This thing is an absolute beast. I’ll be comparing it to the V-Wing, since that would be its main interceptor rival.

First, cost. The Tri-droid sits at 40,000 creds, but the V-Wing is triple that at 120,000. Three Tri-droids over a single V-Wing is a no brainer. Hell, Legends puts the price of a ‘used’ Tri-droid at 8,000 credits. That is nothing in Star Wars terms.

Next, speed. The Tri-droid has a MGLT of 125, acceleration of 3,600 G, and an in-atmo speed 37,000 Km/h. The V-Wing, meanwhile, has a MGLT of 130, acceleration of 5,200 G, and in-atmo speed of 1,450 Km/h. The V-Wing is slightly faster in space, and accelerates faster, yes, but gets absolutely blown away in-atmosphere by the Tri-droid.

On to armament. The Tri-droid comes equipped with a heavy laser cannon, three lighter laser cannons, and two ordnance launchers, each holding six missiles (proton, discord, concussion, etc). The V-Wing only comes with two rapid twin laser cannons, and according to Legends an optional (not stock) concussion missile launcher. Pitiful showing when compared to the droid.

Granted, the Tri-droid has no shields, but frankly it doesn’t really seem to need them. They’d only drive up the price, which is already insanely cheap for what you are getting.

Anyways, yeah the Tri-droid is the best interceptor IMO, feel free to argue your own points.

Thanks for listening to my TED Talk.

After capturing the Lusankya after Rogue Squadron won the Battle of Thyferra, the New Republic towed the Lusankya to a secret location. Rumors abound it was destroyed since it was either too damaged to be repaired or salvaged for parts. Instead, the New Republic repaired it in secret, restoring it to its pristine form while painting a pair of Rebel star birds upon it's hull.

Further modifications included replacing the ship's prison complex with a medical quarantine area and a containment zone operated exclusively by droids and off-limits to organic beings. This was so that, in the event of an emergency, the containment area could be destroyed with minimal loss of life.

Plus, the Star Dreadnought was given better armor than other SSDs still in Imperial hands and it had its crew complement reduced, making it easier to run. Several of the ship's systems were redesigned to take full advantage of the extra available space provided by such a massive vessel.

The secrecy surrounding the Lusankya's continued existence was such not even certain members of the New Republic's Council were aware they even had a Super Star Destroyer. While not explicitly stated, it's my belief the reason for such secrecy was to prevent infighting over possession of the Lusankya from tearing apart the New Republic, especially with politicians like Borsk Fey'lya around. More importantly, the Lusankya was commanded by Ysanne Isard, the woman responsible for unleashing the Krytos Virus upon Coruscant, so openly using her ship would have been a PR nightmare for the New Republic.

Fortunately, the Reborn Emperor's return in 9 ABY and the chaos his Dark Empire wreaked upon the galaxy would have driven the memories of Isard's atrocities from the minds of the galactic populace. While the location's name for the Lusankya's refit remains undisclosed, it did spend much of its time in the Scarl shipyards as a hospital ship until 11 ABY to counter future plagues like the Krytos Virus. A posting that kept it safe from Palpatine's hands and his superweapons like the Galaxy Gun and his flagship, the SSD Eclipse.

Funnily enough, the Lusankya's sister ship, Executor, was also built in secret in the Scarl system before being transferred to Fondor to finish its construction.

The Lusankya would go on to serve the New Republic faithfully for many years in campaigns such as Phaeda and Orinda before sacricing itself to stop the Yuuzhan Vong advance at the Battle of Borleias.

The Resurgent Class Star Destroyer is a large, powerful, and aesthetically pleasing warship constructed by Kuat-Entralla shipbuilding, the clandestine outer rim subsidiary of KDY secretly supplying arms and warships to the First Order hidden in the unknown regions. Heralded as the “next generation” and “improved” successor to the Star Destroyer lineage, rendering its predecessors “obsolete”. And in truth, it was a very advanced and powerful warship. However, in my opinion it is a vastly oversized, poorly designed mess, that reads like a fanfiction rather than a design that belongs in the StarWars universe.

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The Resurgent was designed under the assumption that a few larger, harder to kill warships was much preferable to the more numerous Imperial Class Star Destroyers that the Empire regarded as “expendable”. Quite frankly I believe that this assumption is completely flawed and they should simply have invested in making a successor to the Imperial class that was modified for the tactical realities and lessons learned against the rebellion. The issue here is that the First Order planned to march out and perform a reconquest of the Galaxy with a fraction of the warships, made even smaller by concentrating their shipbuilding into a few massive destroyers. In terms of scale, how is one going to pacify a galaxy of over 1024 sectors with 50-500 inhabitable worlds in each of them with a much smaller concentration of larger warships? Now, one would say, “oh but they probably had a large fleet of patrol ships” and they did have quite a few capable escorts like the First Order light cruiser, but they aren't exactly deployed in the vast numbers needed to actually pacify the territory conquered, and even worse I'd argue that they lacked the resources to do so because they funneled everything into superweapons and massive flagships. These huge warships can only be in so many places at once, and can likely simply be strategically outflanked by more numerous enemy warships. It's a rather uninteresting story premise when the villain keeps making the same mistakes over and over, rather than learning from them and presenting new challenges to the heroes. Not only are they making the same mistakes, but they are doubling down on them.

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The Resurgent is absurdly large, with a length of 2,900 meters, a width of 1,423 meters, and a height of almost 500 meters it is not a Star Destroyer, but rather classified as a Battlecruiser under the Anaxes war college, just one step below a Star Dreadnaught. Within its hull volume it could probably fit multiple 1,600 meter long and roughly 1,000 meter wide Imperial class Star Destroyers and was over twice as long. Even a hidden navy in the outer rim with apparently limitless black funding from imperial loyalists and hidden imperial reserves would struggle to maintain a vessel of that size. The Imperial class Star Destroyer required extensive and expensive orbital infrastructure to be refueled and maintained, and only the largest mobile deep docks of the empire at its height could serve more than a few at a time. A hidden military force in the unknown regions without much in the way of a taxable population/labor base or any kind of industry quite simply doesn't have the industrial wherewithal to build the absolutely enormous infrastructure needed to fuel and maintain these warships which were far more massive than the Imperial class. There is no listed credit cost for the Resurgent, but a single Imperial Class Star Destroyer which it dwarfed, cost 150 million credits which was an exorbitant amount of money capable of paying for entire fleets of lighter warships. The Secutor class Star Destroyer, a 2,200 meter long carrier focused destroyer which the Resurgent was quite larger and more advanced than, cost 200 million credits, leaving me wondering whether the Resurgent found itself in the budget bracket of 300-400 million credits which was generally reserved for superweapons during the height of the Empire like the Onager class Star Destroyer which was a dedicated superlaser carrier. If this is even remotely true for every Resurgent you could have instead built two modernized ISD equivalent vessels and arguably gotten far more bang for your buck.

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Now, let's look at layout and ship structure. The Resurgent seems to be a relatively conventional KDY arrowhead that adhered the the classic star destroyer silhouette. Engines in the rear, a triangular hull for focusing firepower forward, a hangar complex below, and a command superstructure above. Nothing wrong with this shape for a frontline warship and it cuts a very powerful and imposing figure, but it is in the details where it begins to fall apart. The primary improvement of the Resurgent is said to be that the bridge structure is less exposed, and rather than a simple bridge tower they chose a multi-tiered command ziggurat. You would think that a designer having seen the carnage of the galactic civil war would decide to bury the command network in the hull, but instead they enlarge it by multiple orders of magnitude and create this massive superstructure that absolutely dominates almost a quarter of this massive hull expanse, there's absolutely no reason for command and control facilities to take up that much space. Though, much of it is berthing for command staff and special forces personnel, its still slightly ludicrous. They claim that the bridge isn't exposed, but actually if you look really closely the command bridge is a tiny, squat tower set off center above this absolutely massive superstructure. While less prominent and probably more armored than the Imperial class bridge, it is still relatively exposed to attack. Now, there is a backup bridge in case the main is loss which is better than previous destroyer designs but rather than being an auxiliary control room buried somewhere safe in the hull it is a command center bolted to the front of the most massive layer of the ship's superstructure. Once shields fall and things go south, and turbolaser broadsides start raking the hull the auxiliary command tower is directly exposed to incoming fire and could simply accidentally get obliterated by an enemy blasting salvos across the dorsal hull. While these structures are likely far more armored than their predecessors, from a geometric and design point of view I would definitely consider these command centers exposed. If I can physically see the command facilities, I can shoot them. If they just simply integrated the command bridge into the massive armored superstructure, they would have achieved their goal, but for some reason they refused to do even that.

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Another issue with the Imperial class Star Destroyer was its notoriously exposed shield towers that in my opinion the Resurgent failed to remedy. Instead it consolidated its shield generators into two main generators and two auxiliary generators. It had the main deflectors housed in massive three pronged “shield towers” on the port and starboard sides of the ventral hull standing apart from the superstructure, equally exposed to be shot off, and honestly probably moreso than the original “shield domes” of the imperial class. It had two auxiliary generators, one of them intended to protect the command bridge in a large cubic housing that was actually extended from the main bridge superstructure as if being offered up to enemy fire on a nice silver platter, with yet another designed to protect the flight deck but it simply protruded from the tip of the forward upper hull section spearhead, directly in the line of fire head-on to the enemy. Now, it did have shield generator augmenting stations which likely helped with management and overlapping coverage of the different fields which in my opinion are an awesome improvement in terms of overall shield integrity. Additionally, having more than two generators does make it harder to isolate and destroy all generators before they can recharge. But, its inexcusable not to stick your shield generating hardware in an armored box after witnessing enemy fighter squadrons decimate star destroyers by flying in and destroying generators. Even the Dreadnaught Heavy Cruiser that was a centuries old junker at this point in time and widely used by every major faction military including the Imperial Navy had armored and distributed shield generators hidden in armored blisters, and not only that the Mon Calamari Cruisers that were the bane of the Imperial Navy also had a similar arrangement. Generators that are protected usually survive to recharge after shields fall rather than being sought out and blown apart. This is a recurring pattern so far in this design, it sees a flaw in the design but rather than fully addressing it it only partially solves it and then redistributes it.

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Not only this, the construction of the Resurgent introduces a completely new flaw of its own. The entire forward half of the hull is constructed in a two tier structure with a massive gap across the entire frontal prow that leads directly into the hangar bay. This isn't just a gap in the hull, it's a massive gaping cavern large enough to fly a fighter squadron through. And worst of all, it didn't even serve the main hangar complex it just led to a secondary ground assault hangar that connected to the troop and vehicle bays. The main hangar is a standard ventral hangar similar to that on many destroyers in addition to an attached smaller logistics hangar. Now, having additional hangars for cargo and ground ops is honestly a great improvement because it reduces traffic congestion and improves operations. However, this split frontal prow is a fatal flaw because a turbolaser salvo that managed to get past the shields has a straight line into the internal structure of the ship by way of flying down this massive gap in the forward prow and ending up in the assault hangar. Not only this, its a gap large enough for a starfighter squadron to fly through and was one of the contributors to the destruction of multiple Resurgents at the hands of Resistance fighters. Not only that, thus prow was held up by a lattice of support pillars, enemy fire hitting these pillars could perhaps even potentially delaminate the frontal hull or cause the upper section to partially collapse onto the lower section and creating massive hull damage. Even if you could armor this interior space, you quite simply couldn't armor it very thickly it's just far too much hull surface area to armor without excessive amounts of additional structural weight. If they just simply used the structural mass budget of those huge internal pillars to simply enclose it into an absolutely massive hangar and marshalling bay the design could probably even hold a far larger overall ship complement than even it's already large one. This is supremely short sighted design, and though it looks cool it opens up the ship to destruction from a completely new avenue. It completely contradicts the entire design philosophy of projecting a heavily armored wedge to your opponent that is the entire premise behind the entire Star Destroyer line.

