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Why? Don't guns lso become more powerful with time and progress, or is the technologial stasis in SW so strong that no difference exists between CW and late-Imperial TLs?

Stas Bush wrote: Why? Don't guns lso become more powerful with time and progress, or is the technologial stasis in SW so strong that no difference exists between CW and late-Imperial TLs?

If there's a firepower difference between CW and late-Imperial TLs, it's not because of discoveries in science or radical design changes, but rather because of marginal efficiency improvements and the desire to put more power through the guns. The stasis means that in the late CW, the Republic could (assuming, of course, they didn't) have built guns as powerful as the Empire did, but they chose not to, possibly because of philosophical or tactical reasons.

Of the top of my head, it seems that most sources mention smaller Star Destroyers like Victorys and Venators being pumped out enmasse, complementing huge ships like Star Battlecruisers and Star Dreadnoughts (many of which already existed).
More expensive medium-sized, long-range vessels don't get focused on until the very end of the Wars, when the Imperators and Tectors begin production.

Following the Wars, there's a 20 year period of building up the Navy with a large number of expensive Star Destroyers to police the galaxy, rather than the small ships/large ships combo of the CW.

During the GCW, the Empire starts seriously focusing on big ships again, along with a relative proliferation of superweapons.

To estimate the worth of an Executor in Imperators, we'd probably want to compare the respective main reactor outputs, in tons of hypermatter annihlitated (sp) per second.

Anyone have figures for those? (I hope that they'll show up in the Complete ICS)

My top-estimate for the maximum output of an Executor would be at 26 million tons of hypermatter per second and 12 million tons at the low-end.

An ISD I would put between 150,000 and 250,000 tons with 200,000 tons being the most likely number (based on the fuel-consumption of Venator and Victory and their size-difference to the ISD).

FTeik wrote:I get 4,750 turbolaser, ion-cannons and point-defense-lasers for the Executor and according to the ITW:OT the ship has over 5,000.

That's a small contradiction that I'm happy to live with, since the new WOTC stats also include 7,500 heavy assault concussion missiles.

I wonder, is a "heavy assault concussion missile" similar to a capship-grade torpedo? Because if it is, damn.

VT-16 wrote:My only dread is for the last previews, where the ISD and Home One will be profiled. I'm almost sure they will mention Imperator at least once, but what of the HO's stats? Oy vey.

Yeah, I'm worried about the HO too. However, the people who are handling this seem to be more open to non-minimalist ideas, and have shown that they're willing to go back and increase some numbers that are too small. We should try e-mailing them about fixing the HO, as well as the tiny starfighter capacity that the Executor and Viscount still have (it should be pointed out that despite the supposed "engineering advances" of the Viscount, its capacity of 216 is still less than the Venator's 420).

EDIT: Try to inform them about the ISD's 60/60 BS as well, while you're at it.

We should try e-mailing them about fixing the HO, as well as the tiny starfighter capacity that the Executor and Viscount still have

Good idea. Fixing the HO-class would essentially be the last major EU blunder regarding capship size and power, or?

000 wrote:I wonder, is a "heavy assault concussion missile" similar to a capship-grade torpedo? Because if it is, damn.

They're pretty powerful. WOTC defines an "assault" concussion missile as a weapon primarily designed for planetary bombardment, although they can also be used to cripple large warships.

Jim Raynor wrote:

000 wrote:I wonder, is a "heavy assault concussion missile" similar to a capship-grade torpedo? Because if it is, damn.

They're pretty powerful. WOTC defines an "assault" concussion missile as a weapon primarily designed for planetary bombardment, although they can also be used to cripple large warships.

There are times when I wished the fools accept the existence of such specialised warheads and not go round in circles to wank starfighters up.

I really hope HO is given its dues. Sigh

What do you need torpedo-spheres for, if an Executor has 7,500 missiles?

At least now we now why the Executor got killed at Endor. It doesn't have enough point-defense-cannons.

This is curioous. Does WEG take into account topside weapons or no? I thought the turrets had a fair bit of upward elevation.

