Perhaps I can make a peace with Acclamator numbers?

[StarshipTitanic]

There are two arguments I can see:

"The Acclamator is a lowly transport, and look at its firepower! HAH!"

"The Acclamator is an example of technology long past and *insert various EU examples about why ISDs can share or surpass the power*. HAH!"

Well, let's look at what Acclamators and ISDs are designed for:

Planetary conqest.

Now, to be able to conquer a planet, a ship must have:

Large troop capacity
Ability to facilitate safe landing of said troops which includes:
--Ability to bring large numbers of troops to surface at a time (for battle)
--Ability to knock out installations/shields that are covering land that must be taken.

Does this not justify the huge turbolaser numbers?

The laser cannons are justified simply because fighters of that era were build Ford Tough (think cloakshape fighter).

[Howedar]

Don't get your hopes up.

[Master of Ossus]

Remember that an Acclamator is designed to be its own support, but even so, remember that it might be very lightly armed for ships in SW. There is no evidence that the Acclamator is considered heavily-armed for a ship its size. In fact, the lack of interior space devoted to weapons indicates the opposite--that it is LIGHTLY armed for a ship its size.

[Doomriser]

Hey, 'Ford tough' is an insult!

[Gil Hamilton]

Wait a second, if they were built Ford Tough, they'd explode on the drop of a hat!

[SirNitram]

The only problem is there are other official sources detailing vessels of the time(I use the Victory-class Star Destroyer from WEG, while another poster uses WOTC's Acclamator stats), and the Acclamator isn't all that big or bad.

Scaling the weaponry leads to truly intimidating results through WEG(The last time I tried, I got 15 Petatons per each HTL emplacement WEG lists. These emplacements total 64, the number of heavy guns most accredit the ISD-II with).

Put simply, we wind up with ISD's with broadsides close to 500 PT, and combined beam firepower of nearly Exaton levels. Needless to say, this begins to reach levels where BDZ's are a lot easier than the once-criticized 1 Hour proposed time.

[Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi]

I would expect an ISD to have firepower an order of magnitude or two greater. Perhaps the ISD BDZ requires more than melting the top meter of crust.

[Master of Ossus]

Remember also, that most of the time when you increase the size of weapons, you also increase their firepower exponentially. That does not necessarily mean that the SW weapons would be exponentially more powerful with size, but if you scale blasters up to HTL's on Acclamators and further up HTL's from ISD's, you get an enormous ratio. Far higher than Petatons--thousands of petatons. Note that this is purely speculative, but it is food for thought.

[StarshipTitanic]

Hey, 'Ford tough' is an insult!

Ok ok...think Model T.

[SirNitram]

Remember also, that most of the time when you increase the size of weapons, you also increase their firepower exponentially. That does not necessarily mean that the SW weapons would be exponentially more powerful with size, but if you scale blasters up to HTL's on Acclamators and further up HTL's from ISD's, you get an enormous ratio. Far higher than Petatons--thousands of petatons. Note that this is purely speculative, but it is food for thought.

Oh, it gets better. When trying to include WEG's 'scale modifiers'(That is, the modifier you put to a starfighter's gun attacking a capital ship) into the calculations, a HTL comes out with firepower in the Yottaton range.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Remember also, that most of the time when you increase the size of weapons, you also increase their firepower exponentially. That does not necessarily mean that the SW weapons would be exponentially more powerful with size, but if you scale blasters up to HTL's on Acclamators and further up HTL's from ISD's, you get an enormous ratio. Far higher than Petatons--thousands of petatons. Note that this is purely speculative, but it is food for thought.

Oh, it gets better. When trying to include WEG's 'scale modifiers'(That is, the modifier you put to a starfighter's gun attacking a capital ship) into the calculations, a HTL comes out with firepower in the Yottaton range.

So... what is that in joules? Yottaton means about as much to me as 'zillion'.

[SirNitram]

The Yotta- Prefix is 1e26. This is, as they say, an assload.

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

1 yottaton=4.184E33 J or like 20 that need to blow up a planet.

[Sea Skimmer]

I would expect an ISD to have firepower an order of magnitude or two greater. Perhaps the ISD BDZ requires more than melting the top meter of crust.

We'll ICS does mention melting the upper crust to destroy armies entrenched deep underground as the reasoning behind BDZ. I think they'd dig in a bit more then a meter..

[Pablo Sanchez]

The Yotta- Prefix is 1e26. This is, as they say, an assload.

SWEET HOLY FUCK.

[SirNitram]

The Yotta- Prefix is 1e26. This is, as they say, an assload.

SWEET HOLY FUCK.

BEHOLD THE POWER OF THE WEG SCALING! BOW, PUNY MORTAL!

[StarshipTitanic]

The Yotta- Prefix is 1e26. This is, as they say, an assload.

SWEET HOLY FUCK.

BEHOLD THE POWER OF THE WEG SCALING! BOW, PUNY MORTAL!

*Cries with joy*

[Peregrin Toker]

There are two arguments I can see:

"The Acclamator is a lowly transport, and look at its firepower! HAH!"

Actually, although I agree with the official numbers for Acclamator armaments, I believe staunchly that the ISD is neither that unusually powerful, since the Imperator-class is a mere destroyer, and the SW comics such as Dark Empire show Imperial capital ships somewhere between ISDs and the Executor in size - well, Curtis Saxton has a whole section of hispage dedicated to these ships.

Knowing that even a humble Imperator-class destroyer can take out all life on a planet, who know what havoc one of the far bigger Imperial ships can unleash??

[StarshipTitanic]

In Homeworld, the Destroyer is the second most powerful ship.
In Babylon 5, the Destroyer is the most powerful ship in the EarthForce's navy. The Minbari's largest ship is called a frigate and it's more powerful than any other B5 ship other than the first ones.

Classes are relative.

As for the numerious other classes Curtis Saxon attempts to classify, the only ship seen in great numbers was the "Allegiance"-class Star Destroyer, all of the others were probably design freaks made by excentric admirals (like that one in the cartoon where 3 ISDs hit the Executor's shields)