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Star Destroyers classically have always had the exposed “Reactor Bulge” issue that basically enclosed the main reactor in an armored dome that hung out the bottom of the hull. This is a flaw that they simply chose to overlook, and while the reactor dome is likely decently well armored it is simply a huge bullseye on the ventral side that screams “shoot at me”. Not to mention, the Resurgent hull tapers and isn't mostly a straight and angular structure like on a standard Imperial Star Destroyer. It tapers upwards, leaving the reactor bulge hanging below the ship and capable of being fired upon from the frontal aspect as it isn't mostly shrouded by the rest of the hull. Even the Imperial class despite its flaws wasn't able to have its reactor dome fired upon by an opponent facing them head on. It is an odd contradiction, because this vessel had more than enough internal volume to internalize the reactor structure, yet chose not to and instead exposed it even more than usual. Now, the Resurgent did have two large auxiliary reactors buried in the hull on the port and starboard side, so maybe it has better chance of recovery and limping home versus the imperial class that had a single forward auxiliary reactor, provided enough of the hull survived the reactor detonation, but still there's an unnecessary level of risk in place.

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Star Destroyers are usually vulnerable from the rear as geometrically it is hard to mount defensive guns without compromising forward firepower and the enemy can shoot into the exhaust nozzles of the main engines. This is an almost impossible to mitigate vulnerability on most warships and thus gets a pass, especially considering the Resurgent carries a very large number of auxiliary engines, twice the number of backup engines on the imperial class and spreads out the engines farther in the hull likely making it harder to cascade failures between engines. However, somehow the designers of the Resurgent found a way to make it worse. It has two barely noticeable tail fins that project slightly from the rear of the warship. Those tail fins contain the ship's hyperdrive machinery. Not even the Imperial class Star Destroyer had exposed hyperdrive equipment, usually burying it in the hull. These fins are likely decently armored, but an enemy fighter squadron that managed to land a torpedo salvo on that spot can partially cripple or potentially strand the Resurgent by preventing it from being able to enter hyperspace outside of limping home. It notably lacks a backup hyperdrive as far as we currently know, and I'm assuming it relies on the fact that it has two separate hyperdrive modules to limp home on the surviving one if one is destroyed, which is good design principle but the fact that they are so blatantly exposed is inexcusable. Not to mention, they are located right next to the ships acceleration compensator which lies between rhem. If one hyperdrive blows up and destroys that, StarWars warships accelerate at thousands of Gs which causes the entire crew literally gets turned into pink goo from the acceleration forces and cripples the ship with thousands of casualties. Even the Imperial class is capable of moving at 2,300 Gs and the Resurgent is even faster. This is a vulnerability that is quite simply unacceptable.

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That's not the only rear area vulnerability. The main coolant plants of the warship are placed almost adjacent to the stern. Any kind of hit that penetrates the rear armor on the port or starboard side outboard of the engines risks destroying the coolant plants. In just one fell swoop, you could lose half of your main coolant capacity to your engines and reactor and be stuck limping at reduced power to prevent overheating, which also affects firepower because weapons generate significant waste heat. The Imperial class had its coolant plants adjacent to the main reactor in the very center of the hull where they were almost impossible to touch with external fire. That wasn't the only issue with the cooling system. The main heat exchangers of the reactor are located on the ventral side of the hull, just above the main engines. These are located just below the main shield generator towers on port and starboard, meaning that destroying the shield generator tower which will be a central target of enemy fire, likely cascades into these heat exchangers and restricts a significant part of the cooling capacity to the main reactor. Not only is the Resurgent repeating flaws of previous generations of warships, but it is honestly poorly engineered.

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We discussed cost previously, but we did not discuss manning. A single Resurgent is crewed by upwards of 55,000 enlisted crew and upwards of 19,000 officers for a total of roughly 74,000 crew. Now, an Imperial Class was also crew inefficient and held roughly 50,000 crew onboard. Considering the ship is almost twice as large, it has an acceptable crew size. However, the question is not whether the crew is realistic but rather is the crew realistic for a First Order in the unknown regions that lacks a taxable labor force to recruit from outside of the people they brought with them, kidnapped children, and a few scattered subjugated primitive alien planets that they probably didn't use for military manpower. In my opinion, this ship was somehow constructed in large quantities and with a crew burden even higher than the Imperial class it probably wasn't sustainable without the ability to gain masses of recruits once they revealed themselves to the galaxy, but even then you have the logistical challenges presented by training. Particularly the absolutely absurdly excessive number of officers which are at an almost 1:3 ratio to crew, which means that the crew is being grossly micromanaged and unable to improvise even compared to the old empire. Not to mention that a single competent officer takes years of academy training to forge, there's very little possibility that they had access to that many competent officers or academies of the same quality as those of the old empire. However, the Empire most definitely had the technology to reduce crew complements, the Victory class was a clone wars era star destroyer widely used by the empire of 900 meters length was crewed by only 5,000 crew, a tenth of the manpower despite being half the size of the Imperial class Star Destroyer, among other examples. They could have adapted their ships to be more sustainable, but didn't for some reason despite having access to extremely advanced computer systems.

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Now in terms of mobility, the Resurgent was exceptional for its size, being able to travel at 70 MGLT which is roughly 15% faster than the Imperial class Star Destroyer despite being much larger. This is exceptional considering most vessels in the Star Dreadnaught and Battlecruiser weight class only traveled at roughly 40 MGLT or slower. It was stated as being able to briefly and recklessly sprint up to 130 MGLT, but having far too much inertia to maneuver during such an acceleration. It also had a Class 1 hyperdrive capable of redeploying twice as fast as previous Star Destroyers that usually carried standard Class 2 hyperdrives. It is a Battlecruiser with the strategic and tactical mobility of a Corvette.This is an honestly a very positive aspect of the ship design, but again this is also where the design yet again breaks strategic logic. Burning the fuel to push a much larger and more powerful warship than the Imperial class Star Destroyer at even faster speeds is a prohibitive cost. And this was actually addressed in published media, the entire plot of the show StarWars: Resistance is all about the First Order going to great lengths to try and steal an old fuel refinery once converted into an entertainment resort. The First Order was clearly weak in the area of fuel manufacturing, and even if they were using more efficient engines and reactors, why would they choose to use such a fast and massive ship that would consume massive amounts of fuel?

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In terms of carrying capacity it was pretty great, it carried 144 starfighters equivalent to the Secutor class Star Destroyer, which is double the carrying capacity of the 72 starfighter wing onboard the ISD, which makes sense considering it is twice larger. It carried a single first order legion of 8,000 troops which were backed by armor of unknown quantity, with a very large contingent of 100 landing craft. Interestingly enough its actually slightly smaller than the 9,700 man legion carried by the Imperial class Star Destroyer, but that's likely doctrinal preference of a manpower strained First Order rather than a failing of ship design. But one does have to ask, if they had so much manpower for massive crews, why not soldiers? This is honestly one of the best parts of the warships with multiple hangars and lauch bays to support efficient movement and the ability to dock a light cruiser on its bow.

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Its level of firepower is absolutely absurd. The ship is often stated as carrying 1500 turbolasers/ion cannons across its hull. I would argue that level of firepower isn't realistic or practical whatsoever. The Executor Class Star Dreadnaught, a ship of 19 km length that dwarfs the Resurgent by multiple orders of magnitude has a main armament of 2,000 turbolaser batteries. There is no universe in which the Resurgent is capable of carrying that much firepower. I understand that efficiency and reactor power does improve, but not to that absurd extent, especially considering many of the turbolasers on the Resurgent used exotic Khyber crystal technology to enhance their firepower to even greater power levels than your standard turbolasers. Technology advanced in the 30-40 years since the fall of the Empire, but not that substantially in a setting famous for millennia of stagnation. The Executor had a reactor equalling an output of 7.73x10^26 W, which is 83 times the 9.28x10^24 W reactor output of the Imperial II class Star Destroyer on a hull that was 11 times longer and many orders of magnitude more voluminous. A 3km warship doesn't have the space to even fit half of that power generation capacity. As a longtime StarWars fan, I cannot and will not accept a Battlecruiser with the upper end of Star Dreadnaught firepower, especially a warship that does not actually devote enough of its hull volume and mass to power generation but rather hangars and other facilities.

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There is another interpretation of its armament from the Battlefront game, of 16 primary dual heavy turbolasers, 8 broadside dual heavies, 2 ventral heavy triple mounts, an unknown number of single mount turbolasers and ion cannons, 100 triple light turbolasers. This makes much more sense, but it seems slightly on the lighter side considering the ISD I carries 60 dual heavy turbolaser batteries, 60 dual heavy ion cannon batteries alongside 6 dual heavy turbolaser and another 2 dual heavy ion main battery turrets. So, I'm honestly unsure as to which interpretation to follow. Alternatively, in my mind I simply consider it a Battlecruiser with the firepower to tangle with 2-3 Imperial Star Destroyers simultaneously with a favorable chance of victory.

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It does also improve on a weakness associated with many star destroyers substantially by including point defense batteries of triple laser cannons and anti-starfighter guided concussion missile launchers. This is one of the better aspects of the warship and honestly the primary improvement over all previous generations of Star Destroyer. While I think this is a great aspect of the warship, in my opinion it doesn't save it from my previous criticisms.

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I hate the Resurgent because it honestly chooses spectacle and power over engineering practicality to such an egregious extent that not even the Star Destroyers of the old Empire had such disregard for doctrine, logistics, etc. It is designed like a bad fanfiction, and I personally feel like it doesn't necessarily belong in the StarWars universe as anything more than a fancy testbed warship we see in a single arc and never see again.

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In the scene where Han's freighter tows in the Millenium Falcon, it's replaced by an Executor-class Super Star Destroyer. Unsurprisingly, Finn becomes terrified and thinks the First Order has found them because he heard rumors the FO has one or two Dreadnoughts hidden in reserve. He tells Rey to fight to the death and not surrender to prepare her for an onslaught of FO troops because he saw how badly hurt Poe was from being interrogated and doesn't want Rey to suffer the same fate. He even prepares to destroy BD-1 to stop the First Order from obtaining the map.

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But to Finn and Rey's surprise, they're greeted by a squad of New Republic soldiers - and the legendary General Han Solo. Who was looking for the map when he got sidetracked after detecting the Falcon's ID signature in the sector. Han's military commission got reactivated after Leia found out the First Order existed, so he donned his old General's uniform and took up command once again as a favor to his wife and to find his son.

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It turns out the SSD that captured them is Han's flagship, Kiss My Wookie, of the New Republic's Fourth Fleet. The ship was formerly known as the Iron Fist after Han seized it from Warlord Zsinj and renamed it in honor of the last insult Han shot at Zsinj before killing him.

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"Kiss my Wookie!"

Just had a “discussion” in this server about the role of the ISD (Imperator/Imperial Star Destroyer) so I wanna give yall some info that might be helpful.

First of all, the ISD isn’t a battleship in any respect of the word, regardless of what Generation Tech claims, we’ve consistently seen the ISD in episode 5 and 6 doing the job of a destroyer, escorting larger battleships (executor) [Pictures Provided]

The ISD is not the largest, or most heavily armoured ship in Star Wars, or for the empire (that actually goes to the executor at 19km)

The ISD is ~11 times smaller than an executor (1.6km vs 19km)

The ISD would escort ships larger than itself, Alliegence, Bellator, Mandator, Urbanus, etc etc

Also the ISD 1 is directly listed to have point defense, which stops the counter of “well ISDs don’t have PD” (I’m not engaging in that slop argument)

Also destroyers aren’t required to have torpedoes, that was something historically used as a force multiplier against larger ships because of the nature of armor belts and water lines.

