Great job once again Fractalsponge!! Would you be okay with me using this is a fanfiction I’m cooking up Fractal? It’s a really cool design and I’d love to put it in the story with your blessing. Do you have the crew numbers for it or would someone have to come up with them?
Guest
ThatPersonFromTheThing
Would L O V E to see this thing in action, to have it be the main ship in a series tackling a variety of combat scenarios, to use it in a mod for Empire at War.
Guest
HardwarJo
I like it. It’s a lot bigger than I thought it would be. I was picturing a slightly sub Imperator missile cruiser, but that’s basically the Victor I. This Missile battlecruiser is much cooler
Guest
Sephiroth0812
Gotta say it, this ship is rapidly becoming my favorite fanon Star Wars ship design, possibly even beating out the Legator, Proclamator and Valiant-class Star Destroyer.
Almost solely because Fractal managed to turn it into such a fine mix of deadly yet aesthetic looking murder wedge which can easily be adopted for headcanons, stories and fantasies involving both the Republic and the Empire.
Guest
Potatospy59
This ship is beautiful! i could just imagine it sitting at the back of a battle, star destroyers up the front, shelling the life out of enemy capital ships, even though it would make for a pretty good firework show if it went up.
Guest
Jacob
What are the full specs for the Tyrant-class Missile Cruiser. Im making a rp server and someone asked about the Tyrant-class. Specs include: Crew count, Fighter Count, Size, Weapon count, etc.
Guest
PhoenixKnight
Plz look down
Guest
Sephiroth0812
She’s become a true beauty. Truly love this design and how it blends late-Republic and early-Empire aesthetics. The 18th image shows clearly how its hull form has some Venator- as well as Mandator-influences (the gaps in the sides and the prominent ridge on the top). The small stubby rear-fin also looks like a shortened version of the one both the Acclamator and Venator have.
Awesome work, definitely be a bad day for an unshielded planet with that missile complement pointed at it
Guest
Jean-Luc Martel
holy shit… what is the weapon compliment on this???
Guest
Azure
By my count
DBY-827 Dual Heavy Turbolaser Turrets (48)
Quad Turbolaser Turrets (36)
Quad Point Defense Laser Cannons (64)
Heavy Laser Cannons (24)
Concussion Missile Tubes (696)
Guest
Sephiroth0812
I must have a bad eye for detail or something because I fail to find the Quad PD cannons on the model. I’ve found some of the Quad Turbos yet not all 36 of them but none of the PDs.
Does she have any ventral weapons to defend against attacks from below?
Guest
PhoenixKnight
Yes she does
Guest
PhoenixKnight
As in the ventral mounts
Guest
Azure
Sephiroth0812
Well when I was looking it originally I saw some quad emplacements that looked to small to be turbolasers so I was thinking that they might be PD emplacements but went back and looked at it and I think they are actually turbolasers and I just saw it wrong.
Guest
PhoenixKnight
Here is the Official Count
48×2 70TT HTL
14×4 200GT MTL
92×2 PD mounts
696 missile tubes with any number/mix of missile types
Guest
Sephiroth0812
Isn’t the MTL count in this stat table a little low for a ship this big? Or is that another throwback to the Venator?
But well, if it doesn’t have any Quad PD mounts then obviously I can’t find them no matter how close I look, lol.
And of course the missile launchers are just imposing. I dunno if the CIS had anything in their arsenal that could have directly challenged this beast one on one.
Guest
Azure
Most of their ships could if they were able to get within broadside range since that would render the missile launchers useless.
A bulwark class battlecruiser could challenge it, as could a malevolence class.
A providence may be able to challenge it assuming could get in to close for it to use it’s missile launchers as the providence class could probably do some serious damage to it with it’s 100 proton torpedo tubes along with it’s massive fighter compliment.
Guest
Sephiroth0812
Huh? The Tyrant can’t use its missile launchers up close but the Providence can with its torpedoes? Going just by energy weapon main battery, one Tyrant is worth 6 Venators (6 x 8 = 48) so that’ll be ouch-time for a Providence, not to mention the Tyrant’s shields are probably much stronger than those of a Venator due to a better, stronger main reactor. A Bulwark I could actually see making some progress as they’re described to be tanky with decent speed and a Subjugator-class (which the Malevolence is a member of) would probably wreck the Tyrant. Speaking like this… Read more »
Guest
PhoenixKnight
I found it. I shall this one the Sagittor
Guest
Sephiroth0812
By all means do that. It is a fanon ship design alright, but there’s no downside of it having some fleshed out backstory, including a different class name while in Republic service. Has canon reference with the “Imperator-“/”Imperial-“class issue as well and Sagittor just fits it in my view.
Guest
Azure
Sephiroth0812 Well I’m assuming it probably could based upon the fact that the torpedo tubes were most likely used during the battle of coruscant which involved extremely close capital ship combat. And while the Tyrant does have a stronger energy weapon compliment it does have restricted firing arcs due to the circular missile bays not to mention no real ventral weaponry. The Tyrant also to my knowledge does not carry fighters, the Providence however carries over 200 fighters half of them are vulture droids which carry concussion missiles and the other half are tri-droids which also carry concussion missiles and… Read more »
Guest
gorkmalork
Let’s not forget that SW missiles are ludicrously agile, if fairly vulnerable to ECM-in fact, a Tyrant-style missile platform might actually be wiser to engage large targets with the active ring portion facing *away* so said targets don’t fortuitously zap its launches with TL/ion fire. As for small-craft discrepancy, that would be what its Venator/Secutor escort could fill-besides, I sorely doubt CIS droids handle ordnance anywhere near the yield of a Tyrant or Victory’s anti-capital torps.
Guest
Azure
Wonderful ship Fractal, I didn’t really like the original design all that much but I quite love your finished version of it and not only does it have tons of missiles but turbolasers to. Both quad turbolasers and dual heavy turbolasers from the looks of it.
I’d be quite intrigued to see the base design/shape turned into more of a cruiser or destroyer I think that’d look interesting, I remember seeing somewhere on here there was a base model but without the missiles and you were talking about maybe turning it into a clone wars era cruiser or something.
Guest
Abacus
Is this suppose to be 4,100m long? I saw that being said on the SD.net forums, but the ship itself looks to be more along the lines of 2.2~2.4km long.
Guest
Cornel
i suggest to rewatch the image with the tyrant and isd for camparison it shows clearly longer than 3km
It’s 4.23km actually when you count the extensions. You can see from the ISD comparison shot that it’s a lot bigger than 1.5x ISD length.
Guest
Road Warrior
I didnt give this thing a share shake when you first started on it, but, damn, she turned out pretty damn cool in the end! Love to see the full cruiser version down the road…
So what’s next, boss? Btw, have you seen the imperial Nebulon B that E.C. Henry has done? Quite nice with the hangar set up Angelos Karderinis modeled for it too. Those guys have really stepped up their game! They are getting that physical model look down pat.
I mean, sure, drives will always be a target, but having some secondaries might at least offer some mild chance to limp away if it survived the initial attack run. As is, it’s four huge targets that makes it (relatively) easy to hit in a few passes and you are left drifting.
I think that redundancy is minor at best – a hit that destroys one thruster is highly likely to do huge damage to the area, and even on an ISD the secondaries are just not that far away from the primaries.
Guest
gorkmalork
Much like the ‘exposed bridge’ brainbug, I get the distinct impression thruster redundancy (or lack thereof) is one of those ship features that can only be optimized so far depending on the hull plan. Executor/Compellor-style fantails & multiple slightly-separated nozzle banks (as seen on Ex, Bellator & a couple Mon Cals) offer some protection from some angles, but your best bet’s still settling the matter or jumping clear before defenses are compromised that far.
