11 hours ago, Cleto0 said:

nothing about this ship screams broadside.

you might wanna rewatch Episode 3.

You might wanna check out our take on the Venator:

Firepower wise its sits at the level of a victory with added fighter support and a little more survivability. The powerlevel of ships in star wars generally orientates itself on the size of the ship and the Venator is almost 250 m longer than the Victory class. Would also be a large base, sinces its the size of a MC80.

I think it would be much more interesting if the Venator was a large base, high fighter capacity ship with fairly limited guns. Maybe 4-5 dice max per broadside.

Given the size of the hangar on this ship, to give it loads of guns as well seems like it would make it a bit uber.

Or of course do different version, one as above and another more gun focused.

8 hours ago, Belisarius09 said:

I think we only need consider the VSD and the ISD when contemplating the Ven because we need to find as of yet unfilled design space. the Ven needs its own identity, it needs to be balanced so as to be worthwhile to take, while not being overbearing and relegating the VSD/ISD to the dustbin. That's why we mention the VSD.

Venator would be for the GAR. Not the Empire. There is no issue of design space or alienating designs.

Frankly, as far as I can tell, the 4 variants of ISD have made the Venator pretty useless for the Empire. Want buckets of red? Cymoon. Want a ship that can do everything? ISD2. Want a crazy crit-monster? Kuat. Want a supercarrier? ISD1. There really isn’t anything for the Venator to do for Imps besides being a big broadside ship. Basically, it would be a super-Arquitens.

3 hours ago, >kkj said:

You might wanna check out our take on the Venator:

Firepower wise its sits at the level of a victory with added fighter support and a little more survivability. The powerlevel of ships in star wars generally orientates itself on the size of the ship and the Venator is almost 250 m longer than the Victory class. Would also be a large base, sinces its the size of a MC80.

You have a good take on an updated MC80. I like how it is more durable, maintains firepower, goes faster, gets more squadrons, and gains a Gunnery slot to make getting two broadsides in per turn really easy, and it’s cheaper.

I actually like the design you have, but you are basically giving the Empire a more effective Home One class for less cost. Up the cost.

25 minutes ago, Church14 said:

Venator would be for the GAR. Not the Empire. There is no issue of design space or alienating designs.

Frankly, as far as I can tell, the 4 variants of ISD have made the Venator pretty useless for the Empire. Want buckets of red? Cymoon. Want a ship that can do everything? ISD2. Want a crazy crit-monster? Kuat. Want a supercarrier? ISD1. There really isn’t anything for the Venator to do for Imps besides being a big broadside ship. Basically, it would be a super-Arquitens.

That’s precisely why I advocate a high hull, durable & dedicated carrier that isn’t also a gun monster that robs the ISD of its appeal.

I don’t even want it to be a super Arquitens. If anything, a super-quasar would be my choice as the closest analogy.

1 minute ago, ISD Avenger said:

That’s precisely why I advocate a high hull, durable & dedicated carrier that isn’t also a gun monster that robs the ISD of its appeal.

I don’t even want it to be a super Arquitens. If anything, a super-quasar would be my choice as the closest analogy.

I might have called it a combat quasar for design goal, but I think I agree.

The Venator being similar to the ISD wouldn't rob the ISD of its appeal. Being in entirely different faction prevents that. Also, it is an ISD. Nothing is gonna stop people from wanting to put that on a table even if it got power creeped.

8 minutes ago, Church14 said:

The Venator being similar to the ISD wouldn't rob the ISD of its appeal. Being in entirely different faction prevents that. Also, it is an ISD. Nothing is gonna stop people from wanting to put that on a table even if it got power creeped.

Sorry I meant as a cross faction imperial version.

45 minutes ago, Church14 said:

You have a good take on an updated MC80. I like how it is more durable, maintains firepower, goes faster, gets more squadrons, and gains a Gunnery slot to make getting two broadsides in per turn really easy, and it’s cheaper.

I actually like the design you have, but you are basically giving the Empire a more effective Home One class for less cost. Up the cost.

