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nhbdy
2008-08-17, 06:46 PM
I recently captured the Executor (don't ask how, it was hard and GM was improvising stats). and i wanted to know how you would stat this monster?

according to wookieepedia it is 12 time the size of a standard star destroyer, and has over 5,000 turbolasers, but i don't know anything else useful to statting it out, help?

here is where the wookieepedia article http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Executor

Mad Wizard
2008-08-17, 06:55 PM
Well, first, which version of the rules are you using? If you're playing Saga Edition, it's statted out for you in the Starships of the Galaxy splatbook. In any case, the Executor is really so powerful that you barely need stats, since you can take on anything up to a death star. I've heard people say that, "The Executor isn't a ship, it's a plot device."

evil
2008-08-17, 06:56 PM
Both editions of Starships of the Galaxy have the Executor's stats for their respective systems.

Heh, frankly, I dont even know why you'd want one. The Executor was showoffy power with no real purpose. It's stated purpose was to provide heavy support for a battlefleet, so unless you have a flotilla at your disposal just lying around, it's a waste of parts and manpower.

It did the job a half dozen Star Destroyers could do with more wasted manpower, less coverage and exponentially higher cost.

If I were you? I'd put it in orbit around some backwater planet, salvage it for parts and strip it bare bones for use as a space station.

eh, but that's just the fleet junkie in me.

nhbdy
2008-08-17, 06:59 PM
Well, first, which version of the rules are you using? If you're playing Saga Edition, it's statted out for you in the Starships of the Galaxy splatbook. In any case, the Executor is really so powerful that you barely need stats, since you can take on anything up to a death star. I've heard people say that, "The Executor isn't a ship, it's a plot device."


we are using the edition with the Revised core rulebook, whichever that is, i know it isn't saga

evil
2008-08-17, 07:04 PM
Then you're in luck! It would be a violation of copyright law to copy and paste the statistics from the book, HOWEVER... Wizards went ahead and did it for ya.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=starwars/article/SBPreview1

nhbdy
2008-08-17, 07:40 PM
Then you're in luck! It would be a violation of copyright law to copy and paste the statistics from the book, HOWEVER... Wizards went ahead and did it for ya.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=starwars/article/SBPreview1

tyvm, this is perfect

Mushroom Ninja
2008-08-17, 08:10 PM
If it's not too much trouble, I am kind of curious how you managed to steal this thing.

evil
2008-08-17, 08:46 PM
They could have walked in and said please. The Imperial Navy has lower security then my local library.

They managed to have the Eclipse -class Star Dreadnought (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Eclipse-class_Star_Dreadnought)(Which makes the SSDs look stunted by comparison) stolen from Kuat, one of their most heavily defended shipyards. I mean yeesh. (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Second_Battle_of_Kuat)

nhbdy
2008-08-17, 09:04 PM
If it's not too much trouble, I am kind of curious how you managed to steal this thing.

i took it by pounding it with ion cannons, it couldn't do much as we landed a boarding party :)

my GM expanded the damage table and allows multiple hits to stack, so it was out before long

The Glyphstone
2008-08-17, 09:09 PM
That's an awfully big boarding party to overwhelm its 38,000 Stormtrooper garrison....:)

RandomLunatic
2008-08-17, 09:31 PM
That's an awfully big boarding party to overwhelm its 38,000 Stormtrooper garrison....:)

They are Stormtroopers. The only thing you need to worry about is all that stray blaster fire gutting your prize from the inside out.:smallamused:

Myshlaevsky
2008-08-17, 09:48 PM
That's an awfully big boarding party to overwhelm its 38,000 Stormtrooper garrison....:)

All you have to do is stand in the middle of them all.

Nerd-o-rama
2008-08-17, 10:13 PM
A bigger problem was that the Executor itself was home base to Darth Vader for most of its all-to-brief existence, unless you're playing an alternate history or caught him while he was out on a mission. Or you're mistaken and it's another Executor-class vessel.

Just how many ion cannons did you need to disable the thing? I'm curious.

Gamgee
2008-08-17, 10:39 PM
Gut the innards of the ship, its so useless as it is right now, replace it with a giant laser. There you now have a far more cost effective planet killer that requires only a skeleton crew to fly. Considering you took this thing out with a boarding party you have NOTHING to fear from the Imperial Navy. Good hunting, I hear those planets like to orbit lots ;)

hamishspence
2008-08-18, 04:25 AM
I'm wondering how long you are having the Super. Older books have put it as 11 km, or 7 miles, or 8 km in the case of the rather poor Darksaber book but recently Saga upgraded size to 19 km (longer even than the Eclipse, though much lighter)

Note that books published around same period as Saga have gone with lower figures.

Philistine
2008-08-18, 04:33 AM
i took it by pounding it with ion cannons, it couldn't do much as we landed a boarding party :)

my GM expanded the damage table and allows multiple hits to stack, so it was out before long

Wait, what?

No seriously - what?

Your DM allowed you to capture a ship in combat... but he didn't have the ship statted out? That's... surprising.

In-game issues:
I don't even remember how long it's been since I looked at the RCR, but weren't ion cannons only effective if the target was within a size category or so of the firing ship? Meaning you'd need capship-scale ion cannons to take out a capship. (Translation: you need at least one capital ship of your own.)

Worse, the Executor-class ships are among the hardest single targets in the setting. It's not likely that one would just sit there passively while you took down her shields and got started on her systems, either - so what was the ship doing during the whole fight? (Translation: you'd need at least a small fleet of capships, and you will take casualties.)

Worse yet, what was the rest of the Imperial fleet doing? Executor was a command ship, after all; you also have to account for the rest of her squadron (9 ISDs, 1 VSD, plus ~10 miscellaneous smaller ships). Where were they while you whomped on their flagship? (Translation: Oops - turns out you'd actually need a pretty good-sized fleet of capships, and you'll take massive casualties.)

But, okay - say you've somehow miraculously disabled the SSD, and snuck a boarding party on via the hangar bay. Now it's you and your boarding party... and over three hundred thousand Imperials on the ship. Granted, most of the 280,000 ship's crew will be too far away and/or too busy actually running the ship to mess with you, but as previously mentioned there are 38,000 stormtroopers aboard who have nothing more important to do than come get in your way. I don't care how bad their marksmanship is, that's some curst long odds. And yeah - Vader's on that ship.

And then if you DO manage to overcome all that, then you've got a ship that needs almost three hundred thousand crew to operate. You'll probably get some defectors from the previous crew - but not that many. (Remember, this is Vader's personal ship, the most prestigious assignment in the Imperial Navy, so her crew would be among the most motivated in the entire fleet.) Did you have three hundred thousand trained starship crewers sitting around twiddling their thumbs for some reason?

Sorry, this whole thing really just sounds awfully silly.

EDIT:

I'm wondering how long you are having the Super. Older books have put it as 11 km, or 7 miles, or 8 km in the case of the rather poor Darksaber book but recently Saga upgraded size to 19 km (longer even than the Eclipse, though much lighter)

Note that books published around same period as Saga have gone with lower figures.