Guest
PhantomFury
This is true enough and I’ll concede that point for the moment. But since we are on the topic, some pondering gave me another reason to have secondaries: efficiency outside combat. Perhaps you are just patrolling a star system, even just within orbit; or simply coming in/departing drydock (not going to be the case with the Tyrant, of course, since it’s far too large to fit in one) and you need some maneuvering that conserves fuel more than the lowest output of the main drives could apply, you could power down the primaries and go off only on secondaries.
Guest
gorkmalork
Given the existence of Lucrehulk-tonnage freighters, docks fit for multi-klick ships may be relatively common, though I can just about see your point WRT fuel conservation. Battlewagons might just fire up one thruster bank at a time for economy motion.
Guest
PhantomFury
For multi-klik warships, I kind of see having a drydock to accompany it to be a huge structural project (unless it’s something already huge, like the Death Stars or Kuat orbital ring) so they’d instead have something that comes to them instead and wraps around it, like some concept art (don’t remember if it was canonized) harness arms that goes around the ISD or even that “tiny” station in EABattlefront II.
Guest
CRMcNeill
The other option suggested by WEG is to use modular dock segments that can be linked together and reinforced by force fields, ala the ones used on Imperial Navy Deepdocks.
Mobile modular dock bits & maintenance armatures make sense (and *far* moreso than, say, Supremacy’s exactly-Resurgent-shaped aft divots), but again strike me as something that could use a handy storage point; as such, I get the impression orbital rings & similar constructs are fairly common save for most of the Outer Rim and/or off-the-beaten-charts worlds. Which, conveniently enough, hog screentime ’cause we’re following scrappy Rebels and/or secretive Forcemonkeys of sundry denomination.
Guest
CRMcNeill
The modular dock components were described as peripheral equipment to a deep space mobile support shipyard, so that’s the storage point. Exactly what form it would take, I don’t know.
The ImpSB also mentions Consolidators (not by name, of course) being used as repair and salvage platforms, so depending on how far down these modular dock segments compact, they might be able to carry a few, too.
Guest
PhantomFury
Hey yeah, that’s a pretty cool concept. Though only 18 for the huge torpedo sphere took me by surprise, it’s barely more modules than what is needed for an ISD
Guest
CRMcNeill
Well, it’s WEG numbers, so take them with a grain of salt.
Guest
gorkmalork
Even without the missile ring (and ‘conventional’ secondary array), that’s one distinctive planform. Digging the Imp-I-style comm antennae, Procurator-ish elongated rear tower & stubby aft fin as design timestamps.
Guest
Jack
I don’t really understand the ring as a functional design choice. Is it something stupid like spinning to reload quickly or is it something like angle of attack? Looks cool but appears totally unnecessary…can someone ‘splain it?
Guest
Azure
No it’s just in the shape of a circle because it allows the magazine to curve around thus granting it more space for more launches as opposed to having them within the hull itself which wouldn’t allow for as many missiles.
Plus if there was a missile malfunction or explosion the missiles being not attached to the main hull would mean the the ship itself would have the damage it took from any kind of ordnance malfunction limited. Where as if the missiles were inside the main hull the resulting explosion would probably blow the ship in half.
Guest
Jack
That works. I’ll assume the design includes extra armor or shielding to offset the increased exposure and therefore higher chance of something causing the explosion mentioned above. Looks badass. Great job Fractal!
Would you rather a magazine explosion happen inside the main hull or offset on a separate structure? That’s the basis of the idea, regardless of the shielding or armor.
Guest
Proton
You dont want this happen in the first place, i guess.
If this amount of big torpedoes explode, you are right fekkd no matter where is explode, inside or outside.
The location actually would matter – on a ring a large amount of the energy goes into space. Internally, all of the energy goes straight into important components. We don’t know how volatile SW munitions are, but I’d wager it would still make a difference.
Guest
gorkmalork
I figured there was a reason those bow launchers were placed well away from any of this puppy’s HTLs (which might be fairly volatile in their own right).
Guest
Proton
If proton torpedoes actually use antimatter (Proton- antiproton pair) or Thermonuclear shaped charges.
If it is antimatter then it will explode at full charge the sxecond containment field will turn off, if it is thermonuclear charge, then it wont properly explode even on direct hit, so it is almost as safe to have inside ship.
Like i said, i like the design, i imigine this ring rotating like conveyor to increase rate of fire instad of reloading each launcher individually.
Is there any mention on what proton torpedoes actually is?
Guest
Azure
Proton I can tell you what they are. Proton Torpedo’s are energized torpedo’s that carry a proton scattering warhead that releases extremely charged protons over a designated area, which basically causes the atoms within the blast radius to tear themselves apart and then dissipates. They function similar to Thermal Detonators which are basically handheld nukes that explode via thermonuclear fusion reactions and they flat out vaporizes anything in the blast radius but when they explode there’s a blast field around the explosion which contains the explosion to a certain area which can be changed or set, which is why we… Read more »
Guest
PhoenixKnight
The ring does not move
Guest
Jack
Nope. Internal explosions are bad. Just that they’re more exposed to enemy fire out there. Also wonder if it might be a cool heat sink approach to keep exhaust away from interior, but I don’t know the launch mechanism.
Guest
CRMcNeill
Alternately, the rings might contain ready magazines and conveyor mechanisms connecting to larger, better protected magazines within the main hull.
Guest
gorkmalork
I’d insist on some extra-stringent safety & reload procedures were that the case. Dunno if torpedo spheres are quite so intrinsically flawed as posited in Hull 721 pt. II (and hotly debated in the SDN commentary thereof), but Tyrant here might have vaguely similar problems if focused on before most of its payload’s safely away.
Guest
CRMcNeill
My understanding of the Torpedo Sphere was that it had hundreds of individual launchers with really good fire control linkages, not the bay it had in 721.2. This ship has to have at least /some/ internal magazine stowage for the forward launchers, and considering the number of catastrophic ship losses from magazine detonations in the RW (British Battlecruisers at Jutland, HMS Hood, USS Arizona, etc), stringent safety procedures would either be taken as a given or be the ship’s weakest link. Multiple interlocked blast doors and force fields at the connection point between the main hull and the launcher rings… Read more »
As a bit of an aside – I don’t understand the fluff for the torpedo sphere. Is it launch control or fire direction control? SW missiles can be autonomous and highly maneuverable rather than dumb WWI torpedoes – it’s gotta be a lot more effective to coordinate the swarm after launch than to worry about exactly how they are launched. And also, as a personal opinion that may be unpopular, 721.2 got a bit outlandish for me rather quick.
Guest
CRMcNeill
For me, there’s a definite sense of The Good Ship Mary Sue all the way back to the middle of 721.1. The character interaction is very entertaining, and ECR’s use of hard tech added a real sense of verisimilitude that’s missing from most official and fan fic, but it never really seemed like the ship / crew were in any serious danger, which is, IMO, essential to the plot. As far as the Torpedo Sphere, WEG was never particularly clear on the matter. WEG fluff describes torps as effectively unguided (despite what they are seen to do on screen), while… Read more »
Guest
gorkmalork
721’s first installment seemed to put enough individuals (and certainly enough of Black Prince’s less-omniskilled squadronmates) at risk for my tastes; II, on the other hand, wound up introducing less formidable opposition & cranking up the occasionally-literal Feats of Hax(R) just enough to make me muse ‘wait, this tooled-up Imp Deuce-Plus is whipping *how* many peer opponents in isolation? Including the one crewed by supposedly equally-elite bastards?’ Current fluff doesn’t seem much better re: the torp spheres; that Haynes manual for the Death Star(s) devotes a couple pages to other superweapons…and claimed the spheres were too large for standard fire-linking.… Read more »
Guest
CRMcNeill
Meet the new EU, same as the old EU. At this point, it seems apparent that forming a cohesive universe out of this isn’t going to happen through official sources.
