70 replies to this topic

[feld]

I've noticed that the EXECUTOR class Star Dreadnought in v1.0 appears unable to hit targets immediately above it in some areas. Is this the case and is this on purpose? If not, has anyone ever seen this before and is there something I'm doing incorrectly?

Thanks!
feld

[feld]

Did some more research after asking the question and found this on the Star Wars Technical Commentaries:

http://www.theforce.net/swtc/ssd.html

"In the years following the Battle of Endor the New Republic forces learned much about the weaknesses of these formidable warships. One of these potential weaknesses is the distribution of weaponry. Although the total number of guns is immense and the sleek dagger-like hull design gives most of these batteries a clear shot in almost any direction, the nett density of guns is much sparser than on a common mile-long destroyer [at least according to unverified published statistics]. Enemy starfighters very close to the hull are sometimes able to find shelter from most of the turbolaser batteries, especially in the midst of the canyonous structures which dominate the central regions of the ventral and dorsal surfaces. This weakness seems to have been inadvertently exploited against the Executor at the Battle of Endor, when rebel fighters were able to reach the bridge by flying close to the dorsal hull. Of course, surviving to reach the warship's hull is a major problem in the absence of the kind of cover provided by the general chaos and confusion prevailing at Endor."

Perhaps PR was simulating this?

r/
feld

[muneyoshi]

Did some more research after asking the question and found this on the Star Wars Technical Commentaries:

http://www.theforce.net/swtc/ssd.html

"In the years following the Battle of Endor the New Republic forces learned much about the weaknesses of these formidable warships. One of these potential weaknesses is the distribution of weaponry. Although the total number of guns is immense and the sleek dagger-like hull design gives most of these batteries a clear shot in almost any direction, the nett density of guns is much sparser than on a common mile-long destroyer [at least according to unverified published statistics]. Enemy starfighters very close to the hull are sometimes able to find shelter from most of the turbolaser batteries, especially in the midst of the canyonous structures which dominate the central regions of the ventral and dorsal surfaces. This weakness seems to have been inadvertently exploited against the Executor at the Battle of Endor, when rebel fighters were able to reach the bridge by flying close to the dorsal hull. Of course, surviving to reach the warship's hull is a major problem in the absence of the kind of cover provided by the general chaos and confusion prevailing at Endor."

Perhaps PR was simulating this?

r/
feld

well.. the Star Destroyer line in general as gunnary blind spots.. ISD's can barely shot behind them.. etc.. so yeah.. it was done on purpose that way (the model).. gives us rebels a fighting chance to take them out

Imperial tactics required very little for the most part.. "point your nose at the enemy and shot".. hence the dagger like shape allowing nearly all guns to fire on one target.. this focused their very considerable firepower.. yet leaves them vunarble in other spots should the enemy be able to explict it.. nose to nose against a MC80 a ISD would chew it up.. yet you go side to side and suddenly it's alot closer of a fight, the ISD would still have a slight edge due to it's heavy guns and that they had more guns in general then rebel cap ships.. but it would be alot closer... so lesson is.. imps keep your noses pointing at the enemy... rebels.. don't let them

[Tropical Bob]

I don't like the way the firing arcs for the Executor-class are, no matter how canon some of it may be. It can hardly shoot at anything anywhere as it is right now. The dagger shape is useless because the guns can't really shoot forwards, only in a like 30 degree arc directly sideways.

[Phoenix Rising]

The guns are all along the lateral trenches simply because that was the easiest way to rig 5000 weapons at once. They ought to have 180 x 180 degrees of coverage though, like most turrets.

[muneyoshi]

I don't like the way the firing arcs for the Executor-class are, no matter how canon some of it may be. It can hardly shoot at anything anywhere as it is right now. The dagger shape is useless because the guns can't really shoot forwards, only in a like 30 degree arc directly sideways.

I never had that problem.. but then again I rarely play the empire.. and rarely use that class ship.. takes too long to research the upgrade and build the damn thing.. when I do use emprial forces I tend to use Praetors alot more since you can bring in more ships with them

[feld]

The guns are all along the lateral trenches simply because that was the easiest way to rig 5000 weapons at once.

