Something big

[evillejedi]

neo-galactica is intentional, I started with the more commonly depicted version and kept making it wider until it reached its current girth, the big advantage being that it now can mount a reactor that can get it into the low e24 range (so the ship starts making a little more sense)

600m
the blisters house the heavier turbolasers (4-5 quads?), The fact that they can be shrouded is probably acceptable in their previous republic role of peace keeping, more modern versions would remove the mechanisms. probably no bigger than the secondaries on an ISD (so mid GT range?) though they could be bigger, the blisters are 50m long, maybe it was originally a stand off heavy gunnery platform?
smattering of smaller mini GT turbolasers and point defense lasers. no way I can figure how to reconcile the armament with any posted numbers...

shield strength? well a wolfpack can survive a few dozen minutes with an ISD according to some literature, probably the bow is just one big slab o' armor and reinforcing for shield generators and by pointing the ship directly at a target and not getting too close might be able to justify their durability?

role in the empire oob? backwater picket?

the katana fleet still does not make sense even if these vessel can mount 1/10th firepower of an ISD, granted 20 star destroyers freely roaming in post endor-land is nothing to sneeze at when your targets are mostly undefended backwaters, but still the katana fleet should have been 20,000 ships to be truly worthwhile...

[Abacus]

the katana fleet still does not make sense even if these vessel can mount 1/10th firepower of an ISD, granted 20 star destroyers freely roaming in post endor-land is nothing to sneeze at when your targets are mostly undefended backwaters, but still the katana fleet should have been 20,000 ships to be truly worthwhile...

I disagree. The Dreadnoughts are fairly strong capital ships.

Between three and five Dreadnaught-class cruisers could outgun one Imperial-class Star Destroyer.

That kind of firepower, added to an ISD as added compliment of forces, would be an intimidating force to deal with. If three to five of them can outgun an ISD, then at least that ratio should be able to outgun the Alliance MC80 cruisers. The fact that the Dreadnought was so heavily armored is also in its favor for standing toe-to-toe with larger capital ships. While Timothy Zahn might be looked down upon for "minimizing" the Star Wars universe, I think his guestimation that 200 Dreadnoughts added to the Imperial cause would help shift the balance of power. Especially since it was Thrawn who was using them.

If fractal were to do a Dreadnought, I think he'd add his own flair to it, and make it less BSG and more in terms of what the Empire would have done with a refit of it: more heavy turbolaser batteries, increased shielding, and a bigger powerplant so that it could be a faster and therefore more effective ship.

Linky to Wookieepedia info on the Dreadnought-class Heavy Cruiser

[fractalsponge1]

I am still alive, but playing a lot of mass effect 2 when I'm not buried at work, so little time for 3d.

I disagree. The Dreadnoughts are fairly strong capital ships.

You have to run the reactor numbers - no way are these things remotely competitive with an ISD. Even if you assume the reactor energy density of a Venator, which is already very compact for a 3.6e24W ship, a Dreadnaught could conceivably mount, maybe, a quarter of that? I think evillejedi's ~1e24 estimate is about the upper limit for what's reasonable on the hull. This is assuming very little internal space for anything other than the power systems and engines, so no hangars, very little storage and crew space, etc. The Venator uses a ton of internal space to carry its aerospace complement, but it's still a much larger ship than a Dreadnaught, even taking that into account. A Dreadnaught's at heavy frigate level, at best.

Like evillejedi said, 200 Dreadnaughts would thus be ~20 ISDs by power generation, so maybe 3 Allegiance-class ships and a tenth of a Mandator II. The minimalism involved is pretty bad.

There may always have been artificially few true heavies (Cruiser and up), and post Endor a large chunk of those probably went into seclusion into the Deep Core, some would have been lost in the real Civil War that started after Palpatine's death, and some of the rest were absorbed into regional navies like Kuat or Corellia, but even with those attrition rates there are still going to be tens of thousands of star destroyers and at least a handful of major ships left to the main combatant factions. 200 heavy frigates shifting the balance? eh?

---

I actually quite like the mini-BSG look for the Dreadnaught; it's the best way to give it a bit more bulk and rationalize the descriptions of it as regards power and capability. I'd be guessing low single-digit teraton heavies as armament, or rapid-firing sub-teraton mediums. Tenth of a 1e25W ISD would be ~250 teratons per second. Most depictions have 10 turbolaser blisters: 6 large, 4 small.

Now to start guessing based on that. Total of ten batteries, WEG says maximum 5 barrels each, so let's subvert that a bit and say they can be up to 5 turrets.

The small blisters can hold perhaps 3 turrets each (Acclamator battery setup). Assuming 5 shots per second, 12x 200GT Acclamator MTLs in each small battery gives 48 teratons per second out of 48 guns.