This was an error in the old WEG RPG books that has carried through to some later games and fiction. The scaling of the models in the OT had Executor at 11x the length of an ISD, whose length is well-estalished at 1mi or 1.6km. The modeling guys at ILM actually did a pretty good job, and the scaling is pretty consistent - and it's hard to call another source "more canonical" than the OT.

hamishspence
2008-08-18, 04:44 AM
The more advanced the ship, the more automation involved. Still, even a skeleton crew for an SSD would be pretty large.

Philistine
2008-08-18, 04:49 AM
280,000 is a skeleton crew. If an ISD needs a crew of 36000, and the SSD is 11x longer and similarly proportioned, then the SSD has 1331x as much internal volume as the ISD, so a proportional crew would be 47,916,000. :smallbiggrin:

Ossian
2008-08-18, 04:54 AM
Just to tell you how impressive that feat is to me (borading the f*****g executor), I once had a lvl 9 party (4 members, 2 of which level 9 force users) trying to escape (with force tricks and everything) from a Standard Star Destroyer (the Vengeance, or something...the one deployed in Tatooine's high orbit, it is also in the EU). WITH a docked ship waiting for them in one of the bays and the surprise element.

They barely made it (all injured).

And that was a puny 1600 mtr SD....

hamishspence
2008-08-18, 06:59 AM
again, SSDs may use more automation than ISDs (if you believe Darksaber) and are slimmer than ISDs. so, not increase in crew in proportion to increase in size.

Devastator was Vader's ship in Star Wars, and I think Jerecs modified SSD was called Vengeance.

Philistine
2008-08-18, 07:29 AM
SSDs are proportionally more slender than ISDs, but they're still vastly larger than ISDs in every dimension. (See here (http://images.wikia.com/starwars/images/2/20/SW_Executor_01.jpg) - one of those ISDs is clearly between the camera and the SSD and therefore appears larger in proportion, yet it's still dwarfed by Executor's hangar bay, let alone the rest of the ship.) Executor is an absolute monster.

Admittedly 48 million is out on the high end of the scale, but come on - a ship so much larger than an ISD that it could easily fit 4 or 5 ISDs in its hangar bay... but with less than 8x the crew requirement? Even if the ISDs are just insanely inefficient manpower hogs, 280,000 crew for Executor is way, way, way low.

Emperor Tippy
2008-08-18, 07:44 AM
To be fair a lot of that crew could be redundancy. If you have the space and nothing better to fill it with then you might as well throw in an extra 100 bridges, power plants, water reclamation plants, etc. and the crew needed to run all of those other 100 sets of systems.

Granted if it was me I would massively automate and reduce the size of both the crew and the vessel drastically. A naval ship is ultimately just a weapons delivery system. It's job is to get the most powerful weapons payload to the battle and ensure that said payload survives the battle.

Triaxx
2008-08-18, 07:46 AM
Hang on. What was the quote manpower requirement for the Death Star? (The first one, the second wasn't complete.) I'm doubting even it required 48million crew. Besides, size isn't all that counts. A large chunk of that is taken up by power systems and internals.

Philistine
2008-08-18, 08:47 AM
To be fair a lot of that crew could be redundancy. If you have the space and nothing better to fill it with then you might as well throw in an extra 100 bridges, power plants, water reclamation plants, etc. and the crew needed to run all of those other 100 sets of systems.

Granted if it was me I would massively automate and reduce the size of both the crew and the vessel drastically. A naval ship is ultimately just a weapons delivery system. It's job is to get the most powerful weapons payload to the battle and ensure that said payload survives the battle.
Actually, I agree with that. There's just no real mission for something as big as an Executor - it doesn't do anything a squadron of ISDs couldn't do just as well, and for much less cost. It would be different if the SW setting included an analogue to really big guns, but the closest real world analogue for Executor would be a 60,000t battleship with 200 5" guns. It's a powerful ship, but in many ways it's less powerful than the same weight of armament spread over ~20 separate hulls. In fact, I'd scale down the ISDs, too, for the same reasons - there's no good reason for them to be as large as they are, given what appears to be a hard upper limit on weapon size in the setting.

...

Hang on. What was the quote manpower requirement for the Death Star? (The first one, the second wasn't complete.) I'm doubting even it required 48million crew.
To run the station? It's quoted (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Death_Star_I) as ~755,000 (station crew, officers, support & maintenance, and gunnery crews), plus 400,000 droids. Plus 600,000 troops, 157,000 pilots for the various starfighters and smallcraft, and room for 800,000 passengers.

This also sounds ridiculously low - the station has an internal volume around 2 million cubic km, and supports a population of only ~2 million people? No wonder Han, Luke, & co. were able to run all over the place inside the station - it only had only one crew member per cubic kilometer!

Besides, size isn't all that counts. A large chunk of that is taken up by power systems and internals.
Yes, but the same applies to everything else too. And IRL at least, powerplant and internal structure tend to take up proportionately less weight and volume in larger ships. Meaning even more of Executor would be... empty space, apparently? (Well, it does have that humongous hangar bay...)

(I mentioned before that the modeling crew at ILM did a good job - it probably goes without saying, but my good opinion does not extend to some of the clowns who've written in the setting. :smallamused:)

fractic
2008-08-18, 08:54 AM
Actually, I agree with that. There's just no real mission for something as big as an Executor - it doesn't do anything a squadron of ISDs couldn't do just as well, and for much less cost.


It compensates better?

Mando Knight
2008-08-18, 09:00 AM
In any case, the Executor is really so powerful that you barely need stats, since you can take on anything up to a death star. I've heard people say that, "The Executor isn't a ship, it's a plot device."

Yeah... it's almost as if you had enslaved Orcus in D&D... once you own an Excecutor class SSD, the only challenges left are Deus Ex Machina-powered enemies, like an Eclipse or a Death Star... things that can take down anything that the GM should allow anyone under level 20 to own in one shot.

Anyway, the Death Star actually probably has a disproportionately massive powerplant, considering that it can fire a beam that spends several terajoules of energy destroying Earth-sized planets...

nhbdy
2008-08-18, 02:53 PM
Wait, what?

No seriously - what?

Your DM allowed you to capture a ship in combat... but he didn't have the ship statted out? That's... surprising.

In-game issues:
I don't even remember how long it's been since I looked at the RCR, but weren't ion cannons only effective if the target was within a size category or so of the firing ship? Meaning you'd need capship-scale ion cannons to take out a capship. (Translation: you need at least one capital ship of your own.)

Worse, the Executor-class ships are among the hardest single targets in the setting. It's not likely that one would just sit there passively while you took down her shields and got started on her systems, either - so what was the ship doing during the whole fight? (Translation: you'd need at least a small fleet of capships, and you will take casualties.)

Worse yet, what was the rest of the Imperial fleet doing? Executor was a command ship, after all; you also have to account for the rest of her squadron (9 ISDs, 1 VSD, plus ~10 miscellaneous smaller ships). Where were they while you whomped on their flagship? (Translation: Oops - turns out you'd actually need a pretty good-sized fleet of capships, and you'll take massive casualties.)

