Star Destroyer's Manufacturing Ships

[Admiral Felire]

I was wondering something, could a Star Destroyer use its internal engineering, manufacturing and fabrication bays to produce something like a Strike Cruiser? I ask because a Strike Cruiser is a modular design which means that its various components are probably small enough to be assembled in the internal engineering bay before being brought together to create the finished product.

In addition, again using modular designs, would it be possible and feasible for a Star Destroyer to build a smallish space station. And if so, what is the largest size space station do you think that a Star Destroyer could build.

Thanks for feedback and your applicable thoughts on this matter.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Might be possible for a Star Dreadnaught, but I doubt for the Imperator class and classes of similar size.

[Starglider]

I was wondering something, could a Star Destroyer use its internal engineering, manufacturing and fabrication bays to produce something like a Strike Cruiser? I ask because a Strike Cruiser is a modular design which means that its various components are probably small enough to be assembled in the internal engineering bay before being brought together to create the finished product.

Real world aircraft and military ships contain numerous components produced with special processes and equipment, not least the electronics. It would not be possible for a Nimitz-class carrier to build an F-15 or a missile corvette, despite having significant internal workshops and part stores. I strongly suspect the same applies in Star Wars; sure they have very advanced CAD/CAM (duplicators), but ships with such incredible speed and firepower probably use extremely exotic components that again require large dedicated production facilities. The Star Destroyer engineers could probably cobble together something the size of a Strike Cruiser using spare and salvaged materials and components (e.g. multiple shuttle hyperdrives and ion engines tied together), but its performance will be vastly inferior to the real thing.

In addition, again using modular designs, would it be possible and feasible for a Star Destroyer to build a smallish space station.

Yes, because a space station is just an airtight metal box, it doesn't have to maneuver or withstand acceleration.

And if so, what is the largest size space station do you think that a Star Destroyer could build.

The prefabricated garrison base carried by ISDs may already be airtight for use in hostile environments, and if it isn't it probably can be made so easily. It's armed and shielded, so I imagine that would be the station core, and some cargo containers would be welded on as necessary to expand habitable volume.

[Admiral Felire]

Thanks guys for the input, its appreciated. And very much thought worthy.

So basically, Starglider, if a Star Destroyer was cut off from the industrial resources of its society and wanted to build from scratch it would have to begin a multi-phase plan. It would have to build an orbital space station, and then from there, try and produce various dedicated high-tech and highly precise engineering facilities that could produce some quite complicated pieces of equipment. Then, after that was achieved, it could produce a starship. And even then, this starship would not be, until the point was reached where constant upgrading to the starbase made it more efficient and exacting, anywhere near the level of exactness and capability of what one could find in a Kaut constructed starship.

In the sense of time, are we talking like around a year (or so) of constant effort, or more like five years or ten. I honestly don't have much knoweldge of how long it would take for people to scratch (or near scratch) build a construction facility of roughly such a type. I mean the existence of prefabricated components, cargo compartments, space workcraft, droid assistance, and the availability of the internal fabrication capability (not to mention individuals with knoweldge of a huge varying degree of fields, like ISD crews seem to have) should make it somewhat faster and quicker than slow and long, right?

Thank you, by the way, on the idea of using the prefabricated garrison base. I had not thought of using that structure as the core of the space station constructed. Considering that they are designed for quick set up and use they could provide both the nucleus of the ground based facility and the space based facility. Which could aid the process of development immensely.

[VT-16]

The Saga Edition of Starships of the Galaxy tells of SSDs that were used as "mobile repair ships". I assume if they have the facilities to repair other spacecraft, they might also have some kind of manufacturing capability as well.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

So basically, Starglider, if a Star Destroyer was cut off from the industrial resources of its society and wanted to build from scratch it would have to begin a multi-phase plan. It would have to build an orbital space station, and then from there, try and produce various dedicated high-tech and highly precise engineering facilities that could produce some quite complicated pieces of equipment. Then, after that was achieved, it could produce a starship. And even then, this starship would not be, until the point was reached where constant upgrading to the starbase made it more efficient and exacting, anywhere near the level of exactness and capability of what one could find in a Kuat constructed starship.

In the sense of time, are we talking like around a year (or so) of constant effort, or more like five years or ten. I honestly don't have much knoweldge of how long it would take for people to scratch (or near scratch) build a construction facility of roughly such a type. I mean the existence of prefabricated components, cargo compartments, space workcraft, droid assistance, and the availability of the internal fabrication capability (not to mention individuals with knoweldge of a huge varying degree of fields, like ISD crews seem to have) should make it somewhat faster and quicker than slow and long, right?

