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Dan
Dan
3 years ago

Imagine if George Lucas and his team had access to this kind of modeling back in the -70s when A New Hope was being produced. This ship looks so good! It looks like it could have been a challenger to the final design of the Executor-class dreadnought, especially with those sensor domes.

Jakob Standefer
Jakob Standefer
3 years ago

Judging by sheer size, is the Dreadnought 20 kilometers long?

BOOP
BOOP
4 years ago

How Long Is it

Homeless Emperor
Homeless Emperor
4 years ago
Reply to  BOOP

8+ kilometers

JordanFiguero
JordanFiguero
4 years ago

Have you done a piece that compares the sizes of all your Star Destroyers by biggest to smallest?

TheTypicalCyclone
TheTypicalCyclone
4 years ago

Recommended rank to captain this ship? (For roleplaying purposes.)

Dan
Dan
5 years ago

Weapons?

Jason Miner
5 years ago

Absolutely wonderful
love this ship
i hope i can help you with this design

Lucas kulla
Lucas kulla
6 years ago

Kinda reninds me off the mandator-class star dreadnought

Dan
Dan
6 years ago

What weapons does this beaut have?

Valoren
6 years ago
Reply to  Dan

I count 345 DBY-827 heavy twin-turbolaser batteries, so roughly 45 Venators worth of firepower.

Spartan-919
Spartan-919
6 years ago
Reply to  Valoren

That’s gorgeous

Soren
Soren
6 years ago

Interesting design, very reminiscent of actual battleships in WWII too. She seems to be in the 7~9 km range in size, bordering the line between Battlecruiser and Dreadnought, Cool! 😀

Anonymous
Anonymous
6 years ago

So what role is this ship does anyway because from the look of it with it’s venator main batteries being also it’s main, it’s 2 very large hangers and it’s 4 giant spheres which is range sensors so I guess it is generally a command ship right?

Ethan
Ethan
6 years ago

What is the total personnel and vehicle compliment

Anonymous
Anonymous
6 years ago

About those trench ball HTL turrets is it 175 teraton or 240 teraton?

Anonymous
Anonymous
6 years ago
Reply to  Fractalsponge

I also notice there are 4 larger trench ball turrets which is the quad 240 teraton caliber ion cannons.

Destroyer Fan
Destroyer Fan
1 year ago
Reply to  Fractalsponge

How big is the ship, is it similar to the bellator or assertor in size

Yoda
Yoda
6 years ago

Love the engines and also how the shields are spaced out around the bridge.

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
6 years ago
Reply to  Yoda

Just an FYI: the super-sized domes are apparently long-range sensor/comm apparatus. Still plenty of those smaller sensor/shield combo ‘golf balls’, though, so you’re not wrong.

Hecatomb
Hecatomb
7 years ago

Very nice precursor to the Executor. With those massive sensor/comm domes, I’m guessing this vessel acts as a command ship for war fleets and the policing of large sectors.

Anonymous
Anonymous
7 years ago

How much more powerful is this ship than the Bellator?

Jackalope
Jackalope
7 years ago

Fractal said that it was a ship of the line, meaning that it takes the beating while, while giving one hell of a beating back, without the drawbacks of damage, although it probably wouldn’t last very long (maybe an hour at most) since a shield of that magnitude would require vast amounts of energy, before sucking the reactor dry.

Jackalope
Jackalope
7 years ago

I mean it already was, but if the ship had a concussion shield, it wouldn’t have to worry about tie fighter or even other ships during battle, and could focus on taking down its target.

Jackalope
Jackalope
7 years ago

Since those Shield Generator/Scanner Domes are extra large might they have super powerful jamming equipment and even maybe, might be a concussion/planetary shield generator, like the one at Scarif, instead of just ordinary ray/particle shields. That would make this ship a boss.

Joel Szasz
7 years ago

Hard to believe that they were making ships that large even back then. It’d be cool if you could one day do her in Republic livery, with red army markings.

I just have to say it: somebody must have been compensating for something when they actually made her. Maybe the Malevolent actually prompted the GAR to respond with their own supership. There could have been more ships like the Malevolent for all we know, assuming the Confeds had the resources to engage in such an arms race.

LazerZ
LazerZ
4 years ago
Reply to  Joel Szasz

I’d bet this was pre-Clone Wars, used by the sector fleets of the Core Worlds.

Daib
Daib
4 years ago
Reply to  LazerZ

Right, that’s where the comic inspiration for the Legator was from. That being said, once the Clone Wars broke out, the Republic Navy nationalized the sector fleets and maybe built a few more in the yards that were available.

Anonymous
Anonymous
7 years ago

Oops, put that a few too many times, wonder why that happened?

Eric Otness
Eric Otness
7 years ago
Reply to  Anonymous

Probably a server hangup. Happened to me a few times as well.

Anonymous
Anonymous
7 years ago

oops, put that twice.

Anonymous
Anonymous
7 years ago

It could be looked at as a scaled up version of the Venator, since its a carrier and a command ship armed to the teeth.

Anonymous
Anonymous
7 years ago

You could say that it’s an scaled up version of the Venator, due to it being a carrier and a command ship.

Anonymous
Anonymous
7 years ago

You could say that it’s an up-scaled version of the Venator, due to it being a carrier and a command ship.

Steve Bannon
Steve Bannon
7 years ago
Reply to  Anonymous

If you want an upscaled Venator, check out Fractal’s Secutor, which actually retains the twin tower configuration, high speed, a DBY-827 main battery, and plenty of hangar space.

King of Alsakan
King of Alsakan
7 years ago

Just incredible, very worthy of any of the individual planetary navies or PSF’s of the Old Republic

James
James
7 years ago

very nice, only thing i would note is that the large bays at the aft end of the opening on the underside seem very exposed when looking directly at the ship from the front. might be better to have the forward edge come down a bit more to protect them. but as a dreadnought, might even be better to have dedicated shield generators aroudn teh opening.

looks like a very exceptional design. seems like a very dense number of weapons compared to other star destroyer designs, so there would probably need to be more percentage devoted to power generation than other designs.

