18 hours ago, idiewell said:

I propose keeping one version strictly a carrier, with the other as a dedicated command ship, trading some of the carrier slots for TL's or Ion Cannons and a Defensive slot. Still not as powerful as a Victory in terms of firepower, but certainly better than the Imperial Light Cruiser.

Those looking for a powerful attack ship with strong broadsides, perhaps that can be the role of another Imperial ship, say the Vindicator-Class Cruiser?

Just a thought

The Vindicator is just barely over half the size of a Venator , 600 meters vs 1155, so I'm skeptical of its ability to match the larger ship in raw firepower. I will repeat the admonition that the Venator 's main battery is cited, in the Revenge of the Sith Incredible Cross-sections, as the full equivalent of an Imperial 's same firepower, and that the Venator could dump the entire output of its reactor into those eight turrets. The Victory was considered the superior combatant only when its compact nature was an advantage and its lack of fighter support (comparatively) was not a disadvantage.

I am all for the inclusion of the Vindicator as another medium ship to spice up Imperial offerings (hello Konstantine). I'd also like to see the Venator in a way that matches its glory in my own understanding of the Star Wars universe, one that clearly differs from yours. Until FFG releases a Venator , I stand by the cards I posted as playtested, fun takes on the Venator (if not necessarily inspired design for some of them). Until FFG ends the debate by releasing the ship, I expect we shall have to agree to disagree.

We both love the Venator, GiledPallaeon, and both want to see it added to the Armada universe. We may have different ideas, but we have the same goals. So go team Venator!

So my Train of thought is what if the Venator was a Neutral ship? I mean, depending on the time period, some were in the farthest regions of the outer rim still in use by the Empire until stuff like the Gladiator is replaced it. Then a number, like with a number of Clone wars and earlier ships were captured or salvaged from war remains. So what if there is a Rebel profile, and an Imperial Profile. Now seperatist ships on the other hand are definitely Rebel, but that's a discussion for another thread. Now, I don't know if there's anything in the central rules or anything preventing it, but that's just my train of thought.

Also on the Clone wars strength vs modern strength, well the solution to that is balancing them against the era they are in, but then if the other style of ship comes in using that as a relative factor as well. If we are talking 5(3 red, 2 Blue) Vs 7(2Red, 3 Blue, and 2 Black) dice on a side during clone wars, tech differences in OT era could reduce it to say (1 red, 2 Blue, 1 Black) Vs (1 Red, 2 Blue, and 2 Black). kinda rough change in either range or efficiency.

I'd like to be on team venator too!

plenty of room for everyone, Chuntsinger! Welcome aboard!

I'd say we all need to add that to our sigs, but noooooo, FFG had to ditch that without the option to restore it.

Pfft i don't need no stinking sig! I am Idiewell, and i'm a proud member of team Venator!

10 hours ago, GiledPallaeon said:

I will repeat the admonition that the Venator 's main battery is cited, in the Revenge of the Sith Incredible Cross-sections, as the full equivalent of an Imperial 's same firepower, and that the Venator could dump the entire output of its reactor into those eight turrets.

When I google it, while it mentions the "all power to guns" ability (that "true warships" in general have), it doesn't say how it compares to the Imperial.

Also, given that the Venator's on the order of 1/4 the volume of an Imperial (thanks to its very flat structure) its reactors are likely to be 1/4 the volume of the Imperial's (or even less).

3 hours ago, Ironlord said:

When I google it, while it mentions the "all power to guns" ability (that "true warships" in general have), it doesn't say how it compares to the Imperial.

Also, given that the Venator's on the order of 1/4 the volume of an Imperial (thanks to its very flat structure) its reactors are likely to be 1/4 the volume of the Imperial's (or even less).

Wookiepedia states the Venator is comparable to the ISD I in terms of firepower.

1 hour ago, Undeadguy said:

Wookiepedia states the Venator is comparable to the ISD I in terms of firepower.

