Okay I enjoy the imperial 2 class star destroyer but I feel the empire tired to make it to generalist so wanted to redesign it

Imperial mark 3

Turbo lasers 60

Ion cannons 60

Quad laser cannons (point defense) 60

Fighters 144

Ground troops :0

Removing the ground troops should add enough space for a second wingof fighters and allow for the installation of 60 point defense laser cannons

Just so we know what we're working with:

Canon ISD-II:

60 Turbolaser Batteries

60 Heavy Ion Cannon Emplacements

10 Tractor Beam Projectors

72 TIE Fighters

9200 Stormtroopers

Star Wars Wiki has no info on PD cannons.

(As an aside, I detest the wiki on mobile. One of the worst designed wiki pages for mobile.)

I've always felt that there had to be point defense cannons on the ISDs to deal with smaller enemy ships, fighters, and inbound projectiles. The Death Star, as we all know, was the result of Imperial hubris....that it was a juggernaut that could deal with entire armadas of capital ships, and that no starfighter could get past its outer defenses....hence, mostly anti-capital ship weapons like heavy turbolasers. But an ISD, being a front line vessel that, on its own, could deal with a fleet of lesser ships (ideally) needed such armaments to deal with starfighter attack.

According to Star Wars: Complete Cross-Sections, the ISD had some weapons that not mentioned in the loadout lists that are typically given in LFL authorized texts when it comes to ISD's.

Example: There are three axial defense turrets just forward of the command superstructure on the top of the ship. Also, there are quad-laser cannons mounted along the mid-section of the ship, on the wedge. They aren't mentioned in the load out list, but should be. I've always held these to be some of the point-defense for an ISD, and at least the three axial defense turrets are placed on my own ISD CG builds, as well as the six broadside heavy turbolasers and two broadside heavy ion cannons found at the upper aft section of the ISD.

Personal opinions only.

Respectfully, your load out doesn't make sense given the objectives of the Empire nor the design of that ship. We saw again and again that large numbers of TIEs get beaten by fewer, better craft, piloted by skilled pilots, so more TIEs alone isn't the answer. Rather, retiring TIE Fighters and Bombers in favor of TIE Advanced and TIE Defenders would be a large improvement. Second, it simply doesn't make sense to load a ship like that to the gills with point defense lasers which inherently have short range. To use said weapons, you have to put yourself in harm's way and hope your opponent deploys fighters, which is pretty much all they'd be good against. Instead, consider either improving fire control such that enemy fighters could be eliminated at longer ranges before they can return fire, or altering fleet deployment patterns so large, vulnerable ISDs always have a Raider or three as escort. Lastly, reducing the number of troops onboard to accommodate a larger fighter wing could provide a benefit, but not all the way to zero. ISDs are designed to single handedly squash rebellious systems. They can't do that without troops.

The ISD II is really about as good as this frame is going to get.

Yeah, the ISD is meant to engage from long range, although few capital ships could actually stand toe to toe with one if it comes down to short range engagements. The TIE's are meant to handle the small fry that are some distance away before those small fry somehow become a threat to an ISD.

Point defense also works on missiles and torpedoes not just fighters

And the fighters would definitely be upgraded to shielded interceptors and defenders. Remember the Republic had advanced fighters and swarmed with them

By contrast, the Corellian Corvette, known largely as a blockade runner, is also supposed to be outfitted to be an excellent anti-starfighter screening ship with its four lateral laser cannons (2 port, 2 stbd). However, it would seem that role has not been brought into the big screen.

Again, personal opinions only.

I think you're missing my point. You don't build a 1600m long fighter swatter. Nor do you build a 1600m long fighter carrier. I see why you're adding more guns and fighters but I think you're trying to make this into something it isn't. You can do the job of either fighter swatter or carrier much more effectively with different, smaller ships, and save a great deal on crew, resources, and hulls. What makes the ISD such a beast is that it's a one-stop shop to crush a whole system. No escort needed in most cases.

