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8k,19k Super star destroyer discrepancy?
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 16, 2017 9:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Error wrote:
I personally have always considered ships beyond the 100 meter mark to be "capital" ships. Or maybe that is an arbitrary line and 250 would make more sense, or another value. In the Thrawn trilogy for example, capital ships is used more in this sense; I mean a ship bigger than a blockade runner basically. The Katana Fleet Dreadnaught-class cruisers were "capital" ships at 600 meters for example. Freight liners are huge ships also.

That's probably a result of Zahn following WEG's lead on ship size classification, but it isn't consistent with real-world usage. Especially when you figure that WEG's "Capital Ship" class ran the gamut from the 120-meter Corellian Gunship to monsters like the Eclipse-Class.

Quote:
Is there such a thing a cruiser class in your configuration? That would be my only thought...

Under my system, what WEG calls Light, Medium and Heavy Cruisers would be the upper end of Frigate-Scale, with anything Victory-Class Star Destroyer and up classed as Destroyer-Scale. Tentatively, anything above 3500 meters would be Dreadnought / Capital Ship-Scale.

My initial plan was to use only terminology from the films to name scale classes, with Frigate at +10D, Cruiser at +12D and Destroyer at +16D, but having actual cruisers not be in the Cruiser-Scale class was too mentally awkward for me.
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Sutehp
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 16, 2017 9:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
My initial plan was to use only terminology from the films to name scale classes, with Frigate at +10D, Cruiser at +12 and Destroyer at +16D, but having actual cruisers not be in the Cruiser-Scale class was too mentally awkward for me.


Yeah, with one example being the Gozanti armed freighters from Rebels being called "cruisers" when they're only 60 meters long, stuff like that only adds to the confusion.
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 16, 2017 9:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sutehp wrote:
Yeah, with one example being the Gozanti armed freighters from Rebels being called "cruisers" when they're only 60 meters long, stuff like that only adds to the confusion.

Sometimes I think Star Wars writers would call a dishwasher a cruiser if they thought they could get away with it.
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Sutehp
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 16, 2017 10:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
Sutehp wrote:
Yeah, with one example being the Gozanti armed freighters from Rebels being called "cruisers" when they're only 60 meters long, stuff like that only adds to the confusion.

Sometimes I think Star Wars writers would call a dishwasher a cruiser if they thought they could get away with it.


Well, speaking of household appliances, they did throw that kitchen sink at that Republic Star Destroyer in the beginning of Revenge of the Sith. Maybe that just encouraged them. 8) Laughing
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 17, 2017 1:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:

That's probably a result of Zahn following WEG's lead on ship size classification, but it isn't consistent with real-world usage. Especially when you figure that WEG's "Capital Ship" class ran the gamut from the 120-meter Corellian Gunship to monsters like the Eclipse-Class.


Plus iirc there are some 'freighter size' ships which are longer than 100m but are fighter scale..
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Whill
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 17, 2017 1:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Error wrote:
As a related aside, would you guys recommend the SW Essential Guide to Warfare?

CRMcNeill wrote:
I've looked through it, and was not particularly impressed. I don't consider myself an expert on the military, but my impression was that this book more of a layman's guide to warfare in the SWU. I've never really felt the need to buy it

I have it and agree with CRM. It's got a handful of interesting tidbits throughout, but overall I don't feel is worth retail price. It's not nearly as cool as The Essential Atlas which I love. If there was a cheap used copy of The Essential Guide to Warfare for $6 somewhere, it may be worth that.
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 17, 2017 2:42 am    Post subject: Re: Capital Ship Classification Systems Reply with quote

Just putting these two systems side-by-side to better wrap my head around CRMcNeill's system...

Jason Fry wrote:
The Anaxes War College System was a system for starship classification. It was established during the Clone Wars by the Republic Navy War College at Anaxes and subsequently used by the successive galactic governments.
...
According to this system, capital ships were divided into seven main classifications.