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
7 years ago
Reply to  James

Yeah, those ventral bays probably pack about the same proportional shielding protection as an Impstar’s ventral hangar cavity, with more armor preventing off-angle shots. Some more shielded plating around that area *could* augment protection, but anything this ship isn’t keeping its dorsal surfaces aimed at probably won’t breach its shielding unless ignored for a while.

Steve Bannon
Steve Bannon
7 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

I wonder if there might be a bayless Tector style variant of the Legator designed for pure battle line engagements, with proportionally fewer fighters, ground troops, and maybe smaller comm-scann globes. Legators do need something to lead in their role as Fleet command ships.

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
7 years ago
Reply to  Steve Bannon

Wouldn’t mind seeing that, and it honestly has me wondering if a similar refit, adding more guns, shield redundancy & filling most of the main bay in with the exception of two destroyer-girth divots for fighters & shuttles, would’ve kept the Alliance’s captured Executors in Legends (Guardian & Lusankya) current with any Imperial Remnant threat short of Zsinj’s fleet while not utterly depleting the Republic’s snubfighter production lines.

Steve Bannon
Steve Bannon
7 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

If we treat Dark Empire as canon for Legends, no amount of refit was going to save the New Republic’s Executors from Eclipse superlaser alpha-strike, or getting picked off by the Galaxy Gun, or eaten by a World Devastator….. There’s just so much fanwank nonsense in the old EU that I’m happy it’s been erased, although the Orinda Campaign did show fleet engagements that made some sense.
The New Republic was probably pretty smart in not throwing resources at Star Dreadnaughts, and instead investing in Nebulas and Endurances, which now look cool thanks to Fractal.

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
7 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

See, I’m not so sure about any of that. For one thing, pre-Disneyboot Eclipse’s mini-superlasers apparently lacked DS2’s off-axis capability, and that updated Guide to Vehicles & Vessels gave the damn things an utterly anemic thruster block. To add insult to injury, Eclipse II was outflanked by the Falcon (sure, main character shielding), a snubfighter fleet and a tertiary character’s Dreadnaught-scale antique, even with a Shadow Droid screen. As for World Devastators? Glorified snubfighter-scale foundries that probably needed the Byss fleet to kick in Mon Cal’s defenses in the first place. Galaxy Gun? Reliability of those interstellar cruise missiles (munitions assemblers with Alliance sympathies, amirite?) also took a serious hit in Dark Empire II, which is why you want the speed of energy weaponry in the first place, and I’m still not keen on their chances of catching anything with an Executor’s speed, jamming, shielding & point-defense that isn’t stuck in a fixed orbit.

Far as I’m concerned, by that point in the Alliance’s rise to the Republic’s post, the Impstar-scale New Class was a PR campaign for Kuat & competition for the Mon Cals at that scale while Ackbar’s people started building bigger. Meanwhile, Home Ones, Mon Remondas, captured Executors & whatever ex-Byss heavy defectors helped hold the line.

Steve Bannon
Steve Bannon
7 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

I can’t believe that I’m defending Dark Empire’s monstrosities, but let’s go down the list.
On the Eclipse, there’s a panel in the comics of the Eclipse engine banks that looks much better scaled than the Vehicles & Vessels absurdity.
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Eclipse_II?file=Eclipse2.jpg
If Empire at War was Legends Canon, then the Eclipse did have off-axis fire capability, which took down Annihilator at Kuat. It’s a pity we didn’t get to see it shoot at anything peer-sized in Dark Empire.

Personally, I’m inclined to believe that World Devastators aren’t even close to being effective fleet units, but we’ve got a Gial Ackbar quote on how they’re even more lethal than the death star, and Ackbar’s word should mean something when it comes to fleet combat. Not to discount the Allegiance’s task group, but Silencer-7 did manage to eat the Mon Remonda and the Emancipator without taking any visible damage from either ship, which is pretty impressive given the reputation of those crack New Republic crews.
The Galaxy Gun’s warheads seem to be able to set off chain reactions that could destroy entire worlds, and while any given warhead might not have the highest hit probability against an aware and ready Star Dreadnought crew, just one hit landing would be a dead dreadnought. An Executor can’t change course or maintain full shields indefinitely, and the Reborn Emperor only needs to land one hit, which is why I’m not too fond of putting all your eggs into one space-dagger basket.
There’s a reason that you don’t see that many capital ships above fleet destroyer level, even in full scale galactic warfare. The mix of speed, firepower, survivability, and versatility you might find on a Venator, Imperator, MC80, or Nebula seems to hit a sweet spot in force structure that makes the type so common and enduring. There’s certainly a role at the top of that structure for supercapitals, but I’ll take an Executor’s weight in Imperators over that Executor any day of the week, reactor scaling be damned.

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
7 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

@Bannon: Honestly, I consider Empire at War’s (and any 90’s) game mechanics about as pertinent to actual space combat as the Xbox games where one Rogue Squadron jockey wipes out half theHoth attack force or The Force Unleashed, where one super-apprentice basically pulls the Rebellion out of his ass: entertainment which presents about the same level of combat fidelity as WWII flicks starring John Wayne. Tyber Zann & his grade of meta-wank can disappear down that memory hole as far as I’m concerned.

Ditto for Ackbar’s quote about the World Devastator’s capabilities, when he’s personally witnessed stuff like DS2 in action. That was one element of the pre-Disneyboot EU where Dark Empire’s writers veered into hyperbolic crap, and I kinda doubt the Allegiance was the centerpiece of Byss’ fleet anyway. If anything it was serving the same role as the comm ship at Endor when Wedge & Lando kicked its teeth in. For all we know Emancipator & Remonda were ionized to near-death anyway when Silencer-7 got its tractors into ’em; it’s not like we see the entire space-based portion of that fight.

Sure, a missile can catch a big target like that, but what are its chances of tracking one through a lightspeed leap or two? If anything, the Galaxy Gun would make more sense bolted onto Eclipse II (or an Executor hull)-maybe EII would’ve actually hit something if its cruise missiles are that infallible at sublight, improved engine block or not.