Wookieepedia is not a source itself - it is a fansite that compiles information from other sources. Occasionally, fanon creeps in - people interpreting a book their own way when something is not actually stated.

Fractalsponge fanon-ed the Venator as having just over half the "throw weight" of the ISD-I, not counting ISD-I ion cannons.

Fractalsponge version of Venator: 8 turbolaser turrets, each with 2 guns, each firing max 70 teraton bolts: total throw weight = 1120 teratons
Fractalsponge version of ISD-I: 6 turbolaser turrets, each with 2 guns, each firing max 175 teraton bolts: total throw weight = 2100 teratons
Fractalsponge version of ISD-II: 8 turbolaser turrets, each with 8 guns, each firing 40 teraton bolts: total throw weight = 2560 teratons

and his version of the Victory had 9 Venator-type turrets instead of 8 - so, like in The Essential Guide to Warfare, his Victory has higher firepower than the Venator, even without taking missiles into account.

2 hours ago, Undeadguy said:

Wookiepedia states the Venator is comparable to the ISD I in terms of firepower.

Not quite, Undeadguy. It says that the Venator's main battery (8 heavy dual turbolaser turrets) rivals the ISD-1's main battery. Of course the ISD-1 still packs 60 ion cannons and 10 tractor beam projectors to the Venator's 52 point-defense laser cannons, 2 medium dual turbolaser cannons, 4 heavy proton torpedo tubes and 6 tractor beam projectors.

4 hours ago, Ironlord said:

Wookieepedia is not a source itself - it is a fansite that compiles information from other sources. Occasionally, fanon creeps in - people interpreting a book their own way when something is not actually stated.

Fractalsponge fanon-ed the Venator as having just over half the "throw weight" of the ISD-I, not counting ISD-I ion cannons.

Fractalsponge version of Venator: 8 turbolaser turrets, each with 2 guns, each firing max 70 teraton bolts: total throw weight = 1120 teratons
Fractalsponge version of ISD-I: 6 turbolaser turrets, each with 2 guns, each firing max 175 teraton bolts: total throw weight = 2100 teratons
Fractalsponge version of ISD-II: 8 turbolaser turrets, each with 8 guns, each firing 40 teraton bolts: total throw weight = 2560 teratons

and his version of the Victory had 9 Venator-type turrets instead of 8 - so, like in The Essential Guide to Warfare, his Victory has higher firepower than the Venator, even without taking missiles into account.

Fractal, while cool, is far from an authoritative source, unless his status has radically changed from last I looked. I really couldn't care less how he designed the Victory , and while his figures for "throw energy" (teraton is not a unit of weight in this case, it's a unit of energy) roughly match the divide listed in Wookieepedia, a difference of about 2, after giving it real units, he's still off the energy calculations by over 13% (8.784x10^24 J for the listed throw energy vs a listed reactor output of ~7.76x10^24 J ) on the I-1.

We can quote dubious sources at each other all day. My only request is that we all do our own math and check these sources. Where on his site does he go into this "throw weight" thing? A link would be appreciated.

8 hours ago, Ironlord said:

Snip

Also, given that the Venator's on the order of 1/4 the volume of an Imperial (thanks to its very flat structure) its reactors are likely to be 1/4 the volume of the Imperial's (or even less).

You are correct, the volume of the overall ship is not comparable. That's got precious little to do with the fraction of the ship used for reactor volume. I don't have exact figures, nor the time to derive them, but the bulk of the command tower, as shown in the cutaway you had is the ship's main reactor. The same is true for an Imperial , the bulk of its superstructure is also hiding its reactor. Further, reactor volume has little to do with reactor efficiency, and we are discussing a universe, if you'll forgive the cliche, where a family of magic space wizards can't stop ruining the galaxy at large. At a certain point we have to remember all figures are going to be retrofit, even under the new Disney "canon", and we have to accept that some things for some people don't line up, and that we are all probably at some point those people. I prefer Armada to allow canon to take a backseat to gameplay, and that was the rule used when the custom cards were under development. If you are interested in your own more canon adventures, Kuat Drive Yards would love to have your contributions.

