IT looks more like its an incomplete revision. It actually happens more than once in WEG stats (I've got more than a few books for WEG that had weird or erroneous stats.

Aside from finally getting something on the Viscount, the length retcon is the only good thing about the preview. Well, maybe except one thing:

"In addition, the Viscount has a complement of dozens of additional shuttles, troop transports, drop ships, and landing barges, for a total of about 300 carried craft."

The keywords being in addition[/. The Ex didn't have 200 support ships in addition; the number included fighters. This, however, implies an add-on. Which means the Ex gets 144 extra combat and support craft. That's 72% better than before, although it's still only a tiny bit of what it should be for a ship this size. Ditto for the Vis, of course.

According to some older sourcees like the EGV&V, the Executor (5 mile one) carried 200 other "combat and support" craft (IIRC thats how it was put) in addition to the 144 TIEs.

[Connor MacLeod]

The ion cannons aren't too bad, since they're heavy ion cannons. If you ignore the retarded 60/60 ISD stats and just go with what the ICS says, then the ISD I only has 2 double heavy ion cannons. If each ion cannon on the Executor is a single barrel, then the ship has 62.5 times the number of ion cannons of the ISD I. If each of the Executor's ion cannons is a double, then it has 125 times as much.

I suspect that the 60 TL stats come from the OT novelization, whcih describes the ISD as carrying "dozens" of heavy weapons forward (the ones the Devastator fired on the Tantive IV in the movie.) Alot of WEG-derived stats actually had some basiss in spinoff materials (the 15 meter AT-AT figure for example came from the Radio Drama.) I'm betting whoever did the stats for the ISD either didn't have acceess to the model or didnt bother checking (or simpyl didnt regard the model as evidence.) since you can't really ever see them in the movies.

Frankly as a secondary/medium armament those 60 batteries (or 300 guns, depending on your source) make perfect sense IMHO. It also makes sense about the advantages of the wedge shape

Now if you want to tlak about a stupid idea... its that ion cannons cause no damage...

[SCVN 2812]

Given the size of the bay cavity, I think there's some merit to the idea of the Executor as both mobile siege platform and mothership. An Executor capable of offloading supplies and performing low level maintenance on lesser ships would be an interesting strategic ability, seeing as it would allow a task force to operate for extended periods "in the void" so to speak rather than having to return to a shipyard to deal with degrees of combat damage above their self repair ability or replenish stores after heavy fighting. This isn't in lieu of a >> 2 wing fighter complement but rather something that could make the Star Dreadnought a little more than just a hundred fold scale up of the Imperator. The irony of saying something should be a little more than just a hundred fold scale up of the Imperator is not lost on me.

[nightmare]

Noooo.... Look at the TL/HTL batteries:

Weapon: Turbolasers (2,000, fire-linked in groups of ; Fire Arc: 20 batteries front, 15 batteries right, 15 batteries left, Attack Bonus: +2 (–8 size, +2 crew, +2 fire control, +4 battery fire), Damage: 7d10x5, Max Range: Long.

Weapon: Heavy turbolasers (2,000, fire-linked in groups of ; Fire Arc: 20 batteries front, 10 batteries right, 10 batteries left, 10 batteries rear; Attack Bonus: +6 (–8 size, +2 crew, +8 fire control, +4 battery fire); Damage: 10d10x5; Max Range: Long.

It says "fire linked in grroups of eight" which should technically make 500 batteries for HTL and TL combined... yet the fire arcs indicate there 50 batteries for TLS and 50 for HTL in various arcs... so the "battery" should actually be "400", which it isn't.

Ok, I get your point. But there's nothing that says the ion cannons are fire linked in any groups whatsoever.

Um, its a matter of interpretation. You do realize stats can be rather open ended, right? (There's a reason why we generally only take stats with a hefty grain of salt.) (BEar in mind that according to WOTC, the concussion missiles on a Victory are purely for planetary bombardment IIRC.. thats what that "assault" Concussion missile entry means.)

According to WOTC. Multiple errors does not make one right... I'd certainly like to interpret the figures creatively if it makes the numbers better, but I don't see how.

What I have seen is people arguing about if it takes 3, 14, or 24 X-Wing protorps to destroy an ISD. There are a few people here and there with a better grasp on canon and realism, but they are in stark minority. Sure, WOTC is just an RPG... but the video games, tabletops, novels, etc, colors people's minds and then they warp their impressions of the movies watched years ago and vaguely remembered to fit the games they play today.

IT looks more like its an incomplete revision. It actually happens more than once in WEG stats (I've got more than a few books for WEG that had weird or erroneous stats.

Like the shield rating for the Class 1000? Yes, it's certainly incomplete. I'm going to cheer when we, or rather, if we ever, see a complete, sensible revision. Then it's time for the next mistreated ship, the Home One. I don't have much hope though.

According to some older sourcees like the EGV&V, the Executor (5 mile one) carried 200 other "combat and support" craft (IIRC thats how it was put) in addition to the 144 TIEs.

I don't recall reading any of the sort. If you count the WEG carried ships, they are 200 with fighters included. Well, at least that's an improvement.