Look, I’m certainly not trying to do Kuat’s job of hawking Core power-scaring battlewagons, but claiming they’re easy, outdated meat for a bunch of even more overhyped wank-slabs which can apparently eat Impstar-scale vessels all day every day…just doesn’t jive with me. Guardian & Lusankya survived the events of DE, the Thrawn Trilogy, and in Guardian’s case even another heap of narrativium crap in the form of the Yuuzhan Vong (while Lusankya served as kamikaze enough to wreck an entire worldship). That’s not a combat record indicating hapless prey for the next wolfpack to get thrown together by a wannabe warlord. Economical? Not for many systems besides Corellia, which is why Impstars & Liberty-class Mon Cals have a market. Effective? Certainly moreso than the IJN’s Yamato class in RL.

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
7 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

@Bannon
I’ll also freely admit to having nursed the following scenario: Ackbar (or some equally skilled Mon Cal commander) skilfully helming Guardian against a pompous IR warlord type trying to blast him out of space with a Sovereign or Eclipse III’s main gun, trying to juggle gravity wells & shields while ruddering that slab of a ship’s bow around to vaporize the Alliance dreadnought that’s chewing apart her engine block. Meanwhile Home One and Bellator-scale battlecruisers, bomber wings and Impstar/MC80 formations of both sides swirl around the dueling titans, chewing at them and one another. Tell me that doesn’t sound like more SW-scale fun than anything we’re likely to see on Rebels, and an indicator that the Alliance no longer depends on golden-BB events like Endor.

Anonymous
Anonymous
7 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

@Gork
The Guardian and Lusankya had long and glorious careers in service of the NR, but they’re the exception to the mean. Out of the two dozen or so named Executors or so built for the Empire, I can’t name a single one that destroyed New Republic/rival warlord fleet assets equivalent to or greater to the resources it must taken to build in the first place. So many were lost to fighter attack, sabotage, capture, the force, or just beaten up by New Republic MC80s. (RIP Reaper)
I never claimed that Star Dreadnaughts were in any way useless or obsolete, I’m just remarking that Guardian and Lusankya are literally the only two dreadnaughts that have actually managed to achieve meaningful strategic objectives relative to their operational and maintenance costs, to say nothing about construction.
I’d love to see a true fleet battle with multiple supercapital ships on both sides, but it looks like Jakku is going to be the best the disneyboot is going to give us. Cheer up on Rebels, it’s getting better every season and the Imperials have a reasonably conniving Thrawn, along with TIE Defenders (2-5 BBY for some reason)

Steve Bannon
Steve Bannon
7 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

Whoops, accidentally submitted that anonymously. Darn.

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
7 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

@Bannon
Thing is, so many of the EU dreadnoughts were introduced & met their end in either computer-game sources or books heavily influenced by said games’ mechanics, e.g. the X-wing books…and even there, you have Zsinj’s Iron Fist & support tying up Solo’s fleet for months before pulling off a maskirovka gambit (which, granted, involved the bits of another Executor, but he *was* hijacking that one with, like, a dozen operatives) which bamboozled the NR right up ’till Leia & Han tripped onto Dathomir. As for the one I can recall involving Jedi saboteurs (Knight Hammer), there’s that narrative wank creeping in again (Kevin Anderson’s Darksaber, where one Jedi can burn himself out chucking an Impstar fleet halfway across the galaxy. Urgh). While I am morbidly amused by the EGtW having Imp saboteurs jump one soon-to-be-impounded superheavy into a star, neither the early nor immediately pre-Disneyboot EU have presented me with a conclusive picture of resource-to-loss ratio, especially since I don’t recall any hard numbers for opposing fleet tonnage from Jakku, Endor *or* the wookie article for Celanon (thanks, Pellaeon!).

Eh, I don’t hate Rebels when I have the time, but I am a bit cheesed at the lack of TIE Avengers. Maybe they’ll throw in some elite mook flight like they did with those corvette-killing 181st-expy Interceptors.

Steve Bannon
Steve Bannon
7 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

Iron Fist tied up Solo Command for a good while, but the precise makeup of Solo’s task force is known as a grand total of 3 Imperator line destroyers and 3 MC80 light destroyers along with a small screen of frigates and corvettes+an Immobilizer 418.
The Iron Fist itself out-masses and outguns Solo Command by at least an order of magnitude, not to mention Zsinj’s destroyer escorts. When he had that level of conventional superiority to Solo’s squadron, tying up isn’t exactly a sterling performance.
Executors are just so absurdly large and expensive that in order for one’s sacrifice to be even remotely worthwhile, they would have to bring down a peer target or literally hundreds of light and line destroyers in MC80s and Imperators. Neither Disney nor the old canon have given us conclusive balance sheets in capital ship units lost, but surely there’s no indication of the Alliance/New Republic losing fleets equivalent to what they brought to Endor for every Executor they manage to kill. I agree with you that a lot of the old EU was pretty wanky in terms of scale, force powers, and NR bias, but it doesn’t seem like the Executors did Lira Wessex proud.
Jakku’s starship graveyard seems to be almost exclusively Imperial ships in TFA with the exception of a few snubfighters and miscellaneous frigate-scale debris, showing a pretty disproportionate loss ratio there. I think Tagge is quoted in the new Disney canon as having bemoaned all the resources funneled into the Death Star when it could have been thrown into Executors, but it’s my opinion that they should have moved down the value chain a bit more into Allegiances, Secutors, Imperators, and Tectors.

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
7 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

I’d argue that in Iron Fist’s case, we chuck the exact book count for Solo’s command (*I* sure don’t remember them being that capital-impoverished), since Allston wrote that novel with WEG’s 8km ‘SSD’ stats in the first place. I also see no reason not to boost our estimates of post-Home One Mon Cal ships’ capabilities for verisimilitude, as oppose to making the 17-19km. flagship seem made of cardboard for the retroactive purposes of armchair X-wing jockeys. Who, lest I forget, commited a maximum-effort (2 wings) strike on Iron Fist after that ship had spent its time running through an asteroid field with Mon Remonda & her sisters shooting it in the fantail, to minimal effect. Hell, the EGtW might’ve even retconned the potential scale & makeup of Solo’s force by adding an illustration from the Falcon’s cockpit circa the Thrawn Trilogy…flanked by Bellators.

