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I'm trying to scale the Malevolence's guns too.. its not easy but I would say (tenatively) that there are two kinds of guns. ones that look similar to the Venators, which are shorter barreled but more numerous dual firing. They seem to be about as large as the Venator's at leat (Tens of meters in diameter) but could be much larger (as large as ISD HTLS perhaps). There are also less numberous but larger/heavier TLs with longer barrels (single or dual mount, hard to say) that are probably as wide as the Venator-like guns, but twice as long (so they're probably as big, or bigger, than ISD HTLs.)

And given the implied density with broadsides and weapons spacing, they must have many hundreds if not thousands of such guns, giving it trmeendous firepower for a Separatist vessel, though its fire arcs are still pretty limited (best for broadside, with a fairly good foreward and above/below, but it must suck firing aft.)

It probably has better ventral coverage than most Republic/Imperial wedge-ships as well, though.

To be honest, the idea of the Malevolence is very appealing to me, simply because it gives the Seps a ship which is as powerful, and perhaps even more powerful, than anything that the Republic fields. The quantity over quality thing clearly does not hold for the Seps in space - Providence class ships can match Venators and Lucrehulks are considerably tougher.

Ford Prefect wrote:Providence class ships can match Venators and Lucrehulks are considerably tougher.

How many Venators to take out a Lucrehlk?

From memory, it's a 'flotilla'. I don't actually remember if a number has ever been given (but for some reason I'm thinking between three and nine).

I think the groups of three they send out after the Malevolence counts as a "flotilla". Read that somewhere. With the Lucrehulk, I remember seeing three or four Venators in ROTS, though that was just the ships hovering near it after one had been partially neutralized and one Venator was in the process of boarding it (bts commentary).

Connor MacLeod wrote: They were as I recall using RimSoos and those medical frigates... I'm assuming that they were relying more on "mobile" facilities than stationary ones (at that point.) That would make that the only large, stationary facility they had (and quite probably the best equipped... designed to handle the nastiest cases.) Hell, it was the only facility I know of having a Kaminoan on hand.

Indeed, the Drongar campaign had 15 Rimsoos of its own. That was fought in mostly small scale battles even due to the volatile planetary environment. I would guess that the larger scale campaigns had even more resources devoted to them.

The possibility might exist that this facility was the only one of its kind because in the Outer Rim, the Republic lacked planetary assets enough to house medical facilities and ended up ferrying the injured back deep into Republic space. With hyperdrive, the larger MEdStar frigates, and other, smaller, medical ships Ferrying troops back into Republic space seems more likely.

Darth Fanboy wrote: Honestly continuity hasn't improved a whole alot since the pre-ICS days,

Well considering the plethora of Travissty abominations being produced lately, that's a given.

despite all of Chee's efforts. Its simply too big and complicated a task for one poor man to handle, and there are too many projects, viewpoints, agendas, opinions to always unify it. Hell, you'll still see WEG material creeping into stuff DWR and Curtis s upposedly "retconned" and that in DK books (its happened.. the 120 km death star)

I'm just going by the timeline is all. Jedi Trial is one of my preferred EU books but it was irritating to see Anakin having served most of the way into the Clone Wars without having ascended to Jedi Knight yet. I was wondering how this show would address continuity given the already large number of documented events that have happened during the scant few years between Geonosis and Mustafar, and it appears they decided not to even bother much. I'm thinking perhaps that Lucas should have set Episode III a few years later and made the Clone War itself longer. This would solve or alleviate a number of issues IMHO.

How are we doing for continuity? I understand Wookieepedia still doesn't have the official dates when the Battle of Christophsis, Teth, Rugosa, Abregado and Kaliida occurred.

However, we still have plenty of open space in the timeline to work with. For example: The Clone Wars microseries which I think is the most familiar to the mainstream viewers, the gap between Chapters 21 (Hypori) and 22 (Nelvaan) is at least 2 years 3 months.

DHC's Republic #67 has the Battle of Zaadja at Great Resync Year 14, month 11. #68 with Aayla and Bly at Honoghr is set at GRS Year 15, month 5. Then the following issue at the Rendili Shipyards takes place at Year 15, month 12. That's one year and one month in the comics with no Obi-Wan and Anakin (although only 2 months pass by in real time).

However, Anakin's eye scar is a problem. That would mean the Clone Wars animated series is set after Rendili, and we have mere months before ROTS comes up.

