Something big

[PhoenixKnig]

This got a little off topic

[PhoenixKnig]

Thanks FS for setting it the right track

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Jesus wtf happened here.

Have some heavy frigate WIPs and get back to ship discussions:
http://fractalsponge.net/?p=3651

Impressive.

Stupid question time: Do all four hangars hold starfighters?

[PhoenixKnig]

I imagined they're all assault hangers

[PhoenixKnig]

I imagined they're all assault hangers

It could mean they have an impressive fighter compliment

[Esquire]

Re: the new heavy frigate - correct me if I'm wrong, but it's unusual for Imperial ships to have hangar openings aligned with the exterior of the wedge, rather than recessed and parallel to (the starship equivalent of) the keel, yes?

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Fractalspinge's Pretor class SSD has a similar configuration for his hangar bays, if I'm not mistaken. Saw his work on one of Eckhart's Ladder's versus vids the other night.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

I imagined they're all assault hangers

It could mean they have an impressive fighter compliment

Which can all be launched rather quickly upon reversion to realspace.

[Elheru Aran]

I imagined they're all assault hangers

It could mean they have an impressive fighter compliment

Which can all be launched rather quickly upon reversion to realspace.

I dunno, for some reason I'm imagining boarding or landing craft rather than fighters. Like, it can hyper into a hot orbital battle, use its armour to close with the planet, drop ships for ground engagement, either keep going down to provide air support or close the hangers and lift back up into the fight... something like that.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Either or. It may even be possible that two marks of the same hull exist, one to launch starfighter and be a pure spa e superiority platform, the other to be a planetary assault and fire support platform, and that a ship of one Mark can easily be converted to the other Mark, possibly with modular components, like the Strike Cruiser.

[Elheru Aran]

Star Wars craft do seem to have a fair degree of modularity in-built, either that or they're *really* good at adapting the same basic designs to different purposes over and over again. So I have no great beef with it being possible to rearrange a "Heavy Frigate" for either task.

Of course out-of-universe the latter is as much unoriginal RPG/vidya designers as anything else, but plug-and-play components do make sense if there's an incredible degree of standardization being specified. A TIE ball will operate just about any vehicle that uses the right connections, a Star Destroyer hull form can be adjusted to fit any number of purposes, the same basic weapons can be stuck anywhere on a hull that power conduits can be run, etc... to a certain extent it's an ass-pull but it can work well enough, we used to modify merchant ships into light warships by basically bolting on a few cheap turrets after all. It didn't make them great warships, but the guns could still shoot back at anything coming their way.

Thematically it suits the Rebel versus Imperial aesthetics as well, the Rebels relying more upon one-off designs, jury-rigs (which are less likely to fail... if everything is standardized, it just looks weird sometimes), and assistance from alien species which don't use Imperial standard, while the Imperials keep things very consistent and standardized using the same basic forms.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Star Wars craft do seem to have a fair degree of modularity in-built, either that or they're *really* good at adapting the same basic designs to different purposes over and over again. So I have no great beef with it being possible to rearrange a "Heavy Frigate" for either task.

It makes perfect sense, given starships are expensive to build(more so than wet navy warships), especially the behemoths the various factions prefer, so, one has to get as much mileage out of them as one can.

You see this not just in SW, but Traveller, and 40K, amongst other universes.

Of course out-of-universe the latter is as much unoriginal RPG/vidya designers as anything else,

It is, but it still make sense from a real world standpoint, especially given how most companies use their equipment til it literally falls apart, then try to get a few more minutes use from it with the Handyman's Secret Weapon.

...but plug-and-play components do make sense if there's an incredible degree of standardization being specified. A TIE ball will operate just about any vehicle that uses the right connections, a Star Destroyer hull form can be adjusted to fit any number of purposes, the same basic weapons can be stuck anywhere on a hull that power conduits can be run, etc... to a certain extent it's an ass-pull but it can work well enough, we used to modify merchant ships into light warships by basically bolting on a few cheap turrets after all. It didn't make them great warships, but the guns could still shoot back at anything coming their way.

It also, to use your latter example first, frees up actual warships for front line duty, while these merchie cruisers escort convoys and take up various other second line duties. In Legends Canon, this was the purpose of the bulk cruisers created from armed merchantmen.

Also, the hull for the Immobilizer 418 was used for several other heavy cruiser designs in Legends Canon, while, according to that same sources, you had quite a few variants on the stock ISD hull.

As for the TIE balls...let's not discuss the century tank or the TIE/ex, shall we?

[Captain Seafort]

it can work well enough, we used to modify merchant ships into light warships by basically bolting on a few cheap turrets after all. It didn't make them great warships, but the guns could still shoot back at anything coming their way.

I don't think that's a good example, not least because I'm not aware of any AMC with turrets. The best I can think of is the US Navy's habit in the 40s of putting identical or near-identical 5"/38 twin turrets on virtually everything.