But, okay - say you've somehow miraculously disabled the SSD, and snuck a boarding party on via the hangar bay. Now it's you and your boarding party... and over three hundred thousand Imperials on the ship. Granted, most of the 280,000 ship's crew will be too far away and/or too busy actually running the ship to mess with you, but as previously mentioned there are 38,000 stormtroopers aboard who have nothing more important to do than come get in your way. I don't care how bad their marksmanship is, that's some curst long odds. And yeah - Vader's on that ship.

And then if you DO manage to overcome all that, then you've got a ship that needs almost three hundred thousand crew to operate. You'll probably get some defectors from the previous crew - but not that many. (Remember, this is Vader's personal ship, the most prestigious assignment in the Imperial Navy, so her crew would be among the most motivated in the entire fleet.) Did you have three hundred thousand trained starship crewers sitting around twiddling their thumbs for some reason?

Sorry, this whole thing really just sounds awfully silly.

EDIT:


This was an error in the old WEG RPG books that has carried through to some later games and fiction. The scaling of the models in the OT had Executor at 11x the length of an ISD, whose length is well-estalished at 1mi or 1.6km. The modeling guys at ILM actually did a pretty good job, and the scaling is pretty consistent - and it's hard to call another source "more canonical" than the OT.


I did have a massive fleet, i was leading an assualt for the rebellion, so we had a lot of capital ships and we had lots of smaller ships to deal with the swarms of tiny ships. Vader was allready dead, i ambushed him when he was on a mission. does that answer your question?

Morandir Nailo
2008-08-18, 03:29 PM
I did have a massive fleet, i was leading an assualt for the rebellion, so we had a lot of capital ships and we had lots of smaller ships to deal with the swarms of tiny ships. Vader was allready dead, i ambushed him when he was on a mission. does that answer your question?

That's one heck of an epic game, my friend. Must be a blast to play in! Makes me wish I was still playing SW myself...

Mor

Name_Here
2008-08-18, 03:56 PM
A bigger problem was that the Executor itself was home base to Darth Vader for most of its all-to-brief existence, unless you're playing an alternate history or caught him while he was out on a mission. Or you're mistaken and it's another Executor-class vessel.

Just how many ion cannons did you need to disable the thing? I'm curious.

Well I don't know about the Role Playing game but in most of the expanded universe the Ion Cannons are always way overpowered. In TIE fighter the ion cannon of star fighters was more than enough to knock out capital ships in only a few passes. And of course the Ion Cannon on Hoth that was able to knock out Star Destroyers in one hit.

Philistine
2008-08-18, 04:26 PM
I did have a massive fleet, i was leading an assualt for the rebellion, so we had a lot of capital ships and we had lots of smaller ships to deal with the swarms of tiny ships. Vader was allready dead, i ambushed him when he was on a mission. does that answer your question?

I guess it does. So were you playing as Admiral Ackbar, or Mon Mothma? :smalltongue:

Seriously, though, I still would have expected a major fleet unit like that to be statted out by the DM before trying to run it in combat. That's one crazy, crazy game, dude.

EDIT:

Well I don't know about the Role Playing game but in most of the expanded universe the Ion Cannons are always way overpowered. In TIE fighter the ion cannon of star fighters was more than enough to knock out capital ships in only a few passes. And of course the Ion Cannon on Hoth that was able to knock out Star Destroyers in one hit.

To be fair, the Rebels' ground-based ion cannon at Hoth appeared to be much larger than the turbolaser emplacements seen on various occasions through the OT. So it definitely looked to be in "capship scale," possibly even larger.

Renegade Paladin
2008-08-18, 04:37 PM
I'm wondering how long you are having the Super. Older books have put it as 11 km, or 7 miles, or 8 km in the case of the rather poor Darksaber book but recently Saga upgraded size to 19 km (longer even than the Eclipse, though much lighter)

Note that books published around same period as Saga have gone with lower figures.
Then they're wrong. The Executor class vessels are, at bare minimum, 17.5 kilometers long. There are many, many opportunities to scale against Star Destroyers in the foreground in The Empire Strikes Back. Star Destroyers have a known length of 1.6 km, and the Executor is quite clearly far more than five times longer. :smallannoyed:

DMfromTheAbyss
2008-08-18, 05:14 PM
Only suggestions on using the thing is to have the rebels modify it into a massive mobile base and use it as a comand ship in much the way the imperials used it. The first thing to do is change the name though, there's a history of rebel claimed craft (ISD's and even a Super Std) being renamed upon the rebellion/new republic getting them. Usually it ends up being something roughly opposite in meaning, very Redeemer/Justice/Defender instead of Executer, Despot, Vengeance.

My suggestion would be to rename it the Ressurector (opposite of Executor... someone who kills people into someone who brings them back to life)

If the rebellion can't fully crew it and use it to good effect, just park it in deep space in the middle of nowhere and use it for a secret base, Hell it's big enough you can use it for a mobile shipyard.

I played Star wars d20 and took over a Super Star Destroyer too... seems it's something to do in an epic level game when your leading/helping a major millitary force. I had a 26th level character though, and a fleet, and the SSD I took out was the much less defended Iron Fist from around Dathomir.

I wasn't a rebel though, so I had my SSD to basically use as my personal ship, to go around and pick up girls. (heheh) this led to as you might imagine a lot of jokes about "overcompensating" and sadly enough even cruising the universe with enough firepower to level a planet my character still couldn't get a girlfriend... How sad is that.

Frosty
2008-08-18, 05:55 PM
This thread is fullof win and humor...much of it unintentional.

Triaxx
2008-08-18, 06:11 PM
The Iron Fist? No, please don't mention that. It... brings the bad memories.

I had the misfortune of a DM who thought assaulting an SSD would be FUN. But he ran the numbers and decided that with two Jedi, we'd too easily over run the ship.

So he fixed the encounter. By replacing the entire crew with Darktroopers. After we escaped, dragging three dead bodies out of a group of five, we then went hunting for a Death Star.

evil
2008-08-18, 08:18 PM
The Canon length is 19km.

turkishproverb
2008-08-18, 08:21 PM
Only suggestions on using the thing is to have the rebels modify it into a massive mobile base and use it as a comand ship in much the way the imperials used it. The first thing to do is change the name though, there's a history of rebel claimed craft (ISD's and even a Super Std) being renamed upon the rebellion/new republic getting them. Usually it ends up being something roughly opposite in meaning, very Redeemer/Justice/Defender instead of Executer, Despot, Vengeance.

My suggestion would be to rename it the Ressurector (opposite of Executor... someone who kills people into someone who brings them back to life)

If the rebellion can't fully crew it and use it to good effect, just park it in deep space in the middle of nowhere and use it for a secret base, Hell it's big enough you can use it for a mobile shipyard.