PR,

It sounds like you're not entirely satisfied by EXECUTOR's weapons rigging. I've been doing a bit of research/thinking on that ship as a result of a different project. Weapons location and power distribution have been two of the main topics. Now, I realize that there's not much "canon" information on how the armament of the ship is distributed, but I'm interesting in taking a stab at the observation that the little blisters all over the armor faces scale to approximately the same size as ISD heavy turbolaser batteries.

Offer: I'm interested in re-rigging EXECUTOR's model in PR (obviously not for the v1.1 release) for a broader distribution of guns.

Upside: Hopefully less work for you and more mod for us
Downside: I'm a total novice to this sort of work (though I've done a good bit of programming/computer modelling over the last 15 years or so). I might need so much training that it would take less time to do it yourself...

R/
feld

Edited by feld, 03 December 2008 - 07:57 PM.

[Phoenix Rising]

Well, we're still the first (as far as I know) to correctly rig the Executor-class with 5000 weapons, so I'm not trying to discount that. As far as the distribution goes, I guess I would prefer shifting a few of the guns closer to the superstructure (right along the edge) if I had time, but it's not critical. I'm not sure the dents in the hull plating are anything more than dents (although it's an interesting theory) - the texture our model uses for that repeats many times over in no particular order. Of course, the model itself is an imperfect representation, but then it becomes a question of how to place something that you can't locate.

That being said, I wouldn't recommend spending the time on it if I were you. I wrote scripts just to create all of those bones, so it's just a matter of reconfiguring those and a bit more planning. I don't think it will result in significantly better gameplay though, at least compared to the amount of time it would require.

[feld]

I'm not sure the dents in the hull plating are anything more than dents (although it's an interesting theory) - the texture our model uses for that repeats many times over in no particular order.

I thought it was an interesting theory too. Not mine though: got it from Saxton.
Saxton's EXECUTOR Heavy Turbolaser Idea

What really did it for me was noticing how those raised bumps were clustered on the hull:

I've been working on a hypothesis involving power generation and repulsorlifts on heavy SW starships inspired by the Battle of Coruscant. I was thinking that the clusters might indicate proximity to onboard power generation facilities...but I digress. I really enjoy this sort of "pretend it's real and then figure out how it works" analysis. I realize that it's not everyone's cup of tea.

That being said, I wouldn't recommend spending the time on it if I were you. I wrote scripts just to create all of those bones, so it's just a matter of reconfiguring those and a bit more planning. I don't think it will result in significantly better gameplay though, at least compared to the amount of time it would require.

Roger that I'll drop it then. It'd pretty much have to be hand placement anyway. Which some model maker at Lucasfilm got paid to do for the original model in ~1978-1979...

r/
feld

[Phoenix Rising]

I thought it was an interesting theory too. Not mine though: got it from Saxton.

Right. Well, it does seem to run in the face of conventional Imperial weapon placement on dagger-shaped starships. Unless I'm mistaken, when the Lusankya performed that orbital bombardment, the turbolasers were described as being along the side trenches... if true, that's as canon as anything.

I really enjoy this sort of "pretend it's real and then figure out how it works" analysis. I realize that it's not everyone's cup of tea.

Heh, that's half of what the mod's about . I've had to place a lot of weapons with very little sourcing, so I try to look at it from a shipwright's perspective and give them the best coverage. Dreadnaughts are miserable to rig though, so you'll understand if I take a few shortcuts.

Roger that I'll drop it then.

There are just better things to mess with, IMO. Keep poking around.

[feld]

Well, it does seem to run in the face of conventional Imperial weapon placement on dagger-shaped starships. Unless I'm mistaken, when the Lusankya performed that orbital bombardment, the turbolasers were described as being along the side trenches... if true, that's as canon as anything.

Actually, that's the beauty of it...I can make an argument that the most canon cannon placement is the ISD (only cap ship model I can think of where we can actually see guns on the finished product). I think the ISD's guns are placed to shorten power runs from the main reactor(s).

[Tropical Bob]

Not to mention that the most logical placement of guns on a ship that size would have to be dispersed around the main hull. Otherwise it would have too many weak points to be a feasible military investment.

[feld]

Not to mention that the most logical placement of guns on a ship that size would have to be dispersed around the main hull. Otherwise it would have too many weak points to be a feasible military investment.

Yes! Exactly!

(If you're not interested in a novella-length "Fleet-Junkie" type technical analysis - please just stop reading here. We'll probably both be happier.)