FWIWI don't really trust the 60 turbo/60 ion armament we see thrown around. That's actually a pretty small armament given the mass of that ship. Star Destroyer.net has a few interesting articles on the matter.

They've severely toned down the capabilities of the Star Destroyer in the movies, even in the OT.

The ISD is supposed to be, as you said, and as most of us already know, the one-stop shop to crush a whole star system. It is supposed to be able to take on a fleet of lesser ships, even if that fleet consisted of one MC-80 star cruiser.

And yet, we never saw this capability even in the OT.....the closest example we saw of it was in Rogue One, when The Devastator popped out of hyperspace at the end of the climactic space battle. One Galofree Rebel Transport smashed into its hull, and the Devastator was laying waste to The Profundity (Admiral Raduss' ship) and a Nebulon B-Frigate.

For the most part, however, in the films, a few strategically well utilized starships were able to bring down ISD's.

And even modern day aircraft carriers have some anti-aircraft armaments.... BPDMS missile systems (which I believe may have been superseded by the Phalanx and later gatling gun systems). I didn't say that a star destroyer was, or should be smattered with them, but some BPD is necessary.

A lot of the stuff I had mentioned was stuff from LFL Archives. (The Corvette being an anti-starfighter screening ship.... a role more often used in video games than in any publications or films that I am aware of.)

The capabilities of the ISD (and indeed a lot of ships in Star Wars) have been inconsistently portrayed. A turbolaser is supposed to be able to obliterate an entire, unshielded city in one shot. (Yet, in Rebels, turbolaser shots were going off right behind Canan, and they had all the explosive force of perhaps a Claymore mine at best.)

As I seem to recall, according to the model builders who created the ISD for the original Star Wars, there were only a few turbolaser emplacements on the ISD, not the heavy mix listed in its loadout (which was later established by LFL Archives).

To be honest, when I was first playing Battlefront II, in a part of the campaign where I had to fly my TIE Fighter against a Corellian Corvette, I was worried about getting blown out of the sky without effort on the CC's part at every point. LOL!

The point defense laser cannons are not to make it a fly swatter it is to provide a layer of defense against fighters in addition to the ships own squadrons. I wanted to design a space warship thus removed the things that didn't help the ship excel in space. The empire has acclumators to ferry troops and vehicles.

**** they could even remove most of the fighter squadrons to fit more ground equipment on a specialized planetary assault star destroyer. We could call it a subjugator class

@martok2112 yeah that's an interesting point. I always had a soft spot in my heart for the Empire, and the ISD as well, and was baffled by how ineffective they are on-screen. While you rarely see them go down, you routinely see heroes escape from them. Until Rogue One that is, which in my mind shows what an ISD is capable of.

Too bad that's an isolated event.

Aye, and if there was any ship that should've been shown just what an ISD is capable of, it was certainly The Devastator.

20 hours ago, FortyInRed said:

@martok2112 yeah that's an interesting point. I always had a soft spot in my heart for the Empire, and the ISD as well, and was baffled by how ineffective they are on-screen. While you rarely see them go down, you routinely see heroes escape from them. Until Rogue One that is, which in my mind shows what an ISD is capable of.

Too bad that's an isolated event.

Yup

On 1/29/2018 at 8:53 AM, chr335 said:

The point defense laser cannons are not to make it a fly swatter it is to provide a layer of defense against fighters in addition to the ships own squadrons. I wanted to design a space warship thus removed the things that didn't help the ship excel in space. The empire has acclumators to ferry troops and vehicles.

**** they could even remove most of the fighter squadrons to fit more ground equipment on a specialized planetary assault star destroyer. We could call it a subjugator class

The point of the ISD is to be a single craft capable of subjugating a single world, or patrol a trade route, or inspect a suspected pirate base, or search and destroy a small group of rebels, or, well, anything.

Sure, you could design a better ISD for fighting capital ships, and a better ISD for carrying troops, and a better ISD for carrier duty, or you could utilize specialized ships for those purposes, but why? We need to subjugate this small backwater world. Lets send out a quasar for fighter support, an acclimator to ferry troops, and a VSD designed for capital ship combat....or we just send out a single regular ISD that can handle all those jobs.

