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Let's talk Star Destroyers!
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Mikael Hasselstein
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 07, 2015 4:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Mojomoe wrote:
I'd say the rule here is that, barring RARE exceptions (General Veers), nobody is expected to ever make a cross-ship journey; you are housed where you work, and there you remain. Veers was presumably different because he both coordinated a fleet wide ground assault AND led the assault; as such, he was expected in Command (where he received direct orders from Vader), and in the landing bay, from where the assault was actually launched. In general, though, I assume no one lives in Command and works in Starfighter Control. Such transport is wasteful and unnecessary, I'd wager. We had assumed earlier that crew rarely - if ever - left their section and mingled.

In principle I would agree. The reason I would like to see some provisional visual models of the housing blocks is so that we can get a sense of scale. The larger these housing blocks need to be, the less freedom we have in their placement, and they more they're going to be shoved to the lower super structure, where the Victory Class has its housing blocks.

Right now I feel like I'm in a bit of chicken/egg catch 22, because I want to think about who goes where, but that also depends on the amount of bodies and where that amount of bodies can go. It might not matter, but still my thought process is running around in circles right now.

I did short-hand quite a lot of the crewing by calculating proportions based off the crew complement of an Iowa-class battleship. I found this page giving us some raw numbers on departments and divisions. It also verifies that I have some of my nomenclature right. Anyway, in the administrative divisions, where the numbers of administrators relate to the numbers of crew (rather than reflecting particular technologies such as weapons systems and fighters/shuttles), it seems to me simple just to divide by 1,450 and multiply by 46,785. That gives us the following at least:

Medical & Dental: 1267 (a division of the Administrative Department)
Bookkeeping: 1877 (a division of the Administrative Department)
Food services: 1968 (a section of Supply & Logistics, also a division of the Administrative Department)

As impressive as the numbers look, it's taking quite a lot to get to the 46,786. Thus far I have 17,855 accounted for in my spreadsheet, which includes the stormtrooper legion, the TIE pilots and most of the weapons department.

I'm hoping to get a lot of numbers from security, engineering and maintenance, but security and maintenance will likely be focused around where people are. There's not too much need for security or maintenance in the bow, if there's not a lot of people working there to get out of hand or to mess things up. I can probably just run some factor based off the (1450/46785=)x32.2 factor, but I imagine that at Imperial society is a bit more totalitarian than the US Navy, and that they'll want more of a security presence than the US Navy does.

Mojomoe wrote:
To that end, your continued organization of the crew and their sections is MOST useful. As to a sample room block, what would help you the most? A Stormtrooper block will be different from a Starfighter block, which is different from Enlisted, Officer, and Division Commander blocks. EDIT - I see you'd like the Stormtrooper block, which I can accommodate. I assume we need more numbers data to determine the sizes of the other blocks.

Come to think of it, how many types of room blocks do you think we'll have? We have a little info from the Death Star and some ISD room schematics, showing different room sizes and amenities for different ranks. If we can start grouping these, it would help.


If we have room to spare (as in, housing doesn't actually take up all that much space, but we still want cramped quarters, just to make it uncomfortable for people on principle) then we can really just make everything standardized, and have the size of quarters determined purely by rank. That IMO fits the stratified hierarchical society that we're building around. So, the command crew nice and spacious, stormtroopers stacked like cordwood.

I guess the reason that I'm asking for stormtroopers is because we already know the numbers, and it represents the bottom of the hierarchy. Stormtroopers are an extremely bottom-heavy department, where the ratio of lowest-rank enlisted to the rest is the highest. Still, they too have ranks, and higher-ranked troopers will be quartered in more spacious quarters than the buck-privates.



Mojomoe wrote:
CONSUMABLES
I think this list is a great start, we can add to it later. For now, let's start to assign rough amounts to each of these. What do we know about air filtration on Star Wars ships? Do we have a canon sense for how much O2 the Falcon, for instance, carries? We can guesstimate water from the Cross-Sections ISD book. Maybe numbers aren't important, but do we need half as much air as water? A third?


I just ran a number. by my math, which may be faulty, I figure that to house 46785 people for a year, we will need to store 10,753 cubic meters of liquid oxygen. Of course, if they just want convert CO2 back to C and O2 by zapping it with a laser, then maybe that's just a more efficient process. of dealing with the oxygen question. Your thoughts?

Mojomoe wrote:
As far as images, yeah - if you could kick out a PNG or JPG of each layer it would help. You're using Photoshop, right? If so I should also be able to access your whole layer structure, so that shouldn't be a problem. Do I have a sample file to check?