Guest
Chris Bradshaw
The torpedo sphere concept as of the original WEG is sufficiently flawed that it demands a complete rework. The Essential Guide to Warfare didn’t help by deeming torp spheres valuable enough that on two separate occasions someone would sacrifice a Star Dreadnought to ram one. I’d love to see a Fractal original siege platform (Star Monitor?) built around an oversized V-150 with enough footwork to dodge planetary guns.
Thirded on ECR getting a bit too attached to his merry space band of 300 iq misfits, but I’m still grateful for what we did get.
Guest
CRMcNeill
WEG’s description of the Torpedo Sphere is all over the place, too. Per the Organization chapter, it’s the centerpiece of the Imperial Navy’s dedicated Bombard Fleets, yet per the ship’s own write-up, only six were ever built. I agree that the Torpedo Sphere needs a re-work. In broad strokes, I’d suggest: -Heavy Ion Cannon (providing a disabling option to the shield-buster attack) -Decent secondary batteries -More versatility in ordnance loadout, up to and including Exterminatus level warheads. -A fighter wing (likely bomber-heavy, ala the Assault Wing described elsewhere in the ImpSB) -A stormtrooper legion, but with greater emphasis on counter-boarding… Read more »
Guest
Chris Bradshaw
Exterminatus warheads? What universe were we in again? If it were up to me to put together a dedicated Star Monitor, I’d drop the entire torpedo sphere concept and instead prioritize a relatively agile vessel built around a massive spinal ion cannon. The greatest advantage that a ship has over a planet is the ability to dodge, while predicting the trajectory of a planet is child’s play. You’d also want to strip nonessential functions. Fighter wings and ground troops can be provided by support vessels that hang out of range of planetary batteries until they’re needed, so there’s no need… Read more »
Yeah I don’t think any siege platform would operate in isolation, unless it’s a moonlighting Star Dreadnought. The one hypothetical advantage of a warhead based system is that the energy density *could* be higher than one based on beam weapons, or at least the theoretical simultaneous maximum power hit on a shield is higher. In that sense, a torpedo arsenal ship makes some sense. As a continuous fire kind of thing, your axial heavy ion cannon makes a ton of sense. I also agree that it would be a very stripped down system, since again it would never operate unsupported.… Read more »
Guest
CRMcNeill
I’m well aware this is the Star Wars universe, and that multiple variations of planet-killing weaponry exist, but few terms define the concept so succinctly as does WH40K’s Exterminatus. Your proposed ship is fine in principle, but it presupposes that the physics of doing battle with an armed and shielded planet will be susceptible to long-ranged sniper attacks. Fractal just recently mentioned that planetary based shields have huge advantages w/r/t absorbing and dissipating energy, and the v-150 was always described as outranging even the heaviest capital ship guns, save superlasers. Your dispersed sensor grid will run into issues with ECM… Read more »
Guest
gorkmalork
I’d say specialized 1-or-2-trick-dewback platforms make sense for a galactic hegemon that can pony up for the dedicated capability & support screen alike. A “why not both?” answer to the question of torp battery vs. spinal-mount sniper-monitor also seems not particularly beyond the Empire’s pale (unless, of course, high command just decides to throw moar dreadnoughts at the problem). Given the aforementioned difficulties in denting planetary shields while weathering/reducing fixed defenses, outsourcing small-craft requirements strikes me as one of the easier means of focusing a siege platform’s resources toward said tasks. TBH, I’m under the impression torpedo sphere/star monitor-type stuff… Read more »
Guest
CRMcNeill
It’s an important distinction, I think, that apart from a superlaser, all (both) described methods of penetrating planetary shields are more about exploiting weak spots than they are about brute-forcing your way through. The exploitable weak spots are actually just brief power anomalies or energy fluctuations that rarely exceed more than a 20% drop in power, and even a successful shield-buster torpedo attack only creates a 6-meter-diameter hole that only lasts for a few microseconds. Any stand-off weapon is going to have serious issues reacting to and exploiting something so temporary. As to the other, it’s also noteworthy that, in… Read more »
One more thing I don’t get about the WEG TS is what is expected to happen after the fluctuation target is hit? Is a whole continental panel going to fail and expose a generator or is the hole to allow torpedoes to enter and maneuver under the envelope? It seems unlikely that a meter-scale failure will allow any weapon system to get clear shots at very much underneath the shield, except immediately underneath the gap, and if these are random fluctuations it’s unlikely to be immediately above a generator … or is it? The concept you just described… Random fluctuations… Read more »
Guest
Chris Bradshaw
Since torpedoes travel at distinctly slow velocities compared to energy fire, it’s going to be a lot easier for the defending shield technicians to respond by reallocating output towards the targeted area and possibly put up redundant panels underneath. That’s a lot tougher when incoming rounds are moving at c. I also think that the concept of relying on shielding and even armor to take hits from planetary batteries while slugging it out in low orbit seems distinctly misguided. A torpedo sphere isn’t that much more volumious than a line destroyer, and can’t hope to survive even a handful of… Read more »
Guest
CRMcNeill
Okay, a lot to reply to here, and I’m AFK, but I’ll do my best… I feel I should clarify that the torpedoes do not bring the shield down; they just create a brief pinhole in the shield which can be exploited by the TS’ heavy turbolasers in order to take shots at the shield generator itself. Since the “hole” lasts only a few microseconds, coordination is essential, and the turbolasers are most likely already firing even before the torps detonate. My suggestion of adding ion cannon to the TS was not for use against the shield, but against the… Read more »
Guest
Chris Bradshaw
I think I’m seeing where you’re coming from in regards to the old hyper-minimalist paradigm that informed the WEG writers, but I also consider that the more internally consistent Saxton consensus is more relevant to our current understanding of the SW universe, and also fits in better with available cinematic evidence. If we look at the strategic environment that the Empire found itself in when it was designing and procuring the torpedo sphere, it had unquestionable space superiority against conventional fleet threats, but still needed to be able to besiege any worlds that decided to make a claim for independence.… Read more »
Guest
CRMcNeill
But this is the Empire we’re talking about, the Empire that has no issue with designing ridiculous weapon systems (like AT-ATs) for the psychological factor, or building a trillion cheap starfighters because it knows it can afford to lose a few. What you’re describing is certainly a practical solution, but the Empire has demonstrated more than once that practicality is not its primary concern, and that it is more than willing to sacrifice assets to achieve victory. Returning again to the Big Ship / Little Ship juxtaposition, consider the following. If the WEG Little Ship paradigm is used, then the… Read more »
I’m going to jump into this exchange briefly. My main problem with the WEG TS paradigm now is the concept that it has to get close. I can totally get why timed torpedo attack is more effective for a pinpoint breach than energy weapons, and now that you’ve explained that it waits for a fluctuation over a generator then I get how it’s going to target a generator. But I’m totally with Chris on this notion that it would survive being directly over a generator at close range. That’s silly, and unlike with TIE/ln (though I think there’s a brainbug… Read more »
Guest
CRMcNeill
That’s the problem; WEG was rather more schizophrenic than normal when it comes to exactly how many Torpedo Spheres there are. If you read the ship’s own write-up, sure, it says there were only six, but if you read the Sector Group Organization Chapter, the Torpedo Spheres were intended to be the core ships of the Imperial Navy’s Bombard Fleets, and were explicitly described as being capable of punitive attacks in addition to the anti-shield bombard, even though the official stats never mention this capability. Also, organizationally, Bombard units were really limited in how they could be attached to a… Read more »
As a Little Ship specialized platform it’s ok. But one can get a little schizophrenic about this when trying to fit WEG into other stuff. I personally don’t go all out into the million destroyer range of maximalist but I do think WEG is far too small scale to work galactically. And it definitely has non-unique issues with trying to make the universe fit its building blocks rather than making building blocks work to purpose. Idealized paper formations are as old as the Notitia Dignitatum though… (or those idealized Hellenistic phalanx OOBs).