More durable? Are we talking about the same ship? The Home One has 3 more total hit points (shields+hull) and 2 defensive slots. Also has acces to engine techs which is probably better than the bad speed 3 chart of the Venator. Republic also has no access to Admiral Ackbar, so that also factors in.

1 minute ago, >kkj said:

More durable? Are we talking about the same ship? The Home One has 3 more total hit points (shields+hull) and 2 defensive slots. Also has acces to engine techs which is probably better than the bad speed 3 chart of the Venator. Republic also has no access to Admiral Ackbar, so that also factors in.

Sure, 3 less HP but access to double brace and ECM. The ability to brace 3 times on a turn that matters and then brace twice on the next will give you more than the 3HP difference. Same with the resistance to Intel officer that a double brace provides. If it was a Brace/Redirect/Redirect design I would call it more fragile.

Sure, RBD is another 3 HP. For another 5 points.

Speed three in the MC80 has more options, but requires 8 more points and a Nav command. So better, sure, but also a lot more costly.

Ackbar is is not needed for the MC80 to throw down. Add QBT (which the Venator will get) and your double arc is now 11 dice. Add Defiance and the Home One throws 13. Venator would get ExRacks and QBT and possibly a combat title to add dice. So it matches the sheer number of dice from a double arc with a similar color spectrum. Both have to use LShots for dice mods. They are very similar combat capability for double arc.

Ackbar is less effective in general than gunnery teams. He only pulls ahead during an Ackbar slash. So that side arc is functionally better on the Venator you propose.

Again, your design has similar capabilities or better in all aspects that matter and it is cheaper.

1 hour ago, Church14 said:

Both have to use LShots for dice mods.

Except for that the Venator can not take Leading Shots.

1 hour ago, Church14 said:

Again, your design has similar capabilities or better in all aspects that matter and it is cheaper.

Do you think changing up the def tokens to the standard Home One Loadout would make it more balanced for the cost? Also, i think the double def slot of the Assault Cruiser Home One makes a huge difference. So it would be more fair to compare the Venator Star Destroyer Variant to the Command Cruiser Home One and there it is only 1 point difference regarding cost.

22 minutes ago, >kkj said:

Except  for that the Venator can not take Leading Shots.  

Oops. Missed that. I looked at the fleet support and saw the Ion slot. That makes some difference.

22 minutes ago, >kkj said:

Do you   t  hink changing up the def tokens to the standard Home One Loadout would make it more balanced for the cost? Also,  i think the double def slot of the Assault Cruiser Home One makes a huge difference. So it would be more fair to compare the Venator Star Destroyer Variant to the Command Cruiser Home One and there it is only 1 poin  t difference regarding cost.  

I think double redirect would be a lot less effective for this ship than double brace.

Hm. Comparing the MC80c to the Venator SD.

- Double brace but 3 less HP is probably even value to me. Maybe favoring the Venator

-Dice are close enough that the difference isn’t huge.

-Ion for ordinance. This is pretty even to me. Ion is probably better in general, but speed three, ordnance, and weapons team slots reminds me of what the MC75o can do. So ordnance slot is a lot more useful on the Venator than it would have been on the MC80c. Maybe slight favor to the MC80c.

-Speed 3 Venator. Speed 2 MC80c. Sure, engine techs, but that is 8 points and burns up command tokens or dials. Advantage clearly to Venator to me here.

I’d probably put the Venator SD you listed in the 110 range with that comparison.

Your Venator Command should probably also be right around the 110-112 point cost. You have slightly better battery, slightly worse flak, and squadron 5, which should have a decent cost attached to it.

I also put a HUGE asterisk next to my points evaluations. If commander Anakin Skywalker has an ability anywhere near commander Darth Vader, then this ship gets a pretty serious boost in combat.

11 minutes ago, Church14 said:

Your Venator Command should probably also be right around the 110-112 point cost. You have slightly better battery, slightly worse flak, and squadron 5, which should have a decent cost attached to it.