One nice side effect of the "blisters=heavy turbolaser" theory is that the blisters are on the dorsal and ventral surfaces of the ship meaning that EXECUTOR lacks the gunnery blind spot that (IMNSHO) is the major weakness of the ISD. No ventral heavy TL batteries. If you think about it, the eight heavy TL batteries on the top of an ISD should be duplicated on the bottom in a platform designed for combat in 3D. Or if reactor power output, structural, or other engineering consideration limits the ship to eight heavy turrets, they should be evenly split between top and bottom if the ship is primarily designed as a space control platform.

A possible explanation is that the ISDs weren't designed primarily for ship to ship combat. They're designed to pacify star systems largely on their own. Meaning that, while they need to be formidable space control ships, much of their design is dedicated to troops and supplies. This in turn led me to lots of interesting speculation about Kuat Drive Yard's TECTOR class Star Destroyer and a tentative "design history" for the ISD. My ret-splaination is that the TECTOR class came before the ISD as a response to the weaknesses that the Republic Star Fleet identified in their existing ships during the First Battle of Coruscant.

My TECTOR design sketches look:
-like the dagger hull of an ISD1 with the upper tower and superstructure totally removed or much reduced
-with no large ventral hanger bay (I'm playing with small brim trench hangars like on VENATOR - with actual ARMORED DOORS)
-and with 16 of the ISD1's heavy TL batteries - eight topside and eight on the ventral side
-I'm also playing with the idea that the lower dome is actually a sensor (not the bottom of the solar ionization reactor-which never made sense to me-but this is hard because the canon stuff is consistent on this point)

I think that, when the Empire came back to the Kuat for a design for a world pacification ship (which became the ISD), they looked at TECTOR and decided that the basic big spaceframe components (reactor/drive, repulsors, shielding, and armor systems) would work for the ISD. The problem was that they needed alot more internal volume for 10000 troops and associated gear than fit in TECTOR's hull. So we get the ISD superstructure design which (in available cutaways) is largely given over to living quarters. Kuat had to sacrifice some armor protection (here postulating that the mini-trenches on the side of the superstructure are more vulnerable than the sloping tops) and hitting power (half the heavy turbos) to free up the necessary resources. I'm thinking that the TLs really went away not because the trooper and AT-AT's storage needed lots of power , but because of an increased amount of shielding power required to cover the new larger volume.

I'm also looking at why they wouldn't split the TL batteries (4 up and 4 down as previously mentioned) on the ISD. VENATORs were designed such that their primary armament also couldn't engage targets on the ventral face of the ship (just like ISDs) and they seem to have been largely designed to support ground invasions. The lack of ventral guns is thus doubly hard to explain since you would want them to support the troops.

What follows is my best explanation so far. It unfortunately requires that I discard or ignore a c-canon statement (from WEG sourcebooks) that ISD's cannot enter atmosphere. There are numerous examples of ACCLAMATOR, VENATOR, and VICTORY class ships entering atmosphere to support troops. What if the later ISD was also designed to do this? Furthermore, what if they were all designed to jump out of hyperspace close to planets and enter the atmosphere fast in order to avoid counterbattery fire? Then they hover at some low altitude, launch troops/support craft, and provide cover fire. Think of the drop ship in Aliens with 10,000 troops and 40 AT-ATs and you'll see what I mean. 10,000 troops on the ground out of a clear blue sky would suck for the the defense in any case.

The cost of designing the ship for this little maneuver was that mechanisms to protect ventral TL during re-entry were too heavy or expensive so they were omitted with the justification that the ship wasn't primarily designed for major fleet actions in the first place. The sloping sides of the ISD upper hull allow their heavy turbos to depress a good deal anyway...so the upper turbos can still hit land based targets under many (if not all scenarios).

Like I said, it's just the best I've done so far...still has holes. Like:

-what if the target planet has shields?
-but there are canon sources stating that ISD's cannot enter atmo.

Still be interested in feedback though...

r/
feld

Edited by feld, 04 December 2008 - 06:11 PM.

[Tropical Bob]

The problem with your Tector-class design is that, unless we were looking at a Tector II-class that was heavily modified from the original so as to just provide a heavier version of the Imperial-class, we saw a Tector-class in RotJ, where it appeared exactly like an Imperial-class, but without a hangar.

