Hello there, Smugglers, Outlaws, and Unpacified Jedi:

Me and some other forumers are trying to get together a deck plan of the Imperial Raider, however there is a bit of a problem:

The Raider was made last year by FFG to compliment their X-Wing and Armada tabletop games; and as such it is almost completely loreless.

Things we know.

We know it was designed by same person who designed the Imperial and Executor class Star Destroyers: Lira Wessex.

We know that it is 150 metres in length and has 6 double guns and 3 engines. (All of which can be seen on the model.)

We know from the cards, that it has a cargo bay, a hard point and one crewed section in the front, and a second cargo bay, most of the crewed areas, two more hard points, and the c&c in back. (It is tapered, there's less room up front.)

And we know that it is a dedicated anti-starfighter vessel, as per it's usage in the games.

Things we kind of know.

Using this mess of extrapolation: http://i.imgur.com/71tH7r6.jpg

We've estimated the height of the ship to be ~28-30 metres at the stern, and ~6-8 metres at it's thickest habitable point at the fore.

From the Cutter used here, and the Corellian Corvette, we've estimated 160 crew members and 16-ish officers as crew.

With 8X the crew of the Cutter, we can guess that this ship would require roughly 8X the facilities for the crew. (The box on the right is filled with sections of 8X rooms from the Sentinel packed together to give a rough idea of how much 8X is scale-wise.)

Things we don't know.

How many decks should it have?

What is the general layout?

What are the cutouts along the sides for? Airlocks, docking pays, robotic arms of some sort?

The usual TIE question for the panels (don't want to focus here, just how would their function differ from that of TIEs.)

~and~

What are the functions aboard a military ship? The SW Corvettes are roughly as massive as contemporary Guided Missile Destroyers, and have roughly the same function.

Former military experience would be appreciated here. Most of our military experience is second-hand, and while this is Star Wars we are designing a military ship. We would not like to misrepresent military operations, even in science fiction. (Plus it's better to get it out here, than to post the plans and hear "They would never do that onboard a real ship.")

So, anything we should be aware of; floorplans, operations, day-to-day hijinks, that you think is relevant: fire away.

That's what we have: we'll be making topics similar to this in a few threads to get the broad spectrum of opinions.

Sounds like an ambitious project. I'm not very savvy with these sorts of things, but I'm going to keep a close eye on this project.

Here's the Scale we're working with.

There appears to be both more, and less space than we anticipated.

On the one hand, over half of the ship is empty space and engine.

On the other hand, if you look below; (Water and power not withstanding.)

Those "little hatches" on the top?

Turbolifts you could drive a Chevy through.

The Armada version has a Squadron Value of 1 and an Armada TIE squadron is 3 fighters. So it may be able to carry 3-6 TIEs.

How many decks should it have?

Awesome, will be watching with interest. This is probably the only thing I can weigh in on, but I'd say you'd be looking at roughly 2m per deck, so at 6-8m high, accounting for room for armour, etc. I'd say around 3 decks at it's thickest. Possibly only 2.

How many decks should it have?

Awesome, will be watching with interest. This is probably the only thing I can weigh in on, but I'd say you'd be looking at roughly 2m per deck, so at 6-8m high, accounting for room for armour, etc. I'd say around 3 decks at it's thickest. Possibly only 2.

That calculation would be for the Bow.

Whereas, at the Stern, if it is 28-30m high, that would equate to something like 14-15 decks, at the thickest point.

That calculation would be for the Bow.

Whereas, at the Stern, if it is 28-30m high, that would equate to something like 14-15 decks, at the thickest point.

Good point - misread that as the width and height, not the height at two different parts of the ship!

You should also compare to deckplans of the CR-90 from the Darkstryder campaign box set. Given the relative sizes of the two X-wing models, it seems it would give a good approximation of the layout, decks and rooms. From memory, the CR-90 deckplans there were no more than around 6 decks. Here is a side view with the main decks labelled, but pretty sure you can find he full plans online:

http://www.spiffworld.com/starwars/farstar_deck_plans.cfm

The Armada version has a Squadron Value of 1 and an Armada TIE squadron is 3 fighters. So it may be able to carry 3-6 TIEs.

The Armada squadron has 3 minis on the base, yes, however it does not represent three fighters. Per the lead designer at GenCon 2014 when they first unveiled Armada, each squadron base represents a full squadron.

However, it is abstracted, so think of it however you want. Just know that the only word from FFG is that it represents 12 fighters.

Now I have not checked if you can put the Expanded Hangar Bay on the Raider, which allows the ship to command an additional squadron. If it can, the Raider carries 12 fighters and that is expandable to 24.

However, even the CR90 has a squadron value, so it doesn't necessarily mean the ship can literally carry the fighters. Then again, that is more likely to be the case with the Empire than Rebels.

Cool project!