I played Star wars d20 and took over a Super Star Destroyer too... seems it's something to do in an epic level game when your leading/helping a major millitary force. I had a 26th level character though, and a fleet, and the SSD I took out was the much less defended Iron Fist from around Dathomir.

I wasn't a rebel though, so I had my SSD to basically use as my personal ship, to go around and pick up girls. (heheh) this led to as you might imagine a lot of jokes about "overcompensating" and sadly enough even cruising the universe with enough firepower to level a planet my character still couldn't get a girlfriend... How sad is that.

Am I the ONLY one who crashed star destroyers into coresant when I couldn't get enough money/crew?

evisiron
2008-08-18, 09:31 PM
Argh, sort of ninja'ed. But I read the posts, I am posting!

Well, you do have one now, so logistics be damned.

Now, you could do one of the sensible suggestions.

Or you could pick a planet.
Pick any one.
Pick one you hate.
Maybe Naboo for Jar Jar.
Maybe Dagobah to mess with things.
It doesn't matter.
Pick a planet... and CRASH THE SHIP INTO THAT SUCKER! :smallbiggrin:

D_Lord
2008-08-18, 10:11 PM
There is one big question. How you Kill Vader? It would take more than an anbuss.

Name_Here
2008-08-18, 10:12 PM
To be fair, the Rebels' ground-based ion cannon at Hoth appeared to be much larger than the turbolaser emplacements seen on various occasions through the OT. So it definitely looked to be in "capship scale," possibly even larger.

It was probably a "World Defense" scale. I mean those were Star Destroyers that were smacked down with single shots. And I doubt they would even bother if turbo laser batteries from planet would do the same thing.

But I was just pointing out that they are pretty potent weapons.

Waspinator
2008-08-19, 04:14 AM
You know, I think Super Star Destroyers are just one of many examples of how the Empire did not even try to be efficient. They seemed to care a lot more about big and flashy things that would inspire fear than actually using resources to the best material advantage. That works until people manage to blow up some of the stuff and then you've lost the terror advantage for no other gain.

Zid
2008-08-19, 08:10 AM
You know, I think Super Star Destroyers are just one of many examples of how the Empire did not even try to be efficient. They seemed to care a lot more about big and flashy things that would inspire fear than actually using resources to the best material advantage. That works until people manage to blow up some of the stuff and then you've lost the terror advantage for no other gain.

Or, itīs just something that George Lucas thought would look good on the big screen, thatīs later been retconned too much for itīs own good.

Khanderas
2008-08-19, 08:45 AM
Idonno, I kinda like how they don't need to be effiicent.
One HUGE, nameworthy marvel of technology accompanied (or the other way around) by an invincible armada. It is so big and well known, when the executor comes, you are either with the empire, or boned.
That terror is planned.
As for the cost ? They also built a small moon, took over a federation who used a PLANET-CITY to govern itself. Cost and sizes don't matter. The knowledge that the rebels panic when they hear the Executor (and by extention, Darth Vader) is in their star system... invaluable.

Emperor Tippy
2008-08-19, 05:07 PM
Not really. Anything can be made scary, no matter what it looks like, it it does stuff that would make it feared. The Death Star could have been a giant :smallsmile: face that shot the planet destroying beam out of its mouth and it prolly would have actually been scarier.

Waspinator
2008-08-19, 07:15 PM
Wasn't there a scene in episode IV where the Imperial officers talk about how a lot of the point of the Death Star is that it will make people obey out of fear? That logic can easily be applied to other big ships.

Colmarr
2008-08-19, 07:28 PM
True. SSDs and the Death Star are the nukes of the Star Wars universe.

You use them once, and then people just need to know that you have them.

mabriss lethe
2008-08-19, 10:09 PM
My suggestion would be to rename it the Ressurector (opposite of Executor... someone who kills people into someone who brings them back to life)


Executor doesn't equal Executioner. an executor in it's broadest sense, is simply someone with the job of seeing a task completed. I suppose you could rename it the "Procrastinator"

but then the DM would be well within his rights to unleash a fleet of anvils the size of suns.

Khanderas
2008-08-20, 03:51 AM
Not really. Anything can be made scary, no matter what it looks like, it it does stuff that would make it feared. The Death Star could have been a giant :smallsmile: face that shot the planet destroying beam out of its mouth and it prolly would have actually been scarier.
No, don't agree with you there.
Sure it gets more psychopath-points but it is not the controlling/intimidating fear the Empire desires.
The Empire are trying for appearing serious, competent and powerful. You don't get full points for a smileyface, even if it does blow up planets.

Emperor Tippy
2008-08-20, 04:22 AM
You don't build SSD's, SD's, and Death Stars if you want to appear competent. I'm sorry but not one part of the entire empire's military is anything remotely approaching competent.

SolkaTruesilver
2008-08-20, 04:48 AM
I would not totally agree with that. While the Death Star and the SSD are not worth it, the SD is probably one of the best design of the Empire, the most powerful and the most usefull.

Emperor Tippy
2008-08-20, 11:53 PM
I would not totally agree with that. While the Death Star and the SSD are not worth it, the SD is probably one of the best design of the Empire, the most powerful and the most usefull.

Best designs of the Empire doesn't mean its objectively a good design.

Nerd-o-rama
2008-08-20, 11:54 PM
You don't build SSD's, SD's, and Death Stars if you want to appear competent. I'm sorry but not one part of the entire empire's military is anything remotely approaching competent.You build them to show people you're the bad guy in a Space Opera. That's about it.

Emperor Tippy
2008-08-21, 12:01 AM
You build them to show people you're the bad guy in a Space Opera. That's about it.

I suppose. All though I think that you are scarier if you actually competently design ships.

SolkaTruesilver
2008-08-21, 12:10 AM
Best designs of the Empire doesn't mean its objectively a good design.

For a large combat ship platform, it's certainly the best design around. the MC80 is pretty poor about it. Do you have a better one to suggest?

Nerd-o-rama
2008-08-21, 12:12 AM
I suppose. All though I think that you are scarier if you actually competently design ships.You're not getting the full connotation behind "Space Opera", are you? It's a genre that prefers to actively not make scientific sense.

And other than being pointlessly huge, ISD's aren't all that bad for their combat paradigm (effectively Napoleonic ships of the line IN SPACE - this is the part that's actively not making scientific sense). Except for the exposed command center. That's a big issue...

Khanderas
2008-08-21, 05:05 AM
You don't build SSD's, SD's, and Death Stars if you want to appear competent. I'm sorry but not one part of the entire empire's military is anything remotely approaching competent.
Excepting stormtrooper aim (because the heroes got plot armour) what is wrong with the Death Star for example ?
It destroys planets. Seriously. I do not get how that makes them appear incompetent ? Because they didnt paint it as a giant pacman ?
You make one prototype bragging ship that can one shot your planet and you claim this would make people fear the empire less ?

The Executor is THE commandship. Assuming the empire is up to scale to the old republic, then it needs to be big. The old republic didnt have a capital city... it had a capital planet. Blame Lucas on overkill, but staying in that universe, it has to be big and it does it's job very well.
When the Executor appears, it is serious buissness because you got the empire watching you closely, possibly with darth vader / the emperor on it.