Guest
CRMcNeill
True. Unfortunately, WEG couldn’t really go the Big Ship route because it rapidly reaches a point where the ships and battles are too big for a small group of game characters to make any real difference, or even participate. Even an ISD is usually just something a PC party runs away from. Efforts have been made over the years to allow PCs to command larger ships, but nothing has really come of it. That’s a fair point as far as organizational ideal vs. reality. I do think that dedicated Bombard Fleets exist, but are primarily a reserve formation parcelled out… Read more »
Guest
Chris Bradshaw
For an energy weapon, the idea that accuracy increases as the range closes is only meaningful against small, agile targets like ISDs or X-Wings. Pointing a beam of coherent energy at say, a specific point on Ganymede from a satellite in Earth Orbit was doable for NASA since the Carter Administration, and is child’s play in Star Wars. A V-150 may have a greater theoretical range than any starship weapon before the blast disperses, but its effective range against maneuverable starships is going to be far lower. That being said, I think we can all agree that there might be… Read more »
Guest
CRMcNeill
Two reasons, really. First, for all its faults, the WEG system is easily mastered and allows those who are so inclined to play in a fictional universe of which we are all huge fans. Secondly, Star Wars is, at its core, space opera, not hard sci-fi. You can only slap so many coats of hard sci-fi onto Star Wars before it ceases to resemble Star Wars. All the technological underpinnings are a backdrop to the human (or alien, as the case may be) element, of individuals or small groups having a huge effect, despite being a statistical insignificance on a… Read more »
Guest
gorkmalork
Handled properly, Big Ship-style stats don’t strike me as something to spoil a roleplayer’s fun so much as one more background factor to plan around. Barring GM sadism, you wouldn’t lob Scruffy Freighter Crew #473 right at a Bellator squadron any more than level 1 dungeon-crawlers would be expected to gank Tiamat/Bahamut/Iconic Dragon Deity Whose Name(s) I Forget.
Guest
CRMcNeill
That’s true, but even to experienced players, standard ISDs are no joke, and Executors are just something you run away from. The big problem is that there isn’t really a reliable framework within the rules for big ship combat (at least, not in a way PCs can helm the ships), or even a way to build a ship captain character capable of taking on that role. So, large ship combat mostly exists as a backdrop to smaller scale action by the PCs, and the larger and more powerful a ship gets, the more superfluous its stats become, as there’s no… Read more »
Isn’t there a whole RPG game/ruleset for SW capital combat (Armada)? I’m not a tabletop gamer so I have no idea how it is or how it’s really set up.
Guest
CRMcNeill
There is, but the two systems are different in so many ways that it’s next to impossible to cross them over.
Guest
PhoenixKnight
I was just wondering about how Armada would fit
Guest
CRMcNeill
Armada is also entirely Small Ship paradigm; apart from the Executor, the biggest ship they have is the ISD.
Guest
PhoenixKnight
Did about the big ship program from Armada
Guest
gorkmalork
I’d just note that (a) since none of the OT’s main characters are the sort to prioritize exhaustive order-of-battle holopresentations, their view (and hence most watchers’) of galactic naval presence is an understandably incomplete ‘which ship(s) are we desperately fleeing and/or locking horns with?’; and (b) the eclectic design & scale range of Rebel capitals would also seem to argue for somewhat comparable diversity on the Imperial end (especially since a fair chunk of the Rebellion’s assets are ex-Imp). WEG’s gameplay limits/context are understandable-just not what I’d consider the last word for Essential Guide(R)-style volumes.
Guest
CRMcNeill
The counter-argument there is Imperial uniformity-by-choice versus the Alliance’s diversity by necessity; one has access to the vast majority of the galaxy’s resources while the other was forced to make do with whatever mixed bag it could beg, borrow or steal. Fleet actions would be insanely complex under any gaming system, but it’s possible to treat warships as starfighters or freighters writ large (stat the ship as a single entity with one PC controlling it, or allow the PCs to play as division officers, controlling gunnery, shields, helm, etc). This can theoretically be extended to starfighter groups by treating them… Read more »
Guest
gorkmalork
Well, keep in mind the Empire was in a state of marked transition (see the Senate’s dissolution as of ANH), and may not have gotten enough post-Clone Wars time to retire older designs & standardize fleets from Core to Rim. Granted, there’s certainly more *hull shape* conformity than the Rebels ever bothered with.
Guest
CRMcNeill
It also depends greatly on how quickly the Senate became Palpatine’s rubber stamp. It seemed well on the way to that by the end of RotS.
Guest
Daib
Million Destroyer Gang Represent!
Guest
gorkmalork
I’m not quite there, but a half or quarter-million-ship fleet I could see (and by ‘ship’ I mean ‘Victory/Venator tonnage & up’-Force knows I’m not touching probable corvette counts).
Guest
CRMcNeill
Ah, good question. The torpedo spam is actually Step 3 of a 5-step process. Step 1 is the TS figuring the approximate location of the shield generator by observing the energy patterns in the shield itself. Step 2 is to wait for a potential weak spot to occur directly between the TS and the shield generator. Step 3 is the torpedo spam to open the hole, and Step 4 is firing the Heavy Turbolasers (the TS’ only other listed weapon system) through the hole to try to destroy the shield generator. Step 5 is Repeat As Needed. Per WEG, power… Read more »
Guest
gorkmalork
Most Mon Cal designs strike me as more ton-for-ton competitive with their murderwedge peers than the vast majority of CIS destroyer-ish-volume ships were vis-a-vis the Venator class, but I must agree WRT the inflated rep that MC shields have accumulated. Given the nozzle count/proportions on Home One & Profundity, I’m starting to wonder if the primary tradeoff was sublight thrust for earlier designs, with better-balanced heavies starting to enter the picture roughly post-Endor.
Guest
CRMcNeill
Another aside…
WEG described two more options for penetrating planetary shields on page 130 of the Dark Empire Sourcebook. One was a “coupled neutrino charge” fitted to the superlaser on the Eclipse; the other was using tuned tractor beams to resonate weak spots (detected in the same manner as the Torp Sphere).
Guest
gorkmalork
Supplementing the missile-massacre barrage with a superheavy energy weapon or two makes ample sense, as does mixing in stuff like ion-pulse warheads to ensure shield gaps stay open. That quake projector might be handy depending on its effective range, though tractor trickery seems safer used on defense-reduced (or totally shield-dependent) targets. I get the impression troop complements & small craft beyond security/utility needs are something better left to your economy-scale siege platform’s support screen.
Guest
PhantomFury
I feel like I’m out of the loop, guess it’s time to read some fan fiction!
Guest
Proton
I think it is both because you need to hit target the size of a rat with margin of error in milliseconds.
In-flight missile correction will be far far far FAR more important than the sequence of the initial launches.
Guest
CRMcNeill
I concur. I love the game, but there is plenty of stuff WEG got wrong. Hell, the only time we actually see a proton torpedo up close, it very clearly makes a mid-course correction.
Guest
gorkmalork
The bow launchers seem set far enough forward to give Tyrant a bloody nose, but leave plenty of ship to retreat should a worst-case cookoff occur up there. As for the TS…I guess that 721-II scene banked on each launcher being linked to a substantial deep-storage magazine for the HTL trickshot to light up, but that still seems a bit odd if all the thing was there to do is serve as a sensor station. WRT the whole ‘bank said TL shot off a planetary shield’ bit…honestly gotta second our host there. Closest onscreen thing I can compare would be… Read more »
Guest
AzureOwl
Just out of curiosity, how many missiles does it carry?
