326.4m long. Armed transport and logistics vessel. In no way designed to be pretty!
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PhoenixKnight
Reminds me of the ‘flying brick’
Guest
CRMcNeill
Do you mean the F7 โLanding Brickโ dropship? If so, I can see it, too, especially seeing the Fractal version used as a space-LST.
Guest
PhoenixKnight
That’s the one especially with the silhouette of the F7
Guest
gthompsn
Would you mind doing a sizecomparison with the ISD (which seems to be the defacto standard for space ships) and the Vigil?
Guest
Hecatomb
This reminds me of a design suggestion: the Y-85 Titan dropship is another utilitarian vessel that I’d love to see Fractal’s take on if he wanted to do it. Or any walker drop barge really.
Guest
Ragnrok
Wow, you’ve actually made a traditionally very ugly ship look very good, I’m impressed as usual
Guest
CFletch
I was just thinking, this thing would make an excellent rapid-deployment command center. Less capable (or expensive) than a full prefab garrison but enough to oversee the pacification of a city or similar largish area in low-level conflict. Lots of room for logistics supplies, barracks modules, and C&C facilities, plus reasonably sized hangars for small craft for transport and recon. Enough armor, shields, and weapons to protect it against small-scale attack.
I thought this one was doomed to the idea pile forever. I love the way it turned out. Logistics ships are frequently ignored in SW, and your’s are certainly the best I’ve seen.
Guest
Plesiosuchus
Love it! Is there a number for the compliment of fighters or shuttles?
Guest
StarkillerXI
Love the approach to practicality as opposed to aesthetics, the transportation of imperial assets has always been vague so its refreshing to see something. Is it possible for ATATs to fold their legs?
Guest
Road Warrior
That front end is great and I for one would like to see this setup used again on cargo, industrial, and/or utility ships at some point in the future. The more I look at it, the more I like it. I can imagine an open cargo version of this ship too, with perhaps the entire middle area gone and the command section and engine block connected by extendible stringers and service corridors. In essence, the thing would be a bigger and heavily armed imperial GR75.
But, eh, I don’t know.
Guest
Vons Barador
What a good redesign! I remember seeing the first few pages of this way back when. Between this and the Xi you’ve put together a pretty concise image of an Imperial ground invasion.
Guest
Reign
What could be the standard complement of the Star Galleon? The Legends scource gives only the cargo capacity. Maybe double-quadruple the vehicles of the Y-45 Dropships?
I don’t think there’s a standard vehicle capacity for something like this, or for the Y-45 for that matter. It’s a question of how you configure the volume available.
I like it!! Another familiar design from the old X-Wing PC games!
I’ll take this opportunity and renew my request – should you find the time – for a panel of ships from those games. Which major ones are still missing? The Strike Cruiser and Carrack Cruiser come to my mind.
Guest
gorkmalork
Fractal worked up an original Carrack *substitute* not long ago, though it’s been ages since I saw anyone do anything Strike-related.
Guest
Chris Bradshaw
The Kontos is sort of a similar analogue to a Strike, just as the Velox is to the Carrack.
Guest
DanielShenise
Yeah the Kontos is really cool and is my favorite small capital ship in his inventory. That and the little sloop he did are really good original designs.
Guest
CRMcNeill
Considering most of the modular options on the Strike involved what it could carry, the Kontos wouldnโt be too hard to retcon as the Strike just by giving it a modular cargo bay with hardpoints and power connections…
Guest
DarthKarnage
I deem it the Space Turtle.
Guest
Christopher
Have you thought of a name for this yet?
How about the Fakroun class transport?
I thought Star Galleon was a type name. What’s a Fakroun?
Guest
CRMcNeill
Correct; Star Galleon is the class name from KDY. I have to agree, though, that it sounds a lot like a classification for an armed cargo transport, especially in a universe with star destroyers, starfighters, star cruisers, etc.
There’s also precedent within your own works; the Imperial Escort Carrier was never given an official class name, but now it’s the Ton Falk. Something similar would be appropriate here.
And Fakroun appears to be the word for “turtle” in one of the Arabic dialects…
Well, I don’t think it’s an actual word. Mare/Mar is sea though, and vacca is cow, so manatee, from a certain point of view ๐
Guest
CRMcNeill
LOL. Good one.