So in summation: I don't know what you are aiming at.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-08-21, 06:42 AM
Excepting stormtrooper aim (because the heroes got plot armour) what is wrong with the Death Star for example ?

It's ridiculously, idiotically big for what it does, and designed with immense, stupid flaws that scream for someone to shoot torpedoes in them so the entire thing blows up?


The Executor is THE commandship. Assuming the empire is up to scale to the old republic, then it needs to be big. The old republic didnt have a capital city... it had a capital planet.

Armies are not federal bureaucracies. (Well, actually, the Republic was neither federation nor republic; it was an alliance, a galactic UN.) With FTL commo, you have very distributed command - in fact, a command ship may be unnecessary, depending on the speed of the FTL commo. (I'm not sure what the canon comm-speed is in SW; my impression is that it's instant from one edge of the galaxy to the other, or "at the speed of plot". Without FTL comm and just instant-within-system comm, you need a command ship in the same system - and since it'd be a prime target for enemies, you might as well have it behind the rest of your ships.)

There's no reason to stuff Vader's ship with hundreds of thousands of people - over 99% of the crew would be there to run the ship. Vader or some general gives an order and a single comm operator activates the right protocol to relay it to the correct part of the fleet, where it is again relayed to fighters subordinate to a destroyer, etc. Heck, with simple AIs, you wouldn't need the operator.


It is space opera - it's all exceedingly unrealistic to the point of being ridiculous. ("Naval-analogue space battles" is one of the definitions of stupidly unrealistic space opera.)

Khanderas
2008-08-21, 09:29 AM
It took the complete blueprints and a full team of engineers to find one 5 meter times 5 meter flaw on a moonsized battleship that problebly would not be attackable without the force.

I don't call that a screaming flaw.


Armies are not federal bureaucracies. (Well, actually, the Republic was neither federation nor republic; it was an alliance, a galactic UN.) With FTL commo, you have very distributed command - in fact, a command ship may be unnecessary, depending on the speed of the FTL commo. (I'm not sure what the canon comm-speed is in SW; my impression is that it's instant from one edge of the galaxy to the other, or "at the speed of plot". Without FTL comm and just instant-within-system comm, you need a command ship in the same system - and since it'd be a prime target for enemies, you might as well have it behind the rest of your ships.)

There's no reason to stuff Vader's ship with hundreds of thousands of people - over 99% of the crew would be there to run the ship. Vader or some general gives an order and a single comm operator activates the right protocol to relay it to the correct part of the fleet, where it is again relayed to fighters subordinate to a destroyer, etc. Heck, with simple AIs, you wouldn't need the operator.


It is space opera - it's all exceedingly unrealistic to the point of being ridiculous. ("Naval-analogue space battles" is one of the definitions of stupidly unrealistic space opera.)
They may not BE a republic, as we define it, but it was CALLED 'the republic'.
The Executor has the same model as a Star Destroyer, but it is far more. The Emperor travels in style, is a communications central and the flaunting, indistructable fortress / heart of the Empire that dwarfs all enemies, both outspoken rebels and silent dissenters.
It is not just the Emperors pimpmobile, it is also the nervecenter of an Empire spanning several thousands of words. The Emperor, as many despots, want to keep his power close, and that is why the mobile powerhouse named The Executor was built and maintained.

Bringing in the Faster Then Light travel and the energy needed and other such breeches of the laws of physics I direct you to: the force, swords made of lasers and previous example of how 'the republic' was managed from one world alone (assuming communications work in some infinite range subspace I guess, radio at speeds of light would be.... unefficient) and many many more.
It can do that (faster then light, dont break under its own weight and so on) and the emperor has reasons to make it. You may or may not feel it is following the Rule of Cool, but if you were there.... you be impressed.


Edit: AI's ? Consider when Lucas wrote it.

burninnapalm
2008-08-21, 09:44 AM
To be fair, the Rebels' ground-based ion cannon at Hoth appeared to be much larger than the turbolaser emplacements seen on various occasions through the OT. So it definitely looked to be in "capship scale," possibly even larger.

well there is a reason that 1 shot immobilized a ISD in the first place... XP

Tsotha-lanti
2008-08-21, 09:47 AM
Edit: AI's ? Consider when Lucas wrote it.

What, the 60s or 70s? AIs were a staple science fiction concept by then. You'll notice all the robots have them. If there really are no AIs outside of robots in Star Wars, that isn't a matter time periods, but a matter of being space opera - one of the things that separates space opera from SF is the lack of consistent application. Compare to something like The Diamond Age, a book entirely built around exploring how a single advancement ("true" nanotechnology) changes everything, and the specifics how it affects things. (Similarly, in SW they have artificial gravity but no gravitic weapons? What's up with that? Who shoots lasers at things when you can crush or shred them from the inside?)


Bringing in the Faster Then Light travel and the energy needed and other such breeches of the laws of physics I direct you to: the force, swords made of lasers and previous example of how 'the republic' was managed from one world alone (assuming communications work in some infinite range subspace I guess, radio at speeds of light would be.... unefficient) and many many more.
It can do that (faster then light, dont break under its own weight and so on) and the emperor has reasons to make it. You may or may not feel it is following the Rule of Cool, but if you were there.... you be impressed.

Yeah, that was my point: it's space opera, it's absolutely stupid, and none of it makes sense. You're the one who seemed to be arguing, earlier, that it isn't idiotic and nonsensical. (Let's not even get into, say, how impossibly and lethally hot Coruscant would be with all those buildings on it. And the amount of food and food transports required...)

Dervag
2008-08-21, 10:36 AM
It was probably a "World Defense" scale. I mean those were Star Destroyers that were smacked down with single shots. And I doubt they would even bother if turbo laser batteries from planet would do the same thing.

But I was just pointing out that they are pretty potent weapons.Yeah.

In any naval war (including naval wars IN SPAAACE...), there's a contrast between ships and forts. Ships have the huge advantage of being mobile, but forts always have the advantage of being able to carry more firepower than a ship. In this case, since an Imperial Star Destroyer mounts enough firepower to devastate an entire planet, your only advantage against them is to mount a much bigger gun than you can carry, big enough to disable them before they start hammering your defenses down. Since the Rebel base can't exactly dodge, it can maximize its fighting power by mounting a huge long-ranged cannon that can disable ISDs from extreme range.

The analogy would be the coast defense artillery many nations used in the 1800s and early 1900s. It was as big or bigger than anything you saw on a ship, because its only chance of victory was to knock out enemy ships without an extended artillery duel. Which it would lose, because it couldn't evade the ship's fire.