A few general tips for this sort of thing:

1. Start general, then get specific. Don't figure out an exact size of a crew quarter, then extrapolate it out to determine how many people the ship can hold, rather go the other way and use crew requirements to drive the likely amount of space dedicated to the quarters.

2. Use known in-universe references. Don't rely on simple math to find numbers of decks, etc. There's a lot of power conduits, water piping, sewage lines, air ducts, gravity generators, structural support, communications lines, control systems, air exchanger units, etc. that all go into the room between the decks. It'd be more accurate to vastly underestimate the amount of decks than to say "it's 12m thick, must be 6 decks at 2m each".

3. Err on the side of over-simplicity for gaming purposes. I've seen a lot of deckplans, from the way general to the way detailed, and the general ones from WEG are among the best for gaming. The more detail, the more opportunity for objective conflict. Is it *really* that important to know if a bulkhead is in *this* location, or 6" over? Much better on a ship this size to take a look, figure that the bottom aft area will be "engines, engineering, and life support" and call it a day. If you get the whole ship worked out to those general ideas, then part it out and detail certain sections that would be game relevant.

Okay...with all of that being said, I think thisis a really cool ship, and it fills a role that we so rarely see the Empire addressing, and certainly not with one of it's arrowhead shaped capships.

Start with size and role...we've got a 150m corvette designed for anti-starfighter roles. Based on size, it's close to the CR90 going smaller, and going larger, we have a Marauder-corvette at 195m Lancer-class at just under double the length, also as a dedicated anti-starfighter role. Of these, only the Marauder has fighter capacity, holding a single fighter squadron. We also have no mention of the Raider having its own fighter complement, and in fact a mention of it functioning in tandem with TIE Advanced prototypes, suggesting that they were using the hyperdrive equipped fighters specifically because the Raider lacked a fighter bay of its own.

So no fighters, and no ground troops (considering the anti-starfighter role)...that leaves just the crew. Looking at crew complements of the ships which bookend the Raider gives us the following:

CR90: 30-165

Marauder: 129

Lancer: 810-850

Since it seems like the Marauder is it's closest equivalent, while also factoring in the generally crew-heavy designs of KDY/Wessex, I'd say your crew should sit somewhere in the 120-200 range. Personally, I'd probably say 150-175, leaning heavily toward 150.

Also based on KDY/Wessex, I'd say your command section and primary shields will dominate the upper rear of the craft, and given the overall flattened design, I'd even consider it very possible that the ship uses a sort of "split-level" design, with a small bridge for maybe 4-6 crew and the captain, with stairs and a lift down into the main frame of the ship and a larger "operations level", also in the upper rear. This level would have lifts/stairs/ladders in the rear directly to engineering, in gaps between the engines, and in the fore of the ops deck, out beyond the front of the engine compartment, lifts down to the other decks. The engines and reactor would likely occupy a full 1/4 to 1/3 of the length of the ship from the rear, and extend vertically from the bottom of the hull to just under the operations deck. All levels below this would simply end at the point where the engines began, possibly extending around the sides of the engines slightly for a bit of room to port and starboard where you see the aft-most double-gun emplacement.

Next down from there, I'd have the gunnery deck, a mostly dedicated level for the weapons themselves, power management, repair areas, etc. This is also probably where the ship's complement of security forces would reside, as well as the brig, armory, machine shops, droid facilities, etc. I'm thinking wide corridors, and at least a pair of heavy duty lifts from here the whole way to the bottom deck.

A level below this would be the crew deck, roughly on the same footprint as the gunnery deck. It's purpose would be the crew quarters, mess facilities, storage and crew ready rooms (laundry facilities, food storage, supplies storage, etc), passenger quarters/staterooms, and a secure hold. In the extreme fore of this deck, I'd include the sensor suite and control room for it. This level would also feature exercise rooms, lounges, etc. and basically be the housing for the crew. In the aft of this section, near the passenger lodging is where I'd also include "Officer's Country" a corridor or two of larger, more spacious and well-equipped rooms in an area generally off limits to enlisted crew. This is also the deck where you'd see airlocks and a few banks of escape pods, roughly amidship, located near the outer edges (where they'd clear the hull from the deck below).

Below this, finally, I'd have the Support Deck. This would be a fairly open, unremarkable deck. In the fore, you'd have the large main cargo hold. The middle of the deck would have fuel, water storage, as well as banks of huge capacitor cells directly linked to the engines and reactor...and your engineering section in a rather cramped, usually uncomfortably warm, stuffy section sandwiched fore of the engines but aft of the main reactor, with service access catwalks extending aft between the engines themselves. These catwalks would also provide access to those access lifts/stairs that connect up to the command deck.

Two meters is a really low ceiling, even on a military vessel. I'm over 2m tall, and I can walk fully upright through battleship corridors during tours and the like. I just have trouble with the stairs in those ships.

I think your deck ceilings would be more like 3m, but the bridge would likely be higher.