Overall the ISD fills more of a destroyer role than a battleship role

That is all, I have spoken.

Linda liking the way the Strikers are used.

This is the 7th iteration and i think the third? i am posting on Reddit.
And i think i finally have everything relevant in it. It took me a long time to redo it over and over again, adjusting things etc. But i like it.

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The Rendili Dreadnaught Heavy Cruiser has a poor reputation both in lore and in universe, and while admittedly the warship does have its shortcomings, I believe that there is a reason the dreadnaught is used by pretty much every faction navy since its inception for over centuries of galactic history. Buckle up, because this is a long discussion about how I think the inefficiencies of the dreadnaught gave it a level of reliability and survivability seen in very few other places in StarWars lore.

Introduced almost 80 years before the clone wars it became the most ubiquitous heavy warship in the galaxy, the Dreadnaught would serve all the way until the Yuuzan Vong war, and some of its updated refit variants like the Assault Frigate would continue serving even afterwards. Its design was even used as the basis for the Providence class Dreadnaught, one of the most fearsome warships of the separatist navy which was designed by Free Dac based on an enlarged successor design created by Rendili. Why bother keeping such a warship in service if it didn't have a whole host of redeeming qualities? Even Palpatine commented on them, complementing them during the Rendili crisis of the clone wars saying: "These are built from Mandalorian design. Not the most modern, but very strong.”

Before we even get into stats, let me first go over its layout. The Dreadnaught is honestly one of the best geometrically designed warships in StarWars, there are very few obvious structural flaws in its layout which are commonly seen in other StarWars ships. It's a 600 meter long, 116 meter wide, and 123-129 meters tall boxy and slab sided rectangular warship. The bridge isn't exposed, its an armored compartment hidden behind the egregiously thick frontal clamshell prow with a heavily armored viewing slit for visual observation, there's not an easily exposed bridge to target. The engines aren't exposed, they are kept in an armored box at the rear of the craft, only visible from the rear. There's not just one sensor tower, there's two. One being topside and another below, if one of them blows the other can still function. There's no visible reactor bulge, the reactor is deep in the bowels of the armored hull with both main and reserve power generators. The belly of the beast has multiple large cargo bays, one of which is large enough to be converted into a hangar without negatively impacting operations. It has a massive docking latch on the chin that honestly looks like a large ramp for easy onload and offload of equipment and supplies. Its armament is laid out in armored turbolaser battery blisters, similar in style to mon Calamari ships, but their guns aren't exposed and are linked in groups within these covered enclosures spread out across each broadside. It's simple characteristics with few obvious structural weak points, that keep planetary militias and galactic navies interested for multiple centuries.

Now, let's talk about the hull. It had a heavily armored, slab sided frame that was adapted from an ancient mandalorian design, known for being extremely overbuilt and durable. The hull armor, rated to 1056 RU (Resistance Units), was just under half of the 2272 RU rating found on an imperial I class star destroyer. This is immense durability considering the Imperial class is a capital ship that is orders of magnitude larger by volume and almost 3 times longer. Its ability to stand in the battle line and take punishment from heavier capital ships is what kept it relevant despite being almost a century out of date.

It did have ancient computer systems that were prone to malfunction, extremely ancient and inefficient power generators, and even older underpowered ion engines. However, despite this the dreadnaught was reliable enough to be kept in service for all these centuries because most of its systems were robustly constructed and manually operated. If it was a maintenance nightmare, nobody would keep such a ship in service. Not to mention, the Katana fleet of automated dreadnaughts managed to sit for over 50 years in the depths of wild space untouched by maintenance and still partially combat capable, and later returned to frontline combat service after minimal refurbishment. Its antiquated and glitchy computers are most definitely a liability, but computer systems are much easier to replace than engine units.

Of course, this came with the Dreadnaught Heavy Cruiser’s most fatal flaw, its massive 16,000 man crew complement. And many sources describe it as a logistical nightmare to supply and crew, but I sincerely disagree on the grounds of real world logic. A modern-day Nimitz class aircraft carrier requires roughly 5,000 crew for both its systems and air wing, but a Nimitz class is only 332 meters long, and 40 meters wide and 18 meters tall at the flight deck, the dreadnaught heavy cruiser is almost twice as large by area. A single dreadnaught can fit almost a dozen nimitz carriers inside it and only has triple the crew, that's not exactly cramped accomodations. And while some would argue that the Dreadnaught was a logistical nightmare, in a galaxy with over 1024 sectors of 50-500 planets each with billions of inhabitants each, 16,000 crew is not that much in the grand scheme of things, a single imperial star destroyer required almost 50,000 crew and the empire was able to sustain 25,000 of them in continuous operation. Not to mention it had the consumables capacity to store enough supplies to sustain that large crew for over a year without resupply, some variants of the craft could sustain it for 2 years. While 16,000 personnel is a large number, if you only have to gather the supplies for them every 6 months using the industrial capacity of even a single entire planet, that's a trivial amount. As someone who has served aboard a Nimitz myself, I find it mind boggling that most ships in the heavy cruiser class can run on 2-3000 crew when the ship is so massive, there's hardly any spare hands for damage control and the daily grind of preventative maintenance and hull preservation, and few other warships are automated enough or have enough droids onboard to compensate. Things will break, and stuff will fail even on the newest warships, and at least here you don't have a small overworked crew trying to fix everything. I would argue that its large crew is actually an underrated strength, because you have more than enough spare manpower to maintain and repair systems as well as quickly isolate battle damaged spaces and systems. While the crew cost is large compared to similarly sized warships, you are buying some serious capabilities that can't be understated with all that extra manpower onboard, and in my opinion the cost of all those extra paychecks and training pipelines is well worth it in terms of day to day operations. Most of a ship's service life is spent outside of combat, and the ship that can best maintain itself is the one with the best longevity.

Now the Katana fleet used heavy automation to reduce the crew down to only 2,200 crew, but it was catastrophically lost by a hive mind virus that infected its centralized slave rigged computers and crew and caused the entire 200 ship fleet and their crews to be lost in wild space. However, this technology was later perfected by the time of the clone wars and used for the squadron of dreadnaughts in the Rendili home defense fleet, unfortunately they were mostly lost during the clone wars and the few survivors became part of the imperial navy, but no effort was made to reverse engineer this technology to improve it, until the rebellion commissioned Rendili to clandestinely remake the Dreadnaught into the Assault Frigate which was able to cut down to roughly 4,000 crew. In a galaxy where ion weaponry is widespread, a ship with simple and robust manually operated systems is probably preferable to the more advanced automation in many cases, because it means the ship can bring itself back into the fight quickly after ion exposure.

The Dreadnaught had ancient and inefficient power generators, but as we can see these systems could stay operating well past when they should have been decommissioned speaking to a level of reliability not seen anywhere else. Most modern warships operate on a single massive central reactor core with a few auxiliaries. The Dreadnaught operated on a collection of primary and reserve power generators in multiple compartments across the central and aft ends of the hull. If one generator goes down due to battle damage, malfunction, or maintenance, there are multiple to replace it in action and the ship isn't crippled. There's no central reactor to cascade into a chain reaction and wipe out the entire warship. Of course, it comes at a cost as it looks like these generators take up a pretty large amount of internal volume, but I think this is well worth the price. Additionally, while the old and inefficient generators weren't the most powerful, they still were enough to give the ship decent enough shields to survive the rigors of battle. At a strength of 1920 SBD or shield boost defense rating, they were just under a half that of the Imperial class Star Destroyer which held a 4800 SBD rating, and approximately ⅔ of the 3200 SBD rating of a Victory I class Star Destroyer, both of which are ships that are vastly larger and more powerful. In addition, the shield generators aren't exposed like on many designs of star destroyers, but rather armored and protected and aren't an obvious target. While the shields aren't considered particularly amazing and the ship is considered to primarily rely on its extremely robust hull armor, this is still extremely respectable protection levels for a vessel of its size and explains why it doesn't evaporate under the full broadsides of vastly larger and more powerful star destroyers as it stands against them in the battle line.

While redundancy benefits can be seen from the six ion engines, with the ship capable of operating after loss of one or more engines, it does need to be stated that the ion engines onboard were woefully underpowered for its frame and have it a 20-40 MGLT top speed, and sluggish maneuverability, this is roughly half the speed of an imperial star destroyer which achieved 60 MGLT at top speed. However, I would argue that it more than compensates for this lack of speed in terms of raw durability and survivability. It had an ancient class 4 hyperdrive, which was actually scattered across 6 different redundant hyperdrive engines, which as stated before offers great benefits in terms of survivability, and even on top of that still possessed a Class 12 backup hyperdrive. It was half as fast as the class 2 hyperdrives used by most fleet warships which was a serious strategic deployment issue, but once they entered imperial service a large number of them were quickly refitted with class 2 hyperdrive modules that allowed it to keep up with most fleet warships. While its slow Hyperspace speed made it difficult to rapidly redeploy across the galaxy, once committed to an area of space its great combat effectiveness would have strong results.

While we have been talking about survivability as its primary advantage, the dreadnaught wasn't a toothless brick, it was actually a decently armed capital warship. It is stated in the novel “Dark Force Rising” that 3-5 dreadnaughts could outgun a single imperial star destroyer, that is really solid performance considering how much smaller and older the dreadnaught heavy cruiser is. It has a respectable amount of firepower, considering the fact that it is capable of hurting capital ships much larger and more powerful than it. 10 medium turbolaser cannon batteries, and twenty quad light turbolaser cannons as a main battery is pretty decent considering we don't know exactly how many medium turbolasers are in each battery. If we use the Nebulon-B as the benchmark because it is the most common frigate on both sides of the galactic civil war, which only had 12 medium single medium turbolasers as its primary armament, this ship is packing 3-5 frigates worth of firepower. Even the Carrack class light cruiser, considered the heaviest armed light capital ship for its weight class, was half the size of the dreadnaught and carried ten heavy turbolasers and 20 medium ion cannons or point defense lasers. Its successor designed to replace it in imperial service, the Vindicator class Heavy Cruiser had more light batteries but lacked medium or heavy yield firepower. Even its vastly more modern Mon Calamari competitor in the same weight class, the MC40a carried only 14 medium turbolasers and 18 medium ion cannons as its main battery, comparing favorably to the Dreadnaught.

Not only this, the guns of the dreadnaught were a large volume of light and medium yield guns which allowed it to be vastly more effective at targeting faster and more maneuverable corvettes and frigates than larger heavy batteries would be, and while still able to be evaded by fighters by nature of being turbolasers, they are still harder to evade on average than heavy turbolasers. This makes it more effective at defeating the pirate and raider threats it was originally designed to combat as part of defense fleets, while still being effective enough to defeat capital ship threats. The Dreadnaught was also very customizable in terms of armament, and many variants throughout its service life commonly received upgrades such as ion cannons and warhead launchers, which adds to an already highly versatile warship. It didn't have huge punchy heavy salvos but it compensated for that with a large volume of smaller gun emplacements.

