F&D Core book, pg 252. Obviously related to a Star Destroyer, takes up most of the page, looks pretty rad. I can't figure out what it is. Anyone know? Is it statted out in a book?
Edited by The Grand FalloonWhat is that ship?
Gladiator-class Star Destroyer.
Smaller and faster than a Victory, with lots of ordnance launchers.
You'll have to make up the stats. For comparison:
They are 500 meters long.
Victory-class is 900 meters.
CR-90 Correlian Corvettes are 150.
Edited by Vulf
They are in Armada too 
I assume they are in scale to the victory class
Sweet. Pretty sure I can bash together a reasonable set of stats for that guy. I'll be sure to post them up when I do. Thanks, guys!
Stats for one of them would be welcomed
I'm hoping the No Disintegrations book has stats for the Gladiator, Raider, YV-666, IG-2000, G1-A and H6 Havoc. Really looking forward to stats for those.
This is a great pic of a Demolisher:
...except for one thing. The artist was apparently working from an Armada miniature, because he depicted it with the hole and slot for the flight stand in the bottom of the hull. 
The dome on the bottom should be just that, a dome. Due to the similar location, it's probably the reactor dome like on a Victory-class.
Well, here's what I've got so far. I tried to follow the Wookiepedia article roughly, though I divided up the turbolaser batteries a bit, since it had like 5 batteries of 5 lasers, which I felt was oddly asymetrical, didn't match the art, and would leave you with Linked 4, which is kinda pointless. Looking at it though, It's has only slightly more firepower than the much smaller Vigil corvette, and much less firepower than the slightly larger Interdictor cruiser. Whaddya think, does it need a bit more kablooey?
https://goo.gl/photos/PgYJLHU38BvBK73p8
Sure hope that works.
You should just ignore the Vigil-class. There's some problems with the design! 
But I like the Vigil. What's wrong with it?
Well, here's what I've got so far. I tried to follow the Wookiepedia article roughly, though I divided up the turbolaser batteries a bit, since it had like 5 batteries of 5 lasers, which I felt was oddly asymetrical, didn't match the art, and would leave you with Linked 4, which is kinda pointless. Looking at it though, It's has only slightly more firepower than the much smaller Vigil corvette, and much less firepower than the slightly larger Interdictor cruiser. Whaddya think, does it need a bit more kablooey?
https://goo.gl/photos/PgYJLHU38BvBK73p8
Sure hope that works.
It’s hard to say how FFG would stat the ship, but the Wookieepedia entry is at http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Gladiator-class_Star_Destroyer
You should just ignore the Vigil-class. There's some problems with the design!
I rather ignore the raider instead, because the Vigil-class is awesome. I can not wait to steal one. ;-)
Though I am not sure what the Vigil has to do with the Gladiator-class. They are not even the same ship category.
It’s hard to say how FFG would stat the ship, but the Wookieepedia entry is at http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Gladiator-class_Star_Destroyer
Yeah, I've seen that version, and it seems... odd. As I understand it, that setup would have five turbolaser batteries, each with five barrels of turbolaser pain. That would give it Linked 4, which in my opinion, is where Linked starts to get silly. A success with 8 Advantage isn't out of the question, but I sure ain't gonna bank on rolling it regularly.
However, if we just look at the dang ol' picture, everything made later than the Droids cartoon has six big laser batteries. Three batteries to a side, and it looks like two barrels per battery. Pretty easy just to say, "Oh, it looks like two barrels, but they're actually stacked atop each other super close, so what looks like two is actually four." Hm, six batteries, four lasers each? That makes 24 guns vs Wookiepedia's 25. It matches the art, and with the rules being what they are, makes it much more effective. Six attacks with Linked 3 seems scarier to me than five attacks with Linked 4.
I rather ignore the raider instead, because the Vigil-class is awesome. I can not wait to steal one. ;-)
Though I am not sure what the Vigil has to do with the Gladiator-class. They are not even the same ship category.
Despite being a Corvette, the Vigil is pretty obviously a little brother to the Star destroyers. The Corvette is also about half the size of the Gladiator, which is about half the size of the Victory. I think my concerns were moot, though, after really comparing the firepower of the three ships.
However, if we just look at the dang ol' picture, everything made later than the Droids cartoon has six big laser batteries. Three batteries to a side, and it looks like two barrels per battery. Pretty easy just to say, "Oh, it looks like two barrels, but they're actually stacked atop each other super close, so what looks like two is actually four." Hm, six batteries, four lasers each? That makes 24 guns vs Wookiepedia's 25. It matches the art, and with the rules being what they are, makes it much more effective. Six attacks with Linked 3 seems scarier to me than five attacks with Linked 4.
Wait. You mean neither the Gladiator nor the Imperial-class Star Destroyers have turbolaser batteries on the Ventral side of the ship?!?
Who the hell designed these models and what the hell were they thinking?!?
Near as I can tell, ventral cannons aren't much of a thing. And yeah, I think that's nuts. Now, with the super massive star destroyers, I can sorta get it. Despite the cool photo-ops, I don't see those things entering atmo very often. It's gotta be expensive as all get out, and makes them more vulnerable. So they'll just sit in orbit, point their dorsal side toward the planet and bombard away.
The Vigil, on the other hand, could be used as a heavy landing craft. Seems to me you would want to be able to scorch da urf as you came in.
Edited by The Grand FalloonWith artificial gravity it should be not that problematic to come in with a alignment that allows for "scorch da urf", but much more problematic is that the belly is super vulnerable against fighter attacks. Without escort fighters those things are very vulnerable against smaller ships. The gladiator has its own fighers to deal with that, but the Vigil is supposed to operate on her own yet has no hangar, reducing it mostly to be part of smaller local forces. The anti-pirate duties are rather limit in range except when you add a few Decimators alongside.