“Testudo” has a lot of connections back to the Latin for tortoise, particularly the defensive formation used by the Roman legions for defense against arrows. Following the KDY pseudo-Latin pattern, perhaps Testudor?
Shield generator ship? Don’t all ships already have shield generator of their own? So what make that specific ship special?
It is a special type of shield generator that fire a beam at friendly ships to create a second deflector shield or something?
Guest
CRMcNeill
More probably an area effect shield that can protect an entire fleet, or a mobile planetary shield projector that functions either from orbit, or has to land in order to divert all of its engine power to the shield. Actually, that sounds like a useful idea for surface units, a mobile theater shield generator that can relocate to provide continuous shield protection against orbital bombardment. Say, something along the lines of the Mobile Repulsor Base (https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/MFB-4_Mobile_Repulsor_Base), but almost entirely devoted to shield generation, propulsion and some defensive weaponry instead of a multi-purpose survey facility. With the limitation that it has… Read more »
Guest
STONEhenk
I like how the bridge area resembles the cockpits of the newer Imperial/First Order shuttles. Tie Reaper, Zeta-shuttle, Upsilon-shuttle and the upcoming TIE Echelon all have a similar cockpit.
I can’t seem to find any point-defence turrets. Are they there? This thing is in dire need of a Lamcer-class escort.
Guest
gorkmalork
I see a pair of lighter twin mounts (1 light turbo, 1 laser) our host’s used before mounted on the underside of those mediums flanking the bow.
Guest
That chiss boi
Its a turtle
Guest
Anthony Giaimo
Would the Star Galleon deploy the AT-SP right at the edge of an enemies defensive fortifications, let if off somewhere more secure and the Walker has sufficient mobility to make it to the battlefield or is there a second transport that would move the AT-SP after the Galleon drops it off?
It could, but it’s mostly for just shifting it from place to place in the strategic sense. I’d say the galleon is a bit too unwieldy for tactical moves.
And the ship is not specifically to move AT-SPs, it just CAN if needed.
Guest
JAMESMCGR
Are the glowing rectangles hangars? This is awesome, I wonder how much stuff it can hold.
Guest
gorkmalork
Yep, the glowing borders indicate hangar doors.
Guest
Taghmata Omnissiah
Old data speak about 100,000 metric tons of cargo.
These mass numbers I feel like are pretty useless without context. Is that…cargo volume filled with water? After all, in space, you can push a trillion ton payload at 0.01g and still get it across a system, as long as you can physically couple it to engine thrust and have the fuel. Questions like these keep me from actually trying to estimate actual tonnages. One presumes that any number ought to represents mass that can be accelerated at the listed (where available) acceleration. I also generally assume that acceleration is listed with a full load of stores and fuel (can… Read more »
Guest
CRMcNeill
One of the older Sourcebooks did have mass/volume conversions depending on what general type of cargo was being hauled (as well as a generic rule that ships had 4 cubic meters of cargo space for every 10 metric tons of cargo capacity), but no clear rule as to what happened to ship performance once the listed maximum was exceeded. A more realistic rule would be a graduated system where performance and acceleration were penalized as cargo mass increased.
Well usually for simplicity the entire mass/speed curve for ships is not listed. In space it’s simpler because no water resistance, but for standardization you’d only really have 2 figures anyway – full load or trial mass if done differently. I assume numbers are for full load.
Guest
Beersatron
No extending landing gear, just those presumably hardened rectangular nubs on the bottom?
It all connects in theory, but the interior can and often probably is divided by light modular bulkheads and platforms and such depending on the nature of the cargoes.
Guest
Shaun
Look. At. That. Butt… o_0
>_<
Guest
Shaun
But, to be fair, my first thought was, “awwwwuh, she’s having a baby!”
Guest
gorkmalork
“Congratulations, it’s an AT-SP. Ohhh, someone must see some hovertanks-go to it, champ!”
Guest
Beersatron
Awesome! I noticed the side loaded AT-AT and was like … “that’s cool!” and then my eyes finally registered the massive walker coming out the butt between the engines and was like … “take my money!!” ๐
Guest
CRMcNeill
Nice work. Does this still have the ejectable cargo bay from the original, or are you going a more conventional route?