Corvettes: Ships of roughly 100 - 200 meters length
• Example: CR90 corvette, Marauder-class corvette

Frigates: Ships of roughly 200 - 400 meters length
• Example: Corona-class frigate, EF76 Nebulon-B escort frigate

Cruisers: Ships of roughly 400 - 600 meters length
• Example: Belarus-class medium cruiser, Broadside-class cruiser kdb-1

Heavy Cruisers: Ships of roughly 600 - 1000 meters length
• Example: Acclamator-class assault ship, Dreadnaught-class heavy cruiser

Destroyers: Ships of roughly 1000 - 2000 meters length
• Example: Imperial-class Star Destroyer, Nebula-class Star Destroyer

Battlecruisers: Ships of roughly 2000 - 5000 meters length (small battlecruiser models were classed as "Star Cruisers", to separate them from larger ships of the type, but few recognized this classification as a formal part of the system.)
• Example: Bulwark-class battle cruiser, Praetor Mark II-class battlecruiser

Dreadnaughts: All ships over 5000 meters length
• Example: Executor-class Star Dreadnought, Kor Chokk grand cruiser

An abbreviated version of the system was also created, with three classifications—gunship, cruiser, and battleship
...
Despite the limits on dimensions, the system could sometimes move ship designs up or down in classification, depending on their armament and intended role.

Examples:
• The Carrack-class light cruiser, which would fall into the Frigate classification with its length of just 350 meters. Due to its armament and role, however, it was moved up into the Cruiser category.
• The Secutor-class Star Destroyer, a fleet carrier, was classified as a Star Destroyer due to its relatively light armament and focus on starfighter power, despite being 2200 meters long, the same length as the contemporary Allegiance-class battlecruiser.
• The Subjugator-class heavy cruiser was classified as a Dreadnought, due to its revolutionary ion cannons. Packed into a 4845 meter superstructure, the design would otherwise have been comparable to a large battlecruiser


CRMcNeill wrote:
So, up to this point, my scale system has gone through six different variations. Here's #7, addressing the concerns I mentioned above. It should be the last one. We'll see...
    Character 0D
    Swoop +2D (+8)
    Speeder +4D (+16)
    Starship +6D (+24)
    Walker +8D (+32)
    Frigate +10D (+40)
    Destroyer +12D (+48)
    Dreadnought +16D (+64)
    Death Star +24D (+96)
So, the explanations are as follows:
    Destroyer - The 4D gap between Frigate and Destroyer wasn't working for me, either. The RAW's +6D split between starfighters and capital ships makes the big ships hard enough to damage as it is, so I decided to move Destroyer back to the RAW's modifier of +12D, putting it 6D above starfighters and 2D above Frigate.

    Dreadnought - Because of some other considerations (particularly a House Rule that applied Scale modifiers to the Difficulty of performing Maneuvers, I decided to put Dreadnought-Class back into play for the really big monster ships, like the Executor.
To clarify, here is the revised list of what-goes-where...

Starship:
-Light Freighters
-Space Barges
-All starfighter types
-Cloud Cars

Walker:
-AT-AT
-Juggernaut
-Mobile Command Base
-Chariot Command Speeder
-Hoverscout
-Alliance Freerunner
-Heavy Tracker
-Speeder Truck
-Sail Barge

Frigate:
-Dreadnaught-Class Cruiser
-Alliance Assault Cruiser
-Interdictor
-Strike Cruiser
-Escort Carrier
-Carrack Light Cruiser
-Alliance Bulk Carrier
-Star Galleon
-Nebulon B Frigate
-Lancer-Class Frigate
-Corellian Corvette
-Corellian Gunship
-System Patrol Craft
-Assault Shuttle
-Blastboat
-Luxury Liner
-Container Ship
-Bulk Transport
-Medium Transport

Destroyer:
-Imperial Star Destroyer
-Victory Star Destroyer
-Torpedo Sphere
-Mon Calamari Cruiser

Dreadnought:
-Super Star Destroyer
CRMcNeill wrote:
Under my system, what WEG calls Light, Medium and Heavy Cruisers would be the upper end of Frigate-Scale, with anything Victory-Class Star Destroyer and up classed as Destroyer-Scale. Tentatively, anything above 3500 meters would be Dreadnought / Capital Ship-Scale.