Old Plympto wrote:However, Anakin's eye scar is a problem. That would mean the Clone Wars animated series is set after Rendili, and we have mere months before ROTS comes up.

I thought Rendili happened early on in the Clone Wars. It led to the absorbtion of the private fleets, something done early on.

Ekiqa wrote:

Old Plympto wrote:However, Anakin's eye scar is a problem. That would mean the Clone Wars animated series is set after Rendili, and we have mere months before ROTS comes up.

I thought Rendili happened early on in the Clone Wars. It led to the absorbtion of the private fleets, something done early on.

The Dreadnaughts of Rendili are issues #69-#71 of Star Wars Republic, very close to the Siege of Saleucami. The clone troopers are already wearing Phase 2 armor - which is why I brought up the eye scar. The clones in the CW series are still in their Phase 1 armor (although they seem to have dropped the stupid color for rank paint scheme).

Old Plympto wrote:

Ekiqa wrote:

Old Plympto wrote:However, Anakin's eye scar is a problem. That would mean the Clone Wars animated series is set after Rendili, and we have mere months before ROTS comes up.

I thought Rendili happened early on in the Clone Wars. It led to the absorbtion of the private fleets, something done early on.

The Dreadnaughts of Rendili are issues #69-#71 of Star Wars Republic, very close to the Siege of Saleucami. The clone troopers are already wearing Phase 2 armor - which is why I brought up the eye scar. The clones in the CW series are still in their Phase 1 armor (although they seem to have dropped the stupid color for rank paint scheme).

It has been suggested that Ventress deliberately reopened the scar with that blow as part of her taunting him. It isn't unknown. Boxers can get hit and have their scars reopen. But pushing RoR up makes more sense to me personally.

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Ripped from the SW.com videodoc on how they created the Mal. So some beautiful shots of the actual CGI model there. Unfortunately the broadside never fully pans aft (or at least I couldn't grab a shot of it) but someone with good photoshop skills could merge 5 and 6 to get a nearly complete model shot. The bridge shots are nice as they allow us to actually scale the turrets relative to something (once we nail down the size of this thing). But either my eyes are going in my young age, or this has a few problems. I tried scaling the ring to the windows in that darkened broadside (#7) and assuming 1 meter viewports, the ring is only ~57 meters wide. And the Mal herself then only ~800 meters long. Which doesn't jive with the rest of the shots. Plus that bridge viewport is huge compared to the rest of the squares, so 1 meter was probably overstating it. Then unless I'm getting tripped up in the low resolution of MS paint, the number of guns on the bridge doesn't add up in 8 and 9. In #8 I get 24, in #9 I get 20. Admittedly the different angles throw it off, but in 8 it looks like there are groups of 3 turrets, in 9 it looks like 2 turret pairs.

Someone with more time on their hands then me can give these a good once over and tell me if I'm just screwy or what. Good hunting people.

Darth Fanboy wrote:

Lord Revan wrote:from what I've heard it's during year 1 of the clone wars, but beond that I dunno

If that's true then the guys running the holocron have some work and retconning to do. Jedi Trial was supposedly set in the 3rd year of the war and Anakin was still a Padawan at that point.

there's also that the Venators were put into action in the end of the second and beginning of the third year. I don't know how they would reconcile the Open Circle Armada existing at the start of the War with Venators.

VT-16 wrote:Which makes sense, given the internal Rendili conflict would be better suited at the beginning of a war, when all had to choose sides, instead of towards the end.

the problem was that the pre-existing government that was loyal to the Republic was overthrown with a separitist government, around the time the CIS did have extensive Core Territories. Arguably that makes more sense as it's not as much a problem if your allies are nearby vs. being surrounded by the enemy and blockaded or whatnot (as what happened to Brentaal and Forost). Either it was a popular revolution (Rendili is majority human IIRC so that is odd; but it happened with Jabiim too and it was called the 'Revolutionary Provisional Government' or something like that), or realism in action by some people who didn't want their world destroyed due to war (Rendili has major shipyards so it is a good target for Grievous and given what he did to Humbarine and the Weemell Sector) even Core Worlds were likely afraid and/or considered the CIS a better side (one of the separitist officers said something to that effect I believe).

Darwin wrote: I see the B-Y's as long-range strike bombers, compared with the more light-attack role of the standard Y.

