Something big

[Kanastrous]

I find that obj is a useful format for moving between programs, although as fractal notes one can wind up with some fairly bizarre results and stuck with a lot of cleanup (scaling, orientation, geometry closure and normal direction being the usual problems). Okino Polytrans is a very handy utility for file format conversions, and will handle most of what's out there, for about US$400 (really, it can be just about indispensable...)

[Eternal_Freedom]

OT I know, but on the matter of Mon Cal firing arcs I get the impression from the EU that unlike ISD's which maximise forwards firepower the Mon Cals are built to fight broadside. Which is interesting.

Not to mention a lot of the earlier ones are refit passenger liners according to the EU which will have a big impact on firing arcs.

[fractalsponge1]

Might have been designed with planetary defense in mind, engaging multiple ships in a close range melee?

The liner thing has been argued about before, and I still maintain it's a load of bullshit. MC90s were dedicated warships and looked like it pretty much had the same blister style armament setup on a very similar hull to a winged Liberty.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Can't argue with that, and I like the diea of them being designed for planetary defence. The broadside-combat idea is one I got especially from ROTJ, looking at Home One. With such a design forward firepower is going to be fairly rubbish, so stretch the hull and add more broadside guns. Different strategies I guess.

Perhaps the "Ackbar Slash" (diving between enemy capships at close range) and it's success at Endor influenced future designs to engage multiple targets rather than focusing on one?

[=Krieger=]

The one point I could argue with the "liner" conversion is with the trenches in the blisters (at least in the Home One model I saw). They could in theory have simply put multiple small-caliber emplacements in instead of a few heavy emplacements. Home One might be covered in weapons no more powerful on each turret than a standard ISD, but it simply had more. Would make more sense for "civilians" to get access to many smaller cannons than a few big, heavy ones. Same concept as street gangs using dozens of semi-automatics instead of a few rocket launchers. Yakuza excluded. This would make much more sense to spread the weapons out more broadside instead of trying to point all of them forward. It would offer excellent small-capital defense, and would be enough to discourage larger ships.

(Oh, and leaning towards Cinema 4d.)

[Knife]

I've given Mon Cal ships some considerable thought in my little SW obsession. The 'space liner' pretty much goes along with 'each ship is it's own design/work of art' bit of EU that is total bullshit. We know during the Clone Wars that the Mon Cal ship yards, or perhaps before, built some of the Seperatists ships. The Providence class carrier/destroyer produced by Free Dac Vounteers used in the war, sure it may have been mostly the Quarren, but could not have been all Quaren and no Mon Cal involvement. So if they had enough manufacturing capacity before and during the war to contribute ships like that to the CSA, then there is no reason to believe they didn't have a defensive fleet to protect all that themselves.

For the 'space liner' bit; it's easy to speculate that after the war, Mon Cal ships were decommissioned from military use and certain rebellious factions in the newly enslaved race simply 'forgot' to take all the weapons off of some, hiding others. Would make sense how 'converted liners' would make such good military warships.

We all know that the 'each ship is designed to be it's own style' is crap just due to the repeated use of the three models shown in ROTJ to depict different ships. Personally, I use the notion of the MC-80 A and B to denoted the Liberty type ship and Wingless Liberty type ship. I also don't consider them to be 'cruisers' unless you use the two tier system and I'd put them as lower tier cruisers. I think the MC-80's are more Stardestroyer or Starfrigates in use, escorting the Starcruisers of the Home One type.

The blisters and weapons? I agree with fractal, in so far as I would imagine the actual guns are on the points and the blisters are more like the weapons shrouds that armor the turrets and power generators and possibly shield and sensor systems spaced along the hull. The very shape of the ship means firing arcs don't mesh up as well as a SD, but with the uneven dispersal of the blisters, it still means a large portion of the weapons have a forward firing arc and a broadside arc.