You know, I think Super Star Destroyers are just one of many examples of how the Empire did not even try to be efficient. They seemed to care a lot more about big and flashy things that would inspire fear than actually using resources to the best material advantage. That works until people manage to blow up some of the stuff and then you've lost the terror advantage for no other gain.Well, the Death Star does have an in-universe purpose. Planetary shields in that setting are strong enough that it takes a fleet of conventional ships a lot of work to knock down the shield. Which means that rebel planets can hold off an Imperial task force for a long time if they have a planetary shield. The Death Star can crack a planetary shield easily, and even destroy the planet itself, quickly.

Thus, the calculation for a planet contemplating rebellion goes from "we can hold off the Imperial battle group for three weeks once they arrive" to "we can hold off the Death Star for three seconds once it arrives." Totally changes the picture.

As for the Executor, my guess is that Lucas didn't mean for ISDs to be the biggest ships in the galaxy. They're way bigger than fighters or little Rebel blockade runners, yes. But they're not actually that big by the standards of a galaxy-spanning empire. It wouldn't be that hard for a single planet to produce all the metal and such that goes into it, and given Star Wars lifting capability, it wouldn't be hard for a single planet to assemble one in space. So I imagine ISDs as being like destroyers or cruisers in real world navies. They're big enough to act independently, but if you want a real fleet capable of handling anything a small power can throw at it, you need a lot of them working together.

In which case it makes sense to have a huge flagship like the Executor to coordinate the operations of a large fleet. The Executor probably is too big for most planets to duplicate, and its stronger defenses make it a more survivable platform in combat.


I suppose. All though I think that you are scarier if you actually competently design ships.The design flaws in Imperial ships are not actually that big by real life standards. For instance, the Death Star is a devastating weapon that could only be destroyed by the Rebels because they had complete blueprints on the design. Which allowed them to notice that the Empire had forgotten to install torpedo baffles in the smokestack*. Real world navies have made the same mistake, for the same reason. Smokestacks are small targets and it would be very hard to put a bomb down one under any normal conditions.

*So to speak. "Thermal exhaust port" is a fancy word for smokestack, in my opinion.

The Executor's problem was that destroying the command bridge would cause a temporary loss of control. In a case where it's headed straight for the Death Star II as part of a fleet battle, that's a bad thing. But, again, well within the boundaries of what real world navies did. Look at British battlecruisers if you need proof of the problem. In the grand scheme of things, their failure to put deck armor on the battlecruisers was far more serious and obvious than the Empire's mistake on the Death Star.

And yet nobody with any brains thought the Royal Navy was a big joke because their ship designs sometimes had flaws.


It's ridiculously, idiotically big for what it does, and designed with immense, stupid flaws that scream for someone to shoot torpedoes in them so the entire thing blows up?For what it does... their planet-killing superlaser is something on the order of 100 km long. Given that they wanted to make their planet-killing ship invulnerable to enemy capital ship attacks (which it was), they really did need a ship on the order of 100 km across.

As for immense flaws...

"The exhaust port is only two meters wide." The only possible attack profile that could have exploited that flaw was the one the Rebels used, which very nearly failed anyway. They only knew that it would work because they had the complete blueprints. Even then, it would probably have failed if the pilot with the torpedoes weren't a Force adept (read: plot armor a mile thick).

In any normal, foreseeable battle, that exhaust port would never have been noticed by the enemy. It took very clever espionage to find out that such a flaw existed, and a hell of a lot of luck to exploit it.


With FTL commo, you have very distributed command - in fact, a command ship may be unnecessary, depending on the speed of the FTL commo. (I'm not sure what the canon comm-speed is in SW; my impression is that it's instant from one edge of the galaxy to the other, or "at the speed of plot". Without FTL comm and just instant-within-system comm, you need a command ship in the same system - and since it'd be a prime target for enemies, you might as well have it behind the rest of your ships.)On the other hand, making the command ship very large makes it less likely to get destroyed. Star Wars hyperspace travel means that any warship can be ambushed at any time. Therefore, it's a good idea to make sure that the command center for your battlefleet is big and tough enough that the enemy can't destroy it quickly or easily. Or, alternatively, so far from the battle zone that they can't find it. Which may or may not have been an option in this case.


(Similarly, in SW they have artificial gravity but no gravitic weapons? What's up with that? Who shoots lasers at things when you can crush or shred them from the inside?)Precision limitations? Maybe they can't induce a gravity field sharp enough to tear or crush ships, except at point blank range?

Jastermereel
2008-08-21, 10:58 AM
Armies are not federal bureaucracies. (Well, actually, the Republic was neither federation nor republic; it was an alliance, a galactic UN.) With FTL commo, you have very distributed command - in fact, a command ship may be unnecessary, depending on the speed of the FTL commo. (I'm not sure what the canon comm-speed is in SW; my impression is that it's instant from one edge of the galaxy to the other, or "at the speed of plot". Without FTL comm and just instant-within-system comm, you need a command ship in the same system - and since it'd be a prime target for enemies, you might as well have it behind the rest of your ships.)

There's no reason to stuff Vader's ship with hundreds of thousands of people - over 99% of the crew would be there to run the ship. Vader or some general gives an order and a single comm operator activates the right protocol to relay it to the correct part of the fleet, where it is again relayed to fighters subordinate to a destroyer, etc. Heck, with simple AIs, you wouldn't need the operator.

I sense a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of catgirls cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

Fri
2008-08-21, 11:24 AM
And don't forget, the reason that the first death star was destroyed was Luke had the force with him. How did the empire ever thought that there's a jedi wannabe hanging with the rebels?

And Luke made a really, really lucky roll.

Isn't there an AU comic book about what happened if Luke failed that shot?

But yes, gargantuan ships like that is ridiculous if a squad of smaller ship is cheaper and can do a same if not better job..

Triaxx
2008-08-21, 11:53 AM
Plot armor? The Imperial plot armor is actually succeeded in size and stupidity by the rebel plot armor.

'I have sufficient firepower to shatter an entire planet, and you're telling me a ball of gas is going to slow it down enough to let the rebels win?'

GL: Yes?

'No.' *blasts rebel base through Yavin IV*

hamishspence
2008-08-21, 02:42 PM
Gas giant. though they probably could have taken the shot earlier, gas giant are pretty solid below main atmosphere (liquid hydrogen, solid core)

Death Star novel explained that the superlaser needs full charge to blow up a rocky planet in one shot.

While I agree that 19 km makes more sense, it seems a lot of publishers tend to get it wrong.

Point to remember: they do a lot of camera trickery in ESB. 6 ft model filmed with 11 ft model, yet thanks to camera work 11 ft model looks much bigger.

Dervag
2008-08-21, 03:51 PM
And don't forget, the reason that the first death star was destroyed was Luke had the force with him. How did the empire ever thought that there's a jedi wannabe hanging with the rebels?

And Luke made a really, really lucky roll.

Isn't there an AU comic book about what happened if Luke failed that shot?

But yes, gargantuan ships like that is ridiculous if a squad of smaller ship is cheaper and can do a same if not better job..It's about what happens if Luke almost makes the shot, temporarily disrupts the Death Star's power core, but doesn't explode it. But you're right. A lot was riding on the shot, and there was no guarantee he'd make it.