And offhand, losses on that order to Imperial Remnant superheavy task forces-especially after the Rebels catch a moderate case of Victory Disease post Endor-might account for the NR Senate’s lack of will to prosecute the First Order beyond funding that rinky-dink Resistance as of Ep 7. We still don’t have a complete picture of Jakku (and may never), but would an Alliance on the rise be remotely shaken by such engagements into such a tentative stance vis-a-vis the Remnant if they were Marianas-style clean sweeps? Executors & lesser heavies (plus their light cruser/destroyer-weight cohorts) might not have saved the Empire, but they may well have bled the Alliance fleet into practical and political enfeeblement save for its Radduses, Ackbars & Organas.

[crawls off to pour brains into a life-support helmet]

Steve Bannon
Steve Bannon
7 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

Well if we’re arguing the merits of the Executors based upon the old EU, we should probably take specific task force counts literally, or otherwise we’d just be creating our own headcanons to argue around. While the 8km SSD brainbug was pretty prevalent in that era, I don’t think Allston would be stupid enough to just blindly go along with that assuming he has actually watched either ESB or ROTJ more than twice.
Around this time the Mon Calamari are starting to build larger dedicated warships, but all of Solo’s cruisers were 1200m MC80s. At Levian two, Iron Fist wasn’t able to penetrate the shields of either the Remonda or the Evara at close range, which is a pretty mediocre performance given how Zsinj actually managed to lure Solo into a trap.
While EGtW does add at least one Bellator to the New Republic Navy List, it didn’t appear at all in the books and can probably be assumed to be guarding Coruscant or another key NR world.
Aftermath has fleshed out Jakku a bit better, and we know the NR lost several MC80s, Nebulon-Bs, CR90s, and GR-75s, along with two Mark One Skyhawks, which are described as “Battleships built from disassembled Imperial Starships ”
That is as vague as you can get, but at Jakku one of these Skyhawks managed to use tractor beams to drag the SSD Ravager down into atmosphere before it was destroyed, suggesting at the very minimum Star Battlecruiser scale (perhaps the Legator?) I’m not disputing that the NR took major losses, but given the post-Endor tonnage discrepancy, the Remnant should have done a bit better than stalemate.

Can I borrow your brain bucket after you’re done? I’ll wash it.

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
7 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

@Bannon
Considering the whole point of Allston & Stackpole’s novels involved catering to console fighter jocks (like I would’ve been at the time if we could’ve afforded a PC), at this point I’d consider fan headcanon like yours or mine as legit as anything-Fractal himself actually floated the possibility of those books screwing up the composition of Rebel anti-SSD task forces in an old SD.net thread, and I see very little to prove him wrong.

As for 1.2-klick Mon Cals, Executors were ‘officially’ five miles for a couple decades, so occasionally such stats get fudged (though I doubt the Disneyboot squad cares at all). Bellator or Praetor-yield Mon Cals after Endor don’t strike me as much of a stretch if (a) the Imps can make a secret project out of something like DS2 and (b) the Rebs got a hold of some out-of-the-way CIS manufacturing facility, which their use of big CIS ships implies from at least one Dark Horse series.

As for Jakku, I can roll with the Starhawks if (a) they’re battlecruiser to light dreadnought-grade, (b) at least one went down with Ravager anyhow, and (c) there was a properly bloody brawl to reduce the Imp flagship to that state in the first place.

Honestly, you’ve been more than fair about this, and perhaps this is something of a loaded topic for me, but I’ve just found the ‘Executors were always Tarkin Doctrine white elephants’ undercurrent on some discussion boards almost as maddeningly brainbuggy as the ‘Imperial machinery sux in general cuz they’re the BAD GUIZ, you’re not a Bad Guy 2 RITE?’ line of thought. Which Curt Saxton & Fractal have been making niche but solid strides against for years now, well enough to suck people like us into such lines of discussion.

[cheerfully hands the bucket over after a thorough vaporating]

Steve Bannon
Steve Bannon
7 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

If you want to throw out some of the more egregious fighter-wank books, that’s fine with me. Let’s look at the movies then. From ESB, the Executor’s clearly got straight-line acceleration comparable to line destroyers, which is reinforced by Saxton’s ROTJ calculations. The interesting thing to me is that when Han’s strike team in the Tyderium waltz past one, they’re not surprised that an Executor is present, they don’t express any fear that it will rip apart Ackbar’s fleet, and they refer to it as a command ship, and not as a battleship/dreadnaught.
Unlike the Assertor, Bellator, or Legator, the Executor’s armament is pretty hard to distinguish. There are a bunch of bumps on the hull that might correspond to ISD main battery turrets and some lighter stuff in the trench, but compared to a Fractal design, the Executors definitely have less visible firepower. The design mix that seemed to go into the Executors seem to have prioritized in order extreme speed , oversector level command and control capabilities, (Ardus Kaine enjoys this) a truly absurd fighter and ground troop load, and strategic range over firepower and survivability. The New Order presumably has some Mandators lying around from the Clone Wars, but perhaps they didn’t have the acceleration to intercept fast moving Alliance task groups based around heavy frigates and destroyers. The Executors were designed at the height of Palpatinist conventional superiority, and their fleet role was assumed to be a hunter-killer superheavy that could actually catch things and maul them at range rather than fighting anything near a peer opponent in a pitched fight. They then proceeded to suffer when the rebels decided to turn around and duke it out with cruiser-scale (5km?)Mon Cals.
For any given generation of military hardware, some stuff always outperforms their peers. The upper end of the Imperial fleet list has always seemed similar to the British Grand Fleet circa 1917 to me, with these analogies. If the Mandator I is a relatively slow and obsolete unit, it might be roughly analogous to a Lord Nelson class predreadnought and the Mandator II would be the HMS Dreadnought herself. The Executor might be a Courageous class large light cruiser analogue, with good striking power, fantastic speed and range, but unacceptable survivability against other capitals.
Star Dreadnaughts are certainly useful in planetary siege scenarios and other mass fleet engagements and have a role to play, but despite how iconic it is, the Executor probably wasn’t the right tool at the right time.
I guess going with this analogy, the Empire would finally get their mix right with the Assertors, which might be Queen Elizabeth superdreadnoughts?
As for Jakku, your criterion for B and C are met, but no one has any clue how big they are yet aside from being able to manhandle an Executor with their tractors.