All ~4.1KM of her is finally complete. I would like to thank EJ for the original model and permission for use on our take the Tyrant. I would like to hear his thoughts on how it ended up. FS, thank you for your patience and agreeing to this on.
I really like the look of it, I would have closed the gap between the ring and the hull with a skeletal super structure with sparse plating, but all of the other details definitely make it look like it was descended from Clone wars or pre clone wars era ships and would fit right in with the Procurator and Secutor. It really does need an orbital bombardment shot though. what did the final diameter and length of the missiles end up being?
Guest
PhoenixKnight
I was thinking cluster munitions of various types.
Thank you for the feedback
Guest
PhoenixKnight
I’m guessing you refer to the dimensions to the ring
Nice to see the Tyrant finished, also no fighter capacity only shuttle bay, I guess that one way to stop it from being the complete upgrade to the Vsd, I guess the troop capacity is a division or two for ship board security.
Great job once again Fractalsponge!! Would you be okay with me using this is a fanfiction I’m cooking up Fractal? It’s a really cool design and I’d love to put it in the story with your blessing. Do you have the crew numbers for it or would someone have to come up with them?
Would L O V E to see this thing in action, to have it be the main ship in a series tackling a variety of combat scenarios, to use it in a mod for Empire at War.
I like it. It’s a lot bigger than I thought it would be. I was picturing a slightly sub Imperator missile cruiser, but that’s basically the Victor I. This Missile battlecruiser is much cooler
Gotta say it, this ship is rapidly becoming my favorite fanon Star Wars ship design, possibly even beating out the Legator, Proclamator and Valiant-class Star Destroyer.
Almost solely because Fractal managed to turn it into such a fine mix of deadly yet aesthetic looking murder wedge which can easily be adopted for headcanons, stories and fantasies involving both the Republic and the Empire.
This ship is beautiful! i could just imagine it sitting at the back of a battle, star destroyers up the front, shelling the life out of enemy capital ships, even though it would make for a pretty good firework show if it went up.
What are the full specs for the Tyrant-class Missile Cruiser. Im making a rp server and someone asked about the Tyrant-class. Specs include: Crew count, Fighter Count, Size, Weapon count, etc.
Plz look down
She’s become a true beauty. Truly love this design and how it blends late-Republic and early-Empire aesthetics. The 18th image shows clearly how its hull form has some Venator- as well as Mandator-influences (the gaps in the sides and the prominent ridge on the top). The small stubby rear-fin also looks like a shortened version of the one both the Acclamator and Venator have.
Glad someone noticed 🙂
Awesome work, definitely be a bad day for an unshielded planet with that missile complement pointed at it
holy shit… what is the weapon compliment on this???
By my count
DBY-827 Dual Heavy Turbolaser Turrets (48)
Quad Turbolaser Turrets (36)
Quad Point Defense Laser Cannons (64)
Heavy Laser Cannons (24)
Concussion Missile Tubes (696)
I must have a bad eye for detail or something because I fail to find the Quad PD cannons on the model. I’ve found some of the Quad Turbos yet not all 36 of them but none of the PDs.
Does she have any ventral weapons to defend against attacks from below?
Yes she does
As in the ventral mounts
Sephiroth0812
Well when I was looking it originally I saw some quad emplacements that looked to small to be turbolasers so I was thinking that they might be PD emplacements but went back and looked at it and I think they are actually turbolasers and I just saw it wrong.
Here is the Official Count
48×2 70TT HTL
14×4 200GT MTL
92×2 PD mounts
696 missile tubes with any number/mix of missile types
Isn’t the MTL count in this stat table a little low for a ship this big? Or is that another throwback to the Venator?
But well, if it doesn’t have any Quad PD mounts then obviously I can’t find them no matter how close I look, lol.
And of course the missile launchers are just imposing. I dunno if the CIS had anything in their arsenal that could have directly challenged this beast one on one.
Most of their ships could if they were able to get within broadside range since that would render the missile launchers useless.
A bulwark class battlecruiser could challenge it, as could a malevolence class.
A providence may be able to challenge it assuming could get in to close for it to use it’s missile launchers as the providence class could probably do some serious damage to it with it’s 100 proton torpedo tubes along with it’s massive fighter compliment.
Huh? The Tyrant can’t use its missile launchers up close but the Providence can with its torpedoes? Going just by energy weapon main battery, one Tyrant is worth 6 Venators (6 x 8 = 48) so that’ll be ouch-time for a Providence, not to mention the Tyrant’s shields are probably much stronger than those of a Venator due to a better, stronger main reactor. A Bulwark I could actually see making some progress as they’re described to be tanky with decent speed and a Subjugator-class (which the Malevolence is a member of) would probably wreck the Tyrant. Speaking like this… Read more »
I found it. I shall this one the Sagittor
By all means do that. It is a fanon ship design alright, but there’s no downside of it having some fleshed out backstory, including a different class name while in Republic service. Has canon reference with the “Imperator-“/”Imperial-“class issue as well and Sagittor just fits it in my view.
Sephiroth0812 Well I’m assuming it probably could based upon the fact that the torpedo tubes were most likely used during the battle of coruscant which involved extremely close capital ship combat. And while the Tyrant does have a stronger energy weapon compliment it does have restricted firing arcs due to the circular missile bays not to mention no real ventral weaponry. The Tyrant also to my knowledge does not carry fighters, the Providence however carries over 200 fighters half of them are vulture droids which carry concussion missiles and the other half are tri-droids which also carry concussion missiles and… Read more »
Let’s not forget that SW missiles are ludicrously agile, if fairly vulnerable to ECM-in fact, a Tyrant-style missile platform might actually be wiser to engage large targets with the active ring portion facing *away* so said targets don’t fortuitously zap its launches with TL/ion fire. As for small-craft discrepancy, that would be what its Venator/Secutor escort could fill-besides, I sorely doubt CIS droids handle ordnance anywhere near the yield of a Tyrant or Victory’s anti-capital torps.
Wonderful ship Fractal, I didn’t really like the original design all that much but I quite love your finished version of it and not only does it have tons of missiles but turbolasers to. Both quad turbolasers and dual heavy turbolasers from the looks of it.
I’d be quite intrigued to see the base design/shape turned into more of a cruiser or destroyer I think that’d look interesting, I remember seeing somewhere on here there was a base model but without the missiles and you were talking about maybe turning it into a clone wars era cruiser or something.
Is this suppose to be 4,100m long? I saw that being said on the SD.net forums, but the ship itself looks to be more along the lines of 2.2~2.4km long.
i suggest to rewatch the image with the tyrant and isd for camparison it shows clearly longer than 3km
It’s 4.23km actually when you count the extensions. You can see from the ISD comparison shot that it’s a lot bigger than 1.5x ISD length.
I didnt give this thing a share shake when you first started on it, but, damn, she turned out pretty damn cool in the end! Love to see the full cruiser version down the road…
So what’s next, boss? Btw, have you seen the imperial Nebulon B that E.C. Henry has done? Quite nice with the hangar set up Angelos Karderinis modeled for it too. Those guys have really stepped up their game! They are getting that physical model look down pat.
I have – we were talking on Facebook as the design was being developed. He finished his idea much quicker than I’m working on mine 🙂
Cool. Good deal, boss.
I think a ship like the Bellator would greatly enjoy the company of one of two of this beauty~!
She’s both wacky and cool at the same time! The lack of auxiliary sublights might make the four huge drives a bit of a target, however.
More than if there were? I don’t get it.
I mean, sure, drives will always be a target, but having some secondaries might at least offer some mild chance to limp away if it survived the initial attack run. As is, it’s four huge targets that makes it (relatively) easy to hit in a few passes and you are left drifting.
I think that redundancy is minor at best – a hit that destroys one thruster is highly likely to do huge damage to the area, and even on an ISD the secondaries are just not that far away from the primaries.