As I recall, Red Leader did make the shot on the Death Star... and his torpedoes slammed into the surface rather than going down the hatch. Since Red Leader was a much more experienced pilot than Luke, it's a fair bet that the Rebel attack on the Death Star would have failed if Luke wasn't a Force adept.

And, of course, the attack could never have been made if not for the heroic effort to recover the Death Star plans.



Plot armor? The Imperial plot armor is actually succeeded in size and stupidity by the rebel plot armor.

'I have sufficient firepower to shatter an entire planet, and you're telling me a ball of gas is going to slow it down enough to let the rebels win?'

GL: Yes?

'No.' *blasts rebel base through Yavin IV*Gas giants are not big puffy clouds. Their cores are, as hamishspense says, solid. And their atmospheres are tens of thousands of miles thick.

If you try to punch a beam of light or charged particles through the tens of thousands of miles of atmosphere, it's going to get bent and spread out and weakened. It might not hit the target moon at all. And if you only have one shot per several hours (quite possible), then you're wise to make sure you have a clear shot.

Depending on how the Death Star superlaser works (a piece of information we simply don't have) it's not reasonable to assume that they should have tried to shoot through the gas giant Yavin to hit the moon Yavin 4.

Beleriphon
2008-08-21, 05:19 PM
Depending on how the Death Star superlaser works (a piece of information we simply don't have) it's not reasonable to assume that they should have tried to shoot through the gas giant Yavin to hit the moon Yavin 4.

This again assuming that a superlaser being fired a gas giant, doesn't make the gas giant explode.

Friv
2008-08-21, 05:46 PM
This again assuming that a superlaser being fired a gas giant, doesn't make the gas giant explode.

Given the relative size of a gas giant and a small planet, this is probably not an unsafe bet. There's a good chance that the superlaser could have devastated Yavin, but not destroyed it. And then would have needed to recharge, while the Rebels ran away because the Imperials forgot to bring a fleet along with them.

Beleriphon
2008-08-21, 05:50 PM
Given the relative size of a gas giant and a small planet, this is probably not an unsafe bet. There's a good chance that the superlaser could have devastated Yavin, but not destroyed it. And then would have needed to recharge, while the Rebels ran away because the Imperials forgot to bring a fleet along with them.

I was really trying to go for the whole "We blew ourselves up from the unexplected fusion reaction we created by firing a superlaser into a massive gas giant" effect.

Khanderas
2008-08-22, 05:05 AM
What, the 60s or 70s? AIs were a staple science fiction concept by then. You'll notice all the robots have them. If there really are no AIs outside of robots in Star Wars, that isn't a matter time periods, but a matter of being space opera - one of the things that separates space opera from SF is the lack of consistent application.
My comment about when the wrote it has nothing to do with weather the idea of non-biological sentience existed (I'm pretty sure humans have had such ideas since forever, golems, spirits and so on).
The idea of AI did exist, the droids are a good pointer of that, but they are never in control. Droids are always workers or soldiers possibly because they are still seen as tools and not metallic citizens (intentional or not, I neither know or care).
While people today know computors can be able to handle such vast amounts of data now, back then it can be argued that they could get AI's up to basic human levels, not the 100 million times human processing power that would be needed. When electricity was new, it was a "truth" that in the forseeable future we didnt have to get to school, since the brain operated on electricity we could upload (I saw a picture of a generator with a CRANK who did this) information and schooling directly into our brains. That obviously didnt happen.
Back then the idea to make an AI didnt seem that far fetched, we had ourselves as a kinda blueprint, and that there was a limit to how much info a computor could handle. Both false, turns out making AI is alot harder then we think, and everything on a comp doubles in capacity every few years.




Compare to something like The Diamond Age, a book entirely built around exploring how a single advancement ("true" nanotechnology) changes everything, and the specifics how it affects things. (Similarly, in SW they have artificial gravity but no gravitic weapons? What's up with that? Who shoots lasers at things when you can crush or shred them from the inside?)They do have tractorbeams though, something that basically is a beam of gravity. Wasn't used as a weapon much though, so I think it can be assumed laserbeams do more as a weapon then gravity guns ever can. Especially if you consider that ships going into lightspeed should be pretty durable to g-forces.


Yeah, that was my point: it's space opera, it's absolutely stupid, and none of it makes sense. You're the one who seemed to be arguing, earlier, that it isn't idiotic and nonsensical. (Let's not even get into, say, how impossibly and lethally hot Coruscant would be with all those buildings on it. And the amount of food and food transports required...)
Tippy commented on how the empire didn't know jack about building ships (since they are too big to be efficient) and my point was simply it WORKS in that universe (like lightswords and the magical allpurpose "the force") and because it works, building something big and flashy as their "mothership" for the Emperor and Darth vader should not, and did not, turn the empeire to a laughing stock. I don't quite know if we are on different sides here or what.

Triaxx
2008-08-22, 05:27 AM
Ignite the gas giant? Instant sun, instant crispy rebels.

Mando Knight
2008-08-22, 08:19 AM
Ignite the gas giant? Instant sun, instant crispy rebels.

Nah, if you're igniting the entire gas giant, then you're more likely to have a massive H-bomb than a miniature sun. In which case Yavin IV might have been fried, but so would have the Death Star.

SmartAlec
2008-08-22, 08:41 AM
It's about what happens if Luke almost makes the shot, temporarily disrupts the Death Star's power core, but doesn't explode it. But you're right. A lot was riding on the shot, and there was no guarantee he'd make it.

I had the impression the Rebels thought it was a desperate last-ditch attempt, too.

"The target area is only two metres wide."
"That's impossible, even for a computer in 1977!"

hamishspence
2008-08-22, 11:43 AM
if you believe the Death Star novel, on lower powers it functions as a Very Big Laser, but on full power, the hypermatter reactor can boost it, shunting the target into hyperspace. (is somewhat sensitive, and a previous superlaser experiment obliterated the ship firing it.)

Star Munchkin would describe it as a Foof gun "foofing" the target onto another plane.

Shraik
2008-08-22, 11:49 AM
The Executor is 8 miles long approx. but how the hell did you manage to capture that? That's Vader's Personal SSD, you should be dead. Very Very Dead.

hamishspence
2008-08-22, 12:01 PM
8 mile figure is in one recent sourcebook, 19 km figure is in Saga ed. Pick whichever is most logical to you. I think they said Vader was not on the SSD.

Remember by Endor the Empire had at least 5 others (possibly including Jerec's Vengeance, Iron Fist, and the Lusankya, hidden on Coruscant.)

So they must have had the resourse to build multiple SSDs. Cost of Executor apparently, while pricey, secretly includes cost of the Lusankya as well.

Mando Knight
2008-08-22, 12:16 PM
The Executor is 8 miles long approx. but how the hell did you manage to capture that? That's Vader's Personal SSD, you should be dead. Very Very Dead.