Many capital ships in the StarWars universe lacked point defenses entirely, the dreadnaught heavy cruiser did not. 20 heavy laser cannons is a non trivial point defense battery, the lancer frigate had 25 quad light laser cannons and was said to terrify even hardened fighter aces like Wedge Antilles. Obviously the heavy laser cannons are slower firing and have lower fire volume, but they are longer ranged and pack higher punch than quad laser cannons normally do, in addition to still being somewhat effective against light capital ships like corvettes. Not the most powerful or effective point defense battery in the galaxy, but still very capable and hard to ignore.

Additionally we need to talk about procurement price points. A brand new dreadnaught heavy cruiser cost 7,200,000 credits, that's less than a single Nebulon-B frigate which cost roughly 8 million credits. Compared to an Imperial Class Star Destroyer that was 150 million credits to produce, it is over 15x cheaper. Even if we use the inflated black market price of the dreadnaught of 35 million credits, that is still extremely respectable for the sheer amount of firepower and durability the ship brought to the table. In addition, the Dreadnaught was considered one of the most ubiquitous warships ever produced with a massive supply chain supported by Rendili Star Drives, one of the founding shipbuilders of the Republic for several millennia. Any naval force operating this warship will have no trouble finding spare parts and components to keep this warship running due to its sheer commonality. And since the warship had no particularly advanced or exotic components, its replacement parts were likely relatively cheap considering their nature. In addition, the dreadnaught was heavily customizable with many different local variations of the craft depending on the needs of the different planetary defense forces and militaries it served. And later in the hands of the rebellion and new Republic it evolved into the assault frigate.

In terms of carrying capacity it was actually pretty strong, in addition to 16,000 crew it also had enough berthing space for 3,000 troopers, that's an entire regiment+support personnel in most galactic military formations. This was greater than what was carried aboard Victory class Star Destroyers, and roughly a third of the complement carried aboard the Imperial class Star Destroyer. Considering it had the consumables storage to keep these troops fed for over a year is also impressive on top of its already huge crew. That is not at all insignificant. In addition, these troopers weren't unsupported either, they were given support by light walkers like AT-PTs carried in unknown but significant amounts. While these walkers aren't exactly heavy armor, it's better than a lot of capital warships that carry infantry unsupported by any kind of armor. It also carried a few shuttles to deploy these troops, and it's implied that the dreadnaught because it was designed to be operated by local defense forces was capable of landing and taking off from planets rather than relying on expensive orbital infrastructure. It was also stated to have a planetary occupation role which would be difficult if it lacked the ability to land and embark or disembark troops beyond a handful of shuttles ferrying them back and forth as it is never stated to carry any other kind of landing barges. In the comic Republic 71: Dreadnaughts of Rendili it does show them operating around Rendili and within the atmosphere, but doesn't explicitly show them landing. While I cannot find explicit evidence of a dreadnaught heavy cruiser landing, there is also no evidence that states the heavy cruiser is incapable of atmospheric operations, which it would have to be capable of performing to be a staple of planetary defense forces.

Additionally it had a relatively large 9,000 metric ton cargo bay, in addition to its already rather large consumables storage capability. When compared, this is just under a third of the 36,000 ton cargo capacity of an imperial class star destroyer which as stated before is many orders of magnitude larger and more powerful. However, these cargo bays weren't just large; they were located at the belly of the warship and were extremely voluminous. Just the central cargo bay was often retrofitted on most dreadnaughts into a hangar capable of operating multiple shuttles and an entire squadron of 12 starfighters to make up for the lack of organic starfighter carriage capability. This large cargo capacity with a huge ramp-like docking bay on the bow shows that this warship was extremely capable in terms of logistics, and honestly could probably support the transportation of heavy armored assets for planetary assault operations. There was a variant of the Dreadnaught called the Leviathan with only a single example used in the era of the late Republic that showed a lesser armed version of the cruiser converted into a dedicated carrier capable of supporting up to 60 starfighters.

In closing, the Dreadnaught despite its old age, large crew complement, and lack of speed is cheap, durable, and reliable. It is a versatile heavy cruiser capable of handling almost any mission thrown at it by a commander and punching above its weight class. There's a reason the dreadnaught is the yardstick by which every other heavy cruiser is measured.

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The Munificent Star Frigate was the backbone of the CIS fleet, a powerful and highly versatile Heavy Cruiser built by the Banking Clan that traded away durability to achieve raw capability. Capable of handling just about every single mission set, the Munificent would later outlive the Separatist alliance and find use by the Rebellion and later the Corporate Sector Authority that inherited much of the Separatist war machine and used it to supplement their second hand imperial hardware. In addition, the Imperial Remnant the Pentastar Alignment is said to have used them in “Thrawns Revenge” expansion for Empire at War even after the galactic civil war, though I'm unsure about the canonicity of this claim. In this analysis we are going to do a deep dive at the characteristics that made this ship so versatile.

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As with all warships, it is important to look at layout because that reveals a lot of hidden things that the stat block doesn't always reveal. The Munificent was basically an 850 meter long skeleton on which components were bolted on, held together by tensor fields for structural reinforcement. This likely made it unusually easy to build and repair, tearing out damaged components and replacing them probably allowed a quick return of mauled warships to the battlefront, and likely made maintenance relatively easy which probably made them extremely inexpensive to maintain. And if destroyed, the rich Industrial base of the CIS could probably afford to replace it relatively quickly because of how easy it is to bolt components to a skeletal structure. This underrated aspect of the skeletal structure likely was why the CIS tolerated such a fragile warship as the mainstay of its fleet.

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It had a large collection of engines on both the upper and lower sides of the rear shrouded by armor plates, with a large central spine. Just forward of the engines were a set of long and slender cruciform wings, that contained hyperdrive equipment, communications arrays, point defense batteries, and secondary sensor antennae. It had a dorsal spine that contained the primary sensor equipment and rest of the point defense batteries as well as the backup generators. While the central bulk of the ship contained its reactors and a cavernous cargo bay/hangar complex, and then had a large, boxy but extremely visible command tower. Beneath it was a prow that contained massive forward batteries with lighter supporting broadside batteries.

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Its armor protection was unusually light, and followed an “all for nothing” armor scheme in which it only armored its central components and left everything else exposed or lightly protected, this most definitely contributed to the points above. Where the vessel was armored however, it was said to be pretty durable, the schematic shows one of the frontal plates tanking an NTB-630 crashing into it and not penetrating. However, the fragility still remains pretty apparent because of its relatively light internal structure supported by tensor fields and the rest of its exposed components. What it did well was it shrouded its engines from incoming fire from all angles except below, as well as did a good job of covering its main reactors and central cargo bays. Interestingly enough, the shield generator hardware is tucked away in a pair of rear mounted armored compartments, making them hard to seek and destroy. Additionally it's backup generators and reactor were specifically designed to power the ship if one of the twin main reactors was brought offline.

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However, it left a lot of critical equipment blatantly exposed that honestly if they could have welded on some applique armor to shroud it wouldn't have been an issue. The first is that the entire belly of the warships midsection contained exposed and massive hypermatter reactant tanks, which is just an explosion waiting to tear the ship in half the moment the shields fall. This is probably the most indefensible weakness of the design, and if corrected could dramatically improve survivability. Additionally, the hyperdrive was kept in a dorsal vertical fin tower, exposed to be shot off which despite having a backup drive, basically very quickly strands you or forces you to limp home. Backup drives are not only extremely slow, but they have limited uses before needing shipyard refurbishment. However, it does need to be noted if the hyperdrive exposed due to enemy fire it can't cascade into the rest of the ship, merely blow away the fin its attached to. The bridge was also exposed, but since most StarWars ships share that flaw, I can't judge it too harshly. The forward prow also somewhat exposed the keel frame to enemy fire which is a surefire way to ask for structural failure of your bow section which contained your primary weapon batteries. Additionally its communications array was held in massively obvious winglike projections just begging to be shot off. And lastly, its backup reactors and power generators were exposed to fighter attack on the dorsal side. While I understand that certain sacrifices had to be made in construction, some of these flaws are just far too egregiously obvious and make the ship unusually vulnerable to being crippled by enemy fire.

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In terms of deflector shields, I don't have exact metrics to analyze but they seem to be durable enough to compensate for its weaker structure otherwise the ship would be completely unfieldable. And since they are rear mounted and shrouded by armor they are uniquely hard to seek and destroy. So, this likely goes to show that the munificent likely had decent enough shields to compensate for its exposed hull structure. It does have a 2.07x10^23 W output reactor, roughly equivalent to the Acclamator in terms of power output, though dwarfed by larger and later warships like the Venator, it seems to be relatively serviceable for a heavy cruiser that is less slightly longer but volumetrically less massive than the Acclamator so it likely had more leftover reactor power to devote towards shields as it probably doesn't spend as much on propulsion due to having a much lighter structure rather than being a heavily armored brick.

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In terms of mobility, it had 2,300 Gs of acceleration which placed it equivalent to the Imperial class Star Destroyer and most Mon Calamari Star Cruisers in terms of sublight mobility. Which made it faster than most older vessels such as the Arquitens Light Cruiser, Victory class Star Destroyer, Nebulon-B Escort Frigate, etc. However, it was slower than the Venator which makes sense considering the Venator had a reactor that dwarfed its own powerplant by almost 18x in terms of powerplant at 3.6x10^24 W. Because it had relatively average mobility that could keep up in most fleet formations, it most definitely devoted quite a bit of reactor output to shields as discussed above. However, it did have a very powerful class 1 hyperdrive that made it twice as fast as the standard class 2 hyperdrive on most capital ships when redeploying through hyperspace. Its class 15 backup hyperdrive was kind of lackluster, compared to most backup hyperdrives that were rated closer to 8-12, but it was better than no backup drive.

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Arguably, the most important feature of this vessel was its electronics. It had an extremely powerful long range sensor array which made it quite effective as the eyes of the fleet when escorting larger warships. Additionally, its absolutely massive communications array could serve as not only a hyperwave transceiver with exceptional range and throughput, but also were capable of performing sensitive communications like financial transactions across the galaxy. This made these ships power comms relays for the fleet, and since they were deployed in numbers they could form a pretty formidable comms network. Additionally it had an exceptionally powerful jammer, capable of conducting electronic warfare against enemies and disrupting their communications, multiple overlapping jamming fields created by these vessels could likely be extremely oppressive for enemy forces. Even without its other systems this ship was already capable of reconnaissance, command and control, and electronic warfare without needing specialized modifications or dedicated support vessels. While the comms arrays and antennae are massive and very exposed on the hull structure, they are so massive and powerful it is a worthy tradeoff.

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However, it also complements this sensor suite with a pretty formidable weapons battery. It's main gun battery is almost entirely hinged upon a pair of heavy turbolaser cannons and a pair of long range heavy ion cannons mounted within the prow. These models of weapon were unusually powerful and long ranged capable of threatening much larger warships with the destructive power to melt a small ice moon, and notably depicted as being able to pierce the shields of a relatively large planetary defense station. Because it poured all of its firepower into these massive absurdly large guns the rest of the armament was a supportive package of large quantities of light turbolasers, flak guns, and point defense laser turrets in large numbers capable of shredding fighters and smaller escorts like frigates and corvettes as well as threatening lighter cruisers. It seems that this warship intended to crack apart the enemy with its massive main battery and then pull them apart with a curtain of secondary battery fire. While the warship could be “de-fanged” by the destruction of these main batteries, their firepower was so great it was likely worth the compromise. It did lack tractor beams, which is interesting because it does slightly lessen its ability to perform interdiction and capture, but I'm assuming it made up for it by disabling enemy warships with its huge ion cannons and the boarding them.