Space combat is 3-dimensional, so technically the placement of guns doesn't matter so much as the maneuvering capability of the ship. Keeping the ship oriented towards the intended target/s in the proper way could keep all heavy batteries aimed at the intended target/s, instead of having only half weaponry available. For ground support, the ship could change its orientation to present the dorsal side of the ship towards the surface, which would also prevent targeting of the hangar bay to cause massive internal damage to the ship if there are ground-based anti-orbital batteries of any kind. Also, the ground support might include preventing enemy transports from entering the atmosphere and enemy ships from targeting ground units in an orbital bombardment, which having all heavy guns facing towards where the enemy ships would be coming from might present an advantage as to keep them at bay.

The design of the layout of the heavy turbolasers is kind of flawed anyway. It's more reminiscent of a broadside battery than anything else. Staring an Imperial-class head-on does keep you in sight of the greatest number of guns, but only two of the eight heavy batteries. Which means that they could be designed primarily to broadside something, so as to partly make up for the weakness of having the number of available guns halved.

There are actually two canon references to the Imperial-class being able to enter a planetary atmosphere. They're both in The Force Unleashed:
#1 - The Imperial occupation of Kashyyyk. A couple Imperial-class Star Destroyers are seen in the background, only a couple hundred meters max above ground level.
#2: The attack on the Imperial shipyards at Raxis Prime. An Imperial-class Star Destroyer enters the atmosphere of the planet to prevent you from destroying the shipyards. Disastrous results ensue for the ship, however, but not due to its positioning; it chose the wrong target to piss off.

I think I may have had more to say on this matter, but I totally forgot if I did. And this is all I can think of right now.

[muneyoshi]

The problem with your Tector-class design is that, unless we were looking at a Tector II-class that was heavily modified from the original so as to just provide a heavier version of the Imperial-class, we saw a Tector-class in RotJ, where it appeared exactly like an Imperial-class, but without a hangar.

Space combat is 3-dimensional, so technically the placement of guns doesn't matter so much as the maneuvering capability of the ship. Keeping the ship oriented towards the intended target/s in the proper way could keep all heavy batteries aimed at the intended target/s, instead of having only half weaponry available. For ground support, the ship could change its orientation to present the dorsal side of the ship towards the surface, which would also prevent targeting of the hangar bay to cause massive internal damage to the ship if there are ground-based anti-orbital batteries of any kind. Also, the ground support might include preventing enemy transports from entering the atmosphere and enemy ships from targeting ground units in an orbital bombardment, which having all heavy guns facing towards where the enemy ships would be coming from might present an advantage as to keep them at bay.

The design of the layout of the heavy turbolasers is kind of flawed anyway. It's more reminiscent of a broadside battery than anything else. Staring an Imperial-class head-on does keep you in sight of the greatest number of guns, but only two of the eight heavy batteries. Which means that they could be designed primarily to broadside something, so as to partly make up for the weakness of having the number of available guns halved.

There are actually two canon references to the Imperial-class being able to enter a planetary atmosphere. They're both in The Force Unleashed:
#1 - The Imperial occupation of Kashyyyk. A couple Imperial-class Star Destroyers are seen in the background, only a couple hundred meters max above ground level.
#2: The attack on the Imperial shipyards at Raxis Prime. An Imperial-class Star Destroyer enters the atmosphere of the planet to prevent you from destroying the shipyards. Disastrous results ensue for the ship, however, but not due to its positioning; it chose the wrong target to piss off.

I think I may have had more to say on this matter, but I totally forgot if I did. And this is all I can think of right now.

I believe your "broadside" comment to be the most accurate on the gun placement.. much odler sailing naval combat was comducted by sailing up and broadsideing your enemy.. even current naval combat would be conducted like this.. you know if major fleet actions actually occured.. even if you look at the battles in the movies and in alot of novels.. when the range closes they always end up side to side blasting away at each other (this is clear in ep 3 and 6).. and you comment about manuevering in 3-d.. rather then having guns placed for 3-d combat support this theory.. and the power requirements for doubleing the heavy guns might have restricted this... even other forms of space combat in other scifi settings tend to use this same old ancient naval combat tactic... Only Star Trek vered from this