FTeik wrote:What do you need torpedo-spheres for, if an Executor has 7,500 missiles?

At least now we now why the Executor got killed at Endor. It doesn't have enough point-defense-cannons.

The Torpedo Spheres have twice the number of missile tubes in a much smaller ship, and also come with special scanners that detect weak spots in planetary shields (even with so many torpedoes, they don't beat down shields with brute strength).

If you look, they're evidently just trying to reconcile between the WEG stats and the ITW:OT stats. the 2000 TLs and 2000 HTLs in groups of eight incidentally comes out to 250 TL octets and 250 HTL octets.

Ironically they keep the same number of ion cannons. (Maybe they're implied to be octets too, so there are 2000 ion cannon sor so as well per ship.)

As for torpedoes, I doubt its 30 launched per salvo, but rather 30 reloads per tube. (although each of htose 250-300 or whatever may be a 'battery" too... If we go by the "Base" eight stuff again... ~2000 missile tubes. Why not.)

The laser cannons, no clue. For all we know they're also "batteries" (which could mean 8-gun batteries) so that its really 4000 laser cannons. (which, if you factor in the usual rate of fire for lasers, probably means tens of thousands of shots a second from the laser batteries combined.)

Amusingly enough, really early WEG evidence had the "60 TL/ion cannon battery" stuff arranged in 5 gun/3 turret arrangements per battery (so in practice there were 300 TL and 300 ion cannons per ship.) And WOTC added 40 point defense laser cannons to the ISD later on (they also went with the 60 TL/60 ion cannons, but had them in 12 "five gun" atteries, so you had 12 5-gun batteries now..)

Now all we need is to change 250 fighters to 250 wings of fighters (assuming about 100 fighters per wing)

With the revised armament number, I'm not ashamed to say that I think that this is probably the best retcon ever.

Yes, this retcon gives me hope that the stuff for the Home One and ISD will be equally good. Also, the rules for the game look like their influenced by the movies, with fighters unable to do any harm to a Star Dreadnought until it has been damaged by cap ships.

The actual number of guns in determining firepower isn't very important for SW ships, when a ship can put an arbitrary amount of energy (up to a point) through the guns, reactor output is what really matters.

fusion wrote:Now all we need is to change 250 fighters to 250 wings of fighters (assuming about 100 fighters per wing)

I'm not very comfortable with the Ex carrying tens of thousands of fighters. While the 250 fighters is a severe limitation of her bay capacity, that doesn't automatically translates to tens of thousands of fighters either. We know from General Dodonna that the Empire simply didn't place any tactical value on snubfighters, believing that their sole value was to destroy other snubfighters. While this changed post Yavin, the Executor was already too late in her construction phase to change.

It makes more sense that the Ex say carries 250 dedicated fighters, with several hundred other TIEs and craft dedicated to supporting Imperial army operations. She's not a dedicated carrier after all but a command ship.

PainRack wrote:I'm not very comfortable with the Ex carrying tens of thousands of fighters. While the 250 fighters is a severe limitation of her bay capacity, that doesn't automatically translates to tens of thousands of fighters either. We know from General Dodonna that the Empire simply didn't place any tactical value on snubfighters, believing that their sole value was to destroy other snubfighters. While this changed post Yavin, the Executor was already too late in her construction phase to change.

Are you talking about ANH? All we know is that the Death Star wasn't designed with a lot of anti-fighter guns proportional to its size. That's all. Nothing about the number of fighters on the Death Star.

It makes more sense that the Ex say carries 250 dedicated fighters, with several hundred other TIEs and craft dedicated to supporting Imperial army operations. She's not a dedicated carrier after all but a command ship.

That makes no sense at all. The Executor is over a hundred times more massive than an ISD (which isn't a dedicated fighter carrier either). Even if it was a lot less dedicated to carrying fighters than an ISD (which doesn't make sense at all), it could still carry a lot more than a paltry several hundred TIEs.