The way the vigil is it sounds actually like a fun starting encounter for players as they can abuse the wide open belly get an easy first capital ship kill on a real star destroyer. 
The way the vigil is it sounds actually like a fun starting encounter for players as they can abuse the wide open belly get an easy first capital ship kill on a real star destroyer.
Been there, done that. Got the T-Shirt, but unfortunately we didn’t get to capture the Vigil-class Corvette in question. Instead, it just broke up in space.
It's one of the tropes that is only annoying once you have it pointed out to: there is absolutely NO REASON in a space battle to have all the ships oriented on a common plane. There is no "up" or "down," sensors make spatial orientation omnidirectional, so there's just no reason to do so. Star Wars is certainly guilty of this, Star Trek was just awful about it, and even the Battlestar Galactica reboot, which portrayed the physics of dogfights in space pretty well, succumbed to it as well.
As I understand it, the disconnect is due to the spatial limitations of the human brain (among other things). Since we don't naturally move in three dimensions, we don't think in three dimensions. When we see a movie of a space battle, we expect all of the ships to share a common orientation, because that's how it works on Earth's surface. Consequently, Star Destroyers have design philosophies that are much more in tune with (surface) naval warfare. In the excellent sci-fi series Man vs. Kzin Wars, some of humanity's best space-fighter pilots were dolphins. The Kzinti tracking algorithms and heightened reflexes couldn't keep up with a species that evolved to think, move, and fight in three dimensions.
With Imperial ships designed the way they are, the best configuration for a battle would be for two of them to travel belly-to-belly, protecting each other's weak spot. Frankly, that seems a little silly so it may be better to just accept the convention and move on with our 2-D "space" battles.
"BSG, dogfights, pretty well" in one sentence makes me chuckle.
Turbolasers do not track fighters very well anyway. Your suggest formation of belly to belly star destroyers would mean sacrificing half your firepower for protection against enemy fighters, while your large numbers of TIE-Fighters should secure you fighter superiority in the first place.
The design of star destroyers is an all out offensive design. It aims to bring nearly all guns of the ship against enemy capital ships and utterly dominate that they any battlefield. No anti-fighter capital ships can hope to survive the concentrated firepower of a fleet of advancing star destroyers. Micro-Jumps for capital ships are a rare occurrence because of the risk involved with this tactic and capital ships are fast enough to rotate into correct alignment against incoming surprises.
Your arguments sound good, but don't check out at closer examination. Star Destroyers are ships of the line with all forward facing guns, why would you ever half or even quarter your avaible firepower just to compensate for the potential of a micro jump ambush, which could be countered with a hyperjump of your own anyway? 2D spacebattles are a result of efficiency to bring as many guns as possible on your target. Star Wars Fighter combat had been always pretty 3D while capital ships with turbolasers try to maximise their firepower … now ships like the lancer which task is to be anti-fighter bring guns for all arcs because they actually need them.
Back to the gladiator which brings 24 fighters to deal with enemy fighters. No big deal. The vigil is just a corvette anyway and even the imperial Arquitens-class light cruiser brings fighter support. One thing for sure, no guns on the belly make the vigil vulnerable without fighter support, but that's basically it and at the same time brings the vigil quite the punch against enemy capitals. (Star Wars counts corvettes and up as capitals)
Edited by SEApocalypseHey, I liked BSG! Well, the first couple of seasons, anyway.
As for the rest:
- http://cleverthingstosay.com/2010/01/28/space-and-the-y-axis/
- http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TwoDSpace
Your mileage may vary, of course. It strains my credibility to think that a capital ship capable of duking it out with another capital ship is in any danger from a starfighter, snubfighter or otherwise.
Star Wars has indeed galactic standards, heck the galaxy has even a standardized north, west, east, south, and spin-ward, alignment is logically based on the solar system and galactic plane, which are again real things and on top of that I am pretty sure that we have seen in canon star destroyers approaching from up and down.
On top of that the mon cals are not so sure about their "overwhelming firepower" and build ships with guns everywhere and at your credibility is not totally gone as bombers and torpedoes are a thing and star fighter attacks matter … thus each imperial star destroyer has 144 fighters in its hangar bay.
Still the fleet doctrine of the empire is pretty clear, bring as many guns as possible against the enemy and annihilate all opposition. It applies to their fighters and it applies to their capital ships. Btw, those capital ships are quite agile when needed:
…In the excellent sci-fi series Man vs. Kzin Wars, some of humanity's best space-fighter pilots were dolphins. The Kzinti tracking algorithms and heightened reflexes couldn't keep up with a species that evolved to think, move, and fight in three dimensions.
My God... I thought I was the only person alive that had read that series...…In the excellent sci-fi series Man vs. Kzin Wars, some of humanity's best space-fighter pilots were dolphins. The Kzinti tracking algorithms and heightened reflexes couldn't keep up with a species that evolved to think, move, and fight in three dimensions.
I thought I owned every issue of that series that came out, but I don’t recall any dolphin/porpoise starfighter pilots.
Larry Niven is definitely one of my favourite writers. I love his “Ringworld” series, his “Known Space” work, and a lot of other stuff. I particularly like when he works with other authors — with the exception of Jerry Pournelle, however. For whatever reason, while I like both Larry and Jerry separately, but I don’t like anything of theirs that they’ve done together.
But none of that is Star Wars. 