/end engineer rant

"Throw weight" tends to be used in Fractal's threads on stardestroyer.net - based on the assumption that it was possible for all the guns to fire at least once, together, at full power. If they fire once every two or three seconds, rather than once per second, then gun firepower is still compatible with reactor output.

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=124353&sid=bd4b30d7a070478e634bc19ef6265865&start=150

Fractalsponge on Bellator

I've also scaled roughly the reactor volume of this thing. It (main+secondary) is actually ~34x the volume of an ISD's reactor. So, perhaps the power estimate needs to be adjusted closer to 3.3e26 W.
The total throw weight of all turbolaser weapons is about 56 petatons.This will have to be added to the heavy ion cannon power requirement, which I have absolutely no idea about calculating. But, if we assume that they use about the same amount of power as a...200 teraton HTL (perhaps a decent guess based on mount and barrel size - really have no idea how to estimate ion cannon power), then the total energy requirement of the weapons is >67petatons/sec (1 volley). Rates the power out to >2.8e26. The remaining 5e25W is either propulsion reserve (which considering this thing needs to be able to dodge fire is not unreasonable) or can be used to increase the rate of fire from the main guns.

Wookieepedia's ISD reactor power figure is 100th its Executor reactor power figure (since the Executor elsewhere is compared to 100 ISDs in power), and its SSD figure is an approximation based on the power of the Sun (since Complete Locations compared the Executor's shield strength to "a main sequence star"). So these are very vague figures - not exact, even if they look exact due to being given to two decimal places).

In the context of the Venator being more carrier and less big-gun battleship, than the ISD, combined with the Venator's small size - it makes sense that an ISD should outgun a Venator. There's nothing anywhere stating that the Venator is better than the ISD at devoting reactor power to guns, after all. And, as I said, I can't find any ROTS: ICS statements that match the "Venator is equal to ISD in firepower" suggestion.

1 hour ago, GiledPallaeon said:

I prefer Armada to allow canon to take a backseat to gameplay, and that was the rule used when the custom cards were under development. If you are interested in your own more canon adventures, Kuat Drive Yards would love to have your contributions.

I agree that canon takes a back seat to gameplay (which is why the gap in firepower between an ISD and a CR-90 Corvette is much smaller than it would be "in-universe"). Still - it's relevant when determining which ships should be the most powerful and which the least - which ships should be equal in power and which ships should not.

In that context - I feel that we've got plenty of Legends info supporting the notion that the Venator is not "ISD-level" but "VSD-level" in firepower - and maybe even very slightly weaker than that.

Even in ICS: ROTS - the description of the Recusant: "Four to six can outgun a Republic Venator-class or Victory-class Star Destroyer"

as i've seen before, the two ships reflect their eras very well. the ISD was supposed to be big, imposing, and the best possible mix of carrier and gunboat. it obviously does that very well. The venator, while a good all around ship was based around its hangar bay. that reflects its design as a carrier type of command ship. however, a venator can hold its own in a fist fight. look what one did to the Invisible Hand in rots. as for armada, I fell like ffg will respect the differences in eras and docterines. they did for the gladiator and arquitens which are somewhat comparable. they both have similar point costs and are small escort type ships. however, they fill this role differently. #teamvenator though. there, I started it guys.

7 minutes ago, Chuntsinger said:

as i've seen before, the two ships reflect their eras very well. the ISD was supposed to be big, imposing, and the best possible mix of carrier and gunboat. it obviously does that very well. The venator, while a good all around ship was based around its hangar bay. that reflects its design as a carrier type of command ship. however, a venator can hold its own in a fist fight.

The Venator is also notably fast in acceleration - 3000G compared to 2300G for the ISD and 2700G for the MC80 Liberty-type. Maybe, it should be the first Speed 4 Large ship - with that being its niche rather than trying to occupy the same "gunboat" niche as the ISD?