[evillejedi]

I've tried to come up with some ideas for mon cal blisters as well, the one I personally favor (though there is no canon evidence for it) is that the blisters actual protect and conceal the weaponry and they clamshell open. I started down this path with the dreadnaught and I think it plays rather well (if complicated)



The second option is that they are actually compound beams like the dishes on the LAAT/s or deathstar. They would concentrate at a point over the blister and coalesce before being directed this gives them some standoff from the hull and also borrows from the long red TL effects seen in ROTJ.

The important thing I have found is that the liberties and other early MC80 vessels DO have very good forward arcs IF you only utilize the first 40%-60% of the vessel, there are not a lot of blocked angles with proper placement (disperse across the forward hull equivalent gun density of an ISD). Given that ISD's have quite limited fire arcs as well (very minimal ventral coverage, 60% port/starboard, no stern facing weaponry, some SD models have poor forward projection from main guns without a down bow angle) I don't see this as being much of an argument and I think is another brainbug about the mon cals, heck we are relying on the 'blisters' to be gun emplacements just because the always 'correct' :-p guides/books have said so.

Ships built during the clonewars were probably returned to civilian service after a thorough imperial inspection. Those built in the intervening years, up to the point that mon cal was in open rebellion probably were commissioned as liners, but designed and built to be quickly refitted. (probably explains the reliance on backup shielding) anything built during the rebellion is obviously military and we the designs start to multiply at that point. The designs a outside of the movies are very poorly documented and very few conclusions can be drawn from the dodgy artwork on their details.

[Ryan Thunder]

I could be dreadfully mistaken, but I was under the impression that the blisters were shield generators.

[HMS Sophia]

In one source book the blisters were the equivalent of enormous space claymores, which would explode and throw shrapnel in the path of fighters....

[Skywalker_T-65]

Well I'm not an expert on this by any means, but in the Rouge Squadron games the Mon Cal's have a fairly decent forward firing arc. Though these are the same games that made sensor domes into shield generators... But that is the best I have seen on Mon Cal firing arcs. Which is sad when you think about it. Though as far as the blisters themselves, it would make sense that they are armor to protect the turbolasers. After all, we know how defense oriented Mon Cal's are (they have so many shield generators for example), so it would make sense for the blisters to be armor.

[fractalsponge1]

The blisters can be many things, according to the accumulated info published over the years. Either way, shroud for X component generally works pretty well for me. The whole-blister-as-clamshell idea is nice for smaller guns, but for the bigger ones in my view it makes more sense to have the gun be at the top of the blister, or at the ends, just because of structural complexity and mass issues as you get bigger and bigger.

As another personal opinion, the space claymore antifighter blister idea is one of the most retarded ones in all of SW EU, short of the 3 million clones nonsense. How about just a fucking minelayer module, eh?

[HMS Sophia]

As another personal opinion, the space claymore antifighter blister idea is one of the most retarded ones in all of SW EU, short of the 3 million clones nonsense. How about just a fucking minelayer module, eh?

Hey, I didn't say it was smart did I

[=Krieger=]

The second option is that they are actually compound beams like the dishes on the LAAT/s or deathstar. They would concentrate at a point over the blister and coalesce before being directed this gives them some standoff from the hull and also borrows from the long red TL effects seen in ROTJ.

The important thing I have found is that the liberties and other early MC80 vessels DO have very good forward arcs IF you only utilize the first 40%-60% of the vessel, there are not a lot of blocked angles with proper placement (disperse across the forward hull equivalent gun density of an ISD). Given that ISD's have quite limited fire arcs as well (very minimal ventral coverage, 60% port/starboard, no stern facing weaponry, some SD models have poor forward projection from main guns without a down bow angle) I don't see this as being much of an argument and I think is another brainbug about the mon cals, heck we are relying on the 'blisters' to be gun emplacements just because the always 'correct' :-p guides/books have said so.

