Imperial Escort Carrier
Reference Images:
The size of this vessel is described to be the same length as the Corellian Corvettes, so that puts us at 150m, and a similar scale model to work with for Imperials.
Armaments :
Bow: Autoblaster type configuration. They seem to be single barreled and thin, hinting at more of a blaster than a laser cannon, hence why I call it an autoblaster.
Ventral: On each end of the "Hanger" there is a double barreled laser cannon. It is described as being point defense in protecting the flanks and the belly of the ship from rebel scum. I think it would work very similar to the quad lasers of the corvette, but maybe without the spend energy to attack again.
Stern: Like the corvette, there are no gun arcs to the stern of the ship.
Dorsal: Two massive hardpoints, mounting capital ship weaponry. In the games/Fondor version, they consisted of Single Barreled Heavy Tubolasers, and would mess up anything they could hit.
Gameplay wise, I think having these turrets be represented as hardpoints for customization would be a good thing.
The Hanger Area: The hanger is located mid-ship, and seems quite small. In the game these ships held a specific TIE variant, but if this ship was used in wider service, what is to say that it didn't hold basic TIEs as well. For storage, you would be unable to make room moving further aft, for that is where the reactor and engines are housed, so the only logical choices on where they held their fighters would be above or fore of the hanger bay. I would like to say that they held the TIEs above the hanger bay on racks, with enough room for 12, in a 2 wide, 3 long, and 2 high configuration. TIE bombers would take up the space of 2 TIEs, due to the increased size and mass. The hanger does not look large enough to hold any large ships like a shuttle, which is unfortunate.
Gameplay wise, the hanger would be able to store 12 TIEs or 6 TIE bombers, or a combination of the two/any other variants, and would be able to launch 3 a turn. Executing a Green maneuver into the rear half of the ship and spending a focus action would allow you to land and be serviced in the bay.
Bay servicing should be limited to restoring shields or ordnance, at a rate of 1 per turn. Certain moduals or crew could also allow the expenditure of energy to remove specific face up damage cards.
The bay would be able to service, say, 3 ships a turn, and you would not be able to launch fighters while the bay is occupied.
After being serviced, the ships would either be stowed into the racks, or launched back into battle the following turns. This would most likely be an action preformed by the aft ship section card.
Turreted Hardpoints: The default weapons would be a Single Barreled Heavy Turbolaser, and that would have a minimum range of 5. Reason is, Heavy Laser Cannon has minimum range of 1, Turbo Laser has 3, so Heavy Turbolaser continues that trend with a minimum range of 5. There is no maximum range planned yet. It would hit in the 7-9 dice range, and have its only practical application being the destruction of Huge Ships or Space Station like targets. It would be very energy intensive, and realistically being able to fire every other turn, at best. The turret offers 270 degrees of firing, and other choices as well.
Tractor beams would be utility weapons. They would assist friendly fighters on making it to the hanger by allowing any white maneuver instead of a green one, or be used more offensively.
These Ideas are still just ideas, if you have an idea, please post about it in a constructive way.
Offensively, the tractor beam would be able to target any ship 1 size smaller than it in range 5 (basically means huge ships wont be able to tractor other huge ships) and spend 1 energy a turn to force it to move speed 1 per turn backwards towards the ship during the movement phase, per energy spent. (2 energy means a 2 speed maneuver, 5 means a 5 speed maneuver, etc etc.)
If we want to get complicated, we can have ships take engine criticals, reduced evasion, taking stress tokens, trying to break free (at the risk of criticals) and forcing imperial players to spend more energy to keep them in the beam or letting them go, etc etc...
Quad Turbolaser Turrets. Range 3-5, and can spend energy to reroll missed attacks. Combine Dual Turbolaser Cannon and Quad Laser Cannons on the Corvette basically.
Concussion Missile Launcher: Can spend any amount of target locks to launch concussion missiles at targets. Need more ideas to make it unique.
Sensor Array: Very effective squad support equipment. Not sure how to go about the support role though.
Hull and Shields: It would have 2 ship cards, fore and aft, with around 10 hull per card, and 5 shields per card.
The Corellian Corvette is supposed to be fast and have good energy generation, so this ship would have to be slower and a weaker reactor. My Huge ship arrives in the mail later today, so maybe some playtesting of different speeds might conjure up more ideas.
Overall: The Imperial Escort Carrier's strength is in its primary weapons and its fighter escort. The ship itself is built for ship to ship combat, with only a few secondary guns to repel fighters with. It is slower than the corellian ships, but has tougher armor and shields.
Vigil-Class Corvette
The length of the craft is 255 meters, and being nearly as wide. This would be probably the absolute largest vessel FFG could make. I would also guess this thing, if made would be priced around 250$, due to the volume that it has. While the Corellian Corvette is long, it is also narrow and thin, compared to this beast.
The ship would probably take up 4 ship cards as well.
-The aft of the ship, with the engines, bridge, sensors, and the reactor.
-Then 3 Fore cards:
-One for the Center line, containing 2 hardpoints (a double turbolaser turret and quad laser cannon shown), and what looks to be a ventral hanger.
-Port Side card would have 3 hardpoints (a double turbolaser turret and two quad laser cannons shown).
-Starboard Side card would have 3 hardpoints (a double turbolaser turret and two quad laser cannons shown).
I dont know that much more about the Vigil class, if someone would like to fill us in that would be great.
Other Huge Ships:
-Tartan Class Patrol Cruiser/Corvette: Wookiepedia says this ships is 255 meters long, but it was designed to be the imperial counterpart to the Corellian Corvette according to EaW, and was scaled as such. Honestly, it would look better at 150 meters. It would have more hardpoints than the corellian counterpart, but they would only be quad laser cannons, as it lacked turbolasers. There is no need to make this 255 meters, I'm sure no one would be terribly upset to have this re-scaled some, and the artwork touched up a tad to modernize the design.
-Lancer-Class Frigate: Both the Lancer and the Tartan had the same mission profile, killing starfighters. However, the Tartan was gifted with manuverability and speed, while the lancer was gifted with endurance and... a phallic design... oh... oh no. The Lancer carried the same loadout, but was designed to just keep pace with the waddling capital ships, and occasionally shrug off the odd turbolaser here and there. It was much tougher than the Tartan, and.. more phallic shaped, and I kinda hope they go after the more appealing designs than this one. Yeah... One bonus is that it is described as having a side hanger bay with the room to dock 2 shuttles, so that is a plus.
-IPV-1 System Patrol Craft: Um, this is a 120m long vessel, that had all artists and designers fired before drawing it. It is ugly, and has no distinguishable features. I for one, hope they skip over this... thing. Oh, and it had 3 concussion missile launchers, a crew of 12, and no hyperdrive. Yup.
-Light Corvette, or better known as Imperial Customs Corvette: Light warship used for patrol and inspection duty. I can imagine this would be what the smugglers would try to outrun. It has the classic arrowhead shape, but with the middle portion gone, and uses that to "dock" freighters to it to board them and inspect them. The main weapon is the tractor beam. Less legal organizations also used these crafts to great effect, boarding and taking control of vessels without damage that would lower the selling price of their targets.
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