Much more conventional. I think that old idea was a little too cute. If you were really interested in preventing cargo from getting captured, you’d escort it properly or accept that you’re going to compromise the cargo capacity of the carrying ship by integrating that cargo capacity into some really formidable/fast platform, not a half-assed medium frigate. A better armed military transport is a fine idea without the flavor gimmicks for sourcebooks.
Guest
CRMcNeill
That’s reasonable; I did something similar with the Interdictor, stripping out the gravity well projectors for cargo space and making it a fast fleet transport. On the face of things, the original Star Galleon seems built as a challenge for a group of high-level PCs making a boarding action. Too bad WEG neglected to include anything to help game out the scenario, like random encounter tables.
Yeah that makes sense for the RPG role. Just always seemed like a solution really in search of an appropriate problem.
An interdictor is a good choice for the Abdiel like role – lots of power to spare after the projectors are removed, and big enough to move large useful loads but not so big as to be crazy for a blockade runner.
Guest
CRMcNeill
The only time the Star Galleon was used for its actual listed purpose was as the “boss fight” of the Far Orbit Project privateer campaign, which was also the most detailed WEG ever got about the difficulty of successfully capturing it. I went on a tear a while back of rewriting a lot of WEG game stats to better fit their write-ups, and the Star Galleon was definitely the most challenging, even with Far Orbit Project as a resource.
Guest
CRMcNeill
Abdiel? I don’t get the reference.
Guest
Chris Bradshaw
40 knot WW2 era British heavy minelayers built on a large destroyer hull, with an excellent AA suite.
They ended up being used as very survivable transports for isolated garrisons like Malta in addition to their intended role.
Guest
CRMcNeill
Thanks. Obscure, but useful.
Guest
CRMcNeill
Random thought: perhaps itโs still equipped with the anti-boarding defenses, but the ejectable cargo bay isnโt an integrated component. Instead, have it be regular cargo bay loaded with droid-crewed self-propelled cargo pods that can be carried aboard any ship with enough landing deck space to fit a walker or light freighter. That way, rather than having to build the ship around a single large ejectable cargo bay, you can pack a more normal cargo bay with hundreds of self-propelled containers. That adds an extra layer of security to the last resort: imagine the confusion for a bunch of pirates or… Read more »
I think that’s rule of cool over logic. It is a cool concept for a move scene, I’ll grant you that. But let’s say you have a cargo that’s so valuable you absolutely don’t want it captured. If it’s small enough to be fit alongside many decoy copies, then it could also just be carried by a far faster and harder to catch ship. Instead, you’d be compromising cargo capacity that could be used for something more mundane but more efficient by integrating it something like a galleon, and you’d STILL not be really guaranteeing safety. Because the intercept and… Read more »
Guest
Daib
Hey, if you look at the old Marvel comics, if that high value cargo is important enough, you send a battlegroup built around a Praetor and a similarly sized carrier. Didn’t work out that well, but A for effort.
Yeah, right way to do it, but demands of plot are demands of plot I guess.
Guest
Steve
She looks like she’s got a sticker somewhere saying “We break for nobody!” She’s magnificent is what she is ๐
Guest
Eric Otness
I take it that’s a Spaceball reference regarding the sticker? Yeah, that would be neat. Too bad she’s nowhere near as massive as the ship in the film (from the amount of time it took before we could see the other end of the ship, I’d wager it’s even LONGER than the Executor).
Guest
gorkmalork
Based on the size of Mega-Maid’s crown-spokes (each of which doubles as a single-being escape pod ejector) & ear canals (which just barely fit a Winnebago with wings), Spaceball I’s default mode might be closer to an Imp-standard frigate or light destroyer in scale. Big E’s dorsal bric-a-brac could probably hide a couple shifts’ worth of those things with room to sneak a smoke break.
Guest
Eric Otness
Huh, could have fooled me, especially given it’s 2-minute-long opening scene. Guess it’s even slower than either a sleepy hutt or a bantha on Hoth (the only other means for it to take that long). Come to think of it, the Stealth Ship looks pretty similar to the default mode of Spaceball I. Might use it in a fanfic I’m planning for Star Wars (set in the Legends continuity, since quite frankly, the Disney Canon stinks badly), justify it as a sister-ship in terms of development to the Stealth Ship, or even a later mass-production model that was stolen during… Read more »
Guest
Proton
A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one.