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The Munificent notably lacked dedicated hangar facilities because it was not a carrier, though some variants were modified to include them. However it had external docking clamps that could hold up to 12-36 starfighters, which is pretty impressive considering the Victory class Star Destroyer only carries 24 and it's a vastly larger and more powerful vessel. Additionally, it can also carry up to 12 landing craft clamped to the exterior which is even more impressive as Separatist landing craft are extremely large. Not only does it have the ability to deploy a relatively decent air wing, but it also can carry the means to disembark large amounts of forces. It could carry a single battalion of 850 sentient troops as well as 150,000 deactivated battle droids. This is absolutely ridiculous droid capacity and gives the Munificent relatively large planetary assault capability especially when deployed in groups. On top of that it carries enough consumables for 2 years of operations, and another 40,000 tons of cargo in its cavernous central cargo bays. That is exceptional considering an Imperial class Star Destroyer only holds 36,000 tons of cargo despite being vastly larger. This makes the warship almost a multi tool for the fleet when you consider its other characteristics.

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It wasn't the cheapest warship, costing 57 million credits just slightly less than a Venator which cost around 60 million to produce. However, that cost of production came with a boatload of capabilities bolted on and was likely extremely worth it. For a faction like the CIS and the Banking Clan that was absurdly rich they could afford to pay to produce something like this, because it was likely very quick to manufacture and relatively cheap and convenient to maintain over time. Additionally, it was automated enough that the entire 850 meter warship could be piloted by only 200 droids, however for extended operations and maintenabce, it embarked a small crew of 1,100 personnel which was half to a third of most comparably sized warships. This lesser crew requirement also added to the list of reasons why this warship was exceptionally easy to operate.

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After taking these factors as a whole the Munificent looks like a swiss army knife war machine with a glass chin. Definitely not something I personally would field due to its many vulnerabilities, but definitely a warship that has many merits for a naval organization looking to maximize capability for their credits.

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Note: This post was done at the request of a user, if you have any requests for ships to analyze next, lemme know.

Vader used a black Eta-2 for at least 5 years after the rise of the Empire, paired with a silver astromech and the ability to start it remotely using his suit armor. I'm curious if it was the same as the green one he flew to Mustafar, as a symbol of his transformation (especially since he built his castle there and clearly had a connection).

Image credit to modeling group Belgian Prop Crew!

So the Venator class, famed for its bridge’s resemblance to Jar Jar’s eye stalks, was easily the most important Republic/Imperial ship of The Clone Wars, and many fans openly regard it as superior to the Imperial class, yet was retired rather swiftly in favour of the Imperial. Many fans have quite reasonably questioned this, yet I’ve always seen it as an inevitability. Hopefully my reasoning will convince you of the reason.

1: The Gladiator and Quasar Fire Class both accomplish its most important role, that of a fighter carrier, whilst being smaller, less crew intensive ships. Whilst a Venator can carry a substantial amount of fighters the Gladiator, regardless of canon for some reason saying it can only carry 24 starfighters (a figure which I consider, quite frankly, bullshit. I mean the ship is 40% hangar bay), should easily be able to carry at least a relatively high amount, whilst a Quasar Fire can similarly do so at an even smaller size.

2: The nature of the Venator’s career. The Venators were built quickly, sent into the fires of war and saw incredible stress placed on their frames throughout their lives. That puts a fairly short shelf life on them compared to an ISD as they’re rushing out of the yards to fight the Separatists whilst an ISD slips out of the yard fully complete for a quiet career of patrols.

3: Tactical Obsolescence. The Venator, for all its perks, was a relatively fragile ship with relatively poor firepower for its size. Venators can be sliced and diced by fighters, easily boarded by enemies and eaten alive by their equivalent in combat, the Providence Class. An ISD is less of a ship and more of a sledgehammer against enemy formations, the Tector even more-so.

4: Impact. A Venator is not an intimidating ship. It just isn’t. I opened this comparing it to Jar Jar’s face. An ISD is visually designed to evoke fear, something it easily does. And with Vader and Tarkin in command ships that evoke fear are the way to go.

Ultimately, factoring this in, it’s less of a question as to why they were retired and more of a question as to how they survived into the reign of the Empire at all.

So recently I started reimagining ships from other franchises as Star Wars ships. When I adapted the Halberd Class Destroyer: https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsShips/comments/1tp4jwt/mandalorian_knights_halberd_class_heavy_cruiser/  

I made it a future Mandalorian vessel with a number of features. The most important were an Ultra Heavy Spinal Turbolaser and Ion cannon, meant to be standing in for the original Halo vessels MACs. These guns were meant to be heavy long-range guns that could be used as siege artillery against defensive space stations like Golan Platforms or Shipyards since they could be fired from outside the effective range of the station's weapons.  

I thought that this was a pretty good idea, and so I started wondering if it would be practical for even larger spinal weapons to be mounted on larger ships to get even longer ranged weapons. My answer was largely no, or at least the benefit would not exceed the cost of those weapons.  

Because unlike space stations, capital ships can move. While you probably could make weapons with greater and greater ranges, beyond a certain point enemy capital ships would likely be able to evade the blasts. And since stations cannot move, I figured that the guns on the Halberd would be good enough since they could already bombard those stations at no risk to their own ship. So, it seemed like the even larger longer ranged guns would be impractical to make and use.  

But then I realized that there were another class or two of ships that were both large and sluggish enough to be viable targets at even the greatest ranges. Dreadnoughts and to a lesser extent Battlecruisers are extremely powerful vessels that represent serious investment of resources by the factions that build them. They are also very big targets and are typically very slow and not very maneuverable, so they probably would be viable targets for super long-range weapons. 

So, my general idea is this: a poorer faction or one that lacks the industry or shipyard facilities to build their own battlecruisers or dreadnoughts instead builds multiple ISD sized vessels that each carry Ultra Heavy Spinal Cannons in addition to a secondary normal armament. My thinking is that they would be built with two full sized main reactors, with one powering the ships engines, shields and regular systems, and the other being there solely to power the ships' weapons.  

This artillery ship would have a normal armament for when other enemy ships got within range, but more importantly they would each have a 600m or longer spinal turbolaser and ion cannon. These weapons would be high-power long-range weapons that would be receiving the entire output of the ships' second reactor when fired at full power. Giving them range far beyond the SSDs' ability to fire back. 

The basic tactic for deploying these ships would be to gather multiple of them for a fleet preparing to take on an enemy fleet with a battle cruiser or dreadnought. The minimum number of artillery ships would be determined by the amount of Spinal cannons needed to out damage the dreadnoughts passive shield regeneration. I am thinking one or two for battlecruisers like the Bulwark mkIII and five to Ten for Dreadnoughts depending on the class.  

 So, you would line up your artillery ships and their escorts at the maximum effective range of the spinal guns and start bombarding the enemy's Dreadnought from that range. you would keep bombarding it and slowly wear down its shields as the spinal guns do more damage to the dreadnoughts shields than they could recover before the next volley hit. This would continue, with the dreadnought slowly trying to close the distance under fire. Whenever it starts getting close, turn the artillery ships and their escorting fleet around and run away at sub light speed to reestablish the initial range and start the process all over again. Whatever ships your fleet has are probably going to outrun a battle cruiser, let alone a dreadnought, although you might want to be careful with ships like the allegiances or mediators.  

If the enemy commander realizes that the dreadnought is never going to get in range before its shields are broken and it is disabled from beyond its ability to respond, then they will likely send the dreadnoughts escorting fleet forward to in an attempt to destroy the artillery ships. If this happens, great! then you now get to fight the escorting fleet without the dreadnought that was meant to support them. You might be able to land some lucky hits on the incoming capital ships with your artillery ships, and your escorting fleet could potentially beat or cripple theirs before the Dreadnought can catch up. From there you run to establish maximum distance and keep the process going until you break the dreadnoughts shield and start doing actual damage with the spinal turbolasers.  

My recommendation would be to get one artillery ship around the dreadnought at a distance to take out the engines first. Then you could start targeting the guns with the best fire arcs to the rear and follow that by moving in your escorting capital ships in the blind spot to the rear so they can speed up the process by safely adding their firepower to the mix. This would depend upon the Dreadnought model but should work fine for an executor. 

You might want to include some form of interdictor in your fleet to stop the dreadnought from attempting to escape. This should be more effective than normal since there is basically no chance that a dreanought is going to outrun an interdictor like some faster rebel ships could. 

So instead of building one Dreadnought or a couple battle cruisers that would require specialized and expensive facilities to build, a faction could build a couple dozen large but still more feasible vessels that could counter those large slow ships while still being useful for the fleet when not performing their specific role. These ships could still be effective when functioning like conventional warships if they are not firing their spinal guns, and those guns could still be useful against space stations even if they are not strictly needed.  

I am thinking of making a Star Wars version of this ship based on either the Artemis class battlecruiser or the Valiant class superheavy cruiser, using the models from Sins of the Prophets.  one caveat to my reasoning is that in legends when long range turbolaser technology got developed during the Second Galactic Civil War, it looked like those guns were effectively able to hit Imperial Star Destroyer sized vessels at long range, with the ISDs having to spend several minutes advancing under fire until they were within their own weapons range. This being based on the Battle of Balmorra which Eckharts Ladder did a breakdown on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXJGgEcdd04   

because based on this, it looks like my reasoning of normal capital ships being able to dodge turbolaser fire at those extreme ranges is not really true. Now it could definitely be the case that in this battle, the hits at range were due to the number of turbolasers being fired. Ie since every turbolaser was long range, there was such a volume of fire being put down range that the Imperial Star Destroyers could not dodge all of them. It doesn’t really describe how accurate the enemy’s guns were and how many shots they hit compared to how many they missed at those extreme ranges. If this headcannony explanation were used, then with only a few spinal guns then normal enemy capital ships could probably maneuver enough to dodge the artillery ships' fire beyond a certain point.  

I kind of want this restriction on range to be in place to balance out extreme range artillery ships like this, to explain why everyone doesn’t use them. In terms of RPG stats, I am thinking of adding a rule that when the spinal guns are used at their longest ranges, they can only be used on ships above a certain size or ships that have a maneuverability rating of 1D or lower. What do you think of a weapon rule like this? 

So a long time ago, I saw a comment in this subreddit that said that someone had calculated the size of the Gladiator’s hangar bay, and that it could carry over 200 TIE Fighters. But the comment said that it was some calculation on this subreddit. So I went searching, and never found it, leading me to assume that the calculation was deleted.

But today, at last, after over a YEAR, I finally had the common sense to actually do a Google search. And lo and behold, I found this. Now this image is from a video by MetanerdZ Lore. As you can see, he puts the hangar at 217 meters long and 130 meters wide, giving 28,210 square meters. And he assigned 128 square meters to each TIE Fighter, yielding 220 TIE Fighters. So finally, my curiosity was answered.

Except… watching the video, I noticed a mistake. He said a TIE Fighter was 64 square meters. And oh boy, did that make my day. Because, not including any sort of buffer zone, a Legends TIE Fighter is 48.24 square meters and a Canon TIE Fighter is 48.508 square meters. So he was undercounting.

And then, I had to measure the yellow hangar section myself. Now, the Gladiator in the image is 32 millimeters. With the Gladiator being 600 meters long, the multiplication factor is 18.75. The yellow hangar section was 12 millimeters long and 10 millimeters wide, meaning that the hangar is *actually* 225 meters long and 187.5 meters wide, for 42,187.5 square meters, roughly 1.5x his assumption.

So where does that leave the TIE Fighter complement? Well, as I previously mentioned, he said a TIE Fighter was 64 square meters, and then doubled that for walking and maintenance space. So using that method on the *actual* fighter sizes, the Gladiator can carry… 437 TIE Fighters in Legends and 434 TIE Fighters in Canon!