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
7 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

I’d argue that theorizing too much about Executor’s speed/power/shielding balance based on Han’s lack of visible reaction to its presence at Endor & the Rebels’ original plans (hold off Imperial security cordon long enough to kill defense-compromised DS2 with fighter fleet and any capital-grade fire that might breach its armor) seems subjective at best. Hell, for all we know Solo’s strike team *and* 90% of the Rebel fleet would’ve been considered fair trade for the decapitation stroke that Palpatine’s presence on the spanking new murderstation offered.

Sure, Big E’s usually not quite the optimal ship for a situation, but I get the impression that in most cases from Saxton or Fractal’s perspective it’s a case of *overkill* unless you’re dealing with a CIS task force or rogue prior-generation superheavies (like, say, an Ex and Mandator-III killing one another right after the NR loses Corucsant in the EGtW). If you want *my* threshold for overkill, Assertor would be it-gimme the line’s tonnage in extra Bellators, and reduce Adm. Pellaeon’s chances of a coronary.

And for some final useless spitballing on my part, Endor might’ve been a case of *minimum ranges* for HTLs fatally hamstringing the Imperial fleet while tractor-beam shenanigans & shield-redundancy on the Mon Cals’ part allowed ’em to use Impstars for cover while whacking targets on the fringes. Executor, as the biggest non-DS target present, might’ve soaked up more of that action than any starship designer could reasonably anticipate, hence the temporary loss of bridge particle deflectors & lack of visible damage anywhere but the command tower & one starboard thruster block. Hell, I’m starting to wonder if minimum-range action was the Rebel fleet’s objective at Scarif, since R1’s Profundity was apparently barely compromised by TWO Impstar-Is until Devastator’s arrival.

As for non-Fractal-modelled hull & brim-trench model details, we need to call it a day *somewhere*, and that *somewhere* might include accounting for features on the scale of that Mega Maid(R) scale G.I. Joe figure someone stuck on Executor’s dorsal surface for a chuckle (or those Playboy pinups in the Tantive IV model). ‘Sides, it’d certainly be easy enough for any aftermarket space-naval machine shops to slap on extra guns (or anything) with all that cityscape & hull surface to work with. I’d opt for Malevolence-style ion emitters in the fantail tip & upper cityscape end, but retooled to crank out coherent superlaser-style bolts.

Anyhow, thanks for keeping an even keel.

Steve Bannon
Steve Bannon
7 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

Yeah, Endor has been debated into the ground over the years, so I won’t beat that dead horse. Against destroyer scale rebels, any Star Dreadnaught is probably overkill, but most of the fights that Executors get in are probably against other Imperials, who might bring a lot of heavy metal in the form of Praetors, Bellators, Mandators, etc. If you’re talking about overkill, why not talk about whole battle squadrons of Star Dreadnaughts which certainly exist? Azure Hammer had 58 capital ships, which maximalists like us interpret as Star Battlecruiser and up, and there’s the better part of a battle squadron stationed at Validusia alone.

At Scarif, I think I talked about this before somewhere on this site, but it seems like 80 percent of the crews for the Star Destroyers stationed at the shield gate were probably suntanning and getting drunk planetside (including Admiral Gorin) and the 20 percent at their posts were hungover. Tarkin’s decision to fire on Scarif might have been made taking into account the quality of personnel stationed there. Rate of fire on their main HTL was pretty awful and sporadic compared to Devastator, and they basically weren’t maneuvering at all prior to ionization to get better arcs.
The minimum range engagement idea is tempting, but based upon DBY-827 rotation rates seen at 2nd Coruscant and the cartoons, it seems like capital ship batteries with good arcs should be able to effectively engage peer targets only dozens of meters away. (We’re all cheering for you, Guarlara!)
In the latest Rebels Episode we see an Imperator II (before Yavin? Ugh.) finally fire its octuple barbette HTL main battery at some nearby Y-Wings, which were probably less than a kilometer away. Of course it didn’t actually manage to hit the main characters, but the turret rotation was almost Phalanx CIWS fast and shots were passing only meters away from Gold Leader.
The Rebels at Endor might have tried to slip in corvettes and GR-75s within the minimum ranges, but the reason they didn’t get whacked is pretty conclusively because Sheev told Firmus to not do his job.
If you gave me an Executor hull to work with, I’d probably do a Tector style refit and fill in most of the hangar bay with armoured secondary and tertiary reactors+fuel silos, and slap a Bellator’s worth of HTL battery onto the top.

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
7 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

So we have potential sources of internal strife for star dreadnought commanders to slap down, which is just what they wind up doing (and settling tons of personal grudges in the process) as of the Imperial Civil War. That’s one doozy of a punitive precedent Tarkin set up over Scarif, even if the non-disabled Impstar’s helm & HTL crews were all biting glit with the beachtroopers. Nice to get some confirmation that Devastator probably did most of the work upon arrival, even if I’d have been sorely tempted to sub in Executor (plus 15 more MCsomethings alongside Profundity) when CG!Tarkin quotes “Vader will deal with the fleet.”

Yeah, I was spitballing with the range issue, though Guarlara’s kill also involved a line-of-sight walker-mounted artillery piece. I suppose setting people straight on Imperial misrules of engagement (and distinguishing same from innate suckitude of equipment) will just be a recurring burden for classic-flavor Warsies like ourselves & Fractal.

That hangar fill-in sounds about right, and you could easily slap two or three Bellators’ loadouts on the ventral area thus opened up in addition to, say, reducing the dorsal cityscape by several Impstars’ worth of plating (though I’d be amazed if that hangar cutout didn’t have at least several hundred MTLs covering that area). I’d also be sorely tempted to include an aft-firing superweapon lens just to avert cruiser-tonnage pursuit scenarios, give the fantail a ventral extension, and add at least a half-dozen extra thrusters to maintain Ex’s speed.