Guest
gthompsn
what a welcome surprise!
Guest
Jamie
Wow. Your models are superb, Sir.
Guest
Road Warrior
Nice. I really dig the new bridge area. This things needs various companions, boss!!!
Reminds me of the ‘flying brick’
Do you mean the F7 โLanding Brickโ dropship? If so, I can see it, too, especially seeing the Fractal version used as a space-LST.
That’s the one especially with the silhouette of the F7
Would you mind doing a sizecomparison with the ISD (which seems to be the defacto standard for space ships) and the Vigil?
This reminds me of a design suggestion: the Y-85 Titan dropship is another utilitarian vessel that I’d love to see Fractal’s take on if he wanted to do it. Or any walker drop barge really.
Wow, you’ve actually made a traditionally very ugly ship look very good, I’m impressed as usual
I was just thinking, this thing would make an excellent rapid-deployment command center. Less capable (or expensive) than a full prefab garrison but enough to oversee the pacification of a city or similar largish area in low-level conflict. Lots of room for logistics supplies, barracks modules, and C&C facilities, plus reasonably sized hangars for small craft for transport and recon. Enough armor, shields, and weapons to protect it against small-scale attack.
What are C&C facilities?.
Command and control
What about IF-120?
I thought this one was doomed to the idea pile forever. I love the way it turned out. Logistics ships are frequently ignored in SW, and your’s are certainly the best I’ve seen.
Love it! Is there a number for the compliment of fighters or shuttles?
Love the approach to practicality as opposed to aesthetics, the transportation of imperial assets has always been vague so its refreshing to see something. Is it possible for ATATs to fold their legs?
That front end is great and I for one would like to see this setup used again on cargo, industrial, and/or utility ships at some point in the future. The more I look at it, the more I like it. I can imagine an open cargo version of this ship too, with perhaps the entire middle area gone and the command section and engine block connected by extendible stringers and service corridors. In essence, the thing would be a bigger and heavily armed imperial GR75.
But, eh, I don’t know.
What a good redesign! I remember seeing the first few pages of this way back when. Between this and the Xi you’ve put together a pretty concise image of an Imperial ground invasion.
What could be the standard complement of the Star Galleon? The Legends scource gives only the cargo capacity. Maybe double-quadruple the vehicles of the Y-45 Dropships?
I don’t think there’s a standard vehicle capacity for something like this, or for the Y-45 for that matter. It’s a question of how you configure the volume available.
I like it!! Another familiar design from the old X-Wing PC games!
I’ll take this opportunity and renew my request – should you find the time – for a panel of ships from those games. Which major ones are still missing? The Strike Cruiser and Carrack Cruiser come to my mind.
Fractal worked up an original Carrack *substitute* not long ago, though it’s been ages since I saw anyone do anything Strike-related.
The Kontos is sort of a similar analogue to a Strike, just as the Velox is to the Carrack.
Yeah the Kontos is really cool and is my favorite small capital ship in his inventory. That and the little sloop he did are really good original designs.
Considering most of the modular options on the Strike involved what it could carry, the Kontos wouldnโt be too hard to retcon as the Strike just by giving it a modular cargo bay with hardpoints and power connections…
I deem it the Space Turtle.
Have you thought of a name for this yet?
How about the Fakroun class transport?
I thought Star Galleon was a type name. What’s a Fakroun?
Correct; Star Galleon is the class name from KDY. I have to agree, though, that it sounds a lot like a classification for an armed cargo transport, especially in a universe with star destroyers, starfighters, star cruisers, etc.
I’m down with that idea.
There’s also precedent within your own works; the Imperial Escort Carrier was never given an official class name, but now it’s the Ton Falk. Something similar would be appropriate here.
And Fakroun appears to be the word for “turtle” in one of the Arabic dialects…
Ton Falk wasn’t me – that was introduced into the EU separately.
If we’re going pseudo Latin, maybe Marvac? It’s supposedly KDY after all.
My bad. I’m a WEG grognard, so I haven’t followed the Fantasy Flight stuff that closely.