[nightmare]

Fighters aside, the numbers never factored in System Patrol boats, Skipray blastboats etc., whereas we knew that all ISDs and probably Star Dreadnaughts had those ships.

Most likely there's no more than three Skiprays on an ISD. We have a fair bit of numbers on support ships to compare with plus the 200 for the Ex. Which is only 56 in some sources...

Now if you want to tlak about a stupid idea... its that ion cannons cause no damage...

That is one good thing with this update, they actually listed a damage rating:

Weapon: Heavy ion cannons (300); Fire Arc: 10 batteries front, 20 batteries right, 20 batteries left, 10 batteries rear; Attack Bonus: +8 (–8 size, +2 crew, +10 fire control, +4 battery fire); Damage: 8d10x2; Max Range: Long.

Weapon: Heavy ion cannons (250); Fire Arc: 20 batteries front, 10 batteries right, 10 batteries left, 10 batteries rear; Attack Bonus: +6 (–8 size, +2 crew, +8 fire control, +4 battery fire); Damage: 8d10x2; Max Range: Long.

[NRS Guardian]

Starship Battles' Preview 4 is up http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=st ... SBPreview4 and it has the upgraded TF Battleship. Something which should give a little hope for the later previews is that they got the stats very close to what was figured looking at the armament diagram for the 3D model.

[Ender]

I'm definetly going to have to pick these up and do archimedes experiments with them. That and the level of detail just looks cool.

[Vympel]

Starship Battles' Preview 4 is up http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=st ... SBPreview4 and it has the upgraded TF Battleship. Something which should give a little hope for the later previews is that they got the stats very close to what was figured looking at the armament diagram for the 3D model.

Read his blog entry about it, which is linked to at the bottom of the page, it's interesting.

One thing, notice the atmospheric speed of the Tri-Fighter is given as 1,050km/h in the RPG stats. I think that's good evidence of all the low atmospheric speeds given for pre-prequel fighters being that low as merely an RPG game mechanic convention for combat, rather than their true performance in atmosphere (since we know the maximum speed of a Tri-Fighter in atmosphere is in actual fact 37,000km/h).

[Jim Raynor]

A few months ago, I ran across this diagram of the gun emplacement layout for the Trade Federation Battleship in Episode III. For those who aren't Hyperspace members, the image shows dozens of little dots on half of the top side of the ship, plus the core ship. The dots represent various types of guns and their locations.

For an EU contributor, this is a fantastic find. It might even be a unique find. When it comes to establishing a ship's weaponry, we're usually left with a combination of movie references, novel, comic book, Incredible Cross Section or game references and a helthy amount of educated guessing. To get an actual diagram directly from the movie production is....well, I've never heard of it before.

Anyway, I held on to this thing on the off chance I'd need it someday. Now, only a few months later, I'm handed the Trade Federation Battleship Preview. I realize that the game uses the Episode III version of the ship, as opposed to the Episode I version. Episode I TFB stats have long been established in multiple sources, but not so with the E III version.

Digging out the diagram, I set to work determining how many guns this thing has. It's a lot. Way more than some other noted capital ships, like an Imperial Star Destroyer. After conferring with Gary on gun types and RPG details, it is decided that while the TFB obviously has more guns, many are at a lower damage level and shorter range. I also determine a logical number of guns per battery (4) that works most best with the groupings shown on the diagram.

I won't go into all of the details (this is getting long enough), but basically, the assumption is that the gun layout is symmetrical both top and bottom of the "arms". At the rear quarter, there are likely fewer guns below the engines (which is typical for Star Wars ships). Finally, the core ship likely has the majority of its weapons on the upper half of the sphere, given than there is all sorts of landing gear and other stuff below.

Also, the Episode II Incredible Cross Sections book talks about huge numbers of weapons on the core ship. However a quick comparison shows that the Episode III coreship is different from the Episode II ship (as is the Episode I ship and the Droid Control Ship). So, the ICS Episode II number is overridden by the Episode III diagram for our purposes. Clearly there are many versions of coreships.

I also discovered a similar discussion of weapon placement going on over at wookiepeida in their TFB entry, which was interesting, but ultimately different from our conclusions.

Wow. An EU writer who actually

-thinks it's cool to have production material from the movies
-employs actual logic when coming up with his numbers.
-is observant enough to notice differences between what a book says and what the movies show
-is aware of fan discussions

I must be dreaming.

Is it really true that he'll be doing the ISD and Home One in one of his upcoming previews?

[Balrog]

Wow. An EU writer who actually

-thinks it's cool to have production material from the movies
-employs actual logic when coming up with his numbers.
-is observant enough to notice differences between what a book says and what the movies show
-is aware of fan discussions

Surely, this is a sign of the End Times?

With this in mind, only good things can come from the Home One and ISD previews.

[Stark]

Yeah, it's a shame he stops short of saying 'this makes the stupid ISD numbers look pretty retarded, let's fix them'.

[K. A. Pital]

I just hope the ISD gun numbers are corrected. After all, anyone can say it has 64 barrels by simply looking at the movie model.