Thank you, by the way, on the idea of using the prefabricated garrison base. I had not thought of using that structure as the core of the space station constructed. Considering that they are designed for quick set up and use they could provide both the nucleus of the ground based facility and the space based facility. Which could aid the process of development immensely.

I have doubts an ISD has that sort of capability. Short of striping out most of the unnecessary things and converting them to manufacturing units, I don't think you could do that easily.

Now on the topic of the prefab base, I think the bases might be built to a different standard required of starbases, like airtightness, radiation shields etc. You are going to have to make a prefab-starbase instead built from ground up. While that is all fair and well, and ISDs should be able to carry the necessary work craft to make the starbase, again you run into volume issues. A starbase is only going to be as big as the ISD can carry it.

On the other hand, a Star Dreadnaught like the Executor has all the advantages of huge internal volume, so much so that some Star Dreadnaughts can come with various mission modules. The Terror in Rebal Assault II was probably reconfigured to take in extra starfighters from the starfighter manufacturing facility, while the Lusankya was a prison ship.

[Starglider]

Now on the topic of the prefab base, I think the bases might be built to a different standard required of starbases, like airtightness,

If you want to use it on planets with a non-earthlike atmosphere, and resist chemical and biological weapons, it would have to be sealed and have its own environmental systems. Given the range of worlds in the Empire and the relative ease with which their technology can do this I would be surprised if it wasn't vacuum capable.

radiation shields etc. You are going to have to make a prefab-starbase instead built from ground up.

While I am sure it will not be up to SW starbase standards, anything built to serve as a major fortification in SW ground combat will be vastly tougher and better shielded than the equivalent sized Federation station (much less a hard sci-fi equivalent).

On the other hand, a Star Dreadnaught like the Executor has all the advantages of huge internal volume, so much so that some Star Dreadnaughts can come with various mission modules. The Terror in Rebal Assault II was probably reconfigured to take in extra starfighters from the starfighter manufacturing facility, while the Lusankya was a prison ship.

If you're going to pick and chose ships to be stranded in the Trek galaxy in, then you'd take an armed factory ship like the Arc Hammer, or if possibly a World Devastator (this has been pointed out in several RAR threads).

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

If you want to use it on planets with a non-earthlike atmosphere, and resist chemical and biological weapons, it would have to be sealed and have its own environmental systems. Given the range of worlds in the Empire and the relative ease with which their technology can do this I would be surprised if it wasn't vacuum capable.

Well, ground bases for worlds will have to worry about a lot of other problems beyond vacuum which may place a very high level of specification required. These bases must tolerate stresses like earthquakes, ground movement (soil movement can be nasty for buildings and leave cracks everywhere. Vacuum proofing will be for naught.). It might be better altogether to design a different type of base for vacuum environments which often are free of a lot of terrestrial problems.

While I am sure it will not be up to SW starbase standards, anything built to serve as a major fortification in SW ground combat will be vastly tougher and better shielded than the equivalent sized Federation station (much less a hard sci-fi equivalent).

I would imagine so, since Star Wars material science seems to exceed that of the Federation by several orders of magnitude.

If you're going to pick and chose ships to be stranded in the Trek galaxy in, then you'd take an armed factory ship like the Arc Hammer, or if possibly a World Devastator (this has been pointed out in several RAR threads).

Of that I have no disagreement.

[Darth Wong]

Felire, the plural of "Star Destroyer" is "Star Destroyers", not "Star Destroyer's".

[Batman]

Given that the overwhelming number of species' in the Empire seems to be oxygen breathers I'm not all that convinced your standard run-of-the-mill prefab garrison base is going to be equipped to deal with hostile environments that severe. They're probably equipped to filter and cleanse ambient air so chemical/biological agents won't work, leave alone local contaminants, but I very much doubt that they're designed to work with no atmosphere at all. If there's no atmosphere, there's no life (or at least none worth subjugating), so you either go directly to mining and ignore the local fauna as irrelevant or kill them off if they are bothersome. No point in establishing a garrison either way.

[Big Phil]

I was wondering something, could a Star Destroyer use its internal engineering, manufacturing and fabrication bays to produce something like a Strike Cruiser? I ask because a Strike Cruiser is a modular design which means that its various components are probably small enough to be assembled in the internal engineering bay before being brought together to create the finished product.