I get your point, but didnt the Rebel Alliance force do the same with their Y-wing fighters (long-range heavy attack)? What happened to those types? (in an out of universe we should see the retcon soon or something of the sort)

Now I wanna modify one of the Fine Molds model kits to one of these.

go for it

FSTargetDrone wrote:It's interesting that we never saw the upper turret on the Y-wings used in ANH. It seems like they would have been fairly useful in the trench run, perhaps controlled by the onboard astromech.

Y-wings in Star Wars Battlefront do have the turret available for that purpose, and it is a laser turret. But those turrets shoot lasers so that might be a modification. It is known there are 2-seat Y-wings with a gunner and pilot.

IIRC the Y-wings used in the Battle of Yavin were single-seat and the top turret was an Ion Cannon and we don't really see that cannon turn too much in one angle or another in many sources. That and the charge up time might be diverting energy from shields or something ("switch all power to front deflector shields")

VT-16 wrote:I think they all died, since he's later brooding over his losses at the end of the episode.

how would the people in disabled Y-wings die?

From the following bombardement? Anakin says he lost half his pilots.

Actually, on the issue of ANH Y-Wings and their ion cannon turrets, I just remembered that the original ICS says that the cannons were quite persnickety, and at the time of the battle only two of the Y-Wings involved actually had functional ion cannons. It also notes that of the Y-Wings deployed, it was only the two with working ion cannons that survived.

VT-16 wrote:From the following bombardement? Anakin says he lost half his pilots.

Perhaps it's "lost" as in "no longer an active combatant". I'm certain we saw two Y-wings collide (Matchstick and Tag) and one more got an engine blown away from it and crashed into the Malevolent. However in the end there were only 5 Y-wings left. There were some others caught in the ion blast seen floating with the vulture droids in one shot. Perhaps these were only disabled and there should be ample time for them to stay alive without life support because not long after Obi-Wan's flotilla arrived.

Ion cannons are not necessarily non-lethal - Wedge Antilles (or Corran Horn) hits an armoured vehicle with a burst from his TIE Defender's ion cannons and watches one of the crew fall out screaming. The Malevolence's broadside ion cannons are physically as massive as some capital ships; it is unlikely that those fighters hit with it were left with live pilots.

If an ion cannon can overwhelm a capital ship's shields, imagine what it'll do to a tiny fighter... and the person piloting inside it.

Mmm... microwave oven.

Saxtonite wrote:

Darwin wrote: I see the B-Y's as long-range strike bombers, compared with the more light-attack role of the standard Y.

I get your point, but didnt the Rebel Alliance force do the same with their Y-wing fighters (long-range heavy attack)? What happened to those types? (in an out of universe we should see the retcon soon or something of the sort)

Nah, the Rebels used the Y-wing as a multirole craft, at least until they had enough X-wings to go around, and always Hit&Run raids from primitive bases where they gave higher value to speed and maintenance over payload (Proton torpedoes are expensive!)

VT-16 wrote:I think they all died, since he's later brooding over his losses at the end of the episode.

how would the people in disabled Y-wings die? [/quote]

Wouldn't Anakin brood if he even lost one? He LIVES to brood.

Darwin wrote: Wouldn't Anakin brood if he even lost one? He LIVES to brood.

But Anaking DID brood!

All else aside, I wouldn't put it past Grievous to order any anti-fighter turrets that aren't doing anything else to open up on the disabled Y-wings, even if we didn't see it. He is a fiendish general after all.

Just been looking at the preview for the next one... I'd say boarding it is idiotic, but hopefully, the rationale will be that even crippled (IIRC, the Mally's hyperdrive was damaged) Obi Wan's Venators can't actually do much damage, hence, boarding it to sabotage it... If they were to use the thing's sheer mass as a rationale, it would actually make sense. I've rather liked the Malevolance arc so far.

Also, I like that her dorsal batteries actually have very good forward and side coverage. If we look at the two 'bulges' aft of her main weapons; reactor bulbs?

Well, seems like Obi-Wan's venators couldn't muster the firepower to destroy the Malevolance, but ramming it into a planet at hyperspeed seems to work quite well.

Also, the Ship is indeed massive. It's big enough to have it's own subway system. I wouldn't be surprised if it was within the 10-14 kilometer range.

Also, I usually don't like the droid antics, but did anyone else chuckle a little bit when the droid on the bridge screamed "we're all gonna die. Abandon ship"?

Darwin wrote:Nah, the Rebels used the Y-wing as a multirole craft, at least until they had enough X-wings to go around, and always Hit&Run raids from primitive bases where they gave higher value to speed and maintenance over payload (Proton torpedoes are expensive!)

oh. Thank you.