Much like the ‘exposed bridge’ brainbug, I get the distinct impression thruster redundancy (or lack thereof) is one of those ship features that can only be optimized so far depending on the hull plan. Executor/Compellor-style fantails & multiple slightly-separated nozzle banks (as seen on Ex, Bellator & a couple Mon Cals) offer some protection from some angles, but your best bet’s still settling the matter or jumping clear before defenses are compromised that far.
This is true enough and I’ll concede that point for the moment. But since we are on the topic, some pondering gave me another reason to have secondaries: efficiency outside combat. Perhaps you are just patrolling a star system, even just within orbit; or simply coming in/departing drydock (not going to be the case with the Tyrant, of course, since it’s far too large to fit in one) and you need some maneuvering that conserves fuel more than the lowest output of the main drives could apply, you could power down the primaries and go off only on secondaries.
Given the existence of Lucrehulk-tonnage freighters, docks fit for multi-klick ships may be relatively common, though I can just about see your point WRT fuel conservation. Battlewagons might just fire up one thruster bank at a time for economy motion.
For multi-klik warships, I kind of see having a drydock to accompany it to be a huge structural project (unless it’s something already huge, like the Death Stars or Kuat orbital ring) so they’d instead have something that comes to them instead and wraps around it, like some concept art (don’t remember if it was canonized) harness arms that goes around the ISD or even that “tiny” station in EABattlefront II.
The other option suggested by WEG is to use modular dock segments that can be linked together and reinforced by force fields, ala the ones used on Imperial Navy Deepdocks.
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/R/M_Facility_Number_Four
Mobile modular dock bits & maintenance armatures make sense (and *far* moreso than, say, Supremacy’s exactly-Resurgent-shaped aft divots), but again strike me as something that could use a handy storage point; as such, I get the impression orbital rings & similar constructs are fairly common save for most of the Outer Rim and/or off-the-beaten-charts worlds. Which, conveniently enough, hog screentime ’cause we’re following scrappy Rebels and/or secretive Forcemonkeys of sundry denomination.
The modular dock components were described as peripheral equipment to a deep space mobile support shipyard, so that’s the storage point. Exactly what form it would take, I don’t know.
The ImpSB also mentions Consolidators (not by name, of course) being used as repair and salvage platforms, so depending on how far down these modular dock segments compact, they might be able to carry a few, too.
Hey yeah, that’s a pretty cool concept. Though only 18 for the huge torpedo sphere took me by surprise, it’s barely more modules than what is needed for an ISD
Well, it’s WEG numbers, so take them with a grain of salt.
Even without the missile ring (and ‘conventional’ secondary array), that’s one distinctive planform. Digging the Imp-I-style comm antennae, Procurator-ish elongated rear tower & stubby aft fin as design timestamps.
I don’t really understand the ring as a functional design choice. Is it something stupid like spinning to reload quickly or is it something like angle of attack? Looks cool but appears totally unnecessary…can someone ‘splain it?
No it’s just in the shape of a circle because it allows the magazine to curve around thus granting it more space for more launches as opposed to having them within the hull itself which wouldn’t allow for as many missiles.
Plus if there was a missile malfunction or explosion the missiles being not attached to the main hull would mean the the ship itself would have the damage it took from any kind of ordnance malfunction limited. Where as if the missiles were inside the main hull the resulting explosion would probably blow the ship in half.
That works. I’ll assume the design includes extra armor or shielding to offset the increased exposure and therefore higher chance of something causing the explosion mentioned above. Looks badass. Great job Fractal!
Would you rather a magazine explosion happen inside the main hull or offset on a separate structure? That’s the basis of the idea, regardless of the shielding or armor.
You dont want this happen in the first place, i guess.
If this amount of big torpedoes explode, you are right fekkd no matter where is explode, inside or outside.
Great design, espicially love bridge.
The location actually would matter – on a ring a large amount of the energy goes into space. Internally, all of the energy goes straight into important components. We don’t know how volatile SW munitions are, but I’d wager it would still make a difference.
I figured there was a reason those bow launchers were placed well away from any of this puppy’s HTLs (which might be fairly volatile in their own right).
If proton torpedoes actually use antimatter (Proton- antiproton pair) or Thermonuclear shaped charges.
If it is antimatter then it will explode at full charge the sxecond containment field will turn off, if it is thermonuclear charge, then it wont properly explode even on direct hit, so it is almost as safe to have inside ship.
Like i said, i like the design, i imigine this ring rotating like conveyor to increase rate of fire instad of reloading each launcher individually.
Is there any mention on what proton torpedoes actually is?
Proton I can tell you what they are. Proton Torpedo’s are energized torpedo’s that carry a proton scattering warhead that releases extremely charged protons over a designated area, which basically causes the atoms within the blast radius to tear themselves apart and then dissipates. They function similar to Thermal Detonators which are basically handheld nukes that explode via thermonuclear fusion reactions and they flat out vaporizes anything in the blast radius but when they explode there’s a blast field around the explosion which contains the explosion to a certain area which can be changed or set, which is why we… Read more »
The ring does not move
Nope. Internal explosions are bad. Just that they’re more exposed to enemy fire out there. Also wonder if it might be a cool heat sink approach to keep exhaust away from interior, but I don’t know the launch mechanism.
Alternately, the rings might contain ready magazines and conveyor mechanisms connecting to larger, better protected magazines within the main hull.
I’d insist on some extra-stringent safety & reload procedures were that the case. Dunno if torpedo spheres are quite so intrinsically flawed as posited in Hull 721 pt. II (and hotly debated in the SDN commentary thereof), but Tyrant here might have vaguely similar problems if focused on before most of its payload’s safely away.
My understanding of the Torpedo Sphere was that it had hundreds of individual launchers with really good fire control linkages, not the bay it had in 721.2. This ship has to have at least /some/ internal magazine stowage for the forward launchers, and considering the number of catastrophic ship losses from magazine detonations in the RW (British Battlecruisers at Jutland, HMS Hood, USS Arizona, etc), stringent safety procedures would either be taken as a given or be the ship’s weakest link. Multiple interlocked blast doors and force fields at the connection point between the main hull and the launcher rings… Read more »
As a bit of an aside – I don’t understand the fluff for the torpedo sphere. Is it launch control or fire direction control? SW missiles can be autonomous and highly maneuverable rather than dumb WWI torpedoes – it’s gotta be a lot more effective to coordinate the swarm after launch than to worry about exactly how they are launched. And also, as a personal opinion that may be unpopular, 721.2 got a bit outlandish for me rather quick.
For me, there’s a definite sense of The Good Ship Mary Sue all the way back to the middle of 721.1. The character interaction is very entertaining, and ECR’s use of hard tech added a real sense of verisimilitude that’s missing from most official and fan fic, but it never really seemed like the ship / crew were in any serious danger, which is, IMO, essential to the plot. As far as the Torpedo Sphere, WEG was never particularly clear on the matter. WEG fluff describes torps as effectively unguided (despite what they are seen to do on screen), while… Read more »
721’s first installment seemed to put enough individuals (and certainly enough of Black Prince’s less-omniskilled squadronmates) at risk for my tastes; II, on the other hand, wound up introducing less formidable opposition & cranking up the occasionally-literal Feats of Hax(R) just enough to make me muse ‘wait, this tooled-up Imp Deuce-Plus is whipping *how* many peer opponents in isolation? Including the one crewed by supposedly equally-elite bastards?’ Current fluff doesn’t seem much better re: the torp spheres; that Haynes manual for the Death Star(s) devotes a couple pages to other superweapons…and claimed the spheres were too large for standard fire-linking.… Read more »
Meet the new EU, same as the old EU. At this point, it seems apparent that forming a cohesive universe out of this isn’t going to happen through official sources.