In addition, again using modular designs, would it be possible and feasible for a Star Destroyer to build a smallish space station. And if so, what is the largest size space station do you think that a Star Destroyer could build.

Thanks for feedback and your applicable thoughts on this matter.

Is there any evidence for this sort of capability in either real life or Star Wars? Other than the (one off) World Devastators, I can't think of a single one. Aircraft carriers, for example, carry 70+ aircraft, but they can't manufacture anything complex, certainly not entire airplanes, never mind destroyers, frigates, or even inflatable speedboats. Battleships weren't capable of manufacturing shells for their rifles, ships of the line couldn't build corvettes, etc.

[Isolder74]

A modern aircraft carrier could take a destroyed aircraft and use parts on board to rebuild it into a working aircraft. They'd have no chance taking parts on board and building a F-18 from scratch. They may have a machine shop but they don't have a forge and the other things they'd need to make the airframe for starters.

[Darth Hoth]

Given that the overwhelming number of species' in the Empire seems to be oxygen breathers I'm not all that convinced your standard run-of-the-mill prefab garrison base is going to be equipped to deal with hostile environments that severe. They're probably equipped to filter and cleanse ambient air so chemical/biological agents won't work, leave alone local contaminants, but I very much doubt that they're designed to work with no atmosphere at all. If there's no atmosphere, there's no life (or at least none worth subjugating), so you either go directly to mining and ignore the local fauna as irrelevant or kill them off if they are bothersome. No point in establishing a garrison either way.

Supposedly the standard base carried by a Star Destroyer could be set up on airless asteroids, or so says Wookiee (the footnote for that paragraph referring to the Star Wars Sourcebook, which I do not own, so I cannot verify this independently). Assuming it is true, they would come fully equipped with anything they would need for deep space deployment - vacuum hardening, radiation shielding, artificial gravity controls, and so on (excepting of course any thrusters or other means of manoeuvreing).

[Darth Wong]

I suppose one could argue that if someone deliberately designed a Star Destroyer to have this capability, then it might actually have the capability. Of course, that depends on just how space-intensive some of these operations and sub-operations are. One of the things people don't realize about manufacturing modern products (even as mundane as ordinary automobiles) is that the size of the "manufacturing plant" is highly misleading because it is often nothing more than an assembly plant, for parts which are made all over the place. If you gathered all of the suppler and sub-supplier facilities together in one place, it would be a huge complex.

Of course, this is all a moot point if the Star Destroyer was not deliberately designed for that purpose, and one would have to ask why they would do that when it would only consume huge amounts of space and detract from its primary function as a warship.

[RedImperator]

Of course, this is all a moot point if the Star Destroyer was not deliberately designed for that purpose, and one would have to ask why they would do that when it would only consume huge amounts of space and detract from its primary function as a warship.

Especially given the speed of hyperdrive. I can't believe a Star Destroyer could manufacture a strike cruiser faster than one could be delivered even if it did have the capability.

[Isolder74]

Of course, this is all a moot point if the Star Destroyer was not deliberately designed for that purpose, and one would have to ask why they would do that when it would only consume huge amounts of space and detract from its primary function as a warship.

Especially given the speed of hyperdrive. I can't believe a Star Destroyer could manufacture a strike cruiser faster than one could be delivered even if it did have the capability.

The only reason would be for it to operate as a covert base of operations. Otherwise there is no reason for this kind of capability. Truefully, this would be the type of capacity that the Rebels rather then the Imperials would find useful.

[Havok]

Even then, just make a base to do it, or have a dedicated ship for it tag along.

[Darth Wong]

Now a Death Star, that's a different matter. I could totally believe a vessel of that size could hold manufacturing capabilities, even for small starships, although we don't have any actual evidence that it does, so that's just a possibility, not a serious theory. It undoubtedly has extensive repair facilities, but the actual manufacture of a small starship from raw materials is a different matter.

[Havok]

Well given that the World Devastators are a tiny fraction of the size of a DS, it doesn't seem like much of a stretch to imagine it having the same capabilities, or at least the ability to convert space for it.

[Ghost Rider]

Well given that the World Devastators are a tiny fraction of the size of a DS, it doesn't seem like much of a stretch to imagine it having the same capabilities, or at least the ability to convert space for it.