What’s Marvac? I Googled it and got nothing that seemed to fit.
Well, I don’t think it’s an actual word. Mare/Mar is sea though, and vacca is cow, so manatee, from a certain point of view ๐
LOL. Good one.
“Testudo” has a lot of connections back to the Latin for tortoise, particularly the defensive formation used by the Roman legions for defense against arrows. Following the KDY pseudo-Latin pattern, perhaps Testudor?
Probably would keep that one as…a shield generator ship or something.
Shield generator ship? Don’t all ships already have shield generator of their own? So what make that specific ship special?
It is a special type of shield generator that fire a beam at friendly ships to create a second deflector shield or something?
More probably an area effect shield that can protect an entire fleet, or a mobile planetary shield projector that functions either from orbit, or has to land in order to divert all of its engine power to the shield. Actually, that sounds like a useful idea for surface units, a mobile theater shield generator that can relocate to provide continuous shield protection against orbital bombardment. Say, something along the lines of the Mobile Repulsor Base (https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/MFB-4_Mobile_Repulsor_Base), but almost entirely devoted to shield generation, propulsion and some defensive weaponry instead of a multi-purpose survey facility. With the limitation that it has… Read more »
I like how the bridge area resembles the cockpits of the newer Imperial/First Order shuttles. Tie Reaper, Zeta-shuttle, Upsilon-shuttle and the upcoming TIE Echelon all have a similar cockpit.
I can’t seem to find any point-defence turrets. Are they there? This thing is in dire need of a Lamcer-class escort.
I see a pair of lighter twin mounts (1 light turbo, 1 laser) our host’s used before mounted on the underside of those mediums flanking the bow.
Its a turtle
Would the Star Galleon deploy the AT-SP right at the edge of an enemies defensive fortifications, let if off somewhere more secure and the Walker has sufficient mobility to make it to the battlefield or is there a second transport that would move the AT-SP after the Galleon drops it off?
It could, but it’s mostly for just shifting it from place to place in the strategic sense. I’d say the galleon is a bit too unwieldy for tactical moves.
And the ship is not specifically to move AT-SPs, it just CAN if needed.
Are the glowing rectangles hangars? This is awesome, I wonder how much stuff it can hold.
Yep, the glowing borders indicate hangar doors.
Old data speak about 100,000 metric tons of cargo.
These mass numbers I feel like are pretty useless without context. Is that…cargo volume filled with water? After all, in space, you can push a trillion ton payload at 0.01g and still get it across a system, as long as you can physically couple it to engine thrust and have the fuel. Questions like these keep me from actually trying to estimate actual tonnages. One presumes that any number ought to represents mass that can be accelerated at the listed (where available) acceleration. I also generally assume that acceleration is listed with a full load of stores and fuel (can… Read more »
One of the older Sourcebooks did have mass/volume conversions depending on what general type of cargo was being hauled (as well as a generic rule that ships had 4 cubic meters of cargo space for every 10 metric tons of cargo capacity), but no clear rule as to what happened to ship performance once the listed maximum was exceeded. A more realistic rule would be a graduated system where performance and acceleration were penalized as cargo mass increased.
Well usually for simplicity the entire mass/speed curve for ships is not listed. In space it’s simpler because no water resistance, but for standardization you’d only really have 2 figures anyway – full load or trial mass if done differently. I assume numbers are for full load.
No extending landing gear, just those presumably hardened rectangular nubs on the bottom?
The squares are pads on heavy load-bearing piston-shaped suspension units. Not visible except super close up.
Does the rear entrance connect the to main hold or do the walker crews have to draw straws to see who has to put his/her walker next to the thrusters?
It all connects in theory, but the interior can and often probably is divided by light modular bulkheads and platforms and such depending on the nature of the cargoes.
Look. At. That. Butt… o_0
>_<
But, to be fair, my first thought was, “awwwwuh, she’s having a baby!”
“Congratulations, it’s an AT-SP. Ohhh, someone must see some hovertanks-go to it, champ!”
Awesome! I noticed the side loaded AT-AT and was like … “that’s cool!” and then my eyes finally registered the massive walker coming out the butt between the engines and was like … “take my money!!” ๐
Nice work. Does this still have the ejectable cargo bay from the original, or are you going a more conventional route?