Ships built during the clonewars were probably returned to civilian service after a thorough imperial inspection. Those built in the intervening years, up to the point that mon cal was in open rebellion probably were commissioned as liners, but designed and built to be quickly refitted. (probably explains the reliance on backup shielding) anything built during the rebellion is obviously military and we the designs start to multiply at that point. The designs a outside of the movies are very poorly documented and very few conclusions can be drawn from the dodgy artwork on their details.

Regarding the beam thought, I have indeed thought of that. The method I came up with was a series of reflective surfaces in an array inside the blister with one, or possible more, actual weapon emplacements. They could direct the beam(s) faster than an actual turret simply because the many rotating reflective surfaces could each turn at their own rate depending on the angle of fire. This could, in theory, allow the beam to redirect mid-fire for fast-moving targets like missiles or fighters. This could also support the Mon Cal theory or redundancy/efficiency. A more accurate weapon can be more useful than a more powerful weapon.

That could be their conversion from non-military simply because it would be easier than full-on weapon replacements. A bunch of shiny things in a big opening would cause less suspicion than an empty gun emplacement. They could then, based on any superlaser tech they were able to salvage from the two Death Stars, advance that technology to not require any moving parts down the road.

Another idea would be HEAVY reliance on missiles/torpedos. They don't HAVE to fire directly towards the target. Hell, Luke's torpedoes made a friggen 90* turn to blow up the first Death Star. Each blister could house DOZENS of torpedo launchers along with a plethora of extra ammunition. Pretty sure if a Star Destroyer saw volley after volley of torpedoes coming towards it, it might shit itself. It could need to focus more on shooting down the torps instead of firing at the Mon Cal ship, allowing what torps that DO get through to start wreaking havoc along with whatever limited energy weapons the ships have. Could also be a reason Mon Cal ships are able to power all that excessive shielding as well, since launchers don't require any notable energy to operate. This would, however, limit the ships in long-term engagements without a supplement ship to reload it now and then.

[Skywalker_T-65]

Another idea would be HEAVY reliance on missiles/torpedos. They don't HAVE to fire directly towards the target. Hell, Luke's torpedoes made a friggen 90* turn to blow up the first Death Star. Each blister could house DOZENS of torpedo launchers along with a plethora of extra ammunition. Pretty sure if a Star Destroyer saw volley after volley of torpedoes coming towards it, it might shit itself. It could need to focus more on shooting down the torps instead of firing at the Mon Cal ship, allowing what torps that DO get through to start wreaking havoc along with whatever limited energy weapons the ships have. Could also be a reason Mon Cal ships are able to power all that excessive shielding as well, since launchers don't require any notable energy to operate. This would, however, limit the ships in long-term engagements without a supplement ship to reload it now and then.

That could be very well be what they are. The Mon Cal's do have an amazing amount of shield power (otherwise how could the smaller ones stand up to an ISD? And by smaller I mean Liberty type, as opposed to Home One). So if they use missiles that means more power to shields. It would severely limit their staying power in a fight, but if they are willing to make the trade off it could work. The only real problem I could see with that is that Proton Torps are supposedly hard for the Rebels to come by (didn't the X-wings at Yavin only have two each? I'll have to watch ANH again to be sure) but by Endor they might have rectified that problem. But I still stand by my extra armor idea if they are not missile launchers and actually are turbolasers. The shields show how defense oriented Mon Cal's are, and if they are willing to sacrifice being able to have a broadside slugging fest, they could heavily armor the main parts of the turbolasers with only the barrel sticking out at the front. That would in turn limit them to only firing forward, which is quite a trade off when you think about it. But of course this is all idle speculation, I don't think anyone outside of Lucas Arts (or even Lucas himself) know for sure. And who says they even know? For all we know Lucas wanted an anti-SD and went with the blister look for the heck of it.