Conversion of space I can see moreso then having a shipyard inside. Just Red's point does stand...why? It serves little purpose even for either of the Death Stars. Nonetheless something the size of the DS1 could easily have the facilities, to say nothing of the DS2.

[phred]

I'm assuming the point is that the Star Destroyer is cut off from the rest of the galaxy somehow? Honestly, a small space station would probably not be that hard to pull off. If you want something mobile the biggest thing you can probably ever get would be a large shuttle cobbled together from parts on hand.

[Ghost Rider]

I'm assuming the point is that the Star Destroyer is cut off from the rest of the galaxy somehow? Honestly, a small space station would probably not be that hard to pull off. If you want something mobile the biggest thing you can probably ever get would be a large shuttle cobbled together from parts on hand.

A small space station?! Where is getting the fuel? Just have a few ships refurbished for mining, a few areas for refining?

Hell, at least the shuttle would be possible cannibalization.

This stupidity is what I had a problem with the SW vs ST thread. You fuckers don't grasp or don't want to think how much is required to go from plan to finished product and assume a warship has these factories, facilities and personnel on hand for no other reason then...it just does.

[Connor MacLeod]

Star Destroyers have been mentioned (Imperial sourcebook I think) as having the facility to act as a sort of repair facility for other vessels, I think, but its not a dedicated thing any more than it would be for a SSD.

The closest I have seen for any sort of "construction ability" I could guess at would be the autonamous construction ability we see with World Devastators, the Coruscant Construction droids, and whatever the fuck built the Death Star. I suppose you COULD cram construction droids into an ISD, SSD, or anything like that, but it would be a modification, and you'd probably have to sacrifice something else. I don't think its an intrinsic ability (ISDs have to dump some of their garbage remember, so they don't seem to have complete recycling facilities that would be implied by DS-type autonomous construction.) Even then it probably would be fairly limited (and slow, unless those droids built other droids).

Bear in mind the above is largely an assumption and extrapolation, and there could be a shitload of problems with it (For all we konw there's alot more to what built the DS than just outright fabrication. Like Mike said, there's more to it than just assembling parts.)

If an ISD carried any such, it would likely be a "one-use" thing, more to establish some sort of base or facility in some other place, from which it could operate. The facility itself would do the construction/building/repairs/whatever. A dedicated construction ship (like the Arc Hammer, or mobile deepdocks, or the WDs) make more senes than trying to cram the ability into a warship too.

[Ghost Rider]

Star Destroyers have been mentioned (Imperial sourcebook I think) as having the facility to act as a sort of repair facility for other vessels, I think, but its not a dedicated thing any more than it would be for a SSD.

The closest I have seen for any sort of "construction ability" I could guess at would be the autonamous construction ability we see with World Devastators, the Coruscant Construction droids, and whatever the fuck built the Death Star. I suppose you COULD cram construction droids into an ISD, SSD, or anything like that, but it would be a modification, and you'd probably have to sacrifice something else. I don't think its an intrinsic ability (ISDs have to dump some of their garbage remember, so they don't seem to have complete recycling facilities that would be implied by DS-type autonomous construction.) Even then it probably would be fairly limited (and slow, unless those droids built other droids).

Bear in mind the above is largely an assumption and extrapolation, and there could be a shitload of problems with it (For all we konw there's alot more to what built the DS than just outright fabrication. Like Mike said, there's more to it than just assembling parts.)

If an ISD carried any such, it would likely be a "one-use" thing, more to establish some sort of base or facility in some other place, from which it could operate. The facility itself would do the construction/building/repairs/whatever. A dedicated construction ship (like the Arc Hammer, or mobile deepdocks, or the WDs) make more senes than trying to cram the ability into a warship too.

That above is why I do not dispute there is likely a machine shop equivilent on an ISD. I cannot see that they wouldn't have it for repairs or even larger events to the ship. And hell, I cannot remember where, but I do remember a short story or a blurb(I swear in the ISB) about pirates essentially grabbing ISD trash and selling it back to them because repaired...it's usable material. It gives us a starter of scale that the ISD can do for itself and what it needs from shipyards.

And as you mentioned, when they are to make something they are unique as the Arc Hammer was, not just a standard ISD. Also whatever made the DS 1-2 was something else given that the supply train for both were considerable secrets.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I think the Arc Hammer relies on several manufacturing facilities that were ground-based, such as the Phrik processing facility that was later destroyed by Katarn.