Much more conventional. I think that old idea was a little too cute. If you were really interested in preventing cargo from getting captured, you’d escort it properly or accept that you’re going to compromise the cargo capacity of the carrying ship by integrating that cargo capacity into some really formidable/fast platform, not a half-assed medium frigate. A better armed military transport is a fine idea without the flavor gimmicks for sourcebooks.
That’s reasonable; I did something similar with the Interdictor, stripping out the gravity well projectors for cargo space and making it a fast fleet transport. On the face of things, the original Star Galleon seems built as a challenge for a group of high-level PCs making a boarding action. Too bad WEG neglected to include anything to help game out the scenario, like random encounter tables.
Yeah that makes sense for the RPG role. Just always seemed like a solution really in search of an appropriate problem.
An interdictor is a good choice for the Abdiel like role – lots of power to spare after the projectors are removed, and big enough to move large useful loads but not so big as to be crazy for a blockade runner.
The only time the Star Galleon was used for its actual listed purpose was as the “boss fight” of the Far Orbit Project privateer campaign, which was also the most detailed WEG ever got about the difficulty of successfully capturing it. I went on a tear a while back of rewriting a lot of WEG game stats to better fit their write-ups, and the Star Galleon was definitely the most challenging, even with Far Orbit Project as a resource.
Abdiel? I don’t get the reference.
40 knot WW2 era British heavy minelayers built on a large destroyer hull, with an excellent AA suite.
They ended up being used as very survivable transports for isolated garrisons like Malta in addition to their intended role.
Thanks. Obscure, but useful.
Random thought: perhaps itโs still equipped with the anti-boarding defenses, but the ejectable cargo bay isnโt an integrated component. Instead, have it be regular cargo bay loaded with droid-crewed self-propelled cargo pods that can be carried aboard any ship with enough landing deck space to fit a walker or light freighter. That way, rather than having to build the ship around a single large ejectable cargo bay, you can pack a more normal cargo bay with hundreds of self-propelled containers. That adds an extra layer of security to the last resort: imagine the confusion for a bunch of pirates or… Read more »
I think that’s rule of cool over logic. It is a cool concept for a move scene, I’ll grant you that. But let’s say you have a cargo that’s so valuable you absolutely don’t want it captured. If it’s small enough to be fit alongside many decoy copies, then it could also just be carried by a far faster and harder to catch ship. Instead, you’d be compromising cargo capacity that could be used for something more mundane but more efficient by integrating it something like a galleon, and you’d STILL not be really guaranteeing safety. Because the intercept and… Read more »
Hey, if you look at the old Marvel comics, if that high value cargo is important enough, you send a battlegroup built around a Praetor and a similarly sized carrier. Didn’t work out that well, but A for effort.
Yeah, right way to do it, but demands of plot are demands of plot I guess.
She looks like she’s got a sticker somewhere saying “We break for nobody!” She’s magnificent is what she is ๐
I take it that’s a Spaceball reference regarding the sticker? Yeah, that would be neat. Too bad she’s nowhere near as massive as the ship in the film (from the amount of time it took before we could see the other end of the ship, I’d wager it’s even LONGER than the Executor).
Based on the size of Mega-Maid’s crown-spokes (each of which doubles as a single-being escape pod ejector) & ear canals (which just barely fit a Winnebago with wings), Spaceball I’s default mode might be closer to an Imp-standard frigate or light destroyer in scale. Big E’s dorsal bric-a-brac could probably hide a couple shifts’ worth of those things with room to sneak a smoke break.
Huh, could have fooled me, especially given it’s 2-minute-long opening scene. Guess it’s even slower than either a sleepy hutt or a bantha on Hoth (the only other means for it to take that long). Come to think of it, the Stealth Ship looks pretty similar to the default mode of Spaceball I. Might use it in a fanfic I’m planning for Star Wars (set in the Legends continuity, since quite frankly, the Disney Canon stinks badly), justify it as a sister-ship in terms of development to the Stealth Ship, or even a later mass-production model that was stolen during… Read more »
A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one.
what a welcome surprise!
Wow. Your models are superb, Sir.
Nice. I really dig the new bridge area. This things needs various companions, boss!!!