To the Force Unleashed canon references.. I saw this too.. and I did NOT like it.. they did it solely as a gimick in the game.. taking down a ISD using the force.. these ships had been WELL esteblished as NOT being able to enter atmo.. that's why they had drop pods.. that's why the empire had acclimaters and other smallers warships.. though the game was decent enough.. they opened up WAY WAY too many problems with the current timeline and established canon solely for trying to make a "bigger" game

[Tropical Bob]

I don't know. I think that any ship should be able to enter the atmosphere, assuming it's a controlled entry, as long as it has the capabilities to make a controlled entry. I'm sure that a combination of both the ion engines and the repulsorlift generators of an Imperial-class Star Destroyer would be sufficient to make a controlled entry. It would still have to be very careful, anyhow. Maybe it was established that they couldn't enter the atmosphere because they didn't. The advanced weapons technologies meant their orbital bombardments were devastating even from high orbit, and the size of the hangars allowed for lots of, and/or, large transports for the ground assault, eliminating a need to close in with the planet.

Pulling an Imperial-class Star Destroyer down with the Force is not impossible. In fact, I personally believe that most of what is considered "impossible" when referring to the use of the Force is rather preconceptions of the mind. But I think my Force theory is for another time.

There's this. Dorsk 81 uses the Force to send a fleet of Star Destroyers, including an Executor-class Star Dreadnaught, hurtling into deep space. Granted, he did channel his connection to the Force through several other Jedi and a Force amplifying temple.

[muneyoshi]

I don't know. I think that any ship should be able to enter the atmosphere, assuming it's a controlled entry, as long as it has the capabilities to make a controlled entry. I'm sure that a combination of both the ion engines and the repulsorlift generators of an Imperial-class Star Destroyer would be sufficient to make a controlled entry. It would still have to be very careful, anyhow. Maybe it was established that they couldn't enter the atmosphere because they didn't. The advanced weapons technologies meant their orbital bombardments were devastating even from high orbit, and the size of the hangars allowed for lots of, and/or, large transports for the ground assault, eliminating a need to close in with the planet.

Pulling an Imperial-class Star Destroyer down with the Force is not impossible. In fact, I personally believe that most of what is considered "impossible" when referring to the use of the Force is rather preconceptions of the mind. But I think my Force theory is for another time.

There's this. Dorsk 81 uses the Force to send a fleet of Star Destroyers, including an Executor-class Star Dreadnaught, hurtling into deep space. Granted, he did channel his connection to the Force through several other Jedi and a Force amplifying temple.

oh I never said I thought the feat of ripping it down was impossible.. far from it and I also have interesting views on the Force and agree that nothing should be impossible.. look at some of what Luke is doing with it in the Legacy of the Force series? hell.. he pretty much teleports useing it.. I just said I didn't like them putting it in like that because though it is possible.. THEY used it as a gimmick.. not a plot element.. they also did this in the final level of the game.. but to avoid spoliers for those who haven't played it I won't say more.. pm me if you want to know what I mean.

and you nailed it.. "assuming it's a controlled entry".. all that mass.. add gravity.. and velocity.. not sure how you would control that kind of a entry.. I admit.. most canon speaking of them not "being able to".. is normally simply them "not" doing it.. but.. if you could.. why sit up in orbit? yes they are still accurate.. but range effects not only how well they shoot BUT the amount of damage it deals.. and the amount of time your landing craft spend being exposed to enemy fire during hostile landings all add up to it just not making tactile sense staying in orbit instead of entering atmo to drop troops closer in. I damn well know I wouldn't.. but maybe that's just me

Edited by muneyoshi, 05 December 2008 - 12:35 AM.

[Tropical Bob]

It's harder to exit an atmosphere than enter one. If an enemy fleet jumps in, anything in the atmosphere is severely limited in its options.

I realize gravity and velocity have their hands in an atmospheric entry. That's what repulsorlifts are for though.

Hmmmm...Legacy of the Force series...I didn't really like that one too much. It's got a good base plot line, but they didn't execute the progression as good as the could have. Most of my problems lie with Jacen Solo, who is the main character of the entire series, which really brings the series down several notches in my eyes.

[muneyoshi]

It's harder to exit an atmosphere than enter one. If an enemy fleet jumps in, anything in the atmosphere is severely limited in its options.