[=Krieger=]

That could be very well be what they are. The Mon Cal's do have an amazing amount of shield power (otherwise how could the smaller ones stand up to an ISD? And by smaller I mean Liberty type, as opposed to Home One). So if they use missiles that means more power to shields. It would severely limit their staying power in a fight, but if they are willing to make the trade off it could work. The only real problem I could see with that is that Proton Torps are supposedly hard for the Rebels to come by (didn't the X-wings at Yavin only have two each? I'll have to watch ANH again to be sure) but by Endor they might have rectified that problem. But I still stand by my extra armor idea if they are not missile launchers and actually are turbolasers. The shields show how defense oriented Mon Cal's are, and if they are willing to sacrifice being able to have a broadside slugging fest, they could heavily armor the main parts of the turbolasers with only the barrel sticking out at the front. That would in turn limit them to only firing forward, which is quite a trade off when you think about it. But of course this is all idle speculation, I don't think anyone outside of Lucas Arts (or even Lucas himself) know for sure. And who says they even know? For all we know Lucas wanted an anti-SD and went with the blister look for the heck of it.

Sadly, the last bit is most likely true.

And regarding staying power, when they were still the Rebels, that would make sense that they wouldn't need to fire forever in a fight. They would need to make hit-and-fade attacks. Which could explain why Ackbar was so tempted to retreat (aside from the DSII being active). They were vastly outnumbered and the engagement was taking too long.

[Skywalker_T-65]

Good point there the Rebels couldn't afford to stay in a fight for very long so the lack of staying power wouldn't really effect them much. And it is sad that it was probably a spur of the moment design, with no idea on what the blisters are for.

[fractalsponge1]

Not done the turret yet, but the guns are good:

[Count Chocula]

Fractal, very nice MG-42 touch on the barrels! I also like that the apparently optical scopes/sensors are larger than the barrels, as it should be.

Which brings up a digression: if SW uses optical/EM/thermal sensors for targeting, just how large should they be? I imagine an optical or thermal imaging sensor that could target a starfighter sized target at one light-second would have to be pretty fricking huge, Hubble-sized huge perhaps. I can easily reconcile SW imaging sensors having crazy gigapixel resolutions, but there are definite optical limits regardless of the sensor's capability. (Lens) size does matter, after all!

[Skywalker_T-65]

Wow...never ceases to impress me what you can do Fractal. I agree with the last post, the MG-42 touch is a nice one. Looking forward to the next update, its hard to wait though when the work is so good.

[fractalsponge1]

Fractal, very nice MG-42 touch on the barrels! I also like that the apparently optical scopes/sensors are larger than the barrels, as it should be.

Which brings up a digression: if SW uses optical/EM/thermal sensors for targeting, just how large should they be? I imagine an optical or thermal imaging sensor that could target a starfighter sized target at one light-second would have to be pretty fricking huge, Hubble-sized huge perhaps. I can easily reconcile SW imaging sensors having crazy gigapixel resolutions, but there are definite optical limits regardless of the sensor's capability. (Lens) size does matter, after all!

I don't know I'd necessarily call the sensors optical. Could be hand-waving hyperwave tech that just happens to look optical. But yes, a purely optical sensor would probably be huge, and probably of limited use (for fire control anyway) with lightspeed weapons except at close range. For a multi-mount large ship, it's all moot, since on-mount sensors would probably be normally subordinated to the central sensor picture from all sources. For a fighter - dunno.

I'd think for passive sensors, thermal or neutrino detection would be better, given that SW ships generate and dissipate (via neutrinos) stellar level power at least. Even fighters can use pretty insane amounts of energy.

Given the heat

[fractalsponge1]

Turret proper is done.

[Skywalker_T-65]

Nice. Loving the updates. Can't wait to see the finished product.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Very impressive indeed. I'm really loving those gun barrels

[fractalsponge1]

Two warhead launchers and the centerline ion.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Hellz yeah, looking mighty Sexy there Fractal!
Awesome to see one of my favorite EU ships finally come to life at your hand, though...

I never though I;d hear myself say this, but I feel your Turret actually has a bit too MUCH greebles on it..
I think it looked a bit better more "smoothed" down, but that is just MHO on the topic. other then that fantastic work,