17 minutes ago, Ironlord said:

snip

Anything operating in ratio to stars, and fractions of stars is bound to have some error, but 13% is still significant. And I absolutely agree the Imperial should outgun the Venator in absolute terms. I apologize if that was unclear, I only meant to follow up on that the Venator 's main battery is nominally equivalent (still haven't found a source, but I'm 80% sure it exists), which is a proportionally larger amount of the ship's weaponry than the Imperial . And I'm certain that should FFG release the Venator in the GCW context of Armada, it will probably be slightly less powerful than the ship I posted, since that ship was designed as a lynchpin capital ship. I still am rather fond of the armament setup though, as it both captures the long-range bow exchanges typified in the TCW show, while still possessing the savagery that doomed Invisible Hand in Revenge of the Sith .

1 minute ago, Ironlord said:

The Venator is also notably fast in acceleration - 3000G compared to 2300G for the ISD and 2700G for the MC80 Liberty-type. Maybe, it should be the first Speed 4 Large ship - with that being its niche rather than trying to occupy the same "gunboat" niche as the ISD?

The Venator is extremely quick, and if we want to look at Speed 4 Large ships, I humbly offer my own Sorannan class Star Destroyer on KDY as an ideation. It was designed to embody the (British) idea of a battlecruiser, a ship with equivalent firepower to a battleship, but relying on its speed, and for Armada Evade defense tokens, to survive over raw armor (as opposed to the Japanese idea, which were basically early fast battleships like Kongo , and the German idea, typified in Scharnhorst with battleship armor, but not battleship grade, guns). I don't think the idea is fully appropriate here, my design is lighter and lower on squadron than the Venator should be, in my opinion, but it's still an interesting idea to toss around.

20 minutes ago, GiledPallaeon said:

The Venator is extremely quick, and if we want to look at Speed 4 Large ships, I humbly offer my own Sorannan class Star Destroyer on KDY as an ideation. It was designed to embody the (British) idea of a battlecruiser, a ship with equivalent firepower to a battleship, but relying on its speed, and for Armada Evade defense tokens, to survive over raw armor (as opposed to the Japanese idea, which were basically early fast battleships like Kongo , and the German idea, typified in Scharnhorst with battleship armor, but not battleship grade, guns).

The Procursator 's another fast ship - huge engines, huge guns (but not many of them).

(Also - after a bit of googling I think it's possible that his ISD-II turret comes in two values - 40 teraton and 32 teraton - and it's 32 teraton on the ISD-II and 40 teraton on larger ships).

@GiledPallaeon Interesting design on the Sorannan SD. I really want a large ship with Evades. Seems a bit undercosted at 98 for 7 dice battery and 4 shields on the main arcs, but I suppose you can kill it easily. 6 hull and no Redirect is fragile. I also really like the speed chart. JJ would abuse this thing which is understandable since you made it before wave 5. It would pair nicely with a broad side Venator design. One pushes squads while the other gets up close.

The Legends Sorannan-class was typified by the Ex-F, a testbed, with a very powerful reactor. Unfortunately, so powerful that when it was hit and exploded, it destroyed nearby Imperial ships and damaged the nearby SSD.

Presumably the class was named after the Sorannan that escaped from the Yevetha with various ships including the Ex-F itself (renamed Rakehell ), to commemorate his deeds.

13 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

@GiledPallaeon Interesting design on the Sorannan SD. I really want a large ship with Evades. Seems a bit undercosted at 98 for 7 dice battery and 4 shields on the main arcs, but I suppose you can kill it easily. 6 hull and no Redirect is fragile. I also really like the speed chart. JJ would abuse this thing which is understandable since you made it before wave 5. It would pair nicely with a broad side Venator design. One pushes squads while the other gets up close.

