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Anlace
Anlace
2 years ago

Does the station have point defense systems? Laser cannons, dual purpose or light turbolasers, missile systems, jamming countermeasures?

CRMcNeill
CRMcNeill
2 years ago

What’s your vision for the tower’s functions, apart from angling the platform?

CRMcNeill
CRMcNeill
2 years ago
Reply to  Fractalsponge

I was thinking heat sink, too. I picture the station rolling to position the tower away from the primary threat axis in an attack, so it can concentrate its shields and weapons one direction and angle the heat sinks away from the attack in the same movement. Of course, swarming attacks would complicate that, but that would be true regardless.

countvertex
countvertex
2 years ago
Reply to  Fractalsponge

Since these stations will probably be deployed not only in deep space but also close to planets they will be subject to full gravitational pull. So they’ll need large repulsors to keep a stationary position above a planet or else be restricted to move around the planet in a stable orbit. I could imagine those repulsor arrays to also be located inside the tower.

CRMcNeill
CRMcNeill
2 years ago
Reply to  countvertex

Repulsors are pretty much a given in the SWU; you could probably get your kitchen sink equipped with repulsors without too much trouble.

countvertex
countvertex
2 years ago
Reply to  CRMcNeill

Fully agree that repulsors are a very common technology in the SWU. I just think that the effect that a technology has (levitation) should have a plausibly sized machinery causing it. And we have a pretty big mass here after all to keep from falling from the sky.

CRMcNeill
CRMcNeill
2 years ago
Reply to  countvertex

But it’s even easier to justify with this station than it is with a Star Destroyer, since the station doesn’t have to make room for sublight and hyperdrives. No other ship in the SWU has needed externally obvious repulsorlifts, but they’re clearly there and functioning. Why would this station be any different?

countvertex
countvertex
2 years ago
Reply to  CRMcNeill

Since the station is quasi stationary I would rather compare with Cloud City, but I can’t remember if the cross sections depict any repulsors.

CRMcNeill
CRMcNeill
2 years ago
Reply to  countvertex

The Wookieepedia write-up mentions “36,000 repulsorlift engines”. The ventral tower with the reactor bulb is described as part of the city’s tibanna gas mining function.

CRMcNeill
CRMcNeill
2 years ago
Reply to  Fractalsponge

Also, there’s an obscure optional rule in one of the WEG sourcebooks where a ship can use static discharge vanes to bleed off ionization effects. Maybe something similar here, only far more robust due to the prominence of the tower? Being able to better resist ion attacks when you can’t evade or run away would be definite asset.

Case
Case
2 years ago

That looks absolutely sick, I can always rely on your posts to make my day a little more interesting

Markov
Markov
2 years ago

The ball like features at the top remind me of the trade federation core ships, which served as bridges. With the amount of possible bridge positions, where is the bridge? Also what size escort would it have, in terms of fighters or support ships?

CRMcNeill
CRMcNeill
2 years ago
Reply to  Fractalsponge

I always pictured the Golans as only having minimal utility hangars, all tucked away out of direct line of sight. Having an exposed hangar like that seems like an enormous weak spot. What do you picture insofar as steps to offset that weakness?

Chris Bradshaw
Chris Bradshaw
2 years ago
Reply to  CRMcNeill

95%+ of any ship or platform’s survivability comes from the shielding, not armor. It’s not really a weakness. In a gunnery duel against enemy capital ships, you’d be pointing the ‘top’ at the main threat vector anyways, limiting the chance of any local burnthroughs.

CRMcNeill
CRMcNeill
2 years ago
Reply to  Chris Bradshaw

Even if that 95% number is accurate, how much of that shielding is coterminous with the hull itself, in the form of magnetic sealing, tensor fields or some other form of structural integrity field system? To my way of thinking, armor isn’t just defined by how well it can absorb damage on its own, but by how well it functions as a wave-guide for the augmentative energy fields that underpin so much of SWU tech. A big, open, exposed hangar bay isn’t going to have that level of protection.

CRMcNeill
CRMcNeill
2 years ago
Reply to  Fractalsponge

That’s fair. I suppose it’s a question of how much volume the hangar takes up, and how isolated and compartmentalized it is from the “guts” of the station. The Carrack took this to an extreme by being so compartmentalized that it could only carry starfighters externally. With this being a relatively immobile platform, I can easily see the designers beefing up the internal framework and compartmentalization (ala the Carrack) as much as possible, but that’s directly contrary to the wide open spaces necessitated by hangar bays. Of course, if those bays take up a relatively small percentage of the station’s total volume, and are outside of the “citadel”, it makes more sense.

Megabalta
Megabalta
2 years ago

Nice touch with the positioning engine, now the bottom tower makes sense instead of just being a visual gag.