[Elheru Aran]

it can work well enough, we used to modify merchant ships into light warships by basically bolting on a few cheap turrets after all. It didn't make them great warships, but the guns could still shoot back at anything coming their way.

I don't think that's a good example, not least because I'm not aware of any AMC with turrets. The best I can think of is the US Navy's habit in the 40s of putting identical or near-identical 5"/38 twin turrets on virtually everything.

That's what I meant (your latter example), yes. Also the British Q-ships. It's not a great example, mind, but it was the closest parallel I could come up with on the fly.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

True, but I reckon there wouldn't be ring mounts in space.

And, IIRC, during the Clone Wars and the GCW, merchantmen were made into bulk cruisers through the installation of turrets and a few other combat systems. Moreover, the first Lucrehulks were militarized frieghters.

[Captain Seafort]

That's what I meant (your latter example), yes. Also the British Q-ships. It's not a great example, mind, but it was the closest parallel I could come up with on the fly.

The Q-ships were just a particular type of AMC - they were armed with whatever came to hand, about as far from standardised as you can get - much closer to the "refitted liners" school of Mon Cals than to the Empire.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Also, the refitted liners to Dauntless heavy cruisers of Legrnds.

[Weedle McHairybug]

Well, like I said, it's a pretty interesting concept that he's got going there. And as others pointed out, this isn't the first time Fractalsponge has put in side hangar bays instead of at the bottom.

As for the TIE balls...let's not discuss the century tank or the TIE/ex, shall we?

Okay, I know what the century tank is, but can you tell me what the TIE/ex is? Sorry for asking, but I couldn't find it on Wookieepedia and thus had no frame of reference.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Imagine two TIE balls sharing a single solar panel wing, with one of the balls holding a turbolaser as the craft's sole armament.

That's a TIE Experimental or TIE/ex.

Then, there's the infamous TIE Wing or Y-TIE..,

[Lord Revan]

The X-wing Alliance PC-game (at least I think that was the name) had whole family of Experimental TIE kitbashes including that one IIRC. None of them looked all that great though,

[PhoenixKnig]

Well, like I said, it's a pretty interesting concept that he's got going there. And as others pointed out, this isn't the first time Fractalsponge has put in side hangar bays instead of at the bottom.

As for the TIE balls...let's not discuss the century tank or the TIE/ex, shall we?

Okay, I know what the century tank is, but can you tell me what the TIE/ex is? Sorry for asking, but I couldn't find it on Wookieepedia and thus had no frame of reference.

I think he's got about the tire Brute from the Solo movie
Edit: the tie experimentals TIE/ep n (n = 1-6)

[Eternal_Freedom]

Imagine two TIE balls sharing a single solar panel wing, with one of the balls holding a turbolaser as the craft's sole armament.

That's a TIE Experimental or TIE/ex.

Then, there's the infamous TIE Wing or Y-TIE..,

In fairness, the TIE Wing or Y-TIE were in-universe kitbashes used by pirate or mercenary groups, not Imperial forces. And they were shown to be decidedly ineffective.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Fair point.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Well, like I said, it's a pretty interesting concept that he's got going there. And as others pointed out, this isn't the first time Fractalsponge has put in side hangar bays instead of at the bottom.

As for the TIE balls...let's not discuss the century tank or the TIE/ex, shall we?

Okay, I know what the century tank is, but can you tell me what the TIE/ex is? Sorry for asking, but I couldn't find it on Wookieepedia and thus had no frame of reference.

I think he's got about the tire Brute from the Solo movie
Edit: the tie experimentals TIE/ep n (n = 1-6)

/ep. Could've sworn it was /ex. Damn I'm getting senile.

Eckhart's Ladder has it in the vid "The 5 Worst Starfighters By Faction."

[Weedle McHairybug]

Imagine two TIE balls sharing a single solar panel wing, with one of the balls holding a turbolaser as the craft's sole armament.

That's a TIE Experimental or TIE/ex.

Then, there's the infamous TIE Wing or Y-TIE..,

Oh, right. The TIE Experimental I definitely know about, though Wookieepedia didn't mention the TIE/ex designation, that's what threw me off. Yeah, I'm familiar with them. To be fair, there are six variants of them (well, technically five, as one's less of a starfighter and more of a large missile), and besides which, their names indicated they were more testbeds than meant for active deployment.

And yeah, I heard about those other two as well. I believe they belonged to the group of fighters known as "ugly" (and boy do they match the name, and they don't even have particularly effective use to compensate).

And yeah, if the person was talking about the TIE Brute regarding the Solo TIE, I think that one's designation is TIE/rb (not to be confused with the TIE/br, which is the Boarding Craft variant of the TIE Bomber). Don't know why the designation was different from the actual name, though. At least the TIE silencer, it having the designation TIE/vn was due to its original name, TIE Vengeance, being dropped and changed at the last minute.