200 teratons left for the main battery, in 6 blisters. That gives ~33 teratons per blister, and it's oh-so tempting to just give each blister a single ISDII main gun. But, if you want to not give the ship true HTL, then I suppose it would have to be multi-turret again. Four quads per blister battery for 1-teraton light-heavy turbolasers (like Providence), 2 shots per second would about do it. Total 6x4x4 = 96 1-teraton weapons. Single 32-teraton ISDII gun per blister seems more elegant to me, but whatever.

---

Anyway, the depictions for it don't leave a lot of room for interpretation, and past a certain point, you just have to accept that it might not be all that great. The design precludes a real alpha arc, and is very manpower intensive for its size. It might be quite tough for its size, but has very little flexibility and is probably very expensive to run.

[evillejedi]

heh I'd arm it with the 33-40 TT single guns, enough to make most equivalent mass ships piss themselves and enough that ganging up against larger ships is a threat if they can get some lucky hits.

[Crossroads Inc.]

You know... if you ever REALLY wanted a "Dreadnaught Galactica" there was always my revival of the ship I did some time back

10 Double Class 7 Turbolaser Batteries
15 Double Class 2 Turbolaser Cannons
10 Double Class 4 Laser Cannons

You know, just for fun

[takemeout_totheblack]

'4 cylon basestars have jumped off the port bow!'
Adama: 'Let 'em come, we've got a nasty surprise waiting for them.'
........sorry, I had to.

What is the nature of turbolasers in relation to damage? I hear numbers like 'X teratons per shot' and while I'm not disputing the power of SW weapons, what kind of damage do they inflict? Shoot a 720TT turbolaser at a planet, is there a huge explosion, or do you turn the target ground into a 80 km wide caldera?

[Teleros]

What is the nature of turbolasers in relation to damage? I hear numbers like 'X teratons per shot' and while I'm not disputing the power of SW weapons, what kind of damage do they inflict? Shoot a 720TT turbolaser at a planet, is there a huge explosion, or do you turn the target ground into a 80 km wide caldera?

Best place to start would be the main site's nuke calculator. In short though, there'll be one hell of a nuclear fireball, with the associated monster blast wave, cracked crust, lava everywhere, screwed up weather patterns & atmosphere (at least locally, not sure about over time). Not enough to seriously screw up the planet insofar as it's a ball of mostly-molten rock with some gas around it (Earth had worse whilst forming), but you won't want to live there for a long time if you can help it.

[takemeout_totheblack]

That's all well and good, but I keep hearing around the site that the turbolaser does not behave like a nuke at all.

[Teleros]

I think the situation's similar to the one had in OSF about relativistic missiles - at the end of the day, all that energy has to go somewhere, and it usually does this by resembling a nuclear fireball sooner or later*. I suppose a turbolaser shot might lead to a deeper crater though, at least initially. Yes there will be some differences between a regular fission / fusion / antimatter / whatever nuke and high-energy energy beams of any kind, but I doubt it would look all that different. There may be some old SLAM topics discussing this, but that or OSF would be your best for a more definitive and detailed answer (plus, I don't want to clutter up this thread).

* Assuming a relativistic missile isn't made of super-strong, super-heat-resistant unobtainium, it'll explode in the atmosphere and shower a good chunk of that hemisphere with radiation. So perhaps more of a nuclear "firebeam" than fireball. Turbolasers would do similar if they had a habit of releasing their energy in the atmosphere, but from what I've seen they tend to release it when they hit something a bit more solid - mid-air explosions tend to resemble those strange "flak burst" detonations we see in AotC etc.

[Thanas]

That's all well and good, but I keep hearing around the site that the turbolaser does not behave like a nuke at all.

The problem is confounded by turbolasers apparently having several settings as well. My own bet is that they somehow focus their energy on a specific area instead of causing area damage unless set to do so. Don't ask me to explain though, I cannot do so.

[fractalsponge1]

I always thought it'd behave sort of like the jet from a HEAT round, just massively upscaled. Not that I really know what that means in physical terms; the bolt burns through, vaporizing rock until it loses cohesion and then bursts?

Anyway, did some small modifications of the procursator, played around and put together a fancy shockwave gallery for it:
http://fractalsponge.net/proc/gallery/index.html

All my 3D projects are basically on hold, in between Mass Effect 2, a vacation coming up, and a huge amount of work to do before it. So don't really expect any serious updates to anything for a few weeks.

[Abacus]

I always thought it'd behave sort of like the jet from a HEAT round, just massively upscaled. Not that I really know what that means in physical terms; the bolt burns through, vaporizing rock until it loses cohesion and then bursts?