Remember that I'm using GIMP.
How eager are you to get these pixels sooner rather than later?



Mojomoe wrote:
WEAPON EMPLACEMENTS

I agree that broadside makes more sense than retracted panel covers. That just seems to violate Occam's Razor a little overmuch for my tastes, but I'll take another look at canon sources of laser emission - just to make sure nothing originates from the dorsal surface.

I'll admit, I'm really warming to your circular opening / double gun theory. And I KNOW trying to rationalize the model is nonsense - but since we'll be placing guns down to the METER on this map, I'd like to try *one more time* to rationalize the greebles and make a match (I know Razz).

First off, I wonder if it would be worth it to take all the high res shots of the trenches and superstructure and try to make SOME kind of rough cut map, so we can look at all the structures at once and count them. Thoughts?

Shocked
I'm glad you're volunteering yourself for that. Below I have an image for you, in the same series as the ones I had before. Here you have the firing arc of what I imagine the aft-most ion cannon to be, along with 25 yellow dashes along each broadside to represent even spacing of heavy turbolaser batteries.



Mojomoe wrote:

So, for my own edification, and to be sure I'm 100% understanding: could you run through your double-wide rounded portal theory in detail one more time (pretend I'm stupid). Assuming your best-guess, do we have all the guns/ions/fire arcs accounted for? Or are we missing some/have too many?


Okay, the double-wide rounded portal theory is as follows:

We're talking about just the heavy turbolasers - not the heavy turbolaser batteries. I am thinking of these heavy turbolasers as being something like this:



And then two of them side-by side in a large rounded porthole. That would give them a wide arc of fire, and be able to move more rapidly than the batteries, representing the extra dice of fire control.

Now, as I write this, I'm realizing that what that image represents may not be anything like a heavy turbolaser cannon; a HTC being maybe a LOT bigger than that. After all, this is what a heavy turbolaser cannon cannon looked like on the Death Star:



Still, that's just a question of scale. We could still have two of those sitting side-by-side in each one of those long portholes.

On the model, you saw the following:



On the frontal image (ie. the front firing arc), we see 10 of those porthole (6 on the tower, 4 on the broadsides). If we have 2 HTCs per porthole, then we have the 20 front-firing HTCs accounted for.

On the side image, we see 9 of those portholes (2 on the broadside, and 7 on the superstructure). If two of those portholes on the superstructure are tractor beams, then we are left with 5 portholes on the superstructure. If each of those has 2 HTCs, then we have our 10 side-firing HTCs.

(As I write this, I realize that I didn't account for the ones on broadsides in their side-firing capacity, but I'm allowing myself the fudge on that.)

That leaves us with 10 aft-firing HTCs to account for.


Of course, we have the controversy over these. I'm getting 50 HTCs from the ImpSB. According to the Star Wars: The Official Starships & Vehicles Collection 5 there are 26+ "Additional turbolaser batteries", and according to that same source as well as Starships of the Galaxy (Saga Edition RPG), it has 50 turbolasers (as opposed to heavy turbolasers). I don't have that S&V Collection book, so I can't speak to its quality.

I'm interested in what the S&V collection might be, but I don't feel like paying ~$70 to get it on eBay from Australia.
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RyanDarkstar
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 07, 2015 4:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

X-Wing Alliance Upgrade - http://www.xwaupgrade.com - attempts to fix a lot of the graphic shortcomings of the original X-Wing Alliance video game, but I'm not sure how well they placed all of the weaponry on the Star Destroyers.

If I can find my game, I'll let you know.

Update:
Found my game, but unfortunately the game is a bust. Even with the upgraded graphics, there are no discernible locations for the turbolasers. Laser blasts seem to randomly exit from all over.
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Last edited by RyanDarkstar on Sun Jan 11, 2015 3:54 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Zarm R'keeg
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 08, 2015 10:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Mikael Hasselstein wrote:
I have not looked at that. Do you recall those games being particularly precise about where the weapons fire originated from? I played them about 20 years ago now, and don't recall anything that precise.


I do not recall. They were just the only potential source I could think of. They could be random garbage, for all I know. But if they put enough time and detail into it...
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Mojomoe
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 13, 2015 2:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ok, I just want to give a quick update.

First, try as I might, there's no way to make head or tails from the Avenger studio model shots, as regards a complete map of the equatorial trench. Simply put, the photographer did not capture enough in each shot to build a continuous map. This is frustrating.