Missing a defensive retrofit and and ordnance slot is huge. The Venator Command Destroyer is priced pretty reasonably IMO.

17 minutes ago, Church14 said:

I also put a HUGE asterisk next to my points evaluations. If commander Anakin Skywalker has an ability anywhere near commander Darth Vader, then this ship gets a pretty serious boost in combat.

Anakin doesnt have a boost for ships right now, but Mace Windu has a somwhat similiar ability to Vader Commander. You can look at the full set here: https://imgur.com/a/MzbcwoZ

I think the Venator may/could end up being a cross faction ship for the Republic and the empire with unique variants for each. Even if it is exclusive to the Republic, I'd still like it to be unique and not a clone of a pre-existing ship. I don't think it should be identical to a home one mc80 with 3 front 6 side dice. 4 front, 5 side is different and new.

I expect it will not be cross faction. At most, they will have Armada allow GAR/Imps and CIS/Rebel to be played together until enough CW content is out.

If if they make Venator cross faction, GAR will be almost 100% repeats of Imps and that’s boring as all ****.

9 hours ago, Church14 said:

If if they make Venator cross faction, GAR will be almost 100% repeats of Imps and that’s boring as all ****.

Well I think it’s quite likely there will be a lot of repeats, one faction did transition into the other after all. And I’m fine with that.

The difference will come in versions of ships, admirals, fighters, officers. That should be plenty variety.

Its quite important to me that our Venator stays in the 100-105 point range, since it should be less powerful than a ISD I in my opinion. Would you think that changing the def tokens to standard ISD-loadout and switching a blue die from the sides to the front (to somewhat weaken the total benefit from Gunneryteams without decreasing the total firepower) make for a reasonably balanced ship for the costs?

Also, since you gave a lot of good feedback @Church14 would you mind giving your opinion on our Providence design too?

To bring realism into this discussion we should note that, although Lucas obviously didn't care for it, their is a very basic rule that with similar technology, what you can do with a ship is mostly determined by how much size you commit to a certain design aspect.

When a Venator has 20 times as many squadrons as a VSD, this also means roughly 20 times as much room is needed to store the fighters, squadron munitions, reserve parts, support personnel, house the pilots etc..etc..not to mention the actual launch bays. This means there is significantly less room for either weapon systems, or sensor equipment, or the reactor, or defensive systems, or ground forces, etc.. you get the picture. Imho when you have that much capacity dedicated to squadrons the Venator should basically be at least half as effective in all other aspects (firepower, shields, engines etc.) than the Victory. You cannot have a technologically similar ship of roughly the same mass just be way better by having 10 times as many squadrons, equal firepower and defenses as well as better speed. Something has got to give.

47 minutes ago, Lord Tareq said:

To bring realism into this discussion we should note that, although Lucas obviously didn't care for it, their is a very basic rule that with similar technology, what you can do with a ship is mostly determined by how much size you commit to a certain design aspect.

When a Venator has 20 times as many squadrons as a VSD, this also means roughly 20 times as much room is needed to store the fighters, squadron munitions, reserve parts, support personnel, house the pilots etc..etc..not to mention the actual launch bays. This means there is significantly less room for either weapon systems, or sensor equipment, or the reactor, or defensive systems, or ground forces, etc.. you get the picture. Imho when you have that much capacity dedicated to squadrons the Venator should basically be at least half as effective in all other aspects (firepower, shields, engines etc.) than the Victory. You cannot have a technologically similar ship of roughly the same mass just be way better by having 10 times as many squadrons, equal firepower and defenses as well as better speed. Something has got to give.

I think part of it is sheer # of crew and troops. Venators sport 7k crew. ISDs sport 37k crew and 10k troops. Life support, bunks, and consumables have to take up space. I also get the impression that Venators couldn’t operate nearly as long as an ISD without resupply.

ISD was also (I think) an entire system pacification platform. One could be sent to most places and expect to wipe out most resistance. That means a good chunk of the ship dedicated to Intel operations and other non-combat operations.