So the cut scenes from Battlefront II are creating some problems for the scale of this ship. The bridge is huge, and apparently there is a hanger that fits standard TIE fighters that opens at the center on the starboard side. The landing gear also appears to take up a lot of space.

On 10/27/2015 at 10:14 AM, rowdyoctopus said:

This is not accurate.

The Armada squadron has 3 minis on the base, yes, however it does not represent three fighters. Per the lead designer at GenCon 2014 when they first unveiled Armada, each squadron base represents a full squadron.

However, it is abstracted, so think of it however you want. Just know that the only word from FFG is that it represents 12 fighters.

Now I have not checked if you can put the Expanded Hangar Bay on the Raider, which allows the ship to command an additional squadron. If it can, the Raider carries 12 fighters and that is expandable to 24.

However, even the CR90 has a squadron value, so it doesn't necessarily mean the ship can literally carry the fighters. Then again, that is more likely to be the case with the Empire than Rebels.

In Armada "squadrons" can really be anything from an Element to a Squadron. It's abstract. Furthermore, Squadron Commands which directly correspond to a ship's squadron value are a combination of hangar capacity and communications with squadrons. So based on Armada, all we know is that the ship can communicate with fighters.

On 10/25/2015 at 10:17 AM, MrDodger said:

The Armada version has a Squadron Value of 1 and an Armada TIE squadron is 3 fighters. So it may be able to carry 3-6 TIEs.

No a squadron is 12. The mini just shows 3 ships.

On 10/26/2015 at 5:09 PM, gribble said:

Awesome, will be watching with interest. This is probably the only thing I can weigh in on, but I'd say you'd be looking at roughly 2m per deck, so at 6-8m high, accounting for room for armour, etc. I'd say around 3 decks at it's thickest. Possibly only 2.

A deck is going to be more like 10 feet. So more like 3 meters.

As t his is a military spaceship, at least the outer hull will probably have fairly thick armor plating, and inner walls and floors need to be solidly built as well as they need to be sealable, preferably armored, bulkheads that most likely will act as the inner bracing of the hull. A good reason to avoid large open rooms is that they would be a structural weakness. Pillars/pylons would alleviate that, but do nothing against decompression and loss of atmosphere. Wall/deck thickness probably needs to be at least considered, as it can add upp to eat a lot of space.

5 hours ago, Daeglan said:

No a squadron is 12. The mini just shows 3 ships.

No, a Squadron in Armada is not strictly 12 fighters. This comes up every couple of months on their forum. If we are to believe that a Squadron of Tie Bombers is 12 fighters, then the Empire would never invest in them. They would be complete junk! It is more likely that a Tie Bomber Squadron in Armada is 2-3 fighters like we see in the movies.

This is as far as I got ... geeze. Two. Three years ago?

Oi vey. Anyhoo.



I expanded outwards from the center, placing the essentials around the infrastructure of the ship. The entire ship is built around a large central transit corridor with several airlocks and elevators to the outside as shown on the model. The corridor is equipped with overhead magnetic cargo rails and is large enough for various skids and trams to make the transportation of anything from ammunition to personnel about the ship quick and simple.

Crew quarters tend to be in the outermost hull, and I use them like ablative armor since with no rotations they'll be empty in battle anyway, and with rotations the crew sleeping in them will be useless anyway and might as well be the first casualties over the men actually working.



Also added various consoles and medical amenities for the crew that do survive, and made them accessible through the main corridor. If the corridor is still pressurized (and there are various ways of preventing depressurization) then opening the doors creates a medical center bisected by the transit corridor, and equidistant from all manned stations for optimum accessibility.



The ship is highly automated and much of the engine and panel array is inaccessible from the inside: thus it is equipped with 4 bays of astromech droids for various tasks from exterior and interior maintenance, to ordnance loading and the like. Since this is pre-Rouge One there is no consideration of humanoid imperial droids ala K-2SO, but I could see numerous applications fro them. (Minus security. The Empire only trusts humans for such things.)

The exterior presents some interior challenges due to the size and placement of the BIG thruster, but I assume all of these challenges can be overcome with clever maneuvering of the crewable areas.



Now this is pre-BF2, (and I hate EA with an undying passion) so if you are so inclined, remember that The Corvus is a refit, and while EA might have adopted it, FFG made it happen. In this particular instance, I believe it is reasonable to say that tabletop stats outweigh (and outbalance) what you would find in the greater Disneyverse.

The plan is unfinished, but I claim no copyright, trademark, etc.

I made this whole thing using MS paint, the scale is in exact pixels and meters, the rooms are copied, pasted, rotated, and each item was made with little more than a glance at existing pixel-art on the internet. If you would like to add to the plan, re-arrange it, make a Corvus refit, add new art, stats, etc: please do!

And when you're done, post it here for the rest of us to see!

PS. Being credited would be nice, but it is not necessary . For this art. Specifically this art.

For best viewing click "Full Screen) at the bottom of the picture or better yet download it and zoom with photo-viewer.