Specialized units make complete sense when engaged with enemies on par with your own forces. But when you have an overwhelming amount of power, but struggle to produce the resources needed to deploy unlimited strength to every location, the best solution is a single unit capable of doing all jobs necessary. You could design an ISD specifically to fight capital ships, but when the vast majority of your opposition is snub fighters, old freighters, and an occasional small capital ship...that is a lot of wasted resources.

It's the same for TIE fighters. The development and deployment of more advanced fighters is kind of pointless. When you spend the vast majority of your time shooting down pirates in janky fighters, or suppressing worlds that can barely put together a squadron of space capable fighters, wasting money on super advance fighters with shields, life support, hyperdrives, etc is a bad idea. In most cases, the TIE fighters are more advanced than their opposition and suffer far greater losses than what they inflict. It's the same reason they don't have specialized troopers. There is no need as the basic stormtrooper is better trained and better armed than 99% of what they face on a day to day basis.

Imperial forces were not designed to fight an equal force as there is no equal force. They are designed to suppress lessor forces on the cheap. It's much cheaper to have 1 standard ship that can take out capital ships, fighters, land forces, board vessels, subjugate systems, transport troops, defend systems, enforce blockades, etc.

At the height of the Empire, there were 25,000 ISDs. Only 30-40 of which were at the battle of Endor. The Rebels brought basically everything they had to Endor. The Empire should have won. The entirety of the Rebel alliance was at best a match for .0016 of the Imperial supply of ISDs. The Empire just doesn't have a need for highly specialized ships.

Beyond that, specialized ships would have made it remarkably easier for the Rebels to oppose them.

We need to blockade this planet with fighters to stop trade and force them to join the Empire, send a Quasar. Rebels pop in with a couple CR90s with a handful of Xs and Ys. Blow up the Quasar, strand or destroy the fighters, jump away heroes of that planet. We need to invade and subjugate this planet with ground forces, send in an acclamator with stormtroopers and walkers. Rebels pop in with a couple Nebs and some Ys, pop that acclamator and strand those forces on the system while killing reinforcements and destroying supplies on the ship. Now launch a guerrilla war against the ground forces. You can't pull those kinds of stunts against a single ISD. You need a much larger force to oppose the ISD, and you are likely to suffer greater losses.

On top of all that, generalized forces make logistics easier also. Each ISD is basically a small Imperial outpost that has everything you need. ISD in system X, and system Y. Rebels launch attack against system Y. ISD in system X is a day away and can respond. Sector command is a week away in system Z. Core systems with many more resources are 2 weeks away. If that ISD in system X was carrier focused, or capital ship focused, or ground support focused, it may not have the combat capability needed in system Y.

This is one of the best summaries of imperial naval doctrine I've ever seen.

On 2/6/2018 at 1:26 PM, OlaphOfTheNorth said:

This is one of the best summaries of imperial naval doctrine I've ever seen.

Indeed. Very well stated.

Gov. Tarkin said it quite well in his letter to Papa Palpatine many years before the Death Star was constructed:

"I maintain that the effectiveness of the Star Destroyer stems from not only its massive firepower, but also from its size. When citizens look at a Star Destroyer, and then compare it to the craft which might be mustered to attack it, they have a tendency to dismiss such a notion as suicidal rather than approach the problem tactically."

-Excerpt from Imperial Communique #001044.92V.

The Star Destroyer was a ship meant to be dreaded by all who laid eyes upon it. A ship that would force the bravest of pirates or rebels to surrender on sight. We never got that sense in any of the films. When we saw Star Wars in '77, the Rebellion was already a battle hardened, if considerably small fighting force. When the Tantive IV was pulled into the Devastator's main boarding lock, we never really saw terror in the eyes of the rebel troopers as the ship was settled into place. Yes, they were all brave, but we should've seen some serious fear in the eyes of at least a few of the soldiers..... a sense of "we who are about to die would appreciate clean shorts at our imminent funerals!", knowing that the ship they got reeled into could overwhelm the Tantive's complement of troops with barely 1/100th of its own stormtrooper contingent. (Also note that this is about the only time in the films where the stormtroopers had that sole claim to "precision" that Obi-Wan would speak of later in the film.)