2 hours ago, Church14 said:

I think part of it is sheer # of crew and troops. Venators sport 7k crew. ISDs sport 37k crew and 10k troops. Life support, bunks, and consumables have to take up space. I also get the impression that Venators couldn’t operate nearly as long as an ISD without resupply.

ISD was also (I think) an entire system pacification platform. One could be sent to most places and expect to wipe out most resistance. That means a good chunk of the ship dedicated to Intel operations and other non-combat operations.

The ISD is basically a mobile garrison if you think about it.

It has fire support, CAP and ground forces all bundled up into a wedge of death that is capable of putting down insurrection on its own.

22 hours ago, Church14 said:

If if they make Venator cross faction, GAR will be almost 100% repeats of Imps and that’s boring as all ****. 

I'd argue that blocking cross-faction capability, you're more likely to see the Republic be 100% repeats of the Empire because the Republic needs to have ships of their own as good as the Empire (or at least the rebellion) so they can stand against Imperial lists.

With cross-faction-ness you need to design a ship that is good on its own without overlapping the ISD. I can see the Venator edging out over the ISD-I in some areas, namely shaving whatever extra goes into an ISD to bring it down to Rebel large levels- taking out battery, hull, resiliency, and so on. It would be like an Imperial version of the MC80 series... what makes up for that is the quality of the fighters it will push.

After all the VSD-I was a good carrier until the Quasar up and replaced it, though technically you could still run VSD-Is as carriers that aren't shy to take a hit (fantastically, there is a ship that crunches easier than the VSD-I). The Venator compared to the ISD-I would have the same relationship.

8 hours ago, Lord Tareq said:

To bring realism into this discussion we should note that, although Lucas obviously didn't care for it, their is a very basic rule that with similar technology, what you can do with a ship is mostly determined by how much size you commit to a certain design aspect.

When a Venator has 20 times as many squadrons as a VSD, this also means roughly 20 times as much room is needed to store the fighters, squadron munitions, reserve parts, support personnel, house the pilots etc..etc..not to mention the actual launch bays. This means there is significantly less room for either weapon systems, or sensor equipment, or the reactor, or defensive systems, or ground forces, etc.. you get the picture. Imho when you have that much capacity dedicated to squadrons the Venator should basically be at least half as effective in all other aspects (firepower, shields, engines etc.) than the Victory. You cannot have a technologically similar ship of roughly the same mass just be way better by having 10 times as many squadrons, equal firepower and defenses as well as better speed. Something has got to give.

Agreed. At least from a game mechanics perspective. A Venator to my mind, as noted previously, is a super-quazar with a few extra guns. Be that as a Republic ship. If there is an imperial version perhaps up-gun & reduce squadron value.

If there is an imperial version the shield values could be reduced as well to simulate an older ship. In Republic vs Empire games a cross faction Venator would effectively be new vs old. And probably a disadvantage to the imp faction.

Judging from their depiction in RotS, TCW and the Lore, it seems to be at least good at broadside fighting, capable of holding it's own up front and a great carrier. Of course the game shouldn't completely adhere to the lore, but keeping the spirit of things should be considered important, so these aspects should all be realized. They can however be spread over multiple variants or modifications (Anakins Cannon comes to mind).

Starting with the ISD I'd probably reduce everything except the squadron value, speed and maybe anti squadron pool, hitting the frontal section harder than the sides. The anti ship pools should probably be dominated by red dice. It's main MO (or rather that of a carrier variant) could be keeping long distance for red bombardment and fighter coordination.

Generally I would be fine with CW ships being generally cheaper and weaker than similar sized GCW ones, as a rule of thumb. Lorewise this might represent both the older designs and generally larger engagements of that era.

The dual faction issue is probably best resolved by the use of different expansions with completely different cards and variants for both factions. The same of course applies to the Jedi Light Cruiser (republic Arquitens, which actually differs from the imperial one in more than the paint job).

Here are some of my thoughts after looking up the Venator.