I realize gravity and velocity have their hands in an atmospheric entry. That's what repulsorlifts are for though.

Hmmmm...Legacy of the Force series...I didn't really like that one too much. It's got a good base plot line, but they didn't execute the progression as good as the could have. Most of my problems lie with Jacen Solo, who is the main character of the entire series, which really brings the series down several notches in my eyes.

oh I agree.. I was just citing it as a source example for how Luke's powers have progressed

[Phoenix Rising]

A possible explanation is that the ISDs weren't designed primarily for ship to ship combat. They're designed to pacify star systems largely on their own. Meaning that, while they need to be formidable space control ships, much of their design is dedicated to troops and supplies.

Right, they're multi-purpose, or more specifically, they have hangars. I think this is ultimately the reason why you don't see heavy turrets on the ventral side of the ISD: you can't be firing heavy artillery into your starfighter formations, regardless of how expendable TIEs are. Remember, the Death Star stopped firing to accommodate Vader (granted, he's Military Executor of the Empire, but it's still a G-canon illustration of the point).

Furthermore, the less spread out your batteries are, the more you can concentrate fire on a single target - assuming you can match maneuvers. Pay attention to the CC-9600 next time you use it. It packs tons of weapons at the cost of spreading them out wherever they can fit, so only 50% or so can be brought to bear on a single target at once.

This in turn led me to lots of interesting speculation about Kuat Drive Yard's TECTOR class Star Destroyer and a tentative "design history" for the ISD.

I've redesigned the TSD (yup, it's cool enough to get it's own acronym) that's in PR... I think you'll like it better now. At least it's a lot more unique while maintaining the same modularity with the ISD. However, it still doesn't have a unique model.

Edit: Might as well post the stats; I don't plan on writing about it specifically.

-I'm also playing with the idea that the lower dome is actually a sensor (not the bottom of the solar ionization reactor-which never made sense to me-but this is hard because the canon stuff is consistent on this point)

Apparently, that's what the whole ship was designed around.

I'm also looking at why they wouldn't split the TL batteries (4 up and 4 down as previously mentioned) on the ISD. VENATORs were designed such that their primary armament also couldn't engage targets on the ventral face of the ship (just like ISDs) and they seem to have been largely designed to support ground invasions. The lack of ventral guns is thus doubly hard to explain since you would want them to support the troops.

Maybe it doesn't matter to repulsors which way the ship is oriented with respect to the ground. Or the heavy guns cause too much collateral damage in a land battle.

What follows is my best explanation so far. It unfortunately requires that I discard or ignore a c-canon statement (from WEG sourcebooks) that ISD's cannot enter atmosphere.

Actually, TFU has now overridden that.

The problem with your Tector-class design is that, unless we were looking at a Tector II-class that was heavily modified from the original so as to just provide a heavier version of the Imperial-class, we saw a Tector-class in RotJ, where it appeared exactly like an Imperial-class, but without a hangar.

I believe it also lacked the slits in the hull for the heavy quads, but I could also be postulating. Hard to distinguish when there's so little official data.

The design of the layout of the heavy turbolasers is kind of flawed anyway. It's more reminiscent of a broadside battery than anything else. Staring an Imperial-class head-on does keep you in sight of the greatest number of guns, but only two of the eight heavy batteries.

Unless you're sufficiently wide, of course.

To the Force Unleashed canon references.. I saw this too.. and I did NOT like it.. they did it solely as a gimick in the game.. taking down a ISD using the force.. these ships had been WELL esteblished as NOT being able to enter atmo.. that's why they had drop pods.. that's why the empire had acclimaters and other smallers warships.. though the game was decent enough.. they opened up WAY WAY too many problems with the current timeline and established canon solely for trying to make a "bigger" game

While I don't really have a problem with the atmospheric ISDs (just because there are bigger points of contention), I do agree that it introduces some serious timeline issues for no other justification than giving Starkiller (which, by the way, is now officially overused in the EU... imagine if they named some minor character "Skywalker") enough time to grow up. Mainly, putting the Corellian Treaty at 2 BBY causes quite a conflict with our 18 BBY timeline (and supporting WEG material that hints at an earlier date), so I've had to add a little retcon of my own for v1.1 .

Edited by Phoenix Rising, 05 December 2008 - 09:04 AM.