Second, I found some footage of the Star Destroyer from one of the Xwing games, Alliance I believe, wherein they have decided that the gun emplacements are exactly that - tiny, Death Star-like cubic emplacements - and that they are supremely SMALL compared to the size of the ship. Seriously, in low flyovers, I have trouble even freezeframing and spotting them, they're THAT small. This might be something we consider: As regards the shot of the gunners in their gun bays that you posted previously ^, we might want to run a quick scale test and see JUST how big those guns would be on the model; it's possible we're looking for a needle on Mount Everest, and the guns may be placed LITERALLY anywhere on the trench. They might even be in one of those many (MANY) small holes we assume to be portholes in the studio model.

One other thought, to further gum up the works, is that we still have the (admittedly latter-era canon) cutaway of the Venator-class showing the equatorial docking vestibule in the similarly-shaped rounded portal. If we use the portals for the guns, we lose them for station docking and umbilical. Just a thought.

I apologize for the back and forth on this one, I really do. I don't want to stick on this one point, but I'm not sure the best course of action. Thoughts?
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Mikael Hasselstein
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 15, 2015 2:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hey man,

That's some serious research. Cool!

Presuming that what you saw in the game was coherent with all the rest of what we know (big presumption, but let's go with it), then my theory is that you were looking at an ISD-I, which does have 60 of the XX-9 Heavy Turbolaser towers, which were also on the Death Star.

Those correspond with the 60 Heavy Turbolaser Batteries mentioned in the ImpSB. Those roll 5d damage with 4d fire control. So far, so slightly coherent (except that the Wookiee has more guns on the ISD-I than the ImpSB mentions - similar to our problem).

On the ISD-II there are 50 heavy turbolaser batteries, which - just judging by the name and the number - would of be similar size and similarly placed - except that they shoot 10d damage with no fire control bonus.

I'm very much of a mind to say "the ImpSB has it all screwed up", because we're going with the Octuples being the big guns, which would be the 10d damage heavy turbolasers.

Ugh, all the inconsistency is making my head hurt.
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Mojomoe
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 15, 2015 6:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Agreed. One of these sources is going to have to give.

How do you feel about the portals, and losing them to the guns? Maintaining them for docking would be a nice touch, especially since that one in the equatorial indent matches up nicely with a similar structure we know is used for docking on the Venator.
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Mikael Hasselstein
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 16, 2015 3:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Mojomoe wrote:
Agreed. One of these sources is going to have to give.

How do you feel about the portals, and losing them to the guns? Maintaining them for docking would be a nice touch, especially since that one in the equatorial indent matches up nicely with a similar structure we know is used for docking on the Venator.


I'm in favor of the interpretation I wrote earlier... whatever that was. I think we need to hammer this out and be done with the where-are-the-guns debate.

BUT - I do think we need a proof-of-concept scaling exercise. How large would a gunport with two guns being swivelled by three guys and a spotter each (as in the image) be in comparison to what we see on the model?

Also, remember that this is canon now:



It looks like it's got a bunch of cannon slots, rather than a bunch of greebles. Also, one of its ancestors was a giraffe.
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Mojomoe
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 16, 2015 10:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'll do a quick scaling test.

Having not seen more than the pilot episode of Rebels, do they ever show the ISD firing at all, or more info on the weapons? I know we got a lot of good looks at the interiors in the pilot.

Also very much agreed, we should pin the guns soon and move on to the next area!
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Mojomoe
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 16, 2015 11:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Here we go. This is long-awaited, I realize I probably should have done this far sooner. Classic researcher's mistake!

This is a comparison of the Death Star laser cannons in relation to the ISD II's equatorial trench, with our deck structure. It includes at least a 10% margin for error due to Photoshop scaling.



Thoughts? It appears one could make the case that just about any of those little portholes is a potential gun emplacement, or that we are to assume there are retractable blast shields just about anywhere. Compare for example the rounded portal (I should have outlined it), just behind the Deck 78, 79, 80 text.
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Mikael Hasselstein
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 16, 2015 4:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This suffices as proof-of-concept to me.

Let me also put up the image that you posted way back on pg. 5 (rescaled for convenience)



In this image, it looks like the those portholes are two decks tall. In the Death Star image that you posted as an insert, it also looks to me like the chamber, within which we see those cannons, is significantly taller than a deck, but the gun ports themselves are about a deck tall, exactly as you scaled it in your image.