Yeah I'm liking this one better. It's simpler.
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Sutehp
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 17, 2017 3:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I really like CRM's scale system, but there are a couple of things that popped out at me...

1) Can cloud cars even break atmosphere? To my mind, they belong in the speeder class, not the starship class. They're certainly small enough to qualify.

2) For simplicity's sake, I'd prefer to have swoops (and by extension, speeder bikes) in the same scale as speeders, but I can see how separating them would be justified.

3) Starships (meaning starfighters and light freighters) on a lower scale than walkers (rather than the reverse in the RAW)? On a purely size scale, it makes sense.

But I still remember when I was watching Rogue One the first time when Blue Squadron took out those AT-ACTs on Scarif, I wanted to cheer "Yeah, take that, you walkers! That's what you get for being a step down on the scale system!"

But that would have been rude to the other patrons, so I refrained from any extraneous outbursts. 8)

Also, I doubt they were SW gamers so they likely wouldn't have known what the f*ck I was talking about. Confused
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Zarn
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 17, 2017 4:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Depends on what you mean by "break atmosphere". A cloud car should be able to get to the Karman line - the place where wings stop providing lift. On Earth, that's 100 km. On Bespin - who knows? ISS is at 400 km, so it wouldn't be able to get there without modifications.

According to EU, repulsorlift works up to about six planetary diameters, or about seventy-five thousand kilometers for an Earth-sized planet. So repulsorlift can easily break atmo, but it seems that a standard cloud car - whatever that may be - can't break atmo.
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Sutehp
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 17, 2017 5:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Zarn wrote:
Depends on what you mean by "break atmosphere". A cloud car should be able to get to the Karman line - the place where wings stop providing lift. On Earth, that's 100 km. On Bespin - who knows? ISS is at 400 km, so it wouldn't be able to get there without modifications.

According to EU, repulsorlift works up to about six planetary diameters, or about seventy-five thousand kilometers for an Earth-sized planet. So repulsorlift can easily break atmo, but it seems that a standard cloud car - whatever that may be - can't break atmo.


Precisely my point: if a cloud car can't break atmo to leave the planet, then it's by definition not a starship. And since it's not a starship and is roughly the size of an airspeeder, it belongs in the speeder scale class.

Apologies if I didn't make that clear in my earlier post.
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 17, 2017 1:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sutehp wrote:
1) Can cloud cars even break atmosphere? To my mind, they belong in the speeder class, not the starship class. They're certainly small enough to qualify.

Under WEG's rules, cloud cars topped out at several hundred kilometers, while "space" began at 50 kilometers up on an Earth-equivalent planet (which would be the vast majority of life-supporting planets in the SWU). Based on previous discussions with Zarn, I picture cloud cars as near-starships, similar in size and structural integrity, with the limitation that they can't leave low orbit (as in, can't enter or go beyond a planet's radiation belts).

As far as size, the Storm IV Cloud Cars from Bespin (the main canon example) are actually larger than TIE Fighters. If Scale is a primarily a measurement of size (and, by extension, maneuverability and responsiveness, as larger objects have more mass and inertia and are thus slower at the helm), then similarly sized objects should be the same scale.

EDIT: I consider larger speeders like the LAAT to be cloud car equivalents, allowing them to deploy directly from starships in low orbit, rather than requiring intermediate transport or the mother ship entering atmosphere.

Quote:
2) For simplicity's sake, I'd prefer to have swoops (and by extension, speeder bikes) in the same scale as speeders, but I can see how separating them would be justified.

