SD Construction

crohakon · Post by **crohakon** » 2007-09-01 11:44am

How and where are Star Destroyers created. Are they built in orbital ship yards or built on planet surface? And if they are built on planet surface, can these giant ships operate in the atmosphere of a planet? Can they land on a planet?

ArcturusMengsk · Post by **ArcturusMengsk** » 2007-09-01 11:47am

The Kuat Drive Yards, home of the Imperial-class Star Destroyer.

McC · Post by **McC** » 2007-09-01 11:57am

Is that canon? If so, wouldn't something that huge be more massive than a Death Star?

ArcturusMengsk · Post by **ArcturusMengsk** » 2007-09-01 12:00pm

McC wrote:Is that canon? If so, wouldn't something that huge be more massive than a Death Star?

It's absolutely canon, and it's not the only of its kind. Please note that objects of this scale aren't exceptionally rare in the Empire.

Soontir C'boath · Post by **Soontir C'boath** » 2007-09-01 12:02pm

ArcturusMengsk wrote:
McC wrote:Is that canon? If so, wouldn't something that huge be more massive than a Death Star?
It's absolutely canon, and it's not the only of its kind. Please note that objects of this scale aren't exceptionally rare in the Empire.

I've never seen that picture before. Where is it from?

According to the Boba Fett series by K.W. Jeter, Imperators can be built on the surface of Kuat and can be piloted to space without tugs.

Edit: In the books, Boba was able to single-handedly pilot the Imperator off the planet.

crohakon · Post by **crohakon** » 2007-09-01 12:03pm

So they are not created on planet surface? What were the SD like ships taking off in episode 2 or 3? I forget which one it was in.

ArcturusMengsk · Post by **ArcturusMengsk** » 2007-09-01 12:05pm

Soontir C'boath wrote:
ArcturusMengsk wrote:
McC wrote:Is that canon? If so, wouldn't something that huge be more massive than a Death Star?
It's absolutely canon, and it's not the only of its kind. Please note that objects of this scale aren't exceptionally rare in the Empire.
I've never seen that picture before. Where is it from?

Empires At War: Forces of Corruption.

crohakon wrote:So they are not created on planet surface? What were the SD like ships taking off in episode 2 or 3? I forget which one it was in.

Acclamator-class assault ships, predecessors of the Imperial-class capable of atmospheric flight.

chitoryu12 · Post by **chitoryu12** » 2007-09-01 12:07pm

crohakon wrote:So they are not created on planet surface? What were the SD like ships taking off in episode 2 or 3? I forget which one it was in.

Those were Acclamator-class troop transports. Star Destroyers are designed for orbital bombardment and space combat, whereas Acclamators are produced as extremely large landing craft, in a way.

crohakon · Post by **crohakon** » 2007-09-01 12:12pm

So the ISD is not capable of operating in a planets atmosphere?

lord Martiya · Post by **lord Martiya** » 2007-09-01 12:23pm

Yes: ISDs are not atmosphere-capable ships. The previous Victory I and Venator (that we actually see on the surface of Coruscant) are atmosphere capable, but later Star Destroyer classes aren't.

crohakon · Post by **crohakon** » 2007-09-01 12:31pm

Thanks for the help... and thanks for being so quick with it.

Darth Tanner · Post by **Darth Tanner** » 2007-09-01 12:50pm

The ring platform is only found in the game so its cannon basis is shaky, as I understand it only the plot lines of games are cannon, not their mechanics ie. depiction of ships or technology. Most of the other sources refer to Kuat operating vast construction yards away from the planet so as to protect their environment.

Also Star Destroyers are built on most shipyards, Kuat is just one of the big ones, rivaling Fondor which is totally covered by heavy industry.

In the books, Boba was able to single-handedly pilot the Imperator off the planet.

Its been a while since I've read the Bounty Hunter Wars but I'm pretty sure those SDs were on a space station construction platform, not a planet based facility.

As I understand it the Imperial Star Destroyer is capable of entering an atmosphere but can't land. An upcoming console SW game has a sith pulling one down with the force thats patrolling over a city so that would likely count as a plot element rather than game mechanics. I assume the only reason it can't land is because of its angular shape and lack of landing gear. If its repulsors are strong enough to keep it a few km above a city they should be strong enough to perform a landing/take off.

Starglider · Post by **Starglider** » 2007-09-01 01:12pm

Darth Tanner wrote:If its repulsors are strong enough to keep it a few km above a city they should be strong enough to perform a landing/take off.

Given that an Executor-class can do it (enter the atmosphere and dock at a specially constructed base - mentioned in 'The Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels') I would be very surprised if an ISD could not.

Dark Flame · Post by **Dark Flame** » 2007-09-01 01:45pm

If its repulsors are strong enough to keep it a few km above a city they should be strong enough to perform a landing/take off.

Please correct me if I am wrong, but I learned that the closer something is to a source of gravity, the more gravity is exerted upon the object. So as an ISD gets closer and closer to the surface of a planet, the increasing forces of gravity just might overpower the repulsors and bring it crashing down.

However, I do not know how strong an ISD's repulsors are, nor how much of an increase in gravity it would take to overpower those repulsors.