Steve Bannon
Steve Bannon
7 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

Devastator’s hyperspace assault and Vader’s subsequent hallway scene was probably my favorite movie moment of 2016. I’m perfectly fine with the scale they went with for Scarif, as going too much bigger would raise questions about the presence of those fleet assets in the original trilogy, and make Endor seem less climactic. In both the old and Disneyboot canon, I’m fairly certain the Executor hasn’t finished shaking up by 0 BBY, and having Vader show up on the Devastator is pretty essential given how ANH starts 15 minutes later. Hopefully Rebels will show us something bigger than an Imperator soon though… maybe the Secutor which is reboot canon?
2nd Coruscant is surprisingly underanalyzed compared to Endor, and most of my understanding of close range fleet brawls comes from going frame by frame though that. While the SPHA-T beam was used, it wasn’t in the Guarlara vs Invisible Hand broadsides. Funny enough, while there were 4 Lucrehulks, over 15 Munificents, and 6 Recusants which had sustained either critical damage or total hull losses, not a single Venator engaged seemed to have more than cosmetic hull scarring, which reflects pretty well on Kuat construction and Old Republic ship handling.

At this point, with that amount of refit on the Executor, you’re basiclly turning it into an Assertor. We probably disagree a bit on tactical superlasers, as I’m not too keen on single points of critical failure, but then again if you put me on an allocations committee, I’d just push for building another twenty thousand Tectors.

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
7 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

Fair points on Rebels and R1, though a few bigger Imp or Mon Cal ships wouldn’t have struck me as out of place between ANH & ESB. Since recent eps have given Home One some cameos, it might indeed be time to show Thrawn or whomever on the bridge of a Compellor-scale cruiser.

Good observations re: ROTS’ Battle Where Palpy Kidnaps Himself; I wonder if there isn’t some lingering prequel-disdain coloring forums’ lack of deconstruction vis-a-vis the OT. You gotta ponder whether clone crews & standard-procurement officers ever compared notes re: shifting rules of engagement & orders from the brass as the Republic Navy was re-branded.

I suppose for me it’s just a matter of slapping potentially useful weapon & interdiction systems on a hull with enough space (objective) & aesthetic appeal (subjective-not an Eclipse fan) to support ’em once you cut back on its fleet-tender & troop-deployment functions. The latter especially strike me as a non-priority for a defensively-oriented NR, so I’d probably meet you with about 15,000 Tector/MC90 equivalents plus enough padding for flagships to keep Corellia & the Outer Rim a bit more secure against warlord/Hutt/Black Sun shenanigans.

Steve Bannon
Steve Bannon
7 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

As the Rebels gain more and more ships including 2.5-4km Home One styled MC80s, (although I don’t trust Rebels to not butcher scale) the Imperials might actually be outgunned if all they’re bringing to the table are single digit lines of Impstars. However, Thrawn is known for getting a lot done with small numbers of relatively light ships rather than just overwhelming the NR with battlewagons, and Thrawn’s writers are probably taking that into account, so we’re probably not going to see him on the bridge of a Bellator.
Imperial crews are probably all over the place in terms of competency, with the Scarif blockade at the low end, and Devastator (and the Black Prince!) at the high end. Most Imperial crews probably don’t even see combat until Palpatine gets thrown down a bottomless shaft, with pretty poor results in the civil war that follows, but there had to be some cultural cross-contamination between the clone crews and the stock humans who fought alongside them.
It seems like every generation, the line destroyer triples in size from Venator to Imperator to the Resurgents, so I wonder if at some point along the way the Allegiance could have been the stock mass-produced line destroyer? I’ve always loved the Allegiance design since Fractal did it justice. They seem to have great power/weight ratios while maintaining destroyer level maneuverability and acceleration, although interdiction support is necessary.

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
7 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

I get the impression Rebels’ writers may be a little too enamored with Tim Zahn’s WEG-influenced perception of naval scale (seriously, far as I’m concerned the Katana fleet is a late-Republic expeditionary force with customized picket Dreadnaughts as its lightest asset), so you’re probably right about Thrawn being stuck with Impstar-scale flagships. Perhaps some sector Moff who schmoozed their way into an intermediate-scale heavy might feature later on, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Offhand, I’d be sorely tempted to build local task forces around Compellor cruiser/carrier pairs with a dozen or so Allegiances for screening duty, and Fractal’s rendering goes a long way toward making that particular Dark Empire refugee pop (hell, I’d still like to see what he’d make of the Tector). ‘Specially fond of its diagonal turret-strip layouts & ball brim-trench ion turrets, though I wonder whether you couldn’t strip the grav-well projectors off a 418 & slap ’em on a destroyer that big.

Steve Bannon
Steve Bannon
7 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

The curse of poorly thought out RPG sourcebooks continues to haunt us. Since we’re seeing Thrawn at the height of Imperial power, I don’t think they’re going to show us the Katana fleet. In a way, the limits on Imperial fleet assets is kind of a good thing. Since it’s a kid’s show, we can work under the assumption that the good guys are going to win every story arc, and not lose any main characters. Therefore, Imperial incompetence and stupidity must directly scale with the number of fleet assets they deploy in a fight. If some admiral shows up with 30 Bellators, you know he’s going to lose some in an utterly imbecilic manner. However, if Thrawn is outnumbered, outgunned, and fighting the entire Alliance with a handful of Impstars, there’s a chance they’ll write the Imperials in an adaptable, tactically flexible way worthy of Thrawn and the finest traditions of the fleet.
Thrawn can’t actually win as Raddus, Ackbar, Mothma, and the Ghost crew have to survive until the movies, but the less tonnage they give him, the smarter he’ll have to be in order to maintain a constant level of threat and drama. It’s basically the law of inverse-ninjitsu, but for Star Destroyers. We see it already when lone TIE Defenders are credible threats, but full attack wings of default TIE ln are swatted down without any thought.
In the Rebels timeframe, Compellor carriers are probably overkill anywhere except for strategic reserves. I’d like to see Venators and Secutors deployed against the Rebels, given their high speed and carrier roles.

Fractal’s allegiances are pretty damn sexy, but looking at the complexity of grav-well generators and their effects on tensor fields, EWAR, and jamming, I’m not sure that they are plug and play technology. There’s probably a reason that they’re left on dedicated chassis given the number of interconnected systems on a warship they could affect, no matter how small the 418’s projectors are. A Tector should be a relatively easy model for Fractal compared to something like the Legator. He’d just have to refit his ISD-II mesh with a couple more turrets and cover the main hangar bay with a giant plate and maybe a secondary reactor bulge.