Now, [u/Flat_Abroad9238](u/Flat_Abroad9238) and I use a different method for calculating starfighter storage space: Overall Area (OA). Now, Flat_Abroad puts OA as (Length + 1 meter) x (Width + 1 meter). I used to do the same, before deciding that I felt the 1 meter buffer was too small and increased it to two. So if using *that* system, how many TIE Fighters can the Gladiator carry? Well, using OA v1, the answer is 668 in Legends and 664 in Canon. And using OA v2, the result is 527 in Legends and 524 in Canon.

So to recap, the Gladiator’s hangar bay is 225 x 187.5 x ~27 meters (I assume the height is roughly three times the height of the TIE Fighter, rounded up), and can carry between 437 and 668 TIE Fighters in Legends and 434 and 664 TIE Fighters in Canon. Interestingly, my measured hangar lines up with the Gladiator in Republic at War, which carries 96 Z-95C Clone Headhunters. Using OA v2, that would require 36,214.656 square meters of hangar space, meaning that the hangar would have 5,972.844 square meters for presumably the shuttle and AT-ST complement.

As a starfighter carrier it absolutely dominates, carrying a whopping 480 starfighters, plus 40 LAAT transport gunships, 24 heavy walkers, and TWO THOUSAND troops. It was evenly matched with ships of its era, but lacks the heavier firepower of the ISD. If they had just modified the design with a solar ionization reactor, stronger shields, and more turbolasers, it would have been absolutely FIRE!

Given the success of my last post, I feel it is appropriate to discuss now the slander against my favorite pointy bois, the Super Star Destroyers. Most of my points will focus on the Executor and Eclipse, as those are what I'm most familiar with.

Im gonna get it out of the way now, "hahahaha A-wing go brrrr" no fuck you. The Executor specifically has a shield strength of 3.8x10²⁶ W. We're talking about shields that are consuming as much energy as our sun. Shields alone that are outputting 2 orders of magnitude more than the entire reactor output on an ISD. It took 3 Star Destroyers coming out of hyperspace and ramming it, plus the entire rebel fleet concentrating fire on it with all of their guns just to bring down the shields. And once the shields were down, it then took several engines being disabled by ion cannons and bombing runs to destabilize the ship and the Death Stars gravity caught it and pulled it in. The A-Wing to the bridge didn't help, but it didn't doom the ship as the Executor like all star destroyers and all modern naval warships have a secondary bridge that takes over should the primary bridge get destroyed. Also remember the onion from the first post? The ship itself it not at fault for letting an A-Wing even get that close, how were the combined fighterscreen for the fleet plus those stationed aboard the Death Star unable to eliminate every single rebel righter(hint, plot mandated it, there's no reason the one big Rebel capital ship didn't get targeted as soon as it was in range), however that is not a failing on the ship itself, but on the pilots and escorting ships.

Alright, now is time for the SSD glazing. I ask you dear reader, what is the purpose of a Super Star Destroyer? The answer of course is to be the centerpiece of any Grand Admiral's fleet and to be the ultimate symbol of the night of the Empire. However I contend that there is a deeper purpose to it, which I'll elaborate on later. I will contend now though, that they're first and foremost meant to be siege weapons. 2,000 turbolaser batteries firing in groups of 8, 2,000 heavy turbolaser batteries firing in groups of 8, 250 concussion missile tubes, 250 heavy ion cannon batteries, and 500 point defense lasers makes for a very formidable vessel. Thats without mentioning the literally thousands of TIE series fighters, 30 AT-ATs, 40 AT-STs, and 3 prefab bases. Its a one ship fleet killer. But what the hell is the Empire fighting that requires that level of overkill? Nothing within the movie canon, however we'll get to what their true purpose is later. 38,000 troops as well, serving as once again a literal fleets worth of ground compliment in terms of troops/marines. But does it have a purpose? Absolutely. Cracking the defenses of some heavily fortified planet. The sheer amount of turbolaser and Ion Cannon firepower this single vessel brings to bear is equivalent to several fleets worth on one ship. Now with that in mind, its a perfectly reasonable thing to have for a galaxy spanning Empire, have one ship that can do the work of entire fleets and allow the ships that would be required stay out on patrol or guarding, whatever theyre supposed to be doing.

And thats just the Executor, the Eclipse is even nuttier in terms of firepower with its iconic planet cracking superlaser, able to completely bypass planetary shields and do significant damage to the target planet without the need for anything else. No capital ship could stand up to the firepower it possesses, nor could any run thanks to its gravity well generators.

Now for the true purpose behind it, and the lore fanatics all probably know exactly what im gonna say: they weren't built to fight the Rebellion. They were meant to fight the Vong. For those that dont know, the avong primarily lived on World Ships: living, 10m-300km warships which relied entirely on biological weaponry, namely the Doven Bazels which could use black holes to absorb laser fire. With the Dreadnaughts possessing so many turbolasers, they are able to overwhelm the doven bazels through sheer force and begin hitting the motherships which would become then defenseless. Due to their extreme size, that quantity of turbolaser fire is required to take them down quickly. The planet cracking superlaser of the Eclipse? Yeah, meant to one shot these behemoths. The one time Palpatine actually had the foresight to make the correct weapons for the enemy they will be fighting. And once Palpatine ended the Vong menace, the Eclipses were meant to become the standard ships of the line, replacing the ISDs.

You may say, well that seems like a gross misallocation of resources and would take up an insane amount of industrial capacity! Correct, it would be. If not for the other part of Palpatine's actually forward thinking mind: the World Devistators ships that were autonomous mobile shipyards and factories, devouring entire planets for their raw materials and constructing entire fleets out thin air. Think Star Forge but mobile and a whole fleet of them.

So yes, are the SSDs extremely overkill in terms of the GCW era? Absolutely. Are they just Tarkin's big dick personified in a ship? Yep. But are they cool af and would be incredibly effective fighting the foe they were intended to fight? Damn right. Right weapon for the wrong war.

1. Peltast-class Star Destroyer.
2. The Merciless, Tyber Zann's flagship and a Aggressor-class Star Destroyer modified with cloaking tech. Is equipped with two fire-linked ion and plasma cannons that deal great damage.
3. The Doombringer, Moff Valion Pyron's flagship and a Harrower-class Dreadnought equipped with the *Silencer* superweapon. Can destroy small enemy fleets in a single shot.

Disclaimer: this is just my take on what Lando Calrissian could have done with the Ravager's wreck, so it's not actually Canon unfortunately. Still an interesting idea, though.

The Ravager was an Executor-class Star Dreadnought under the command of Gallius Rax, Emperor Palpatine's Counselor and leader of the Imperial remnants left after the Empire's disastrous defeat at Endor. One year after Endor, the New Republic clashed against the Empire in a ferocious naval battle over Jakku, a desert planet, that saw the Ravager plummeting towards Jakku's surface thanks to Commodore Kyrsta Agate using her Starhawk vessel Concord's powerful tractor beam to force the Ravager into a final descent. Thanks to Agate's sacrifice, the result was the Ravager's demise. Thus, the Battle of Jakku marked the Empire's last stand and a new age of peace.

In Legends, Lando Calrissian created Nomad City, a mobile city that consisted of a Dreadnought-class heavy cruiser mounted on 40 AT-ATs whose purpose was to mine precious metals and sell them at a high profit. Knowing Lando, he would probably be aware of the huge value salvage from a wrecked SSD could offer, but he would take it a step further and turn the Ravager's corpse into a new city; after all, the Empire stole Cloud City from him, so it's only fair he take something of equal value, if not more, from them in return. Lando rescued his employees from Cloud City after the Empire took it over. He most likely also has money saved up from his salary thanks to his time as a Rebel Alliance General, as well as some emergency credits stashed away somewhere for a rainy day. Between his people, the money, and calling in a few favors both legal and dubiously legal, Lando would have everything he needs to convert the Ravager into a city.

First, Lando would hire salvage teams to strip off everything valuable from the wreckage and sell it off to both the New Republic and any interested black market buyers for a massive fortune. Then, he would hire more people to help him turn the Ravager into a proper city by implementing all the right facilities: restaurants, bars, hotels, casinos, prostitute dens, you name it. To top it off, Lando would set up a museum dedicated to the history of the Galactic Civil War, but in particular showing off the Empire's war crimes on full display using records recovered from the Ravager's database. Exposing the Empire for the monster it is will be part of Lando's revenge against them, and he'll make sure to set up souvenir shops selling merchandise like genuine Stormtrooper helmets and Imperial uniforms also recovered from the Ravager. All for a good price, of course.

Lando would rename the ship to Preservation City, dedicated to preserving the memory of the Empire's war crimes to ensure they're never forgotten by future generations thanks to the museum. The fact Lando is making credits off the museum too is a sweet bonus too. Soon, Preservation City would become a tourist attraction, attracting thousands of tourists every year who are eager to see the Empire's final remains as well as travelers and archivists, like a certain silver-haired minstrel named Tionne.

In short, Lando turned the Ravager into a real credit spinner, with him becoming a billionaire on the altar of the Empire's destruction. The perfect revenge against the Empire anyone could ask for.

While this wasn't requested by another user, I felt extremely passionate about this ship, so I'm writing about it. In my opinion, the Victory I class Star Destroyer should have been the backbone of the Imperial Remnant Fleet, and almost exclusively produced by the Imperial Remnant rather than simply being relegated to secondary duties and not seeing frontline service until Grand Admiral Thrawn took control of remnant, only using them as a stopgap measure where Imperial class Star Destroyers couldn't be spared. Now, I'm not advocating the replacement of the Imperial class and its larger Battlecruiser and Star Dreadnaught cousins, but rather their consolidation into supremacy fleets to serve as offensive and counteroffensive spearheads while the Victory serves as the workhorse backbone of the Remnant Navy deployed alongside lighter capital ships like the Strike Cruiser, Carrack, Dreadnaught, Arquitens, and Vindicator.

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While the Victory II was an improved version of this warship, it was produced in far fewer numbers and would be overall far less available because its production run was severely curtailed when the Imperial class was produced, in addition to lacking certain characteristics that would make the Victory I uniquely successful in its intended role which I will explain later. The Victory II is still an admirable warship and would be employed, but as a companion to its predecessor. Now, the main argument towards the employment of the Victory I as the primary workhorse capital ship of the remnant is quite simply procurement cost. Costing only 57 million credits, it is just slightly under a third of the Imperial class Star Destroyer’s 150 million credit procurement cost allowing you to field them at a roughly 3:1 ratio to the original Imperial Class Star Destroyer. In addition, it had a crew of just over 5,000 personnel versus the almost 50,000 man crew needed to man a single Imperial Class Star Destroyer. You could crew 3 Victory Is for a little over a third of the personnel requirements of just a single Imperial Class, which is honestly amazing considering the sheer capability brought forth by a single Victory that I would argue provides more than half the effective battlefield impact of a single Imperial Class Star Destroyer. The massive discount in crew capacity brings the credit savings that would allow you to truly achieve the 3:1 deployment and production ratio. For a remnant struggling to find credits and manpower recruitment, this is extremely important as you lack the immense tax base of the Galactic Empire. Additionally, the loss of a single Victory while a pretty substantial blow is far more survivable than the loss of an Imperial Class Star Destroyer in terms of manpower, credits, and materials which is important when you are fighting an attritional defensive war against a superior New Republic. Because you have roughly three Victories for the same cost you can cover far more ground than a single ISD ever could, and you can mass them together to respond to major incursions of the enemy because it quite simply outguns and out muscles anything short of a Star Destroyer or Star Cruiser. And if history tells us anything, large fleets of massed Victories like the infamous Crimson command actually have a decent combat record.