DesertFly · Post by **DesertFly** » 2007-09-01 02:27pm

Darth Tanner wrote:The ring platform is only found in the game so its cannon basis is shaky, as I understand it only the plot lines of games are cannon, not their mechanics ie. depiction of ships or technology. Most of the other sources refer to Kuat operating vast construction yards away from the planet so as to protect their environment.

Not hardly. The shipyards ringing the planet were established long before that game came out, as was a similar ring surrounding the whole system.

Pint0 Xtreme · Post by **Pint0 Xtreme** » 2007-09-01 03:56pm

lord Martiya wrote:Yes: ISDs are not atmosphere-capable ships. The previous Victory I and Venator (that we actually see on the surface of Coruscant) are atmosphere capable, but later Star Destroyer classes aren't.

Where is the notion that ISDs are not atmosphere-capable ships supported?

crohakon · Post by **crohakon** » 2007-09-01 04:01pm

So... they can enter the atmosphere?

Pint0 Xtreme · Post by **Pint0 Xtreme** » 2007-09-01 04:13pm

crohakon wrote:So... they can enter the atmosphere?

Unless canon indicates somewhere that they cannot, I don't see why they're not capable of atmospheric flight.

Starglider · Post by **Starglider** » 2007-09-01 04:17pm

Dark Flame wrote:
If its repulsors are strong enough to keep it a few km above a city they should be strong enough to perform a landing/take off.
Please correct me if I am wrong, but I learned that the closer something is to a source of gravity, the more gravity is exerted upon the object. So as an ISD gets closer and closer to the surface of a planet, the increasing forces of gravity just might overpower the repulsors and bring it crashing down.

The difference in gravity strength between the surface of an earthlike planet and a few km up is negligable.

Post by **Surlethe** » 2007-09-01 04:26pm

crohakon wrote:So... they can enter the atmosphere?

They can enter the atmosphere, but they are not equipped to land and they are capable, by their very presence, of immense environmental damage.

As far as Kuat goes, if my eyes do not deceive me, the artificial ring surrounding the planet looks like it's orbiting r/2 away from the planet, where r is the radius of Kuat. If the width of the ring is r/20 and height a corresponding r/40, then given an Earthlike r = 6e3 km it has a volume of 3e9 km^3. The DSII has a volume of 3e9 km^3, so the two are comparable.

What's far more impressive is the ring around the entire goddamned system. If we're conservative and take that to mean simply equivalent to Mars' orbit (instead of on the edge of the Oort cloud), and assuming an equal cross-sectional area, we get a volume of 6e13 km^3 -- twenty thousand times the volume of the planetary ring or the DSII. If the cross-sectional area is a hundred times greater and the ring is orbiting at Pluto's mean orbital radius, we get 2e17 km^3. That is absolutely ridiculously huge.

Even better, if instead of Pluto we take the Oort cloud, that will increase our estimates by at least three orders of magnitude (this assumes the cross-sectional area does not change) to 2e20 km^3. By comparison, the Sun's volume is 1.4e18 km^3.

One note: I don't trust the picture upon which the above analysis is based because the ring is not casting a shadow.

lord Martiya · Post by **lord Martiya** » 2007-09-01 06:04pm

Pint0 Xtreme wrote:
crohakon wrote:So... they can enter the atmosphere?
Unless canon indicates somewhere that they cannot, I don't see why they're not capable of atmospheric flight.

Whoa. It seems that I was wrong.

Pint0 Xtreme wrote:Where is the notion that ISDs are not atmosphere-capable ships supported?

My assumption was a deduction from the articles on VSDs on Wookiepedia, that stated the VSD-I as a planetary assault atmosphere-capable ship and the VSD-II as a only space combat not atmosphere-capable ship. Because a ISD isn't a planetary assault ship, I guessed that designers didn't make it an atmosphere-capable ship, but I was wrong.

Starglider · Post by **Starglider** » 2007-09-01 06:09pm

lord Martiya wrote:Because a ISD isn't a planetary assault ship, I guessed that designers didn't make it an atmosphere-capable ship, but I was wrong.

Being capable of operating in an atmosphere at low speeds and being combat effective in an atmosphere are different things. Virtually all SW ships should be capable of the former, but many probably don't bother with the later.

VT-16 · Post by **VT-16** » 2007-09-01 06:47pm

The ISD has been shown to operate in atmospheres ever since Dark Empire II.

I do believe the Executor-class was also equipped with something to ease a planetary crashlanding, according to some old SW comic strip story.

Post by **RogueIce** » 2007-09-01 07:25pm

Pint0 Xtreme wrote:
crohakon wrote:So... they can enter the atmosphere?
Unless canon indicates somewhere that they cannot, I don't see why they're not capable of atmospheric flight.

Neat. The only reason it crashed was because the apprentice dude made it. Otherwise it seemed quite happy cruising along.

Although I'll be annoyed if you only ever beat the crap out of the Empire and non-Rebels again. Apparently in TIE Fighter you rarely took them on because they were "too sympathetic". That better not be the case here; I'm tired of picking on the Empire.

EDIT: Or the getting to be extremely annoying cliche "Imperial officers trying to go all rogue...again"

Dark Flame · Post by **Dark Flame** » 2007-09-01 07:53pm

Starglider wrote:
The difference in gravity strength between the surface of an earthlike planet and a few km up is negligable.

Thanks for clearing that up. I stand corrected.