The torpedo sphere concept as of the original WEG is sufficiently flawed that it demands a complete rework. The Essential Guide to Warfare didn’t help by deeming torp spheres valuable enough that on two separate occasions someone would sacrifice a Star Dreadnought to ram one. I’d love to see a Fractal original siege platform (Star Monitor?) built around an oversized V-150 with enough footwork to dodge planetary guns.
Thirded on ECR getting a bit too attached to his merry space band of 300 iq misfits, but I’m still grateful for what we did get.
WEG’s description of the Torpedo Sphere is all over the place, too. Per the Organization chapter, it’s the centerpiece of the Imperial Navy’s dedicated Bombard Fleets, yet per the ship’s own write-up, only six were ever built. I agree that the Torpedo Sphere needs a re-work. In broad strokes, I’d suggest: -Heavy Ion Cannon (providing a disabling option to the shield-buster attack) -Decent secondary batteries -More versatility in ordnance loadout, up to and including Exterminatus level warheads. -A fighter wing (likely bomber-heavy, ala the Assault Wing described elsewhere in the ImpSB) -A stormtrooper legion, but with greater emphasis on counter-boarding… Read more »
Exterminatus warheads? What universe were we in again? If it were up to me to put together a dedicated Star Monitor, I’d drop the entire torpedo sphere concept and instead prioritize a relatively agile vessel built around a massive spinal ion cannon. The greatest advantage that a ship has over a planet is the ability to dodge, while predicting the trajectory of a planet is child’s play. You’d also want to strip nonessential functions. Fighter wings and ground troops can be provided by support vessels that hang out of range of planetary batteries until they’re needed, so there’s no need… Read more »
Yeah I don’t think any siege platform would operate in isolation, unless it’s a moonlighting Star Dreadnought. The one hypothetical advantage of a warhead based system is that the energy density *could* be higher than one based on beam weapons, or at least the theoretical simultaneous maximum power hit on a shield is higher. In that sense, a torpedo arsenal ship makes some sense. As a continuous fire kind of thing, your axial heavy ion cannon makes a ton of sense. I also agree that it would be a very stripped down system, since again it would never operate unsupported.… Read more »
I’m well aware this is the Star Wars universe, and that multiple variations of planet-killing weaponry exist, but few terms define the concept so succinctly as does WH40K’s Exterminatus. Your proposed ship is fine in principle, but it presupposes that the physics of doing battle with an armed and shielded planet will be susceptible to long-ranged sniper attacks. Fractal just recently mentioned that planetary based shields have huge advantages w/r/t absorbing and dissipating energy, and the v-150 was always described as outranging even the heaviest capital ship guns, save superlasers. Your dispersed sensor grid will run into issues with ECM… Read more »
I’d say specialized 1-or-2-trick-dewback platforms make sense for a galactic hegemon that can pony up for the dedicated capability & support screen alike. A “why not both?” answer to the question of torp battery vs. spinal-mount sniper-monitor also seems not particularly beyond the Empire’s pale (unless, of course, high command just decides to throw moar dreadnoughts at the problem). Given the aforementioned difficulties in denting planetary shields while weathering/reducing fixed defenses, outsourcing small-craft requirements strikes me as one of the easier means of focusing a siege platform’s resources toward said tasks. TBH, I’m under the impression torpedo sphere/star monitor-type stuff… Read more »
It’s an important distinction, I think, that apart from a superlaser, all (both) described methods of penetrating planetary shields are more about exploiting weak spots than they are about brute-forcing your way through. The exploitable weak spots are actually just brief power anomalies or energy fluctuations that rarely exceed more than a 20% drop in power, and even a successful shield-buster torpedo attack only creates a 6-meter-diameter hole that only lasts for a few microseconds. Any stand-off weapon is going to have serious issues reacting to and exploiting something so temporary. As to the other, it’s also noteworthy that, in… Read more »
One more thing I don’t get about the WEG TS is what is expected to happen after the fluctuation target is hit? Is a whole continental panel going to fail and expose a generator or is the hole to allow torpedoes to enter and maneuver under the envelope? It seems unlikely that a meter-scale failure will allow any weapon system to get clear shots at very much underneath the shield, except immediately underneath the gap, and if these are random fluctuations it’s unlikely to be immediately above a generator … or is it? The concept you just described… Random fluctuations… Read more »
Since torpedoes travel at distinctly slow velocities compared to energy fire, it’s going to be a lot easier for the defending shield technicians to respond by reallocating output towards the targeted area and possibly put up redundant panels underneath. That’s a lot tougher when incoming rounds are moving at c. I also think that the concept of relying on shielding and even armor to take hits from planetary batteries while slugging it out in low orbit seems distinctly misguided. A torpedo sphere isn’t that much more volumious than a line destroyer, and can’t hope to survive even a handful of… Read more »
Okay, a lot to reply to here, and I’m AFK, but I’ll do my best… I feel I should clarify that the torpedoes do not bring the shield down; they just create a brief pinhole in the shield which can be exploited by the TS’ heavy turbolasers in order to take shots at the shield generator itself. Since the “hole” lasts only a few microseconds, coordination is essential, and the turbolasers are most likely already firing even before the torps detonate. My suggestion of adding ion cannon to the TS was not for use against the shield, but against the… Read more »
I think I’m seeing where you’re coming from in regards to the old hyper-minimalist paradigm that informed the WEG writers, but I also consider that the more internally consistent Saxton consensus is more relevant to our current understanding of the SW universe, and also fits in better with available cinematic evidence. If we look at the strategic environment that the Empire found itself in when it was designing and procuring the torpedo sphere, it had unquestionable space superiority against conventional fleet threats, but still needed to be able to besiege any worlds that decided to make a claim for independence.… Read more »
But this is the Empire we’re talking about, the Empire that has no issue with designing ridiculous weapon systems (like AT-ATs) for the psychological factor, or building a trillion cheap starfighters because it knows it can afford to lose a few. What you’re describing is certainly a practical solution, but the Empire has demonstrated more than once that practicality is not its primary concern, and that it is more than willing to sacrifice assets to achieve victory. Returning again to the Big Ship / Little Ship juxtaposition, consider the following. If the WEG Little Ship paradigm is used, then the… Read more »
I’m going to jump into this exchange briefly. My main problem with the WEG TS paradigm now is the concept that it has to get close. I can totally get why timed torpedo attack is more effective for a pinpoint breach than energy weapons, and now that you’ve explained that it waits for a fluctuation over a generator then I get how it’s going to target a generator. But I’m totally with Chris on this notion that it would survive being directly over a generator at close range. That’s silly, and unlike with TIE/ln (though I think there’s a brainbug… Read more »
That’s the problem; WEG was rather more schizophrenic than normal when it comes to exactly how many Torpedo Spheres there are. If you read the ship’s own write-up, sure, it says there were only six, but if you read the Sector Group Organization Chapter, the Torpedo Spheres were intended to be the core ships of the Imperial Navy’s Bombard Fleets, and were explicitly described as being capable of punitive attacks in addition to the anti-shield bombard, even though the official stats never mention this capability. Also, organizationally, Bombard units were really limited in how they could be attached to a… Read more »
As a Little Ship specialized platform it’s ok. But one can get a little schizophrenic about this when trying to fit WEG into other stuff. I personally don’t go all out into the million destroyer range of maximalist but I do think WEG is far too small scale to work galactically. And it definitely has non-unique issues with trying to make the universe fit its building blocks rather than making building blocks work to purpose. Idealized paper formations are as old as the Notitia Dignitatum though… (or those idealized Hellenistic phalanx OOBs).