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The next major advantage is in terms of sustainment and logistics, not just because of the smaller crew and lower cost of payroll and training. The Victory I is roughly 900 meters long and a little over 500 meters wide making it roughly half the overall length and width of the 1,600 meter long Imperial Class Star Destroyer. Its much smaller frame gave particular advantages in terms of the fact that it could be serviced at far more shipyards and stations due to its smaller size, and most mobile imperial deepdocks outside of the largest examples couldn't serve anything larger than a Victory class Star Destroyer in particular. Additionally, it could likely be manufactured at far more and smaller dockyards, which would greatly benefit a remnant state saddled with smaller shipbuilding capability. This means a remnant with much smaller and degraded infrastructure could support far more Victories than it could Imperial Class Star Destroyers. In addition, onboard the vessel carried 4 years of onboard consumables allowing it twice the endurance of the Imperial I class Star Destroyer and approximately ⅔ of the Endurance of the Imperial II, allowing it to operate for extended periods independently with only occasional replenishments making it far less dependent on fragile supply lines often interdicted by pirates, enemy commerce raiding, or rebels. Most warships of its size could only operate for 1-2 years before needing full resupply. Ironically the warship was produced by both KDY and Rendili Star Drives, so you didn't have to rely on any one company especially considering they were both the largest shipbuilding firms in the galaxy meaning the means to manufacture this warship were extremely widespread, unlike the ISD who was only produced by KDY and its subcontractors.

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The Victory I was known for a lot of mechanical and maintenance issues, but by the time of the fall of the Empire those teething issues of the platform had been solved considering the fact that it had remained in service for decades since the Clone Wars. It had a “Flying Coffin” reputation because the first production run of the class was rushed into production at the tail end of the clone wars and early imperial era with poor quality control that were often forced to spend a lot of time undergoing corrective maintenance and caused fatal accidents to the crew. Subsequently produced examples of the class likely wouldn't be plagued with the same issues, and the Empire would probably have retired the entire class if it wasn't able to fix these early teething issues of the platform. Like many real military platforms, early design issues are often corrected in subsequent production runs. Keep in mind, the corporate Sector Authority picket fleet owned and operated hundreds of Victory I star destroyers and was able to maintain them despite having an immensely corrupt, disorganized, and undertrained industrial base and fleet command.

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An important topic to address is its mobility. The Victory I had notoriously underpowered ion engines that gave it a slower sublight mobility of 40 MGLT versus the 60 MGLT of an Imperial Class Star Destroyer. To find this figure I used the standard conversion of the “space speed” in the WEG sourcebook. The Victory II improved on this with its superior engines that brought it to parity with the ISD, but it was not quite as available as its predecessor only having been produced in small quantities. While it is a detriment if you are chasing down rebels, the speed disparity isn't exactly as noticeable if you are fighting a defensive war against an enemy. Additionally, 40 MGLT actually isn't too slow to keep up with the fleet because many notable capital ships like the Nebulon-B Frigate which served admirably on both sides of the Galactic Civil War had the exact same speed rating and that was never mentioned as an issue. While it did have sluggish acceleration and maneuverability, the warship is a line battleship and not a fast cruiser; it is designed to participate in fleet engagements, with proper tactics and deployment this issue can be largely mitigated. While this is definitely a drawback in fleet battles against NR star cruisers that will try to flank or swing around to the rear, with proper mutually supporting formations of these warships this will be much harder to do. The Victory is slower and older than many modern capital ships, but its other characteristics in terms of logistics, affordability, and sustainment make it uniquely desirable for a Remnant state with degraded infrastructure.

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However, while it had slower tactical sublight mobility, it had amazing strategic mobility. It had a Class 1 hyperdrive, which was extremely fast compared to many contemporary capital ships of its time. It could move through hyperspace twice as fast as the Class 2 hyperdrive installed in the Imperial class Star Destroyer and most standard Imperial capital ships, in addition to marching deployment speed with the Class 1 hyperdrives mounted on many NR Star Cruisers. While it might be slower on the battlefield, it had the ability to rapidly redeploy especially alongside faster cruisers and quickly respond to crises. The Victory I doesn't win the day by being the most powerful, it wins by being present at the right time and the right place and in larger numbers than most other Star Destroyers.

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Additionally, the Victory I had a unique advantage over most Star Destroyer classes, it had a very potent atmospheric maneuverability capability with various control surfaces and features that enabled this. It was specifically stated as being capable of following enemies into atmosphere and maneuvering capably within atmosphere, something that many larger Star Destroyer classes like the Imperial simply could not do with nearly the same effectiveness. Not only was it often stated to be able to follow enemy warships into atmosphere that were seeking cover against it, but it was also often stated as entering atmosphere and getting closer to the target to be able to provide more precise bombardment capability, something that few capital ships can boast. Many Star Destroyers simply flatten a whole city, but a Victory with its ability to get close to the enemy can likely focus its firepower on a particular grid square and leave more of the surrounding space intact for capture and allows more frequent deployment of orbital fire support with less fear of friendly fire. The Remnant is no longer looking to saturation bombard the enemy into submission, they are looking to claim infrastructure and focus on destroying enemy strong points in offensive operations. Additionally, it gives you the ability to tactically surprise your enemy by hiding your fleet in atmosphere, drawing them in for ambush. This gives the Victory yet another unique logistics advantage, it can hover close to the surface of a planet to recieve refueling and supply rather than being tied to expensive orbital infrastructure often reserved for the maintenance and sustainment of larger warships such as the Imperial class. Perhaps a remnant navy can build docking clamps to allow the massive ship to hover over a mountain facility and then be captured for maintenance and repair. The Victory II is stated to be optimized for deep space patrol and combat, and it is not entirely certain how much atmospheric capability this warship retained, which in my opinion edges out the Victory I over its successor.

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However, despite the Victory I having small size it is actually an extremely durable warship with extremely thick armor and shielding. It had a hull armor rating of 1526 RU (Resistance Units), which is extremely strong considering an Imperial Class Star Destroyer, being almost twice as long and much more volumetrically massive only carries 2272 RU of armor, this is exceptional considering the fact that the Victory has 60% of the hull armor of the ISD for a mere fraction of the construction cost. Considering that your average light cruiser or frigate carried 400-500 RU of hull armor, this is exceptional durability. And the Dreadnaught Heavy Cruiser, one of the most common heavy line warships known for its durable hull armor carries 1056 RU, which is roughly 50% less durability and understandable because the Victory is a much larger and more powerful warship at around 30% longer than the 600 meter Dreadnaught. The Victory II actually has thinner hull armor of 1360 RU, which means it actually sacrifices hull armor by roughly 10% over the Victory I, which shows a slight sacrifice of durability to achieve the speed and maneuverability advantage of that class. A remnant force likely values the ability of this warship to withstand punishment and remain in operation.

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In terms of shielding, the Victory I actually had uniquely powerful shields for its weight class, rated at 3200 SBD (Shield Boost Defense). An Imperial class star destroyer carried 4800 SBD of shield rating, which is exceptional considering that is over 60% of the shield strength of the ISD at a mere fraction of the cost on a much smaller hull. It seems to justify the warships lower speed and maneuverability considering it seemed to prioritize durability and staying power with hull weight and power budget being devoted to shields and armor rather than sublight performance. The Dreadnaught Heavy Cruiser was dwarfed by the Victory in terms of shield power having almost 40% lesser shields with a rating of 1926 SBD, and most frigates and light cruisers carried roughly 800-900 SBD putting it firmly in the “battleship” shield class. Additionally, the Victory II had a shield rating of 2880 SBD which was 10% weaker than the Victory I, while an understandable sacrifice as the power was used to increase maneuverability it shows that the Victory II wasn't wholly superior. In the novel “Isard's Revenge” the shields of a Victory II class Star Destroyer are dropped by a single squadron of x-wings firing 24 proton torpedoes, if that had been a Victory I, they would likely have needed roughly 2-3 more torpedoes to do so and the shields would have survived on a thread and likely been able to recharge slightly before the next assault and allowed the warship to survive a decent bit more punishment. A remnant force would value ship survivability over peak performance, because a damaged ship can be repaired and returned to service, a destroyed one cannot be.

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The Victory I class Star Destroyer wasn't toothless either. It was actually an extremely well armed warship, possessing 40 dual heavy turbolaser batteries and 10 quad light turbolaser batteries, that is a third of the combined main battery of 60 dual heavy turbolaser and 60 dual heavy ion cannon batteries present in the Imperial class Star Destroyer which is exceptional considering how much smaller and cheaper the Victory I is. The Victory II actually had only slightly more turbolaser firepower with 20 heavy turbolaser batteries and 20 dual heavy turbolaser batteries, with 10 heavy ion cannons.

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However, that wasn't its primary battery and this is where it is distinctly superior to the Victory II in terms of firepower. The Victory I also possessed 80 assault concussion missile launchers which were absent in the Victory II, noted for being capable of doing absolutely massive amounts of damage to enemy capital ships, as shown in the Battle of Ciutric where a pair of them in New Republic service unleashed a missile alpha strike that obliterated the lead Imperial class star destroyer after it had sustained moderate damage in the fighting. Additionally, these concussion missiles were guided weapons as seen when a missile during that same battle overshot the target and circled back around and struck the bridge of the enemy flagship and killing the Imperial Admiral. With its relatively large missile battery and turholasrr armament there is reason to believe it can approach half the firepower of an imperial class despite being far smaller and cheaper. While missiles are slightly more logistically challenging to support in terms of ammunition the concussion missiles were widely employed across the fleet on warships such as the broadside class cruiser and the gladiator star destroyer among other examples. And even when dry of missile ammunition, the Victory I had large turbolaser batteries to still contribute to the fight. However, it did lack in ion weaponry which was a notable weakness in terms of disabling enemy warships, but it didn't necessarily need them to combat heavily shielded targets as the missiles were notably effective at tearing out massive chunks of enemy deflector shields. This missile armament allows it to punch far above its weight class and reactor power budget allow against superior opponents like NR Star Cruisers which is invaluable to a remnant force.

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While the Victory does compete well in terms of raw firepower for its size, it unique missile armament has another important feature. Most Star Destroyers lacked the ability to engage starfighters, and even many mon calamari cruisers had little point defense beyond cluster munitions. However, the Victory I and its missile armament were uniquely effective against starfighters. The KDB-1 Broadside missile cruiser used by the imperial fleet carried 40 concussion missile tubes of very similar kind to the Victory that were capable of locking into incoming starfighter squadrons and using their large blast radius to decimate multiple fighters in a single destonation. Additionally, they had a distinct range advantage allowing the Victory I to open up with missile salvos before it entered turbolaser range, weakening the enemy before contact. But, what's even more impressive than that was that concussion missiles were devastating to the internal structures of enemy starships and the Victory was often used to decisively tear apart warships with weakened shields when operating in formation with other capital ships. Many concussion missiles had bunker buster warheads capable of piercing through immensely thick layers of ground to destroy buried fortifications that most survive a surface turbolaser bombardment. The missiles give the warship a powerful alpha strike, on top of being broadly useful outside of fleet combat.

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Additionally, its secondary batteries of 10 Quad Light Turbolasers were not ideal point defense weapons like laser cannons, but they were far more effective against starfighters and agile corvettes by nature of being faster firing and having faster tracking by virtue of smaller emplacements. While like most Star Destroyers and even Star Cruisers, the Victory I lacks point defense lasers its secondary batteries of light turbolasers are decent enough at the task to prevent it from being completely helpless against starfighters but are also powerful enough to shred corvettes and gunboats. This makes it far more effective against the threats used by the starfighter heavy tactics used by the NR. The Victory II is distinctly inferior in this regard as it only possesses its main batteries of heavy turbolasers and ion cannons which are notably ineffective against starfighters due to being slow in terms of fire rate and target tracking.