12 miles. 19 km converted to miles at a 1.6 km per mile ratio (really rough estimates here!) gives 11 miles and 1.4 km, or about 12 miles. The 19 km figure is now the accepted length, as listed in SAGA edition and nearly every other officially sanctioned Star Wars source since 2005. The WEG 8 km figure is a gross underestimation compared to the scaling measurements taken showing the ship to be 11-12 times bigger than the 1.6 km Imperial class SDs, and the 12.8 km figure seems to have been used as a compromise between the 8 and 19 km figures.

The Executor was longer than the 17 km Eclipse SSDs, but vertically shorter and narrower. Thus, the Eclipse class remains the largest SSD used by the Empire.

hamishspence
2008-08-22, 12:21 PM
ISDs are referred to as 1 mile long, and also as 1600 m, so figures are consistant. Still, sourse did appear to be post-2006. Maybe writer hadn't been paying attention, or assumed that 11 times Star Destroyer length was referring to the Victory star destroyer, which would fit with the lower figures.

Really old ship book erronously swapped the pics of the Victory and Imperial classes (referred to as having originally been Imperator class in Rise of Darth Vader.)

Waspinator
2008-08-22, 12:38 PM
If nothing else, figuring out what the Death Star would have done to a gas giant is complicated by the fact that we're not entirely sure what it's firing at things. I mean, let's face it: Star Wars blaster and "laser" weapons are obviously not lasers as we know it. They're way too slow and way too visible from the side to be just really focused beams of light.

DMfromTheAbyss
2008-08-22, 12:45 PM
Given the in (Star Wars) universe physics are obviously different from those modern science knows (see it's a space opera comments earlier) my only problem with the super star destroyer class ships is the lack of armament. Given the huge amount of surface area you'd think it's have more than double or triple the armament of a "standard" capital ship of the period(which is what it's generally statted to have in the RPG stats).

Makes me think it's just meant to take hits and be a centerpiece. Sure it outguns most other capital ships, but considering size and cost to run it's ridiculously inefficient.

Aside from (unsuccessfully) using a SuperStar destroyer as a pimp-mobile, I also rearmed it with enough standard turbolasers, laser and ion canons to match a fleet, and added on a few fun experiments that included a battery of Particle projection canons, a rapid fire capital Scale Proton Torpedo Launcher based on the schematics and targeting hardware from a torpedo sphere, A giant row of tractor beams that could accelerate a good sized asteroid to a good ballistic speed and filling most of the unused cargo with quick release smuggler holds (one button empties them all) that were of course filled with starfighter scale homing concussion missiles rigged to activate upon "launch" with Friend or Foe preprogramming (basically rigged not to hit ships with x transponder codes). There was also a jedi techie built lightsaber chainsaw built to capital scale mounted near the nose for ramming purposes...

So fun to play with, but only if you have enough money to waste on it. By the time you can afford to do this stuff you don't need it at all, cause you've just about taken over the gallaxy anyway.

And by the book Vader is not difficult for a party of characters above 15th level. Though in my Game he was more like 35th and was the DM bogeyman till I accidentally recruited him. (but that's another story...)

OverWilliam
2008-08-22, 01:23 PM
Usually it ends up being something roughly opposite in meaning, very Redeemer/Justice/Defender instead of Executer, Despot, Vengeance.

My suggestion would be to rename it the Ressurector (opposite of Executor... someone who kills people into someone who brings them back to life)

I had a 26th level character though, and a fleet, and the SSD I took out was the much less defended Iron Fist from around Dathomir.


Nono, lemme guess... the 'Soft Touch?' :smallbiggrin:

This thread has been a really good read. It's not anything that I didn't know already, just stuff I didn't take time to think to closely about. Good stuff. :smallsmile:

DMfromTheAbyss
2008-08-22, 01:41 PM
No remember I was NOT a rebel/New Republic guy thus no naming convention...

And following the Naming convention I put out earlier the Rebels should perhaps name the Executer the "Beurocrat". The Lawful arbiter of not getting something done. (horrible)

Though with the load out I had with that thing the Soft Touch would have been a hilarious name.

My SSD was the "Sword of Mars"... which just added to it's Phallic joke status.

Though it fit with my theme. The torpedo sphere that was trashed and redone into a battlestation was the "Eye of Mars"

Hey can you guess my character's last name?? In character he was not terribly imaginative... a touch poetic but in a blunt kinda way.

Sam
2008-08-27, 10:22 PM
Well, it depends on whose stats you are going on. I prefer Darth Wongs Suspension of Disbelief version- "the crew requirements were higher, it is all just rebel propaganda". Actually makes some sense when you realize that Luke would look less like a hero and more like a murderer for killing several billion people. Of course, there are those who say the design flaw was intentional, a way to kill off Tarkin... truely byrantine plotting either way. After all, Tarkin in the origional screen play way planning to sieze power- Vader was on the station to insure he didn't do anything... rash.

As for the Executer:
http://www.theforce.net/swtc/ssd.html

I like this part:
"The final version of the Star Destroyer, built in several different sizes, was meant in filmic terms to be about six miles long.

This implies that the Executor is at least 106km long."

He goes on to point out that the other measures show it to only be 19.2 km. Still, it is your world...

The site goes into the guns and sheer firepower the ship has. It is worth noting that shields make comparisons with wet water navies erronious- the bigger the ship, the better. A larger ship has larger shield generators and can fit even bigger guns.

As for design... the ship is great. It has the dagger shape, meaning it can use all its guns similtaneously. The only problems is the blind spot and the bridge. I think the ship is supposed to have another bridge and that the one on top is not the main one. I know- the A-wing scene. I think what happens is they are using that bridge and can't transfer control in time.

It is worth noting the Exectur seems to be under performing in the Battle of Endor. Either they didn't have as much guns as they could (probably built more shielding instead) or something was wrong with the ship. Given that they could switch control instantly and were supposed to be having problems manuevering before the battle it could be that (it is in the screen play- any one got a copy?)

As for the storm troopers missing... isn't that only in the cases where the bad guys WANTED them to escape? Remember the whole herding of Luke for Cloud City? Or the beacon on the Falcon?

As for AIs... I think the EU has droid rebellions so that people are... nervous about giving power over to AIs in any fashion. The droids are essentially slaves, treated so by both the Rebellion, CIS, the Empire... everyone really.

As for "gravatonic weapons"... you do realize that gravity makes a sucky weapon? The ability to control gravity is insignificant next to the power of electromagnetism- for example, a planets worth creates a gravity field that can be beaten by... two magnets the size of a lock.

Hawriel
2008-08-28, 01:46 AM
The exicutor is huge. The Imp. star destroyer was a big ship the Imp. II was 20-30% bigger. In the second edition Imperial sorce book (great book) there is a to page profile to scale picture. the super star destroyer's (Exicutor) profile is lightly shaded in for another 5 pages.

You could not have captured the Exicutor. It would be guarded by a squadren of Imp IIs pluss frigates and varios picket ships. You would have destroyed the alliance fleat getting troops onto the Exicutor. So you got the exicutor. But you destroyed the alliance fleat doing it. End of rebelion.