Hmm yes that was also why the extra armor was removed; the Alliance Technicians were tired of the frequent maintenance/repair of Y-wings so they simply removed the armor permanently for many of them.

EDIT: and proton torpedo cost does depend on the faction, fleet, etc. Apparently some groups/squadrons were relatively better off than others with the Rebelllion being an alliance of various groups and all.

Wouldn't Anakin brood if he even lost one? He LIVES to brood.

yes he would. heh.

Ford Prefect wrote:Ion cannons are not necessarily non-lethal - Wedge Antilles (or Corran Horn) hits an armoured vehicle with a burst from his TIE Defender's ion cannons and watches one of the crew fall out screaming.

can you post the page? That was Isard's revenge right? Apparently the sides of the ships/hull blew out or something due to the electrical charge or the bulkhead opened up.

The Malevolence's broadside ion cannons are physically as massive as some capital ships; it is unlikely that those fighters hit with it were left with live pilots.

arguably that is true..hmm. Don't those ion cannons only really affect electrical stuff; being drawn to electrical equipment that is on and shields, leaving everything else alone? But the idea of electrical shock is possible too

Ford Prefect wrote:Actually, on the issue of ANH Y-Wings and their ion cannon turrets, I just remembered that the original ICS says that the cannons were quite persnickety, and at the time of the battle only two of the Y-Wings involved actually had functional ion cannons. It also notes that of the Y-Wings deployed, it was only the two with working ion cannons that survived.

thank you for the information then

VT-16 wrote:From the following bombardement? Anakin says he lost half his pilots.

Grievous was never seen ordering that. but what NecronLord said is possibly correct.

Darksider wrote:Well, seems like Obi-Wan's venators couldn't muster the firepower to destroy the Malevolance, but ramming it into a planet at hyperspeed seems to work quite well.

yeah. Though it was interesting to see the Moon come out of nowhere (it wasnt seen in the last ep but arguably it was in the ares; but wasnt that station described as 'deep space'?) Maybe the Venators pursued it decently far in subspace. So what they said was correct. that and how long the pursuit was arguably interpreted to be; long enough for the Y-wings commanded by Anakin to return to the medical station, get repaired/maintained, some other stuff and return to the Venator Obi-Wan was on. Several hours maybe? Does anyone know the Venator's speeds in sublight?

And the ship apparently has shit defense for the rear...or the destruction of the dual Ion Cannons damaged/destroyed them.

Also a nitpick. IT was stated to be a moon. I wonder why the moon wasnt fucked up more by that given what happened to Pammant.

Also, I usually don't like the droid antics, but did anyone else chuckle a little bit when the droid on the bridge screamed "we're all gonna die. Abandon ship"?

heh. I was surprised at the battledroids rushing out to put out the fire and flailing from the firehose, not waiting for others to grab the hose..heh.

Saxtonite wrote:can you post the page? That was Isard's revenge right? Apparently the sides of the ships/hull blew out or something due to the electrical charge or the bulkhead opened up.

It was Isard's Revenge, but I borrowed it from the library some time ago, so I can't post the actual text.

arguably that is true..hmm. Don't those ion cannons only really affect electrical stuff; being drawn to electrical equipment that is on and shields, leaving everything else alone? But the idea of electrical shock is possible too

While ion cannons are supposed to be for disabling electronics, I find it kind of hard to believe that it would be so clean as that. If I was somehow floating in space and caught in the path of the broadside ion cannon, I highly doubt I would come through it with only my digital watch harmed. You might be safe with hundreds of thousands of tons (in case of the medical ships), to tens or hundreds of millions of tons of Venator around you, but a space fighter is a different level entirely.

Ford Prefect wrote: It was Isard's Revenge, but I borrowed it from the library some time ago, so I can't post the actual text.

oh I was asking for the page number! Sorry. Do you know the page number

While ion cannons are supposed to be for disabling electronics, I find it kind of hard to believe that it would be so clean as that. If I was somehow floating in space and caught in the path of the broadside ion cannon, I highly doubt I would come through it with only my digital watch harmed. You might be safe with hundreds of thousands of tons (in case of the medical ships), to tens or hundreds of millions of tons of Venator around you, but a space fighter is a different level entirely.

oh. I do get your point.

Saxtonite wrote:oh I was asking for the page number! Sorry. Do you know the page number

Sorry, I'm afraid not. I think it's in the big battle after the Rogues go undercover, as vague as that may be.