Anyway, did some small modifications of the procursator, played around and put together a fancy shockwave gallery for it:
http://fractalsponge.net/proc/gallery/index.html

All my 3D projects are basically on hold, in between Mass Effect 2, a vacation coming up, and a huge amount of work to do before it. So don't really expect any serious updates to anything for a few weeks.

I like the additions to the procursator. Have fun beating ME2 and enjoy the vacation.

[Abacus]

Oi, Fractal, you still alive?

[Torben]

Suggestion (and please don't take this as snark): instead of posting in a thread more than 3 months old, send Fractal a PM. I'm sure he is still alive, and will post when he has time. Most likely he is busy with work and other things IRL.

[fractalsponge1]

So, after vacation, getting back up to speed at work, upgrading my computer (24gb of ram now, whoo!) and shaking the cobwebs off a bit, I've decided to actually get to finishing this beast.

Hangar time, which is always fun.

Some integration shots:





Somewhat close to double the layout of my carrier, but a few more large bays to handle big dropships and the like. The visible aperture is ~810m long x 180m wide x 100m deep. For comparison, a Corellian corvette is 150 x 48.6 x 32.6m, so, the area is fairly large. Each of the medium bays can handle racks for a wing, the large ones 1-2 wings, so probably aiming for 24 wings as a provisional fighter group for this.

[JointStrikeFighter]

Bout time you did some work

Great stuff as always.

[Raesene]

Good to know you haven't lost interest.

The level of detail is breath-taking.
One request/suggestion, can you add a few TIEs to the hangar bays when you have finished the beast and do the close ups ?
It looks... dead-static now, having something fly around would enliven the picture.

[Ketan]

welcome back!was a long gameplaytime and vacation

great update! 1728 fighters standard!

i have a very great idea for you!

Jason Fry (the author of the STAR WARS ATLAS) from the jedi council forums is making a STAR WARS: The Essential Guide to Warfare

http://boards.theforce.net/literature/b ... 0937840/p1

it would be the best, if you contact him and would make the spaceship pictures for him

just an idea

[takemeout_totheblack]

Good to see you back in action Fractal! Can't wait to see what other creative murder-ships pop out of your head!

I'm sure it's somewhere in the minutiae of this thread, but the sucker's almost 40 pages long!
So, in the name of laziness:
How many fighters can the Rape-Ship carry?
Pre-fab bases?
Crew?
Troops?
AT-AT or other various armor?

This ships seems to be a dedicated warmachine (ah-duhhh), but is it a jack-of-all-trades to some extent too? Nothing speaks of an empire's power like an entire fleet's worth of firepower and planetary suppression force all in one ship!

[fractalsponge1]

An Assertor's support complement wouldn't hold a candle to what a ship like Giel's fleet carrier or an Executor could carry; the volume is simply not there. But that's a pretty high bar, since those ships could probably ship thousands of fighters and Army-Group scale ground contingents if they had to, even if they might not normally carry them. An Assertor is more a line combatant, focused on space combat rather than occupation duties, which more specialized ships can deal with. Its carried troop and fighter load will reflect that. That said, even an afterthought air group and ground contingent on a ship this big can be pretty substantial.

Based on rack space, an Assertor would carry at least 24 fighter wings (I did mention this in my last post ).

Ground detachment, possibly a Corps, but mostly troops and light armor for ship security and boarding action. There are hangars big enough to handle really large dropships like the Titan, so you could deploy heavy vehicles like the A6 Juggernaut or SPHA-T equivalents. Probably a large number of dropships or swing-role transport/anti-ship attack boats like Assault Transports or Assault Shuttles.
No idea about pre-fab bases, but probably very few. But the nice thing about having a big ship is the flexibility that having space offers; there's nothing against carrying additional troops or equipping the ground contingent with heavier equipment by repurposing hangar space.

Crew?
In relative terms, I imagine similar to an Executor. Assertor would require more crew for powerplant and weapons, but less for ground crew and general hangar operations, so probably a wash in the end. I haven't seen any official numbers for an Executor's crew, and scaling from destroyers is difficult, given the size disparity and the fact we know very little about how these ships are manned, so no hard numbers. I wouldn't be surprised if there were hundreds of thousands of crew for either ship though.

[Azron_Stoma]

I saw that Fractal had made a new post and I, Jizzed, In, My Pants.

[fractalsponge1]

I am still working on the dreadnought file, squashing bugs and optimizing and filling gaps. Eventually you'll see some nice big renders

For now, guess what this is:

[JointStrikeFighter]

TIE Walker

[Captain Seafort]

Looks like a Tie Defender wing to me.

[JointStrikeFighter]