I say that the two-deck tall portholes are indeed the gun ports for the Heavy Turbolaser Cannons, which look a lot like manually-moved Death Star cannons. However, in order to get a wider arc of fire, they made the gun ports bigger on the Star Destroyer than they did on the Death Star. Also, they put in two per gunport in order to double up. (That also gets us the numbers we want, as I calculated on the previous page.

For the sake of having made the image, that would give the following arc of fire to the heavy Turbolaser cannons from the places where I suggested:


Tower Heavy Turbolaser Cannons



Trench Heavy Turbolaser Cannons:




Upper Superstructure Heavy Turbolaser Cannons:



Lower Superstructure Heavy Turbolaser Cannons:
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Rezikai
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 17, 2015 1:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Later episodes of Rebels have more ISD's in them yes... though we should remember that the Rebels version of the ISDs are stylized for the show and shouldn't be taken as strict as say the movie models were IMO.

The rebels wikia lists the main ISD the Inquisitor uses as ISD Relentless commanded by Admiral Kassius Konstantine.
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Mikael Hasselstein
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 17, 2015 7:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Rezikai wrote:
Later episodes of Rebels have more ISD's in them yes... though we should remember that the Rebels version of the ISDs are stylized for the show and shouldn't be taken as strict as say the movie models were IMO.

The rebels wikia lists the main ISD the Inquisitor uses as ISD Relentless commanded by Admiral Kassius Konstantine.


I have been watching the show, but I don't recall a lot of ISDs appearing. What did appear in the pilot brutally opposed what I had been working on regarding the hangar. (I posted pics a few pages back.)

But, yeah, it's stylized. I'd still like to draw some inspiration from it though.
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Mikael Hasselstein
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 17, 2015 10:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Courtesy of TyCaine, we now have access to that missing source:

TyCaine wrote:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7hbaKpCdGGkZUJhQ1gtNC1vZW8/view?usp=sharing

It's not an OCR scan, but here you go, apparently I have a number of those Official Starship & Vehicle issues, so let me know if you need anything else.


Anyway, this talks about 36+ additional turbolaser batteries, as opposed to the 26+ that Wookieepedia mentioned according to this source. I fixed that, and it now reads 36+, even though I think that should be 50 (which is more than 36, and therefore in line with that '+').

Anyway, I'll be going over it and posting some images.


(click thumbnails to see large version)

So, some things about the guns that are pointed to, which are new, are the following:

    The Axial Defense Turret
    Lateral Quad Laser Battery
    Fore Weapons station (typical)
    "For its defence, the bridge tower has two ion gun turrets and six turbolaser turrets."

Regarding the 'Axial Defense Turrets', I'm not sure what to make of that.

The Lateral Quad Laser Battery is something we've seen before, but to my knowledge it was on the Devastator model, not on the Avenger model.

The Fore weapons station on the front end of the Eq Trench seems to not contradict what we've been saying all along.

Regarding the Bridge Tower, it does suggest that I was somewhat right about those ports being gunports, but apparently they're making that into turrets, and somewhere they're also putting ion cannons in there.

At the moment, this is how I suggest we read it: The image from the front is the class-II (because a caption says so), but the side view is a class-I ISD, because a caption suggests this. Also the big turrets look more like those of the Class-I, even if they all look the same.

That takes care of that quad on the side. It also explains why it says an 'Axial defense turret where it does, and why it's pointing to a different location in the first image. In the second image, that turret is located on the spine right before the superstructure, where the Devastator model does have a turret, but the Avenger does not.
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Mojomoe
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 17, 2015 11:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Huzzah! Is this the mythical Starships Collection? Great find!

I'll be digging into these right away. One quick note; the second image doesn't want to completely load for me. Thumbnail is fine, but only half the full res image loads. Are you seeing this?

EDIT - Ignore that! I see it's at full res in the PDF. NICE GRAB!
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Mikael Hasselstein
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 18, 2015 12:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Mojomoe wrote:
I'll be digging into these right away. One quick note; the second image doesn't want to completely load for me. Thumbnail is fine, but only half the full res image loads. Are you seeing this?


I was experiencing the same with the first image, but I fixed that. I stupidly didn't think to test out the second one. I'm resaving and re-uploading it, so hopefully it will be solved. In the meantime, yeah, there's the .pdf.


EDIT: GRRR, I don't know what to do about that. I've re-saved it and re-uploaded it a number of times now. The file on my drive works fine, and the upload seems to complete.

I blame Comcast.


Anyway, you've got just as good of a copy as I do in the .pdf so it doesn't really matter.

What are your thoughts?
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