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
7 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

Weird thing is, the TIEs (with a little frigate support) have probably killed more Rebel transports & corvettes to date than any of those giraffe-necked Impstar renders. You’re probably on to something regarding Inverse Fleet Ninjutsu, though I could still see a season-end cliffhanger regarding some portion of the Rebel fleet getting briefly pinned down by interdictors with, oh, a couple dozen destroyers and some flavor of flagship waiting. They’d probably squeak outta that trap with the loss/capture of a main-ish character, and around we go again. As for the intelligence of Nu!Thrawn and his operatives…all I can say is if he doesn’t bamboozle Agent Sideburns into blowing some serious Rebel cover, that main-antagonist status will continue striking me as a serious Informed Attribute(C).

Once again, I find myself seriously questioning the sources portraying pre-Disneyboot dragships, all of which were (again) X-wing novels/comics. I can buy the 418 Interdictors being the cheapest-scale design capable of mounting gravity wells (and thus mass-produced Outer Rim convoy-raid disruptors), but Admiral Rogriss’ Stellar Web acquired some interesting plot shielding when using its projectors to dodge Zsinj’s kamikaze Victory class, and the Impstar-scale Dominators really oughta have enough point defense & shielding to be less susceptible to Rogue Squad plus a couple dozen Y-wings sans capital support.

It’s a sad day when Rebels’ Immobilizer is more plausibly sabotaged from within & demonstrates an interesting close-quarters drawback related to said sabotage (sucking escorts into the projectors). Sithspit, doesn’t the EGtW even posit an Impstar-scale design with *one* projector and a correspondingly even shielding/firepower/thrust balance? It doesn’t seem utterly impossible to mount functional grav-well tech & decent teeth on the same destroyer-plus-scale capital.

Steve Bannon
Steve Bannon
7 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

For rebels, the season finale description is already out there so we have a rough idea what happens.
Zero Hour Part One
In final preparations for their attack on Lothal, Phoenix Squadron’s plans are disrupted when Grand Admiral Thrawn discovers their location.
Part Two
Trapped on Atollon with the rebel base under siege, Hera and Kanan fight to keep the squadron alive, as Ezra attempts to rally help from an unexpected source

Thrawn probably manages to drag some intel out of sideburns but we better see some actual innovation in fleet maneuvering when he springs the trap on Atollon. I’m not betting on seeing a special flagship since Thrawn’s Chimera already has a pretty distinctive if un-imperial paint scheme. My bet on the unexpected source is either Ackbar or Raddus. The Rebels don’t have a sufficient (or any) theater shield generator on Atollon to deflect HTL from low orbit, but presumably the show writers have again found themselves unwilling to comprehend the idea that Star Destroyers can lay waste to planets.

Interdictors should be incredibly common given how useful they are, but the main rebel characters need to stay alive. In the old Legacy comics, those tall centerline battery Pelleaon class destroyers mount grav-well generators in addition to a nasty frontal arc, but those aren’t going to show up again. I half hoped the new Resurgents to have some, but the fleet surrounding Starkiller Base didn’t do jackshit to prevent Dameron’s squadron from getting out, so it’s safe to say that they don’t. I’m surprised Fractal didn’t place 418 sized globes on his cruiser scale ships, but some do appear on the Assertor.

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
7 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

Let’s face it, Rebels & the Episode 7 script have a real ‘out of sight, out of mind’ approach to destroyer operations. The Impstar of the Week(C) needs to ignore the Ghost & any attached CR90 squad? Everyone in sensors/guns takes a nap. The Finalizer just shot down an escaping TIE piloted by a Resistance honcho & rogue stormie? That’s about all the action it needs, so never mind the escaping Falcon or that bulk freighter picking it up, all within easy sublight distance of Jakku. I suppose some other factor (Budget concerns? Design bureau dissent? Navigational updates?) could’ve rendered grav-well projectors less useful post-ESB, but who knows whether that’ll come up in a novel?

Steve Bannon
Steve Bannon
7 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

Given their nap schedule, I’d love to quit my job and join the Imperial Navy. The Finalizer really did fuck up by not sending down a search and recovery crew, if only to destroy the wreck to prevent anyone from stealing their tech. I could understand if they left the system immediately after in order to get to Starkiller Base for political reasons. After all, it’s a Star Wars tradition to have the destroyer crews over a desert planet really screw up in order to generate plot.
For Rebels, destroyer performance might actually be worse. You could replace Thrawn’s destroyers with late 19th century protected cruisers adapted for vacuum travel, and the Victorians’ (lack of) performance might actually surpass that of the empire. If not for the Devastator, Impstars would be total jokes.

There might be some hidden relation between grav-well generator size and performance that might diminish the effectiveness of the various interdictors. Perhaps the 418 can only really keep fighter and corvette scale craft from jumping at relatively low ranges, and a 4 kilometer Home One type Mon Cal cruiser can just laugh that 418 off and brute force its way into hyperspace. A Dominator which could hold Home One in realspace might just be prohibitively expensive. I read somewhere that SPAAGs built on MBT chassis are roughly 3 times more expensive to build and operate than the MBTs they are based upon. It wouldn’t be surprising if such a similar if not even more costly ratio might exist in Star Wars for interdictors based on line warship hulls.

Valoren
6 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

Bravo, guys. With that book-and-a-half you wrote in there, it took me a good minute to reach the comment box.

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
7 years ago
Reply to  Steve Bannon

Aside from, say, early-batch experimental craft, I’m not so sure the First Order (or Empire) would bother with any sort of cover-up on something as mass-produced as TIEs tend to be. But seriously: they want the droid and its info. Said droid is on a freighter currently dicking around starship wrecks & dodging your fighters. Why is your big honking tractor beam-equipped flagship not keeping pace with the pursuit & at least *attempting* to intercept said freighter? That whole sequence would’ve made a lot more sense with a blind lightspeed jump on the Falcon’s part before Han’s bulk freighter enters the picture.