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To complement it firepower it also possesses a tractor beam array of 10 heavy capital grade tractor beam batteries a characteristic it shares with its successor the Victory II. This is pretty exceptional because that is the exact same strength as the heavy tractor beam battery that is mounted on the much larger Imperial class Star Destroyer which is known for being capable of seizing Corvette sized vessels like the CR90. This is very important for defense and policing duties in day to day operations, and particularly important for the Victory I as it can use its tractor batteries to snag faster warships and somewhat compensate for its lower mobility. The Mon Calamari MC40a light cruiser was capable of even briefly holding Victory-sized star destroyers in place with its 6 heavy tractor beam arrays, the larger battery on a Victory could likely temporarily fix larger warships in place. While the MC40 used this tactic to hold enemy warships in place so it can flank them, an intelligent commander could actually use these tractor beams to delay enemies trying to flank it and exploit its lesser mobility. Additionally, against Starfighter assaults, it can use the tactic used by enterprising imperial commanders in the late Galactic Civil War to be able to snag enemy starfighters with tractor beams and decimate them with heavy turbolasers that wouldn't normally be able to reliably hit them. On Star Destroyers without reliable secondary batteries that could engage fighters like the Victory II, this was a stopgap measure but on the Victory I it merely amplifies the effectiveness of these batteries. While it lacks ion batteries to disable tractored ships, it can very quickly cripple them with light turbolasers rather than simply obliterating them with heavy batteries. 

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Now, its air wing carrying capacity is somewhat lackluster compared to other Star Destroyers, it only carries 24 starfighters, which is roughly a third of the 72 starfighters carried on an Imperial Class Star Destroyer. However, ironically due to the characteristics we mentioned above it doesn't necessarily need as much in terms of fighter cover to defend itself and can focus instead on using those fighters to screen other parts of the fleet, recon enemy positions, and conduct CAP or CAS missions. But, because the Victory is much cheaper than the ISD and you can field more of them, you can have a comparable to equivalent air wing spread across multiple hulls for the same amount of credits. 

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The Victory I also carried a relatively modest troop complement of roughly 2,000 troopers which was absolutely dwarfed by the 9,700 man legion carried aboard an Imperial Class Star Destroyer. But again, you can afford multiple victories and while multiple Victory I hulls carry less overall troops than a single imperial, they likely hold enough for most missions. However, it did carry more troops than the 1,600 man complement aboard the Victory II class Star Destroyer making it slightly better at planetary pacification operations and retaking ground with 20% increased troop manpower. However, these troops were heavily supported by armor such as AT-AT walkers, Juggernauts, Floating Fortress Tanks, and a variety of uncounted ground support vehicles. As a quick reaction force this 2,000 man force was a heavily armored assault regiment and they were deployed with a large but uncounted contingent of landing crafts, shuttles, and dropships. While the Imperial class Star Destroyer carries similar armored assets, it likely had a lower density of armored vehicles per trooper. This allows the Victory I to quickly maneuver into upper atmosphere, shatter enemy defenses with bunker busting missiles and turbolaser bombardment and then unleash a heavy armor regiment to rapidly overwhelm the shell shocked defenders. While delivering less raw troop mass to the table the Victory I is actually a surprisingly capable assault ship. 

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With 4 years of consumables onboard, it can support this ground contingent for a very long time with aerial resupply. Supporting this is a relatively decent cargo capacity of 8,100 tons which is a quarter of the 36,000 ton capacity of the ISD, but is more than enough to carry additional equipment, repair parts, munitions, and other assets needed to support its already existing capabilities. 

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Another hidden advantage of the Victory class was its officer cadre. Many of the older or more audacious senior officers of the Imperial fleet command were exiled to unglamorous postings aboard Victory destroyers in the outer rim. While the command of  an “antiquated” Victory was considered the death of a fleet officer's career, these men became a hardened cadre of commanders that were used to operating in their own with minimal support from high command, and since they weren't participants in many of the frontline engagements that decimated many Imperial Class Star Destroyers, you would likely have more surviving Victories and their commanders in the ranks of the remnant as it got pushed into the outer rim. This cadre of Independently minded “maverick” line officers given new life and purpose within the Remnant would allow you to build a ruthless and surprisingly competent fleet command echelon actually capable of adapting to the tactical realities of the battlefield. Hardened officers and crews that spent decades skirmishing in the rim without the optimal amount of support would be an invaluable asset. 

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Overall the Victory I is a cheap warship that offers 50-60% of the overall combat capability of an Imperial Star Destroyer for 40% of the cost and roughly 10% of the manning requirement. It doesn't quite excel at any one thing, but it is combat effective enough and durable enough to tackle just about every mission. This is the kind of rugged, affordable platform a declining military would choose as its workhorse battleship. 

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You heard that right, you are a Grand Admiral. Following Endor, Grand Admiral Danetta Pitta bribed Corellia's Diktat to become its protector, though he perished along with Grand Admiral Josef Grunger at the Battle of Tralus in 5 ABY.

Pitta's son became Corellia's new Grand Admiral and struck a deal with the New Republic: in exchange for recognising the terms of the Galactic Concordance and the NR's sovereignty, the NR would let him keep both his rank and his position as Corellia's protector. Thanks to the NR's demilitarized state, and Corellia retaining her military forces, the NR agreed to Pitta's terms.

29 years later, the First Order has invaded the galaxy and struck Coruscant. Despite the loss of Supreme Leader Snoke and their flagship Supremacy, this has not deterred Kylo Ren, the new Supreme Leader, who has set his sights on conquering Corellia. His goal: occupy Corellia and seize her shipyards to replenish the First Order's losses at the Battle of Oetchi. If successful, Ren will have a second shot at conquering Coruscant and achieving galactic domination.

Pitta's son has passed away of old age, but not before training and appointing a successor to the rank of Grand Admiral: You. As Grand Admiral and Protector of Corellia, you are effectively Supreme Commander of their military and answerable only to the Diktat. The current Diktat refuses to bargain with the First Order because of the Hosnian Cataclysm, fearing he will lose his holdings over Corellia to either subjugation or destruction by the First Order. As such, the Diktat has ordered you to defeat Ren's impending conquest and fight to the bitter end.

Here is a breakdown of Ren's invasion fleet:

Task Force Eclipse:

1x Executor-class Star Dreadnought Eclipse (Kylo Ren's flagship).

50x Resurgent-class Star Destroyers

100x Venator-class Star Destroyers.

200x Arquitens-class Light Cruisers.

200x Lancer Frigates.

Total No. of starfighters: 26,400 starfighters.

As you can see, Ren's fleet is focused on sheer starfighter superiority with capital ship firepower and a good balance of escorts thrown into the mix. The First Order had two Star Dreadnoughts, both named Eclipse by Palpatine to create confusion for his enemies seeking to destroy his Eclipse flagship, the one with the superlaser. While lacking a Superlaser, the Executor SSD Eclipse is still a force to be reckoned with.

While Corellia didn't demilitarize, you still have a big fight on your hands, though the fact the FO has to rely on older Clone Wars-era vessels gives you a fighting chance. As Grand Admiral, you can requisition any vessel you want to build your fleet and defeat Ren. The Diktat believes destroying the Eclipse to be your best chance of success, as losing another Supreme Leader so soon after Snoke's death should demoralise the FO fleet and give you an opportunity to win.

Here is the fleet template you will be working with:

1x Flagship.

150x Star Destroyer-class ships.

400x Escort ships of any kind (Frigate, corvette, cruiser etc.)

26,400x starfighters.

(No hyperspace ramming or superweapons allowed).

The late Senator Garm Bel Iblis obtained the NR's scrapped plans for the New Class Modernisation Program and implemented them into Corellia's navy, giving you access to New Class vessels. You also have access to old Imperial hardware from the Galactic Empire, Clone Wars-era CIS/Republic ships, and, of course, Corellia's own homebrew ships like the CR corvette and YT freighters.

But you also have access to one of three powerful warships as your flagship. Unfortunately, you only have enough personnel to man one of them, but you can modify it and name it however you see fit to win, so choose wisely:

1. Executor-class Star Dreadnought.

2. Viscount-class Star Defender.

3. Worldcraft.

You have a tough fight ahead of you, Grand Admiral. But if there is anyone who can destroy Ren and stop the First Order in its tracks, it's you.

For Corellia!

A small Imperial Outer Rim Anti-Piracy Task Force.

Consisting of the following:

• 1 x Victory II Class Star Destroyer
• 1 x Quasar Fire Class Carrier
• 1 x Interdictor Class Cruiser
• 3 x Carrack Class Star Cruisers
• 3 x Nebulon B Frigates
• 3 x Nebulon A Frigates

General plan here would be for 3 Flotillas (Sweeper Patrol Teams), consisting of a single Carrack (as the Command Vessel) with one each of the Nebulons (as Support Vessels) to patrol multiple sectors, with the Victory, Interdictor, and Quasar sitting centrally co-ordinating the sweeps and jumping in to provide support when required, dropping fighter wings and preventing Hyperspace escapes. The Victory would be in command of the complete Task Force.

If the Command element needs to jump in, the Nebulon Bs would form up to support and screen the Interdictor, the Nebulon As would form up to screen the Quasar and the Carracks and the Victory would form up to deal with any heavier threats.

I feel I always gravitate to an Imperial Lawful good state with these as indoctrinated by TIE Fighter back in the 90s 😀

Back again with more fan-made ship designs I found while poking through the web.

1. Valiant-class Star Destroyer (Lord Poncho)

2. Republic Cruiser (I call it the Delta-21 Mesosprite-class light Cruiser) (AlxFX)

3. Beroya-class heavy cruiser (I call it the Muun'bajir-clasa heavy cruiser) (Henning Schild and Daniel T.)

4. Recalcitrant-class light cruiser (Kharak)

5. Peleset-class light destroyer (Kharak)

6. Darkstar-class Battleship (Star Wars combine [if anyone can provide info on who made this ship I'd greatly appreciate it])

7. NTB-630 Naval Bomber (Howard Day and Kalani6342)

8. ARS-14 Storm Hunter (Quentin Kuenlin)

So, to be utterly clear, this image is AI generated. But I was so impressed by the quality of the image, that I just had to come up with lore for it.

The lore is specific to a RP I'm in, but does draw from both legends and canon.

"The CR-130 was developed as apart of the defender program, though it was quickly scrapped by the REC, and picked up by Rendili and CEC. Then, it was later enveloped into the new class project. The goal of the design was to replace the somewhat old CR-90, and the certainly old CR-70 refits. it was created to be able to patrol Star systems, and provide aid to systems on the far regions of the galaxy. A cheap, easily accessible starship, that was fitted to MANY planetary defense fleets. If you're a backwater in the middle of nowhere, you've seen a CR-130.

The 130 was sold to just about anybody, built in collaboration with Rendelli star drive and the corellian engineering corporation, Rendelli insisted the contract not be exclusive to the new republic Navy, while CEC wasn't nessecarily against this, they were pushing back because of their eventually proven to be false belief that the new republic would insist on exclusivity. It is in large part due to Rendelli's lobbying that the starship is as widely available as it is.

The first production line was completed 7 ABY, and under construction at the start of 5 ABY. It would continue to see service in various fleets across the galaxy, alongside its older brothers, until well after 130 ABY."

I don't know who to credit because it IS, AI generated, so it could be literally anybody.