PainRack wrote:It makes more sense that the Ex say carries 250 dedicated fighters, with several hundred other TIEs and craft dedicated to supporting Imperial army operations. She's not a dedicated carrier after all but a command ship.

She's not a dedicated carrier, but she does have the space to carry many more than 500 fighters: simply because she's a dedicated command ship instead of a carrier doesn't mean that the design ought waste its capabilities. To illustrate this point, consider the analogy to the Death Star: she's a dedicated anti-planetary shield platform, but that doesn't mean she doesn't also function as a mobile power projector; to not use those capabilities would be to waste them, since they exist in spite of not serving the main function.

Jim Raynor wrote: Are you talking about ANH? All we know is that the Death Star wasn't designed with a lot of anti-fighter guns proportional to its size. That's all. Nothing about the number of fighters on the Death Star.

General Dodonna stated that the reason why there wasn't so many AA guns was because they simply didn't believe snubfighters could pose a threat. He then went on to say that the Empire believed their only role was to destroy other snubfighters.

That makes no sense at all. The Executor is over a hundred times more massive than an ISD (which isn't a dedicated fighter carrier either). Even if it was a lot less dedicated to carrying fighters than an ISD (which doesn't make sense at all), it could still carry a lot more than a paltry several hundred TIEs.

The orginal WEG stats were for fighters assigned to the Executor. They might have the space for the fighters, but that doesn't mean that the fighters were assigned. An easy retcon would be that 250 fighters= dedicated fighters assigned to the Imperial Navy operations, with other fighter assets assigned to Army operations.

She's not a dedicated carrier, but she does have the space to carry many more than 500 fighters: simply because she's a dedicated command ship instead of a carrier doesn't mean that the design ought waste its capabilities. To illustrate this point, consider the analogy to the Death Star: she's a dedicated anti-planetary shield platform, but that doesn't mean she doesn't also function as a mobile power projector; to not use those capabilities would be to waste them, since they exist in spite of not serving the main function.

Adding ten of thousand of fighters means more crew, droids, space, power, fuel, munitions assigned to them other than shields, firepower and speed.

Furthermore, the idea is to rationalise/retcon WEG stats. 250 dedicated space fighters, with additional TIEs and other spacecraft for Imperial Army ranging up to the thousands of TIE is good enough.

Alsothe DS WAS meant to project imperial power as well, thus why Lemelisk remarked that she was to carry fighters and garrison troops.

PainRack wrote:Adding ten of thousand of fighters means more crew, droids, space, power, fuel, munitions assigned to them other than shields, firepower and speed.

Of course. The point is, the Executor was designed with those extra crew, droids, space, power, fuel, munitions in mind, else she wouldn't have those hangars.

Furthermore, the idea is to rationalise/retcon WEG stats. 250 dedicated space fighters, with additional TIEs and other spacecraft for Imperial Army ranging up to the thousands of TIE is good enough.

True. Perhaps one might rationalize it by saying all of the ship's hangar space is dedicated to drydocking and maintaining star destroyers, and the fighter wing is a token escort for reconnaissance and last-ditch engagements?

Alsothe DS WAS meant to project imperial power as well, thus why Lemelisk remarked that she was to carry fighters and garrison troops.

Of course, the Executor is also meant to project Imperial power. She's not simply a command post, just as the Death Star is not simply a planet-killer. While those may be their primary roles, that doesn't mean there aren't any other roles they're designed for.

We might want to consider the amount of space that the Executor's ground troop complement, field maintainence ships and intelligence transports would take before trying to calculate availiable space for the fighters.

Of course, the Executor is also meant to project Imperial power. She's not simply a command post, just as the Death Star is not simply a planet-killer. While those may be their primary roles, that doesn't mean there aren't any other roles they're designed for.

Why can't the Executor and Co just project Imperial power like regular battleships, and leave dedicated troop transports and fighter carriers to handle planetary landings?

We don't need a do-everything brainbug in this sci-fi universe, as well. There should be some degree of specialization. Even ISDs don't have that much space devoted to fighters and AFVs.