Bottom line: We should've been given a real sense of fear of the Empire from minute one.... and it came up short. Rogue One at least conveys a small sense of that, especially in the form of the Devastator in the final battle of the film.

Now, on the specialization of fighters in the Imperial Navy, I will say that I think the Empire was getting pretty sick and tired of having their fighters being blown out of the sky by freighter and pirate captains who had weapons on their ships capable of destroying their TIEs in one hit. (You can pretty much bet that Han Solo did not own the only civilian/pirate craft capable of destroying a TIE in one shot with its illegal weaponry. )

Imperial doctrine seemed to believe that they could simply overwhelm an enemy with numbers of unshielded, non FTL capable fighters. While they invested much in the training of their fighter pilots, they did not think of their pilots' lives.... when one has a seemingly inexhaustible supply of such pilots, what is the loss of one life, or a few lives in the Empire's eyes? (We are also talking about an Empire that discouraged-- nigh disallowed a TIE pilot to get used to any one particular fighter. To the Empire, all TIE/In fighters were created equal, so a pilot should be able to just hop in any one at random and get the same performance out of that fighter as he/she did from a previous fighter, or a fighter ten missions back.)

Darth Vader had the right idea: Basically, even fools get lucky. And while the Force was indeed strong with him, he could not exactly use the Force to deflect enemy laser bolts from his fighter, and she sure as stang wasn't going to fly just a standard TIE that not only was unshielded and without life support, but also didn't have the maneuverability he required, especially against the Alliance's maneuverable X wings, and their speedy A-wings, or their more armored Y and B-wings (And of all these fighters, the A-wing is the only one which is unshielded). For all his power in the Force, (and his extoling of same) Vader was still a techie, and had designed the TIE X1 Advanced to suit his needs. Equipped with deflector shields, and a hyperdrive (which saved his butt at the Battle of Yavin's conclusion), the X1 prototype was a robust fighter, and under the command of Lord Vader, a force to be reckoned with.

Fortunately, Vader was not stingy when it came to tech (other than his lightsaber). If there was any one corps of Imperials he respected, besides the ubiquitous stormtroopers, it was the TIE pilots...especially those in his own squadron. The innovations made to the TIE Advanced would carry over into other fighters. The more powerful solar panels would make a transition to the TIE Interceptors and to TIE Bombers. TIE Interceptors especially made use of the higher powered, bent wing solar panels for their four, wingtip mounted laser cannons, which were the same as the pair of cannons the TIE X1 was armed with, as well as its increased speed. The advantage of the TIE Bomber was that it could make surgical strikes, whereas a fire mission from an ISD is pure apocalyptic destruction (or at least, it's supposed to be).

The only other TIE craft to be equipped with shields and hyperdrive would be the TIE Defender, which makes use of three of the improved bent wing panels found on the TIE Interceptor.

Of course, these ships are considerably more expensive to manufacture, so the basic TIE/In fighter remains the backbone of the Empire's space superiority forces. Even the Empire's coffers are not inexhaustible, although one would think otherwise, given two Death Stars.

Personal opinions only, based on LFL information.

New Canon makes no mention of the Hyperdrive making any difference at Yavin for Vader.

He was picked up by a Gozanti dispatched explicitly for the purpose.

When they found him, he was force shoving debris away from his craft.

(Source: Lost Stars)

Well then....that's that.

The new canon sayeth that be so....then so that be.

1 hour ago, martok2112 said:

Well then....that's that.

The new canon sayeth that be so....then so that be.

Two officers fly there and dock with him, bring him on board...

... he promptly orders them both to spend the return trip in the cargo bay and flies the Gozanti himself back to the fleet.

Well, Vader was, in a lot of ways, a do it yourself kinda guy.