True. Unfortunately, WEG couldn’t really go the Big Ship route because it rapidly reaches a point where the ships and battles are too big for a small group of game characters to make any real difference, or even participate. Even an ISD is usually just something a PC party runs away from. Efforts have been made over the years to allow PCs to command larger ships, but nothing has really come of it. That’s a fair point as far as organizational ideal vs. reality. I do think that dedicated Bombard Fleets exist, but are primarily a reserve formation parcelled out… Read more »
For an energy weapon, the idea that accuracy increases as the range closes is only meaningful against small, agile targets like ISDs or X-Wings. Pointing a beam of coherent energy at say, a specific point on Ganymede from a satellite in Earth Orbit was doable for NASA since the Carter Administration, and is child’s play in Star Wars. A V-150 may have a greater theoretical range than any starship weapon before the blast disperses, but its effective range against maneuverable starships is going to be far lower. That being said, I think we can all agree that there might be… Read more »
Two reasons, really. First, for all its faults, the WEG system is easily mastered and allows those who are so inclined to play in a fictional universe of which we are all huge fans. Secondly, Star Wars is, at its core, space opera, not hard sci-fi. You can only slap so many coats of hard sci-fi onto Star Wars before it ceases to resemble Star Wars. All the technological underpinnings are a backdrop to the human (or alien, as the case may be) element, of individuals or small groups having a huge effect, despite being a statistical insignificance on a… Read more »
Handled properly, Big Ship-style stats don’t strike me as something to spoil a roleplayer’s fun so much as one more background factor to plan around. Barring GM sadism, you wouldn’t lob Scruffy Freighter Crew #473 right at a Bellator squadron any more than level 1 dungeon-crawlers would be expected to gank Tiamat/Bahamut/Iconic Dragon Deity Whose Name(s) I Forget.
That’s true, but even to experienced players, standard ISDs are no joke, and Executors are just something you run away from. The big problem is that there isn’t really a reliable framework within the rules for big ship combat (at least, not in a way PCs can helm the ships), or even a way to build a ship captain character capable of taking on that role. So, large ship combat mostly exists as a backdrop to smaller scale action by the PCs, and the larger and more powerful a ship gets, the more superfluous its stats become, as there’s no… Read more »
Isn’t there a whole RPG game/ruleset for SW capital combat (Armada)? I’m not a tabletop gamer so I have no idea how it is or how it’s really set up.
There is, but the two systems are different in so many ways that it’s next to impossible to cross them over.
I was just wondering about how Armada would fit
Armada is also entirely Small Ship paradigm; apart from the Executor, the biggest ship they have is the ISD.
Did about the big ship program from Armada
I’d just note that (a) since none of the OT’s main characters are the sort to prioritize exhaustive order-of-battle holopresentations, their view (and hence most watchers’) of galactic naval presence is an understandably incomplete ‘which ship(s) are we desperately fleeing and/or locking horns with?’; and (b) the eclectic design & scale range of Rebel capitals would also seem to argue for somewhat comparable diversity on the Imperial end (especially since a fair chunk of the Rebellion’s assets are ex-Imp). WEG’s gameplay limits/context are understandable-just not what I’d consider the last word for Essential Guide(R)-style volumes.
The counter-argument there is Imperial uniformity-by-choice versus the Alliance’s diversity by necessity; one has access to the vast majority of the galaxy’s resources while the other was forced to make do with whatever mixed bag it could beg, borrow or steal. Fleet actions would be insanely complex under any gaming system, but it’s possible to treat warships as starfighters or freighters writ large (stat the ship as a single entity with one PC controlling it, or allow the PCs to play as division officers, controlling gunnery, shields, helm, etc). This can theoretically be extended to starfighter groups by treating them… Read more »
Well, keep in mind the Empire was in a state of marked transition (see the Senate’s dissolution as of ANH), and may not have gotten enough post-Clone Wars time to retire older designs & standardize fleets from Core to Rim. Granted, there’s certainly more *hull shape* conformity than the Rebels ever bothered with.
It also depends greatly on how quickly the Senate became Palpatine’s rubber stamp. It seemed well on the way to that by the end of RotS.
Million Destroyer Gang Represent!
I’m not quite there, but a half or quarter-million-ship fleet I could see (and by ‘ship’ I mean ‘Victory/Venator tonnage & up’-Force knows I’m not touching probable corvette counts).
Ah, good question. The torpedo spam is actually Step 3 of a 5-step process. Step 1 is the TS figuring the approximate location of the shield generator by observing the energy patterns in the shield itself. Step 2 is to wait for a potential weak spot to occur directly between the TS and the shield generator. Step 3 is the torpedo spam to open the hole, and Step 4 is firing the Heavy Turbolasers (the TS’ only other listed weapon system) through the hole to try to destroy the shield generator. Step 5 is Repeat As Needed. Per WEG, power… Read more »
Most Mon Cal designs strike me as more ton-for-ton competitive with their murderwedge peers than the vast majority of CIS destroyer-ish-volume ships were vis-a-vis the Venator class, but I must agree WRT the inflated rep that MC shields have accumulated. Given the nozzle count/proportions on Home One & Profundity, I’m starting to wonder if the primary tradeoff was sublight thrust for earlier designs, with better-balanced heavies starting to enter the picture roughly post-Endor.
Another aside…
WEG described two more options for penetrating planetary shields on page 130 of the Dark Empire Sourcebook. One was a “coupled neutrino charge” fitted to the superlaser on the Eclipse; the other was using tuned tractor beams to resonate weak spots (detected in the same manner as the Torp Sphere).
Supplementing the missile-massacre barrage with a superheavy energy weapon or two makes ample sense, as does mixing in stuff like ion-pulse warheads to ensure shield gaps stay open. That quake projector might be handy depending on its effective range, though tractor trickery seems safer used on defense-reduced (or totally shield-dependent) targets. I get the impression troop complements & small craft beyond security/utility needs are something better left to your economy-scale siege platform’s support screen.
I feel like I’m out of the loop, guess it’s time to read some fan fiction!
I think it is both because you need to hit target the size of a rat with margin of error in milliseconds.
In-flight missile correction will be far far far FAR more important than the sequence of the initial launches.
I concur. I love the game, but there is plenty of stuff WEG got wrong. Hell, the only time we actually see a proton torpedo up close, it very clearly makes a mid-course correction.
The bow launchers seem set far enough forward to give Tyrant a bloody nose, but leave plenty of ship to retreat should a worst-case cookoff occur up there. As for the TS…I guess that 721-II scene banked on each launcher being linked to a substantial deep-storage magazine for the HTL trickshot to light up, but that still seems a bit odd if all the thing was there to do is serve as a sensor station. WRT the whole ‘bank said TL shot off a planetary shield’ bit…honestly gotta second our host there. Closest onscreen thing I can compare would be… Read more »
Just out of curiosity, how many missiles does it carry?
It has around 680 launchers/missiles soooo a lot.
696
Missile? Yes!
696 launchers nice, but I’m more curious as to how many missiles each launcher has..
Depends on the size of the missile.
All ~4.1KM of her is finally complete. I would like to thank EJ for the original model and permission for use on our take the Tyrant. I would like to hear his thoughts on how it ended up. FS, thank you for your patience and agreeing to this on.
A pleasure to work on it!
I really like the look of it, I would have closed the gap between the ring and the hull with a skeletal super structure with sparse plating, but all of the other details definitely make it look like it was descended from Clone wars or pre clone wars era ships and would fit right in with the Procurator and Secutor. It really does need an orbital bombardment shot though. what did the final diameter and length of the missiles end up being?
I was thinking cluster munitions of various types.
Thank you for the feedback
I’m guessing you refer to the dimensions to the ring
Nice to see the Tyrant finished, also no fighter capacity only shuttle bay, I guess that one way to stop it from being the complete upgrade to the Vsd, I guess the troop capacity is a division or two for ship board security.
She’s gorgeous. Love the proportions.