This choice was made for a variety of reasons, but was primarily based on how much more responsive real-world motorcycles are compared to cars, as well as a general feel that a +2D Scale modifier just wasn't enough to represent the difference in toughness between cars and people. There are also a couple house rules I have where Scale affects both acceleration rates and certain terrain difficulties.

Quote:
3) Starships (meaning starfighters and light freighters) on a lower scale than walkers (rather than the reverse in the RAW)? On a purely size scale, it makes sense.

It's noteworthy that, in WEG's 1E, all vehicles were the same scale (+6D over Character). It wasn't until 2E and 2R&E that they were downgraded. Also, bear in mind that not all Walkers have to be in the Walker-Scale. Smaller vehicles like the AT-ST and AT-PT can be in the Speeder-Scale range and still use bipedal locomotion.

There is also the fact that putting Walkers above Starships turns them from also-ran vehicles into major battlefield players capable of threatening small starships. An AT-AT, for example, is similar in size range to a light freighter, but without the necessity of drive and environmental components that would be needed to operate in interstellar space. As such, a truly massive amount of protection can be applied in its place. Using WEG's 2R&E, an AT-AT barely breaks even with an X-Wing, yet the AT-AT is supposed to be one of the most formidable ground vehicles in existence. If that system is accurate, it would be more cost effective to simply deliver troops in heavily armed assault shuttles than to bother with AT-ATs in the first place.

However, when you flip the positions, AT-ATs and other ground assault vehicles become hugely potent within their specific environment. They can't land themselves, but expending resources to land them on a planet where they can put their power to work suddenly makes a lot more sense.
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 17, 2017 1:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Zarn wrote:
Depends on what you mean by "break atmosphere". A cloud car should be able to get to the Karman line - the place where wings stop providing lift. On Earth, that's 100 km. On Bespin - who knows? ISS is at 400 km, so it wouldn't be able to get there without modifications.

According to EU, repulsorlift works up to about six planetary diameters, or about seventy-five thousand kilometers for an Earth-sized planet. So repulsorlift can easily break atmo, but it seems that a standard cloud car - whatever that may be - can't break atmo.

Exactly. In fact, in a universe where repulsorlift is so common place, the Karman line may not even be an issue, since lift isn't being provided by the wings. My theory is that airspeeders use an air intake system to feed atmosphere into an onboard matter convertor / fusion generator system to power their drives, and that the 50k limit was where the air got sufficiently thin that it could no longer be used. Starfighters and cloud cars were large enough to carry their own supplemental fuel tanks for high altitude and low orbit operations.
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 17, 2017 1:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

And if we wish to keep discussing this, we should probably move it over here, since this is getting somewhat off topic.
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Sutehp
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 17, 2017 2:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
And if we wish to keep discussing this, we should probably move it over here, since this is getting somewhat off topic.


Done. I quoted your scale system in my reply to that thread.
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 17, 2017 3:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Whill wrote:
Error wrote:
As a related aside, would you guys recommend the SW Essential Guide to Warfare?

CRMcNeill wrote:
I've looked through it, and was not particularly impressed. I don't consider myself an expert on the military, but my impression was that this book more of a layman's guide to warfare in the SWU. I've never really felt the need to buy it

I have it and agree with CRM. It's got a handful of interesting tidbits throughout, but overall I don't feel is worth retail price. It's not nearly as cool as The Essential Atlas which I love. If there was a cheap used copy of The Essential Guide to Warfare for $6 somewhere, it may be worth that.


The only essential guide i ever got and found "Essential" was the guide to vehicles and vessels.. A close 2nd would be the essential guide to weapons..

Quote:
1) Can cloud cars even break atmosphere? To my mind, they belong in the speeder class, not the starship class. They're certainly small enough to qualify.


If they are 'speeder class' then they can't really threaten incoming freighters or fighters, can they?? SO C resized them to fighter scale to make then actually worthy at doing their policing job..
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