Legends-era interdictors didn’t seem to have much in the way of limitations beyond the time window to warm up grav-wells (providing handy windows for Luke, Mara Jade, etc. to escape), but I could halfway roll with requiring a certain scale/power output for snaring anything heavier than GR75s & corvettes. If nothing else, it’d make battlecruiser-scale interdictors more plausible (and plausibly scarce outside major systems). That said, I’d also love to see that missile-repelling field trick from the TIE Fighter animated short get extrapolated from Rebels’ Immobilizer’s curious ‘magnet effect’.

Steve Bannon
Steve Bannon
7 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

Dameron was playing grand theft starfighter with an elite TIE/sf, not a stock TIE/fo. Despite not really having more volume to work with, the Special Forces model have magpulse ordnance warhead launch tubes, a shield generator, a hyperdrive, Finn’s 360 turret, and supposedly “enhanced” scanner and weapons systems all without compromising the legendary speed and maneuverability of a stock TIE. Honestly, the miniaturization technology necessary to cram all that stuff into an eyeball would probably be pretty next-generation in itself which might represent a real breakthrough in strikecraft technology.
After the default TIEs miss a huge stationary target despite making slow attack passes on the landed falcon with the aid of a targeting computer, Finn makes a big emphasis on staying low, which isn’t that useful against TIEs, but could lead to enough ground/wreck interference to prevent the Finalizer from getting a tractor lock. I definitely agree with you on how they should have had to avoid the destroyer (battlecruiser?) in orbit though.
The idea that interdictor grave-well projectors become more potent with size is the only explanation I have for why the Dominator’s projectors are almost as large as the 418. It might also explain why we never really see Interdictors in the clone wars given how massive your generators must be if you’re trying to snare Lucrehulks. Hopefully some of the Rebel show runners will have seen the animated short and might draw some decent ideas from it, although I’m not optimistic.

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
7 years ago
Reply to  gorkmalork

Given the /sf’s apparent ubiquity in both TFA & a couple prior comics starring Lieut. Dameron, pretty sure the cat would’ve been outta the bag sooner or later based on T-70 sensor footage, if nothing else-‘sides, it’s not like most of those systems didn’t have some at least some precedent on specialty TIEs like the Defender or Royal Guard interceptors. I could see the Rebels attempting to extract and/or wreck, say, one of those superlaser-packin’ B-wings, but the /sf’s advances don’t seem to be quite on that level.

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
7 years ago

Loving this design’s engine block, hangar spaces, proto-Executor fantail & long-range comm globes. I’ll just visualize a pair of Praetors screening its shakedown cruise.

Xeno
Xeno
7 years ago

Hey fractal, how many guns are on this thing, and how many starfighters and bombers does it carry?

Anonymous
Anonymous
7 years ago

i would like to see fractalsponge made executor-class star dreadnought!

Eric Otness
Eric Otness
7 years ago
Reply to  Anonymous

He did make one a while back, though it’s only for distance shots, I’m afraid.

mr.oneshot
mr.oneshot
7 years ago

This is in my opinion by far the most original capital ship I’ve ever seen in Star Wars. The engines and hangar bays are way oversized, which makes her look like a doughnut in some frames and like a pancake in others… That is probably the best thing about it: She’s got so much personality! It definetly brings a lot of flavour to KDY design.
I cannot stress how much I like all of your creations, Fractal.

Michael
Michael
7 years ago

Love the design, I hope you do the Eclipse next.

AdmiralStrang
AdmiralStrang
7 years ago

What’s the exact story behind this one again?

Admiral Drakkmar
Admiral Drakkmar
7 years ago
Reply to  AdmiralStrang

It was in a graphic novel. Not sure what the name is. It was just a shot of the command tower and the forward large scanner globe. Fractal came up with the rest of the design on his own. I really like the way she came together.

Admiral Drakkmar
Admiral Drakkmar
7 years ago
Reply to  AdmiralStrang

Here is the shot of it in Star Wars tales #21

http://www.theforce.net/SWTC/dagger.html#battleship4

Arvenski
Arvenski
7 years ago

That’s a pretty neat-looking SSD. I feel like she looks a bit on the ‘light’ side for dreadnoughts (although I probably shouldn’t jump to that assumption, with all the turrets she’s carrying), but makes up for it with those big hangers. I’m guessing that her role in battle is something like that of a heavy carrier, whereas the Belator, which is the same length IIRC, is meant to handle the front-line brawling.

Arvenski
Arvenski
7 years ago
Reply to  Arvenski

EDIT: Replace Belator with Mandator, since this is a late Republic/early Empire design.

Xeno
Xeno
7 years ago

Nice! 8 km right?

Anonymous
Anonymous
7 years ago

Why this ship change form the battleship to the dreadnought?

AdmiralStrang
AdmiralStrang
7 years ago
Reply to  Anonymous

“Battleship” isn’t a formal class in the Anaxes War College system. Ships of 1000-2000 meters in length are Star Destroyers, ships of 2000-5000 meters in length are Star Battlecruisers. All ships over 5000 meters are classified as Star Dreadnoughts– and, at 7km, our girl here is most certainly one of those.

Anonymous
Anonymous
7 years ago
Reply to  AdmiralStrang

I’m wasn’t talking about the Anaxes War College system.

Valoren
7 years ago
Reply to  AdmiralStrang

But the bellator, with it’s 7200m was, nonetheless, classified as a star battlecruiser by Fractal himself on this very site.

AdmiralStrang
AdmiralStrang
7 years ago
Reply to  Valoren

And its classification was changed in the EGtW that canonized it.

I don’t mean to come off as retentive, sorry if that’s the case.

gorkmalork
gorkmalork
7 years ago
Reply to  AdmiralStrang

Which would be fair ’nuff if we didn’t have to consider Disney’s nu-officialdom as well. All told, until one of their writers uses the Bellator (or any of Fractal’s creations) somewhere in this new EU, I’m sorely tempted to default toward his definitions, especially as they pertain to his creations.

Hecatomb
Hecatomb
7 years ago

You know a ship is big when the Assertor is in the scale comparison!

Purple Empire
Purple Empire
7 years ago

Nice work!