What Victory Venator Imperial
Length 900 meters 1137-1155 meters 1600 meters
Engines Hoersch-Kessel Drive (1??) 10 (type not listed) KDY Destroyer-I Ion Engines (3) also has back ups
Shielding 2880 SBD's Powerful Shields 4800 SBD's
Hull 1360 RU Sturdy Armor 2272 RU
Weapons Double Heavy Turbolaser Cannons (20) Dual Heavy Turbolaser Turrets (8) Dual Heavy Turbolaser Turrets (6)
Turbolaser Battery (20) Dual Medium Turbolaser Cannons (2) Triple Medium Turbolasers (3)
Heavy Ion Cannons (10) Heavy Proton Torpedo Tubes (4) NK-7 Ion Cannons (60)
Point Defense Laser Cannons (52) XX-9 Heavy Turbolaser Batteries (60)
Dual Heavy Ion Cannon Turrets (2)
Quad Heavy Turbolasers (2)
Medium Turbolasers (2)
Complement 24 Fighters 460 Fighters/Gunships 72 Fighters
5 Shuttles Unknown number of Shuttles 8 Shuttles
35 Ground Walkers/Vehicles 24 Ground Walkers/Vehicles 65 Ground Walkers/Vehicles
Crew 6107 7400 37085
Troops 1600 Unknown number of Troops 9700
Other Modular Planetary Garrison

So what does this mean? To me it tells me that the Venator is much closer to the Victory overall than to the Imperial. But it will have less firepower (with the exception of anti-squadron), shields I am guessing about the same, but less hull (yes it says sturdy armor, but still lots of room is used for small craft and it does not matter how strong your armor is when there is no support pillars), however it will be faster (maybe much faster).

More to come later, but out of time for now.

What Victory Venator Imperial
Length Medium Base I see it as top end of Medium base Large base
Engines Speed 2 (1, -/1) Speed 4 (1, -/1, 1/-/1, -/1/-/1) Speed 3 (1, 1/1, -/1/1)
Shielding 3/3/1 3/2/2 4/3/2
Hull 8 7 11
Weapons Front 3 red/3 blue or 3 red/3 black 1 red/2 blue/1 black or 2 red/2 blue 3 red/2 blue/3 black or 4 red/4 blue
Side 2 red/1 blue or 2 red/1 black 1 blue/1 black or 1 red/1 blue 2 red/2 black or 2 red/2 blue
Rear 2 red 1 blue/1 black or 1 red/1 blue 1 red/2 blue
Anti-Squadron 1 blue 1 red/ 1 black or 3 black 1 blue/1 black or 2 blue
Complement Has no direct effect on game states, used to adjust stats.
Crew Has no direct effect on game states, used to adjust stats.
Troops Has no direct effect on game states, used to adjust stats.
Other Has no direct effect on game states, used to adjust stats.
Command 3 2 3
Squadron 3 5 4
Engineering 4 3 4
Defense Brace/2 Redirect Brace/Redirect/Evade Brace/2 Redirect/Contain

Thoughts on this here, first I see lots of people saying that it has to be a large base ship but right now the smallest large base ship is 1200 meters, and the largest medium based ship is 1129 meters so with this being 1137 to 1155 it is right in the middle of those so either it becomes the smallest large ship or the largest medium ship, so my thought is go with them as the new largest medium as that just feels better for me. Next on to speed/shields/hull/weapons first to make it different from both the VSD and ISD with ten engines it sounds fast, strong shields give it basically the same as the VSD, but just adjusted a bit (again if nothing else to make them different), it is heavily armored but still has so much space devoted to fighters that I can see not way it would be a tough as either, but still tougher than the Quasar Fire. Its firepower is low, but as a medium ship not super low, and with the speed 4 I think people would still play the ship, by reducing the command makes it a bit more responsive to help counter the lack of fire power, upping the squadron as it is a carrier first (from what I can tell), and then reducing the engineering as they all can not be better. For defense starting with the VSD, but as it is faster and more maneuverable thought giving it an evade fits. So that is my thoughts anyway, they are worth at least what you paid for them.