They significantly predate JJ, though I think the best commander pairing is actually Tagge (predates him too), to allow generous use of the brace. The companion design is less needy of him, but even with Motti, both are hilariously fragile for their cost, with a points/durability ratio near the MC30. They are glass cannons, but a really fun tactical idea. At Speed 4, JJ isn't a huge improvement, but at Speed 3 he is, and the hail of black dice means that allowing this ship to choose its engagement with you can be lethal, even to something like Home One . The Rebel counterparts, the Nebula class, are obsolete with the appearance of the Liberty , and I haven't found time to overhaul them yet.

In the context of a "last few weeks of the Clone Wars" battle - where Imperial-class, Victory-class, and Venator-Class are all present - I think the Venator's stat line should be noticeably distinct from the other two - but much closer to Victory than to Imperial in terms of dice number.

Maybe the Venator's schtick, given the long-range firepower and lack of ion cannon, should be - red and black dice, but no blue dice at all? (Blue dice occasionally represent ordinary lasers, but it seems to me that more often they are ion-related).

41 minutes ago, Ironlord said:

In the context of a "last few weeks of the Clone Wars" battle - where Imperial-class, Victory-class, and Venator-Class are all present - I think the Venator's stat line should be noticeably distinct from the other two - but much closer to Victory than to Imperial in terms of dice number.

Maybe the Venator's schtick, given the long-range firepower and lack of ion cannon, should be - red and black dice, but no blue dice at all? (Blue dice occasionally represent ordinary lasers, but it seems to me that more often they are ion-related).

I could see that, perhaps heavy wide firing arcs with plenty of die from the side, but minimal die in the front arc, combined with a relatively narrow front arc. That'd be another good way to differentiate it from the Victory's focused forward power. Now my other train of thought, well I covered it yesterday but due to me being new only got through moderation, so I'll throw that excerpt here

20 hours ago, MandoBard said:

So my Train of thought is what if the Venator was a Neutral ship? I mean, depending on the time period, some were in the farthest regions of the outer rim still in use by the Empire until stuff like the Gladiator is replaced it. Then a number, like with a number of Clone wars and earlier ships were captured or salvaged from war remains. So what if there is a Rebel profile, and an Imperial Profile. Now seperatist ships on the other hand are definitely Rebel, but that's a discussion for another thread. Now, I don't know if there's anything in the central rules or anything preventing it, but that's just my train of thought.

Thought this could lead to some interesting potential

23 minutes ago, MandoBard said:

I could see that, perhaps heavy wide firing arcs with plenty of die from the side, but minimal die in the front arc, combined with a relatively narrow front arc.

Like these:

On 3/3/2017 at 0:01 AM, GiledPallaeon said:

For interested parties, I am attaching below the arcs of the older versions, which the new designs retained, and a much older design focused on a red die broadside cruiser. Do with them what you will.

worse double-arc than the Victory (7-8 instead of 9 dice), but still a pretty hefty broadside.

If it had only as many hit points as the Victory (given that it is much less chunky than the 9 HP Interdictor) then it might need better stats elsewhere - speed, upgrades, Squadron value, etc.

49 minutes ago, Ironlord said:

Like these:

worse double-arc than the Victory (7-8 instead of 9 dice), but still a pretty hefty broadside.

If it had only as many hit points as the Victory (given that it is much less chunky than the 9 HP Interdictor) then it might need better stats elsewhere - speed, upgrades, Squadron value, etc.

I'd probably throw in level 4 speed, and give 2 speed maneuvering, albiet, still poor. Keep the high point imperial, with minimal upgrades, reflecting it being given less importance than the primary SDs, and being more of an outerrims patrol ship. Meanwhile giving the lower point lower attacks, but all the perks you can makes sense for Rebel inguenity. If it was possible to dual-faction it. That, and leave the CW paint job.

Edit: oh, and I think it'd merit double, perhaps even triple Anti-fighter dice. Being from Clone Wars era, it's gotta have solid anti-flack cannons given the number of massive Droid squads they fight. maybe a Blue Black, or even a Blue double Black. That'd be another way to differentiate it. Solid broadsides and anti-fighter would be a good counterpoint to the VSD

The empire needs a ship similar in role to the rebel assault frigate.